There’s a fair dose of Snake Oil to this presentation. You’re taking the context of one experiment and using it to bolster an argument in another somewhat related context. OK bear with me.....You’re showing phase correlation deviation as interference with a low passed signal when it is compared to the original signal. This shows HOW a filter is functioning and what it does to the audio spectrum of its sound. BUT, if you are not splitting the audio of an instrument and applying a high pass filter to one of the splits and not the other, then how is it going to affect the track in as dramatic a manner as you are showing? the filter is in effect reshaping the sound of the instrument -in some ways not as fully intended because the filter algorithm has the side-effect changing certain harmonic frequencies related to its frequencies that it is removing. Those phase changes you are demonstrating are change comparisons to its original signal, which will not be present in your mix unless you decide to split the instrument and apply a high pass filter to one of the splits (I can’t see when you would do that in a pure sense -perhaps in a situation where you are applying paralleled effects which will bring about changes that would probably induce some corellation artifacts such as reverb or chorus and in some cases compression.). Sure, you are illustrating phase shifts in a Single Signal, but using in a snake oil type argument.
(Engineering/producing for 20+ years) There are certain frequencies in each instrument that when hi/lo passed actually create space for other audio tracks in the mix, etc. Its a give and take philosophy, I use this method to make sure there isn't a build up of sub freq's, clashing of instruments etc... At the end of the day... there are NO RULES!!! So if it makes ur music sound good to you.... DO IT!
White Sea Studio very true.. not EVERY track/song needs this and if a person is eq'ing "just because" then it'll probably be detrimental to the audio..
The only reason for low pass and high pass every track is for loudness which for hires recording it's not the case. So there is no such thing as give room to other instruments anymore. If the high pass is to shape the tone of the instrument that's a different story.
@@johnyang799 i don´t agree cause i have studied the low frecuency range of Planetary Assault Systems (Luke Slater) and there is no high pass filtering apreciable, all the instruments are present in the low frecuency range and beleive their are loud, don´t know how they do do this crazy stuff, it´s a secret of techno, you can do it yourself just low pass a track like Sucktion or whatever of Luke Slater and you will ear the massive presence of the most instruments in the lows. Great hardware (i mean sound sources) i guess and not too much mass of tracks sounding at the same time seems it´s a good arrangement and the sum of lot of things when recording and printing (hardware EQ´s phase shift even more but saturation of good transformer helps a lot for a warm loudness i.e.)
Even if a track has low end we can't hear (5-20hz) it doesn't mean the limiter can't 'hear' it. It ends up acting on frequencies we can't hear at the same time effecting what we can hear so it makes sense to hi-pass. Most of the top mix engineers and mastering guys do this so there must be some truth in it.
The problem with this is that usually highpassing low end will reduce the RMS of the low end but increase the peaks of the waveform, asymmetrically. It can bring the centerline of the waveform way above where it should be. Forgive me as I forget the proper terminology. So the limiter will actually become more affected by the low end even though it sounds quieter.
When I was first getting into learning mix engineering, there was a magazine interview with the producer Nicolay, who at the time was doing a lot of mid 2000s boom bap/hip-hop stuff (Phonte from Little Brother, etc.) and one of the mixing tips he said was "high pass every track up to about 36Hz". And this was hip hop! He claimed that another engineer taught him that, and it would help him tighten up the bottom end. I ended up doing that for the longest time because of that article, but honestly listening back to that old stuff, the low end isn't destroyed, and definitely has a tighter feel. To me, it was probably one of those things that gave him a signature sound that no one else had at the time and it worked; most likely because everything else coming out in that space and time was boxy and boomy (a lot of amateurs in the underground hip hop scene in 2005), and his was a nice contrast.
The day I bought into high passing every thing was when all my mixes got tighter and more defined. I’ll stick to doing the things my ears tell me sound better. Thank God I don’t mix with my eyes because seeing your presentation would set me back.
Every teacher I have had, who are professional audio engineers and or music producers, say to high pass pretty much everything and yes even the kick, but hey do whatever you think sounds good man. I still dig your video and I appreciate a different perspective.
if needing to low-cut multiple tracks which were recorded in the same location with the same mics (or duplicated tracks), it's a good idea to group them and use a single hipass for them all to minimize phase interactions between them
I can't say I agree.. from working in the media industry as a professional for about 14 years now, my guesstimate is that 90%+ of what you hear every day is all high passed.. It just sounds more clean to highpass things, as your speakers need to do less work, making everything sound cleaner. This advantage is huge compared to the phase "distortion".
Just to improve on the explanation: "in a phase coherence way" means literally time. Phase is time. Your frequencies split and move about, so you'd have your lows first, then the mids and then the highs. It's very quick time (that's why it's called phase), but it leads to frequency cancellation with your other tracks.
Huge respect and love to this episode! I unerstand your point that this video is to those people who immediately highpass everything. It's like adding salt to a food without tasting it. But it is much more: you made people think regardless they agree or not. This is great and it pushes many to mix more consciously.
pick a full track,( dance music ) remove the low end off everything but the kick and bass, just solo each track and start sweeping until you notice a diference, once you do notice something pull it back. compare the 2 versions and i can assure you the low passed one not only sounds better but you gain headroom. secondly and most importantly, you cant hear anything below 20hz but your daw "can" so it still takes up head room, not only should you remove them in your single tracks, you should do it on the master. High passing mostly everything is not a myth, high passing everything at 100hz is a myth that i sincerely never heard anyone worth listening to saying to do. phase issues are only an issue if you can hear them, lose the phase meter and use your ears.
