Have you ever been left disappointed by the quality of your mixes?
Do they sound muddy and boxy, rather than full and clear? If you’ve answered yes to either of those questions, then this video will help you.
I’ve already spoken about how I feel control and balance in the midrange is so crucially important to a top quality mix.
I’m going to take that statement a step further and say that if you only get your faders and the midrange of your mix balanced, then you’d have a pretty good mix on your hands – regardless of what you do in the low end and high end.
No, I’m not giving you an excuse to add a 20dB boost at 100Hz on your kick drum because “the low end doesn’t matter”. If you want to do that, be my guest, but the above statement is more about the importance of the midrange rather than intentionally jacking up your low end or high end.
So, it’s time for you to check out this video and learn a little known way to help balance your midrange…
Now, help me out and let us know…
What steps do you take to balance your midrange?
Leave a comment below!
professional sounding mix every time...
What do you do if your hearing has affected frequencies in the mid range area?
Good question Jeff. I personally can’t comment on what to do because I don’t have any hearing loss in that range.
Here’s an article that might help:
https://understandingaudio.com/your-hearing-is-everything/
There’s also some further excellent information in the comments below from other members of the community.
Hope that helps!
How to learn to trust that your hearing is “wrong”. A never ending quest to learn your hearing…:)
Good point!
Stephen hi. Thanks once again for an intriguing video. My approach, such as it is, is listening to the whole range and not separating out frequency bands. I totally get your point regarding the importance of the mid-range. Although I don’t think you said so explicitly in your video, I am guessing you would always recommend a final listening check of the whole range. When I am being “good” (and I feel a new year’s resolution coming on) I use ref tracks and I think I can see the advantage of the approach you describe here if I use it in conjunction with my ref tracks. Otherwise, I’d be a bit concerned I might get a “false” sense of what to change balance/EQ wise. I’m also guessing the band limiting technique you describe is applicable to the low end and top end if one wanted to subsequently isolate and focus on these areas. Many thanks for your help, keep up the great work. George PS: love the cat vid
Great questions, George. My approach is to listen to the whole mix as well, but I find this really helpful if I want to listen to a particular frequency range in my mix. Yes, I would absolutely then return to listening to the full range once I’m happy.
Sounds good on using this in conjunction with references. You’re right, it’ll give you a better perspective on what to adjust.
And once again you’re right in saying that you can use this technique on the low end or top end as well.
You can use this technique any way you like really and adapt it to your needs. You could do a whole mix this way to see what results you get as an experiment. There is no right or wrong way!
Thanks for the kind words and glad you loved the cat vid 🙂