Sound quality / Soup

Phase Ghost · Post by **Phase Ghost** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:38 pm

I think you answered your own question there N-Jay.

Obviously, if you filter out frequencies that would potentially clash with your bass, that will work. However, if you're going to filter out the frequencies of a low chord, why play it in the first place? It's just going to sound thin, since the meat of the chord is gone. This could be by design, but I think it's not in your case.

Maybe try shifting your bassline around the low chord. Or better yet, incorporate the low chord into the bassline. That way, you don't have to compromise anything. The mostly applies to quick'ish stabs. Long drawn out chords won't work obviously.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:55 pm

Phase Ghost wrote: Maybe try shifting your bassline around the low chord. Or better yet, incorporate the low chord into the bassline. That way, you don't have to compromise anything. The mostly applies to quick'ish stabs. Long drawn out chords won't work obviously.

yes and maybe look at inverting your chords so that the root is an octave up, this puts some distance between the basses second harmonic and a frequnecy which is potentially doubling up. for that matter try raising at least one of the notes in your chord up an octave to allow more breathing space for your basslines second harmonics, it might not change the sound of the chord too much, depends of course on the chord.
another thing you can do is what i said earlier, use a square wave bass, no second harmonic... i cant stress you how valuable it is to chose your bass waveforms correctly...i know i go on about it, but believe me its important, it almost magically cleans up your bass and lower mids.

if anyone has any doubt, stick a spectrum analyser on a pulse wave and slowly turn the pulse width knob and watch how the various harmonics come and go. you can completely and precisely remove a frequnecy, surgical precision compared to a filter or EQ

AK · Post by AK » Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:57 pm

Yeah this is absolutely against filtering in this way. Its become a blanket treatment thing to just hp filter everything except kick and bass at a set frequency. Why?

I think people dont associate frequencies with actual notes and fundamentals otherwise they'd see that it can, at times be counterproductive or pointless. Hp filtering a chord built on C3 at 100hz doesnt make sense because that root is 130hz, so why the need for the 100hz hi pass?

With filtering on a buss, you are also running the risk of removing frequencies that are defining factors of the sound. I know the obvious mix reasons why people do this, Im just saying when you use filtering in a musical sense and can relate those frequencies to note values and even the harmonic series, you have a much better grounding of the construct of an all round better mix.

One thing I think people should do, is print off a chart which has the hertz value of notes right up through the spectrum and also have a grounding in harmonics too. It's overlooked and most are unawares as to how useful it is in not only sound design but ultimately, actually getting a full working mix.

Once you realise, its like you will wonder how you ever worked without it.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:10 pm

AK wrote:
One thing I think people should do, is print off a chart which has the hertz value of notes right up through the spectrum and also have a grounding in harmonics too. It's overlooked and most are unawares as to how useful it is in not only sound design but ultimately, actually getting a full working mix.

Once you realise, its like you will wonder how you ever worked without it.

vital.

i have a chart on my studio wall, also a chart of harmonics.

if you dont understand the relationship between the frequencies and notes, and are not aware of harmonic relationships, you only half understand music production.
i went for years without understanding it, and i dont know how i managed to produce music tbh, your ears go a long way but not far enough.
in the end it literally only took me a few days to get my head around it.
wish i'd done that ten years earlier.

N - Jay · Post by **N - Jay** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 12:13 pm

I was aware that I was answering my own question for a part when I submitted my post. And I've noticed that my sound thinned out when HPing it.

I've got my note frequencies chart on the wall since a week.
It's because of steevio's earlier posts that the importance of this should be noted when producing music.

Thanks for the clearance and tips guys.

simonb · Post by **simonb** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 12:59 pm

steevio wrote: i have a chart on my studio wall, also a chart of harmonics.

Got any good links to stuff like this online? I could do with a having a few of these things handy when I'm producing, guess I could always make some myself when I've got some downtime at work...

AK · Post by AK » Thu Feb 17, 2011 1:43 pm

simonb wrote:
steevio wrote: i have a chart on my studio wall, also a chart of harmonics.
Got any good links to stuff like this online? I could do with a having a few of these things handy when I'm producing, guess I could always make some myself when I've got some downtime at work...

For the Hz value of notes: http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

For the harmonic series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_(music)

I don't know of a chart for that - at least i can't find one via my phone browsing anyways. But it's a simple formula:

If you wish to know the harmonics of various analog type waveforms there's probably a chart for that but the only thing that confuses me is the Pulse wave and its duty cycle.