Subliminal / Paraliminal messaging in Ableton Live

[Tyrexionibus]

We all know that the human ear only "hears" (consciously) audio frequencies between 20Hz and 20KHz, with a little margin of error.

What I want is to create a sound that matches the 1.0 - 19.8 Hz frequency range, so that it won't be heard consciously by the human brain, i.e. a subliminal or paraliminal message.

Just an experiment, with nothing satanist here. Can Ableton Live make a pre-recorded sample sound down the 20Hz border?

Thanks in advance!!

[ttilberg]

I'm pretty certain your limitations will not fall on Live, but on your soundcard and your speakers. I believe this is why it's important to HPF almost all of your tracks, because it still contains the signal energy under 20 hz.

Good luck resurrecting Alduin.

[antarktika]

Even if you were able to reproduce those frequencies (and every one of your listeners as well) they would more likely produce physiological effects, the most obvious being nausea and extreme discomfort. Infrasound has more applications within the fields of military and geological research than the field of psychology. My advice would be to look into auditory masking, or putting lyrics to your music and using NLP programming techniques to structure your songs, because putting sounds outside the threshold of human hearing is only going to make people feel sick.

[cpyatak]

What does HPF stand for?

[ttilberg]

High Pass Filter -- It's when you use a filter to only allow frequencies above a certain range through (i.e. applying a HP filter at 40 hz, will begin cutting frequencies below that value)

[cpyatak]

Ahhh, right, I should have deduced that. I always just think of HP (without the F) for High Pass. That's an interesting point you bring up too -- I've never HP(F)'d all of my tracks, not even close. Thanks for the tip!

Chris

[ttilberg]

It is quite possible that no one in the universe puts an F after HP I guess~ I did because it seemed right at the time. I'm merely an enthusiast in terms of audio engineering lol

Definitely do it, even on tracks that might be considered bass. Basically just pull the frequency up until you hear/feel it affecting your sound. This helps deaden the frequencies that we cannot hear, but the speaker may still try to reproduce. It robs the rest of your frequencies from that potential headroom.

Take a look at a spectrum analyzer and look at the super low 20 hz and down -- you will see some tracks that really hammer those freqs, which may trigger your compressors to start squishing sound we can't even hear, shrinking further your actual audible frequencies.

[cpyatak]

Neat. I (also an enthusiast) almost always use an eq8 and try to isolate the range of the sound for better separation within a mix. Is there an advantage to using a the filter over the eq for this? The way I undertsand it they're basically doing the same thing.

[ttilberg]

EQ8 has HP and LP filters, so you are probably doing exactly this. A filter as a type of EQ, vice versa, etc., whateva I use the EQ8 for this as well, as I feel like the Auto Filter tool can be a little too noisy for my preference.

This is an example of EQ8 doing high pass:


Depending on the type of sound, and how drastically quick you want the sound to drop off, you'll of course need to adjust freq + Q -- the above example would likely be a bad example for your bass sound for instance, which would likely have a much sharper drop off, so you can fit plenty of the 40-200 hz range in still.

[cpyatak]

Isn't that a high pass? Lo is cut out high "passes" .. I may be revealing some dumbness on my part here...

[ttilberg]

Isn't that a high pass? Lo is cut out high "passes" .. I may be revealing some dumbness on my part here...

Yes, you are correct- I have edited above - I was typing and not thinking above -- I think I just like saying the words 'Low Pass' --- it feels so.... deep.


This is like the blind leading the blind here in this thread~~

[cpyatak]

That's fine. Except for the fact that we totally took it and made it our own. Fun stuff. Very... deep.

[memes_33]

frequencies below 20 Hz can be heard, its just that our brain interprets them as a series of sounds, not a continuous one.

[Mage2k]

Even if you were able to reproduce those frequencies (and every one of your listeners as well) they would more likely produce physiological effects, the most obvious being nausea and extreme discomfort. Infrasound has more applications within the fields of military and geological research than the field of psychology. My advice would be to look into auditory masking, or putting lyrics to your music and using NLP programming techniques to structure your songs, because putting sounds outside the threshold of human hearing is only going to make people feel sick.

Exactly. You can also cause people to hallucinate and void their bowels. I remember seeing a documentary on TV a year or two ago about how some people were called in to investigate what people thought was a haunted lab of some sort. They eventually discovered that some machinery was putting out a frequency of 18.something hz, which turned out to the necessary frequency to vibrate people's eyeballs, resulting in hallucinations, in addition to making them feel queasy and frightened.

[ttilberg]

Exactly. You can also cause people to hallucinate and void their bowels. I remember seeing a documentary on TV a year or two ago about how some people were called in to investigate what people thought was a haunted lab of some sort. They eventually discovered that some machinery was putting out a frequency of 18.something hz, which turned out to the necessary frequency to vibrate people's eyeballs, resulting in hallucinations, in addition to making them feel queasy and frightened.