GRACE NOTES

It’s no secret that here at Sound+Vision, we’re fans of Slacker Radio — I’ve been singing their praises since they first launched. Now there’s a new reason to love Slacker. While it’s easy to create your own stations personalized for your own tastes in music, Slacker has just announced a new free station, Bass and Beats, that is designed to showcase “the best low frequency tracks ever.”

 Ready to test your sound system? Look for Bass and Beats under the specialty channels.

According to Slacker, the new station “highlights new electronic tracks along with classic trunk-rattling hip hop, featuring aggressive bass that challenges all but the most elite sound systems.”  With one of the largest music catalogs available online (reportedly over 10 times larger than Pandora’s) the Slacker DJ’s have a huge arsenal of sub-heavy tracks at their disposal.

I checked it out, using a pair of Sennheiser HD595 headphones and a laptop. For internet radio, it sounded surprisingly good with a solid, robust low-end. The channel would provide a terrific test of a subwoofer in a car or home system.

I was expecting a dance-heavy techno groove, but in just a few hours, I heard a huge range of musical styles. I got a decent dose of David Guetta, but there was a little of everything else; from Justin Timberlake and Pitbull (and Timbaland featuring Pitbull) to Gorillaz and Coldplay. Seriously, what self-respecting bass mix wouldn’t include a little Pitbull?  If I was cruising down the road with a kickass subwoofer in my car, I wouldn’t ever move the dial from Bass and Beats. Well, if there’s too much more from Sir Mix-A-Lot, I might have to flip. It would also make an awesome station to tune into for a hard workout in the gym. I would like to see more rock and metal tracks since it was heavily slanted to rap and dance, but overall, there’s a nice blend of styles. Given how easy it is to personalize a station on Slacker, it would be easy to use this as a launching point for your own custom station.

It’s good to know the cool folks at Slacker aren’t slacking off at all. This is a great idea that can easily be expanded. Next up?  How about a channel comprised of all the audiophile tunes we all use to test out the rest of our sound systems? What would you like to see next from Slacker?