what do you do about the highs?

Fireal402

Fireal402

Eyeballs! OH MY GOD EYES
Currently I've been using an analyzer to work with the mixes, and get everything pretty balanced out. I'm talking about on the 33x band Spectrum analyser, not that Gnomemeter or whatever that makes cool shapes with my songs.

Is this a wise idea? I understand the concept behind do what sounds good, and I think it's making my mixes better. But sometimes the highs seem a little too bright :D , but on other systems it may end up sounding too dark.
I'd just think having a relatively flat EQ spectrum for the mix would sound good, and in my testing it has. If anyone has any negatives (like I should be cutting below a 42 hz for crappy car speakers), tell me before I get in my car and realize the bass is too loud AGAIN.

If you wanna hear any examples, newest is The Garden of Eden in my sig link. No vox, but they'll be interesting
 
Are you telling saying that you want as much energy at 15k as you do at 150hz? You would peel the paint off your walls if you do that.
 
I just realized the way I described it sucked. I meant that the frequencies do move, but as a general rule tend to level out at said spot

EDIT: Are spectrum analyzers weighted? specifically, the RME Digicheck? that would explain it. Or maybe, I just like a lot of frequencies.
 
I also visually divide up the analyzer to lows, mids, and highs, and try to keep them as balanced to each other as possible. Maybe that will offer a little clarity to this?
 
Fireal402 said:
I also visually divide up the analyzer to lows, mids, and highs, and try to keep them as balanced to each other as possible. Maybe that will offer a little clarity to this?
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If by balanced you mean horizontally even, it's no suprise that you have too many highs.

Pink noise drops 3dBs an octave. Human hearing is somewhere around 15dBs more sensitive at 4kHz than it is a 20 Hz at typical studio monitoring levels. It takes less energy to push enough air to reach equal SPLs at high frequencies then it does at low frequencies. Put all those facts together and you can see that there is no way one would want to be delivering equal energy levels (horizontally flat response) in one's mix if you want truely "balanced". It's suprising your ears aren't bleeding from an icepick of high frequencies;).

I also would have thought that your EQ curves youd have been a tip off; when you see your high bands getting more than typical boost just to "balance" the mix, that's should be a tip off that something is wrong.

But more to the point than anything else, screw the frequency analyzer for anything other than real problems, and not as a guide for mixing. There is no recipe for what a good mix "looks like". It is totally dependant upon the instruments used, the song arrangement, the mix design, the amount of EQ and reverb used, etc. All those will affect the final shape of the response curve. There will be natural bumps and valleys all over the place, as there almost always should be. Trying to use EQ and such to iron those curves out and to "flatten" the natural slope of things is just shaping the sound to please the eye and not the ear.

Honestly, don't worry about what it looks like on the analyzer, as that will more often than not throw you a red herring as far as the propriety of the overall sound of the mix.

G.
 
This gave me a smile, because i knew someone was going to say this. Believe me, I mix with my ears, but I've now gotten interested at a pretty technical level of everything. Music is emotional, but it's all math, which is crazy to me.

To me, the mixes with a balanced chart, so to speak, sound worlds better than when I don't use one. I make sure it's not the quality going in or the playing, I try to make sure of that.

And then there was the bit about mixing for maximum compatibility with other systems, but I can prolly find speaker response charts for different cars.

EDIT: maybe it's the way I track or mix or something, I guess you could say it's a crafted "style" that I'm just carving into
 
punkin said:
My first girlfriend would qualify :eek:
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So would mine... she was my girlfriend of 7 years... that was her age... I went to jail...


God, that was disgusting even for me... ;)
 
punkin said:
My first girlfriend would qualify :eek:
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I know! ;) :D

Fireal402 said:
To me, the mixes with a balanced chart, so to speak, sound worlds better than when I don't use one.
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One of three things is happening:

1.) You have problems with your monitoring chain that's causing it to poorly reproduce the high frequencies (blown tweeter(s)?)

2.) You are sitting right in the middle of a really heavy bass mode in your room caused by being in a small, rectangular room with no bass trap treatments in any of the surface joints. This is artificially boosting the sound of the bass in your ears and you have to over-boost the high-end to compensate.

3.) The visual feedback from the RTA is tricking your ears.

My bet is #2.

The real question is if you play back a good quality commercial CD (something like a quality Telarc, not some horseshit Mercury production) on the same system does it a) sound OK or is the high end lacking? and b) resemble what you're calling a "flat" curve?

G.
 
Are you familiar with Fletcher-Munson Curves (AKA Equal Loudness Curves). Check those out, that will show what Southside was describing.

