Let me know which one you thought had the high pass filter at 4:20... I'm still waiting on a winner. Edit: still waiting on a correct answer. I will reveal the answer in my next video. If you enjoy my videos, you can buy me a coffee here buymeacoffee.com/michael.inthemix 📱 All my links: linktr.ee/inthemixlinks 0:00 - Introduction 0:20 - Good advice 1:12 - Bad advice 1:35 - Where the bad advice comes from (Audio Example) 4:20 - Can you hear the difference? Full Mix Example 5:20 - Plugin Doctor and some social media advice 6:45 - Thanks for watching
Was a little worried when I saw the thumbnail, but I am glad you used the clickbait properly and got people to the “correct” conclusion. Lots of crazy info on this topic
This is weak sauce advice, why focus on the “DONT DO THIS” instead of show what to do? Look up alexmadeit he’s leaked audio school material thank me later
A & B sound the same to me for the most part. Which brings up an interesting point. Like 99% of the people listening to your music isn't gonna hear the difference either, or even care or know what a little phasing or pre-ringing is/sounds like. Listening on E8XT's
Literally exactly, I think its a trick question, but even if its not, it may aswell be, theres NO audible difference to 99% of people, on 90% of devices.
Yeah true. I have 10+ years playing piano, so my ears are pretty sensitive, but generally I don't hear the differences. I thought it's because I wasn't a pro in digital music.@@t3ch_n0
@@t3ch_n0there will be audible differences when you're mastering the track. You'll be able to punch through harder during limiter with phase aligned tracks
but you're listening on a low-to-mid-range pair of monitors. When people mix and master music it's designed to sound great on ALL speakers. Especially dance music. If the low-end sounds like shit, it will literally never get played in a club or by any DJ.
Audible differences are only one reason people do this. The second one is low end rumble from different tracks adding up and thus forcing you to mix at a lower level before you risk clipping. This problem by now only applies to the main bus since floating point computing allows us to exceed 0dB on individual tracks but there used to be times where this was different. The lower bit rate forced you to record as hot as possible to use up as much of the precious dynamic range as possible. But since you were not allowed to go past 0dB at any point in the chain a simple EQ boost on a single track could cause huge problems, because you already were as close to the ceiling as possible. So high pass filters were not only used to give every instrument it's own place in the mix but also to help to be deal with the limitations of early digital recordings.
This is very pro behavior in music. Worrying that a filter can slightly change the accoustics, and thus phase in the sound, which can cause some thigs to be unheard, is insane to me to even fathom. Yall are really creative fr fr.
Yes, that! Thank you for saying it. This whole tight schedule content creation that eventually need to create problems to solve is constantly pushing beginners off track
I can only thank you. After a 15 year break from my hobby doing music with Orion Platinum that was discontinued. I bought FL Studio. Things had moved on alot. Fl studio certainly has. You've made my learning curve so much easier with your excellent presentation and style. I'm really enjoying my hobby once again. Thank you so much. Awesome tutorials. You've a great talent 👌
A was original and B was High pass filter. To me, the difference was in listening the kick in context of the whole mix. In A the kick felt like it was playing separate to the other sounds of the mix, whereas in B, the kick sounded more included with the other sounds of the mix, so I believe the sub frequencies were cut in the B.
I agree with A as the original and B as High Pass. If you listen verryyyyy closely to the kick, B is a teeny tiny bit fuzzier sounding to me. A sounds like all of the original frequencies are intact.
I'm on this one as well. I noticed in B that the kick's body is much more present and blended with the mix, while in A the kick's body is less audible due to the sub content that hasn't been removed. Sometimes less bass = more bass (Maybe? 🤷♂). Listening on Focal Alpha 80.
I agree, but for different reasons: (copy+pasted from other reply) I hear more bass in A, and likewise I hear more transient definition in B. Can't tell if the lack of transient definition in A is from either slight preringing the HPF gives (if in linear phase) or is instead from the slight added resonance that occurs at the cutoff points of HPF's. B clearly has more transient. Not sure if this is because those are the original transients that haven't been minimized from an HPF (aforementioned preringing or resonance boost) or if it's because there's a bit less overall sub-bass. It does sound more natural to me, though. Would have been helpful if he told us whether the HPF would be "Natural Phase" or "Linear Phase."
This is aside from the video, but would you be able to do an updated tour of your studio including the lighting, how things are placed, etc.? I noticed right straight how you always have a calming sort of theme to your studio and is something I'm trying to create a sense of for my new studio. Thanks in advance!
If you and others want to see it, I’ll happily make a video. I wouldn’t give advise to people on what to do precisely but I can share what works for me.
