Not everything needs to be squeaky clean and filled with high-end sheen.
Sometimes it’s useless to add “air” to certain instruments. You don’t need to, and your mix might suffer for it. In some cases, too much high-end just adds hiss and noise instead of those clean highs you wanted.
Give the Low-Pass Filter Some Love
If the high-end isn’t there to begin with, it’s redundant to try to add it with EQ.
Some instruments benefit from low-pass filtering. Either there’s something there that you don’t want to interfere with something else, or it just adds noise and unnecessary energy.
Distorted Electric Guitars
Tighten up your thick rock guitar mix by deleting some of the higher frequencies.
If you’ve recorded them with a dynamic microphone, with the distortion to the max, chances are the high-end is really only noise and hiss.
Add a low-pass filter and filter until you start hearing the signal suffer, then back off a little. You might even clean the sound up a little, since you probably added way too much distortion to begin with. :)
The Kick Drum
The beater is basically the highest-end of the kick drum. And the sound of the beater is most prominent around 2-4 kHz.
You can clean up the bass drum quite nicely by low-pass filtering everything above, say, 8 kHz. Especially if the kick drum has a bunch of cymbal and snare drum bleed. You really cut the amount of extraneous drums getting into your bass drum mic if you filter out some of that high-end.
The Bass Guitar
Filter out the high-end on a bass track if you want a smoother sound. If the bass is just a low sounding groove then you don’t need the high-end.
If your bass just acts as a grooving pad-type sound with a bunch of other instruments taking care of the rest of the arrangement you can safely filter out its high-end. It’s also a good way to get rid of the string sound of the bass, for a smoother sound.
Reverbs
Sometimes, reverbs add annoying sibilance to vocals. Some reverbs can also sound just a tad too bright.
If you like the reverb, then EQ it and make it fit better. Either filter out the high-end or cut it with some high shelving. You want the space the reverb gives you, but you don’t need the sibilance or the brightness bouncing off the walls.
Don’t be Afraid
Hey, don’t be afraid of filtering. Some instruments just don’t need all that high-end, and being a little drastic on the filter can make your mix sound better.
Try the low-pass filter the next time you’re having high-end or hiss issues. It just might work.
No comments:
Post a Comment