Annoying Frequencies

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Chris Jahn

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What are the "annoying" , "harsh" and unnecessary frequencies in a song that can be pulled. And what instruments generally produce them? This is always where I get crazy at the end of a mix, it sounds good, then you crank it, or throw on the shitty ipod phones for a test and there are these awful frequencies left over. And is it better to leave them to an extent and let mastering take them out? Thanks
 
Thanks, ill mess around with that. But isn't that in the family of frequencies that you generally ADD to guitar? What instruments or mics would generally pull that frequency from?
 
I don't think I ever added 2.5kHz to guitar... I've nearly always cut it from distorted guitars (which usually have far too much).

Actually blogged (or something) several months ago where I added 2.5kHz to something...
 
Chris Jahn said:
Thanks, ill mess around with that. But isn't that in the family of frequencies that you generally ADD to guitar? What instruments or mics would generally pull that frequency from?
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Just a thought; before I learned to deal with the area around 250-500, as well as everything below that, I would tend to boost the wrong mid frequencies to make mixes sound 'what I thought' less muddy. Dealing with the mud can make things sound more clear, without the need for so much 'ex girlfriend'.
 
ugly-girl1.webp
Sounds like you need a girlfriend.....here ya go
 
Actually, if you take away the bashed in teeth, punched in nose, carved up skin, painted in eye brows, and cocaine eyes....he's pretty hot.

:eek:
 
RAMI said:
Actually, if you take away the bashed in teeth, punched in nose, carved up skin, painted in eye brows, and cocaine eyes....he's pretty hot.

:eek:
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Man, it's the sexy nipple on the nose that makes me really uncomfortable! It's that perfect pencil eraser size! LOL!
 
Chris Jahn said:
What are the "annoying" , "harsh" and unnecessary frequencies in a song that can be pulled. And what instruments generally produce them? This is always where I get crazy at the end of a mix, it sounds good, then you crank it, or throw on the shitty ipod phones for a test and there are these awful frequencies left over. And is it better to leave them to an extent and let mastering take them out? Thanks
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The high mids are the nasty piercing frequencies. anywhere from as little as around 2kHz up to around 9kHz. Guitars can be bad for this, as with vocals, pianos etc.

G
 
Massive Master said:
I always call 2.5kHz the "Ex Girlfriend" --
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I've been struggling with a mix (pretty much my first serious one) for a couple of days and this one sentence is probably the one that has been the most helpful in terms of cleaning up mud. Thanks a lot.
 
jimmys69 said:
before I learned to deal with the area around 250-500, as well as everything below that, I would tend to boost the wrong mid frequencies to make mixes sound 'what I thought' less muddy
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What exactly do you usually do when you deal with that area and everything below? I am dying for some knowledge on this as I've spent pretty much all day tweaking the EQ, never getting satisfying results.
 
dainbramage said:
I've been struggling with a mix (pretty much my first serious one) for a couple of days and this one sentence is probably the one that has been the most helpful in terms of cleaning up mud. Thanks a lot.
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How are you cleaning up "mud" at 2.5kHz...?...are you boosting or cutting at 2.5kHz?

I usually look at the 150-300Hz range for mud issues.
 
Well, it depends on the type of music, and how you record instruments to begin with. I do mostly heavy rock, and use samples to enhance live drums. Drums/bass are first order of business for me. I used to try to get clarity from the bass by boosting, compressing, distorting upper mid frequencies. This is a good idea to a degree, but it wasn't working right until I started notching out the muddy stuff. Then boosting things doesn't need to happen. The key for me, was in cutting out certain frequencies in the low mids and low end, to cut out the 'fight' that happens with the low end in bass and kick. There are areas in the frequency range where bass and kick need to meld, but for the most part, they will add to each others boomy or ringy sound in the low end. I will often do multiple sharp cuts in the bass guitar to make it sit right with the kick. Typically, the kick will have a sharp boost around 80hz, with a wide cut around 200. I also found there to be nothing desirable in most drumkits around 550hz. I will usually do a sharp cut at this frequency on snares, toms and overheads. They seem to take up less space with the cut, yet still come out powerful in a mix. A transient designer really helps to get drums to cut through without use of eq.

But, what the hell do I know. This is just working for me. :D
 
Mixing is about balance. 2.5k, for example, is only nasty when it isn't balanced by lower and higher frequencies. There are no specific frequencies that you can just universally get rid of in all cases.
 
miroslav said:
How are you cleaning up "mud" at 2.5kHz...?...are you boosting or cutting at 2.5kHz?

I usually look at the 150-300Hz range for mud issues.
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Well I thought I had cleaned up some mud, but comparing it to other songs I most definately did not. I find the EQ very hard to deal with. It might sound fine for a second because something changes and I, I dunno, I never knew it was that hard. The song is with a couple of panned distorted rock guitars. It seems like boosting or cutting always makes something better but not without making something else worse.

I'm starting to think I should retrack with lower bass-settings on my guitar-preamp. It sounded so full soloed but it seems to occupy a lot of frequency space making the instruments pretty much trying to knock each other out of the way.
 
jimmys69 said:
The key for me, was in cutting out certain frequencies in the low mids and low end, to cut out the 'fight' that happens with the low end in bass and kick. There are areas in the frequency range where bass and kick need to meld, but for the most part, they will add to each others boomy or ringy sound in the low end.
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When you say cutting out certain frequencies, do you drop very specific areas almost all the way down or do you just lower them a little? And just how specific areas are we talking about?
 
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