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Post by Ward on Oct 9, 2019 8:43:06 GMT -6
Well johneppstein, I'm as surprised as you are that we disagree yet again. OK, there's nothing musical happening below 30hz and most consumer systems don't reproduce anything in the 20s anyhow. Then there's human hearing, which after 12 years old for most folks can't hear anything above 18k, and by 18 years of age, most can't hear anything above 16khz. I make music for the masses, not the gifted 1% who've never had to work in a noisy environment a day in their lives. So rumble and skitter? All below 30 and above 16k. Just don't need that stuff. . I learned this lesson from JJ Puig a long time ago, and am indebted to him. I'm curious as to what other folks think.
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Post by EmRR on Oct 9, 2019 9:27:59 GMT -6
I hear a 16K LPF when I put it on most things, and I'm over 50. I may not be hearing 16K, but I hear the phase artifacts.
On the bottom there's usually vibration artifacts on anything near a low frequency instrument or a DI that is beneficial to clean up so limiters and amps aren't spending energy on something speakers can't reproduce. Sometimes I can hear the phase effect, sometimes I can't. If I hear it then it's picking the lesser evil. I see so many bass DI signals that have highest energy peaks below 30 Hz; people hitting the pickups/etc. You want that out before it sees any kind of compression.
If you're running tape, these 'problems' take care of themselves mostly.
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Post by schmalzy on Oct 9, 2019 10:07:54 GMT -6
I'm high-passing around 30hz as the first thing on my mix bus. There's a TON of stuff down there that doesn't need to be there...especially if I'm using cleaner preamps. Like a couple folks have said, rumbles and incidental stuff exist in some sources and can definitely bugger stuff up! I don't need that interacting with my compression! I'm doing some 6db/oct HPF stuff on a lot of the individual sources with strong low frequencies already but it all feels like it glues together more to HPF them again at the same point on the mix bus. It puts a similar shape to the whole low end after I've done the work to try to get the lows to gel.
I tend to do most of my LPF stuff on individual channels. Every so often I'll use the LPF on the Kush Hammer plugin (I truly have no idea what frequency it claims to be at) but then also push up 10kHz or 15kHz on the same plugin to get a little more vintage-flavored brightness rather than getting too airy.
I feel like when I'm mixing with an analog insert on the mix bus or when I'm doing some passive summing I need less filtering on the rest of the mix. I wonder if that's because my Neve-style preamps I like to go through in both cases are shaving a bit of top and bottom off?
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Post by trakworxmastering on Oct 9, 2019 10:52:16 GMT -6
Well johneppstein , I'm as surprised as you are that we disagree yet again. OK, there's nothing musical happening below 30hz and most consumer systems don't reproduce anything in the 20s anyhow. Then there's human hearing, which after 12 years old for most folks can't hear anything above 18k, and by 18 years of age, most can't hear anything above 16khz. I make music for the masses, not the gifted 1% who've never had to work in a noisy environment a day in their lives. So rumble and skitter? All below 30 and above 16k. Just don't need that stuff. . I learned this lesson from JJ Puig a long time ago, and am indebted to him. I'm curious as to what other folks think. Here's what I think: The lowest note on a piano is 27.5Hz. Hip Hop, R n B, Electronica and Reggae often have significant musical content below 30Hz. Sometimes Rock, Metal and Pop music does too. A 30Hz HPF affects content well above 30Hz. A 16kHz LPF affects content well below 16kHz. I could hear 18kHz into my late 40s. Young people, with their sharp ears, are an important part of the audience, arguably the most important part. I'm not saying never use filters. I use them sometimes. But to use them as your default is questionable IMO. To use any EQ setting by default is questionable IMO. No offense! Cheers, P.S. What exactly is "skitter"?
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Post by Ward on Oct 9, 2019 11:08:46 GMT -6
P.S. What exactly is "skitter"? a catch-all term for shimmer, dither, phase artifacts and anything swishy in the ultra high end above 15khz. Last tested, My hearing was intact up to 16.4Khz and then dropped off slowly. But meh, who needs to tax it like that? Cassette tapes only went to 12k and most of us were ok with that when we were in the critical youth market!! And most youth listen to music on MP3 or worse, streaming, which probably cuts off around 8Khz Nobody cares anymore.
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Post by svart on Oct 9, 2019 11:13:12 GMT -6
Kiddos can "hear" things high and low, but the main market for such consumers are through MP3's and earbuds. It's less about *true* frequency extension and more about the *perception* of extension, which happens through trickery such as the "missing fundamental" trick commonly used in things like RennBass.
