freqranges
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instrument Frequency ranges------------------------------------------------------
---------------Kick Drum
Any apparent muddiness can be rolledoff around 300Hz.
Try a small boost around 5-7kHz to
add some high end.
Frequency Effect50-100Hz Adds bottom to the sound
100-250Hz Adds roundness
250-800Hz Muddiness Area5-8kHz Adds high end prescence8-12kHz Adds Hiss
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Snare Try a small boost around 60-120Hz if
the sound is a little too wimpy. Try boosting around 6kHz for that
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'snappy' sound.
Frequency Effect100-250Hz Fills out the sound6-8kHz Adds prescence
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi hats or cymbalsAny apparent muddiness can be rolled
off around 300Hz. To add some brightness try a small
boost around 3kHz.
Frequency Effect250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6kHz Adds presence6-8kHz Adds clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Bass
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Try boosting around 60Hz to add morebody.
Any apparent muddiness can be rolledoff around 300Hz.f more presence is needed, boost
around 6kHz.
Frequency Effect
50-100Hz Adds bottom end100-250Hz Adds roundness250-800Hz Muddiness Area
800-1kHz Adds beef to small speakers1-6kHz Adds presence
6-8kHz Adds high-end presence8-12kHz Adds hiss------------------------------------------------------
--------------
Vocals
This is a difficult one, as it depends onthe mic used to record the vocal.
However...Apply either cut or boost around
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300hz, depending on the mic andsong.
Apply a very small boost around 6kHzto add some clarity.
Frequency Effect100-250Hz Adds 'up-frontness'
250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6kHz Adds presence6-8kHz Adds sibilance and clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness------------------------------------------------------
----------------
PianoAny apparent muddiness can be rolled
off around 300Hz.Apply a very small boost around 6kHz
to add some clarity.
Frequency Effect50-100Hz Adds bottom
100-250Hz Adds roundness
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250-1kHz Muddiness area1-6kHz Adds presence
6-8Khz Adds clarity8-12kHz Adds hiss------------------------------------------------------
----------------
Electric guitars
Again this depends on the mix and therecording.
Apply either cut or boost around300hz, depending on the song and
sound.
try boosting around 3kHz to add someedge to the sound, or cut to add sometransparency.
Try boosting around 6kHz to addpresence.
Try boosting around 10kHz to add
brightness.
Frequency Effect100-250Hz Adds body
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250-800Hz Muddiness area1-6Khz Cuts through the mix
6-8kHz Adds clarity8=12kHz Adds hiss------------------------------------------------------
------------
Acoustic guitar
Any apparent muddiness can be rolledoff between 100-300Hz.
Apply small amounts of cut around 1-3kHz to push the image higher.
Apply small amounts of boost around
5kHz to add some presence.Frequency Effect
100-250Hz Adds body6-8kHz Adds clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Strings
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These depend entirely on the mix andthe sound used.
Frequency Effect50-100Hz Adds bottom end
100-250Hz Adds body250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6hHz Sounds crunchy
6-8kHz Adds clarity8-12kHz Adds brightness
------------------------------------------------------------------
Low Bass: anything less than 50Hz This range is often known as the subbass and
is most commonly taken up by thelowest part of the kick drum and bass
guitar,
although at these frequencies it'salmost impossible to determine any
pitch. Subbass is one of the reasons why 12"
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vinyl became available: lowfrequencies
require wider grooves than highfrequencies - without rolling off everything
below 50Hz you couldn't fit a full trackonto a 7" vinyl record. However we doNOT recommend applying any form of
boost around this area without the useof
very high quality studio monitors (nothome monitors - there is a vast
difference between home nearfield
and studio farfield monitors costinganywherebetween £5,000 and £20,000).Boosting blindly in this area without a
validreference point can and will
permanently damage most speakers,even PA systems.
You have been warned!
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Bass: 50-250Hz This is the rangeyou're adjusting when applying the
bass booston most home stereos, although mostbass signals in modern music tracks
liearound the 90-200Hz area with a
small boost in the upper ranges to add
somepresence or clarity.
Muddiness/irritational area: 200-800Hz The main culprit area for
muddy soundingmixes, hence the term 'irritationalarea'. Most frequencies around here
cancause psycho-acoustic problems: if
too many sounds in a mix are
dominating thisarea, a track can quickly become
annoying, resulting in a rush to finishmixing
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it as you get bored or irritated by thesound of it.
Mid-range: 800-6kHz Human hearingis extremely sensitive at these
frequencies,and even a minute boost around here
will result in a huge change in the
sound -almost the same as if you boosted
around 10db at any other range. Thisis
because our voices are centred in this
area, so it's the frequency range wehearmore than any other. Most telephones
work at 3kHz, because at thisfrequency
speech is most intelligible. This
frequency also covers TV stations,radio, and
electric power tools. If you have toapply any boosting in this area, be
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verycautious, especially on vocals. We're
particularly sensitive to how thehumanvoice sounds and its frequency
coverage.
