bduffy's tip - cutting 500 hz. im actually amazed

[Epiphany]

Theres a thread up here and bduffy suggested cutting a good deal of the track at 500 hz with a pretty wide EQ by 6 dB. I gotta say i thought "nop way". Its too severe a scoop, i thought.



yes way. try it. im making house and i am blown away. i pulled up a mix and cut it out of the bass, improved it. so i tried the drums. improved them. lead. improved it, and meant i could bring the high pass down on it. same with a vocal effect, improved. pretty soon my mix has a clarity and openness I couldnt reach before.

bduffy - what can i say - amazing tip. try it... at first it sounds weird but get used to it, then bypass the EQ. instantly a nasty, nasally tone returns and you wonder how you didnt hear it like that before. 500 hz appears to do nothing positive, at least in a busy mix like mine tend to become.

[scuzzphut]

1kHz is a similarly nice one to cut for things like guitars and pianos

[dsp music]

Funny cause a friend just told me a few days ago that by cutting this exact freq, he got awesome kicks ..my first reaction was what's the point??
that said, I used to cut my bass @ 450/500hz making a gap between the boomy sound and the high freq edge (that i both lightly boosted) .. depending on the bass sound it gave some nice results

[adl]

So should I create a returntrack, put there a EQ with exactely this setting and send everything there or what? Whould be much easier and more CPU efficient!

[bduffy]

Hey, I'm glad to see this worked for you! But credit where credit is due: this is Kim (from eSoundz)'s tip, backed up by a few experienced people - thanks so much for that!

I wouldn't send everything to the same EQ, some things need different settings and adjustments. But I do send all the drum tracks to a bus with the 500hz cut on it, same with the rhythm guitars, etc. I'm not sure if that's how you're supposed to do it, but I don't see why not. The guitars obviously need to be cut (and probably lowpassed) higher than the drums, so you want a seperate EQ for that.

I think I'm going to bring up a dance project and see what happens! I'm curious now.

[chagzuki]

It's all relative. Depends on the style/material. The only solution is to be able to mix properly.

I would never use that technique.

[bduffy]

It's all relative. Depends on the style/material. The only solution is to be able to mix properly.

I would never use that technique.

What would you do to get rid of mud?

[chagzuki]

Well, the mud can exist in any frequency range. Simply: find the muddiness and start to thin out instruments that occupy that range. I think of it in terms of priorities: with most styles the kick drives everything and therefore occupies a lot of space. The snare might also occupy a lot of space. Those are the bones. Often there's only a very small frequency range that contains the character of a sound which is important to the music making sense (that's true of pads and peripheral sounds. Decoration) Everything outside that frequency range can be cut completely.

[bduffy]

Yeah, that makes sense. The thing is, I've been doing that for years; cutting unecessary frequencies, but still muddiness piled up, and I found this really made an improvement. I guess it's an area I just wasn't used to looking at, or there's something about my gear/tracks/processing that makes it build up in that region.

I get the feeling that, like with most new techniques, I'll way overdo it, then roll it into my knowledge a bit more and know when best to use it.

[chagzuki]

Maybe with that in mind new tracks might evolve a bit differently.

So long as the result is good, don't matter how you get there.

[bduffy]

Maybe with that in mind new tracks might evolve a bit differently.

So long as the result is good, don't matter how you get there.

That's for sure!!

Hey, lovin' the links, btw. Never heard of the Spidernews one.

[The Chase]

I find myself cutting around those octaves the most, regaurdless of content. Around 125, 250, 500, 1000...Especially if the bass is filling up the registries around the 60's

[bduffy]

I find myself cutting around those octaves the most, regaurdless of content. Around 125, 250, 500, 1000...Especially if the bass is filling up the registries around the 60's

There you go. I knew I should've stayed awake in recording arts school.

[krank]

I find myself cutting around those octaves the most, regaurdless of content. Around 125, 250, 500, 1000...Especially if the bass is filling up the registries around the 60's

That's kind of... unconventional, isn't it?

[Kim Lajoie]

It's by no means a blanket rule, but if experimenting with wide cuts down there helps you hear the sound (both the sound in the air and the sound in your head), then you're definitely on the road to better mixes.

-Kim.