That's very interesting. I didn't realize how far and how deep into the passband the phase shift can go. I am highpassing a lot when synthesizing drums - I use a resonant highpass filter to cut unnecessarry lows and boost the body of my kicks and snares at the sound design stage. This is to be taken into consideration especially for parallel processing. It would also explain why crossover filters make sounds feel different even when you're mixing the bands right back with no other processing.
I used to always go for a hi pass filter if a track had too much low end, but now I'll more often use a low-shelf eq to adjust the bass content. Thanks for the video!
Great, so I can finally use the eq to add some stereo to a mono signal. :P But seriously: If it sounds better with high pass, I don't care about phase shift. Most of the samples we use (in electronic music) are already bend and stretched in thousand ways.
exactly. I dont trust online drum kits anymore because we have no idea how many times somebody has customized the files and exported it out into a "new" kit. worrying about phase shifting is overkill and will only stress us out more over something undetectable to the naked ear.
Alex Kormendi, summing to mono is one of the best tricks I know to tell if my final mix needs additional help. If you can still hear everything in it’s own place when the master bus is in mono, then you can pretty safely bet it’s not going to sound muddy and cluttered once in stereo. Just something that I was shown once. I love that Reaper has a mono sum button on the master track.
would love to see a video where you show a novice engineer how to eq and make things fit in a mix such as strings ,pads, bass, kick snar hi hat etc....would love to see that ! :)
I love your videos and you are a smart guy but...... Of course you should hipass your kick if it goes to deep for the music... Its not always about rumble. Keep up the good and funny work your doing!
I think a major problem is people tend to separate frequency from pitch. A bass guitar tuned to standard has a low E string equivalent to approx 41Hz, so using a high pass filter set close to that will help remove uneeded frequencies without a danger of affecting harmonics. Ideally this should be done during the recording phase. Understanding the pitch of instruments in relation to their frequencies is key.
Thats pretty cool how you demonstrated this, that's why you need to listen as you make these cuts because you can feel the phasing and adjust to liking.
This are the rules I go by in mixing and mastering: 1. Do everything deliberately - listen, know your fundamentals, make decisions 2. Try to process as little as possible
I'm always blown away by the knowledge and experience that gets shared on this channel. I'm seeing between 8 and 20+ thousand views on these vids. Can't even half of these people give a dollar a month for this great resource? I'm stuck on my back with no studio (so no income) for 8 years, and I still support a dollar a month. (Studio on the way. Just have to work on my back now! Both meanings of that are right.)
You can use a brickwall LOW pass to find out where the music stops and is just MUSH. then use your 6 or 12 db high pass at that freq Linear phase filters do work better!
A resonant high pass on kick can sound great though, same with resonant low pass. Also lots of things affect phase especially analog devices, but you are right don't do something when you don't need to for the sake of it sometimes a bell curve or a shelf is better to remove some of the unwanted lows without killing them off, for example on guitars to make room for the bass.
You can theorize all day long but the real question is, does it sound good in the track? I think the frequency dependent phase shift introduced at the right spot can sometimes make the low end sit better and glue together the samples and synths, at least with electronic music..
Andrew scheps high passes every track without fail, check out his interview with Dave Pensado to hear him say it yourself. Phase shifting on individual tracks is fine, it’s going to happen as part of the production process. Plus a mastering engineer is going to high pass your entire track to a certain degree anyway. I really hate the effort that’s being made to stop people from high passing, so much mis-information is being spread around the net these days by total nubs. It’s true you can gut your mix by high passing to high across your tracks, but even a small high pass filter with a reserved 12 dB Per octave slope at 20 cycles on a kick can help refocus your ear on 40-60 cycles. We shouldn’t be telling people not to use them, but to be reserved WHEN using them. Unless you want your track to be overwhelmed by a cluster of low frequency shite.
Apart from phase dependencies between multiple microphones recording the same source, does it matter if you introduces phaseshifts from a hpf? Like will it degrade the sound in anyway in any situation?
And what about make lowshelf/highshelf with 2 EQ to achive the same thing, or make that high cut but in a sender channel? still problems with the phase?
I was in shock when I saw your phase scope react like that to the filters, so I went and tried to check this for myself and I have the same setup running however there's no changed in the phase of the sound? I used both pro-q3 & 2 and put them in zero latency but the scope tells me the 1khz sine wave is still mono even with the eq doing changes to the sound? Am I doing something wrong or is there no phase shift happening ?
When I started to hi-pass everything, my track started to sound better. If you can't hear below 25 Hz, what is the point of generate signal on these frequencies?
Even i knew this, this is really good demo of it. I want to test my newest habit of mine using this demo. I have habit of cutting out some resonances with really tight Q and really high db/octave dips, like 48db/oct. Although i only use on shakers, hats, rides and cymbals on above 3,4 khz (mostly it is like 5-8khz) i really want to check how much i fuck the phase because i cut minimum 2 resonances. It is extreme setting that work, but i notice that i sometimes lose certain information and clarity of the instruments which i need to EQ boost to gain back (it never works so i get other cleaner sample in end)
I use a high pass filter so my tracks do not band with my bass and kick drum, then I use correlation trace to make sure the phase is not canceling the tracks out. If i did not put a high pass filter on most tracks, the bass area of my music would be all mud. Mud is even worse than snake oil. :)
small capacitors in the input/output circuit(expecialy in cheap converters) already limit the bandwidth and destroy the phase, no need for additional lowcuts.
I see a lot of people in the comments who clearly misunderstand what this video is trying to convey. The video is not trying to come to this polarized outcome to NEVER high-pass everything. It's just trying to make you aware of how EQ's work fundamentally and to be cognizant and smart about it when mixing. That's literally it. Ultimately, if you can high-pass something and have it still sound good/without bad phase issues with other audio you have going, then go for it. But for the rare occasion where something might sound weird as a result of phase incoherence, this video serves as explanation. It is possible for that to happen.