I've read a number of pro mixers who try to compact their mixes into more central frequency ranges, say Andy Wallace who has been on record saying that he rarely bothers with anything above 12K, rather trying to push things at 7K-10K instead because it translates much better across all different kinds of speakers.
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Post by trakworxmastering on Oct 9, 2019 11:21:39 GMT -6
P.S. What exactly is "skitter"? a catch-all term for shimmer, dither, phase artifacts and anything swishy in the ultra high end above 15khz. Last tested, My hearing was intact up to 16.4Khz and then dropped off slowly. But meh, who needs to tax it like that? Cassette tapes only went to 12k and most of us were ok with that when we were in the critical youth market!! And most youth listen to music on MP3 or worse, streaming, which probably cuts off around 8Khz Nobody cares anymore. Well some people like shimmer. Can we agree to use facts? Cassette tapes can go to 20kHz. Even 128k MP3s go to 16kHz. Apple Music and Spotify, the 2 biggest music sites, regularly provide 256k or 320k. Streaming is going higher definition all the time. Lossless streaming is catching on. Amazon. Tidal.
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Post by trakworxmastering on Oct 9, 2019 11:26:40 GMT -6
Kiddos can "hear" things high and low, but the main market for such consumers are through MP3's and earbuds. It's less about *true* frequency extension and more about the *perception* of extension, which happens through trickery such as the "missing fundamental" trick commonly used in things like RennBass. I've read a number of pro mixers who try to compact their mixes into more central frequency ranges, say Andy Wallace who has been on record saying that he rarely bothers with anything above 12K, rather trying to push things at 7K-10K instead because it translates much better across all different kinds of speakers. That's a good argument for paying close attention to content below 10k. It's not much of an argument for amputating content above... Are we just writing off audiophiles altogether now? SMH. I know a waiter who spent $1,000 on headphones. My dad has $10k worth of stereo equipment in his living room. Most of us on this forum are audiophiles. Can we at least make music for each other to listen to on good systems?
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Post by svart on Oct 9, 2019 11:32:38 GMT -6
Kiddos can "hear" things high and low, but the main market for such consumers are through MP3's and earbuds. It's less about *true* frequency extension and more about the *perception* of extension, which happens through trickery such as the "missing fundamental" trick commonly used in things like RennBass. I've read a number of pro mixers who try to compact their mixes into more central frequency ranges, say Andy Wallace who has been on record saying that he rarely bothers with anything above 12K, rather trying to push things at 7K-10K instead because it translates much better across all different kinds of speakers. That's a good argument for paying close attention to content below 10k. It's not much of an argument for amputating content above... Are we just writing off audiophiles altogether now? SMH. I don't think that focusing on the primary consumer necessarily writes off anyone else.. I mean that's why they have special audiophile editions of things.. But what does happen, and it's happened to me too, is that you focus on extreme clarity and extended range and your client calls you up and says something like "where's the high end in the mix, it sounds dull.." And that's when you realize that they're listening on their phone, their kitchen streaming pod with the 2" speakers, or cheap car stereo and they don't have supertweeters confusing bats and making the neighborhood dog's ears hurt and you're going to have to suck it up and mix it like the majority of listeners will want to hear it.
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Post by trakworxmastering on Oct 9, 2019 11:38:36 GMT -6
That's a good argument for paying close attention to content below 10k. It's not much of an argument for amputating content above... Are we just writing off audiophiles altogether now? SMH. I don't think that focusing on the primary consumer necessarily writes off anyone else.. I mean that's why they have special audiophile editions of things.. But what does happen, and it's happened to me too, is that you focus on extreme clarity and extended range and your client calls you up and says something like "where's the high end in the mix, it sounds dull.." And that's when you realize that they're listening on their phone, their kitchen streaming pod with the 2" speakers, or cheap car stereo and they don't have supertweeters confusing bats and making the neighborhood dog's ears hurt and you're going to have to suck it up and mix it like the majority of listeners will want to hear it. Don't tell me that you can't make it sound good on low end and high end systems. It's not one or the other. It's both. Always has been.
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Post by svart on Oct 9, 2019 11:48:08 GMT -6
I don't think that focusing on the primary consumer necessarily writes off anyone else.. I mean that's why they have special audiophile editions of things.. But what does happen, and it's happened to me too, is that you focus on extreme clarity and extended range and your client calls you up and says something like "where's the high end in the mix, it sounds dull.." And that's when you realize that they're listening on their phone, their kitchen streaming pod with the 2" speakers, or cheap car stereo and they don't have supertweeters confusing bats and making the neighborhood dog's ears hurt and you're going to have to suck it up and mix it like the majority of listeners will want to hear it. Don't tell me that you can't make it sound good on low end and high end systems. It's not one or the other. It's both. Always has been. I didn't and I didn't insinuate that it was one or the other. You focus on making it work on the lowest common denominator and the better one will follow just fine, but not the other way around. That's why I personally focus on making it sound good on frequency constrained systems first and foremost. It's the harder of the two to get right, and once you do, the higher quality system will translate well enough.
