Stop the High Pass Filters Madness

[Ottostrom]

All I can say is a picture is worth a thousand words: (SSL Filters at default settings, 187 Hz and 3.54 kHz)

And once again has a official Propellerhead video tutorial been misleading. Same thing with the video about the master comp.
Feels kind of stupid that you can't trust the info they put out about their own software.

[chimp_spanner]

I've seen a couple of videos now that serve as a counter argument to the practice of high and low passing by default. Personally I've found it's helped my mixes since I've started doing it, but also as I've alluded to in another thread I think an equally important thing to consider is what notes you're playing in the first place. If you don't have lots of things competing for space musically, you'll naturally avoid them competing sonically and then you shouldn't have to do too much with the filters in the first place. That's only my experience though.

[normen]

Generally I'd agree that you only need to cut what needs to be cut but given that most people don't have studio-grade listening setups I'd say the safer bet is to have one low cut too many. You'll definitely hear it sooner when you've cut too much than when you left some low-frequency mud/rumble in. And the processing cost as well as "labor cost" is negligible I'd say. So for most bedroom producers I'd rather suggest to keep cutting.

If you listen to high-profile productions the bass region is ALWAYS super clean and ordered.

[Marco Raaphorst]

Generally I'd agree that you only need to cut what needs to be cut but given that most people don't have studio-grade listening setups I'd say the safer bet is to have one low cut too many. You'll definitely hear it sooner when you've cut too much than when you left some low-frequency mud/rumble in. And the processing cost as well as "labor cost" is negligible I'd say. So for most bedroom producers I'd rather suggest to keep cutting.

If you listen to high-profile productions the bass region is ALWAYS super clean and ordered.

I agree 100%! It is incredible the amount of clean bass modern producers are able to get out of a MacBook Pro or iPhone. These devices won't be able to produce 100hz or lower sounds, but it does "feel" as bass. Super cleaver use of saturation on low end to get more transients in the upper range. I guess they are using MBpro and iPhone as the de facto to mix on, or nearfields. Not full range stuff.

[selig]

Generally I'd agree that you only need to cut what needs to be cut but given that most people don't have studio-grade listening setups I'd say the safer bet is to have one low cut too many. You'll definitely hear it sooner when you've cut too much than when you left some low-frequency mud/rumble in. And the processing cost as well as "labor cost" is negligible I'd say. So for most bedroom producers I'd rather suggest to keep cutting.

If you listen to high-profile productions the bass region is ALWAYS super clean and ordered.

I agree 100%! It is incredible the amount of clean bass modern producers are able to get out of a MacBook Pro or iPhone. These devices won't be able to produce 100hz or lower sounds, but it does "feel" as bass. Super cleaver use of saturation on low end to get more transients in the upper range. I guess they are using MBpro and iPhone as the de facto to mix on, or nearfields. Not full range stuff.

I would totally disagree about not using full range stuff, unless of course you're saying their stuff sounds like crap on full range/dance floor systems (which would indicate they mixed only on small speakers to me).

I doubt they're mixing on just small speakers. I've never yet met/seen a mix engineer that only uses one type of monitor to mix on…the beauty of a 'pro' mix is that it sounds great on ALL systems, right?


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[Marco Raaphorst]

Generally I'd agree that you only need to cut what needs to be cut but given that most people don't have studio-grade listening setups I'd say the safer bet is to have one low cut too many. You'll definitely hear it sooner when you've cut too much than when you left some low-frequency mud/rumble in. And the processing cost as well as "labor cost" is negligible I'd say. So for most bedroom producers I'd rather suggest to keep cutting.

If you listen to high-profile productions the bass region is ALWAYS super clean and ordered.

I agree 100%! It is incredible the amount of clean bass modern producers are able to get out of a MacBook Pro or iPhone. These devices won't be able to produce 100hz or lower sounds, but it does "feel" as bass. Super cleaver use of saturation on low end to get more transients in the upper range. I guess they are using MBpro and iPhone as the de facto to mix on, or nearfields. Not full range stuff.

I would totally disagree about not using full range stuff, unless of course you're saying their stuff sounds like crap on full range/dance floor systems (which would indicate they mixed only on small speakers to me).

I doubt they're mixing on just small speakers. I've never yet met/seen a mix engineer that only uses one type of monitor to mix on…the beauty of a 'pro' mix is that it sounds great on ALL systems, right?


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Problem with systems is that they all sound different. I guess MacBook Pro and iPhone are standard devices which can be used as a general norm. I hear a lot of great stuff these days. Not sure what everyone is using.

I love nearfields I must say. I do a lot of documentary stuff with spoken word and it's so easy on nearfields. For me 100 hz - 10 kHz is the main deal

[miscend]

I high pass everything at 200hz to prevent too much low end build up in bass heavy music. Except drums and bass. I learnt from Phil Tan.

[Yonatan]

As everyone seem to agree on, "it all depends" as usual. How many competing channels etc. And the "don´t fix if not broke"-attitude can be wise as mentioned. Still some low end can cause a lot of rumble and trouble on some bigger sound systems or sub woofers, content that you might not hear with headphones or smaller monitors (or so little as it seem no problem). But on a big system, suddenly you feel those frequencies physically.
You might want that effect to some extent or not. But that is more a question of reference listening on many systems.

