# Is it normal to be cutting low-mids all over the place?



## blaggins (May 16, 2021)

I'm very new to mixing orchestral/hybrid stuff (very new to composing it too for that matter) and I'm struggling with "mud" in the low-mids. This is a classic struggle from what I gather since I've read a ton of forum posts about it from others as well. I EQ things so that they sound pretty good on my (very) old Sony MD-7506s (and an equally old pair of NHT Pro M-00s) and as soon as I play it through my other headphones the mix loses a ton of definition and gets really muddy in the lower frequencies.

Soo... not knowing much about how to tackle the problem I've been judiciously cutting the low mids all over the place. This seems to be helping as the mix in my Sonys doesn't suffer too much, and it sounds noticeably better on other headphones. I find myself cutting 6-12dB in fairly wide bands between 250-500Hz on individual instruments (esp. ones that have a lot going on down there: bassoon, cor anglais, horns, alto flutes, strings of all kinds) and then I still find myself having to make MORE cuts on the group buses. By the end, if I'm soloing anything I can really hear a very significant impact on the character of the instrument (not a good impact, they sound hollowed out) but all together it seems to sound alright.

Even though this technique of many wide cuts is sort of working, it seems to me that I must be overdoing it. For example, if I watch JunkieXL studio time and Tom is talking about his EQs, it never seems to me that he is doing that much. For example, on his dark tower series he brings up a few EQs and there is hardly anything going on ().

Do other folks find themselves having to make huge cuts in the 250-500Hz range all throughout their mix, or am I doing something horrible? I would guess the second, and would appreciate any pointers. Is this just a question of arrangement? I guess I would be a little bit surprised if it was just arrangement since the problem rears it's ugly head even when my arrangements are very sparse.


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## Elrik Settee (May 16, 2021)

Maybe try Sonarworks or IK’s ARC to correct your room and or phones.


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## JohnG (May 16, 2021)

Those are some pretty massive cuts, my friend.

As our fellow member @Elrik Settee implies in his response above, such drastic cuts make me wonder if there is something off with your setup -- monitors or speaker placement or something. Or your hardware is just letting you down.

Possible culprits:

1. Speakers, headphones, amplifier are booming up that range;
2. Misbehaving insert effects you are putting in before the EQ (not sends);
3. Reverb problems (see below);
4. Room problems (a cube of a room is harder to mix in than an irregular one, for example; a fairly small room can be harder than a larger one).

I'm sure others can expand on the list.

The reverb issues are:

a. Use sends to feed reverb -- don't put reverb in as an insert;
b. Make sure your reverb has a low cut (maybe around 50-80 Hz) and a high cut (somewhere starting any place from 2.5kHz to 4kHz). Most reverbs have these features built into their presets, so you may already be doing this. In simpler terms, the idea is not to reverberate everything. If you have a lot of reverb on very low notes (low bass, rumbly drums) you get rumble. If you reverberate very high signals, you can get a lot of ringing. That can sound cool but it's not typical.
c. If you have some complicated reverb setup (more than one), consider only using a "final" reverb (a hall or something) while you experiment with other changes.

I don't know your experience and knowledge level, so if you already know all this, apologies in advance. If, by contrast, it's all new to you, keep asking and I'm sure the gang around here can help.

Kind regards,

John


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## Kent (May 16, 2021)

tpoots said:


> ...
> I EQ things so that they sound pretty good on my (very) old Sony MD-7506s (and an equally old pair of NHT Pro M-00s) and as soon as I play it through my other headphones the mix loses a ton of definition and gets really muddy in the lower frequencies.
> ...
> I find myself cutting 6-12dB in fairly wide bands between 250-500Hz on individual instruments (esp. ones that have a lot going on down there: basoon, cor anglais, horns, alto flutes, strings of all kinds) and then I still find myself having to make MORE cuts on the group buses.
> ...


Have you considered your monitoring situation?

Here is a NHT's frequency response:






Here is a 7506's frequency response:





If you notice, they both have a low-mids valley and a peaky top end. Having one or the other would make you more likely to boost your low-mids; having both sucked lows and boosted highs simultaneously, thanks to psychoacoustics, further compounds the issue.

Thus you're mixing primarily on monitoring devices that are heavily tilted toward the treble side, so you have to super-boost your lows to compensate.

But when you listen on a device that ostensibly has a different general frequency response shape, things sound completely out of whack.

And this doesn't even address the way that monitor placements in a room can impact the low-mids—there is a well-known 'grand canyon' that can appear there, depending on the physical properties of your setup.

All in all, I'd get something known to be more acoustically flat to "base" my mixes on (i.e. *not* 7506s, which are great for tracking but not so much for mixing). Something open-backed and well-regarded like the Sennheiser HD600 should suffice:


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## Gerbil (May 16, 2021)

7506s are bright sounding headphones. Great for pleasure but not so much for mixing imo.


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## blaggins (May 16, 2021)

JohnG said:


> I don't know your experience and knowledge level, so if you already know all this, apologies in advance. If, by contrast, it's all new to you, keep asking and I'm sure the gang around here can help.



No apologies needed! I'm definitely a beginner (in experience if not in years) and I appreciate the thorough responses all around.

You've given me a lot to think about... I'm feeling like the consensus might be that my listening situation is driving me to put a lot more into the low mids than I would if I actually heard them accurately  Would it be fair to say that my issue is likely compounded by bad monitoring driving me to create bad arrangements? My guess is that my arrangements are probably pretty bad anyway... I don't have any kind of formal education in orchestration so I'm coming at this with a very ad-hoc approach. Roughly speaking I just experiment and if it sounds good I go with it. I did recently read Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio and I'm getting a start on Musical Composition: Craft and Art by Alan Belkin (but it is *very* slow going).