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Post by trakworxmastering on Oct 9, 2019 11:52:14 GMT -6
Don't tell me that you can't make it sound good on low end and high end systems. It's not one or the other. It's both. Always has been. I didn't and I didn't insinuate that it was one or the other. You focus on making it work on the lowest common denominator and the better one will follow just fine, but not the other way around. That's why I personally focus on making it sound good on frequency constrained systems first and foremost. It's the harder of the two to get right, and once you do, the higher quality system will translate well enough. OK, but we're talking in the context of a thread about filtering out the lows and highs. I'm saying don't discard the frequencies that fall outside the range of the lowest quality systems, or what you assume people can't hear or doesn't matter. Some of us want to hear that stuff! Also, I question whether the better one will follow just fine. IME you have to pay attention to both narrow bandwidth and full range if you want it to translate out there.
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Post by svart on Oct 9, 2019 12:00:05 GMT -6
I didn't and I didn't insinuate that it was one or the other. You focus on making it work on the lowest common denominator and the better one will follow just fine, but not the other way around. That's why I personally focus on making it sound good on frequency constrained systems first and foremost. It's the harder of the two to get right, and once you do, the higher quality system will translate well enough. OK, but we're talking in the context of a thread about filtering out the lows and highs. I'm saying don't discard the frequencies that fall outside the range of the lowest quality systems. Some of us want to hear that stuff! I get what you're saying, but I guess for me, sometimes that means you have to filter out stuff that doesn't focus on the critical areas. I'm not letting the hiss of a guitar amp muck up the upper regions around where I want cymbals and vocals to stand out, so I'm going to low pass it so I don't have to boost or play other EQ games on the stuff I want to hear. Same for a bunch of cymbal or sympathetic tom rumble that makes the bass harder to hear, so I'm going to high pass them along with editing and gating, and so on and so forth. Kick has a fundamental region and a bunch of harmonic trash, so if my kick is tuned to 70hz, I don't want a bunch of intermodulated tones below that to eat up all my headroom and trigger compressors that shouldn't be pumping so hard, so I'm going to high pass.. There are reasons for these things, at least for me.
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Post by trakworxmastering on Oct 9, 2019 12:02:55 GMT -6
OK, but we're talking in the context of a thread about filtering out the lows and highs. I'm saying don't discard the frequencies that fall outside the range of the lowest quality systems. Some of us want to hear that stuff! I get what you're saying, but I guess for me, sometimes that means you have to filter out stuff that doesn't focus on the critical areas. I'm not letting the hiss of a guitar amp muck up the upper regions around where I want cymbals and vocals to stand out, so I'm going to low pass it so I don't have to boost or play other EQ games on the stuff I want to hear. Same for a bunch of cymbal or sympathetic tom rumble that makes the bass harder to hear, so I'm going to high pass them along with editing and gating, and so on and so forth. OK, on a case by case basis, based on what you're hearing, fine. But using filters by default, or any other EQ setting by default, is not good practice IMO.
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Post by trakworxmastering on Oct 9, 2019 12:14:50 GMT -6
For the record, I've recorded, mixed and mastered dozens of albums start to finish with not one HPF or LPF anywhere in the process. You're all welcome to check out my work and tell me it sucks, but all of my clients have been satisfied. So far...
Give it a try. It works!
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Post by soundintheround on Oct 9, 2019 12:27:04 GMT -6
Yet again; there is no 'Correct' answer to this and depends on taste/style and genre. There is certainly no NEED to have do this, and can get by without.
Alot of older gear and tape machines did some of this without even the user knowing, while some gear was extremely over-designed and didn't.
If you are trying to emulate a certain time period or style, either use the real thing, or yes maybe a LPF could capture some specific ancient Tape Machines hi-end limitations that you hear in a fav recording.
But I can say in terms of the way people are listening to music these days, limiting the top and bottom certain gets you more useable bandwidth on say a Phone or cheaper speaker. Having frequencies there isn't going to help much and probably only hurt once the LUFS algorithms applied and it comes out the back end. Right? I'm no mastering expert, but this is my take on it?