A had the high-passed filter and B hadn't because A sounded more balanced than B as B had some low rumble going on that might have been messing with the frequency's overall balance. A was much balanced compared to B after lowering some of the very low (almost inaudible but can be heard if you have the ears) frequencies from the mix. That gave the mix a bit more room too. A sounds high passed to me..🎧🎵
This person is professional, as a beginner the video is very easy to follow. I managed to make 1 EP of lofi music with standard chords and following this guy's mixing tutorial, at least it worked in my case. Thank You
The end of this vid is so so true, I have found vids on RUclips that question my whole music and then obsess over fixing it when it was actually fine and I spent hours wasting time.
2:57 This is a perfect example of what a highpass filter is - it differentiates a signal, just as a lowpass filter integrates a signal (I know, big scary calculus...) I generally agree with your conclusions and this is presented fairly, but the old advice I remember receiving was to highpass everything except for bass instruments, which is much more sensible than HPF everything. If you know that you are filtering below the lowest fundamental of a given instrument, it really doesn't do any harm, and you really can clean up some noise (rumble) that may have bled into the recording. Obviously, still a tool that should be used appropriately.
4:50 if any highpass was applied, it was on mix B; while mix A is the original. i can hear the volume of the bass that plays with the chords decrease slightly. it is hard to tell for sure after it was uploaded to a platform like youtube if it applies any compression to the video
I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear you say this, I love a high pass and I've been paranoid about using them since I heard about the phase problems.
@@mcgritty8842 Yeah I guess I do like to spend a bit of time messing with gear, but with this I just use my ears and ask does a high pass make it sound better here.
You give easily some of the most informative and useful advice when it comes to this stuff, I'm glad you're making videos like this and just your videos in general, such a gold mine for a newbie like me 💙
A is the original and B is the one where the high pass is applied, you feel that the kick is less strong, and the other elements, including the mids and highs, shine through better in the mix, this is because even though it wasn't a brutal cut but the fact that the kick is "cleaner" ends up making room for other frequencies, bringing a cleaner sound
Great vid Michael! "A negative AUDIBLE difference" is a very important point. There's so many in-depth analytical tools available to us, this makes it easy for mixers to focus on the science way more than the sound.
It’s definitely A for sure 100% reason being is the base and the kick are way more cleaner and puncher! B has more body but is more muddled! For dance music A is what you want! I hi pass everything witch is what I learn from deadmau5! But it depends on what you’re going for and the genre! You can give the packs to someone else who could use them I’m good! Great video and thank you!
I just built several acoustic panels for my home studio off of your instructional video (with batts of recycled demin material, thank you for that tip!). This kind of video really helps me out, operating out of a home studio space with odd and not ideal dimensions - the room itself can trick me into thinking there are inherent issues where there aren't. And snapping out of the paranoia of looking for problems everywhere helps me focus on what I'm actually doing to assemble a mix (and worrying over whether or not cutting/accentuating low end is a big area of stress sometimes). I really appreciate your videos and outlook on dealing with sound.
A has a HPF on it, When you switched to mix B you could hear more sub bass, my headphones go as low as 15hz but I could hear it. Thanks for the video by the way, cleared a lot.
They sound almost the exact same, but A felt a bit weaker. B just had a bit more beef to it, so I think A is high passed. Overall, the master would sound fine either way imo. Just separate your low, mid, and hi frequencies, crank them up with a super transparent Pro-L, then sidechain them using whatever method you like. I personally use Fruity Limiter for the Kick, followed by trackspacer to clean up the spectral space with the kick sidechained through it, then i add another Fruity Limiter for the snare after that. It'll be loud, but just bring the slider down to balance the volume however you want in the mix. It's pretty meticulous, but it's SUPER clean and works for me. Route that through a Post Sidechain, then trough a pre-master, clean up the mix in the premaster, then go through the master and do your thing. Tbh, as long as you clean up your low end mix, your mix is gonna turn out great. Just a ton of very transparent limiting. I don't really compress much unless I'm sound designing.
I was on the fence about quitting music altogether because it just wasn't sounding how I wanted it, not to mention EQing I just couldn't figure out whether I was taking out too much, or too little. This video actually helped me to understand that I might have been focusing far too much on trying to eq the lows off of most tracks apart from bass etc. Thanks!
Thank you for this video. I consider this common sense. Or one would think it is. There is absolutely no reason, what so ever, to leave unwanted frequencies tornadoing through your mix. Especially subs and low end in general. Leave that area for the Kick and Bass. With the exceptions of specific productions where some percussion elements or other low end instruments wanting to play in that frequency range as well. More often than not, I see useless low end information in hihat samples, snare samples, vocals, strings..etc..etc. And highpass filters is one of the first things I do in a mix when mixing for others. In fact, quite often this fixes all the clarity issues.
The answer for me is B - I’m listening with the iphone earplugs on a train, so maybe not the best surroundings but i get the sense that B has the low cut on, in zero latency/ Natural phase mode - the reason being is because i can hear the 180 degree phase shift which usually translate in an enhancement of the mid-low frequencies, very frequent in what is called the ‘Gibbs effect’, not too audible but that’s what my ear tells me.
