high pass the kick at 75 hz to make room for the bass ?
Low pass the kick at 1000 hz ?
A limiter to prevent clipping on the master bus ?

IMO , that is some awfull advice.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV high pass the kick at 75 hz to make room for the bass ?

Yes. If you start both bass and kicks at 30 there will be too much bass and nobody will move on the floor. You will have those frequencies clashing with each other and your track will sound muddy on a club PA.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV Low pass the kick at 1000 hz ?

You can low pass higher than that but you should keep it in the low end of the spectrum where it belongs.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV A limiter to prevent clipping on the master bus ?

Well... Unless you like the sound of digital cliping a limiter should be used at the master bus. I do not know ANY producer that doesn't use some type of dynamics contol at the master bus.
But hey! live and learn... Maybe they are doing it all wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV IMO , that is some awfull advice.

This works for me.
But go ahead and give me your advise on why the frequencies of the kick should be all over the place so that the kick should compete with the lead and compete with the clap tell me why there should be no dynamics contol on the master bus whatsoever to tame peaks and prevent clipping and why it is better that both the kick and the bass start at 30 cycles for a cleaner tidier low end on a club soundsystem usually optimised for bass in the 75 cycles range.
I am waiting in anticipation.

Last edited by Existo22 on May-14-2009 at 16:58

quote:

Originally posted by Existo22 This works for me.

Let us get a sample of one of your tracks then...

most people just adjust the levels of their faders to avoid clipping. If you are using a limiter to avoid clipping, you don't know how to engineer. And i never mentioned anything about not controlling dynamics. Clipping is not dynamics and that is definately not something you should use a limiter to control. Lower the fader. You are running 24 bits, i think you can spare at least 10 db.

You mention killing the highs of a kick. It is these frequencies that actually make a kick audible. That is why most people stack a hihat sound to their kicks so that it will cut. 1000 hz highpass seems really inappropriate.

I personally think lowpassing a kick or bass is retarded in the mix. Leave that to mastering.

everyone develops their own set of tricks and techniques to mix and produce

there is no right or wrong way, just listen to what you hear


the important thing is to know HOW to do what you want to do (ie if your kick is muffled and doesnt stand out in the mix, bass is flat, etc etc)

Unfortunately there are some very bad points you make. Alot of what you recommend should probably be avoided in my opinion. Roll off at 4000hz? You especially wouldn't solo whilst equing like this. You should do it in context with the mix.

What you say about the limiter on the master buss is also riduculous as well as the stereo imaging trick. Have you tried summing to mono after using this trick? phase cancellation heaven.

quote:

Originally posted by RichieV most people just adjust the levels of their faders to avoid clipping. If you are using a limiter to avoid clipping, you don't know how to engineer.

This is why a limiter is made for to ''limit.''
Who would have thought? It is right in the ****** word.
A loud fx crash. A snare roll and youre over zero with no dynamics control. But don't use any dynamics contol on your bus.
It is your track.

quote:

[i][b]You mention killing the highs of a kick. It is these frequencies that actually make a kick audible. That is why most people stack a hihat sound to their kicks so that it will cut. 1000 hz highpass seems really inappropriate.

No. I did not say kill them I said roll them off.

A 6db low pass is very appropriate to keep the low end in the low end of the spectum were it belongs.

Similary you should keep the sounds that occupy the higher end of the spectrum in... yes you guessed right the high end...
Who would have thought?

I actually remember reading a gabriel and dresden remix interview.
He mentioned using low pass and high pass filters to keep the sounds were they belong sonicaly.

I took gabriels advise and my music strated sounding a lot better but if you think it is bad advise then fuck it. Dont use them.
Run all your sounds full on and stack em on top of each other.
See if I care.

Josh Gabriel on vocals:
''Leaving several vocals with all the high end in place ends up being overload for the ears, Gabriel adds. “If I take off all the things that are killing high end, watch what happens — it hurts,” he says. “In this case, we're using a shelf, so if we pull 5 dB down from 5,600 Hz, it's like the vocals are losing a little bit of the edge. It just gives the feeling that they're falling behind because they don't have the same cutting power. And then to kill the bass, I've got a highpass filter at 1,100. It doesn't sound full, but it's acting as an in-between.”

On kicks and basses:

choosing a bass rhythm in which there's nothing on the downbeat or fading in or EQing it, taking the low end out only when the kick is happening — whatever we can do to get rid of the kick conflicting with something else,” Gabriel says.

To keep things from getting in the way of the kick (and for a general economical use of space in the mix), Gabriel and Dresden use a lot of shelving filters to take away high and low end. “You'd be surprised at how much you can take away from something and have it still function,”


Full interview.

http://remixmag.com/mag/remix_fresh_air/index.html

quote:

I personally think lowpassing a kick or bass is retarded in the mix. Leave that to mastering.

Mastering can't do fuck to fix a bad mix.
And a mix were the kick and the bass are fighting with each other is a bad mix.
The best mastering in the world can fix that problem it can only try to hide it.

Some good points but written terribly
Nonetheless thanks for your efforts Existo22

___________________

quote:

A loud fx crash. A snare roll and youre over zero with no dynamics control

Have you ever heard of headroom? Just brickwall limiting peaks like these will take away the "snap" or punch of the sounds themselves. Why not leave headroom and leave this work for the mastering engineer?

And why would you want to solo a instrument and make a low-pass rollof from 4khz? Why not eq the instrument in relation to the rest of the track? If you need to be making huge cuts like this, it may be best to just choose a better sound to begin with.

Everything should be done in relation to everything else when working on a mix.

Haven't gone through all of them yet - Thanks for sharing, this forum needs more of this.

Existo - could I suggest that this be a work in progress and maybe you could amend it and update as people chip in their suggestions. Stuff like this can be useful for a lot of people, having it for reference and possibly making it sticky worthy?

Screen shots might also help build a better tutorial.

Anyway - just suggestions if you can be bothered and thanks again for sharing.

Does your DAW have faders ? What bit rate do you mix in ?

Why use a limiter when you can fix the problem without. it seems like most of your advice is just taken from other tutorials except that in the process, you distort the original message.

Your advice is the sort of advice that doesn't teach people to engineer, it teaches people to think they have to eq every channel, compress every channel, lowpass everything in the low end, highpass everything in the higher registers. In essence , it is this sort of thinking that has created a generation of over engineered shitty sounding music. It isn't that all your information is incorrect but i really have a hard time taking anyone seriously when they preach about putting a limiter on the master bus. For me , that killed your credibility

Last edited by RichieV on May-14-2009 at 19:01