# Mixing and taming hi piercing sounds



## Daniel Petras (Aug 30, 2016)

Sometimes in my mixes I'll come across high piercing sounds which usually come from the upper range of the piano or hi woodwinds. I've leaned how to control them for the most part by either compressing, lowering the volume or EQing. Today however I was trying to mix a piano part and none of these methods were working without having the piano buried by the strings. Are there other techniques that can be used to keep these instruments present while avoiding that high piercing sound?


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## Chandler (Aug 30, 2016)

Try using a dynamic eq or a multiband compressor to tame the high end.


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## higgs (Aug 30, 2016)

Are you using VI pianos? If so, have you tried a different one? Not all instruments work well in mixes, and sometimes one piano sounds great in some mixes only to sound shrill or gross in others.


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## Saxer (Aug 31, 2016)

Mix louder, play softer. In most cases piercing sounds come from samples recorded at ff-level. If things get buried in the mix it can also be a question of arrangement or missing dynamic movement.


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## Kaufmanmoon (Aug 31, 2016)

This is a nice feature on Fab Filter's EQ
I've tried to put the video at the right point for you. 
Saxer's tip above is a great one


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## Daniel Petras (Aug 31, 2016)

Yes, it's VI piano. 

Saxer, that's probably exactly what I need - very helpful! 

Kaufman, I was actually watching this video the other day! It's amazing how you can grab any peak you want and adjust it.


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## ghostnote (Aug 31, 2016)

I never had issues with harsch sounding orchestral VIs, but with hi hats all the time. Could be a build up thing. I tend to low-pass the whole drumkit at around 9-10kHz to make it less harsch. It also helps to put the drums a bit back into the mix.


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## Daniel Petras (Aug 31, 2016)

I've also noticed that it tends to be only on certain playback systems. I'm wondering then if systems that don't expose this are just poor tools for mixing, my headphones for example.


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## nas (Aug 31, 2016)

Once you've zeroed in on the offending frequency try raising your Q (decreasing the bandwidth) this will allow any cuts you've made to the center frequency to not affect as many of the surrounding frequencies and possibly affecting too much of your high end when you cut. You can get pretty precise deep notches on your EQ without messing up your high end, it just needs a little bit of tweaking.


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## Daniel Petras (Aug 31, 2016)

I was playing around with the suggestions and lowering the velocities while raising the volume signal didn't really fix the problem, but created other problems. Since much of the higher register was being too piercing the best fix I found was to use a band of compression in that range.


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## higgs (Aug 31, 2016)

Have you tried duplicating your MIDI data onto another track and using a different piano to play the same performance?


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## GdT (Sep 1, 2016)

+1 to the dynamic EQ technique.

I would only use it on the offending track(s).
Though I have used a dynamic EQ on a whole mix to cut out bass boom, such as room resonance from a live recording.

Also if you have an audio track, there is a neat thing you can do with iZotope's RX audio editor. This technique is really only suitable for individual notes. I have used it to soften vocals on individual notes. There is brilliant RX editor tool than can isolate and select individual higher partials / upper harmonics; i.e. second third, fourth, harmonics. Typically these can make it sound harsh if they are too strong. The editor shows indication which ones appear stronger. Then you can reduce the individual harmonic by a few dB. Hear what that sounds like and try again... Works a treat, but it's a lot of work on a whole track. So better to use a dynamic EQ if the whole track is in need of treatment, but then again with the whole track there will be a range of notes so the EQ cannot be super narrow.


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## Daniel Petras (Sep 1, 2016)

I just tried using different pianos and the tone was completely different, and yes definitely less harshness in the upper register. I also played with the reverb settings as I think I had too much and that was also contributing to the harsh sound as well.


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