What are the frequency ranges of the "Critical Bands" ?

[Bansaw]

In order for a mix to sound full and well-proportioned, I've heard it said that all your critical bands should be fulfilled.
Does anyone know of this theory and what frequency ranges make up the critical bands?

I think the bands are something like, Sub Bass, Low Bass, Mid Bass, High-Mid and High. Anyone got anymore info on this subject?

[BertKoor]

This quote is about frequency ranges of distorted guitars, but it also applies to hoovers, supersaws and EDM:

First: Lets look over some critical 'dirt guitar' EQ ranges and how they affect the myriad of choices/possibilities we might wish to examine in our undertaking. Bottom to top.

20-45Hz. Never say never. Just say rarely.
50-90hz Ahh the madness. Here's the 'swing' range in our 'chugging'.
100-150 Bottom of the meat.
180-240 Lo-Center of the meat.
250-320 Hi-Center of the meat.
340-650 Danger Will Robinson. Top of meat/Bottom of mids. CRITICAL.
700-900 More danger. Hard to hear. Kills 'newbies' on contact. Will explain.
950-1.2k Pure Satan. Make or break ya. Easy to hear. Hard to control.
1.3k-1.6k Ditto the above.
1.7k-2.2k Top of the mids/Bottom of pick attack range. Oh, the fear.
2.3k-3.1k Middle of pick range. Picky de poison. Mucho Satania.
3.2k-4.2k Top of pick range. Pick out a nice coffin. Yer gonna need it.
4.3k-6.5k Bottom of fizz. Add Beefeaters for gin fizz. Guzzle many glasses.
6.6k-8k. Top of fizzy. Many will kill this range ruthlessly. Careful. Can O' wormies.
8k-10k Road to hell. Paved with good intentions. Enjoy. Not.
10-15k Less obvious road(s) to hell. Gravel. Lose a windshield up here.
15k-25k Same disclaimer as 25-40Hz. Can you say 'sometimes bandwidth matters'?

WhaddaWeGot? 17 ways(freq. ranges) to kill yourself?

From http://www.badmuckingfastard.com/sound/slipperman.html

[AstroCastro]

EQ2 in FL Studio has those sections presented, so I wrote down values of those ranges:


I've put some values into brackets because someone can say that sub bass goes up to 60Hz and not 80Hz, etc.

Now, if you are a beginner at mixing and struggling to balance frequencies, I strongly recommend you to google
"mixing with pink noise" tutorial, where you take sample of pink noise and use it to balance the mix because pink noise is very close to how our ears perceive sounds and mixing is all about adapting the frequencies to how our ears perceive the sound.

For example, if you place kick and snare that have the same value, their transients are the same, but our ears perceive snare as a louder sound. That's why a deaf person can't mix music because you can't rely on spectrum analyzer or any visual tool, but you must use ears to balance frequencies, to balance them in the context of how our ears are detecting frequencies.
That's why if you look at spectrum analyzer while some song is playing you can see that the "top line" is moving down, from right to left, it's because our ears perceive mid and higher frequencies as louder ones and bass and low mid frequencies are having higher values and everything seems balanced, while in reality, if you ask machine that it's not making a difference between 20Hz sound and 5000Hz sound things are not even.

So, for a start, find a tutorial how to use pink noise for mixing. Then try to mix your track by using pink noise and then mix the same track by using your ears and compare results.

[Bansaw]

thanks, these replies are helpful.