Highpass/ Lowpass-Filters Question

[UMF]

I was looking through older threads and wanted to know if opinions changed over time. When it comes to the low end of the mix, I used to dial in very steep slopes on kick an bass to get seperation between them. Same for guitars.

I think a lot of people that start out mixing, seperate the instruments too much, leaving space in the spectrum to obtain clarity for example.

Now I tend to go with a 12db/oct filter steepness giving me better results.

I know it's all about the source, but what are you starting out with?

 

[Old Man Doom]

As I have gained more experience over the last few years, I find myself filtering less and less, especially on guitars. I used to HP all the way up to 100 sometimes, but now I'm a little gentler about it (maybe 85 or 90 depending on how much low end is present in the source material). I tend to go for a more vibe-y approach to everything since my music is little doomier, but I still filter everything. However, I have gotten a little more radical with my LP on certain sources. I really hate when I hear fizz instead of brightness on high gain guitars; sticks out to me above everything else.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Depends on the instrument. I use a pretty mild slope on guitars, but for bass I use a 24db/oct HPF all the way up to like 100 and an equivalent LPF at like 130. Sounds insane, but it produces the perfect roll-off for my bass for a tight metal sound. Anything else and I'm just compressing and drawing attention to flub or boominess. Kick is somewhere in-between, since its mid and sub frequencies are usually less offensive-sounding. Most instruments you can just use a 12 db/oct hpf safely in my experience.

 

[Machinated]

i tend to avoid REALLY steep filters if I can as I find them kind of unnatural. usually 12dB or 18dB if I need a bit more for me.

 

[Studdy]

for bass I use a 24db/oct HPF all the way up to like 100 and an equivalent LPF at like 130.

Huh? Can you please elaborate on this? are you saying you have no bass information below 130hz?

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Huh? Can you please elaborate on this? are you saying you have no bass information below 130hz?

HPF at 100 cuts below 100, LPF at 130 cuts above 130. This is for the sub-lows track, obviously- the grind track goes through a guitar amp and gets a HPF at about 100. I'll post a clip later today

 

[Studdy]

So no bass information under 100hz at all? This is blowing my mind, thanks for getting back to me man.

 

[KHE]

high- and lowpass filters have a slope, they don't cut completly below (or above in case of lpf) their corner-frequency.

 

[Studdy]

high- and lowpass filters have a slope, they don't cut completly below (or above in case of lpf) their corner-frequency.

He said 24db slope which is quite steep.

 

[KHE]

haha missed that one^^

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

So no bass information under 100hz at all? This is blowing my mind, thanks for getting back to me man.

Here's a link to a sample of the final bass tone: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/f52t4vi1yhj4awy/Lightless.mp3?dl=0

I was wrong on the LPF- it was actually set to 175, so that's a little less ridiculous haha, though I do also have broad cuts of about 3-5 db at around 130 and 190 to cut some resonance buildup. I played around with the HPF frequency before rendering and of course, it sounds ballsier if you put it down to 75 or even 50, but it's way more controlled and defined with it higher up. I prefer to put a subharmonic enhancer on the kick and let that fill out the low end and suck out all the sub-bass except the most essential frequencies, which are in the 90 hz to 200 hz range, in my experience.

 

[UMF]

Here's a link to a sample of the final bass tone: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/f52t4vi1yhj4awy/Lightless.mp3?dl=0

I was wrong on the LPF- it was actually set to 175, so that's a little less ridiculous haha, though I do also have broad cuts of about 3-5 db at around 130 and 190 to cut some resonance buildup. I played around with the HPF frequency before rendering and of course, it sounds ballsier if you put it down to 75 or even 50, but it's way more controlled and defined with it higher up. I prefer to put a subharmonic enhancer on the kick and let that fill out the low end and suck out all the sub-bass except the most essential frequencies, which are in the 90 hz to 200 hz range, in my experience.

Of course this is always song dependent if it will work or not. I just checked a couple of my sub bass tracks and just found out that I set the HP/LP on the tuning of the song almost. If the guitar is dropped C for example my HP is close to C2 (60hz ish) and LP is a little above C3 (170hz-ish).