> a. Use sends to feed reverb -- don't put reverb in as an insert;
> b. Make sure your reverb has a low cut (maybe around 50-80 Hz) and a high cut (somewhere starting any place from 2.5kHz to 4kHz). Most reverbs have these features built into their presets, so you may already be doing this. In simpler terms, the idea is not to reverberate everything. If you have a lot of reverb on very low notes (low bass, rumbly drums) you get rumble. If you reverberate very high signals, you can get a lot of ringing. That can sound cool but it's not typical.
> c. If you have some complicated reverb setup (more than one), consider only using a "final" reverb (a hall or something) while you experiment with other changes.


I'm using 2 reverbs (a medium ambience "room" reverb plus a longer tail one) on dedicated fx channels and they are fed with sends. I'm tending to send the full post-fader level to the room, and like -6db to the tail, which seems to sound ok. And I do have 24 db/octave cuts at 80 Hz and 5k Hz before the reverbs.


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## blaggins (May 16, 2021)

kmaster said:


> Have you considered your monitoring situation?


Thanks for the detailed analysis on those. Seeing the two graphs side by side like that... I mean it's pretty clear that I'm just not hearing a lot of low mids when I'm mixing. I think the room I'm in is probably crap acoustically but I do most of my music work when the kiddo is asleep so I'm on headphones like 90% of the time.

I have been looking into better headphones anyway. The HD600s and DT 880 PROs get mentioned a lot.


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## storyteller (May 16, 2021)

HD600/650s are a great headphone choice. I will say this though... it is darn near impossible to mix purely on headphones. I devoted several years to trying this on my personal projects just to see if I could get to that point... but no dice. Monitors are required... and multiple sets at that. I have a good ear... audiophile level. But the nirvana that would be a single mixing environment with headphones is more of a fantasy than reality regardless of all of the amazing tools that are out right now to assist with headphone mixing. I am soon likely going back to remix years of music... fun, right? ha.

That said, a general rule of thumb for EQ is that it should be a last resort... not a "first reach" plugin. Use lightly, sparingly. Vocals? Go to town with it. Anything else, approach it lightly. You'd probably be surprised to learn that big-budget studio equipment basically negates the need for EQ correction. Rather, character EQing is performed to bend the sound to something more interesting instead of course-correcting bad resonances. That's why people desire that type of signal chain so much. Cheap mics... or an improperly selected mic for the job are when EQ becomes a necessity.

FYI: Andrew Schoeps famously uses 7506s to mix on his mobile rig...

*Edit: *_I say "last resort" but of course you will EQ most everything to shape the sound. I just mean that if you are hearing crazy fatness and muddiness, it is likely the arrangement or the monitoring situation rather than an EQ issue._


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## Dietz (May 16, 2021)

To offer a slightly different POV: While I agree with the idea of optimising both the recording at the source and the monitoring for mixdown, I use EQ lavishly even on highly professional and well-planned productions on world-class equipment.  Together with spatialisation and dynamics processing, it is the most important tool for meticulous corrections and at the same time the colour palette for "big strokes".

.... but that doesn't change the fact that a mix in which one has to cut the same frequency range by 6 to 12 dB on all tracks is sure to be plagued by serious problems, either in the audio files themselves or in the monitoring situation in which it is mixed.


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## Kent (May 16, 2021)

tpoots said:


> Thanks for the detailed analysis on those. Seeing the two graphs side by side like that... I mean it's pretty clear that I'm just not hearing a lot of low mids when I'm mixing. I think the room I'm in is probably crap acoustically but I do most of my music work when the kiddo is asleep so I'm on headphones like 90% of the time.
> 
> I have been looking into better headphones anyway. The HD600s and DT 880 PROs get mentioned a lot.


Just make sure that if you _do_ get fancy headphones, your headphone amp can keep up (read: can handle the Ohms). Great phones with an amp that can't handle them are a waste of money at best.


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## Trash Panda (May 16, 2021)

I’m going to make a few suggestion that will probably not be popular with this crowd.

Headphones - a program like dSoniq’s Realphones can help flatten out the frequency response of your cans. They can’t make details appear that don’t exist, but they can help address the frequency imbalances most headphones have. Hell of a lot cheaper than new monitors and acoustic treatment, but not the holy grail solution the marketing would have you believe. It is also helpful for simulating some other listening environments, like the car, laptop/phone speakers, etc. https://www.dsoniq.com/standard

Plugins like Sonible’s Smart EQ/comp/others and Izotope’s Neutron/Ozone suites can be very helpful at “getting a second opinion” as long as you don’t treat their AI recommendations as gospel. They ARE immensely helpful tools to use for learning purposes and can produce acceptable results most of the time if you’re trying to keep your focus on making music. Learning how to properly mix and master will still achieve better results and the actual plugins are incredibly versatile, powerful and efficient to use if you’re willing to put in the work to learn them. At minimum, Tonal Balance Control is awesome for referencing your frequency curve against genre presets or specific reference songs if the rest is not appealing/useful.


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## Daniel James (May 16, 2021)

tpoots said:


> Thanks for the detailed analysis on those. Seeing the two graphs side by side like that... I mean it's pretty clear that I'm just not hearing a lot of low mids when I'm mixing. I think the room I'm in is probably crap acoustically but I do most of my music work when the kiddo is asleep so I'm on headphones like 90% of the time.
> 
> I have been looking into better headphones anyway. The HD600s and DT 880 PROs get mentioned a lot.