One could see the low end info on a spectrum analyzer and learn to see possible problems. Some genres of music wants a lot of sub harmonics and some want it more clean there. But as said, the approach to just go wild with HF just because one learned it from a video or else, that is too limiting. One could do oneself a bad favour. Lowness is warmness when used carefully. So to choose a less steep cutting curve could be wise as well as using EQ and lowering some bass content on some channels instead of bringing the axe.

This summer I went by a festival and a Dancehall/Reggae Sound System played music outdoors. Very nice, but the bass and sub bass were causing actual physical pain (there was one more sound system at other side too with less extreme bass), so I had to leave. It might more be the problem of the guys running the system (although famous) but some tunes were worse than others, just as in really bass-heavy headphones, they tend to show which mixes have not really gotten the bass under any control at all.

I usually cut off some inhearable low end on vocals and/or recorded instruments just to be safe from environmental influences or hum from something. And as someone wrote, some synths have an extreme low sub bass that destroys all life. And it´s easy to miss that part of the spectrum.
So, as of not having the most professional equipment, I do play safe with some common sense although I hear nada.

Some filters does seem to have that upper bump right where one cuts off, so that can be a hassel with some filters (as that standard one in Logic), how it is in the SSL, at least it is not visually but it might be some bump I had not recogniced. Will look next time.

[demt]

just like to say the graphs x axis isnt a strait line as it goes up by factors of 10 as you move a long it so the end curve is not a true picture of linearity

ps theres allways going to be sum bugger with 20" bass bins cursing anything that can be heard on a laptop the old gang next door sorta proved it 4 1o years

[deepndark]

My opinion is that this highpassing is needed mostly to avoid making the lows a mess, as there's some lows in the mid-range sounds as well. I am working on a tune atm and I don't only cut the lows but also some highs and mids too and let my bassline dominating. There's a kick, bassline and vocals that I want front - but rest of them are only layers that support the rest of it.

That said: your leads and pads etc may have also some lows and the notes of all these kind of make it a sonic mess. Some have said how 3 things should be in the front but rest of them on the back.

[Marco Raaphorst]

in my opinion you only need low end for a bass and a bassdum. in all other instruments I don't need much low end.

[Higor]

Anyone could tell me if it's usually a good idea to apply this kind of filter at the mastering stage?

A cut at 20 Hz and 18 Khz

01.jpg (79.63 KiB) Viewed 1753 times

[normen]

Anyone could tell me if it's usually a good idea to apply this kind of filter at the mastering stage?

A cut at 20 Hz and 18 Khz

01.jpg

Many people don't especially like FFT based filters for mastering because they can cause pre-ringing.

Thing is you basically cut up the wave at different points (e.g. all 256 samples), then convert each of these slices to the frequency domain, do your processing and then convert it back to a wave. But the endings of the slices don't fit together anymore so you have to do... things.. to get them back together or you'd get horrible clicking every 256 samples. You basically fade each of the slices into the next - and that can cause the pre-ringing when you have a sudden peak.

[scifunk]

For dance music I find it best to have everything except the bass and kick filtered at 150-200hz. They get filtered at 20-30hz.

[HoltRead]

Hi...i think the "filter" are you are referring to is probably something with only high pass and low pass filters and in which case, why would you not want to use that for simple cutting off of lets say low frequency rumble on a microphone or the 50-60hz hum cycle of a noisy console.

https://percentagescalculator.com/

[selig]

Anyone could tell me if it's usually a good idea to apply this kind of filter at the mastering stage?

A cut at 20 Hz and 18 Khz

01.jpg

To what end/purpose?
(and +1 to what Normen said)

[guitfnky]

skimming through this, it seems kind of nutty to me that few seem to have mentioned actually using your ears when applying HPF.

I've seen lots of people suggesting that you should put a HPF on as much as you can, but I can't recall ever seeing anyone suggest doing it always, and without regard to what you're actually hearing.

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the technique. the process is incredibly simple, and if you do it right, you can be sure you're not 'removing stuff that's not there', or that you're thinning things out too much.

1-solo your track
2-engage your HPF, set to its lowest setting
3-listen
4-move the frequency you're filtering at up until you start to hear it alter the sound
5-that's too far! stop!
6-back it off a little
7-okay, a little more
8-great, you're done
9-unsolo your track

[selig]

skimming through this, it seems kind of nutty to me that few seem to have mentioned actually using your ears when applying HPF.

I've seen lots of people suggesting that you should put a HPF on as much as you can, but I can't recall ever seeing anyone suggest doing it always, and without regard to what you're actually hearing.

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the technique. the process is incredibly simple, and if you do it right, you can be sure you're not 'removing stuff that's not there', or that you're thinning things out too much.

1-solo your track
2-engage your HPF, set to its lowest setting
3-listen
4-move the frequency you're filtering at up until you start to hear it alter the sound
5-that's too far! stop!
6-back it off a little
7-okay, a little more
8-great, you're done
9-unsolo your track

That’s what I was taught by those smarter than me, and what I’ve done for many many years now. Guess I assumed it’s what everyone was already doing…



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[Marco Raaphorst]

I love limited range channels. why put everything as full rang in the mix.

must say I love lo-fi as well