For ‘enhancement’ i mean an increase in amplitude in an aera really close to the applied Low Cut. Having a low cut/eq on, doesn’t necessarily mean that there’ll ve a reduction in amplitude of the overall dynamic, as in this case. Phase shift needs to be taken in consideration.
Exactly, lowpass and highpass are used to transform the original shape of the sound to make space in the mix and get more control, NOT FOR RUIN anything... Take account if the master are commercially squashed at -5 dB LUFS, the filters are an essential process... thanks.
I finally unlearned the habit of highpassing most sounds a couple years ago. Ill Gates has a fantastic seminar called "The 80 20 of Mixing" where I first learned about the phase cancelation problem. Glad to see you are also putting out this corrected version of the information 👍
He's not even discussing phase cancellation here, phase cancellation is only something you need to worry about if you're doing parallel EQ'ing. If using an EQ in serial/as an insert at 100% mix for example, you don't need to worry about phase cancellation.
A is the high passed Mix as the kick thump is definitely more present there compared to B. This is because (when correctly high passed), removing unwanted low frequencies increase the perceived volume of our tracks and helps to remove the bass mud.
I'm gonna go with B. It sounds like there's more low end, so the first guess is it's definitely wrong, but good high passing eliminates inaudible frequencies; if good high passing is done, you should actually hear *more* frequency content, because your limiters and such are only triggering when more content is there.
I've been wondering this forever. Ever since I started HP again I've been hitting -2 LUF easy. When I was just shelving it was never possible. Thank you for confirming this
Great vid! My take is generally if you have phase issues, you'll hear 'em. New engineers are probably overthinking phase. I only worry about phase when placing mics, or when I hear a phase issue while mixing - which is actually quite rare. Also if you really want to ensure your phase is correctly aligned, there are plugins for that. I have used them, and no longer do.
i wish people would stop talking about phase generally …. there’s so much misunderstanding about what it actually means and there are so few situations where phase shift actually causes problems. obviously if you have two related sounds playing on top of eachother phase shift matters. but for example with kick and bass your kick and bass will never be in phase!!! they’re completely different and unrelated signals. in the same way like this video says the phase shift from highpassing a single track will literally never ever be an issue
I’m listening on my phone and I’d say A has the high pass because it sounds louder to me, meaning less information on the low end allowing more higher frequencies to be audible. That and I could hear more lower frequencies on B
This is brilliant. I've always tried and experimented with HPF s but never tried to visualize it with something as simple as a kick. This cleared up the topic so much. Thank you. Another thing I struggle with is creating space and depth in the track and I've always wondered how to use the combination of stereo and mono reverb and delays in a track to achieve a clean yet deep mix. If this topic is worthy of a video please make something, nonetheless I will be satisfied with an explanation in the comments. Thanks 😊
My guess is: [A] is highpassed, [B] is unprocessed It's more like a feeling since I got no Sub and no large monitors so I went with my ATH-M50x. [A] sounded more "airy" and "cleaned up" to me where [B] sounded "mushy" to my ears. Anyways: Thank's alot for your videos and the effort you put in. Your channel is solid gold 🙏
Track A has been processed / HPFed due to the ambient synth that's been side-chained sustaining all of the track audibly having more bass / low-mid frequencies around the 150 hz range on track B. This bleeds into the pluck bass and mostly the arpeggiated synth with a similar timbre. To the point where some of it's lower register is obscured. Right as the transition happens you can subtly hear a right pan biased low saw wave tone compound with the bass pluck pumping on the offbeat. It's very subtle, but a reduction in mix clarity.
:36 There's there's another thing to be aware of here though which is in the spectrographs the fft band spacing isn't equal. What does that mean? It means that because of overlap in the bands and the fact that you've got one band for all the low frequencies it looks like there's a bunch of energy down there but that's just the curve that it's drawing over the values which would be able to be displayed for example as a bar graph. Try making a sine wave maybe using something like operator in Ableton and do it on a low E1. It's a sine wave so you know by definition it's just one frequency. Now open up spectrum and instead of the standard view set it to just look at the fft bins. You will see what would effectively be a normal distribution If sound wasn't geometric in nature because of the fft bin overlap and you'll see that there are way less bins for lower frequencies. What does this all mean? It means that even if the spectrograph shows that there is stuff down there there often isn't stuff down there.
That is an important point that I didn't address. However, in my example at 0:36, I did actually make sure there was a low end down there by synthesizing a low pulse wave (for the sake of the visual only!).
With my earliest efforts I knew little about EQ or compression, except that cutting some of the lower end in sounds made the resulting mix clearer. Along with attenuating at 16000, 8000 & 4000 Hz, It's still one of the most important things I have learned about music production. There is no single rule of thumb for where to cut low end. You need a good audio setup for monitoring low end & you have to use your ears. A gentle slope is best of course. And the linear phase trick is handy.