The Slate VSX are worth a look, particularly for your situation. They are software controlled headphones, so the bypass mode is a super flat response, but you also have the ability to replicate the sound of working in a mix room. Really useful to check the stereo width and general balance. You can even do a car mix check! 









Steven Slate Audio VSX | Perfect mixes, less frustration


Produce and mix in the finest studios, cars, clubs, and in over $6000 worth of other industry headphones. Hear the most precise details and get pro results fast.




stevenslateaudio.com





-DJ


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## bill5 (May 16, 2021)

My first thought was "what do they sound like on your speakers?" I would NEVER rely solely or even primarily on headphones, I don't care if they're the most highly-rated whatever and Alan Parsons, George Martin, and Gary Katz all made small animal sacrifices to them daily. Double bonus pts if you hear diff things on diff heaphones, which should be a sign that no single one should be relied on and you won't "please" them all.  They are inherently flawed mixing-wise and IMO should never be more than a secondary/alternative to speakers, though I do like them as such as they might catch subtleties you wouldn't on speakers.


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## purple (May 16, 2021)

Also sometimes this just comes down to "orchestration" no matter the genre. If you have too much low mid, maybe it's simply that you just have to many instruments fighting for that spectral range.


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## mybadmemory (May 16, 2021)

Unless there is something tecknicallywrong in your setup I would really reconsider the orchestration and arrangement itself.

If you open up all tracks in the piano roll, are the notes well spaced out from top to bottom or do you have a lot going on in the lower mids?

Do you ride your CCs properly to make sure all instruments are not playing at their top dynamics all the time?

For myself I’ve found that more I learn about orchestration and arrangement and the more time I spend on the programming of velocities and CCs, the less mixing i seem to need.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 16, 2021)

I haven’t listened to anything if it was posted or read this whole thread, but what’s going on with the orchestration? If everything is around A 440 (just below middle C) - which is where one wants to do everything  - that’s going to make you want to cut there so you can hear what’s going on.


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## charlieclouser (May 16, 2021)

For EQ checking of mid and low end, I use $150 Audio-Technica ATH-M50x headphones. In that range they sound, to me, pretty spot-on to big dub stages and movie theaters in terms of tonal balance.

Obviously, high end is much crisper and more present in those cans than it will be when you're sitting 40 feet away from speakers in a tuned theater or dub stage, but for subs, lows, and low-mid stuff I reckon they give me a good picture. Closer than my speakers for critical EQ settings in those frequency ranges anyway. But I don't mix on them for long periods of time, since they give me a slanted perspective on reverb amounts and other front-to-back type mixing decisions. I just use them as a gut check on EQ stuff for a few minutes here and there.

I actually went to my pro audio dealer ready to fork over for a Grace headphone amp and a pair of whatever hot-shit $1,000 headphones were getting all the Instagram likes that week, and my guy said, "Bro, I'll take your money if you want.... but first, take these home and just plug 'em right into your MOTU interface and let me know what you think."

Best $150 I ever spent.

But I never tried the Beyers or Sennheisers that people always mention. Before the ATH cans I used AKG K-140 and K-240's for decades. I had some of the Sony MDR's lying around for guitarists but I never really like them for myself.

But I generally check each instrument to see "how high can I set a high-pass filter before it removes something I like?". And I do notch some low mid frequencies pretty massively a lot of the time. Especially on things like toms - narrow cuts of minus 9db at 200-300hz is not that extreme for me. For orchestral instruments perhaps not that much, but in general... cut away! Just call me Scoopy McSmileyCurve.


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## bill5 (May 16, 2021)

charlieclouser said:


> For EQ checking of mid and low end, I use $150 Audio-Technica ATH-M50x headphones. In that range they sound, to me, pretty spot-on to big dub stages and movie theaters in terms of tonal balance.


They are notorious for a low end "thump." In that regard, I would not consider them balanced. But otherwise very good headphones.


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## GNP (May 16, 2021)

Yes, it's rather normal.


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## José Herring (May 17, 2021)

charlieclouser said:


> For EQ checking of mid and low end, I use $150 Audio-Technica ATH-M50x headphones. In that range they sound, to me, pretty spot-on to big dub stages and movie theaters in terms of tonal balance.
> 
> Obviously, high end is much crisper and more present in those cans than it will be when you're sitting 40 feet away from speakers in a tuned theater or dub stage, but for subs, lows, and low-mid stuff I reckon they give me a good picture. Closer than my speakers for critical EQ settings in those frequency ranges anyway. But I don't mix on them for long periods of time, since they give me a slanted perspective on reverb amounts and other front-to-back type mixing decisions. I just use them as a gut check on EQ stuff for a few minutes here and there.
> 
> ...


Yeah! I use the same headphones as Charlie.

I completely agree. I used the K 240's for nearly 20 years and could never mix in them even though at the time they were suppose to be the headphones of choice. I was in guitar center once and somebody suggested the Audio-Technica I got them and I've never looked for any other headphones. They do remind me a lot of the sound in the booth at a scoring stage.




tpoots said:


> I'm very new to mixing orchestral/hybrid stuff (very new to composing it too for that matter) and I'm struggling with "mud" in the low-mids. This is a classic struggle from what I gather since I've read a ton of forum posts about it from others as well. I EQ things so that they sound pretty good on my (very) old Sony MD-7506s (and an equally old pair of NHT Pro M-00s) and as soon as I play it through my other headphones the mix loses a ton of definition and gets really muddy in the lower frequencies.
> 
> Soo... not knowing much about how to tackle the problem I've been judiciously cutting the low mids all over the place. This seems to be helping as the mix in my Sonys doesn't suffer too much, and it sounds noticeably better on other headphones. I find myself cutting 6-12dB in fairly wide bands between 250-500Hz on individual instruments (esp. ones that have a lot going on down there: bassoon, cor anglais, horns, alto flutes, strings of all kinds) and then I still find myself having to make MORE cuts on the group buses. By the end, if I'm soloing anything I can really hear a very significant impact on the character of the instrument (not a good impact, they sound hollowed out) but all together it seems to sound alright.
> 
> ...



