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Hi everyone,
Something i have been messing around with lately while mixing is keeping an eq on my master buss and from time to time listening out to only specific frequency ranges to see how they compare to my reference tracks. For example highpassing at 500hz will emulate a very trebly playback system such as laptop speakers or band passing 3-3khz will reveal how well balanced your mids are.
I haven't particularly noticed my mixes improving drastically but i found this is a good indicator to see how things are sitting especially in the midrange.
Im wondering if anyone else does this while mixing if so does anyone have any techniques they use?
Cheers .

That's an interesting idea, although not sure how accurate it'd be as a replacement for a real A/B test on the actual playback systems. There's also the issue of harmonics that would be present and affecting overall tonality even if they're being cut by poor fidelity.

However, the Mono mixdown method* is somewhat along these lines in that you spot phase, balance, EQ, and other issues before releasing it across a wide range of playback systems that might have problems you wouldn't hear in your nice studio monitors/cans.

* http://www.dubstepforum.com/forum/viewt ... 8&t=271484

Also running through the various models of a speaker simulation like TB Isone will give you an assorted bag of perspectives on your mix.

always-- though it's more a tool to see what's going on in the lows and highs, finding that errant thing that's got energy at 80hz or 10khz and getting rid of it so that there's room for something else.

just leave 2 bypassed eq's in your 2buss, hipass and lopass, and enable them whenever you want to check.

Very interesting idea.

Will employ.

I have a crappy bitcrusher from a multi-fx VST on the master bus of every tune I do, find it helps prioritise things in the mix, especially in the high end. I leave it turned on for loads of tunes when I export them too, love the sound!

This is an interesting idea, never though of trying it. I never put anything on my master buss apart from a frequency spectrum analyzer.

I have just started doing this since I gave up my view of fck everyone without a proper system. look what they done to me now i even saturate my subs

I monitor on rokit 5's, and I've got to tell people all the time, yeah man, I don't hear your sub at all.

I do this, but most often just to check the lows. Like 130hz and down. I've made a rack so that I can flip between highpass/lowpass, 100hz-500hz, and gentle/hard slope (12db / 48db Ableton's EQ8)

I'll throw that just before my limiter so that I can listen to how the lows are sounding, or how everything above the lows sounds after I've thrown on warmth/saturation models.

What are y'all listening for when you cut your mix like this? Like what are you hearing in the filtered state, that you are not hearing in the full mix?

nowaysj wrote:What are y'all listening for when you cut your mix like this? Like what are you hearing in the filtered state, that you are not hearing in the full mix?

Just to see how sounds mix together in a narrow spectrum, that way it is easier to find muddy frequencies and notch them out of sounds that are obstructing others.
When you listen to music on any playback system, pro mixes always still sound exactly the same whether its a phone, hifi or laptop speakers, by that i mean the information in the mix, not the frequencies themselves. Basically the correct information is present in the right frequencies. This method is just to check what information is present where, if that makes sense?

Doing it helps me turn up the volume a lot louder for the low end without all the highs getting on my ear nerves. And allows me to focus on that region without the highs distracting me.

claudedefaren wrote:getting on my ear nerves.

Yeah it basically just reduces the masking of the rest of the frequency range.

i always have an EQ on there i thought that was common practice