notch filter @ 4500 Hz

skept · Post by **skept** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:53 pm

i have read this:

"4500 Hz - exteremly tiring to the ears, add a slight notch here"

in a frequency guide and am wondering how i properly apply a notch filter there. is this something that should be done over the track as a whole or over individual channels of a track?

i attempted to search for this information but I could not find anything that helped.

kenada · Post by **kenada** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 2:23 am

yeah theres a nasty sizzle at 3800- 4700 if you ask me, for me this is where reverb sound crap, and can hurt your ears.

i don't know any hard and fast rules about notching this out, but a good rule would be if it hurst you, it will hury/fatigue others as well.

skept · Post by **skept** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 2:26 am

incase anyone is curious from another forum i was informed that this frequency should be lowered a few decibals over the track as a whole. if anyone has any comments on this please let me know. i am just going to keep experimenting with it.

skept · Post by **skept** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 2:28 am

kenada wrote:a good rule would be if it hurst you, it will hury/fatigue others as well.

that is what made me curious about this subject to begin with. i thought that portions of my tracks were a little ear piercing.

sorgenkind · Post by **sorgenkind** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 11:25 am

since I am working in a company which produces hearing aids I got the chance to study bit the human hearing.
Our ears are tuned on the human voice, which concentrates its frequencies in the mids/hi mids, if you do a spectral analysis of a human voice you'll notice it.
We hear best (unless the hear is damaged) in the range beetween 500 Hz and 6 KHz, where 4KHz is the peak.

So these frequencies are often perceived higher that the are, or better said our ear is not so sensitive to the other freqs than to the mids.

mayzee · Post by **mayzee** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:10 pm

as a slight aside on this, but still kinda relevant...

womens ears already have a slight notch in them, apparently it evolved to make babies crying sound less harsh to them...

also this is why a lot of people like guitars, as they have a very midrange sound that sits on our ears well.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:20 pm

it's a weird one because i was once told by a cutting engineer that 4700 was an important frequency to get right because club sound systems tend not to handle frequencies above this very well, so if say your high percussion resides too much above this frequency, it wont come across very well in a club. he was suggesting concentrating the HF energy around that very frequency.
however i would tend to agree that our ears get punished around there.

it is dangerous just to apply notches to sounds or mixes just because we've read that we should. it totally depends on your tune. there may be harmonics from any of the sounds in your mix at around that frequency, you could totally take the edge off your tune by doing that.
use your ears, if some frequncy is hurting your ears, then maybe just one of the sounds in the mix needs lowering slightly.
always judge these things in the morning when your ears are fresh, and always monitor at a sensible (lowish) volume as your ears naturally compress loud sounds, and always reference in various speakers, ( beatbox / car stereo etc. ) if after all that theres definitely a frequency that is uncomfortable, and you need to notch the whole mix, identify the frequency by using a narrow focused (Q) boost, and sweep across the frequency area till it jumps out at you.
then use a narrow focused deep notch at the troublesome frequency, but also apply a widely focused boost over the same area. this has the effect of bringing the nearby friendly frequencies up to compensate for the lowering of the rogue one. this sounds much more natural than just notching alone, which basically leaves a hole in your spectrum.
it's a complicated subject, but with trial and error it's not too difficult to get right.
just remember though, if it sounds right, leave it well alone !

skept · Post by **skept** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:44 pm

steevio wrote:it's a weird one because i was once told by a cutting engineer that 4700 was an important frequency to get right because club sound systems tend not to handle frequencies above this very well, so if say your high percussion resides too much above this frequency, it wont come across very well in a club. he was suggesting concentrating the HF energy around that very frequency.
however i would tend to agree that our ears get punished around there.

it is dangerous just to apply notches to sounds or mixes just because we've read that we should. it totally depends on your tune. there may be harmonics from any of the sounds in your mix at around that frequency, you could totally take the edge off your tune by doing that.
use your ears, if some frequncy is hurting your ears, then maybe just one of the sounds in the mix needs lowering slightly.
always judge these things in the morning when your ears are fresh, and always monitor at a sensible (lowish) volume as your ears naturally compress loud sounds, and always reference in various speakers, ( beatbox / car stereo etc. ) if after all that theres definitely a frequency that is uncomfortable, and you need to notch the whole mix, identify the frequency by using a narrow focused (Q) boost, and sweep across the frequency area till it jumps out at you.
then use a narrow focused deep notch at the troublesome frequency, but also apply a widely focused boost over the same area. this has the effect of bringing the nearby friendly frequencies up to compensate for the lowering of the rogue one. this sounds much more natural than just notching alone, which basically leaves a hole in your spectrum.
it's a complicated subject, but with trial and error it's not too difficult to get right.
just remember though, if it sounds right, leave it well alone !

this is the best advice i have gotten so far on any board. thanks!