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Post by trakworxmastering on Oct 9, 2019 12:52:13 GMT -6
But I can say in terms of the way people are listening to music these days, limiting the top and bottom certain gets you more useable bandwidth on say a Phone or cheaper speaker. Having frequencies there isn't going to help much and probably only hurt once the LUFS algorithms applied and it comes out the back end. Right? I'm no mastering expert, but this is my take on it? All by itself the small speaker will exclude what it can't reproduce. It doesn't need our help. LUFS tends to respond to midrange more than to extended frequencies, so filtering doesn't affect it as much as one might think. RMS responds to low frequencies much more than LUFS does. Neither LUFS nor RMS responds much to ultra high frequencies. Cheers,
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 9, 2019 14:09:15 GMT -6
Well johneppstein , I'm as surprised as you are that we disagree yet again. OK, there's nothing musical happening below 30hz and most consumer systems don't reproduce anything in the 20s anyhow. Then there's human hearing, which after 12 years old for most folks can't hear anything above 18k, and by 18 years of age, most can't hear anything above 16khz. I make music for the masses, not the gifted 1% who've never had to work in a noisy environment a day in their lives. So rumble and skitter? All below 30 and above 16k. Just don't need that stuff. . I learned this lesson from JJ Puig a long time ago, and am indebted to him. I'm curious as to what other folks think. Show me a filter circuit that does not affect requencies beyond cutoff - your typical 30 Hz HPF will affect response as high as 60 to 120 Hz, depending on filter design. Same thing with an LPF. Maybe some digital designs are a brick wall that doesn't affect out of band response but I know for sure that analog filters do, and I suspect that since digital systems are generally designed to ape analog response I suspect that they do as well.
I leave filtering of subsonics to my ME. Removing inaudible junk is his job. And I consider the LPF issue to be a specious argument.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 9, 2019 14:22:46 GMT -6
I'm high-passing around 30hz as the first thing on my mix bus. There's a TON of stuff down there that doesn't need to be there...especially if I'm using cleaner preamps. Like a couple folks have said, rumbles and incidental stuff exist in some sources and can definitely bugger stuff up! I don't need that interacting with my compression! I'm doing some 6db/oct HPF stuff on a lot of the individual sources with strong low frequencies already but it all feels like it glues together more to HPF them again at the same point on the mix bus. It puts a similar shape to the whole low end after I've done the work to try to get the lows to gel. I tend to do most of my LPF stuff on individual channels. Every so often I'll use the LPF on the Kush Hammer plugin (I truly have no idea what frequency it claims to be at) but then also push up 10kHz or 15kHz on the same plugin to get a little more vintage-flavored brightness rather than getting too airy. I feel like when I'm mixing with an analog insert on the mix bus or when I'm doing some passive summing I need less filtering on the rest of the mix. I wonder if that's because my Neve-style preamps I like to go through in both cases are shaving a bit of top and bottom off? You do realize that a 30Hz 6dB/octave HPF has actual response above 120 Hz, right?
If you must use an HPF it should be at least 18 dB/oct if not 24. The stated frequency of a filter is the 3 dB down point, not the point where the cut actually begins. If you want to minimize out of band actifacts you don't want a gentle slope. and a 6 dB slope isn't really very effective at removing LF garbage.
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Post by trakworxmastering on Oct 9, 2019 15:11:32 GMT -6
Well johneppstein , I'm as surprised as you are that we disagree yet again. OK, there's nothing musical happening below 30hz and most consumer systems don't reproduce anything in the 20s anyhow. Then there's human hearing, which after 12 years old for most folks can't hear anything above 18k, and by 18 years of age, most can't hear anything above 16khz. I make music for the masses, not the gifted 1% who've never had to work in a noisy environment a day in their lives. So rumble and skitter? All below 30 and above 16k. Just don't need that stuff. . I learned this lesson from JJ Puig a long time ago, and am indebted to him. I'm curious as to what other folks think. Show me a filter circuit that does not affect requencies beyond cutoff - your typical 30 Hz HPF will affect response as high as 60 to 120 Hz, depending on filter design. Same thing with an LPF. Maybe some digital designs are a brick wall that doesn't affect out of band response but I know for sure that analog filters do, and I suspect that since digital systems are generally designed to ape analog response I suspect that they do as well.
I leave filtering of subsonics to my ME. Removing inaudible junk is his job. And I consider the LPF issue to be a specious argument.
Not only does the filter curve affect frequencies beyond the cutoff but the phase shift from the filter reaches even further into the pass band. There are some digital filters that are phase linear but that comes with other problems like pre-ringing. I don't think many people realize the downsides of filtering. It comes at a cost. There's no free lunch. Use only when necessary.