I believe A has a highpass on it. It felt like the kick and snare did lack just a little bit of power & Clickiness in the transients in comparison to B. This I believe would be due to the phase shift caused by the non linear cutoff messing with the signal phase :)
I think there's some advice online that is bad if it's not given with enough context or explanation for why or when to apply it. One example is the common technique offered to beginners to sweep an unnaturally boosted EQ band to "find" problem frequencies that are too loud and need to be cut. Without explaining that this is only useful if there is an obvious problem frequency and you need some help finding it, novices go around hunting for "bad" sounding frequencies. And guess what? If you've got an EQ boosting a frequency band by 10dB or something, you'll find plenty of them! It's a classic example of a solution in search of a problem. Inexperienced mixers need to learn to trust their ears, and not search for problems that may not exist. They are bound to find plenty of real problems and their ears will tell them about them. That's the time to figure out how to solve them, and hopefully how to avoid them in the first place. High passing is a different kind of case, because you're kind of dealing with things you CAN'T hear, but you can hear the effects when all the headroom is being eaten up inaudible of unneeded frequencies. However, you still need to know why and when it's actually useful to apply it. There's a lot of content online in which people say "Yeah, do this," without explaining why or when it's actually useful. They may not know themselves, their just making content out of things they've heard or seen from others. I'm barely more than a novice myself, and my advice based on my own mistakes is "Don't do something unless you really know why your doing it with the specific thing you're working on." Generally novices should be doing less and focusing on more fundamental things like simply getting a good balanced static mix. This is going to offer greater returns in the actual sound of the mix and also help them gain more useful experience than "three weird tricks" kind of stuff.
You first said “gentle high passing of 20-30hz is good”, but then later you also said “I’m gonna set it far too high to 20hz”, so is 20hz too much or not?
It depends on the track. On an individual vocal or guitar, 20-30 Hz will do no damage at all. On the master of a full EDM track, 20-30Hz could be disturbing the sub bass. It all depends on the context.
I can't say anything with absolute certainty. However looking at the recorded audio through a spectrograph view has me thinking that both sides are identical and that any perceived difference may just be because we have been primed to believe there's a difference.
This is awesome, been watching your videos and have been trying my hardest to learn all these skills you give us. I’ve been runnin the trial version of FL for moooonths now. Been trying to get fluid on it before I purchased it. Thanks for the content man, keep it up!
Thanks for this. Could you do a video on mixing sub bass? I always seem to struggle with this part of my mix especially as my monitors don't pick it up great. Thanks
What I don’t understand is that humans cannot hear anything below 20hz and most monitors don’t project anything below 30hz unless you’ve got subs. But then when you cut out the inaudible range, it loses some of its dynamics. One of the strangest issues I’ve spent years trying to wrap my head around as an engineer.
Good video!! And all I know for sure, is that I like example "B" much more. And no matter the processing I would choose... that is where 'my' ears and musical sensibilities would take me. 😊
The phase shift is only an issue if you mix the HP'd signal w/ the dry signal. Or if you used multiple mics/channels on a source and don't HP all the channels together. If you understand how your tools work & how to use them properly there won't be any audible problems.
This is what we have spectrum analysis for: only cut away the _noise,_ not the *signal.* I use high passing on _every_ microphone track because there can always be low freq rumble from your steps on the studio floor - or from thumping the desk - reaching the mic via the mic stand.
Do you really know what noise is? I mean in terms of frequency spectrum. If we could easily filter it out noise when it is present in the signal we would not need low noise audio pre-amps and ADCs.
@@hbo001Does _who_ really know what noise is? Anyone who doesn't know their rumble from their hiss doesn't belong anywhere near a mixing console in the first place. Anyone who wants to *learn* can _solo_ and loop any noise to get a good long look at in a spectrum analyzer. Train your ears _and_ your eyes.
Comapring A and B I feel that B would definitely be the Hipassed sample if you listen closely the Bass on the Kick seems to be more tamed neutral sounding compared to sample A where you feel the kick thumping in the low end.
Using high pass filter on everything like crazy definitely ruin mixes, otherwise, it's not a big of a deal. For the listening test, would have been nice to tell what kind of high pass you used. Cause the slope can really affect low feeling on an entire mix. So let's say you applied a very smooth high pass, to my ears B has the high pass on, can hear some subtles movements in the very low on the A and not on the B, like an offbeat groove of the bass that goes off on B, and kick sounds more round on B less boomy, also feels more open overall. And if a very high slope (48dB/oct) + slight bump in gain to compensate the loss, can be A having the high pass, the energy feels more humpf on the kick which often appears when using such filter, but yeah, phase is f***** if so ^^ Well maths wise, but in tastes can be what we want !
