{"id":1766,"date":"2014-04-18T15:22:12","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T06:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.varka.org\/?p=1766"},"modified":"2015-01-27T02:10:09","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T17:10:09","slug":"funktion-ones-tony-andrews-on-setting-up-soundsystems-from-wembley-stadium-to-your-bedroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.varka.org\/?p=1766","title":{"rendered":"Funktion-One\u2019s Tony Andrews on Setting Up Soundsystems \u2013 From Wembley Stadium to Your Bedroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"Tony Andrews is a renowned soundsystem designer and the owner and founder of Funktion-One<\/a>, perhaps dance music\u2019s most famous soundsystem manufacturer. The company has influenced global electronic music in countless ways with its groundbreaking technology, superb sound quality, and enormous bass, but undoubtedly clubbers and DJs will know Funktion-One best from its giant stacks in the world\u2019s top clubs, including Space Ibiza,\u00a0 Berghain, Output, and Trouw.<\/p>\n

Ahead of his discussion on The Importance of Audio Quality at Brighton Music Conference<\/a> this weekend, the UK\u2019s first-annual dance-music business conference, we spoke with Andrews about how bass excites humans, how to set up your bedroom speakers, and one hugely simple mistake DJs can avoid.<\/p>\n

CAN YOU FEEL IT?
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DJ Tech Tools: How important is bass to dance music?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Tony Andrews:<\/em> Dance music wouldn\u2019t be so successful without bass. If you think about it, we\u2019ve really only had amplified bass for around 50 years. Big bass is only a couple of generations old. Before the invention of speakers that could project true bass frequencies, humans really only came across bass in hazardous situations\u2014for example, when thunder struck, or an earthquake shook, or from explosions caused by dynamite or gunpowder. That is probably why it is by far the most adrenaline-inducing frequency that we have. Bass gets humans excited basically.<\/p>\n

Below 90 or 100 Hz, bass becomes more of a physical thing. It vibrates specific organs. It vibrates our bones. It causes minor molecular rearrangement, and that is what makes it so potent as a force in dance music. The molecular vibration caused by bass is what gives dance music its power. It is what makes dance music so pleasurable to hear through a proper soundsystem.<\/p>\n

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How does bass cause pleasure?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The universe is based on vibrations and harmonics. Complex vibrational interplay is the basis from which the physical plane emerges. Humans are very sensitive to vibrations, even if we can\u2019t quite reach out and grab them. We just feel it. We know when something is not in tune because it feels wrong. When music vibrates at a frequency that we like, it gives us pleasure.<\/p>\n

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The frequencies that cause pleasure are not the same frequencies for everyone, and that\u2019s why some people love certain tracks, and others don\u2019t. We are all different shapes and sizes, and that means my organs vibrate at slightly different frequencies to yours, and so on. Our chakras, too, are not identical. I could speculate about this for a long time but the fact is this is right at the very edge of our understanding of the universe, and in that regard, we are still so young.<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE<\/strong><\/h4>\n

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So bass causes pleasure in humans, and can release dopamine. If that\u2019s the case, is there ever such a thing as too much bass?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, you can have too much bass. You can have too much sound in general. A good sound engineer will understand that there is a window between enough sound to give excitement and so much that it is damaging. Too much sound and too much bass is not just uncomfortable to the ears\u2014it can be lethal.<\/p>\n

There was this French bloke at the turn of the 20th century who built a giant whistle that produced sub-bass frequencies of around 7.1 or 7.2 Hz. The first time that he got it to work, he liquidized himself. It just turned his insides to mush\u2014poor bugger.<\/p>\n

So he is perhaps the only man to have died from sub-bass?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, he probably is. Real sub-bass is anything that is generally below 25 Hz. That\u2019s the really deep stuff, which you can get with gorgeous sweeps on an oscillator. Sub-bass can be a great sound, but most soundsystems are not generally capable of reaching much below 30 Hz.<\/p>\n

How did you get involved in building soundsystems?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been involved in the development of soundsystems for the last 45 years. In the very early days, it was all one big experiment during which we stumbled across a way of producing bass that was efficient, dynamic, and punchy quite by chance. My brother and I were around 19 or 20 years old, and we were mucking about with building our own soundsystems. One day my brother pointed a speaker into the corner of a room and I noticed that the bass went up dramatically. It was a chance observation that I found interesting. So I began to experiment and made a thing that looked like the corner of a room and placed a double 18-inch cabinet inside, which made it a folded horn.<\/p>\n

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We had a bass player come over to test the speaker and plaster fell out of the ceiling. It was incredible. That was really the start of my endeavors with loudspeakers, progressing to Turbosound and later Funktion-One\u2019s pioneering speaker development, and one of the reasons why we\u2019ve always had a shedload of bass.<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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One of the earliest soundsystems that we built was for a concert at Wembley Stadium in 1974. We built this stack that featured a pyramid bass bin. For a while, we were obsessed by pyramids and the power in their shape with each of the faces acting like a horn to produce bass. This particular pyramid featured a 30-inch bass driver. It\u2019s funny, but when I look at this photo now, I realize that it wasn\u2019t that great after all. I can see multiple ways that we could improve this stack, so we\u2019ve come a long way, in terms of our knowledge of sound.<\/p>\n

PERFECT SOUND FOREVER<\/strong><\/h4>\n

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Do you think we are close to constructing the perfect soundsystem?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll never get a soundsystem that is perfect. Unless maybe we ionize the air by heating it to 20,000 degrees so that we can directly modulate the plasma, using magnetic fields. Until that happens, soundsystems will continue to be as imperfect as the world that we live in.<\/p>\n

How do you go about tuning a soundsystem, and making it sound good?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The first thing I do is look at the midrange. Is it all there? The best way to discover that is through a known human voice. I have a really nice female and male singer that I always use for reference when tuning a soundsystem. The female will tell me if we have anything harsh going on in the high mids. When girls really pitch up and go for it, it\u2019ll crack anything.<\/p>\n

So you use the same track when testing any soundsystem?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, I use Diana Krall\u2019s \u201cLet\u2019s Face the Music and Dance,\u201d and George Benson\u2019s \u201cNature Boy.\u201d When I play those tracks, I think, \u2018Does this sound like the Diana Krall and George Benson that I know and love?\u2019<\/p>\n