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Re: Sound EQ places
| quote: | Originally posted by Johann84
I know the rough idea but its just coming to the stage that my ears are going to exploded listening to the track over and over through my headphones and tweaking the EQ nobs. |
Stop listening at high volume, and take breaks.
Your hearing will be more accurate and less likely to be damaged.
As far as "where every sound should be," I already posted extensively about that in another thread, so I'll repost it here:
| quote: |
Mixing is about getting each element of your track to stand out so that the track as a whole will "sound" attractive and professional to your listener. There are no "exact EQ settings" for this. Every track will be different.
There are some general guidelines that go for dance music, though:
1. Loudness: [i] The kick and the bass will probably be the two loudest elements in your track. [ii] People can perceive sustained sounds very easily, so if you have a very sustained part of your track (like a pad, for example), it generally doesn't need to be that loud for people to notice it. [iii] If you have a high-frequency sound and a low-frequency sound playing at the exact same volume, people typically perceive the high-frequency one as being "louder" even though the levels are physically the same. This means that things like hi-hats probably shouldn't be too loud if you want the listening experience to be comfortable.
2. Clipping. Since you're dealing with dance music, your most frequent problems with clipping will probably happen in the frequency range down by your bass and kick. So if any element of your track will sound just fine without bass (like hi-hats, for example, or a high string / pad sound), then take the bass out of that sound using EQ. That will leave more room in the bass spectrum for other elements. Note that many sounds that don't "seem" bassy, like certain percussion samples, will often have a brief burst of bass during the attack phase. You can get rid of this with EQ.
3. Transients. A sound with a sudden, loud attack phase (beginning) is called a "transient." Transients are generally what will cause you the most problems with clipping. There are three basic ways of taming transients: [i] Setting a slower attack time on the synth sound that's causing the problem (or, for samples, dulling the attack phase by editing it manually in a wave utility). [ii] Using a compressor for automated softening of the attack phase. [iii] Simply decreasing the volume of the sound that's giving you trouble.
4. "Bright" sound. Bright sound comes from having your highs at an appropriate level, using enough high-frequency elements to tickle the ears of your listener, and making sure the elements of your track don't interfere with one another. At least that's how I think of it.
5. Panning. In getting a "pro-sounding" mix, I've found that it really helps to pan most of your percussion (the kick being an obvious exception). The general rule is that the harder you pan a sound, the more you should lower the volume, since (in my experience) hard-panned sounds can stick out really badly and annoy the listener if they're too loud.
6. Check your mix in mono. Lots of club PA systems use mono (not stereo) sound, so you need to make sure that any panned elements of your mix aren't canceling one another out when your track is played in mono.
7. Rest your ears. If you've been making music for a long time and listening to your tracks at high volumes, your ears gradually stop hearing high frequencies properly, so you may end up mixing your highs way too loud. To avoid this, take occasional breaks and try not to mix at high volumes for too long.
8. All general rules can have exceptions. |
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