I keep wanting to boost the high end...

Jarvis14

New member
In all of my songs, I get stuck in the trap of boosting the high end way too much to make things more clear and crisp. It's gotten to the point where I'll import a commercial EDM track into FL Studio as a reference, and it actually sounds better (to me) when I boost the high end of the commercial track, which obviously isn't right - and when I take off the boost, it sounds dull and muffled to my ears... My perception of clarity has become skewed; it's not so much a technical issue as it is a mental one... I know how to tame high frequencies and cut out harsh ones, but when I'm working with a track, I don't seem to WANT to/it's not instinctive for me to do so. What's instinctive is to boost the high end consistently to achieve "clarity" and as a result my mixes come out thin and weak. Here's my latest track so you can hear what I'm talking about - the problem is most apparent in the drop:


https://soundcloud.com/j-rvis/kap-slap-let-it-all-out-jarvis-remix


So my question is, anyone else having this problem? Or had it, and subsequently solved it? If so, how? I know it's a common problem for beginners, but I'm not really a beginner anymore, yet the problem lingers...
 
Nice track but it hurts my ears to listen to it. My reference headphones and PC speakers are not very sensitive to the high end of the spectrum but my Sennheiser earphones are. And it's like there's a layer of hiss over your entire track. Because my equipment doesn't give me a true impression of high frequencies, I tend to boost them a little and watch the results in the Spectrum frequency plugin in Live 9. But I only give about a 1dB shelf boost. What you've got there sounds like about 10dB.
 
I was to stuck in this phase of boosting the highs and it does sound better in my head still. I've finally started to view instruments a certain way and how they fit together and it's starting to make more sense to me now.

This may sound like a strange solution because it's exactly what you mentioned, but really try cutting some of highs(or mid/lows) out of the instruments that don't really need it in comparison to the other instruments in your track.

Think of it like this:
When you're boosting the highs on your master/channel it's sort of TRANSFERRING frequencies from the lows/mids and pushing it towards the highs, while the overall track sounds loud and crisp, in reality you're moving some of these lower-powerful frequencies up. You're pushing all the instruments up and they're all essentially "clashing" in the high frequencies and nothing is really "popping" as it's own instrument but all as a in-cohesive whole. This is what I thought mixing was, have everything pop and sound all as one... I've come to realize that you actually want your instruments to be as different as possible in terms of frequency - so each element jumps at you and grabs attention that wasn't there before they came in.

For that real crisp/loud sound you need everything in it's own place,(Which you understand) but hear me out, if your lead covers frequencies of 2k-18k and you have a high-pitched hihat, make a cut at 13-15k on the lead, and boost it in the hihats in the same area. Here's what you should notice: Cutting that 13-15k on the lead kind of "lowered" it in the mix, not volume but sound placement. (Lower frequencies gives the impression of it being "down" while, higher frequencies make the feeling of sounds being "up", or above in the mix.

Think of this when you're mixing. Do you want your lead to be super high and crisp? then make contrast by creating other things lower in the mix (maybe a fat lower-end snare, hihats boosted at 8k instead of 13k, etc)

All in all, what I'm trying to say is focus on clarity of each instrument in the mix.

Take this all with a grain of salt, I'm still pretty new to mixing. Just what's working for me so right now.
 
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Nice track but it hurts my ears to listen to it. My reference headphones and PC speakers are not very sensitive to the high end of the spectrum but my Sennheiser earphones are. And it's like there's a layer of hiss over your entire track. Because my equipment doesn't give me a true impression of high frequencies, I tend to boost them a little and watch the results in the Spectrum frequency plugin in Live 9. But I only give about a 1dB shelf boost. What you've got there sounds like about 10dB.

Thanks for the feedback. I compared my track with a reference track and boosted the high end of the reference track until they sounded similar and you're right, it's about 10dB too high. But how do you recommend I get out of the mindset of wanting everything super clear and crisp? Like I said in my original post, I'm even tempted to boost the high end of commercial tracks to make them more clear, which leads me to believe that my actual perception of clarity is messed up somehow... When I try to avoid boosting the high end on individual instruments, it feels like I'm just making really dull, muffled sounds.
 
How/what are you monitoring with? I have to agree with garryknight, that track of yours sounds super nasty due to the extreme high-end boost. Not that boosting the highs is wrong as such, but you're clearly overdoing it here. A lot.
 
How/what are you monitoring with? I have to agree with garryknight, that track of yours sounds super nasty due to the extreme high-end boost. Not that boosting the highs is wrong as such, but you're clearly overdoing it here. A lot.

I'm just using headphones - Audio Technica M50s, but I can recognize that the high end is too sharp on the headphones or on any other medium, so I don't think this is a problem related to monitoring. How do you recommend I remedy this problem? When I cut the high end, it sounds muffled and dull to my ears.
 
A boost in the 3.5 KHz region can help you to keep highs under control.