High Range: 6-8kHz This is the range
you adjust when applying the trebleboost
on your home stereo. This area isslightly boosted to make sounds
artificially
brighter (although this artificial boostis what we now call 'lifelike') whenmastering a track before burning it to
CD.
Hi-High Range: 8-20kHz This area is
taken up by the higher frequencies of cymbals and hi-hats, but boosting
around this range, particularly around12kHz
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can make a recording sound morehigh quality than it actually is, and it's
atechnique commonly used by therecording industry to fool people into
thinkingthat certain CDs are more hi-fidelity
than they'd otherwise sound.
However,boosting in this area also requires alot of care - it can easily pronounceany background hiss, and using toomuch will result in a mix becoming
irritating.|Compression|
The basicsCompression basically explained: the
reason people ask about compressionmore than anything is because they
find it the hardest concept tounderstand or hear. A basic
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explanation I heard when I firststarted was thinking of compression
like an automatic volume control,when the audio is loud it gets turneddown and when it's soft it gets turnedup. This means sharp signals are now
curved and fading signals are nowpicked up and last longer. It also
means smoother sounds and fatternotes. AB
Soft knee, hard knee
Unless you have a softwarecompressor or a really high-endmodel, you won't be able to choose
the setting. You simply have to decidewhether to get a soft knee compressoror a hard knee one. Try to buy a soft
knee compressor as it will be usefulon practically everything without
crushing the sound. Mostly used onvocals and mixes, it means a larger
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amount of compression can beapplied, while hard knee compressors,
which can be heard working, will betypically used on bass. It is more of anaudible effect than soft knee. AB
Yours is a UreiKate Bush was rumoured to have two
compressors across her vocals: theinfamous studio compressor Urei 1176
one on its flat-out setting (all ratiobuttons pushed in) and another added just in case any peaks got through. It
sounds crazy, but the 1176 is famousbecause of its super-soft character onvocals, and on this high a setting shewould have had every breath picked
up by the mic and every peaksquashed. This gave her a unique
sound. AB
VocalsVocals are one of the hardest and
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most dynamic sounds you may comeacross. My advice would be to try and
catch the peaks in the song. Use softknee, set the ratio around 2:1 (butmaybe as high as 6:1 for voiceoversand spoken word), attack to 0.09ms,
release to 100ms then adjust thethreshold to catch the loudest parts of
the song, so you get about 8dB of reduction.
Get what you pay forSoftware compressors are fantastic
now and the built-in compressor inEmagic's Logic has done the job forme on many vocals now. However, Istill went out and paid for a classic
compressor like the hand-wiredperfection of the all-valve Chiswick
Reach. This put across the outputs of Pro Tools is amazing. A lot of moneycompared to software, but the sound
is worth every penny. AB
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The beat goes on
Drums can be transformed bycompression in a mix. On a snare try asoft knee, use a ratio of 4:1, a long
attack and a little longer release, thenadjust the threshold to just grab the
first couple of dB of reduction. Now try
adjusting the attack shorter, and thethreshold higher to adjust the soundto fit the track, the R&B type of snap
or the pop type of slap. AB
Stereo lowOld-school engineers often use thetrick of sub grouping the drums to astereo pair then applying a stereocompressor to achieve a pumping
sound. AB
It's for everyone... Think of compression as just as
important a creative tool as reverbs
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and delays. It's not just an engineers'tool.
...and for everythingPretty much everything will sound
better with a little compression, thewhole sonic from bass drums to flutes.
DH
Take care on tapeAlways remember that, if you're
committing to tape, then err on theside of caution. Remember you can
always add more if you want to, butit's impossible to remove. DH
Try and try againDon't be afraid to experiment and, aswith all things audio, 'use your ears!' If
it sounds good to you, then it must beright, regardless of what the manual
says. DH
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The basic rule Yes, yes, it's been said before, by
many people, but you can never havetoo many compressors! DH
Double your moneyInstead of putting a whole sound
through a compressor, a neat trick isto split it to two channels, heavily
compress one of them and mix thatwith the uncompressed channel. This
works particularly well on drum
sounds and can be applied to, say, anindividual snare drum or a stereosubmix of the whole kit (or some of its
constituent parts). The compressedversion of the sound can be tweaked
to make it pump by setting an
appropriately short release time andcan then be added to the
uncompressed version to get a moreexciting and dynamic rhythm bed. TC
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Multiband
When working with a sound sourcewhich covers a full (or at least large)frequency spectrum, such as a
complete mix, normal compressorstend to introduce a 'pumping' effect.
