Bass song

A bass song is a piece of music that contains low frequency notes, or bass. Bass notes can be acoustic, but within the term "bass song" they are usually synthesized, typically sine waves or very similar.

Definition

The term "bass song" typically refers to hip hop, trap, dubstep, techno, reggae, or other electronic music genres. However, there are cases where other genres and even acoustic music contain considerable bass content, either acoustically produced, or synthesized. The bass is occasionally in the original recording, but is more likely found in remixes. Certain types of these songs are usually played on, and sometimes specifically designed for, automobile sound systems with one or more subwoofers. There are other uses for bass songs as well, such as audio tech demos, nightclubs, and raves. Sometimes, a bass song is a specifically designed track for a certain arrangement of subwoofers or loudspeakers to achieve the maximum sound level possible.

A bass song differs from a bass test in that a bass test is a recording where bass is the main point of the track, while in a bass song, the bass is still very prominent, yet remains supplemental to the rest of the song. Many bass songs utilize sub-bass frequencies ranging from 15 Hz to 80 Hz, which is the general operating range for a car subwoofer setup. Ported subwoofer enclosure tuning frequencies are usually within this range. A low frequency bassline in a bass song is usually created using a synthesizer to generate sine wave based tones, which sometimes has an acoustic or electronic kick drum sample layered on top of the attack transient. A baseline can also be created by pitch shifting an existing instrument sample, or using an acoustic bass instrument, and optionally applying a low-pass filter and/or equalization.