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"See the universe through a brand new set of eyes..."
Welcome to the Wonderfest studio. I'm here, once again, with
Jack Conte, musician and Patreon creator,
this time to talk about the "talking bass" phenomenon
in electronic music. Jack, welcome again to the gamma sector
of the Milky Way. What's the scoop with this phenomenon? ... Thank you, Tucker.
If you have listened to electronic music in the last couple of years, ...
you have heard a lot of yoy-yoy-yoy, wub-wub, rhuh-rhuh, ...
Why do we like talking base? What is it about talking base that's so fun?!
To answer that question we need to understand some simple physics and psychology.
Listen to these two animals: which one are you afraid of? ...
(squeak) ... (ROAR)
Even if you've never even heard of a lion, you still know, by the way it sounds,
that that's a large, powerful animal making that noise.
(ROAR) ... But why?!
How does your brain get enough information -- based solely on the sound --
to determine the physical size of the creature making the noise?
You might think it has to do with the pitch, that is the frequency, of the creature's
vocalizations.
And that's part of it. Bigger creatures
have larger vocal cavities which create lower sounds ...
just like longer strings (***)
create lower sounds than tiny strings (BING). But there's more!
It's not just frequency or the pitch
that affects our perception of the animal's size.
And, to prove that, we're going to synthesize a vocalization
by playing white noise (like static from your TV or radio)
and adding "equalization,"
or "EQ." But what is EQ or equalization?
Remember how you say "turn up the bass" on on your home stereo or car sound system?
That's adding EQ. Here's what's physically happening...
You can add treble. (HISS) ... Remove treble.
... Add bass. ... Remove bass. ...
Even target specific frequency ranges
by sweeping around the spectrum.
Here's where it starts to get freaky:
If you target multiple frequency ranges
all at once, we start to hear something that sounds like ...
speech!
Specific equalization shapes cause different vowel sounds
like "ah", and "eh"...
and "eeee", "oh",
and "ooooo." This is because your mouth,
tongue, and teeth are just filtering the sound that's coming out of your vocal cavity.
Watch...
Wow
Why
Wow
Our mouths, tongues, and teeth are just
EQing our raw vocalizations.
Ah, uh, eh, ooh, oh
In other words, your mouth
amplifies and reduces different frequencies
by changing its shape, which is why we can simulate speech
by applying equalization to a sound wave.
"I AM A-LIVE"
The specific shape of an
EQ curve that causes a specific
vowel sound is called a "formant."
This is an "ah" formant ...
This is an "eee" formant ...
Now, it gets even weirder ... What if your
mouth, tongue, and teeth were twice as big?
"Beat it, or I'll call The Brute Squad." "I'm ON the Brute Squad." You ARE the Brute Squad!!!"
What would it sound like if a huge mouth
said "ahhhh"? ...
"Now it sounds like I have a huge mouth."
It turns out that it still sounds like "ahhhh"
because the formant shape is the same, but the position of the formant
is lower in frequency... (aaauuuuhhhh)
So how does your brain know that the lion roaring sound is coming from a
large powerful animal?
Not only is it the pitch of the roar,
but the formants of the roar are lower,
which means that the creature making the roar has a larger mouth, ...
larger tongue, ... and larger TEETH,
which makes it easier to EAT YOUR FACE!
You have millions of years of evolution -- and billions of years of physics --
telling you to be afraid of low formants ...
because low formants come from big animals.
So when you hear low-formant "talking bass" music, your body
enters fight or flight mode. You actually start secreting
adrenaline into your bloodstream. You feel excited.
Your body is telling you to run!
You're viscerally afraid. But, much like being on a roller coaster,
your brain knows that you're still safe. Listening to talking bass music
is like skydiving or mountain biking or watching a horror movie
or doing any fear-inducing activity that we do for kicks.
That's one of the main reasons we like low talking bass:
It's a rush! When you hear this: (squeak, squeak) ...
you don't really care.
But when you hear THIS: (ROAR) ...
it's time to start running!