Frequency Filters on the mixer, How???

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-- Frequency Filters on the mixer, How???

Posted by humgalin on Apr-06-2004 07:19:

Frequency Filters on the mixer, How???

it has been 4 monthes since i bought my tascam x-9, & i cant believe im still not using the mixer in its full potential

its just that i cant figure out what those frequency knobs are for anyways. and how to adjust them properly to make the sounds much more cleaner.

i really need someone to clarify the use of frequency knobs

Posted by Dervish on Apr-07-2004 04:12:

I don't know that particular mixer but firstly your eq's are filters. Secondly if you were gonna use filters to get a better s/n ratio you'd be cutting of your freqency responce. Also that would only through the mixer itself and it have relativly short signal paths at relativly high voltage(i.e. not phono) so unless its some really special thing which I'm not undersatnding I dunno why you'd need to.

Actually are you just talking about the eq's? And I'm I a fanny.

Posted by humgalin on Apr-07-2004 04:31:

quote:
I don't know that particular mixer but firstly your eq's are filters. Secondly if you were gonna use filters to get a better s/n ratio you'd be cutting of your freqency responce. Also that would only through the mixer itself and it have relativly short signal paths at relativly high voltage(i.e. not phono) so unless its some really special thing which I'm not undersatnding I dunno why you'd need to.

i just found out that the frequency knobs i hv on my tascam x9 ar actually """"low pass filters""""

theres one frequency knob for hi, mid, and low in every channel.....and i hv been playing around with it to see how they sound

but the difference of sound is almost unnoticable

can somebody help me out on this, i really appreciate it

Posted by Dervish on Apr-07-2004 05:46:

Well firstly thouse are your eq's. You take the bass outta one normally drop it in and then fade between the bass of the two. Normally I mean that a standard thing. Secondly they arn't all "low" pass(less low freqs pass) the bass one is a "low" pass, the mid is a "band" pass (lets a band of freqs pass)" and the high is a "high pass(lets high freqs pass)". They are just ment to make mixes sound less "muddy" really. But you can be really creative with them.

Edit: And yes before I was being a fanny

Posted by humgalin on Apr-07-2004 07:10:

quote:
Well firstly thouse are your eq's. You take the bass outta one normally drop it in and then fade between the bass of the two. Normally I mean that a standard thing. Secondly they arn't all "low" pass(less low freqs pass) the bass one is a "low" pass, the mid is a "band" pass (lets a band of freqs pass)" and the high is a "high pass(lets high freqs pass)". They are just ment to make mixes sound less "muddy" really. But you can be really creative with them.

, jeez....those things ar very technical the way u sound it. i understand hi, mid, and low filters..

but im not quit sure how to adjust those levels to make the mix much more smooth, coz as i was saying....then only alter the sound very little.

can u clarify a bit how to properly use those filters?? thanx

Posted by Dervish on Apr-07-2004 12:11:

Ok. You have song A playing full vol.

You wanna mix in song B.
Both songs have alot of bass(for example).

First before you even start bringing in B cut out (that it turn down the bass on B).

Then bring in song B upto lets say full vol too.

Now turn down the bass of song A while turning up the bass of song B.

Then fade out song A, using either the cross fader or channel fader.

Easy explaintion for doing that is when you mix to channels full volume it's too much for the mixer so you cut out the high powered bass section so the mixer can handle it. Basicly makes the mix less "muddy" and clearer.

The point of the cutting the bass is that if both bass line were together mixing togeather they would be really loud, but when you make the mixer try to supply something really loud in a mixer which can only do so much the mixer will be "saturating" with the beat.

That is the mixer gets to a point where it can't supply anymore power. And what happens is your beats(low freq rember) at even relativly low volume parts of them (i.e. the start) add up to the highest amount the mixer can supply so it saturates (goes boom, makes the sound not explosion ) then contines onto the higher bit(highest volume part of the beat) can't go any further so it's still going boom, then gets to the end of the beat still going boom as hard as it can. And at all these points it's the biggest boom the mixer can supply. So it goes booooooooom instead of ba boom ba. With ba just meaning other bits of sound basicly what makes a beat sound differnt. So if you don't do that you get really big boring muddy beats during mixes and large sound level drops when you mix out.

Posted by las3rjock on Apr-07-2004 12:16:

Using EQs is very simple. The bass controls, well, the bass, so you can use it to boost or suppress basslines, kick drums, etc. The mid allows you to boost or suppress most instruments, synths, vocals, etc. The high/treble allows you to boost or suppress high hats, for example. The way they allow you to make your mixes smoother is that they give your control over when to bring in specific elements of track like the bassline, vocals, or high hats.

As for why your EQs are having little/no effect, are you just mixing in your headphones? I believe some mixers have their headphone output pre-EQ and others have their headphone output post-EQ. If the headphone output of the Tascam is pre-EQ, then you won't hear your EQ adjustments in your headphones. Anyway, even on my cheapo Behringer DJX-700 the effect of the EQs is very noticiable, since each knob allows up to 12 dB of gain or 32 dB of cut.