Can you elaborate on that? Do you mean that boosting the 3.5Khz region will provide me with enough clarity to cut the higher frequencies like 6-10Khz? I rarely boost the 3.5Khz region because I find that sometimes harsh frequencies tend to exist there.
 
a small boost at 3.5kHz (some say 2kHz, others say 4kHz) will improve the presence of the sound overall, making it seem closer to you

as for your problem, you probably have some hearing loss in the range above 2kHz and are trying to compensate for this by boosting your high end

solutions do not exist: you cannot undo hearing loss

you can compensate for your problem after you have your hearing tested by adding a control room only eq profile to your that is the opposite of your hearing loss: if a frequency is down 3db you boost that freq by 3db and so on

the other issue may be that your headphone response curve is colouring your judgement - the athm50s have a bass boost and treble cut profile everything above 2kHz is significantly down when compared to everything below 250Hz

again compensating for this curve with an anti-curve may help to even out your mixes
 
Hmm, yea that was incredibly harsh in the high end.

Just to add on to what was already said here, another possibility is maybe you have not learned to fully appreciate the power of the midrange just yet. I remember the "smiley" EQ used to sound really good to my ears. It was mostly because I assumed all that midrange stuff was just muddiness. But I started analyzing songs a lot more and realized how much "flatter" they actually were. Took a while, but I became accustomed to more balanced frequencies.

I think it will be an issue of recalibrating your ears over time to get used to a different kind of sound. Perhaps your hearing in the higher end is a bit altered, but you can certainly get around that.

Something you should consider doing is getting a good frequency analyzer and take a very close look at what is shows you. Import commercial tracks and look at it. Look at your own tracks as well and think about what you see.
 
a small boost at 3.5kHz (some say 2kHz, others say 4kHz) will improve the presence of the sound overall, making it seem closer to you

as for your problem, you probably have some hearing loss in the range above 2kHz and are trying to compensate for this by boosting your high end

solutions do not exist: you cannot undo hearing loss

you can compensate for your problem after you have your hearing tested by adding a control room only eq profile to your that is the opposite of your hearing loss: if a frequency is down 3db you boost that freq by 3db and so on

the other issue may be that your headphone response curve is colouring your judgement - the athm50s have a bass boost and treble cut profile everything above 2kHz is significantly down when compared to everything below 250Hz

again compensating for this curve with an anti-curve may help to even out your mixes

I appreciate the feedback, but if I was suffering from hearing loss in the higher frequencies, wouldn't I be unable to tell that my high end is too harsh? I can definitely recognize that my higher frequencies are too harsh, it's just that I've been spending the last couple of years boosting the high end on everything, so I'm in kind of a rut that I'm trying to dig myself out of. I'll look into getting proper monitors; I didn't know the ath m50s had a bass boost/treble cut. Thanks.
 
The 128 Kbps playback isn't the best to evaluate harshness? Can't you provide a lossless download link?
The SoundCloud sound is terrible in streaming.
 
Hmm, yea that was incredibly harsh in the high end.

Just to add on to what was already said here, another possibility is maybe you have not learned to fully appreciate the power of the midrange just yet. I remember the "smiley" EQ used to sound really good to my ears. It was mostly because I assumed all that midrange stuff was just muddiness. But I started analyzing songs a lot more and realized how much "flatter" they actually were. Took a while, but I became accustomed to more balanced frequencies.

I think it will be an issue of recalibrating your ears over time to get used to a different kind of sound. Perhaps your hearing in the higher end is a bit altered, but you can certainly get around that.

Something you should consider doing is getting a good frequency analyzer and take a very close look at what is shows you. Import commercial tracks and look at it. Look at your own tracks as well and think about what you see.

This is exactly the answer I was looking for. I always tend to cut the mid range to prevent mud, and boost the highs to promote clarity. How long did it take you to recalibrate your ears, and how exactly did you go about doing that? I'm hesitant to accept that I've suffered hearing loss, partially because that would really suck, and also because when I listen to commercial EDM tracks, they sound incredibly crisp and clean. It's only when I compare them with my own tracks do they, by COMPARISON, seem dull and muffled. The songs on your soundcloud, for example, sound great to my ears. I think I misled people in my original post into thinking that every commercial song I hear sounds dull all the time - this isn't the case at all.

When you were in that smiley EQ phase, is it fair to say that if you took off the high-end boosts from all of your instruments to achieve a more commercial EQ balance, it would sound dull to your ears? Just trying to see how similar my problem is to what you experienced.
 
The 128 Kbps playback isn't the best to evaluate harshness? Can't you provide a lossless download link?
The SoundCloud sound is terrible in streaming.

Yeah sure... What's the best way to do that - is there a specific website where I can post the song? I've never done that before. Also, the high end boost is pretty extreme and noticeable even on SC, and that's all I really wanted to analyze in this thread haha
 
Kap Slap - Let It All Out (Jarvis Remix16b).gif
Obviously, something is wrong in your monitoring. Are you sure you tweeters are still alive?
 

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Obviously, something is wrong in your monitoring. Are you sure you tweeters are still alive?

I've never analyzed a song like this... Can you explain where the problem is (like which graph reveals the problem)? I understand the basics of these graphs but I can't pinpoint what's wrong. I'm using the Ath M50 headphones, which are decent... commercial tracks sound great on them. I'm not oblivious to the harshness in my song, I know that it sounds terrible; just wondering how I can re-train my ears to get out of the habit of always boosting the high end.
 
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