Low frequency (heartbeat) sound doesn't play on mobile devices?

F

firehawk

Veteran
I have a video that uses a heartbeat sound which sounds great and powerful on my workstation (which has a subwoofer) but when played on a mobile device or even my wimpy laptop the heartbeat sound is almost entirely non-existant. Is there a way I can adjust this so it can be heard? I assume it's because the sound is mostly in the sub / low range / whatever you call it...

I have Adobe Audition CS6 and Sound Forge for audio post work
 
Yep way too low for those devices. Though probably OK on headphones. When mixing it's really important to do test listens on systems that are similar to what you aim to distribute for. Pop music mixers would go so far as doing a cassette version and playing it in a car while driving to see how it sounded (back when people still knew what a cassette was). Pre Dolby Digital 35mm had limits on the range that would also have killed your heartbeat sound and 16mm had really strict ranges and levels you had to stick to or you would blow the optical track.

The fix is to turn off that subwoofer and or slap a HP filter on your output track and limit the low end to what will play on the devices you want. Then mix it till it sounds as close as you can get it to what you want. It is common for a big film to do multiple mixes of a film for different formats. So you do the full surround digital whizbang version and a optical LtRt surround mix and a more compressed narrower bandwidth TV version, etc. There is no magic way to play sounds lower than what the playback system supports.
 
Scott's right, of course.

One thing that could be worth doing is to on your phone search for some heartbeat sfx or videos that have heartbeats in them. When you find a couple that sound good on your phone (and perhaps laptop), download those and look at the audio in Audition and/or Sound Forge. That'll give you a sense of what frequencies/EQ/etc were used to design a sound that worked over those devices.

Or maybe google "sound design for smartphone delivery" or somesuch...
 
Jim Feeley said:
Scott's right, of course.
Click to expand...
Can I quote you to my wife...

RE: the heartbeat sound. People fall in love with sub harmonics. You don't just hear it you feel it. Probably can't get that with out an actual sub. But your original sound was probably not that sub focused. SFX recordists etc. don't have subs when recording so you probably punched up the sub in your mix. So assuming this wasn't a found sub enhanced SFX your subs are pumping up the below 80Hz portions. Pretty much none of the devices you mentioned have a lot of punch below 80Hz. Low freq take a lot of power to reproduce so anything on batteries is going to limit base except maybe on headphones. But 80Hz is pretty low and can be quite punchy. 20Hz to 80Hz is the zone that is going to be most problematic with small devices and battery powered devices and anything that doesn't have at least a 4" speaker. You could in theory just crank those freq like mad and "compensate" but really some of those systems are just not physically able to reproduce sounds that low, or they will distort like crazy because they can't handle the power. So I would focus around 80Hz and above. You can get a lot of power in that zone that will translate decently.

But the reality is if this big heart beat is THE thing, you will probably have to do mixes for different systems. Some years ago I had a situation almost exactly like this where a very low sound (no sub woofer) just disappeared on more "bass challenged" systems and I had to alter it to push freq. that those systems could play. It worked out but it wasn't the same.

One of the drags with sound is that you really have no control over how something is played back. That is less true with picture. A LOT can go wrong with picture playback but about twice as many things do go wrong with sound playback. Which is why if at all possible see films at screenings or on a good home system, it's a very different experience.
 
Thanks guys.
The heartbeat sounds were from Stock music sites. I did no modification to the sound files.
I searched some more today and found some heartbeat sounds on youtube, some of which are higher and register on my wimpy laptop. So I'm replacing my original heart sounds with the new ones from youtube and then will test on mobile device to see if they are audible. They don't sound as cool to me but hey, some sound is better than no sound and most of the people will be watching this video on facebook on their phones
 
You could also try pitch shifting your original heartbeat sounds to raise their frequency - but then pitch shifting can create problems all of its own :(
 
I’ve been watching films in a theater setting that were mixed by the film makers themselves, and the worst sound is when the bass sound effects come on, just way too over powering. It is obvious they mixed without a subwoofer or larger speaker system.

If you are trying to make a heart beat sound good on a laptop AND a theater setup, don’t raise the bass levels, just raise the mid to high levels.

Your heartbeat sound effect may need two tracks, one for the bass levels, and one for the mids and highs. That way it will sound good on a laptop, but not destroy everyone in the theater either.
 
I’ve been watching films in a theater setting that were mixed by the persons who didn't have ear check.
 
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