This Is a common practice. Hi pass every track. At a very steep curve at 20 to 25 hz. Because this is inaudible sound(But the Sound signal is Still present/Visible). Taking up frequency realestate/Range. And that builds up a lot with 20 or more tracks. So does the Phase thing happen at that low of a Setting? Please try it. If the Phase thing happens. Then We need A New plan. To get rid of the 'Overall' lower 25 hz Somewhere. Before the Master/Busses. Or We just have to live with the Slight Phase shift. I have never blindly High passed above 25 hz. Let alone 100 hz. Nor have I ever seen any engineer do it. If some engineers are doing that. They are cutting off some Audible sound. *I have been in the music Business over 50 years. I saw an engineer do the high pass thing. about 40 years ago. And I know a few grammy winning producers/Engineers. They all do it(20 to 25 hz.). In the Analog days. This was a closely guarded secret:} Then we get to the Ying/Yang of things. To attain anything. You have to give something up. That is life.
so if we add a scope and mind the phase then we're good, right? This way we can clear out unwanted sub frequency build up without losing wanted low end.
Is this consistent for all genres of music? In Psytrance, we use a steep high pass on the kick and bass. I've always found when listening on studio monitors too much bottom end is removed but when I hear the tracks on a big system it sounds perfect. That being siad I put a High Pass on just about everything and had no idea about the phase issues that may introduce. I also dont know what those phase issues might sound like. When I use Izoptope Phase Cancelation meter I can see problems but think it has to do with my pan/saturation/stereo widening etc but no matter what change I make I still see the issues. I think this explains why I havent been able to fix this issue.
My vsonic gr07 iem is very sensitive to high-pass mastering. Everytime I find it harsh, I open the spectrogram and I find the song actually lacking low frequency information.
Nice video. I have a question. I'm very new to producing and mixing music. Right now I'm using my PC with no audio interface because I don’t need to record anything. I use StudioOne with ASIO driver. So my question is, Is it ok to mix with ASIO or I need a audio interface? Is there any sound quality difference? I mean If I use an audio interface, then my mixing will sound better than "direct pc to headphone output" quality?
Hi, great job, can anybody help me?... what about the low pass filter?? i usually use a 15kHz massive cut (72dB) to all my music, low pass filter can also affect phase??? thxs!!!
You high pass everything to ensure there’s no low frequency information going to the speakers. It’s an insurance policy. You get more space and room for the track to breath even if there’s nothing there you still pull back all the unnecessary bass on every instrument. Bass effects the drivers a lot so the less they are being moved the more clarity you bring to the mix. Since everyone is saying their years of experience, I have 10 years of experience mixing and mastering.
In my experience I can make the kick drum more clear and punchy when I HPF the unnecessary low lows, besides I tend to leave the subs for the bass guitar, so that clears the area for it. At least that is what I tend to hear. Like your shows! Keep up the good work.
I totally agree that adding high pass filters on everything is mostly futile. I have been mixing and mastering since 1998 and have always heard of people ranting on about hi passing everything like some sort of cure all. I think that is a quick fix for mixers who don't want to deal with the low end. Bass frequencies are there for a reason, they are part of the natural sound of many instruments, they are there to give them girth and warmth. Don't cut them out, deal with them. You should only use hi pass filters when your microphone is picking up frequencies that don't belong to that instrument or for creative reasons. In either case, always try lowering those frequencies instead of just cutting. Sometimes it's good to even raise them.
Modern Recording Techniques [by David Miles Huber] is used pretty heavily on most higher education courses I think. Not sure what edition it is up to now, from memory there is a couple of chapters dedicated to the science behind audio. If you're only interested in this specific part you may be able to save some cash and buy an older second hand earlier edition as I doubt whether that part has been updated as it's pretty much set in stone.
linear phase affects the sound quality of the track itself but give a chance to blend well to other tracks. Minimum phase is natural to the sound quality of the track itself but will have phase coherence issues blending to other tracks.
🦉 Would using a multiband limiter avoid these phase distortions? I recently watched a mastering tutorial & one of the advice was to highpass at 20Hz to make sure there are no non-audible bass frequencies taking up mix space. If you applied highpass this way on the stereo mix, wouldn't the phase distortion be applied equally on the left & right channels? Deadmau5 says he always cuts below 20Hz as well. Also need to get rid of that 0.003% DC offset, lol.
So are we not supposed to put a filter in the master channel for the rumble like the 20-30hz that is unwanted, must I leave the tracks as it is, will the mastering engineer remove the 30hz instead?
Well most things do have low end rumble and that’s the thing we do not want because it’s not needed in my case and taste of music, the 808 will need all the space to live there, most sounds do infact have low end rumble they are simply “whole ingredients” that are needed that way, when you buy a food ingredient at the store do you buy it only half of it or whole? Yep I buy it while then cut what I do not need.
I can agree with this, in that adding high pass/low cut filters will affect the phase in a track. But this shouldn't be looked at as a problem, necessarily. It's a matter where your ears are your most valuable instruments. I usually take freq out of the sub/bass/low-mid area of the song if an instrument isn't benefitting from the low freq information, and reserve that space in the track for kicks, bass, and 808s. This doesn't mean every instrument gets the same high pass, and this really comes down to a track-by-track/filter-by-filter basis. Shifting the phase in an audio doesn't automatically correlate with "messing up" the phase, as some phasing changes can add to a song. As I saw mentioned in another comment, there isn't really a "right" and "wrong" way to go about it, only what sounds good to the engineer/producer. I for one have found that high-passing most of my instruments does offer a cleaner audio track, especially after mastering. I'm one of the ones who high passes my drums and even 808s, for instance, but I may have one drum cut at 35-40 hz, then another at 60-70 hz, and the bass between 60-80 hz, so I have one instrument taking up sub-frequencies, 2 which offer bass frequencies without stepping on each other, and everything else is opened up between 300-500 hz to give everything "space" in a mix. Looking at a piece of audio too technically can take away from the creative energy of it. I've been mixing music for over 15 years, and one thing I can assure you is that a "muddy" low end can end up being the bane of your existence if you don't manage frequency build up. Sure, it may not be necessary for every track, but if there's no useful information in low frequencies, why not avoid phase shifting/cancelling as much as possible by cutting the frequencies the ear won't pick up on? I definitely appreciate your take on high pass filtering, and you're right in what happens to phase, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's right for every style of music/producing.
