Bass Mekanik's Sonic Overload

Technical:

This is a two disc set, with disc 1 produced by The Dominator except on tracks 3, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16. DJ Billey E & The Dominator produced tracks 3 and 12. Calvin Millls II produced track 13. Toxik Twins produced track 15, and Mike Carter produced track 16 in addition to producing disc 2 entirely on his own.

Impressions:

Bass Mekanik's Sonic Overload is catalog number PD-8897-2 from PANDiSC MUSIC CORP. Interestingly enough, the CD isn't listed on their web site, even though they list catalog numbers before and after this one. I found mine in a local record store--you can probably do the same. With a suggested retail of $15.99, most people would be happy to get one disc. If you spend your hard-earned greenbacks on Bass Mekanik's Sonic Overload, however, you get two. Sonic Overload includes a tweak & tune disc aimed at the SPL competitors among you, as well as a bass music disc aimed that those of you who just want to cruise the local strip and annoy your neighbors.

If your vehicle is a serious SPL monster, or if you're just trying to get to that point, disc 2 (Overload CD 2: SPL) will be an essential part of your personal CD collection. To compete in National Sound Pressure League (NSPL), dB Drag Racing, IASCA dB League (IdBL), or just a simple bass-off between friends in the parking lot of your local car stereo shop, you need to know where the strengths and weaknesses of your system lie. Any loose panels in your car will contribute to you losing SPL. Tracks 16 through 29 address this particular issue with precision, as each track gradually rises in frequency at a rate of ten seconds per cycle. This is additionally useful for the Sound Quality tweaks among you. While the bass-heads want to stop rattles to improve SPL scores, the SQ-tweaks want to stop rattles to keep from losing points during judging. Everyone should consider using these tracks, if only to keep a close eye on anything in your vehicle that might have a tendency to work its' way loose. What could be more embarrassing than dropping a little sub-bass sine bombs on your friends than dropping a panel inside your car at the same time? If your buddy's vehicle really hits with a certain sub and pre-manufactured box, every subwoofer and subwoofer enclosure will tend to play differently in different vehicles. Tracks 4 through 11 isolate the frequency for you, starting at 80Hz and playing down 10Hz each track. Oddly enough, the strongest sub-bass frequency in my car also happened to be the frequency at which I am also able to boost the bass (45Hz) through a pot on my subwoofer amplifier. When the bass boost was subsequently turned gradually up, things REALLY started to get cooking! These 22 tracks make up the meat of disc two, and the rest of the disc is mostly useless. Fortunately, the liner notes consist of a handy eight page booklet to guide you through the SPL disc.

You say that competition isn't your thing? You don't want to spend your time making your ride look and sound the way someone else says it should look? However, you DO want some serious bass for those weekend nights when the only way to get the attention of those hotties over there is to turn it up and let it HIT. Fine. Disc 1 (Overload CD 1: Music) is all the bass you'll ever need--wrapped up in a tight little package. You've got all the bass-heavy industrial, rap and techno that your system can handle--and then some. Inside the CD booklet and on the discs themselves, I was frequently reminded to use caution when playing the discs due to extreme low frequencies and high signal levels. If you pop these discs into your system with the volume already cranked wide open, you are likely to end up with a blown subwoofer or mid-bass driver. This is because the software on these discs will certainly exceed the lower limits of frequency reproduction on all mid-bass drivers and subwoofers (going down to a claimed 1Hz). While all of the 16 music tracks on disc 1 contain more sub-bass than you can shake a stiffening capacitor at, the tracks that contain the most musicality and originality were tracks 2 ("Can You Hear Me"), 4 ("Rule The Universe"), 5 ("One Two"), 6 ("Teqno Tweeqz"), 9 ("Bass Rave, Pt 1: the Tweeq"), and 12 ("Drop the Knob"). Generally though, there is only so much that can be done with a bass line designed for high SPL in an automotive environment, and the rest of the tracks demonstrate this with their lack of originality. In some cases, although the tracks went plenty low, the impact one would expect from a bass disc was missing.

What does it all boil down to? Well, yes it's a two-disc set. Yes, there are useful tracks on each disc. Is there more than 74 minutes of essential bass to be found on this set? Not for my money. This set did help me find unwanted resonances in my car, in addition to determining the optimum frequency for maximum SPL in my system. A good Bass Mekanik could have easily fit the best and most important of these tracks on one disc and made it easier for us to have access to the music and the test tones. The only good reasons I can come up with for the dual disc set is to show off the cool double-disc jewel case and so you wouldn't have to program your CD player to play only the music tracks when you're out dropping sine bombs on the unsuspecting public. However, if this software had been on a single disc, perhaps it would have retailed for a couple dollars less.

Manufacturer info:

PANDiSC Records

Purchasing Information:

http://www.cdnow.com