How much is too much?

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jonhall5446

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I have really been concentrating on brightening up my mixes up with eq. Particularly hi freqs.When do you add eq to really brighten up the sound? Mainly speaking about higher freqs. Is it best to add the bright highs in the mix or leave some headroom on the high freqs for eq in the mastering stage? How much is too bright? I got a little treble crazy and now when I really crank the volume I am getting really painful treble. Should I adjust each inst or would the overall highs need to come down?

Sorry if this is an unanswerable question
 
This is a totally answerable question.

Instead of going overboard brightening stuff up, start pulling frequencies out of the other instruments. Two things you can do:

1)Start EQing the mud out of other tracks to make the over all track seem a little more bright and open.

2) Find tracks that do not really need high end, like electric guitars, synth etc and roll the top end off of those. Your vocals will start sounding brighter right away.

Also I try and leave a little bit of room for mastering to brighten things up. Even just the limiting in mastering will start making things sound brighter.
 
Ronan gives some good advice.

Just to add to it . . . I think this is really where you reach the point where you need to start trusting your ears if you want to advance any further. No one can really tell you one way or another "how much is too much," etc. Because when you boil it all down, it's a judgement call.

As a rule of thumb, I tend to think anything more than +4 db worth of high end on any one track . . . or anything more than, say, -5 db worth of low-shelving is probably too much, and could be a sign that I need to address how I'm tracking things.

Unless, of course, it sounds good to add or subract more. :D Hell, if you wind up adding or subtracting 20 db . . . and it sounds good, then it's not too much.

If you have a good set of monitors, your accoustics / environment are reasonably good, and you've taken the time to refine your ear for that kind of thing, then you'll get a natural feel for what's too much. Until that time, I think Ronan's suggestions are fairly solid.
 
Try to establish a baseline for high end content -

My suggestion? The title track from Steely Dan's "Aja" album. There's a disgusting amount of high end in there. However, it's some of the cleanest sounding highs out there.

See how well your monitors are reproducing it. If it sounds harsh OR dull, there's something in your chain / room that needs attention.
 
Massive Master said:
My suggestion? The title track from Steely Dan's "Aja" album. See how well your monitors are reproducing it.
Click to expand...

When I do that I usually end up turning off the computer and going to my room to have a good cry. :( :( :(

:D
 
ok thanks for the advice.

I am definately trianing my ear to hear all those freqs out there. hehe.

When you say that you bring the highs down to -5db or up 4db what are you basing these numbers on?

I have a 4 band eq and I have khz and gain to work with... oh yeah and Q. Where are you getting db's? Do you mean on the fader?

My ear has learned a bit, but my vocab needs to catch up a bit
 
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I will definately upload a commercial song into pro tools and compare. Man, why can't I didn't I think of that?
 
jonhall5446 said:
When you say that you bring the highs down to -5db or up 4db what are you basing these numbers on?
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How much you're boosting or cutting.
 
right, I get that

But where are you boosting or cutting from?
Just the eq or the entire track?

If it works in direct relation...
How do you know how much khz and gain = db's
Are you wathcing the overall track level for the adjustment?

sorry, it's hard to explain
 
In this thread people are generally talking about eq-ing the individual tracks, not the mix. That's where you should start.

It sounds like you need to develop your vocabulary a little bit to understand what everyone's talking about. There are a multitude of posts on this board about EQ-ing and also much material out on the web. I suggest you do a bit of searching and reading and then what people are saying will make more sense.
 
Ronan said:
This is a totally answerable question.

Instead of going overboard brightening stuff up, start pulling frequencies out of the other instruments. Two things you can do:

1)Start EQing the mud out of other tracks to make the over all track seem a little more bright and open.

2) Find tracks that do not really need high end, like electric guitars, synth etc and roll the top end off of those. Your vocals will start sounding brighter right away.

Also I try and leave a little bit of room for mastering to brighten things up. Even just the limiting in mastering will start making things sound brighter.
Click to expand...

Great advice Ronan.

Both techniques are ways to deal with frequency masking and build-up when mixing multiple tracks. The dominant frequencies of most instruments are going to lie in the lower mid range, so it's best to clean these up in order to get clarity from the mix. Many people starting out confuse clarity with turning up the high-end, and then end up with a very sibilant mix.

In regards to mastering it's best as Ronan said, to leave room to brighten things up, but even more important is that the same relative amount of high-end is used across the tracks. It can be a major headache trying to de-ess a vocal or hi-hat out of a mix where the remainder of the mix is dull. Also compression can start to make things like a snare sound more dull since the transients are being pulled down. OTOH overuse of a limiter will start to make the mix more like a square wave which can add upper harmonics (not necessarily the one that you want) and make a mix sound slightly brighter. These are some of the trade-offs and compromises that are best left during mastering.
 
Thanx for the advice!

I went back and did a few new mixes. It sure worked a lot better when I cleared out the mud first. I then realized that what I though needed brightening was being washed out by other freqs. The best advice yet! I am not having the record professionally mastered so I am getting the best mix I can and putting the polish on in a mastering session myself. I will never learn anything if I pay someone to do it for me. You guys rock! thanks again
 
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