Quick question on low end (sub bass)

[medic999]

I have noticed that though I HP everything to at least 60hz there is still bass in that area when I look through an analyzer. Is this bass supposed to be there? I found putting another HP does the job of removing it but the mix starts to thin out. I also noticed that when I look at professional recordings they also have bass in this area its just cleaner. Doesnt that defeat the purpose of a HPF?

 

[BLUElightCory]

Depending on how it's set, a high-pass filter doesn't completely remove everything below 60Hz (in this case). Depending on the slope of the filter, it can be a very gradual rolloff, which will still leave some content behind.

 

[medic999]

ahhh Im a noob. That makes total sense.

 

[chrisrivalry]

that doesn't mean you want to set all of your HPs to something crazy like 32db octaves either! the higher the slope the more unnatural it sounds.

 

[medic999]

Ok. I ususally use q10 and the hp on that appears to be pretty gradual. I will post a clip today maybe I could get some critisism.

 

[medic999]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/51222289/NEWJAM1.mp3


ok. in my buddies monitor (including a sub) this thing has waaaaaaayy too much bass. Should i be rolling off a HP on the master?

 

[Executorg]

Cool track, wanna hear full.

 

[medic999]

thank dude! its my band, ill be posting the complete track once i finish mixing vox. it will be in the rate my mix thread. i assume the bass sounds ok?

 

[Executorg]

a bit boomy for my taste

 

[smy1]

Don't use a HP filter on the master. Go through your tracks and figure out where the excess bass is coming from. Remove it.

Sometimes it's not even one particular track but build-up from different tracks.

 

[medic999]

k thanks for the tip. I took a wide bell and about -3db out of the mids/ low mids on the bass and drum bus. and HP the kick a little higher and it sounds good. it also made some room fir the guitars which turned out quite nice

 

[Fugdup]

This sounds fun to mix, cool track.
Good luck with it

 

[jackbraglia]

what exactly is making you think there should be no frequencies below 60hz in your mix? if the sub bass is out of control, try some multiband compression to tame it instead of trying to eliminate it and effectively eliminating the balls from your mix.

 

[medic999]

idk. im a noob, from eveything i read the common denominator is "filter the lows" i think my problem here was more low mids. i was curious as to why everyone says filter the lows, when in fact when im analyzing music i like to listen to there are lows in that area from the kick, bass, snare and some guitar as well.

 

[jackbraglia]

idk. im a noob, from eveything i read the common denominator is "filter the lows" i think my problem here was more low mids. i was curious as to why everyone says filter the lows, when in fact when im analyzing music i like to listen to there are lows in that area from the kick, bass, snare and some guitar as well.

well the reason why we filter the lows is because even the best of studio monitors have a hard time accurately recreating frequencies below 40hz (except for those enormous soffit-mounted far-fields you see in million dollar recording studios). and typical consumer quality speakers are only going down to like 80hz accurately, if even that low. so if you have too much sub bass, your mixes will sound like shit on most peoples home stereos. but if you have none at all, you mixes will have no punch. so you need to filter out those frequencies in instruments that dont need it, but then keep it in things like the kick drum, which sound awesome with a nice bump at 50-60hz.