Frequencies under 50Hz

[Armistice]

As I'm doing this mastering work for the album I'm noticing a great variation in the level of sub 50Hz sounds from song to song - presumably because I did them one at a time over a long period and did different things.

I'm trying to balance them all so they're uniform across the tracks but without a sub, and in my apartment, I'm relying more on visual aids (ie. Voxengo Span) than I'd like.

It's obviously kick drum and bass, generally, as I'll usually HPF vocals (as I have a deep voice) and guitars get a lot of EQ attention these days as well.

I am surprised there's so much there - don't recall getting any particular feedback along the way saying "You have too much bass..." from you lot, so I'm assuming there's not a particular problem, but I probably do need to even them all up a bit.

Anyone care to share a screen shot of your frequency curve for a standard guitar bass drums rock song in full flight? Be interested to see if I'm perhaps being a bit hard on the sub 50s...

[rayc]

This is my current track.
There's a heap of bottom end & a big spike where's the feedback happened.

EQ bottom end.png

[Bubba]

There isn't a heap of bottom end on either of those traces. Don't forget, there is absolutely tons of energy in the low frequencies compared to the high frquencies. There is always a strong slope downwards from left to right. Don't get fixated on the graphs.

If anything, you should hi-pass at 30 Hz or so, because those frequencies do nothing but sap energy and volume from your track.

[Armistice]

I noticed I had way more sub 50 in my older tracks compared to my newer ones, so I'm just using the mastering EQ to dial it down a little - being aware of Bubba's point about the energy sapping possibilities.

[Greg_L]

freq.jpg

This is a fairly raging full-speed ahead non-stop rip-roaring rock and roll full mix. Sounds great, that's what it looks like.

[rayc]

freq.jpg

This is a fairly raging full-speed ahead non-stop rip-roaring rock and roll full mix. Sounds great, that's what it looks like.

That's also a much tidier graphic view. An unmodified ReaEQ crowds the bottom end.
I don't have that Vox version upstairs but here's a related one - better image overall ...
Both of mine have a hidelously processed vocal included - done simply to assist me to learn the vocal line but it does seem to bother the chart a bit.

eq2.png

[Armistice]

freq.jpg

This is a fairly raging full-speed ahead non-stop rip-roaring rock and roll full mix. Sounds great, that's what it looks like.

Thanks. That's sort of what my more recent ones look like but my older ones have significantly more low stuff, which I'm reducing judiciously.

[Greg_L]

Thanks. That's sort of what my more recent ones look like but my older ones have significantly more low stuff, which I'm reducing judiciously.

Where is all that low end coming from?

[Armistice]

Thanks. That's sort of what my more recent ones look like but my older ones have significantly more low stuff, which I'm reducing judiciously.

Where is all that low end coming from?

Mainly kick - working with drums, even fake ones, is a bit of a learning experience for me - you have a kick drum on the screen and you program in hits on it in the appropriate places and you think "well that's done". But it's not really. They give you various sample options but I don't really know anything about drums - and whereas an experience drum recorder would know from experience where to put what mic on which drum to get what sound they needed, I just have a basic sample and not much native idea of exactly how to treat it.

The bass guitar was pretty OK, but I also sort of had an issue with hugely ringing toms here and there which I had to gate a bit.

My previous album had drums on every track but it was "lighter" musically - even on that now I can hear woofy kick because I just really didn't understand it. With the current rockier music the kick clearly EQ needed a bit of work, which I hadn't considered previously.

Now as it's not a steady state thing I had to be a bit careful not to take too much out, as I did a couple of times - also with the mastering EQ. Just trying to get them all into the same approximate wheelhouse for consistency across the album. Think I sort of have it worked out.