identifying mix problems

[user]

That might be because when applying a sharp cut you’d get a little notch right at the cutoff frequency resulting in some added thump to your bass?

 

[thawkins]

7 hours ago, user said:

That might be because when applying a sharp cut you’d get a little notch right at the cutoff frequency resulting in some added thump to your bass?

 

I think this is a good explanation of what happens. I like the sound though, and it cleans up the very low bass rumbles so it should be OK. I will have to see actually, maybe creating those peaks with the notch is not a good deal..

[Nil]

Random thoughts : 

FWIW, 18dB/oct is the most transparent curve for LPF/HPF. That's a simple observation / advice, gathered from the various beta-testing I'm involved in (and I genuinely trust the coders and other beta-testers here). That's what I've heard too. Anything steeper is a non-sense to my ears.

Shelves are amazing too, and can be combined with other filters (bells and LP/HP alike). 

Another simple thing, EQing from the bottom to top simply works, as obvious as it can seem. Likewise, EQ global before going into details : most of the time, a couple of bold moves sounds way better than countless little cuts/boosts.

It might be of interest to try several phase settings : I've never enjoyed linear phased EQ, minimal phase sounds much better to me.

Oh and a last one :  use sends. And mix your sends like other, normal tracks.

Hopefully some useful bits above, most have improved my students mixes 10 folds. Pretty sure you guys know them all, but eh, happy if it can help.

 

[dingformung]

On 3/6/2020 at 10:31 AM, thawkins said:

I think this is a good explanation of what happens. I like the sound though, and it cleans up the very low bass rumbles so it should be OK. I will have to see actually, maybe creating those peaks with the notch is not a good deal..

Another thing you can do is pitching up the sub 40Hz bass just a little. Creates some nice bass overtones.

[Nil]

When it comes to subs, it often works to cut / tame around the fundamental freq, and to boost an octave or two above.

Say you have a 40Hz sub, HPF at 40Hz, boost with a relatively broad bell at 160Hz and sculpt the in-between (idk, a low shelf cutting some meat  down there). The HPF ditches the unwanted, headroom destroyer sub frequencies, the 160Hz compensates the loss in super LF while emphasizing harmonic content that can be heard on most systems.

Works a treat during mixing and mastering alike.

[chim]

Phase distortion in EQ is a wildly exaggerated dumb myth some audio nerds and youtubers latch on to. Read the top comment.

[Nil]

EQs change phase anyway : some do it (very) musically, some don't.

[chim]

I'm not an expert but time and frequency domains are codependent and can't be isolated, hence big frequency trickery produces an equivalent time effect. Phase shifting is what enables EQing but the idea that it's an undesirable artifact is a bit of a rogue remnant from linear EQ marketing and audio geeks overthinking the issue. Linear EQs haven't caught on because they simply don't sound as musical, the various degrees of phase shifting techniques are likely the sources of the "good sound" of particular eqs. Also, since linear EQs don't phase shift, they can't really correct acoustic phase issues in recordings and instead tend to amplify them. Hence you mostly see linear EQ in sterile situations on master tracks. 

If anyone does a bit of reading on DSP you quickly discover the relationship between nonlinear algebra and analog mojo. Phase shifting is that kind of nonlinear effect and enables lots of cool stuff like pultec style simultaneous cut-boosting. Old physical units with tubes, capacitors and transformers probably fuck with phase six ways from Sunday and it's a natural and desirable result for a lot of people. Most assumed phase artifacts are actually inherent room issues from the original recording being boosted. If you do high Q boosting you end up with audible ringing effects which is easily avoided, unless you're after a beefy snare or such. You might run into some phase trouble with elaborate FX sends being the same amplitude as the source track but that's about it. 

[Nil]

Yup, I hate the sound of linear phase EQ with a passion hehe.

From what I've gathered reading super talented developers, and to sum it up very, very roughly, filters move parts of the spectrum forwards or backward : if we perceive these freqs as boosted, it's because they're shifted "before" the rest of spectrum, and we hear them first. A cut is the opposite : a part of the spectrum is delayed slightly compared to the whole sound. 

[xox]

2 hours ago, Nil said:

Yup, I hate the sound of linear phase EQ with a passion hehe.

From what I've gathered reading super talented developers, and to sum it up very, very roughly, filters move parts of the spectrum forwards or backward : if we perceive these freqs as boosted, it's because they're shifted "before" the rest of spectrum, and we hear them first. A cut is the opposite : a part of the spectrum is delayed slightly compared to the whole sound. 

But a linear phase eq doesn’t do that, right?

[chim]

43 minutes ago, xox said:

But a linear phase eq doesn’t do that, right?

Linear phase delays the signal and does an identical EQ to the reversed waveform which cancels out the phase shift of the original. They found this trick out in Abbey Road studios originally. The drawback is that the only thing that isn't canceled out is the tail of the reverse signal, which happens to be situated as a reverse tail before the original waveform and is called pre-ringing. It doesn't work great with drums and snappy stuff, as regular postringing is usually way less offensive.

[Zephyr_Nova]

I have decoded the hidden message.

identifying mix problems

[sweepstakes]

oh shit

entifying ix em

[Zephyr_Nova]

There have only been a handful of times I've been bothered by weird phase issues, mostly guitars on thrash songs recorded in the early 80's + MBV's Loveless (makes my ears pop).  But I guess it's probably a greater issue among bedroom musicians.  It comes up so frequently in producer talks, but how often is it an issue to the point where it really hurts a production?  There would have to be a lot of phasing going on.

[chim]

I think there are more dangers in classic recording techniques, like the rules for stereo micing stuff like acoustic guitar or ensembles to avoid comb filtering. Inside the daws we mostly run into it when analyzing the wide stereo stuff that doesn't translate in mono, typical of those wild 60's recordings where you can't hear half the track on a portable Bluetooth speaker. Live venues might only offer mono so you might want to avoid your smash hit having the meat of the track out to the sides. Unless you're making club music it shouldn't be a huge issue. I think some engineers prefer double tracking mono lines like guitars rather than pseudo-stereoing a single phrase to avoid phase cancellation, but the truth is that anything stereo is going to have phase issues to some degree.

[Nil]

Collapsing the mixbus to mono every now and then while mixing is so insightful. I also do it more and more when mastering, it’s so useful for all EQ related duties.