You are heading the right direction. The build up in that area is rather substantial when using synths and samples in a piece. There are various ways to deal with it each one rather less effective in the next. 

I tend to do a lot by trying to handle the frequencies at the track level. I use some not all of the JXL brass libries. I use the AMJXL mic mixes which handle a lot of the build up. And through either some sort of careful mic selection or some chicanery with EQ settings they managed to avoid the build up in that area. 

I wish I had better answers for you because really is a problem in any of my mixes but really do try and handle it before you get to the end stages of a mix.


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## Rob (May 17, 2021)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I haven’t listened to anything if it was posted or read this whole thread, but what’s going on with the orchestration? If everything is around A 440 (just below middle C) - which is where one wants to do everything  - that’s going to make you want to cut there so you can hear what’s going on.


I guess that's 220?


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## charlieclouser (May 17, 2021)

bill5 said:


> They are notorious for a low end "thump." In that regard, I would not consider them balanced. But otherwise very good headphones.


Yes, that's just what I was looking for. On the series "Wayward Pines" I had some cues using some percussion loop elements from CineSamples Deep Percussion Beds, which have a fantastic low end - but if you EQ them too much (or at all really) you run the risk of ruining everything, since they are so perfectly recorded and mixed already. We were doing the final mix on one of the big dub stages at Soundelux in Hollywood (R.I.P., it was a great facility) and DANG those percussion beds sounded WICKED on the big bigs. Tons of subs, tons more hang time than I was hearing on my Dynaudio rig, even with the dual 10" subs. Good thing I hadn't really messed with their EQ at all.

But I was dismayed at how much more info I was hearing at the stage (no surprise really) and it was literally that afternoon that I picked up the ATH-M50x on the way home. I checked the cues I had just delivered to the stage and BOOM there it was, I was hearing the same sub action and hang time that I had heard on the stage. Since it was a two-day mix I went back to the stage the next day with the M-50x in hand and during lunch I did a little A/B testing between the headphones and the big bigs and that was enough for me. They were what I needed to be able to hear the big room bottom end more accurately.

Maybe that means that the big stages at Soundelux had excess low end thump? But going forward the M-50x have been a great tool for checking subs and low end mud. I still use Dynaudio Air and Core speakers with subs, and will move to Genelec 8351b or 8361 with dual 7370 subs soon, but when I want to zoom in on the sound in an un-real-world way the M-50x have been great. And for $150 you can't go wrong.

Plus, I've long ago given up on having a single "correct" or "absolute reference" monitoring of any kind. Every system, room, etc. will sound different to some degree. What I'm looking for out of any monitoring setup is a way to compare individual elements within a mix *to each other*, not to some abstract absolute standard. Like, is the thump of a bass drum still poking its head above the sustained low-end grind of massive low orchs or synth bass, or is it getting swamped. Like, not comparing an apple to an orange, more like comparing one apple seed to another within the same apple.

I do compare my mixes to others once in a while, but it's actually more useful to me just to listen to a couple of reference tracks to see what the monitors are doing and then just dive in. And I don't use reference tracks that have anything to do with the music I'm doing. I use "Final Shakedown" by Groove Armada and "Diesel Power" by The Prodigy. Both of those have tons of low end, but it's very *problematic* low end. If the speakers or room are misbehaving down there then they will show it. Diesel Power especially, it has bass that's basically a continuous tone almost, and not very low down, but there's sub kicks that should poke out above the bass murk. If the room is gonna hoot and resonate, then this track will show it. If the high-mid and highs are too crispy and separated, this track will show it. It should sound all mushed together and dirty, and speakers like Amphion and ATC separate the upper mid and highs too much due to crossover weirdness I suspect. To the point where you can hear "in between" the various layers of loops-n-samples making up the top end. Not what I want, not what Liam intended. Also, if the continuous bass drone elements sound consistent as you walk around the room, then it's a good setup.

The Groove Armada track has wubby synth bass that blends with the juicy kicks - UNLESS the monitoring is spot-on, in which case you can hear them more separately and even hear a third, bonus kick tucked in there. And, again, the upper mid and highs should blend together, so if there's crossover weirdness up there you'll hear the elements separate from each other a little bit.

Another great reference track is "Holy Arp" by The Crystal Method. Scott mixed that track so tasty, with an Arp 2600 doing these extreme-bandwidth ring-mod sounds and his usual juicier-than-juicy kick and bass soup, so it makes a great reference - and there's tasty 808-bend-downs that will disappear on lesser monitoring rigs, but should shake the room; they definitely shake the room at Scott's studio. He uses a pair of the big old Blue Sky 3-ways with a Trinnov system and it sounds like Ibiza in there, as it should. But I haven't lived with that track for 20 years like Diesel Power, which I've heard on every type of playback system from an arena-sized all-analog PA system down to my tv speakers. 

