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

[bduffy]

There's the man! That experimentation definitely got me on the road again.

Hey tell me: if you make these cuts and your tracks start sounding too bright, do you pull back on the cut or roll off some highs?

[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.

That's for sure!!

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

Aye. I only found out about it a couple of weeks ago. Got to spread the word. And Democracynow is like a lifeline these days.

[Kim Lajoie]

There's the man! That experimentation definitely got me on the road again.

Hey tell me: if you make these cuts and your tracks start sounding too bright, do you pull back on the cut or roll off some highs?

It depends. For vocals, pulling the lower mids will emphasise the upper mids (2k-6k) and above. If the sound becomes too thin or empty (usually the fundamental is below 1k), then you might have pulled too much down there. On the other hand, if the sound is too bright (particularly above 5k), then that's a different problem.

Pulling less in the lower mids is a different sound to pulling more down there and pulling the highs as well. Which process works best depends on the source sound, the rest of the instruments, the direction of the mix, and your personal taste.

Unfortunately I can't give you any hard and fast rules. The important thing is to be able to hear the sound in the air (the actual sound), the sound in your head (how you want it to sound), and know your tools well enough to know how to close the distance.

Actually, I lied about 500Hz. Most days I find myself pulling lower on the vocals, maybe 300-400Hz. Does that change everything now?

-Kim.

[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.

Aye. I only found out about it a couple of weeks ago. Got to spread the word. And Democracynow is like a lifeline these days.

I know what you mean. Amy Goodman was just here in Vancouver, but I missed it!

Don't want to hijack. We'll have to confer sometime...

[bduffy]

There's the man! That experimentation definitely got me on the road again.

Hey tell me: if you make these cuts and your tracks start sounding too bright, do you pull back on the cut or roll off some highs?

It depends. For vocals, pulling the lower mids will emphasise the upper mids (2k-6k) and above. If the sound becomes too thin or empty (usually the fundamental is below 1k), then you might have pulled too much down there. On the other hand, if the sound is too bright (particularly above 5k), then that's a different problem.

Pulling less in the lower mids is a different sound to pulling more down there and pulling the highs as well. Which process works best depends on the source sound, the rest of the instruments, the direction of the mix, and your personal taste.

Unfortunately I can't give you any hard and fast rules. The important thing is to be able to hear the sound in the air (the actual sound), the sound in your head (how you want it to sound), and know your tools well enough to know how to close the distance.

Actually, I lied about 500Hz. Most days I find myself pulling lower on the vocals, maybe 300-400Hz. Does that change everything now?

-Kim.

You bastard! (furiously erases notes...)

No, that makes perfect sense. As much as we want a fix-all solution, I know there's no such thing. I was surprised how much brighter my tracks sounded though! Without an ounce of boosting! Incredible. But I guess once you turn your track up, you are boosting, in a way...

Anyway, I'll finger it out. But this goes a long way to getting the "air" and "head" sounds matched.

[afreshcupofjoe]

I find that small rooms with sheetrock (drywall) walls tend to get a build up just below 400hz. It's not a hard and fast rule, but I found the same phenomena to be true in several "bedroom studios" that I've recorded in. The first thing I always do when I've recorded an instrument in such a room is to start cutting stuff somewhere between 350hz and 400hz.

BTW My local (kick ass) community radio station airs Democracy Now and I listen to it EVERY day at work. I get a lot of sh*t from my coworkers, but I would go crazy if I didn't have my daily fix of Amy Goodman. It's amazing how much the show has changed since Bush took office. I remember when it used to be smaller stories about farm workers and human rights in South Africa. Now when I listen it's more like Democracy Now is the last surviving voice in the liberal media fighting a huge government and corporate machine that's threatening the basic rights of every human being on the planet. We live in very important times.

[bduffy]

I find that small rooms with sheetrock (drywall) walls tend to get a build up just below 400hz. It's not a hard and fast rule, but I found the same phenomena to be true in several "bedroom studios" that I've recorded in. The first thing I always do when I've recorded an instrument in such a room is to start cutting stuff somewhere between 350hz and 400hz.