It's okay to have the phase shifted, if you really have to be bothered to line up polarity on every single track, you could bounce it to audio after the EQ to line up the waveforms. Equalization is so usefully important, you'd be unwise not to use it wherever possible to make room in your mix.
I just high passed a bass and it made it sound stronger and more "bassey" it's counterintuitive in a way, but removing things makes the things that are left stand out more.just like sucking out 300hz from a kick can literally make it sound louder as if you boosted 100hz... It always amazes me like "how does Cutting something make it seem louder?...but I've experienced it enough times"
Ive noticed this with some sounds I've high passed before, i remember reading that using low shelf filters instead can help a lot. It allows the best of both worlds so your sounds still feel "whole" but with a lot less lows. I find high pass filters can sometimes take away too much of the original sound like somethings now missing. I still use it on the very lowest bass freq and percussion like shakers and high hats but if it isn't having the desired effect i go for the shelf instead or not have it in at all. High pass definitely gets overused
It's important to EQ the last 20hz of every track because those last frequencies aren't even audible to our ears. When a couple decibels of these frequencies build up over all your tracks they will cause your mix to be muddy as it takes away from the amount of volume available to other frequencies, especially when using a limiter or compressor on your master track.
Noob question, if you intend to keep the signal mono, is mono-ing it after the eq a solution? Or will the phasing effect more complex signals in a way that mono-ing it afterwards gives a different result?
But the vast majority of sounds do have low end rumble in them. It's quiet but it's definitley there. Using Pro Q, high pass any instrument that is being played in a midrange area and and solo the frequencies that are being cut out. You'll hear very low stuff that isn't important for the sound. Surely having all that low end stuff in every track is going to cause mudiness. If it's causing mudiness and it isn't an important frequency for the sound, why wouldn't you want to cut it out?
"Roll off" on bass and kicks using low-cut filter may bring unnecessary spike of "harmonic" on a material that you are trying to improve. And If used, then it is better to apply no more than 12db filter. But the better and safe way to use a low-shelf filter, as It doesn't remove the underlying "useful" rumble which makes the sound full and natural.
What about the engineers filter is that ohk to use in your master buss, I heard DeadMau5 say it's good but I never seen him use it in his tracks he just rolls off 20hz in the master buss with his DAW eq
I really get your point, and I completely agree there's no point in HP-filtering everything. But still I have some buts. In random order: - Every recorded signal has some low freq (even below audible) noise, from different sources (audio noise from environment, electronics Flicker noise etc...). And although it's not audible it could still sum up and drain some energy from the overall sound, so in principle it shouldn't be a bad idea to apply a HP to get rid of all those frequencies which surely do not belong to the instrument you've recorded. And it should leave more room for the instruments that really need that low end. - Yes, every real filter (digital algorythms are a whole different story) ads a phase shift, but phase only matters when dealing with interference, like when you have multiple mics on the same instruments, so in principle a phase shift shoudn't be such a big deal. - A super high level producer like Warren Huart seems to use HP filtering a lot, but he never uses more than 12dB/octave, which indeed preserves phase while still getting rid of that useless low end. Let me know what you think about, and thanks for your channel, all great stuff!
Hmm...a lil phase shift vs way more headroom and clarity...no brainer to me!
There’s a fair dose of Snake Oil to this presentation. You’re taking the context of one experiment and using it to bolster an argument in another somewhat related context. OK bear with me.....You’re showing phase correlation deviation as interference with a low passed signal when it is compared to the original signal. This shows HOW a filter is functioning and what it does to the audio spectrum of its sound. BUT, if you are not splitting the audio of an instrument and applying a high pass filter to one of the splits and not the other, then how is it going to affect the track in as dramatic a manner as you are showing? the filter is in effect reshaping the sound of the instrument -in some ways not as fully intended because the filter algorithm has the side-effect changing certain harmonic frequencies related to its frequencies that it is removing. Those phase changes you are demonstrating are change comparisons to its original signal, which will not be present in your mix unless you decide to split the instrument and apply a high pass filter to one of the splits (I can’t see when you would do that in a pure sense -perhaps in a situation where you are applying paralleled effects which will bring about changes that would probably induce some corellation artifacts such as reverb or chorus and in some cases compression.). Sure, you are illustrating phase shifts in a Single Signal, but using in a snake oil type argument.
(Engineering/producing for 20+ years) There are certain frequencies in each instrument that when hi/lo passed actually create space for other audio tracks in the mix, etc. Its a give and take philosophy, I use this method to make sure there isn't a build up of sub freq's, clashing of instruments etc... At the end of the day... there are NO RULES!!! So if it makes ur music sound good to you.... DO IT!
Its always give and take, but there are a lot of folks that are not aware of the give scenario when they take a hi-pass 😉
White Sea Studio very true.. not EVERY track/song needs this and if a person is eq'ing "just because" then it'll probably be detrimental to the audio..
The only reason for low pass and high pass every track is for loudness which for hires recording it's not the case. So there is no such thing as give room to other instruments anymore. If the high pass is to shape the tone of the instrument that's a different story.