Posted by DjJade on Apr-07-2004 15:47:

well first thing you need to understand is that the pitch of a sound corresponds to uts frequency. so the higher the frequency the higher the sounds are. music is full range which means that you have high frequency waves riding on lower frequnecy waves riding on yet lower and so on...

filters cut the frequencies whereas eqs only lower the gain of a range of frequencies. so your typical low eq will probably have a range of 20-120hz. when you turn the eq down you lower the gain by... say 26db [on my mixer]. this is equivalent to having a volume control that only controls the bass range and turning it down about 10 steps. same thing goes for mids and highs... so you have three volume knobs that control three parts of the full range of your music, shaping it any way you like.

filters, on the other hand, cut the frequencies. so its frequency specific, not range specific.

a high pass filter allows everything to pass that is higher than the frequency that you set. so turn the knob all the way to the lowest frequency, turn on the filter on...nothing happens becuase you have everything set to pass. but if you gradually turn the frequency knob to higher frequencies you will notice that every frequency higher than that knob is allowed to pass. everything else is cut.

same thing goes with the low pass except its the opposite of the highpass..so you turn the knob to the highest frequency, turn on the filter, nothing happens. but if you gradually go down the frequencies you will hear everything higher getting cut off.

bandpass lets a limited range of frequencies pass that is centered where your knob is set.

i believe you can turn on multiple filters at the same time. basic combos are the high and low which will make a flanger effect. if you use all of them and turn the resonance up...thats cool too.

your mix shape really depends on how you want the mix to sound. if you have one track that has smooth highs with like a long synth, and you are bringing in a chopier track with a more aparent kick, i personally would not mix in highs first. i will fade in the next track with a low pass filter set to allow everyting up to like a low midbass to pass and then slowly allow the rest of hte song to pass as the mix progresses

if i have two songs with a similar kick or snare, then i would bring the next song in mixing similar sounds. in this case i would have a high pass with the frequency set on a high treble or a higher midbass depending. and i would gradually let the rest in as the mix progresses naturally.

theres alot you can do with filters so just keep practicing. the good thing about filters is that you can control both the range and the gain [by your faders] so it can essentially work like an eq. the only differnce is that with an eq you have more control of the actual shape of your frequencies. both filters and eqs have their positives and negatives.

Posted by humgalin on Apr-07-2004 22:59:

sorry guys, i made a confusion in my third reply. i know how to use hi, mid, and bass eq. wht i doh get is how to use the frequency filter knobs that ar on my tascam x9 mixer.

if u donno this, there's one individual low-pass frequency knob beneath every hi, mid, low knob in every channel. thats the ones giving me a headache, i tried playing with the frequency filters.....but it only varies the sound very little that theres almost no difference at all!!!

quote:
same thing goes with the low pass except its the opposite of the highpass..so you turn the knob to the highest frequency, turn on the filter, nothing happens. but if you gradually go down the frequencies you will hear everything higher getting cut off.

hey jade, would decreasing the frequency in a low pass filter, cut the sounds noticeably....coz my mixer doesn't. but i see there's a effect also called "low pass filter" in my mixer. does it hv anything to do with the frequency knobs under every hi, mid, low knob??

Posted by DjJade on Apr-07-2004 23:57:

i have had no experience using that mixer... furthermore i cannot see what the knob labels are.

heres what mine looks like.

i recorded some sound samples for you...

http://www.jadedbeats.net/filters/hpf.mp3
ok this is my high pass filter. it starts wtih the knob all the way down so everything passes. i have the resonance all the way down and you can hear me cut once, bring it all back, then cut it again with the resonance up all the way. then you can hear me doing it fast so you can hear the difference.

http://www.jadedbeats.net/filters/lpf.mp3
here i start wiht the frequency knob all the way over to the highest so everything below it passes. then you can hear me cut again with the resonance all the way up. you can hear the treble ring when i turn it on. then i use low resonance. then i do it fast alternating between high and low resonance

http://www.jadedbeats.net/filters/bpf.mp3
here i start high and turn the knob down with the resonance low. then high

http://www.jadedbeats.net/filters/hpf_lpf.mp3
heres the flanger effect with the hpf and lpf first with the resonance down and then up

http://www.jadedbeats.net/filters/full.mp3
this is every filter on with the resonance up so you can hear each frequency resonating as i move the frequency knob. then at the end i used hpf and bpf with a moderate resonance setting before i cut the sound off.

if you arent getting a sound like this i think its most likely becuase your mixer has some sort of filter loop or soemthing so you can hear the main and the filter at the same time? perhaps you need to figure out how to only hear the filters output or soemthing. thats just a guess. like i said, i have had no experience with the tascam. my mixer is an allen and heath xone62

i hope this helps

Posted by humgalin on Apr-08-2004 00:55:

jade

shit man, the sound is nuthing like urs. there has to be something wrong with my mixer, b/c i hv try all kinds of reasearch and experiement with my mixer, but the frequency filter just doesn't sound right(doesn't change thes ound at all)

it can be either some of tascam x9's features ar automatic, e.g. flanger, and Low pass filter 2. but even after i turned on the low pass filter effect, and i played around with the frequency knobs, the sounds ar still the way it is with LPF on

i think i hv to bring back the mixer to see if there's hardware problem. thanx for all the great help

Posted by Bernd_Gradish on Apr-08-2004 19:01:

Wow, damn interesting topic guys

Now I know that my mixer is shit for sure...

Posted by hooj1 on Apr-10-2004 05:38:

Just to let you know that Tascam mixer has a chip in it to control the filters. I heard a few weeks ago that they were coming out with a new one that has a much better sound. Your mixer is working fine, but if you want more drastic cuts look into getting this new chip.

Posted by humgalin on Apr-10-2004 17:34:

hey guys.....i finally discovered that, the frequency knobs in my tascam x9 isn't low pass filters, my mistake at first at place

it actually allows u to switch to the frequency range of sound u can control with ur hi, mid, low. i played around with those "hi, mid, low after i adjusted the frequency knobs,and theres dramatic change to the sound.

its much like xone 62 wich provide, hi, mid2, mid1, and low at four different frequency level. but in fact x9 offers adjustable frequency level for ur sounds. if u put it in this way, u really hv more than 3 knobs of hi, mid, low eq by changing the frequency ....like hi1, hi2, mid1, mid2 mid3, low1, low2, low3, and so on