Let The Bass Cannon Kick It!!

If you’ve ever found yourself immersed in the wild realm of electronic dance music, then chances are you’ve probably heard [Flux Pavilion]’s dubstep banger ‘Bass Cannon.’ The music video released for the track shows [Flux] and his minion [Doctor P] performing twisted audio experiments on unexpecting research candidates by blasting them in the face with strong waves of sound vibrations, which blew back the hair of the people strapped to the chair. The audio trials took place inside what looks to be a warehouse filled to the brim with speakers, heavy duty subs, and sound boards; making it more like a ‘room of bass’ rather than a bass cannon itself. Yet, it inspired one of Hackaday’s Alum to literally create a bass cannon himself. And as you can see in the video below, his device packs quite a punch.

Most of us know [Adam Munich] as the guy who built this portable x-ray machine that could look through just about anything. He’s also built a nuclear bomb detector and has documented several radiation safety techniques, but every once in a while he decides to make something utterly ridiculous like this! He describes his homemade bass cannon as having a variety of fun and exciting uses including a mobile party on one’s shoulders, a way to frizz your hair, or an electrifying method to scare the neighbors.

[Adam]’s portable music machine was hacked together from a handheld AirZooka, a pair of voice coils, a class D amplifier, and a few other miscellaneous parts. It even came complete with a see-through plastic sight allowing people to aim the device anywhere they want.

Although [Adam] didn’t write up step-by-step instructions, he did provide a circuit diagram and enough pictures for those interested in developing their own.

In addition, here’s the original [Flux Pavilion] music video:

51 thoughts on “Let The Bass Cannon Kick It!!

    1. I agree. A rotary sub would be the only way to produce powerful sound in the sub bass frequencies (<100Hz) in this form factor. At least when I picture a bass cannon I expect sub bass and not the above 150hz that a normal voice coil loudspeaker can produce in appreciable volumes at distances greater than a few feet.

          1. The fact that Xkcd has a post for almost any possible situation is what makes it unoriginal to the audience the poster is directing it to. Linking a situation to Xkcd is almost no more original or clever than posting “First post!”, and should be regarded in the same sense…

  1. normal (bass-y-ish) speaker boxes are either too big, too heavy, or both for a backpak,
    this guy used a cyclinder…
    could i use a dryer hose??? (flexable/retractable hot-air exhaust hose)
    or would the walls of it be too flexible for proper sound?

  2. I have a broken Airzooka, it works by the user pulling a plastic bag attached to elastic inside and sealed around the end backward, upon releasing fires an fairly directional ‘ball’ of air.
    I wonder if a woofer mounted at the large end (instead of inside) could create an automatic rapid fire of air balls.

    You could probably mount a sizable subwoofer to the end, rather than this smallish speaker.

    I’m not sure where the at least 80W RMS amp and massive battery pack youd want to make this portable would be mounted though.

    1. Actually if you notice behind the “smallish speaker” there is a respectably sized sub woofer(you can see the membrane of the diaphragm).I suppose the small speaker is a twitter.

  3. Looks like the original video is a sub-sub-sub-sub woofer. In fact, the frequency is so low, it’s DC. That is, it’s a fan, which seems to be always blowing in one direction. Any sound producing device would move your hair back and forth, right?

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