"...shelf everything at 120hz..." says BT

[jbr]

In the Aug. 2005 issue of EQ, the article Positively BT states:

 

"...shelf everything at 120hz but your kick drum and your bassline, and your mixes are going to sound,like, 3000 times better."

 

The article didn't mentioned in db how much to cut. If you shelf, lets say a piano track at 120hz but leave the gain at 0db, isn't that the same as not using it at all? How about just using an hpf and roll off below 120hz instead? Is that the same thing?

 

Please enlighten me.

Thanks for your input!

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'm not able to speak for BT, but I THINK what he means is to use a high pass filter, set at 120 Hz.

 

Of course, you shouldn't do this for tracks where you want / need bass information - bass guitar, kick drums, etc.

 

Personally I do like and use high pass filters, but I'm selective with them, and I don't automatically default everything to 120 Hz - it depends on how much LF info is in the sound source. If it has info at 100 Hz, I might high pass at a lower frequency than that... or higher for something that has no LF content. The idea behind using a HPF is to get rid of stuff in the recording that you don't need - A/C noise, "room rumble" etc. etc. while keeping the part of the sound you want. By doing so, you clean a lot of grunge off the mix that you don't need, and make it easier to get a good LF sound happening with the kick, bass, etc.

[Dot]

http://www.eqmag.com/story.asp?storycode=9903

 

 

BT SEZ: STEAL THIS TRICK!

[jbr]

Great info guys!

Thanks

[Badside]

It's also important to listen to the instrument in the context of the mix when doing that, not solo the tracks! Applying a HPF will make individual tracks sound weak, but the mix (which is what's important) will sound bigger and more defined.

 

I'm not a big EQing guy, I like to keep the natural sound. But when I'm mixing, the first thing I do is to low-cut all the guitars and vocals (and drum OH of course), this makes my job much easier.

[Artur Meinild]

Pretty old news, but by all means spread the word...

[geek_usa]

this is going to be a crazy question...

 

but what is "shelving"? is it like cutting? as in cut everything at 120hz?

 

 

thanks!

[rhythminmind]

i think BT was thinking cut not shelf..

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

I've been out of the active Digidesign Beta tester loop for a while now, but I couldn't help but notice that "PT 7.0" in the pictures...

 

PLEASE tell me (via PM) that they've added editable MIDI notation to 7.0!!! I think my NDA is still active...

[Matt Hepworth]

Yeah, I noticed that right off as well! I wonder whether it'll be compatible with Mix systems?

[rhythminmind]

Not sure if it will work for mix... dont think so..i think 6.4 is the last

[ranalli]

Wow.....interesting thread....thanks everyone!!!

[AtillaTheHungry]

I think it's especially important to cut somewhere around 100 Hz for guitars in a lot of heavy music. Bassy guitars may sound heavy, but they will often produce useless mud in the very low range that invades the bass' range, turning the entire low end of the mix, or a whole lot of the "heavy," into crap.

[Kiwiburger]

One way to think of a shelving filter is that it is a filter that plateaus out into a definate flat shelf.

 

Other forms of filter simply have a slope that increases or decreases indefinately. That would be a real problem if boosting, which is why these types are generally only offered for cutting, in the form of high or low pass filters.

 

The pictures above are good - you can clearly see that the shelving filter has a shelf. The highpass can be seen sloping off towards infinity.

 

To a certain extent, both could be set to achieve similar results. There is a lot of variation between eq makers.

[HulkBlood01]

 

Originally posted by OneArmedScissors I think it's especially important to cut somewhere around 100 Hz for guitars in a lot of heavy music. Bassy guitars may sound heavy, but they will often produce useless mud in the very low range that invades the bass' range, turning the entire low end of the mix, or a whole lot of the "heavy," into crap.

 

 

 

I've always wondered about that. I agree HP-ing guitars is a good idea -- but what frequency? If the song is in standard, that puts an open E in the 83Hz range. Even lower if the song is dropped a step or two.

[Will Chen]

 

Originally posted by HulkBlood01 I've always wondered about that. I agree HP-ing guitars is a good idea -- but what frequency? If the song is in standard, that puts an open E in the 83Hz range. Even lower if the song is dropped a step or two.

