EQ- apply high pass on every track?

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Khan88

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Hey fam,
In order to prevent things from becoming muddy and to remove unnecessary "rumble", is it wise to apply a high pass filter to pretty much every track?
(set really low of course, say 40-70 HZ depending on instrument)

What filtering do you find necessary for most tracks?
To be honest, I am fairly new to EQ, so cuts are where I will do most of EQing.
Do you apply a separate filter to each track, or do you set up an aux track and send a bunch of tracks to a high pass filter on it?

Fairly new to mixing so hopefully a good condo about this will clarify some things for me and others.

:victory:
 
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I think you mean low pass filter! I put high pass filters too sometimes - but not always, because I want to let the track breathe. On the other hand, I have a low pass filter on every track. I don't send a bunch of tracks to a low pass - each track has its own, individual low pass setting, because each sound is different.

Don't be too prude with cutting - you can cut a lot actually. Sometimes I cut a lot and then it would sound thin. Like if the sound had lost its personality, it's character, you know.

So there's a little trick...

View attachment 35268

That red area is what I cut. And you see that little mountain in the red area aswell? I boosted the frequencies here. That lets me cut a lot to make up a lot of headroom, but at the same time it gives the sound its original feel again, without making it sound thin.

To be honest, I don't know what this is called. You can see in the red area (in the column) there is written 370Hz - that's what I cut. Below there is the slope, basically how HARD it is cut. This would be the red line that goes from the bottom up to the top of the little mountain. The more vertical it is, the "harder" it is cut. If you have a lower slope, you can cut more usually - WAY more! Because it cuts progressively.
And then finally that 2.50 below the slope is that little mountain. I have no idea in what it's counted or anything about it, but yeah - I raised it up to 2.50 "things" (from 0.71) and that - I think we got it - made the little mountain :hello:

So yes - you should cut all of your tracks!
 
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I personally dont put it on my master channel, id rather use it on certain elements of the track where im having the issue and remove it there. I feel like any filters on the master can really kind of take the life out of the track.
 
It is an approach. But remember that it will introduce phase anomalies around the crossover freq
 
High pass is the correct filter but I wouldn't necessarily put it on every channel but its a good idea to filter out low end if you dont need it. Definitely do not put it on the master.

---------- Post added at 11:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:58 PM ----------

And filters should be on the channel not applied to an aux...
 
Bobcat said:
So there's a little trick...

View attachment 35268

That red area is what I cut. And you see that little mountain in the red area aswell? I boosted the frequencies here. That lets me cut a lot to make up a lot of headroom, but at the same time it gives the sound its original feel again, without making it sound thin.
Click to expand...

That would be a high pass filter BOBCAT, it pass everything above the threshold freq

Low pass passes everything below the threshold freq......
 
If I was going to do this particular thing to every track, then I'd just do it once on the master. I think highpass at 40hz is fairly safe on the master. At 70hz, you're cutting out a lot of bass. Do it on a case-by-case basis. Don't do it to everything just to do it.
 
the benefit of doing it to individual tracks and not just the master, is that you can cut low end content from instruments that you don't want to be in the low bass range. that way they won't interfere with the actual bass instruments. because bass is something where too many elements down there will just get muddy and you can't tell them apart well. it can give you a much clearer mix in the bass end if you cut bass from each element separately, except for the bass ones. in some cases even using a high pass on bass elements will make them more defined. doing it to each element separately means you can put the cutoff higher for elements where their important content is mostly in the higher ranges.

of course, like everything, there are downsides. i used to do things this way, now i don't. it's an option.
 
Oops yes High pass... 3:30 AM that was the reason I guess :D

But indeed, you should not put in on your master. Put it on all individual tracks. Like the guy above said ^^^
 
40hz is pretty high IMO, you're going to be affecting freqs that make up a lot of the deeper sub bass in today's tracks. That said, I NEVER just automatically apply high pass filters in my songs, on the master or individual tracks. If you have a track with excessive sub that's an issue, then sure do it. But it doesn't make sense to just arbitrarily apply any processing to a song unless you hear a need for it. More often than not it affects the sound of the track in ways you might OT realize unless you have really accurate monitoring.

Just my approach though.
 
Khan88 said:
In order to prevent things from becoming muddy and to remove unnecessary "rumble", is it wise to apply a high pass filter to pretty much every track?
Click to expand...