@@johnyang799 i don´t agree cause i have studied the low frecuency range of Planetary Assault Systems (Luke Slater) and there is no high pass filtering apreciable, all the instruments are present in the low frecuency range and beleive their are loud, don´t know how they do do this crazy stuff, it´s a secret of techno, you can do it yourself just low pass a track like Sucktion or whatever of Luke Slater and you will ear the massive presence of the most instruments in the lows. Great hardware (i mean sound sources) i guess and not too much mass of tracks sounding at the same time seems it´s a good arrangement and the sum of lot of things when recording and printing (hardware EQ´s phase shift even more but saturation of good transformer helps a lot for a warm loudness i.e.)
@@nandoblondemobydick5438 Resonances of instruments doesn't at all mean that same instrument isn't high passed, lol
Phase distortions shouldn't matter though, as long as you don't split the signal into different phase distorted versions.
Even if a track has low end we can't hear (5-20hz) it doesn't mean the limiter can't 'hear' it. It ends up acting on frequencies we can't hear at the same time effecting what we can hear so it makes sense to hi-pass. Most of the top mix engineers and mastering guys do this so there must be some truth in it.
The problem with this is that usually highpassing low end will reduce the RMS of the low end but increase the peaks of the waveform, asymmetrically. It can bring the centerline of the waveform way above where it should be. Forgive me as I forget the proper terminology. So the limiter will actually become more affected by the low end even though it sounds quieter.
When I was first getting into learning mix engineering, there was a magazine interview with the producer Nicolay, who at the time was doing a lot of mid 2000s boom bap/hip-hop stuff (Phonte from Little Brother, etc.) and one of the mixing tips he said was "high pass every track up to about 36Hz". And this was hip hop! He claimed that another engineer taught him that, and it would help him tighten up the bottom end. I ended up doing that for the longest time because of that article, but honestly listening back to that old stuff, the low end isn't destroyed, and definitely has a tighter feel. To me, it was probably one of those things that gave him a signature sound that no one else had at the time and it worked; most likely because everything else coming out in that space and time was boxy and boomy (a lot of amateurs in the underground hip hop scene in 2005), and his was a nice contrast.
Interesting...But I'll stick to cleaning up the low end thank you very much.
yeah. phase is not important for bass frequencies
thats why you mono your kicks
The day I bought into high passing every thing was when all my mixes got tighter and more defined. I’ll stick to doing the things my ears tell me sound better. Thank God I don’t mix with my eyes because seeing your presentation would set me back.
Every teacher I have had, who are professional audio engineers and or music producers, say to high pass pretty much everything and yes even the kick, but hey do whatever you think sounds good man. I still dig your video and I appreciate a different perspective.
Yes hi-pass everything, it clears up the mix and gives everything their own space and improves definition. Every tutorial from the A list guys do it!
nicest surprise of the past months: your channel. Best subscription in ages. Keep at it man. Good work !
if needing to low-cut multiple tracks which were recorded in the same location with the same mics (or duplicated tracks), it's a good idea to group them and use a single hipass for them all to minimize phase interactions between them
I can't say I agree.. from working in the media industry as a professional for about 14 years now, my guesstimate is that 90%+ of what you hear every day is all high passed.. It just sounds more clean to highpass things, as your speakers need to do less work, making everything sound cleaner. This advantage is huge compared to the phase "distortion".
Just to improve on the explanation: "in a phase coherence way" means literally time. Phase is time. Your frequencies split and move about, so you'd have your lows first, then the mids and then the highs. It's very quick time (that's why it's called phase), but it leads to frequency cancellation with your other tracks.
Great addition to the video! Thanks!
Huge respect and love to this episode! I unerstand your point that this video is to those people who immediately highpass everything. It's like adding salt to a food without tasting it. But it is much more: you made people think regardless they agree or not. This is great and it pushes many to mix more consciously.
I think I just found my new favorite channel! This is great.
pick a full track,( dance music ) remove the low end off everything but the kick and bass, just solo each track and start sweeping until you notice a diference, once you do notice something pull it back. compare the 2 versions and i can assure you the low passed one not only sounds better but you gain headroom. secondly and most importantly, you cant hear anything below 20hz but your daw "can" so it still takes up head room, not only should you remove them in your single tracks, you should do it on the master. High passing mostly everything is not a myth, high passing everything at 100hz is a myth that i sincerely never heard anyone worth listening to saying to do. phase issues are only an issue if you can hear them, lose the phase meter and use your ears.
That's very interesting. I didn't realize how far and how deep into the passband the phase shift can go. I am highpassing a lot when synthesizing drums - I use a resonant highpass filter to cut unnecessarry lows and boost the body of my kicks and snares at the sound design stage. This is to be taken into consideration especially for parallel processing. It would also explain why crossover filters make sounds feel different even when you're mixing the bands right back with no other processing.
Highpass hardstyle kicks means more distortion!💪🏻😂😂 And in the end for the dc offset
amen :)
I used to always go for a hi pass filter if a track had too much low end, but now I'll more often use a low-shelf eq to adjust the bass content.
Thanks for the video!
Great, so I can finally use the eq to add some stereo to a mono signal. :P
But seriously: If it sounds better with high pass, I don't care about phase shift. Most of the samples we use (in electronic music) are already bend and stretched in thousand ways.
exactly. I dont trust online drum kits anymore because we have no idea how many times somebody has customized the files and exported it out into a "new" kit. worrying about phase shifting is overkill and will only stress us out more over something undetectable to the naked ear.
Unless your summed to mono, which does happen out there.
Alex Kormendi, summing to mono is one of the best tricks I know to tell if my final mix needs additional help. If you can still hear everything in it’s own place when the master bus is in mono, then you can pretty safely bet it’s not going to sound muddy and cluttered once in stereo. Just something that I was shown once. I love that Reaper has a mono sum button on the master track.
