Restoring cancelled frequencies/tonality with EQ

[RobC]

During mixing, cancellation always happens. One can like it, or not. Can't be avoided.

However, perhaps the tonal imbalance (especially noticeable when sub bass cancels out), can be restored to something that we maybe desired to happen.
I see that FabFilter Pro Q3 has some pretty flexible features to achieve this. If I got it right, it can dynamically mimic/follow the EQ curve of any input sound. Now, before mixing sounds, we could separate these curves, and if possible, add them together (like mixing two curves). Then we could also analyze the curve of the mixed sounds which have cancellation, and finally, extract the differences with the previous mixed-curves.
Now that we know what we lost, we could apply this restoration curve to the mix (or each mix channel individually).

How about that?

[guitfnky]

interesting in theory. but it also seems sort of like a solution in search of a problem. basically, there’s no need to do something unless it doesn’t sound good. in most cases a mix isn’t going to have noticeable issues in the first place, and in those rare cases where something is noticeable, a mix engineer should be able to deal with it pretty easily using more traditional tools.

it’s the nature of sound to have certain interferences—trying to compensate for them artificially seems unnecessary. BUT, I do think it’s a cool idea, and would be curious to see what the results would sound like.

[RobC]

interesting in theory. but it also seems sort of like a solution in search of a problem. basically, there’s no need to do something unless it doesn’t sound good. in most cases a mix isn’t going to have noticeable issues in the first place, and in those rare cases where something is noticeable, a mix engineer should be able to deal with it pretty easily using more traditional tools.

it’s the nature of sound to have certain interferences—trying to compensate for them artificially seems unnecessary. BUT, I do think it’s a cool idea, and would be curious to see what the results would sound like.

Well, it may not be natural, but I'm curious what the tonality would be like under ideal circumstances. One could then check if the ideal, or the natural way sounds better.
Personally, I don't really like cutting one instrument (EQ) and boosting another part of it, in favor of another one - not exactly natural sounding (see, I like some things naturally, too). The mix may sound more balanced, but I can't help but hear how sounds get deformed.

I feel that all in all, a mix may have a more true tonality, cause with the theory, there would be automatic compensation. (Like I said, I don't really fancy the 'carving' method and hope there's another way.)