Or in high school band terminology, it's the pyramid of sound effect. you know, the flutes can play much quiter because they'll project much louder than the tubas at the same volume.
 
If you are trying to make the metering on the RTA look like a flat line from bottom to top, then yes you will most certainly end up with too much bass and too much treble. Probably WAY too much!

What you need to do is run a few of your favorite mixes through that same RTA and see what they look like. Then get yours to match those curves better.

I think you are being thrown off by the concept of "flat". That does not mean all frequencies are equal loudness. "Flat" has more to do with monitoring, making sure your listening environment is playing back the audio as accurately as possible.
 
SonicAlbert said:
If you are trying to make the metering on the RTA look like a flat line from bottom to top, then yes you will most certainly end up with too much bass and too much treble. Probably WAY too much!

What you need to do is run a few of your favorite mixes through that same RTA and see what they look like. Then get yours to match those curves better.

I think you are being thrown off by the concept of "flat". That does not mean all frequencies are equal loudness. "Flat" has more to do with monitoring, making sure your listening environment is playing back the audio as accurately as possible.
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I just looked at a few tracks (smashing pumpkins, tool), and they all seem to follow similar curves. I think we're focusing too much on the "flatness" of it all. I personally think I've gotten much better lately, and now my mixes translate well on most systems (Vans being the worst so far). But, if I don't go in and "even" things, it will usually lack enough high end. I do have slight HF loss in my ears, so maybe my overcompensation is actually the right thing.
My room may not be the best, but I'm a visual peron, and being able to see that the bass is screwing with the kick at 80hz instantly is great. And that there's short lines above 6k, and when I "boost" them, it sounds good.

I think I overstressed the idea of flat, but to be sure, we're talking about something like the Logic Analyzer or the Waves PAZ stuff or the RME Digicheck, right?
 
RAK said:
Are you familiar with Fletcher-Munson Curves (AKA Equal Loudness Curves). Check those out, that will show what Southside was describing.

Or in high school band terminology, it's the pyramid of sound effect. you know, the flutes can play much quiter because they'll project much louder than the tubas at the same volume.
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That's more of a mixing thing(I think?). I don't crank any of the tracks, they all have their respective volumes, often lots of layers and quiet parts. I'm focusing more on the mastering side, with a little bit of mixing tossed in. I'll check the analyzer when I'm nearly done mixing, and then I use it for final mastering, and each one is coming closer to the "sound" i'm looking for.


EDIT: Those curves are the charts that show something at like 80 hz needs to be a ton louder than the same thing at 5k, right?

ANOTHER EDIT: Lets say I get the bass sounding good. Now I look at the RTA and it's way up, and I notice the guitars now don't sound as good, so I lower the bass, eq the guitars a little different, and now it's fine. but then the drums need to be readjusted cos the GTs interefere with the drums, so I'll boost highs, and now my mix looks "flat" (It still curves, a little higher in the bass, a small dip in the mids, and not much above 16k or below 32 hz)
 
Fireal402 said:
ANOTHER EDIT: Lets say I get the bass sounding good. Now I look at the RTA and it's way up, and I notice the guitars now don't sound as good, so I lower the bass, eq the guitars a little different, and now it's fine. but then the drums need to be readjusted cos the GTs interefere with the drums, so I'll boost highs, and now my mix looks "flat" (It still curves, a little higher in the bass, a small dip in the mids, and not much above 16k or below 32 hz)
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Jeeze man. :) Everything effects everything else. Not only the low end content of the low end instruments, but their level too plays with the precieved fullness of all the other instruments, and on and on up the scale. Even the kick and bass have their own sub-balance dance in the game.
That's the whole game of the creative mix process. The field is first wide open at the mix.
IMHO eq on the master is the least effective way to get where ever 'there' is.
:)
 
Fireal402 said:
EDIT: Those curves are the charts that show something at like 80 hz needs to be a ton louder than the same thing at 5k, right?
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umm, yes. They show at what amplitude different frequencies are percieved by us (the humans) to be the same volume.
 
mixsit said:
Jeeze man. :) Everything effects everything else. Not only the low end content of the low end instruments, but their level too plays with the precieved fullness of all the other instruments, and on and on up the scale. Even the kick and bass have their own sub-balance dance in the game.
That's the whole game of the creative mix process. The field is first wide open at the mix.
IMHO eq on the master is the least effective way to get where ever 'there' is.
:)
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I would like to second this. You have to look at the big picture. Like when you (the general you) spend half and hour EQing and compressing your bass so it's perfect, and then put in the rest of mix and it sounds awful.

Hope I'm not throwing this thread too much off base.
 
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