What is your take on subsonic rumble? Like some synths add noises under 20hz...
Should you not try to remove massive amounts of that?
would love to see a video where you show a novice engineer how to eq and make things fit in a mix such as strings ,pads, bass, kick snar hi hat etc....would love to see that ! :)
Excellent video! Thank you.
Very helpful advice, thank you.
Couldn't have said it better, and thank you for being educated in this regard to share the info to others.
I love your videos and you are a smart guy but...... Of course you should hipass your kick if it goes to deep for the music... Its not always about rumble. Keep up the good and funny work your doing!
I think a major problem is people tend to separate frequency from pitch. A bass guitar tuned to standard has a low E string equivalent to approx 41Hz, so using a high pass filter set close to that will help remove uneeded frequencies without a danger of affecting harmonics. Ideally this should be done during the recording phase. Understanding the pitch of instruments in relation to their frequencies is key.
people may have no choice with electronic music for example... alot of the sample libraries are heavily processed to start with
Thats pretty cool how you demonstrated this, that's why you need to listen as you make these cuts because you can feel the phasing and adjust to liking.
This are the rules I go by in mixing and mastering:
1. Do everything deliberately - listen, know your fundamentals, make decisions
2. Try to process as little as possible
I'm always blown away by the knowledge and experience that gets shared on this channel. I'm seeing between 8 and 20+ thousand views on these vids. Can't even half of these people give a dollar a month for this great resource? I'm stuck on my back with no studio (so no income) for 8 years, and I still support a dollar a month. (Studio on the way. Just have to work on my back now! Both meanings of that are right.)
You can use a brickwall LOW pass to find out where the music stops and is just MUSH. then use your 6 or 12 db high pass at that freq
Linear phase filters do work better!
Thanks for all the good info.
Great example and visual explanation!!
Great stuff, keep it up!
Showing the effect directly on the monitoring tool is supercool !
Weer een echte eye-opener! thanks man!
*paused* Pleasantly surprised to see Studio One! :D.Okay, now let'S get on with the phase issues..
A resonant high pass on kick can sound great though, same with resonant low pass. Also lots of things affect phase especially analog devices, but you are right don't do something when you don't need to for the sake of it sometimes a bell curve or a shelf is better to remove some of the unwanted lows without killing them off, for example on guitars to make room for the bass.
Awesome explanation!
Wow nooit geweten dit! Weer een top video
You can theorize all day long but the real question is, does it sound good in the track? I think the frequency dependent phase shift introduced at the right spot can sometimes make the low end sit better and glue together the samples and synths, at least with electronic music..
Andrew scheps high passes every track without fail, check out his interview with Dave Pensado to hear him say it yourself.
Phase shifting on individual tracks is fine, it’s going to happen as part of the production process. Plus a mastering engineer is going to high pass your entire track to a certain degree anyway.
I really hate the effort that’s being made to stop people from high passing, so much mis-information is being spread around the net these days by total nubs. It’s true you can gut your mix by high passing to high across your tracks, but even a small high pass filter with a reserved 12 dB Per octave slope at 20 cycles on a kick can help refocus your ear on 40-60 cycles.
We shouldn’t be telling people not to use them, but to be reserved WHEN using them. Unless you want your track to be overwhelmed by a cluster of low frequency shite.
Sweet! Very helpful!
So true.
I use HP very very carefully and try to use a slope of 6 if it works as often is possible.
Interesting, will do some deeper testing to see the effects of the phasing
Apart from phase dependencies between multiple microphones recording the same source, does it matter if you introduces phaseshifts from a hpf? Like will it degrade the sound in anyway in any situation?
I love hipassing my kick and bass because it makes it sound warmer. I mix for people on Jupiter and Venus.
And what about make lowshelf/highshelf with 2 EQ to achive the same thing, or make that high cut but in a sender channel? still problems with the phase?
Nice channel. Just subscribed. How about a video on using rms metering in mastering?
I was in shock when I saw your phase scope react like that to the filters, so I went and tried to check this for myself and I have the same setup running however there's no changed in the phase of the sound? I used both pro-q3 & 2 and put them in zero latency but the scope tells me the 1khz sine wave is still mono even with the eq doing changes to the sound? Am I doing something wrong or is there no phase shift happening ?
When I started to hi-pass everything, my track started to sound better.
If you can't hear below 25 Hz, what is the point of generate signal on these frequencies?
Even i knew this, this is really good demo of it. I want to test my newest habit of mine using this demo. I have habit of cutting out some resonances with really tight Q and really high db/octave dips, like 48db/oct. Although i only use on shakers, hats, rides and cymbals on above 3,4 khz (mostly it is like 5-8khz) i really want to check how much i fuck the phase because i cut minimum 2 resonances. It is extreme setting that work, but i notice that i sometimes lose certain information and clarity of the instruments which i need to EQ boost to gain back (it never works so i get other cleaner sample in end)
I use a high pass filter so my tracks do not band with my bass and kick drum, then I use correlation trace to make sure the phase is not canceling the tracks out. If i did not put a high pass filter on most tracks, the bass area of my music would be all mud. Mud is even worse than snake oil. :)
Hey a great video on concepts I have yet to fully comprehend
small capacitors in the input/output circuit(expecialy in cheap converters) already limit the bandwidth and destroy the phase, no need for additional lowcuts.
I see a lot of people in the comments who clearly misunderstand what this video is trying to convey. The video is not trying to come to this polarized outcome to NEVER high-pass everything. It's just trying to make you aware of how EQ's work fundamentally and to be cognizant and smart about it when mixing. That's literally it. Ultimately, if you can high-pass something and have it still sound good/without bad phase issues with other audio you have going, then go for it. But for the rare occasion where something might sound weird as a result of phase incoherence, this video serves as explanation. It is possible for that to happen.