 

 

There is a difference between the sine wave frequency of a note in a pure environment versus what a guitar's low E might sound like through a Mesa Boogie with the lows cranked. The processing boosts that frequency many timees over and general resonance of the cabinent adds more low freq crud that destroys the sound of a traditional mix.

 

However in bands with a heavy guitar driven sound that might detune as well, following the above approach might not get the sound the band is looking for. In these cases you're often dealing with a bass player with a slightly distorted tone emphasizing mids and attack basically doubling the guitars freeing up the low end a little and drummers with tightly tuned and muted bass drums giving you even more space. In this case, you might have better (happier client) results by centering your bass drum around 125 to get the attack of the beater and cut the guitar's low mids a little giving room for the bass. Now all your low end headroom can be dedicated to the palm muted thump of a high gain guitar and the bass fills in the low mids. Listen to Metalica's And Justice For All, not a traditionally good sounding album, but exactly what they were looking for and a fresh new sound at the time.

[sweet]

 

Originally posted by wbcsound However in bands with a heavy guitar driven sound that might detune as well... ...giving room for the bass. Now all your low end headroom can be dedicated to the palm muted thump of a high gain guitar and the bass fills in the low mids. Listen to Metalica's And Justice For All, not a traditionally good sounding album, but exactly what they were looking for and a fresh new sound at the time.

 

 

Thank you for bringing this up. I play in a heavy band, tuned to Drop C, and constantly "chug" (in the "hardcore" breakdown style). The low on our guitars rumble, but listening to some of the CD's of bands we like, the breakdowns sound seems to be just guitar attack and only the bass "hum"s, you don't seem to hear the guitar rumble. Am I making sense? Hope so. Anyway, my point is, what technically, and I hearing??

[HulkBlood01]

 

Originally posted by wbcsound There is a difference between the sine wave frequency of a note in a pure environment versus what a guitar's low E might sound like through a Mesa Boogie with the lows cranked. The processing boosts that frequency many timees over and general resonance of the cabinent adds more low freq crud that destroys the sound of a traditional mix.

 

 

Yeah I hear ya on the 'rumbley cabinet' part -- I know that's substantially lower than 83Hz. Actually, anything past 50Hz on an electric guitar should be cut, since thats what the loudspeakers its stocked with are rated to. But the 'rumbly-ness' itself of the cabinet...I'm guessing would be in the 10-20Hz range or so.

[HulkBlood01]

 

Originally posted by sweet Thank you for bringing this up. I play in a heavy band, tuned to Drop C, and constantly "chug" (in the "hardcore" breakdown style). The low on our guitars rumble, but listening to some of the CD's of bands we like, the breakdowns sound seems to be just guitar attack and only the bass "hum"s, you don't seem to hear the guitar rumble. Am I making sense? Hope so. Anyway, my point is, what technically, and I hearing??

 

 

Your mixes can still be 'heavy' without being muddy. What you're hearing is the 80-150hz range of your guitar. I would find the most trouble-some point and give it a pretty good cut, something in the way of 3...maybe 5dB if it was recorded with the bass setting pretty high.

 

You're right when you talk about CDs of bands you like though. Those are going to have barely any large peaks under 200Hz in the guitar. Why..? Because that space can be used for the bass guitar (that's what its there for) and kick drum (40-50Hz for the 'power'). If you opened a track from a CD of yours where there's a few seconds of just guitar playing and watched it with a spectrum analyzer -- 150Hz and down would probably look pretty flat. Some mids and highs are what would really make the guitar track jump out at you.

[AtillaTheHungry]

The reason I think it is best to low cut guitars in heavy music at around 100 Hz is that the sound generated there is very loose, likely because of it being a lot of cabinet resonance. Most of that is not really part of the actual notes being played. Loose bass will create "mud". That makes the guitars themselves sound worse, because they likely will not have as good of an attack as they could, and the bass and anything else that may be close to that area, such as drums and even other guitars, will have to compete with that loose bass, creating mudiness. There is a lot of stuff that can occupy that very small range, so you have to be very careful with it.

 

As for where exactly to cut, or if you should at all, it's just another one of those things where you should mess with it and see what works best.