Also the Leftfield album "Rhythm and Stealth" is one of my favorites for checking monitors. Not tons of low end, but tons of low-mid sounds with differing decay times.

All of these tracks do have one thing in common - a mixture of long and short bass tones. So you can hear how quickly and accurately the monitors can put the brakes on big bass tones. You should be able to hear the various decay times of all the different elements that make up their low end salad. That's what I'm looking for when I check for low end capability in monitoring.

So if you have tracks you know and love, even if they have nothing to do with the music you're doing, then using them as a means to compare various monitoring situations you'll run across is invaluable.


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## MarcusD (May 17, 2021)

tpoots said:


> I'm very new to mixing orchestral/hybrid stuff (very new to composing it too for that matter) and I'm struggling with "mud" in the low-mids. This is a classic struggle from what I gather since I've read a ton of forum posts about it from others as well. I EQ things so that they sound pretty good on my (very) old Sony MD-7506s (and an equally old pair of NHT Pro M-00s) and as soon as I play it through my other headphones the mix loses a ton of definition and gets really muddy in the lower frequencies.
> 
> Soo... not knowing much about how to tackle the problem I've been judiciously cutting the low mids all over the place. This seems to be helping as the mix in my Sonys doesn't suffer too much, and it sounds noticeably better on other headphones. I find myself cutting 6-12dB in fairly wide bands between 250-500Hz on individual instruments (esp. ones that have a lot going on down there: bassoon, cor anglais, horns, alto flutes, strings of all kinds) and then I still find myself having to make MORE cuts on the group buses. By the end, if I'm soloing anything I can really hear a very significant impact on the character of the instrument (not a good impact, they sound hollowed out) but all together it seems to sound alright.
> 
> ...



Most of the good stuff is actually in the mid ranges. Many tend to think the mid range areas should be cut drastically, but doing so you end up having mixes that don’t translate well and sound either too bass heavy or to bright and harsh. Which usually suggests what’s already been mentioned above.

The monitoring setup or room may be the main reason as to why things are not sounding the way you want. But also being new, it’s easy to over do things and EQ tracks for the sake of EQing them, when really they might not need anything doing


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## davidson (May 17, 2021)

charlieclouser said:


> I use "Final Shakedown" by Groove Armada and "Diesel Power" by The Prodigy.


Diesel power is one of my holy trinity test tracks too! I use it alongside chemical brother's under the influence, and Jamie xx's you've got the love rework. Woofers are usually jelly by that point.


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## Living Fossil (May 17, 2021)

tpoots said:


> I find myself cutting 6-12dB in fairly wide bands between 250-500Hz on individual instruments (esp. ones that have a lot going on down there: bassoon, cor anglais, horns, alto flutes, strings of all kinds) and then I still find myself having to make MORE cuts on the group buses. By the end, if I'm soloing anything I can really hear a very significant impact on the character of the instrument (not a good impact, they sound hollowed out) but all together it seems to sound alright.


My guess is your problems could be related to the way you arrange your tracks.

E.g. an alto flute in its lowest register has a strong focus on the first partial. When you use it down there you will have to put attention of the rest of the arrangement and most likely keep it rather sparse (the overtones of a double bass e.g. will most likely interfere with it in an unpleasant way.)

Also: a too strong emphasis of a certain frequency area can be due to a lack of content in other areas.

Maybe you can post a snippet of music or a pic that shows the involved instruments.

But I'm quite sure that it would be helpful if you'd read e.g. Rimsky-Korsakow's book on instrumentation.
It lays down some principles in a very compact way.


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## Loïc D (May 17, 2021)

I use ATH M50 also only to check the mid-lo of the mix (otherwise I don’t really like their sound).

I’ve been told many times before never to cut or boost too much when mixing (for phase issues and “respect” of the sound). Since I broke that rule, my mixes have improved.
So yes, I might cut or boost hugely some freq up to 8-9db if I feel to. My only rule now is “if it sounds good, it is good”.
I’m working with headphones 99% of the time (bedroom studio...). My monitors are tiny Focal (CMS 40).


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## blaggins (May 17, 2021)

Thanks so much for the feedback and questions everyone!

If I'm being realistic, it's very unlikely that I'll be improving my room and monitor situation anytime soon so for better or for worse, headphones will probably by the way I listen 90% of the time. I wonder if I should consider a sound card that has dual headphone outs at some point so I could potentially run two phones and switch between them to check things periodically? Do people do this? From what I've read from multiple folks on this thread, the ATH-M50x headphones might be good for checking the lows and low-mids to make sure I'm not overdoing it, and then something like good overall like HD600/HD650s for main mixing duties...?

As far as the arrangement goes, as a few of you pointed out this actually might be the main culprit here. All my music seems to suffer roughly this same fate but here is a recent example. I'm working on this for "The Orchestra Contest" being run by Best Service right now. I don't expect to do well, but it's been nice to have a deadline and a bit of video to write to nonetheless. I exported three versions: (1) full mix as things stand right now which includes all EQs and reverb sends (2) same thing but removing all the EQs and (3) also removing all reverb sends. I've also screenshotted the piano roll arrangements of this section of music for the brass, winds, and strings separately (see below). In going through this exercise it does seem to me that there is a whole lot going on below C4, but that's not actually where I'm making most of my EQ cuts...

*Full mix as things stand including EQs and reverb sends:*



*Full mix but removing EQs:*



*Full mix but removing EQs and removing reverb sends:*



*Brass arrangement:*
Top line is trumpets, the yellows/yellow greens are horns, pink in the middle is trombones with purple below being bass trombones (which are sometimes doubling the tuba which is lowest line). The strong orange color are cimbassi.