Mix A has the highpass on it. Mix A sounds more clear/less muddy but also doesn't hit me in the chest the same way as Mix B. Mix B almost sounds like it has a slight pumping/sidechaining effect to me as the bass volumes dips when compared to Mix A.
If you do not hear a problem, there is no problem. Especially if you have trained ears and good monitoring - also, listen to in your car, mix in your songs in playlists to get a good comparison.
The native FL Studio EQ 2 can draw the exact phase rotation curve, so you can clearly see at which frequency which degree of phase rotation is applied. Helps keeping the bass phase intact and allows creative use as well (e.g. when you intentionally want to rotate phases around a cutoff)
I've only listened quickly via my smartphone inears, but B should be with a high-pass filter. At least it sounds less precise and "fatter" to me than without the highpass filter. I've known about this topic for a long time because it's also a big issue in loudspeaker development. A much more important point, in addition to the phase, is the time consistency. With loudspeakers, the so-called 'group delay' is measured. This is a frequency-dependent impulse response. With steep IIR filters, the problem is that this impulse response rises very sharply at the frequency of the filter. Put simply, this makes it sound muddier and less precise. This is not only an issue with high-pass filters, but a general problem with small-band EQs. Cool video - thanks for making the topic more transparent for the general public!
Thank you very much, for the FL Studio tutorials which have increased my knowledge in this DAW. I'm still an amateur just learning about DAW FL Studio🙏
There are situations where high passing isn't good for the signal, I believe square wave sourced sounds are the biggest culprit if I remember right even lightly high passing them can cause increases of 6+ dB from the shifted phase. I think triangle wave sources may also cause this to a lesser degree where sinusoidal signals are safe from this prob. Correct me if Im wrong but I seem to remember this as being the case.
i really like the term low cut over high pass. High pass makes you think about the high frequencies. Well you are letting them through 'pass'. But for example Pro-Q has a preset named Low cut, doing exactly that. Cutting out the low end
You know, it’s funny that you mention that. I default to calling it “low cut” as it seems intuitive to me. However, all the critiques I’ve received have called them “high pass” filters. So I was hoping to reach that audience and it seems to have worked. Off camera, I called them low cut filters too :)
I'm going to say B is the processed example, because I can hear the bass coming through cleaner and clearer, which only happens when you get the low frequencies out of each others way.
This isn't by any means a hate comment, but besides the clickbait-y title, there's a bit of ambiguity that may turn into, well, bad advice. The general takeaway of the video is that you shouldn’t overdo HPFs, but what it fails to mention is that cutting closer or even above the fundamentals not only is common practice, but usually makes sense in the context of the mix. This could make newer engineers hesitant, if not completely deterred to try it in the first place. It would also be great if you could help further de-mystify the phase coherence in filters, which I think you're in the right track for. Keep up the good work!
Intersting as usual. With headphones I don't perceive any difference in the deep bass between A and B. But in B I perceive greater clarity of the midbass (high pass on?)
B is processed I believe since even with linear phase EQ you always get a little bit more punchiness in the sub region of your mix especially when it comes to Kick drum. The sub will have a bit more transient therefore it sounds punchier.
On my studio headphones A and B sound absolutely identical. Not sure what system you have to be on to notice a difference. But thank you so much for the insight! :)
Well, you effectively need good headphones to hear the signal part below 60Hz ! I hear it with a Sennheiser HD 25-13 II...but it's more accurate with big monitors and good acoustic environment.
Yeah, I was listening late at night on buds and it was tough. When I get back I’ll give it a proper listen on monitors and I’m sure it will be obvious.
The issue I find is sometimes I won’t even notice something is causing an issue but I will know there is an issue somewhere or I won’t be able to hear it because it’s too subtle but when I remove it, it somehow makes the track cleaner and fixes major issues I didn’t know existed
I know this is old, but just wanted to comment anyway. "B" is the mix that is high-passed. Can tell because less sub frequencies are hitting the master compression/limiter. The result is cleaning up the pumping effect coming from the kick drum, and allowing the overall mix to feel less heavy and giving more clarity. Though I could be wrong, as my open-back headphones aren't great for sub frequencies. Sometimes I get tricked by the low-bass, rather than sub because of that... The main issue I ran into with OVERDOING it with the high-pass on the master, was that due to the phase shift, the input on the limiter INCREASED, even though I was only trying to "remove" frequencies. The mix ended up being hit harder by the limiter and sounding more squashed, even though there was no audible difference in level coming out of the EQ... First time I'd come across that and man did that ever throw me for a loop. Because of this, the answer could be "A", especially if linear phase is not enabled, because the phase shift could be causing a higher level to go into the limiter, which would cause the pumping. Without a doubt, the highs are clearer on "B". Dang, sucks to be wrong. But even after viewing this track on a spectrum analyzer, don't even see a difference either!
