Find your lost bass!
You may have heard the term BEQ but wondered what it is. Well, Bass EQ (BEQ) is a process for altering the LFE/ULF EQ of content (mostly 4K/Bluray) that has it’s lower frequencies severely filtered. This is not just adding random noise or filler to the movie soundtrack – it’s the real low-frequency material that the sound engineers decided to filter out. By carefully manipulating the EQ of content, we can unlock the underlying LFE/ULF!
When we say manipulate, it typically involves the use of REW plus a Mini DSP or capable processor – there’s not a generic house curve that will apply to all movies, as they are mixed differently. If you look at AVS Forum, there are entire threads focused on BEQ and the movies that truly benefit from them.
Have you ever watched a movie at home and said “Where’s the bass?” It’s there, it’s just hidden (looking at you Disney/Marvel) for one reason or another. It’s possibly removed because most movie theaters and home theater setups can’t dig down into the single digits – but with the increase in popularity of transducers, the hoverboss, etc., we can only hope they’ll stop neutering our bass!
The difference in watching your favorite movies (or scenes) with the bass “added back” is truly phenomenal – it will make you want to rewatch content over and over again. Put together a list of your favorite movies and simply search if they have a BEQ – the results will astound you. The process of implementing is a bit more complex and would take too long to list here, but the aforementioned AVS Forum will help get you started. Here’s to finding our bass again!