Do not blindly follow Rulez like this. That is exactly the sort of formula I rail against (even in that video above) as it does huge damage by mystifying rather than clarifying.Touch The Universe wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2026 12:58 pm I've heard to just cut other stuff wherever the frequencies of the drums are even by 3 db is better than boosting
What happens is you clutch this nugget or apparent secret wizdom like it is a life raft in the middle of shark bay. When the reality is that there was a reason for someone saying this, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the song you are mixing right now in your DAW.
Cut more than boost was more about noise; adding 56dB to 2k brought up the noise inherent in the hardware rig. So if you could cut elsewhere and achieve the same outcome, it was smarter. Also, a more experienced engineer learned that when you have two knobs, using one cut to help 'clarify' other parts of that sound left one knob for something else - like a boost at 4k. There is still value in this knowing but ONLY if you grok it. Otherwise, if you feel that a nudge to 1.3k is getting things there, do that. Maybe in 2 years, you may feel that a dip at 456Hz gets a slightly nicer outcome but that is irrelevant until you are able to feel that. Doing a cut at 456Hz, coz sum eejit YooBooberz sed, will fail as you don't feel it. You just forced it on your piece blindly believing that it would make you proper proful. There is a reason that Hank Williams didn't do it like that.
As for this 'cut one thing where another is', this is just sidechumpery. A Song is meant to feel 'as-one, one thing, a whole. It is not meant to feel like 13 tracks all avoiding each other like Tok Tuk junkies on a bus. IF there is a hole where the snare goes, it never sits in the mix. It is never part of the piano (or whatever you hacked up with that cut). The snare floats aimlessly. It is not that I have not at times done some of this as sometimes it really is the only solution one can find at the time - I had to gently use the vox to duck a violin - but making it a first and last and always action is not honoring the material and feeling what it needs.
Always: I am not the God of My song.
The Song is sent to/through me by The Song Gods. My role is to get out of the way so I can serve the Scene & Story of the Song.
Follow the song, not the ego. Tipz n Trix are ego (fear). There are things to learn but they need to be done through feel, not technicalities. This is why I beg people to practice, sit there until they feel the changes. Then do it again and again. Every time helps them connect to the truth. This is the Miyagi "wax on wax off" mindset.
