Forbiden Frequencies?

[jkhuri44]

Gday dudes, ...

just wanted to ask a question thats been bothering me for sometime now.

I've been noticing in a few of my latest mixes...usually rock/metal....there seems to be a "boggy"...."muddy" low end in the final mix....

This boggy/warbling/muddy low end only rears its head on the better hi fi, with extended low end....and my hunch is that its coming from the bass guitar...

the main question i want to ask is, are there any frequencies you should razor out heavily in bassy program material that commercial (crappy stereos/desktop computer) loudspeakers cant handle? I know that sometimes these frequencies are the fundamentals of a bass string or a kick drum for example....but nevertheless....

im asking this because i would rather not arrive at the mastering house and get the engineer to fix it, coz sometimes they cant fix it without sacrificing the sound of other things in the mix...my idea is that if i kerb the offending frequencies on each individual submix....the mix will preserve its overall full frequency spectrum.

people's thoughts on this would be great....

Jamil.

[Peter Knight]

400Hz

[mark rachelle]

i dont reckon its 400 HZ

try this and it works a treat
have a listen to the next free blunt/faultline sampler CD and let me know if you like it

(was a huge variation between artist mixes)

narrow band and try to find the offending frequency
in metal its usually around 103hz to 149 hz
look for the frequency that is not musical abd realluy sounds bad when boosted
thats usually the one

you have to be careful but if you've got a goods set of ears it should come easy

[jkhuri44]

"have a listen to the next free blunt/faultline sampler CD and let me know if you like it"


whats that all about??

[Chris H]

Sometimes a build up of 350 over a few tracks can cause the mud. As Mark said, boost and sweep the parametric eq till theoffending frequency jumps out .

[davidspearritt]

I find the mud usually sticks around 180 - 200Hz.

[Henry]

I agree, if you want to warm a mix up most ppl I know pull out 200hz either on the mix buss or on the bass track first to see if that induces a smiley eq type sound with out having to add extra top end. Rick will know all this stuff.

[heathen]

I agree with mark, quite often I'll find a nasty resonant frequency between say 100 - 150 hz, usually a simple notch after finding it will help a lot and defineately if it builds over several tracks in the same band you'll end up with no definition in the bottom end all.


Heath

[Peter Knight]

i dont reckon its 400 HZ

hehehehe! I knew people would jump on that!

[Linear]

If you've got access to a good quality HP filter, use it.

I tend to HP everything (and i mean everything) that doesn't ~need~ bottom end, which is (usually) guitars, vocals, keys, snare etc. Not loads, but enough.

The HP on my AWA has 45Hz, 70Hz, 160Hz & 360Hz and the 160Hz really cleans up the bottom end of a mix (I think of it as garbage removal).

Chris

[jkhuri44]

"HP everything"

yes, i do that sometimes....but other times...if there is no rumble, i sometimes get scared of ruining the instruments natural timbre....but i suppose i should stop worrying and use my ears to discern what sounds good in the mix rather than worrying about tidbits of theory :P

and as for notching....when i do it on the PT system i work on...HD3..i use plug ins...the good ones, but nevertheless plug ins....and notching any frequency usually sounds nasty...LOL....so i suppose i get a bit confused when it comes to the one i actually need to get rid of. that being said my ears are getting better at knowing which sounds definately shouldnt be there...

also what sucks is the fact that the control room only has nearfields, so its pretty much guesswork, what's going on in the low frequencies....

ill persevere!!!

[mark rachelle]

the blunt/faultline sampler is the free CD thats given away with Blunt Magazine
(hard rock metal glossy)

faultline records which i co own is doing an october promotion of some of our metal acts as well as some backbeach hard rock/meytal bands and some freinds in the faultline clique