Frequency Band Guide — What You Hear in the Bass, Mids and Treble
What each band from sub-bass to treble sounds like, the frequencies of voices and instruments, and why phone calls sound muffled.
Published 2026-09-26
What you hear in each band
| Band | Range (approx.) | Examples of what you hear |
|---|---|---|
| Sub-bass | 20–60 Hz | The rumble of a kick drum or the lowest pipe-organ notes; the part of a movie explosion you feel in your body |
| Bass | 60–250 Hz | Bass guitar, the fundamental of male voices, the punch of a kick drum |
| Low midrange | 250–500 Hz | The body of instruments; too much sounds muddy |
| Midrange | 500 Hz–2 kHz | The core of voices and most instruments |
| Upper midrange | 2–4 kHz | Consonant clarity; the band the ear is most sensitive to |
| Presence | 4–6 kHz | The sense that a sound is close; too much becomes harsh |
| Treble (brilliance) | 6–20 kHz | The sparkle of cymbals and hi-hats, sibilants, airiness |
Band boundaries vary slightly between fields and sources; they are not defined by an international standard. Use them as a map for deciding what to boost or cut when you adjust an equalizer.
Where the voice sits
The fundamental frequency of adult speech is roughly around 100 Hz for men and roughly around 200 Hz for women. What matters for understanding speech, though, is 1–4 kHz, where harmonics and consonants gather. That is why conversation still works over a traditional landline (narrowband), which carries only about 300–3,400 Hz.
You can still hear the pitch of a voice even though its fundamental is below the telephone band because the brain infers pitch from the spacing of the harmonics — the 'missing fundamental' effect. Sibilants such as 's', on the other hand, concentrate their energy above 4 kHz, which makes them hard to tell apart on a narrowband call.
Instrument frequencies
- The fundamentals of an 88-key piano run from the lowest note A0 at 27.5 Hz to the highest note C8 at about 4,186 Hz. The harmonics that shape an instrument's tone extend much higher.
- The tuning reference A4 is 440 Hz, set by the international standard ISO 16.
- Going up one octave doubles the frequency. In 12-tone equal temperament, one semitone is a factor of about 1.0595 (the twelfth root of 2).
Everyday frequencies
- Mains hum: the AC power frequency and its harmonics leak into audio gear as a low hum. Korea and the United States use 60 Hz, Europe and China use 50 Hz, and Japan is split: 50 Hz in the east and 60 Hz in the west.
- Hearing tests: a routine pure-tone hearing test usually covers 250 Hz–8 kHz, with 1 kHz as the reference frequency.
- Mosquito tone: about 17.4 kHz — often used as the classic example of a high tone that gets harder to hear with age.
Listen for yourself
In the 'Frequency chart' in the top menu, press 'Play' next to a key frequency to open the tone generator at that frequency. Listen to bass with headphones and to treble with the volume turned down.
Sources
- ISO 16:1975, Acoustics — Standard tuning frequency (Standard musical pitch)
- ITU-T G.712, transmission characteristics of the voice band (300–3,400 Hz)
- Purves D. et al., Neuroscience, 2nd ed. (2001) — NCBI Bookshelf