I stopped watching RUclips videos on production I have decided to sit down and put inn the work because the song making process comes with a lot of ups and down. Sometimes what works for A may not work for B. Your advice is good great advice
I think B has the hi-pass, because the swell between the kick hits feels tighter, and that makes me think that the low frequencies didn’t “make the cut” of the compressor’s attack in A are now gone in B.
I'd say B is high passed. A appears to have a long sub frequent ring on the kick drum. It almost sounds like the high pass happens before the master compressor/limiter because B also seems to have less "pumping" on the kick. Didn't look through the comments, I'm certain this has been figured out in the last 5 month.
I'm guessing that B has the High Pass filter applied, because to my ears it sounds a tiny bit louder overall. I think because by removing the inaudible low-end frequencies, those frequencies won't contribute to the level going into the compressor and/or limiter, leading to slightly less volume reduction from those plugins and a higher overall level. Hopefully I won't be completely embarrassed when I see the answer in your next video!
Well, I could be wrong about one or the other, but I'd say the B version is filtered. The kick on the B version seems thinner and there's also a kind of transient that 'clicks' ? Also, when I listen to the relationship between the kick and the claps in version A, there's a completely normal distinction between these two elements, whereas the transient of the kick in version B seems to blend with the claps. With this kick clap relationship, version A sounds more neutral, version B sounds lightly filtred. Also on my big speakers, when B comes on, I get the impression that there's less subwoofer, at the same volume, in version A, I felt the subwoofer in my body, and in version B, the music didn't reach me physically as much, so for me B has less sub. Maybe it's the other way round and it's version A where the filter is, but that doesn't change what I said above and what I've heard and felt. Perhaps I'm over-interpreting by playing the game of which version is filtered and I'm becoming totally biased and my brain is playing a trick on me? That's my honest answer, now I could download the video, extract the audio, watch it on SPAN for example or try to do a null test...
I'm taking a wild guess after listening only once to A and B on my crappy cell phone 😂 A is the high passed one, B has no low cut. I think I'm hearing lots of sidechain pumping that's making way for LF to push the thump through the mix. So - the pumping effect seems to be more pronounced in B and the reason is that there is more low end. A has the sub bass frequencies cut, therefore the sidechain is fed with less signal and the gain reduction on the rest of the mix is less. Right?
I'm guessing that A had the high pass filter. I felt the kicks in B had more punch, and so had more of the low end, compared to A, where the kicks didn't have that same punch.
the kick in A seems a bit beefier but at the same time sticks out more and the mix doesn't feel as glued. while as in example B, the tiny difference in the subbiness of the kick makes it feel weaved into the track and fits the aesthetic better in my opinion :)
B was high passed. For a crisper sounding bass. Sub frequencies are larger and therefor longer. Cutting the sub in the kick or master can tighten up the overall mix. I hope I'm right...
Let me know which one you thought had the high pass filter at 4:20... I'm still waiting on a winner.
Edit: still waiting on a correct answer. I will reveal the answer in my next video.
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0:00 - Introduction
0:20 - Good advice
1:12 - Bad advice
1:35 - Where the bad advice comes from (Audio Example)
4:20 - Can you hear the difference? Full Mix Example
5:20 - Plugin Doctor and some social media advice
6:45 - Thanks for watching
I think a has the high pass applied. I don't know for sure. Its more a feeling thing
B reason: subbass
both are exactly the same mix.
A, It sounds like it has a higher pitch. B sounds like it has more low end and feels a bit more flat.
I would go for A is highpass applied because for B I can hear more sub bass rumble specially on the kick when it kicks in.
Was a little worried when I saw the thumbnail, but I am glad you used the clickbait properly and got people to the “correct” conclusion. Lots of crazy info on this topic
I had to make sure I drew in people who were looking to have their view affirmed, only to show them the truth instead! Thanks for trusting me.
@@inthemix I came here for an argument! 😜
Same@@Tekkerue
This is weak sauce advice, why focus on the “DONT DO THIS” instead of show what to do? Look up alexmadeit he’s leaked audio school material thank me later
We obviously need more musical MythBusters like you and Dan Worrall
Bro Dan Worall is insanely wise
Both British too
Does that mean we'd be better mixers if we're British too?
Drink tea and biscuits for better mixes@@DeltaWhiskeyBravo13579
imagine both of them collabing. the best in audio education
A & B sound the same to me for the most part. Which brings up an interesting point. Like 99% of the people listening to your music isn't gonna hear the difference either, or even care or know what a little phasing or pre-ringing is/sounds like.
Listening on E8XT's
Literally exactly, I think its a trick question, but even if its not, it may aswell be, theres NO audible difference to 99% of people, on 90% of devices.
