bottom freq

[bryank]

as a rule, when i edit my tracks, ill almost always roll off the frequencies below 100htz of my guitars.........that way it helps the Bass guitar come through and be heard and not fight with the guitars.

sometimes ill listen to the kick drum and bass guitar bythemselves.....and see which one ill notch out depending on what sound im trying to get. if im doing a 'hip-hop/ drum-n-Bass" kinda sound, ill roll off frequencies below 80htz on the Bass guitar, and maybe boost the kick drum a bit around 60htz so the drum will thump hard, and the bass sounds tight and round.

it really depends on the sound your trying to achive.

 

[slidey]

Do you guys usually roll off those instruments below those "bottom" frequencies? Or roll off a certain frequency for an entire mix?

I was messing around with frequency sweeps and noticed some nastyness down there in some mixes that I don't notice on my home speakers, but seem to in the truck speakers.

I'd be enclined to roll off bottom freq's on individual instruments/tracks rather than the whole mix......................I found "bottom nastiness" 9 times out of ten was coming from my early dodgily engineered acoustic recordings (Q) how much bottom does an acoustic guitar generate?? (A) depending on where the mic is quite a horrendous amount

now I know

sorry don't know where that tangent came from

Slidey

 

[Middleman]

I've seen commercial releases rolloff the EQ right at 12K and sharply. Other albums will use a multiband and smash anything above 12K. The reason, digital hardness. Usually anything under 30Hz is unusable and eats up the headroom of a mix.

If I am doing a home mastering job, I cut below 30 and depending on the music will EQ out the above 12K stuff or do the multiband thing to keep it under control. Generally better to let a real mastering house clean this stuff up because their gear can add a whole new dimension to the sound. Not to mention they have more precise monitoring and can add another perspective.

Fundamentals on bass guitars go well below 100 Hz by the way.

 

[Farview]

Fundamentals on bass guitars go well below 100 Hz by the way.

True, but most of what you are hearing with bass and guitar are the 1st and second harmonics. The fundamental is pretty quiet in those cases.

 

[Middleman]

True, but most of what you are hearing with bass and guitar are the 1st and second harmonics. The fundamental is pretty quiet in those cases.

Not really. Put a scope on your mix and you will see what is eating up your headroom.

 

[Halion]

Depends dudes. I think most people's systems can't handle stuff below say, 50 hz anyway. The lowest string on a 5 string bass (the B note) is about 35hz (don't hold me to this, but it's definately in the 30's), and the lowest string on a 4 string bass is about 42hz, so basicly, most of the fundamentals will not be heard, but they will eat up headroom. If you have a kicking system though, that 30hz rumble can be really amazing.

 

[Middleman]

Depends dudes. I think most people's systems can't handle stuff below say, 50 hz anyway. The lowest string on a 5 string bass (the B note) is about 35hz (don't hold me to this, but it's definately in the 30's), and the lowest string on a 4 string bass is about 42hz, so basicly, most of the fundamentals will not be heard, but they will eat up headroom. If you have a kicking system though, that 30hz rumble can be really amazing.

Yes, I agree with this. Most small speaker based systems won't push below 50 or even higher. Maybe that's what Farview was refering to. My point is that even though you can't hear down low, it doesn't mean that there isn't significant energy which will dominate the mix and make it impossible to get proper levels in mastering.

Regarding 5 string basses, I wish they all would burn. It is so hard to use that low B string in a mix because it walks all over the kick and lies in the rumble zone. Great for making power statements live but hard to squeeze into the sonics of two speakers.

I have 8 inch speakers which are front ported and I can hear down to 30. My room is well bass trapped to lower room compression. I generally roll off below 100 but gradually for the bass. There was a bass player I recorded recently that just hung out on the low string of a 5 string bass. It added a lot of hours to mixing and mastering.

 

[Farview]

What I meant was, most of what we hear as the low end of these instruments is an octave or two above the fundamental. The chugga chugga of the low E string on a guitar is around 150hz or so, an octave above the actual note.