*Strings arrangement:*
Green and dark green are strings patches with bass in purple and celli and viola doubling each other in blue.





*Woodwinds arrangement:*
From top to bottom: piccolo (light blue), alto flute (also light blue), oboe (wandering pinkish line), core anglais (dark blue), bassoon (purple)


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 17, 2021)

Rob said:


> I guess that's 220?


Right, sorry. But my point is my point - people tend to put their hands in the middle of the keyboard. *Individual* parts sound good there, and then you try to fix the mush with EQ.


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## Living Fossil (May 17, 2021)

tpoots said:


> As far as the arrangement goes, as a few of you pointed out this actually might be the main culprit here. All my music seems to suffer roughly this same fate but here is a recent example.


Looking at your screenshots it's evident that my guess was right.

There's too much fighting for the same space in the spectrum; the woodwind arrangement makes no sense regarding the range and depth of the brass section (etc...).

As an exercise you could take the stems (wood, brass & strings) and look at them on a spectrogram (like RX) to see where the overtones of those parts and how intense they are. You will see that the overtones of the brass section have much more intensity, so this is to be considered when adding woodwinds.

And as mentioned, i'd highly recommend you to have a look at Rimsky-Korsakow's book about instrumentation. On a few pages you can read some basic principles about how to set up the different sections.


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## Tralen (May 17, 2021)

tpoots said:


> If I'm being realistic, it's very unlikely that I'll be improving my room and monitor situation anytime soon so for better or for worse, headphones will probably by the way I listen 90% of the time. I wonder if I should consider a sound card that has dual headphone outs at some point so I could potentially run two phones and switch between them to check things periodically? Do people do this?


I use a headphone amp with multiple outputs (Samson QH4), and use two headphones like you describe. The headphone amp is connected to my audio interface.


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## SupremeFist (May 17, 2021)

I agree that the arrangement is not optimal but I also think the non-eq'd version (#2) sounds much better than the eq'd version, so improving your monitoring would also be a good idea. You could try the free demo of dsoniq Realphones with the profile for the 7506 and see if that helps.


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## Kery Michael (May 17, 2021)

mybadmemory said:


> Unless there is something tecknicallywrong in your setup I would really reconsider the orchestration and arrangement itself.
> 
> If you open up all tracks in the piano roll, are the notes well spaced out from top to bottom or do you have a lot going on in the lower mids?
> 
> ...


Awesome comment. +1

Just recently, I realized that I’m always got expression and mod wheel cranked. This obviously really hampers the dynamics. Just now learning to set the volume of all instruments so that that their volume is good at about have CC values, like around 60.

Of course, that’s related to proper gain staging too.


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## patrick76 (May 17, 2021)

Do you have a reference track you are trying to match or approximate? They are really invaluable especially when trying to decide early on what your mix is sounding like. If you don't already have one, try to find something in a similar style to your piece and that you think sounds really good and use that as a basis to judge your own mix and to train your ears.


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## purple (May 17, 2021)

tpoots said:


> Thanks so much for the feedback and questions everyone!
> 
> If I'm being realistic, it's very unlikely that I'll be improving my room and monitor situation anytime soon so for better or for worse, headphones will probably by the way I listen 90% of the time. I wonder if I should consider a sound card that has dual headphone outs at some point so I could potentially run two phones and switch between them to check things periodically? Do people do this? From what I've read from multiple folks on this thread, the ATH-M50x headphones might be good for checking the lows and low-mids to make sure I'm not overdoing it, and then something like good overall like HD600/HD650s for main mixing duties...?
> 
> ...



It sounds to me like yes it's partially arrangement issues, but also the balance just seems unnatural to me. If this were a live orchestra the trumpets would be totally cutting through for example. The solution isn't EQ, but getting a more natural balance first and foremost. My suggestion to you is to mock up a track that was performed live and get that balance right, then try to transfer your own midi to that as a template. It might be eye opening.


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## blaggins (May 17, 2021)

Living Fossil said:


> There's too much fighting for the same space in the spectrum; the woodwind arrangement makes no sense regarding the range and depth of the brass section (etc...).


I believe you, though it's hard for me to hear the issue, lack of experience I'd imagine. I played with the arrangement some- mainly to make the woodwinds extremely sparse leaving in only the piccolo near the end. I also rebalanced things a bit regarding strings vs. brass intensity (your comment also makes a lot of sense to me *purple*) by turning down the faders on some of the strings and bringing out only the most important lines with little fader boosts. I wish I could say I like the result better. It's cleaner yes and for sure the brass is more dominant especially when the dynamic layers are in the loud ranges, but now I feel like there are some things missing. Maybe I just got used to the mess. I'll keep playing with it though.

On several of your recommendations (for corrective headphones EQ) I also took the plunge and downloaded the trial of Sonarworks SoundID and plugged in the MDR-7506 profile. I have to say... it does have the effect of making my mix sound dull and a bit boxy in the mids, almost seems to kind of "meet halfway" between what it sounded like before and what the mix sounds like on my cheaper consumer headphones. I'd imagine I'm going to buy SoundID at this point, it seems pretty useful for mixing on headphones. I have no idea how close to "reality" it is though since of course every individual headphone is a bit different, plus my Sony's are like 20 years old.


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## Scoremixer (May 18, 2021)

tpoots said:


> plus my Sony's are like 20 years old.


Before you do anything else, please go and buy some new Sonys!


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## blaggins (May 18, 2021)

Scoremixer said:


> Before you do anything else, please go and buy some new Sonys!