[TonyCrazyMan]

Also remember that cutoff on an instrument laying at a certain frequency range needs to be compensated with boosting the same frequencies on another element in the same frequency range. For example if the kick drum is cut at 500Hz, the bass guitar should be boosted at 500Hz. Just as you want to spread the panpot of each instrument in a way that it creates a certain area for each instrument in the mix, the same applies to EQing of the frequencies. Spread it so that you avoid boosting the same frequency equally muchon severalinstruments. By not doing this you are soon creating frequency peaks and bottoms that creates artifacts that can be a little hard to remove later in the recording process because you don't know what tracks are causing the peaks.

 

Something I really find useful when it comes to EQing is to always use band pairs. Instead of only tweaking one band or several, always target two bands. It's usually better to add a small amount at two frequencies than a large amount at one. Put in a larger context you can add a lot of balance to a song by constantly finding two tracks were the frequency on the first track is too much boosted and the same frequency on the other track is too much cut.

 

When it comes to cutoff, always cutoff instruments that have compressors applied to them and lay in a pretty high frequency range. Also avoid cutting everything flat, especially when it comes to instruments that should have a high dynamic range. You can never be 100% sure that a certain instrument should be cutoff flat, sometimes cutting down much is better than cutting off completely..

 

If you don't cutoff any low frequencies on the vocals the compressor will bring up low end rumble and noise, resulting in loss of clearity and loudness. If you compensate for this you can get an opposite feel to the sound, it sounds deep and clean, very important! Also remember that you cannot cut something that is not there in the first place. So don't put the cutoff on only 100Hz on all tracks, but rather try to find the magic points for cutoff on every track every time you mix so that you squeeze out the maximum amount of extra headroom. Remember that EQing is a highly iterative process, so don't go into fooling yourself thinking that you have found the magic Hz to cut off a certain instrument. Sometimes when you add effects on a track that is already cutoff it doesn't sound good unless you adjust the cutoff point and sometimes other instruments in the mix can require the cutoff point to be adjusted and even only cut down. Sometimes these small adjustments can have a very large impact on the final sound. That's when you realise cutoff can be a great risk too, especially because it can ruin a bunch of tracks that already fit together quite well. So start off by don't apply any EQ at all. Instead pay attention to the sound of the instrument whether you can locate any particular problem areas or not. Always EQ the worst sounding tracks first, the ones that needs EQing the most. Do A->B tests often when it comes to EQing, especially after you have applied a compressor on a track and especially if you have boosted or cut many dB on the same band. Sometimes these A->B tests can prove that the cutoff is even better not be there, which in the end might have a great impact on the final result.

 

Another great trick I do sometimes is to not only cutoff or cut down a track much, but instead I also do this in combination with increasing the double frequency, for instance if cutting down much at 100Hz I sometimes try to cut down at 150Hz or 200Hz too. By doing this I sometimes end up noticing it sounds better to not cut off at all, something I might have had more difficulties in finding out without trying this trick. The same seems to be the case with cutting of the kick drum, it usually sounds better when cutting both 400Hz and 800Hz moderately instead of completely cutting off one of the bands. So keep it simple, do what you have to do in a mild way, avoid doing things that might never have to be done. Do A->B tests often and pay attention to notes in the context when you set the EQ.

 

Just one quick note in the end, watch out for that 400Hz area! If it sounds boxy, muddy, demo like you are probably having problems with the 300 - 500Hz area. Start off by cuttin some on the 400Hz (keep the bandwidth low). If it doesn't help then lower the same amount on 500Hz (keep the bandwidth low). If it seems to help then wipe it out completely. After this start listening to it on several different volumes, from different places, listen close to a wall, listen outside of the room etc. Then try to boost it some again and repeat the process above. This area is probably one of the most important and most difficult areas to get right so pay attention to it, because it has the most plasticness to it and plastic feels like crap! When you get this area right you get a much more open and clear mix that feels easier to listen to. The kick drum will sound a little more airy which adds some softness that is useful to create depth with the compressors.

[Kiwiburger]

Tony - you call yourself CrazyMan, so I hope you don't take offence when I call you ... crazy?

