Bass shakers - yes, they are awesome.

I saw the SubPac review on the homepage and thought I'd share my own experience with a DIY SubPac type device that I've been using for a few months.

I bought an Aura Bass Shaker for $40 (price went up to $50 it looks like, they must be popular!) off Parts Express a few months ago out of curiosity.

I screwed it to the bottom of the office chair I sit in when producing music and powered it using a Crown XLS1000 that I normally use when playing mobile gigs. I also set the built in X-over on the amp to ~120 Hz (just read on their site that its usable range goes up to 80 Hz though, so I'll try lowering the freq).

The shaker is only 50W RMS/100 peak so you don't need a hardcore power amp to drive it; I've seen people use subwoofer plate amplifiers like this one to drive it.

Here's a pic of mine installed underneath my chair, towards the front. I think mounting it to the backrest would feel better, but I wanted it to be discrete looking.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...psdb33e84d.jpg

Impressions?

I was pretty much blown away. I mix using dual 200W, 12" subs with huge enclosures and they don't deliver anywhere near the bass to your body that this little thing does. It feels like being in a car with a loud pair of subs, except you're indoors and not blowing up your ears or pissing off the neighbors. Psychologically, the butt shaking bass is indiscernible from bass coming from speakers. I tried turning off the shaker a few times while listening and was shocked that the bass completely disappeared. My friend couldn't tell that he wasn't "hearing" the bass either.

Another thing that's great is the response. The shaker hits every bass note pretty much evenly. Subs will hit some notes better than others depending on the enclosure and especially the room. The bass shaker is immune to room modes, although I suppose at some point it hits the resonance of my chair :)

Another thing I use the shaker for is playing electric drums. I use real cymbals with my homemade electric drum set, so it feels odd having physical feedback from the cymbals but not from the kick drum. The bass shaker solved that, now the kick drum thumps like a real one. It enhances the experience to feel much more real.

Here's a pic of my homemade electric drums, you can also see one of the subs I was talking about:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...pse3a38fac.jpg

Overall, bass shakers are great if you love hearing sub bass. I would easily recommend getting one to complement a pair of studio monitors instead of getting a high wattage sub, especially if you don't have a room treated with bass traps.

Now that I've started using one, I can't go back :D

dammm!!! just when i thought i was gonna stop spending money :cursing:

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Originally Posted by 031999

dammm!!! just when i thought i was gonna stop spending money :cursing:

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this! could you possible do a toutorial mate?

100 posts!!!

What sort of Frequency response does this thing have? be nice to see if it submits a true flat sound.. If it has any sort of hyped frequencies then surely it would be useless for producing?

it's useless for producing unless you're specifically mixing for someone who has basshakers.

from what the OP describes, it sounds like you could master a track with bassshakers and it has tons of bass and then go play it out and the bass might be lacking.

>

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Originally Posted by LeroyAllenMusic

What sort of Frequency response does this thing have? be nice to see if it submits a true flat sound.. If it has any sort of hyped frequencies then surely it would be useless for producing?

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For the most part it's flat. The response is much more even than any sub I've used, since it's not affected by the room or an enclosure.

Like any transducer though, it has a resonance (Fs), the transudcer I'm using has it at 40Hz. Subs have the same thing, as do all speakers.

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Originally Posted by loverocket

it's useless for producing unless you're specifically mixing for someone who has basshakers.

from what the OP describes, it sounds like you could master a track with bassshakers and it has tons of bass and then go play it out and the bass might be lacking.

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Nope :)

To the contrary, the bass shaker gives you a better idea of what your music is going to sound like when you play it out because you get to feel the bass like you would at a club. If you don't know how much bass to put in your music, that's usually a result of not having enough practice listening/mixing/mastering.

I mixed this track with the shaker, so you can judge for yourself:

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Originally Posted by city_boy07

this! could you possible do a toutorial mate?

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It's quite simple:

1. Buy a bass shaker.
2. Screw it to the bottom of your chair (make sure to use short screws so they don't go the whole way through the bottom of the chair...ouch ;))
3. Connect it to an amplifier with a low pass crossover.
4. BASS!

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Originally Posted by Sample Seven

I saw the SubPac review on the homepage and thought I'd share my own experience with a DIY SubPac type device that I've been using for a few months.

I bought an Aura Bass Shaker for $40 (price went up to $50 it looks like, they must be popular!) off Parts Express a few months ago out of curiosity.

I screwed it to the bottom of the office chair I sit in when producing music and powered it using a Crown XLS1000 that I normally use when playing mobile gigs. I also set the built in X-over on the amp to ~120 Hz (just read on their site that its usable range goes up to 80 Hz though, so I'll try lowering the freq).

The shaker is only 50W RMS/100 peak so you don't need a hardcore power amp to drive it; I've seen people use subwoofer plate amplifiers like this one to drive it.

Here's a pic of mine installed underneath my chair, towards the front. I think mounting it to the backrest would feel better, but I wanted it to be discrete looking.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...psdb33e84d.jpg

Impressions?

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Looks absolutely dope. Are you still using this set-up?

1. I'm curious if a smaller transducer might still be adequate. The AuraSound AST-2B-4 looks very beefy, do you need to turn down amp to get it to reproduce bass accurately (without overemphasising)? The other model I had in mind was the Dayton Audio TT25-8 Puck.
2. Does it get hot?
3. With the shaker attached to the chair, does a lot of vibration transmit to the floor?
4. How audible are the vibrations from the chair? That is, if you are not sitting on it, does it rattle in a way that it could interfere with other parts of the frequency spectrum?
5. Do you need to set-up a crossover using EQ?

Your comments would be super helpful, thanks :)