This Is a common practice. Hi pass every track. At a very steep curve at 20 to 25 hz.
Because this is inaudible sound(But the Sound signal is Still present/Visible). Taking up frequency realestate/Range. And that builds up a lot with 20 or more tracks.
So does the Phase thing happen at that low of a Setting? Please try it.
If the Phase thing happens. Then We need A New plan. To get rid of the 'Overall' lower 25 hz Somewhere. Before the Master/Busses.
Or We just have to live with the Slight Phase shift.
I have never blindly High passed above 25 hz. Let alone 100 hz. Nor have I ever seen any engineer do it. If some engineers are doing that. They are cutting off some Audible sound. *I have been in the music Business over 50 years. I saw an engineer do the high pass thing. about 40 years ago. And I know a few grammy winning producers/Engineers. They all do it(20 to 25 hz.). In the Analog days. This was a closely guarded secret:} Then we get to the Ying/Yang of things. To attain anything. You have to give something up. That is life.
Ask Al Schmitt if he hi passes every track. He has been in the music business a few decades longer than you.
so if we add a scope and mind the phase then we're good, right? This way we can clear out unwanted sub frequency build up without losing wanted low end.
Is this consistent for all genres of music? In Psytrance, we use a steep high pass on the kick and bass. I've always found when listening on studio monitors too much bottom end is removed but when I hear the tracks on a big system it sounds perfect. That being siad I put a High Pass on just about everything and had no idea about the phase issues that may introduce. I also dont know what those phase issues might sound like. When I use Izoptope Phase Cancelation meter I can see problems but think it has to do with my pan/saturation/stereo widening etc but no matter what change I make I still see the issues. I think this explains why I havent been able to fix this issue.
In Edm we work with processed Samples that means they are already affected so dont worry about that.
You can't speak in the name of Psytrance! Simply I know too many producers in that genre that don't do it. :)
yo bro, really thankya. Big respect
My vsonic gr07 iem is very sensitive to high-pass mastering. Everytime I find it harsh, I open the spectrogram and I find the song actually lacking low frequency information.
Nice video.
I have a question. I'm very new to producing and mixing music. Right now I'm using my PC with no audio interface because I don’t need to record anything. I use StudioOne with ASIO driver. So my question is, Is it ok to mix with ASIO or I need a audio interface? Is there any sound quality difference?
I mean If I use an audio interface, then my mixing will sound better than "direct pc to headphone output" quality?
best advice
note : cut everything that doesn't audible. so you can make some headroom for audible frequencies and gives more clarity to your mix.
Hi, great job, can anybody help me?... what about the low pass filter?? i usually use a 15kHz massive cut (72dB) to all my music, low pass filter can also affect phase??? thxs!!!
So it this phase shifting that i am hearing whenever i “sweep the mids” as they say…
keep it up, love EQ
You high pass everything to ensure there’s no low frequency information going to the speakers. It’s an insurance policy. You get more space and room for the track to breath even if there’s nothing there you still pull back all the unnecessary bass on every instrument. Bass effects the drivers a lot so the less they are being moved the more clarity you bring to the mix. Since everyone is saying their years of experience, I have 10 years of experience mixing and mastering.
In my experience I can make the kick drum more clear and punchy when I HPF the unnecessary low lows, besides I tend to leave the subs for the bass guitar, so that clears the area for it. At least that is what I tend to hear. Like your shows! Keep up the good work.
I totally agree that adding high pass filters on everything is mostly futile. I have been mixing and mastering since 1998 and have always heard of people ranting on about hi passing everything like some sort of cure all. I think that is a quick fix for mixers who don't want to deal with the low end. Bass frequencies are there for a reason, they are part of the natural sound of many instruments, they are there to give them girth and warmth. Don't cut them out, deal with them. You should only use hi pass filters when your microphone is picking up frequencies that don't belong to that instrument or for creative reasons. In either case, always try lowering those frequencies instead of just cutting. Sometimes it's good to even raise them.
Do you have any recommendations on books that cover the science behind audio engineering principles?
Modern Recording Techniques [by David Miles Huber] is used pretty heavily on most higher education courses I think. Not sure what edition it is up to now, from memory there is a couple of chapters dedicated to the science behind audio. If you're only interested in this specific part you may be able to save some cash and buy an older second hand earlier edition as I doubt whether that part has been updated as it's pretty much set in stone.
katz. I suggest the book by Bob Katz. I don't remember his name, but google is your friend. ;)
linear phase affects the sound quality of the track itself but give a chance to blend well to other tracks.
Minimum phase is natural to the sound quality of the track itself but will have phase coherence issues blending to other tracks.
What about the "natural phase" option on the fab filter? Dose it make any difference?
🦉 Would using a multiband limiter avoid these phase distortions? I recently watched a mastering tutorial & one of the advice was to highpass at 20Hz to make sure there are no non-audible bass frequencies taking up mix space. If you applied highpass this way on the stereo mix, wouldn't the phase distortion be applied equally on the left & right channels? Deadmau5 says he always cuts below 20Hz as well. Also need to get rid of that 0.003% DC offset, lol.
So are we not supposed to put a filter in the master channel for the rumble like the 20-30hz that is unwanted, must I leave the tracks as it is, will the mastering engineer remove the 30hz instead?
Well most things do have low end rumble and that’s the thing we do not want because it’s not needed in my case and taste of music, the 808 will need all the space to live there, most sounds do infact have low end rumble they are simply “whole ingredients” that are needed that way, when you buy a food ingredient at the store do you buy it only half of it or whole? Yep I buy it while then cut what I do not need.