Yeah true. I have 10+ years playing piano, so my ears are pretty sensitive, but generally I don't hear the differences. I thought it's because I wasn't a pro in digital music.@@t3ch_n0
@@t3ch_n0there will be audible differences when you're mastering the track. You'll be able to punch through harder during limiter with phase aligned tracks
but you're listening on a low-to-mid-range pair of monitors. When people mix and master music it's designed to sound great on ALL speakers. Especially dance music. If the low-end sounds like shit, it will literally never get played in a club or by any DJ.
Audible differences are only one reason people do this. The second one is low end rumble from different tracks adding up and thus forcing you to mix at a lower level before you risk clipping.
This problem by now only applies to the main bus since floating point computing allows us to exceed 0dB on individual tracks but there used to be times where this was different. The lower bit rate forced you to record as hot as possible to use up as much of the precious dynamic range as possible. But since you were not allowed to go past 0dB at any point in the chain a simple EQ boost on a single track could cause huge problems, because you already were as close to the ceiling as possible. So high pass filters were not only used to give every instrument it's own place in the mix but also to help to be deal with the limitations of early digital recordings.
This is very pro behavior in music. Worrying that a filter can slightly change the accoustics, and thus phase in the sound, which can cause some thigs to be unheard, is insane to me to even fathom. Yall are really creative fr fr.
Yes, that! Thank you for saying it. This whole tight schedule content creation that eventually need to create problems to solve is constantly pushing beginners off track
I couldn’t agree more. It’s why I only post once or twice a month at most. Not good for business but much better for the audience.
I can only thank you. After a 15 year break from my hobby doing music with Orion Platinum that was discontinued. I bought FL Studio. Things had moved on alot. Fl studio certainly has. You've made my learning curve so much easier with your excellent presentation and style. I'm really enjoying my hobby once again. Thank you so much. Awesome tutorials. You've a great talent 👌
A was original and B was High pass filter. To me, the difference was in listening the kick in context of the whole mix. In A the kick felt like it was playing separate to the other sounds of the mix, whereas in B, the kick sounded more included with the other sounds of the mix, so I believe the sub frequencies were cut in the B.
I agree with A as the original and B as High Pass. If you listen verryyyyy closely to the kick, B is a teeny tiny bit fuzzier sounding to me. A sounds like all of the original frequencies are intact.
Exactly
I'm on this one as well. I noticed in B that the kick's body is much more present and blended with the mix, while in A the kick's body is less audible due to the sub content that hasn't been removed. Sometimes less bass = more bass (Maybe? 🤷♂). Listening on Focal Alpha 80.
@@ashleykister4634claps are more crisp too, the low cut brings out the high frequency transients a little i feel
I agree, but for different reasons:
(copy+pasted from other reply)
I hear more bass in A, and likewise I hear more transient definition in B. Can't tell if the lack of transient definition in A is from either slight preringing the HPF gives (if in linear phase) or is instead from the slight added resonance that occurs at the cutoff points of HPF's.
B clearly has more transient. Not sure if this is because those are the original transients that haven't been minimized from an HPF (aforementioned preringing or resonance boost) or if it's because there's a bit less overall sub-bass. It does sound more natural to me, though.
Would have been helpful if he told us whether the HPF would be "Natural Phase" or "Linear Phase."
This is aside from the video, but would you be able to do an updated tour of your studio including the lighting, how things are placed, etc.? I noticed right straight how you always have a calming sort of theme to your studio and is something I'm trying to create a sense of for my new studio. Thanks in advance!
If you and others want to see it, I’ll happily make a video. I wouldn’t give advise to people on what to do precisely but I can share what works for me.
@@inthemix please!
Glad you made a video about this. This has been something on my mind for a while now!
Happy to have added some clarity to the discussion.
A had the high-passed filter and B hadn't because A sounded more balanced than B as B had some low rumble going on that might have been messing with the frequency's overall balance. A was much balanced compared to B after lowering some of the very low (almost inaudible but can be heard if you have the ears) frequencies from the mix. That gave the mix a bit more room too. A sounds high passed to me..🎧🎵
This person is professional, as a beginner the video is very easy to follow. I managed to make 1 EP of lofi music with standard chords and following this guy's mixing tutorial, at least it worked in my case. Thank You
The end of this vid is so so true, I have found vids on RUclips that question my whole music and then obsess over fixing it when it was actually fine and I spent hours wasting time.
Mix A has the highpass enabled. Mix B has more low end in the very sub frequencies. I'm listening through my dedicated sub!
Thanks for sharing your answer, I will share the results next week on my community tab on RUclips.
Niooooo
I am on the same page
B does not have a filter on it
I thought the same although I'm only on Yamaha HS7s with no sub. Maybe it was placebo but if you're on a sub guess it must be the case
2:57 This is a perfect example of what a highpass filter is - it differentiates a signal, just as a lowpass filter integrates a signal (I know, big scary calculus...) I generally agree with your conclusions and this is presented fairly, but the old advice I remember receiving was to highpass everything except for bass instruments, which is much more sensible than HPF everything. If you know that you are filtering below the lowest fundamental of a given instrument, it really doesn't do any harm, and you really can clean up some noise (rumble) that may have bled into the recording. Obviously, still a tool that should be used appropriately.