BTW My local (kick ass) community radio station airs Democracy Now and I listen to it EVERY day at work. I get a lot of sh*t from my coworkers, but I would go crazy if I didn't have my daily fix of Amy Goodman. It's amazing how much the show has changed since Bush took office. I remember when it used to be smaller stories about farm workers and human rights in South Africa. Now when I listen it's more like Democracy Now is the last surviving voice in the liberal media fighting a huge government and corporate machine that's threatening the basic rights of every human being on the planet. We live in very important times.

Please, don't hide your true feelings! Yeah, she goes way back in the annals of obscure activism; she comes up a lot in Chomsky's older books. I'll have to check out the radio show; I only listen when the shows being quoted on prisonplanet.com or similar. I'd like to pick up their book soon, too.

And you're right: I'm a den recordist - or worse, at work, I'm on headphones most of the time. I think that's where a lot of tragic errors flow from. Thanks for the tip!

[gk_nz]

Cool thread guys

Whats peoples thoughts on how this may apply to dance music where so much of the mix resides down in the low mid's.... wouldn't such a cut take away the life from the mix?

[Compyfox]

Wait, just to get this straight. Do you mean "roll off" about 6dB below the desired Hz (like 500Hz with a slope) or actual "cut off" as in "high cut"?

BIG DIFFERENCES here in terms of sound. and the EQ courves.

[Kim Lajoie]

Whats peoples thoughts on how this may apply to dance music where so much of the mix resides down in the low mid's.... wouldn't such a cut take away the life from the mix?

I don't mix a lot of dance music, so take this with a grain of salt...

I think the trick is not more lows, but more CONTROL of the lows. The clubs will pump out the bass like there's no tomorrow, and any self-respecting hoon will have three subs in the back of the car.

Like pop music (where the focus needs to be the lead vocal and the snare), it's important to bring clarity to the main elements (for dance music, the kick and the bass) by giving them a lot of space - probably more space than you might initially think.

My approach is to usually have the kick fill the subbass region, and write the bassline(s) so that the bass roughly sits between an octave and two octaves above the kick. Granted, my target playback medium is radio and iPods, but I think this approach can work well in clubs and cars too. The low end of these playback systems are often horribly uneven - have you ever been in a club (or souped-up car) and some bass notes kick hard but others don't? PITA, and each system is different. Wildly different. Shove the kick down there because it's consistent and doesn't change tuning. Keep the bassline higher up for four reasons:

1) Frequency response gets better. Not much better, but better.
2) It doesn't clash with the kick, and gives you more melodic space (meaning your bassline can use more than one note without skewing your mix).
3) We can actually hear the notes better, which is especially important for dance music because the bass establishes the harmonic centre (and, depending on your style, is the most harmonically-interesting instrument in the mix ).
4) You don't have to mud up the lower mids with other instruments to achieve a full sound.

The bassline doesn't need to be deep, because your fat kick (remember that?) is filling up your subs - in a thicker and more consistent manner than your bassline ever could. You can make the bassline heavier by carefully applying some saturation to add harmonics that reinforce the fundamental.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. You might have different thoughts.

-Kim.

[Kim Lajoie]

Wait, just to get this straight. Do you mean "roll off" about 6dB below the desired Hz (like 500Hz with a slope) or actual "cut off" as in "high cut"?

Wide dip with a parametric EQ. Not roll off. Not cut off. Upside-down speed hump (would that make you faster?)

BIG DIFFERENCES here in terms of sound. and the EQ courves.

Indeed.

-Kim.

[bduffy]

Like this:

[Left Headphone]

that's a huge dip...

[Debutante]

That IS a hell of a dip. Isn't that made necessary by poor track eq'ing... and isn't that "the smile" that mastering and consumer end speakers will give anyway? Not being bashy, and I suck at it all, but I'm a little reluctant to do something like that, and I don't know why

[RichLum]

I don't think the idea is to apply that dip to the whole mix, but to particular tracks (and maybe a different frequency for different tracks).

I tried it on vocals after reading the original thread where Kim posted it and it does make it easier to push the vocal up in the mix without it jumping out and sounding too harsh.

As always though... if it doesn't sound good... don't do it...