This is because the lower frequencies
which tend to trigger the compressorwill normally be doing something
quite different to the higherfrequencies, yet the compressor willattenuate the entire output by the
same amount. Multiband compression,as the name suggests, uses acrossover to split the full-bandwidthinput sound into smaller bandwidths
which are then compressedseparately. The results are then mixed
back together, the result being amuch louder,tighter mix which doesn't
pump or sound squashed.
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Sidechain The sidechain, or key, is the signal
within a compressor which is used tocontrol the output level. It is when thissignal exceeds the threshold that
compression is applied to the mainsignal running through the unit. A lotof hardware compressors (and some
of the better plug-ins) have externalsidechain - or key - inputs so you canuse the characteristics of one soundsource to compress another. In this
way you can, for example, use a kick
drum track to make a synth pad pumpin time with the music. AC
De-essingUsed mainly on vocals, this is a
technique for reducing the level of
sibilant sounds ('s' or 'sh', etc) whichare significantly louder than the othersounds associated with speech. The
problem areas of these sibilant sounds
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tend to be above 7-8kHz,so reducing amicrophone's volume when these
frequencies are encountered is theorder of the day. Take an auxiliarysend from the vocal channel, feed itthrough an equaliser and then intoyour compressor's sidechain input.
Insert the compressor into the vocal
channel. Then use the equaliser onthe sidechain to boost the sibilant
frequencies. You'll need to be able tomonitor the sidechain in some way,as, as with all things, using the old
shell-likes is the only way to go. Listento the main vocal channel todetermine the best settings for thethreshold and ratio, but use a fast
attack and release time to make theeffect as transparent as possible. AC
GuitarsOverdriven and distorted guitar
sounds rarely need compression as
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the process of overdriving themintroduces a fair amount of
compression anyway. Clean andacoustic guitars are a different matter.For that classic, funky, clean sound,
use a fairly low threshold, a ratio of atleast 3:1, fast attack and quite a slow
release. Add a touch of chorus or
flanging to add the extra icing on thecake. Strummed parts, electric oracoustic, are better with a higher
threshold, the aim being to reduce thevolume of the transient parts of the
sound (the strums themselves) whilekeeping a steady overall level. Asever, use your ears! AC
BassOne of the best uses for a compressor
is on bass sounds - get a solid, steadyfoundation to your track, and the rest
will stand up beautifully. Probably.Optimum settings vary here, as much
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depends on the type of bass sound -synth, electric, acoustic, etc - but as a
general rule, use fast attack andmedium release times, a mediumthreshold and a ratio of between 3:1
and 5:1.
Have an idea
I realise all those dials and buttons are just calling you over to start fiddlingas soon as you plug the compressorin, but have some sort of purpose
first. Are you trying to make the sound
more punchy, more smooth or justkeep it under control? Listen and thinkbefore you leap. ST
On the attackI try to have the attack up (ie, not at
its quickest setting) a little on mostthings if possible; guitars, for
example, really benefit from extra'front'. Many recommended
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away as you'd like, then compressingthe return may give you the control
you're after. STPre- or post-EQ
The difference between having thecompressor before the EQ section orafter it can be drastic. When learning
about compression, try both optionsand hear the way the compressoraffects your EQing, and vice versa.
|Reverb|
when i mix music. i do not use reverbas a mix tool, only as a special effect.
so i went and stole this: (pls add yourown tips)
1. Reverb creates the illusion of space, but in doing so it also 'smears'the stereo localisation of the original
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sound source, just as it does in reallife. If you want to maintain a specific
stereo placement for one or moresounds in a mix, consider using amono reverb effect and panning thereverb to the same position as the
original dry sound.
2. Reverb is very useful for makingvocals sound more musical and formaking them sit with the rest of themix, but adding too much will have
the effect of pushing the vocals back,
rather than allowing them to takefront position. Experiment with pre-delay values of 60-100mS to helpcounter this, and also try using a
reverb patch that has a lot of earlyreflections, as these help reinforce the
dry sound. You can learn a lot fromlistening carefully to records you liketo see how much and what type of reverb is used. Often it's rather less
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than you think.
3. Bright reverbs can flatter vocals,but may exaggerate sibilance. As an
alternative to de-essing the vocals, tryinstead de-essing the feed to the
reverb unit, so that sibilance isremoved before the reverb is applied.
4. Reverb is probably the mostimportant effect in the studio, so don't
compromise by using a low-qualitysoftware reverb plug-in just becauseyou're short of processing power. Usea good external hardware reverb unitif you have one, otherwise choose amore powerful software plug-in to
treat the vocal track in non-real time. This may involve off-line processing or
doing a real-time 'bounce to disk' of the vocal track in isolation, via the