Cut the bass or the Master Bus?

[KnockinBeats]

Ok, so i have a quick question. In order to get rid of the "muddiness" of a track I made, I cut the bass freq at 60hz, but when i did that, the track lost "Fullness", so I tried to cut the master bus's eq instead at around the same frequency,, and the track lost fullness again, can anyone give me some tips on how to clear up mud in a track, without losing fullness? thx!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

First, just what do you mean by 'track"? I sense some ambiguity in your usage there. Do you mean an individual instrument track, such as a bass guitar track, or are you talking about the mix?

Second, you need to dientify where the "muddiness" is first. Why did you select 60Hz? If that attacked your "fullness" but did not get rid of the "muddiness", you are probably targeting the wrong frequency range.

Third, often times, one needs to cut only very narrow frequencies or frequency ranges. Even if you had the right area at 60Hz, if you're setting the Q bandwidth too wide (or using an graphic EQ instead of a parametric EQ), you could easily be cutting out too much- throwing the baby out with the bath water, as it were.

I'd recommend going through the offending instrument track (not the mix, and not the master bus) with a parametric sweep and finding just where the mud is (there may possibly be more than one area of muddiness), and surgically cuttig the offending frequencies with narrow cuts only.

G.

 

[TexRoadkill]

Try cutting some of the bass or master in the 300-700hz range and see if that's what the problem is.

 

[Front End Audio]

What are all the elements of your mix? I would use the EQ sweep technique (Glen provided a link) on the separate instruments and find out where the mud is coming from. It could be the combination of multiple instruments or it might just be one particular track. Basically, the trick is to find the problem frequencies (I suspect it's higher than 60Hz), and I would prefer EQing the individual instruments, as opposed to the master bus.

You might also try high-passing (at least at 30Hz, but you can "safely" go higher depending on the instrument) each element of your mix to help clear out unneeded frequencies.

I hope this helps you out,
Damian