Hi everyone,

Lately, I have been dealing with a dilemma in my sub-region. I'm from an era where the internet is your mentor and with that, I have to take any suggestion carefully.

For years I've been seeing people from left to right talking about cutting this and that (highpass, low shelf, etc.) for cleaner results. Now, the narrative is changing. "Don't touch the low, less is more. You will kill the pure sine waveform". not mentioning phase shifting or the addition of upper harmonics.

So coming from a place where I believe "only one" element should survive that range. What should be my strategy for the approach? If it sounds right should I not worry? What is your take?

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Unfortunately, everything is turned upside down and what professional sound engineers have invented and told us is questioned, this leads to even more chaos and even worse music. If we listen to older recordings from the 80s / 90s, we can hear much better music than today.

First of all, EQ should be used as little as possible. If, for example, the base drum and bass guitar get in each other's way because they have similar frequencies, you have to cut or boost the right frequencies for one instrument so that each instrument comes into its own in the mix. You should always EQ and cut frequencies first.

Sometimes you have to intervene massively with the EQ if an instrument does not fit into the mix. Actually, you should rather re-record an instrument with better quality. My tip is do not read everything that is published, but buy a reference book by Bob Katz or Bobby Owsinki. The wheel can not be invented.

 

How glad I am, that I'm not in that position.

 

well , if ir sounds good don't worry about it , use a reface track , play back the mix on few systems .
i don't think there is anything like 100% perfect , or a method,
i do the both , sometimes it sounds more punchy when i do a low cut like 30hz and sometimes it kills a feel , so i think it is dependent on what you want .
also it is going to be infected with all the cocktail on the master anyways .

 

Exactly, low shelf, often forgotten. You don't even need to cut anything, shelving often is sufficient.

I'm, reducing the unwanted low end part in sounds - if they are too loud. Be it 20Hz in a BD, 60Hz in a guitar or 200Hz in something else. I'm doing this by analyzer and ear and the sole reason for this is, so far it worked for me. I'm not cutting anything because some says I have to and I don't change my approach because someone says I have to, only if it doesn't work anymore.

 

There is a very good multi-part online training made by Bobby O on LinkedIN learning. IDK if its available for free but one can use a test membership for LinkedIN learning to view it.

 

I'll have a look on those. Thank you for the input BEAT16!

 

Right, I guess I'm overthinking the technicality over the feeling of the track.

 

To work with bass you really need to hear it, there is absolutely no substitute.

Relying on any analyser is like trusting the protein listing on the back of a microwave meal to tell you how it's going to taste. Unless you have a very capable monitoring environment (and monitors) I wouldn't recommend any processing below 100Hz.

A low shelf on an EQ does exactly that, reduces the gain below a set frequency. However, reducing the gain means there is still signal present that can create problems on a club system. If you're serious about your music and its quality, send it to a stem mastering engineer to work on the bottom end for you.

If you're not serious; phasing, low end rumble and any other problems aren't important so do whatever you feel is right.

 

Sounds nasty, your doc should be able to give you a cream for that.

I don't think there's really some single 'narrative' that's changing - some people have always taken the approach of keeping the lows super clean, others have always left them "untouched". It will continue to be that way because people are different.

As for what you should do? Experiment. Try both ways, then try 4 other ways too, and see what you like. Keep experimenting with every track you work on, because unless you're using the exact same elements, with extremely similar arrangements, what works / is appropriate for one track will fall flat on the next.

Eventually, if you're paying attention, you'll see some of your personal preferences emerging (you're already aware of one re: keeping a 'clean' low end) - take note of them, and they'll give you more informed starting points to work from moving forward.

The absolute most important thing is that you do what serves the track best - whatever that may be. Sometimes that might be a super-clean, surgical low end. Sometimes it might be the nastiest, flubbiest filth imaginable - up to you to make the call.

Technical ability / "book learning" will only get you so far. The much more important aspect of the job is being able to make decisions based on your taste, and having the confidence to stand by them.

For most of us, that can sometimes be scary af, regardless of how long we may have been doing this, but look at literally any great musician , producer, mixer, whatever - doesn't matter era or genre, that's the one thing they all have in common.

It's also what makes you, you; and what will set you apart.

Personally I wouldn't be as dogmatic about it. But if you know that what you like to hear is a single lone element down in the low end, then that's what sounds right to you, so go for it.

As to how to achieve that - well either you do it via arrangement, or sound selection, or mixing. Most likely it'll be a combo of all of them.

But I wouldn't overthink it, it's not rocket science - if you only wanna hear one thing in your sub region, then only put one thing in the sub region. If there's something else in there too, then take it out - either edit the arrangement, or filter it out.

Then listen, and see if it's vibing for you. If so, great! Move on and don't obsess. If not, then play around until it does.

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Last edited: Apr 14, 2022

This is a good example of how someone has formed their own opinion of how they want to get to the sounds they hear in their head, and that's great!

The only thing I would say is, remember that this is one person's opinion - probably based on what works for them and their personal aesthetic.

It could also come from them researching how records they really admire were made, or any one of a dozen other places.


I personally don't adhere to that same opinion - and for the way I work, and the range of differents artists / genres I work with, it would be WILDLY impractical!

I do sometimes - say I'm doing a location choir recording, then yeah, I'll prob wanna do very little to it.

But if I'm working on an alt-rock track that has 20 guitar overdubs; or maybe I'm using a take of a lead vocal that the artist recorded on their phone right before they went to bed, but it perfectly captured the spirit of the song, better than the takes done earlier in the day in the studio? (Yes, this has actually happened).

Then yeah, if necessary within the context of the track, I'm gonna eq the shit outta it to get it to where it needs to be!

Remember - at the end of the day, 99.9999% of listeners literally don't give a single shit about how you got the sounds they're hearing. What's important is that you make them feel something.

Whether you never touched something with eq, or you stacked 7 different eq plugins to get the sound you wanted, if it gets you to a track that speaks to people, then it was the right call.

Obviously it can be really useful to learn / figure out what techniques were used on records you admire - that's how we learn and find new inspiration.

But personally speaking, as someone who does this for a living (with all the weird obsessive nerdy tendencies that tends to entail!) - when I hit play on a track, I literally couldn't care less how you made it, I just want the hairs on the backs of my arms to stand up*...



(*This is literally one of the things I use to tell whether a track is done, and it tells me more than any analyser, lufs reading, etc - if I can get that track to a point where, even after hearing it 500 times, I can create that subconscious emotional response, then I know we're in a good place)

 

Last edited: Apr 14, 2022

the most "compelling" argument i've heard about this cut-it-all approach really comes down to loudness. If you have a lot going on on the sub region you're using energy that may not really be appreciated by the average listener, but will definetively affect you peak or RMS meters. So the logic there is that the less overall subs you have the more level you can achieve on the master, and cutting individual tracks on the subs leaves more level free for what really needs to be there.

HOWEVER, that comes from an era where normalization and lufs weren't a thing, so it really doesn't apply anymore unless you need a really loud end result for some reason (and i'm talking LOUD loud).

Also keep in mind that even in a well isolated recording enviroment, some recordings may still pick up a lot of noise below frequencies of interest to whatever you're recording, while whatever you're recording is making sound, and that noise could become audible. You don't HAVE to cut the subs all the time, you have tools to deal with that nowadays if you can't re-record, but that's another reason why people do it.

No need to worry about it in general, watch for noise, test in various sepaker systems, you're good to go. But if you're expecting stupid levels of loudness in the master, be careful with what you put in the subs, and if you need to put many elements there, be extra careful with how they interact.