 

[Kohugaly]

I think people often underestimate the steepness of HPF/LPF. 12dB/oct lowpass at 100Hz means, that at 50Hz the volume is reduced by 12dB (=by factor of 0.25). That's massive - just try to pull the fader on an instrument by 12dB.
Steeper the filter is, more "ringing" it has to produce in order to create such steep roll-off (that's a physical fact and actually the principle of the filtering itself). Big ringing can actually have negative effects on the sound - especially transients. Using anything more than 48dB/oct on a musical material is just ridiculous. It only makes sense to use such steep filter in scientific restoration/extracting audio form badly damaged recordings.

 

[Pinknoise]

Why would companies like Meldaproductions have filter up to 120db/octave ? Isn't there any place in metal for that kind of slope ?

 

[Manicompression]

Melda probably just does it because they can. You cant predict what the end user is using your software for, particularly if your of the Melda variety and your not just knocking out emulations of existing gear to a defined user base. No idea what practical use in rock type music one would have for that intense of a slope, maybe useful in forensic work?

 

[Studdy]

Very common practice to hi pass most tracks but how do most of you deal with low pass filters? Are you applying them to most things as well even if the pass is quite high? Or are most of you letting the high end through on most tracks? Cheers

 

[Kohugaly]

Very common practice to hi pass most tracks but how do most of you deal with low pass filters? Are you applying them to most things as well even if the pass is quite high? Or are most of you letting the high end through on most tracks? Cheers

There are two situations where LPFs are commonly used:
1. to remove nasty hiss from some soundsources, for example guitar amps produce a hiss above 10KHz which has little to none musical value. Also most synths have aliassing in that region. In both cases the hiss does not contribute to the sound of the instrument in any positive way - it just clouds other instrumens (like cymbals).

2. To simulate "distance". Higher frequencies are naturally damped by air and also scatter when they hit objects (lower frequencies tend to pass around objects). You may simulate this behaviour using Low-pass filter to push tracks further back in the mix. It is commonly used on backing vocals.

 

[Studdy]

There are two situations where LPFs are commonly used:
1. to remove nasty hiss from some soundsources, for example guitar amps produce a hiss above 10KHz which has little to none musical value. Also most synths have aliassing in that region. In both cases the hiss does not contribute to the sound of the instrument in any positive way - it just clouds other instrumens (like cymbals).

2. To simulate "distance". Higher frequencies are naturally damped by air and also scatter when they hit objects (lower frequencies tend to pass around objects). You may simulate this behaviour using Low-pass filter to push tracks further back in the mix. It is commonly used on backing vocals.

Thanks for this, and yes i do use filters on things like guitars, bg vox, etc. I guess i was asking more so about tracks when you do not really want to hear the filter. For example are you guys filtering hi information tracks up around 18khz-20khz or rolling off the very top on mastering? Are you letting cymbals, vocals, "air" all pass through beyond range of hearing? Or is it normal to just let the top breathe and let the human ear cut it off? Hope this long ass question makes a bit of sense. Cheers.

 

[Pinknoise]

I've seen this trick ( and tried it) where the very top end is low passed as it reflects old school gear where we could not record information passed something like 16-17Khz. I don't remember if it was the tape or mixing desk that this technique was reflecting though. But it does sounds smoother a bit. The very edge of top end is brittle and the more I mix the more I appreciate my sounds in the low and mid range, like my ear is becoming more sensitive to high frequency.

 

[Pinknoise]

Unread postby MeldaProduction; Wed Jul 08, 2015 11:10 pm
Re: 120 db/Oct, Micro PitchShift and MaXXBass equivalent.

Well, the bigger the slope the bigger the phase change, but it's more like that if you cut something too steeply, the ear can notice that something unusual happened - 120dB/oct is a filter that just doesn't exist in nature and it can quickly kill all harmonic content above certain range, so it may destroy the clues the brain uses to identify what kind of material it is.
Anyway saying that it is "bad" is, sorry, idiotic , it's like saying that distortion is just bad... It all depends on what you use it on and how .

Harmonizer for pitch shifting. For such microchanges you can use even frequency shifter, but it will alter the harmonic relations.

MaxxBass is simply an extremely simplified MMultiBandSaturator, check it out, there's even an active preset for that. 2 bands, saturate the lower one, that's all.

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=442058&sid=e71b413dd20e6b2990dba8c23e1f79e7