bass

Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT tech-innovation-turned-holiday-classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" will light up CBS' air once again.

Rudolph was a pioneer. Not just because of its protagonist's navigational prowess, but because of its "Animagic" method created by producers Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass.

At the time, there was nothing like it. From Rudolph and Frosty to the Abominable Snowman, Rankin/Bass Productions' stop-motion animation has a distinctive look, recognizable for its doll-like characters with spheroid body parts, and powdery snow projected over the action to create the look … Read more

Certain genres of music sound better when the bass, treble, and other frequencies can be adjusted higher or lower. If you're on the Gingerbread flavor of Android, you're in luck.

Note: This how to blog post is for users on Android Gingerbread. If you're still on Froyo or older, you'll have to grab a music player with an equalizer built-in, since you can't adjust the settings across the entire device. PowerAMP is a great app to start with for Froyo users.

Grab Equalizer from the Android Market, and open the app. You will see several … Read more

Too many people who teach themselves to play the guitar end up learning how to form chords and strum, but not the theoretical underpinnings that are critical to understanding how music actually works. If you want to go beyond playing your favorite songs and gain the skills to improvise and write your own music, try Guitar and Bass. This comprehensive program will teach you plenty of music theory as it applies to fretted instruments and help you take your musicianship to the next level.

When we first opened Guitar and Bass the program asked us to select our instrument--options include … Read more

Bass may be the single most important sound characteristic people focus on when auditioning headphones. There's either not enough or too much bass, or it's too thick or boomy, and getting just the right balance can be tricky. I like bass, but it has to be clear and well-defined, and Audio Technica's new ATH-WS55 full-size headphones ($100) are exceptional in that regard. Before you get the wrong idea, the ATH-WS55's midrange and treble are just as pure and detailed as the bass.

It's a lightweight (165 gram) design and features Audio-Technica's new Double Air … Read more

Everyone at one time or another has been annoyed by the unpleasant bass thumps of a neighbor's subwoofer or large speakers. While midrange and high-frequency sounds are more easily enclosed by walls, low bass frequencies pass right through them. And, of course, it's not just a noise problem from neighbors; home-theater bass can disturb other family members within a house or apartment.

Methods used to isolate or restrict bass from going through walls, floors, and ceilings can get expensive, and unless recording-studio construction techniques are employed bass is hard to control. Brick and concrete are more effective than … Read more

For most people bass quality and quantity loom large when judging headphone performance. Bass supplies the music's weight and power, so bass-shy headphones can sound thin and tinny.

Sure, the same argument could be made about speakers, but their bass is perceived in very different ways than headphone bass. Speaker bass is literally visceral, your whole body feels it, and you hear it filling the room you are in. Subwoofer bass is even more visceral, and there's no headphone equivalent for that.

So while a decent set of headphones can play low-bass frequencies that are in subwoofer territory, … Read more

If you're reading this, chances are you've owned at least one MP3 player in your lifetime, and anyone who has used a portable audio player knows that the earbuds that come packaged with these devices are--for the most part--far from impressive in terms of fit and sound quality. Even those who can tolerate the often thin and flat audio will readily admit that stock earbuds are severely lacking in the bass department.

In other words, find me an MP3 player owner, and I'll show you someone who's begging for boomier bass. The good news is that … Read more

We all know subwoofers make bass. Big subwoofers, like the $799 Epik Empire, can sport massive 15-inch woofers and a Class D 600-watt power amplifier, all packaged in a 22x18x24-cabinet. The Empire's 120-pound weight might be a not-so-subtle indication that it's solidly built.

But Eminent Technology's TRW-17 Rotary Woofer ($12,900) doesn't have a cone-type woofer or a box or cabinet. No, the TRW-17 looks like a high-tech fan. And when you turn it on, the fan's blade spins just like a fan, but it's a bona-fide subwoofer. It produces deeper and more powerful … Read more

At Coachella on Friday night, I had the thrill of seeing one of my musical heroes, John Paul Jones, play live with Them Crooked Vultures, which also features Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) on guitar and vocals and Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) on drums. The set had a lot of highlights--including a tremendous jam on "Scumbag Blues"--but my favorite part was seeing Jones switch between instruments, including basses with four and ten (!) strings, a mandolin, and a keyboard.

As well as...this thing. It looked like some sort of slide guitar with an electronic … Read more