When mastering, where should i cut off in the low end?

[steevio]

In my tracks, there are always hpf on master. But eq8 isn't best choice, it isn't so precise. I recomended Brickwall filters from iZotope Ozone 5 or VPS Philta (there's awsome freeware version of that plugin).

There is absolutely no reason in the universe to do something like this for electronic music. Acoustic recordings a case could be made for doing it in certain limited situations but traditional recording sessions in an acoustic space have variables that can happen the a purely electronic instrument setup just wouldn't have. All you're doing is making your track quieter for no reason by killing off harmonics. It's just a bad idea.

Cutting low f and removing mud making my track quieter?

If you make cuts it will become quieter. Boost will make it louder.

this isnt really true Tone, you can make a track sound much louder by cutting unnecessary sub frequencies.

try an experiment, take a recording of a single instrument which doesnt have much in the way of sub freqeuncies, say an acoustic guitar, normalise it and compare it to say a well recorded normalised techno track, the acoustic guitar recording will sound massive and loud in comparison, and make the techno track sound really quiet.
sub frequencies take up huge amounts of space in your spectrum.
most mastering engineers will prefer to cut rather than boost frequencies to gain loudness.

[deccard]

In my tracks, there are always hpf on master. But eq8 isn't best choice, it isn't so precise. I recomended Brickwall filters from iZotope Ozone 5 or VPS Philta (there's awsome freeware version of that plugin).

There is absolutely no reason in the universe to do something like this for electronic music. Acoustic recordings a case could be made for doing it in certain limited situations but traditional recording sessions in an acoustic space have variables that can happen the a purely electronic instrument setup just wouldn't have. All you're doing is making your track quieter for no reason by killing off harmonics. It's just a bad idea.

yes very bad idea. there is for example a hardware mastering eq called clariphonics from kush audio. one of the eq bands can boost at 34khz and it obviously helps.

from the tape op mag reviewfor the clariphonic eq:

But, if you need to know the actual frequencies represented by the shelves, they are listed in the manual: Lift - 800 Hz; Open - 3 kHz; Presence - 5 kHz; Sheen - 9 kHz; Shimmer - 18 kHz; Silk - 34 kHz. (These are the frequencies stated in the most recent revision of the manual. Neither the circuitry nor the actual EQ curves were changed, but due to the nature of this EQ, it's difficult to assign an exact numeric designation to each setting.)

Um... are you joking? No one can hear 34 kHz, and I'm pretty sure my equipment can't even record that high.

Yeah, I know. It seems silly, but it sounds fabulous.

[kdgh]

Why do we still argue about this. Some people say loudness is bad and other's will say cutting is good yada yada.
Just get the sound you want and you're done. Don't want to be a topic killer though, cause i like this kinda discussions, but at the end it's about what 'fits'.

For some people it might be a good idea to shelve instead of making a cut. Think about a mixing console... They don't have 8 bands with sweep possibilities.
Most of the time you're shelving your eq. In my opinion it opened my eyes (read: ears).

[tone-def]

In my tracks, there are always hpf on master. But eq8 isn't best choice, it isn't so precise. I recomended Brickwall filters from iZotope Ozone 5 or VPS Philta (there's awsome freeware version of that plugin).

There is absolutely no reason in the universe to do something like this for electronic music. Acoustic recordings a case could be made for doing it in certain limited situations but traditional recording sessions in an acoustic space have variables that can happen the a purely electronic instrument setup just wouldn't have. All you're doing is making your track quieter for no reason by killing off harmonics. It's just a bad idea.

Cutting low f and removing mud making my track quieter?

If you make cuts it will become quieter. Boost will make it louder.

this isnt really true Tone, you can make a track sound much louder by cutting unnecessary sub frequencies.

try an experiment, take a recording of a single instrument which doesnt have much in the way of sub freqeuncies, say an acoustic guitar, normalise it and compare it to say a well recorded normalised techno track, the acoustic guitar recording will sound massive and loud in comparison, and make the techno track sound really quiet.
sub frequencies take up huge amounts of space in your spectrum.
most mastering engineers will prefer to cut rather than boost frequencies to gain loudness.

Who says they're unnecessary frequencies? the producer thought they were ok, otherwise he wouldn't have sent it to the mastering engineer.
There's also 2 types of loudness which makes things a bit confusing. i was referring to the loudness you see on your level meters. boost will give a louder reading. when you cut frequencies you have to normalize to compensate.

[steevio]

There's also 2 types of loudness which makes things a bit confusing. i was referring to the loudness you see on your level meters. boost will give a louder reading. when you cut frequencies you have to normalize to compensate.

i was referring to the normal definition of loudness, the shizz that makes you go 'fack, thats loud !!'
level meter readings dont signify loudness, a really quiet track with a spike in the sub frequency range can produce a high level meter reading, which i suppose is the whole point of the argument of cutting subs.

in the end every track is different, and like kdgh says its a bit of pointless argument, but to reiterate, there is no specific place to cut the off in the low end, if at all.

[bkwsk]

I usually roll off 30Hz with ProQ using a 48dB per octave filter as to not lose too much energy. I wouldn't personally advise to use EQ8 for this task, as EQ8's curve's aren't as steep.

[kdgh]

I want to add something about cutting with a 48db/o filter. The funny party is that such kinda filter creates an enourmess resonance on the frequency you're cutting on.
That could result to even more sub instead of less. Yes maybe your 30hz is gone, but god damn you got some 35 hz back for that son!
It could also be seen as a 'compensation' for the 30 hz of course.

again... adjust to taste :-). Sometimes it opens up the mix and sometimes it fucks it up.
When i do analogue jams with my old vermona drummachine (TBS Syncussion) i always have to cut about 30 - 40 hz. Cause those drumkicks have TOO much low end.
In such case scenario you've to do that kinda stuff otherwise it can't be balanced without clipping or pre amp noise.

[bkwsk]

I want to add something about cutting with a 48db/o filter. The funny party is that such kinda filter creates an enourmess resonance on the frequency you're cutting on.
That could result to even more sub instead of less. Yes maybe your 30hz is gone, but god damn you got some 35 hz back for that son!
It could also be seen as a 'compensation' for the 30 hz of course.

Yup, but we have to be careful as to not overpower the sub, which is very easy to do esp. if you're not used to listening to your music taking Fletcher Munson into account, etc. I read somewhere that, as a rule of thumb, no sub should add more than +3dB to the peak level of your whole mix. There's obviously nothing set in stone, so make sure to always have a spectrum ready and a fresh set of ears.

Also: don't make that sub self-resonate too much!