I think I will probably get new headphones too, but I might "upgrade" from the 7506s while I'm at it. I did some reading last night and I have to say the HD600 vs HD650 vs DT 880 Pro rabbit hole is a hell of rabbit hole to go down. I'm no closer to an answer than when I started reading... so I'll probably just wait for one of them to be a super good deal.


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## SupremeFist (May 18, 2021)

tpoots said:


> I think I will probably get new headphones too, but I might "upgrade" from the 7506s while I'm at it. I did some reading last night and I have to say the HD600 vs HD650 vs DT 880 Pro rabbit hole is a hell of rabbit hole to go down. I'm no closer to an answer than when I started reading... so I'll probably just wait for one of them to be a super good deal.


Just get VSX and be done with it.


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## José Herring (May 18, 2021)

tpoots said:


> Thanks so much for the feedback and questions everyone!
> 
> If I'm being realistic, it's very unlikely that I'll be improving my room and monitor situation anytime soon so for better or for worse, headphones will probably by the way I listen 90% of the time. I wonder if I should consider a sound card that has dual headphone outs at some point so I could potentially run two phones and switch between them to check things periodically? Do people do this? From what I've read from multiple folks on this thread, the ATH-M50x headphones might be good for checking the lows and low-mids to make sure I'm not overdoing it, and then something like good overall like HD600/HD650s for main mixing duties...?
> 
> ...



Before people start ripping apart your music and making you question your very reason for existence, it was immediately evident to me that the Reverb is what is muddying up your mix. You can try and roll off the bottom end of your reverb channel so that it doesn't return a bunch of muddy build up. I use the Abby Road EQ settings but I think that's really extreme so I'm experimenting with other EQ settings. 

Also you can try and little but of compression on the low brass to help keep the boom under control. 

Your arrangement and orchestration is fine. It really is. Nothing unusual. With no EQ and no Reverb it sound fine then with the reverb it sounded muddy then you cut the mids in the mix and it sucked. By process of deduction, it's your reverb that's causing the problems.


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## José Herring (May 18, 2021)

Also, in your defense. Your piece is very typical of late romantic orchestration from the German school. In and of itself isn't really problem. It's an aesthetic choice. Which if fine. I often make the same choice and run into the same problems. I've gone through the same progression cutting mids from the actual source I find the least workable solution.


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## blaggins (May 19, 2021)

Thanks for the response José. I've already been cutting the lows on my reverb sends but *definitely* not to 600Hz (I just went and read about the "Abbey Road Reverb" EQ settings). I'll give that a shot and see what happens. I thinned up the arrangement by mostly throwing away the woodwinds, and I think that has also helped to make things a lot clearer now, but I'm going to start re-introducing some woodwinds b/c it sounds a bit "too thin" and a bit brash arrangement-wise. 

I'll be damned if I don't polish this turd to a sheen before submitting it!


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## Living Fossil (May 19, 2021)

tpoots said:


> I'll give that a shot and see what happens. I thinned up the arrangement by mostly throwing away the woodwinds, and I think that has also helped to make things a lot clearer now, but I'm going to start re-introducing some woodwinds b/c it sounds a bit "too thin" and a bit brash arrangement-wise.
> 
> I'll be damned if I don't polish this turd to a sheen before submitting it!



The issue i mentioned concerned the arrangement of the woods and not their existence...
I've uploaded page 12 from Wagner's prelude of Tristan & Isolde. (You can download it at imslp.org.), because i think, the first bar is very instructive.
You see, the trumpets (in F) are in a similar range as yours, the horns and trombones are also busy.
Now, the interesting part is the range of the woodwinds.
The bassoons either double the horns or the bass.
(the horn part is tricky to read; 2 are in E, two in F)
The bass function is shared by all 3 families: woods, brass, strings (trb above Bassoon/Doublebasses).

The woodwind melody is played by 3 flutes, 1 oboe, 1 clarinet in the upper octave and by 1 oboe, 1 clarinet and the english horn in the lower octave.
This combination creates a very nice combination, powerful yet above the muddy area.

Edit: i forgot to mention that the violas and celli also double the horn/basssoon line.
So, allthough it's a very dense texture, there is still structural clarity and a well balanced sound.

Studying scores like this is usually very useful, specially in combination with books about instrumentation cause they show what composers did who couldn't simply cut the lows of a reverb. 

P.S. and i think it's a great thing that you are critical about your work! That's a good investment for future improvement. And instrumentation is a lifelong endeavour for almost every composer (maybe except Felix Mendelssohn/Bartholdy, he was born as a genius in this regard...)


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## blaggins (May 20, 2021)

Living Fossil said:


> The issue i mentioned concerned the arrangement of the woods and not their existence...
> I've uploaded page 12 from Wagner's prelude of Tristan & Isolde. (You can download it at imslp.org.), because i think, the first bar is very instructive.



Yeah I didn't think you were saying I should cut out the woodwinds, just that the arrangement was subpar, I just found that cutting them out entirely allowed me to clear things out completely and "start afresh". I needed to make sure I really even wanted to put them back in (which I did in the end) and so that I could really critically listen for muddying as I reintroduced them bit by bit. Thanks for the detailed analysis by the way. In case anyone is following along here is a link to the section of Tristan & Isolde where you can hear the bit from the page you uploaded:  

I'm not completely sure I'm following the nuances of everything you are saying here, but I gather that part of the point is that certain combos of instruments in certain ranges doubling each other work well together (for tone and clarity) instead of fighting for the same frequency space. The Rimsky-Korsakov book gets mentioned a lot and I've started reading that too. It will take a hell of a long time to get through I'm sure.


