I'm still a little skeptical on the subject of mid range and space...
Only because you're the only person here who seems to be saying it dvyce. That is the only reason I am challenging it, as I don't want to just believe the first guy that posted it.
you need to read more stuff from reputable people. I am not the first one to say this. This is not some crazy technique I invented. This is normal mixing stuff.
You can have frequency masking in places other than the low mids and lower. You don't want everything bright either, otherwise the details of some important instruments will get masked.
"Frequency masking" is not a real thing.
and...
If your sounds are "bright" then they are "bright".
If you don't want everything "bright", then don't use only "bright" sounds.
EQ will not change where your instruments lay in the frequency spectrum.
If all you have are high pianos, flutes, female vocals, glockenspiels, high synths and violins, EQ wont change your high synths into bass synths, your violins into cellos, your high piano notes into low ones, and your glockenspiels into church bells.
The instruments are where they are.
If your piano is too bright, you can cut some of the high end... but you don't need to cut the high end to make "room" for the flutes.
THey don't "mask" each other.
get it?
So if you're saying frequencies can get masked and you just aren't "carving out space" then maybe we are just having different definitions.
I am NOT.
I am saying frequencies DO NOT get masked.
Because if I have mud, and I cut out low mids, frankly that IS carving out space. That's saying hey, these two instruments are clashing, and I want one to have more low mids than the other.
That is NOT carving out space... space for what?
It is not saying two instruments are "clashing".
You can have a solo piano that sounds "muddy".
Let's say you are playing notes somewhere around the middle range of the instrument.
The microphone will pick up sounds from the instrument and the environment that you don't because it is unnecessary to the sound of the instrument you are trying to capture.
The whole piano vibrates when you play it and you get unwanted low resonance from the notes you are playing and from incidental vibrations of the other strings you are not playing, so you roll off low frequencies that remove that unnecessary garbage (that you may not even be able to hear with your ear) while not even affecting the intended sound of the instrument. You removed low rumble and dissonance that muddies up your sound.
And you may bring up some upper mids because it makes the piano sound more pleasing.
You just made the piano less "muddy" but you did not do it for the purpose of "making space" for something else.
You don't need to remove that low end to "make space" for a bass.
You remove the low end because it is detrimental to the piano sound on it's own.
Instruments that work together do not "clash"... and instruments that "clash" do not work together.
You can have a kick and a bass without them "clashing"... you can have a piano and a vocal without them "clashing"...
and, further, it is about the particular sound in the particular situation... different situations will call for the need to blend sounds differently. Maybe in one song, you want things subtle... sometime you want things to stand out.
I do like the approach that you eq based on how you want the instrument to sound, but the idea that "carving out space is bullshit" doesn't seem right... But the way you proposed it originally was like you were saying not to do it in a graphical sense (like saying "Oh I'll just cut this violin at 250 and then boost this guitar at 250), which of course is bad.
That is not how I proposed it originally. I did mention the phenomenon of those ridiculous frequency charts people like so much to post online saying it is a guideline for mixing... which is bullshit.
but everything I am saying is simply: you don't need to "carve space" from one instrument to "make room" for another. Regardless of how you want to look at it.
Last thing, regarding a sounds "timbre" and how things can't operate in the same space, that doesn't really sound right either. First of all, you can absolutely have instruments occupying the same range, it's not completely different ranges just because they don't have the same timbre. The timbre is from harmonics and formants, which are parts of the frequency spectrum.
I surely did not say that.
What I DID say is that the character of a sound is much more than the "frequencies" that show up on a spectrum analyzer... and that all those other things (harmonics, formants, overtones, etc) are what make the character of a sound.
...and, you know what? i will go so far as to say that having different instruments occupying the same frequency range will make your recording sound BETTER... rather than "masking" anything, it will bring out the best from the song and give you a fuller more harmonious mix.
SO...
The sounds are the sounds.
Regardless of how you EQ them, they are still the same sounds.
Once you start cutting into the relevant frequency ranges that the instruments occupy, they will just begin to sound "filtered"...
...and if you cut frequencies that are unnecessary, that is all about the sound itself rather than some fictitious concept of "making space".
If you think you have too many high freq sounds, then you used too many freq sounds. simple.
A "full sounding mix" comes from using sounds that represent the highs, mids and lows... this comes from using a wide range of sounds. You don't force sounds into different frequency ranges by eq'ing them... you only remove or accentuate what's there already. You don't need to take from one to make room for another. And you can't, with eq, create mass where none exists.
