Low end on 2 bus

Hi passing individual elements BEFORE the mix bus generally works much better for me.  For me, it's as much a part of making a record as any other EQ or putting reverb on a vocal or moving a fader.  That said, there's usually a HPF on the mix during mastering as well....

My mentor taught: 'if you can't hear it, don't mix it.' I always took that as avoid sub freq. from the beginning and on through.

Better still while tracking, this is Where great filters come in handy!
But you need to hear what your doing and this where full range monitoring comes in!

Low pass filtering is extremely critical as well, and where most inexperienced engineers tend to back off. This is especially important if you're ITB and mixing digital. It can really smooth out mixes. Of course, don't do this if you like the peaky harsh mixes of the last decade.

If I'm stacking BV's I generally set the high-pass higher than the lead as the lower frequencies combine 'in phase' more than the higher frequencies do so the BV's can wind up sounding too thick in the lows.

thethrillfactor's posts on GS are an invaluable resource for his posts on balancing low end, midrange and effects, check them out.


Like drbill said, I find it's best to filter individual elements rather than the whole mix.

I myself prefer not to highpass overheads for instance because I like kick in the overheads and use the spot mics more as fill mics. Same with any rumble/noise issues in tracking, I just move the mics if I can, try solve low end issues with shock mounting and placement rather than commit to filtering.

I think it's good besides in the car to check levels on cheaper speakers because often the first harmonic will hit the built in limiter of shitty computer speakers. Likewise if my drum bus compressor is reacting strongly to the low end, I know there's a problem with the drum mix. Using a highpass on a stereo or mix compressor is way too tempting these days, but people did without them for years.

The mixes with best low end I've heard are not super boosted, it's more of a perception thing. Like the kick has size because of the front of kit mic giving a natural room decay, not because of some crazy eqing of the low end of a mic jammed inside, or the bass guitar is cutting through the arrangement at just the right moments, or has a woody tone.

I do filter the hell out of effects returns though.

I find that once you get above 30hz it can be really detrimental to your low end to hpf, you can mess with the balls and phase balance if you start cutting willy-nilly. As a rule I don't cut above 70hz on guitars or vocals, and prefer to use gentle shelving where possible. Contrary to what a lot of people say, there seems to be a lot going on in vocals and guitars below 100hz. I even like to boost guitars if I can, a la Joe Barresi's Queens of the Stone age and Melvins work.

And any resonance bumps above the cutoff can sound good but then the harmonic above the resonant fundamental can cause issues in midrange.

I tend to like a little high shelf cut or 6db LPF on electric guitars if I'm incorporating condensers. I'll gate a room mic to the snare on occasion.

Besides that I use headphones to doublecheck anything under 45hz.

1st and 2nd order HP/LP filters are THEE shit, the butterworth slopes are the ones i prefer, they give a hell of a musical angle above and below the fundamental, in a good sounding room, you should be able to take a mic locker, use good placement and filters to come up with a very close to a properly eq'd mix, It's a must to have an understanding, and be able to hear where the fundamentals of instruments ly, then you're golden, the only reason a mastering engineer should need to filter off the bottom is if you missed a bit of lowend grunge when you mixed, or there's some kinda other problem that showed up, if i was a ME, i'd probably just do it no matter what to be safe. The absolute importance of HP/LP filtering seems surprisingly overlooked/misunderstood, show me a mix where the AE doesn't use HP filters, and i'll show you an amateur sounding mix.

Yupp have seen mixes by friends full of extreme hpf on every track. They had no balls as well as phase issues. In my opinion I have to do for every single track a new decission. 

In non ideal conditions and with monitors that are far from full range you often have lowend build up that if it hits the converter is eating up your dynamic range and if you take it out once it's digital you have lowered your effective Bit depth ! Ask your favorite mastering engineer!

Good stuff, the idea with filtering during tracking is to be conservative, u can always filter off more at mix time, I have a filter set on every track of my session templates, they don't always get used, but mostly do.

Guess I'm the odd duck. I don't use filters much here. I found there is little information below 20 hz to ever worry about, the stuff I record doesn't go below 20 hz, exceptions are a rock kick tuned low.

I do enjoy the depth and lack of phase shift from not filtering out that which isn't really there to any great amount. My top end is detailed and lushous so there is not any reason to LPF any of that out, I don't have DAW or digital generated top end hash here to remove nor ugly converters to compensate for. The analog console sum amp bandwidth is 30 mhz so there is no filtering going on nor any phase shift, unique in an all analog design.

I do have 2 pole 12 db/octave sweeping LPF and HPF here but rarely use them. Mostly I use them for reverb sends, to keep top or low end out. They are butterworth slopes or maximally flat, but they do induce a good amount of non-linear phase shift. That re-orients harmonics. Linear phase or bessel filters are not commonly found as they have a more gentle slope without waveform harmonic re-alignment. To approximate the butterworth slopes you would need to add additional poles to the response. Tuning that in analog is difficult.

Careful mic selection and placement avoids any 20 hz buildup here, it's all in proportion and natural. I do hear a lot of cardiod mic proximity effect build up on other's stuff mostly because they place the mics too close to the source adding that low end buildup. Back them off a few inches and you find that goes away.

I find very few DI bass tracks that aren't full of high level vibration/impact artifacts down almost to DC. That will really make your compression and woofers do a mystery dance.  Active, passive, transformer or not, most seem to have it.