No, it is not. You better investigate where the rumble comes from and fix the issue at the source. Better invest that time into proper recording/sound selection or sound design.

Nothing "becomes" muddy in the mix.

Khan88 said:
What filtering do you find necessary for most tracks?
Click to expand...

Absolutely none. Everything else is bad habit (and sounds shiddy).


Like all other tools, EQs have a specific purposes, but also introduce severe collateral damage. They reduce attenuate certain frequencies, but at the expense of severe phase distortions (i.e. times-smear). It's a horrible idea to use it everywhere.

The reason "why you should be very careful with filtering" is a very wide topic, but let me mention the most important one: Every harmonic sound on earth (the type of sounds we call "music") is based on a very simple structure. It usually consists of a fundamental frequency (which is the lowest frequency in the signal!) and multiples of the fundamental frequency, so called harmonics. The fundamental frequency is the most important one it usually doesn't make sense to damage them. This should clearly explain why blind filtering is a really nonsense approach.

Of course, it's not uncommon to end up with harmonically unrelated (and unwanted) low frequency content in the signal after microphone recordings or ugly DC content coming from broken guitar amps. But this is only the case is very specific situations, and all of them ask for very specific use of HP filters. For example, a sampling artist will rarely face such problems and can create perfect mixes without one single HP filter.
 
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Don't eq through aux channels. Cut unnecessary low end from instruments, but don't go eq crazy. Over do it and the mix will sound too thin.

Basically, if it sounds like it needs eq, then eq. Don't just do it for no reason.
 
@ Tarekith: Well - no. Because you also want to get rid of things you DON'T hear. If you don't hear anything it doesn't mean it's fine, it might mess up everything later. Or it might mess it up right now and you would be searching for the source.

I even cut off the low frequencies on hi hats - why would I want to keep them? You never know what's hiding there and it might just waste space, so the best thing is to use an analyzer.

I use a linear phase EQ so as far as I understood there is no phase shifting?

And to avoid the track sounding thin - I explained in my first post how I do this :)
 
If you have to eq out a hi-hat low-end you may either need better samples, or a more adequate microphone to record the hi-hat if you are doing your own recordings.

I don't think anyone is saying "don't eq out rumbles", but more like "do it when you have to, but use the right sounds so that you won't have to."
 
The corner frequency of the high pass filters can be much higher than the 40-70 Hz range. It's not uncommon to have a 250Hz corner frequency on some elements of the mix. But applying a filter is only useful when there's something to remove. Filters, whatever they're minimum phase or linear phase, have their own drawbacks. If you don't need it, don't insert it by default.
The same rule should be used for low pass filters as well.
 
Every instrument needs a space in the mix, hi passing is just another tool to help achieve that, but you can use band, low and other filters to shape the way everything is in the mix. The Idea is to get everything heard, and have a place, without clashing.
 
Bobcat said:
@ Tarekith: Well - no. Because you also want to get rid of things you DON'T hear. If you don't hear anything it doesn't mean it's fine, it might mess up everything later. Or it might mess it up right now and you would be searching for the source.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying someone should never do it, but there should be a reason for it, and not just be something you arbitrarily do. Doesn't you use your ears or an analyzer, it's a tool that should solve a problem, not potentially create one for no reason.
 
Lots of good and different opinions in here,

a good point brought up was that you may not always hear the low end rumble, so wouldn't putting a high pass only be beneficial?

Another point was the phase shifting (and other terms I don't quite know) involved with over EQ, so would the best way around this be to sweep the high pass up until you hear the sound change, then back off?

This is a little off topic, but on white noise, I apply a low pass filter literally starting in the middle and sweeping to the right. With that much EQ cutting, isn't there phase shifting/bad things happening there? How do you avoid these bad things, is it as obvious as going by if the sound changes badly or not?

When EDM artists put the bass/other instruments through an automated filter, how are they preventing weird phase shifts/bad sound?
 
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I usually EQ at least a little high out of everything.

EQ'ing the extreme lows is pretty much a given, I can't think of a time I didn't cut some of the low end TBH.

The only real variable with filtering, at least for me, is how much.

---------- Post added at 01:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:12 PM ----------

I don't believe in "only EQ if you have to".

I believe in EQ everything.

What we need to differentiate in this thread is EQ'ing and over-EQ'ing.

What's the harm in cutting out so little that only the dog can hear the difference?

Nothing, but it's potentially saving you work down the line.

Now boosting on the other hand you have to be more careful with.
 
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