Armin Van Buuren – Serenity

Listen to it here.

This song’s focus is on bass. The title being “serenity” is very ironic. The bass in this song is very aggressive. A constant drum beat with a high volume makes this song very upbeat, but the serene aspect of this song comes in the form of a more soft melody. This song is for trance concerts and allows the audience to dance to the long, constant heavy beat of the song. The breaks and loops of the soft melody is long enough to let the listener get a break and rest up before the next set of drum beats get introduced.

Listening to this song with a decent sound system and subwoofer, this song’s bass is strong enough to shake the floor. However, the bass is sometimes distorted due to a low quality music file… at least that is what I heard when I listened to it at home on a set of 5.1 surround sound speakers. The song sounded very obnoxious and is nothing close to being serene. I then took the song and played it in my car during one of my car rides. When the song came up, it sounded a dozen times better than it was at home. I have 9 speakers and a sub in my car and I started to think that the song is recorded in a 5.1+ setting. As a result, the sound system at home is not capable of bringing out the full potential sound of the song.

In my car, the subwoofer was pounding as the bass beats played during the song. The melody and bass sounds were crystal clear and the vibration I got in the car was very strong. I imagine my car to be a small concert hall and the song really played well in this mini concert hall. Hearing the song in my car, the bass line is energetic and calming at the same time. When the melody hits, the calming effect reaches its maximum. When that happens, the peace of mind one experiences is what actually propels the audience to dance even harder. On a side note, the melody does still act as a breather for some people if they choose to not use the sudden surge of energy, derived from peace, to dance.