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## blaggins (May 20, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Also, in your defense. Your piece is very typical of late romantic orchestration from the German school. In and of itself isn't really problem. It's an aesthetic choice. Which if fine. I often make the same choice and run into the same problems. I've gone through the same progression cutting mids from the actual source I find the least workable solution.


That's nice to hear! What is your approach to dealing with this when you run into it (if you don't mind me asking)?

Also this is tangential but I happened upon this lovely mockup of the strings from the Jurassic Park theme by Anne-Kathrin Dern. She talks about the EQs in lots of spots in the video, but here is one section where you can get a feeling for the general theme of them:  

What I find kind of interesting is that they look a LOT like what I found myself doing, although she is doing ~2dB of cuts where I was doing more like 6 (though also there is no brass or woodwinds in her mockup either). I'm noticing that the pattern is similar (unless I'm really misunderstanding what she is doing here) in that the individual channels have a bit of cut in the mids, and then the output bus does too, combining for a -4dB total effect ~200-600Hz ranges.


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## José Herring (May 20, 2021)

tpoots said:


> That's nice to hear! What is your approach to dealing with this when you run into it (if you don't mind me asking)?
> 
> Also this is tangential but I happened upon this lovely mockup of the strings from the Jurassic Park theme by Anne-Kathrin Dern. She talks about the EQs in lots of spots in the video, but here is one section where you can get a feeling for the general theme of them:
> 
> What I find kind of interesting is that they look a LOT like what I found myself doing, although she is doing ~2dB of cuts where I was doing more like 6 (though also there is no brass or woodwinds in her mockup either). I'm noticing that the pattern is similar (unless I'm really misunderstanding what she is doing here) in that the individual channels have a bit of cut in the mids, and then the output bus does too, combining for a -4dB total effect ~200-600Hz ranges.



It's nice but I feel like she is doing too much as well. It's giving the strings a little bit of a thin veiled sound because across the board she's cutting the low mids and the area around 2k. But in all honesty nobody is really going to care. I did that for a movie score once and got the same exact sound as that. It's passable just loses some of the warm full string sound that I like.

What I do, I'm still learning to handle it. Taking a course to get a bit better at it. In general I try and stay away too much from too much EQ. I try and find mic positions that have the sound I want already. For example I use HS and the mid mics are fairly balanced already. I use that with a touch of the close or the div patch which is half the close mics (not a real divisi in that library). For other libraries that don't have that option I'll just take a little bit off around 400-500hz but not much. 

For Brass I like to just add a little compression to help tame the frequencies a bit. Boost a little around 2k to get a little more clarity. And, I try and place the stereo field so that they are exactly in a good place. I do use some fairly drastic cuts on the main hall reverb I use. I used the Abbey Road settings but not yet full convinced but it did seem to help. 

So between a combination of mics, EQ on reverb and panning and positioning by narrowing the stereo field of an instrument it clarifies a lot without having to get too crazy with the EQ. 

But like I said I'm still searching for the right solution. I feel it may be a combo of it all.


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## Consona (May 20, 2021)

> Is it normal to be cutting low-mids all over the place?


Yes.


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## nuyo (Jun 2, 2021)

From what I have learned over the last years:

1. Balancing Instruments is key. Orchestration is even more key.
2. Using Haas Effect on Instruments that sound to close and middy/muddy.
3. I'm only using EQ for taking out high frequencies, low rumble, and 16 to 18 khz noise.

But I'm not happy with my sound yet. It's still a learbing curve.


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## Dietz (Jun 2, 2021)

nuyo said:


> 2. Using Haas Effect on Instruments that sound to close and middy/muddy.


This is something that has to be applied with great care, especially when you need mixes that translate to mono nicely.


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## nuyo (Jun 2, 2021)

Dietz said:


> This is something that has to be applied with great care, especially when you need mixes that translate to mono nicely.


Yes. The Mono Compability is not a problem. The haas effect can help to take the close mics out of the way. Some sample libraries come with pre mixed patches.


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## Tralen (Jun 2, 2021)

tpoots said:


> I think I will probably get new headphones too, but I might "upgrade" from the 7506s while I'm at it. I did some reading last night and I have to say the HD600 vs HD650 vs DT 880 Pro rabbit hole is a hell of rabbit hole to go down. I'm no closer to an answer than when I started reading... so I'll probably just wait for one of them to be a super good deal.


If you are moving from the Sony's to the mentioned phones, make sure you can handle the impedance. The Sennheisers are 300ohms and the Beyer 250/600, vs 63 for the Sony.


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## José Herring (Jun 2, 2021)

Dietz said:


> This is something that has to be applied with great care, especially when you need mixes that translate to mono nicely.


I'm curious why in this day unless you are doing dance music would one even care about that. If somebody doesn't have two speakers that's their fault not mine. I'm not going to kill my music so that somebody can listen on their Alexa device.


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## SupremeFist (Jun 4, 2021)

José Herring said:


> I'm curious why in this day unless you are doing dance music would one even care about that. If somebody doesn't have two speakers that's their fault not mine. I'm not going to kill my music so that somebody can listen on their Alexa device.


This is a difficult one since I guess the vast majority of listeners now are listening either through sources that are effectively mono (TVs, laptops, phone speakers, Bluetooth speakers), or extremely stereo (headphones). Virtually no one any more is sitting at the apex of a nice triangle between two good loudspeakers, like in the old Maxell ad. So who should we target?


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