 

For a start - {censored} you use a lot of words? And most of it is rubbish, man. It's obvious you are here to learn. Now one way of learning is to post a lot of rubbish and have other people point out how crazy you are, but it's not the best way ...

 

If you want a little motto to think about - think about this: "One cut is worth a thousand boosts".

 

Think about this - the object of eq is not about changing the level of a track - although obviously cutting or boosting specific bands will have an overall effect. But having done your eq, you will be setting the final level with the fader. So bearing this in mind ...

 

Cutting out one band of frequencies has the effect of boost all others. A notch in the midrange is effectively the same as boosting the lows and the highs. Except boosting can get you into trouble - cutting is much more effective.

 

So you don't have to boost anything just because you cut something ...

 

And don't "always target two bands" ...

 

And what does dynamic range have to do with eq?

 

And you can cut stuff even if it's not there ... it won't do any harm. Obviously you can't boost stuff that isn't there ...

 

Really try to use the least eq as possible - get the source right.

 

And monitoring and reference tracks are a good idea too ...

[TonyCrazyMan]

 

Originally posted by Kiwiburger Tony - you call yourself CrazyMan, so I hope you don't take offence when I call you ... crazy? For a start - {censored} you use a lot of words? And most of it is rubbish, man. It's obvious you are here to learn. Now one way of learning is to post a lot of rubbish and have other people point out how crazy you are, but it's not the best way ...

 

 

Yes I'm here to learn AND TEACH OTHERS as well, for instance you. Do you know what? The things you said was garbage was more or less directly copied from the Mixing Engineer's handbook after testing it myself. I really look in the book before I reply to get it right. These words are words of professionals like Joe Chiccarelli, Lee DeCarlo, Benny Faconne, Jerry Finn, Jon Gass, Don Hahn, Ken Hahn, Andy Johns, Kevin Killen, Bernie Kirsh, George Massenburg, David Pensado, Ed Seay, Allen Sides, Don Smith, Guy Snider, Ed Stasium, David Sussman, Bruce Swedien, John X.

 

It's really fun when I say something in a stupid way to get some new perspectives and strong opinions faster(and hopefully knowledge based) when I reply something and they say it's all garbage, but not why. Well tell those professional mixing engineers that what they say is garbage and they will answer: it might be, but it works and it works great!

 

Just because I tell you that you have helped me sort out some problems it doesn't mean I think you are the master and it doesn't either mean that what I write will be only rubbish when you read it or that I accept your low respect. Open up your eyes and ears, it might really be a discovery!

[seaneldon]

the old forum was a lot less hostile

[TonyCrazyMan]

 

Originally posted by Kiwiburger Tony - you call yourself CrazyMan, so I hope you don't take offence when I call you ... crazy? For a start - {censored} you use a lot of words? And most of it is rubbish, man. It's obvious you are here to learn. Now one way of learning is to post a lot of rubbish and have other people point out how crazy you are, but it's not the best way ... If you want a little motto to think about - think about this: "One cut is worth a thousand boosts". Think about this - the object of eq is not about changing the level of a track - although obviously cutting or boosting specific bands will have an overall effect. But having done your eq, you will be setting the final level with the fader. So bearing this in mind ... Cutting out one band of frequencies has the effect of boost all others. A notch in the midrange is effectively the same as boosting the lows and the highs. Except boosting can get you into trouble - cutting is much more effective. So you don't have to boost anything just because you cut something ... And don't "always target two bands" ... And what does dynamic range have to do with eq? And you can cut stuff even if it's not there ... it won't do any harm. Obviously you can't boost stuff that isn't there ... Really try to use the least eq as possible - get the source right. And monitoring and reference tracks are a good idea too ...

 

 

 

So you don't have to boost anything just because you cut something ...

 

 

This has to do with predominant frequency range of instruments and juggling frequencies. The idea is to hear each instrument clearly and the best way for that to happen is for each instrument to live in its own frequency band.

 

 

And don't "always target two bands" ...

 

 

I never wrote always. You can never say something like that in the world of art. This has to do with the fact that you want to Equalize to make the instrument or mix bigger. It's then usually better to add a small amount at two frequenzies than a large amount at one, especially in the area where you have found the most fullness in the bass band..