8 ms·

One of the first tricks one learns in electronic music production (possibly also other genres) is to roll off the frequencies below 40 - 50Hz across most/all yo

One of the first tricks one learns in electronic music production (possibly also other genres) is to roll off the frequencies below 40 - 50Hz across most/all your tracks as down there it all starts to smudge together and makes your mix sound muddy. I'm guessing your bass speaker does the same for a live performance.

analog31 4y ago
Indeed, that's what's happening. Now it doesn't prevent the sound tech from feeding it at full strength through the subs, turning it into a wall of mud in the audience.
munificent 4y ago
I tend to high pass most tracks except for the kick and bass, but it's less about mud down at <100 Hz and more about dynamic range. When you have high amplitude low frequencies (inaudible or not) then the higher frequency content has less head room when stacked on top of that giant wave before it starts clipping. Consider how at the limit, a 0 Hz DC positive offset sounds like nothing but pushes the entire signal closer maximum sample value. In order to avoid that clipping, you have to turn everything down and now the whole track doesn't sound as loud as other comparable music, which is bad news for something you want DJs to play. There's rarely any useful signal that low for instruments other than kick and bass anyway, so stripping those rumbles and thumps out just keeps the waveform more centered overall. That lets you increase the overall loudness without clipping. For me, things get muddy when I have too much going on around, I don't know, 100-300 Hz. I high pass tracks to clean up the mud there. Below that, the high passing is mostly for dynamic range and loudness.
- drcongo 4y ago
  Excellent descriptions, thanks!
timc3 4y ago
Hey drcongo long time no speak! But I can’t say that is the way to do it anymore. Often you have to make sure that there is not multiple things going on down there, so you high pass a lot of the elements in a track. Then the sub of a Kick can’t be out of phase with a sub bass. You can duck one of them so they dont occur at the same time (probably still the way a lot of people do it), or you automate a high pass eq in relation to the other sound which can cause other phase issue but tends to work really well and is easy. Or you align the waveforms of the kick and the bass to match in phase and control the ducking more manually. It also depends on the playback medium to some extent - vinyl has a slightly different set of challenges to digital. Check this out for reference: https://youtu.be/K-eneMG_DVE https://youtu.be/K-eneMG_DVE
- drcongo 4y ago
  Hey Tim! I knew someone would be able to go nerdier than me, thanks for the video!

analog31 4y ago

Indeed, that's what's happening. Now it doesn't prevent the sound tech from feeding it at full strength through the subs, turning it into a wall of mud in the audience.

munificent 4y ago

I tend to high pass most tracks except for the kick and bass, but it's less about mud down at <100 Hz and more about dynamic range. When you have high amplitude low frequencies (inaudible or not) then the higher frequency content has less head room when stacked on top of that giant wave before it starts clipping. Consider how at the limit, a 0 Hz DC positive offset sounds like nothing but pushes the entire signal closer maximum sample value. In order to avoid that clipping, you have to turn everything down and now the whole track doesn't sound as loud as other comparable music, which is bad news for something you want DJs to play. There's rarely any useful signal that low for instruments other than kick and bass anyway, so stripping those rumbles and thumps out just keeps the waveform more centered overall. That lets you increase the overall loudness without clipping. For me, things get muddy when I have too much going on around, I don't know, 100-300 Hz. I high pass tracks to clean up the mud there. Below that, the high passing is mostly for dynamic range and loudness.

drcongo 4y ago
Excellent descriptions, thanks!

timc3 4y ago

Hey drcongo long time no speak! But I can’t say that is the way to do it anymore. Often you have to make sure that there is not multiple things going on down there, so you high pass a lot of the elements in a track. Then the sub of a Kick can’t be out of phase with a sub bass. You can duck one of them so they dont occur at the same time (probably still the way a lot of people do it), or you automate a high pass eq in relation to the other sound which can cause other phase issue but tends to work really well and is easy. Or you align the waveforms of the kick and the bass to match in phase and control the ducking more manually. It also depends on the playback medium to some extent - vinyl has a slightly different set of challenges to digital. Check this out for reference: https://youtu.be/K-eneMG_DVE https://youtu.be/K-eneMG_DVE

drcongo 4y ago
Hey Tim! I knew someone would be able to go nerdier than me, thanks for the video!