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Post by gouge on Oct 9, 2019 15:58:23 GMT -6
OK, but we're talking in the context of a thread about filtering out the lows and highs. I'm saying don't discard the frequencies that fall outside the range of the lowest quality systems. Some of us want to hear that stuff! I get what you're saying, but I guess for me, sometimes that means you have to filter out stuff that doesn't focus on the critical areas. I'm not letting the hiss of a guitar amp muck up the upper regions around where I want cymbals and vocals to stand out, so I'm going to low pass it so I don't have to boost or play other EQ games on the stuff I want to hear. Same for a bunch of cymbal or sympathetic tom rumble that makes the bass harder to hear, so I'm going to high pass them along with editing and gating, and so on and so forth. Kick has a fundamental region and a bunch of harmonic trash, so if my kick is tuned to 70hz, I don't want a bunch of intermodulated tones below that to eat up all my headroom and trigger compressors that shouldn't be pumping so hard, so I'm going to high pass.. There are reasons for these things, at least for me. After comparing my mixes to pro mixes and having some aha moments i've come to the conclusion that bell filters are the key.
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Post by schmalzy on Oct 9, 2019 22:40:18 GMT -6
I'm high-passing around 30hz as the first thing on my mix bus. There's a TON of stuff down there that doesn't need to be there...especially if I'm using cleaner preamps. Like a couple folks have said, rumbles and incidental stuff exist in some sources and can definitely bugger stuff up! I don't need that interacting with my compression! I'm doing some 6db/oct HPF stuff on a lot of the individual sources with strong low frequencies already but it all feels like it glues together more to HPF them again at the same point on the mix bus. It puts a similar shape to the whole low end after I've done the work to try to get the lows to gel. I tend to do most of my LPF stuff on individual channels. Every so often I'll use the LPF on the Kush Hammer plugin (I truly have no idea what frequency it claims to be at) but then also push up 10kHz or 15kHz on the same plugin to get a little more vintage-flavored brightness rather than getting too airy. I feel like when I'm mixing with an analog insert on the mix bus or when I'm doing some passive summing I need less filtering on the rest of the mix. I wonder if that's because my Neve-style preamps I like to go through in both cases are shaving a bit of top and bottom off? You do realize that a 30Hz 6dB/octave HPF has actual response above 120 Hz, right?
If you must use an HPF it should be at least 18 dB/oct if not 24. The stated frequency of a filter is the 3 dB down point, not the point where the cut actually begins. If you want to minimize out of band actifacts you don't want a gentle slope. and a 6 dB slope isn't really very effective at removing LF garbage.
Yep. I'm aware. 6db/octave with 30Hz as the 3db down point puts 1db down around the 60Hz area and .3db around the 120Hz area you're talking about (if the graphic representations and pink noise analysis of the filter I like to use is to be believed) I also boost (*gasp*) around 50Hz pretty often. To my ears - as unrefined as they are - I hear less phase shift/problems/chaos when using gentler slopes.
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Post by kilroyrock on Oct 10, 2019 8:03:07 GMT -6
i've been praised for mixes from more people when i leave room for the other instruments in a mix and individually hpf/lpf to keep instruments about in these ranges. they aren't all the same, but if there's nothing there, there's nothing there.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2019 10:07:25 GMT -6
While filters are certainly designed to be problem solvers, there are no rules here. They can also be creative tools, so if using them on a whole mix gets it closer to the vibe you're chasing, and it does so more efficiently and similarly to addressing each individual track, then the science doesn't matter. Now and then it makes a mix sound more "right" to me. Often times, it's worse, just like any of the other 5,000 decisions we make on a mix. I used to 2nd guess stuff like that to a point where it would cripple me. The second I start thinking about how a 12db/8va filter is affecting things above the center frequency, I get buried in the minutia. Doesn't stop me from doing just that though. haha. Just the other day I turned 3k up all the way on a 550 and was like "wait, that can't be right." If it sounds good, I made the right choice. If it serves it's intended purpose of solving a problem, then that's great too. That, to me, is the beauty of these tools at our disposal.
I just can't get behind the idea that we shouldn't do something because some people own speakers that range from blue whale to dog whistle, and on the flip side, because other playback systems sound like the inside of a trashcan.
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Post by trakworxmastering on Oct 10, 2019 10:52:21 GMT -6
Absolutely. Use filters if/when appropriate, on a case by case basis based on what you hear.
The OP in this thread implies that they're used as a matter of course, by default. Similar info is commonly seen on forums. That is one of the problems with forums; specific techniques get repeatedly mentioned to the point where they become accepted as gospel. They're not. No EQ setting should ever be considered a default. That's not using your ears, it's just lazy.
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