I was definitely one of those guys about to ask about linear phase EQ 😂
Studio One!!
great to know
What about hardware filters? Same problem?
The high pass cleans the low hertz you can not hear, but can feel. I have my akai Force on a cardboard box, I discovered I can feel the changes I make
I can agree with this, in that adding high pass/low cut filters will affect the phase in a track. But this shouldn't be looked at as a problem, necessarily. It's a matter where your ears are your most valuable instruments. I usually take freq out of the sub/bass/low-mid area of the song if an instrument isn't benefitting from the low freq information, and reserve that space in the track for kicks, bass, and 808s. This doesn't mean every instrument gets the same high pass, and this really comes down to a track-by-track/filter-by-filter basis.
Shifting the phase in an audio doesn't automatically correlate with "messing up" the phase, as some phasing changes can add to a song. As I saw mentioned in another comment, there isn't really a "right" and "wrong" way to go about it, only what sounds good to the engineer/producer. I for one have found that high-passing most of my instruments does offer a cleaner audio track, especially after mastering. I'm one of the ones who high passes my drums and even 808s, for instance, but I may have one drum cut at 35-40 hz, then another at 60-70 hz, and the bass between 60-80 hz, so I have one instrument taking up sub-frequencies, 2 which offer bass frequencies without stepping on each other, and everything else is opened up between 300-500 hz to give everything "space" in a mix.
Looking at a piece of audio too technically can take away from the creative energy of it. I've been mixing music for over 15 years, and one thing I can assure you is that a "muddy" low end can end up being the bane of your existence if you don't manage frequency build up. Sure, it may not be necessary for every track, but if there's no useful information in low frequencies, why not avoid phase shifting/cancelling as much as possible by cutting the frequencies the ear won't pick up on? I definitely appreciate your take on high pass filtering, and you're right in what happens to phase, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's right for every style of music/producing.
It's okay to have the phase shifted, if you really have to be bothered to line up polarity on every single track, you could bounce it to audio after the EQ to line up the waveforms. Equalization is so usefully important, you'd be unwise not to use it wherever possible to make room in your mix.
I just high passed a bass and it made it sound stronger and more "bassey" it's counterintuitive in a way, but removing things makes the things that are left stand out more.just like sucking out 300hz from a kick can literally make it sound louder as if you boosted 100hz... It always amazes me like "how does Cutting something make it seem louder?...but I've experienced it enough times"
If I can’t hi pass everything then, I should LOW PASS EVERYTHING ?
I don't know much about music production, but high-pass filtering seems to have the same reputation as triangles in 3D art.
Ive noticed this with some sounds I've high passed before, i remember reading that using low shelf filters instead can help a lot. It allows the best of both worlds so your sounds still feel "whole" but with a lot less lows. I find high pass filters can sometimes take away too much of the original sound like somethings now missing. I still use it on the very lowest bass freq and percussion like shakers and high hats but if it isn't having the desired effect i go for the shelf instead or not have it in at all. High pass definitely gets overused
It's important to EQ the last 20hz of every track because those last frequencies aren't even audible to our ears. When a couple decibels of these frequencies build up over all your tracks they will cause your mix to be muddy as it takes away from the amount of volume available to other frequencies, especially when using a limiter or compressor on your master track.
if the sound is not much affected like you say, whats the problem with phases changing when using an eq or filter? thanks
Noob question, if you intend to keep the signal mono, is mono-ing it after the eq a solution? Or will the phasing effect more complex signals in a way that mono-ing it afterwards gives a different result?
But the vast majority of sounds do have low end rumble in them. It's quiet but it's definitley there. Using Pro Q, high pass any instrument that is being played in a midrange area and and solo the frequencies that are being cut out. You'll hear very low stuff that isn't important for the sound. Surely having all that low end stuff in every track is going to cause mudiness. If it's causing mudiness and it isn't an important frequency for the sound, why wouldn't you want to cut it out?
"Roll off" on bass and kicks using low-cut filter may bring unnecessary spike of "harmonic" on a material that you are trying to improve. And If used, then it is better to apply no more than 12db filter. But the better and safe way to use a low-shelf filter, as It doesn't remove the underlying "useful" rumble which makes the sound full and natural.
What about the engineers filter is that ohk to use in your master buss, I heard DeadMau5 say it's good but I never seen him use it in his tracks he just rolls off 20hz in the master buss with his DAW eq
Just because you cannot hear it doesn't mean it isn't there eating up your headroom. If you can't hear it, get rid of it.
I really get your point, and I completely agree there's no point in HP-filtering everything. But still I have some buts. In random order:
- Every recorded signal has some low freq (even below audible) noise, from different sources (audio noise from environment, electronics Flicker noise etc...). And although it's not audible it could still sum up and drain some energy from the overall sound, so in principle it shouldn't be a bad idea to apply a HP to get rid of all those frequencies which surely do not belong to the instrument you've recorded. And it should leave more room for the instruments that really need that low end.
- Yes, every real filter (digital algorythms are a whole different story) ads a phase shift, but phase only matters when dealing with interference, like when you have multiple mics on the same instruments, so in principle a phase shift shoudn't be such a big deal.
- A super high level producer like Warren Huart seems to use HP filtering a lot, but he never uses more than 12dB/octave, which indeed preserves phase while still getting rid of that useless low end.
Let me know what you think about, and thanks for your channel, all great stuff!
what do you mean with the 12dB/octave?
So how would you declutter A muddy mix
I have found that using a shelf filter is way better ..depending what you trying to do.
I think the simple way to explain this is that a filter is a delay.
Good tutorial, but
Ok, that was the problem, so what's the solution and is it for all EQ plugins, analog strips etc the same common problem?