4:50 if any highpass was applied, it was on mix B; while mix A is the original. i can hear the volume of the bass that plays with the chords decrease slightly. it is hard to tell for sure after it was uploaded to a platform like youtube if it applies any compression to the video
I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear you say this, I love a high pass and I've been paranoid about using them since I heard about the phase problems.
Remember that pro artists just create and experiment, everyone else spends time thinking about the bs
@@mcgritty8842I'll steal this. It's powerful and I needed it.
@@mcgritty8842 Yeah I guess I do like to spend a bit of time messing with gear, but with this I just use my ears and ask does a high pass make it sound better here.
Very well said @@mcgritty8842
Phase issues are still a scary concept to me that I don't quite understand. Even after 10 years.
A was hi-passed. Reason: The non high-passed version B feeds the side-chain compressor with more low end energy - i.e. the pumping is more intense.
You give easily some of the most informative and useful advice when it comes to this stuff, I'm glad you're making videos like this and just your videos in general, such a gold mine for a newbie like me 💙
A is the original and B is the one where the high pass is applied, you feel that the kick is less strong, and the other elements, including the mids and highs, shine through better in the mix, this is because even though it wasn't a brutal cut but the fact that the kick is "cleaner" ends up making room for other frequencies, bringing a cleaner sound
You REALLY stand out from other Mixing engineers on RUclips! Great video
i'm never gonna use vocal compression because when i compressed my vocals by 40 or 50 db they sounded distorted squashed and unnatural.
Imho high pass is better suited for any sound that has no business being in the low end. Even then, gentle curves are better. And EQ. 😉
I agree
Where else would it make any sense in the first place? Sounds pretty natural to me
Great vid Michael! "A negative AUDIBLE difference" is a very important point. There's so many in-depth analytical tools available to us, this makes it easy for mixers to focus on the science way more than the sound.
It’s definitely A for sure 100% reason being is the base and the kick are way more cleaner and puncher! B has more body but is more muddled! For dance music A is what you want! I hi pass everything witch is what I learn from deadmau5! But it depends on what you’re going for and the genre! You can give the packs to someone else who could use them I’m good! Great video and thank you!
I just built several acoustic panels for my home studio off of your instructional video (with batts of recycled demin material, thank you for that tip!). This kind of video really helps me out, operating out of a home studio space with odd and not ideal dimensions - the room itself can trick me into thinking there are inherent issues where there aren't. And snapping out of the paranoia of looking for problems everywhere helps me focus on what I'm actually doing to assemble a mix (and worrying over whether or not cutting/accentuating low end is a big area of stress sometimes). I really appreciate your videos and outlook on dealing with sound.
A has a HPF on it, When you switched to mix B you could hear more sub bass, my headphones go as low as 15hz but I could hear it. Thanks for the video by the way, cleared a lot.
What headphones go to 15Hz?
ATH-M30x, some go even lower, there's a video in this channel about headphones@@timgreig1704
They sound almost the exact same, but A felt a bit weaker. B just had a bit more beef to it, so I think A is high passed. Overall, the master would sound fine either way imo. Just separate your low, mid, and hi frequencies, crank them up with a super transparent Pro-L, then sidechain them using whatever method you like. I personally use Fruity Limiter for the Kick, followed by trackspacer to clean up the spectral space with the kick sidechained through it, then i add another Fruity Limiter for the snare after that. It'll be loud, but just bring the slider down to balance the volume however you want in the mix. It's pretty meticulous, but it's SUPER clean and works for me. Route that through a Post Sidechain, then trough a pre-master, clean up the mix in the premaster, then go through the master and do your thing. Tbh, as long as you clean up your low end mix, your mix is gonna turn out great. Just a ton of very transparent limiting. I don't really compress much unless I'm sound designing.
I was replying to a girl I'm in the "talking" phase with and this video popped up in my notifications. I immediately clicked.
It's more important than a reply to a girl l 😅😅😅
you should tell her how the phase shifts when you use an eq on a sound
@@povilasl5383lmaoooo
idgaf
PhAsE iSsUes
I was on the fence about quitting music altogether because it just wasn't sounding how I wanted it, not to mention EQing I just couldn't figure out whether I was taking out too much, or too little.
This video actually helped me to understand that I might have been focusing far too much on trying to eq the lows off of most tracks apart from bass etc. Thanks!
Sample B is high passed because it has a little less low end compared to sample A. BTW love your content. You always teach something new. Keep it up❤❤
Thank you for this video. I consider this common sense. Or one would think it is.
There is absolutely no reason, what so ever, to leave unwanted frequencies tornadoing through your mix. Especially subs and low end in general. Leave that area for the Kick and Bass. With the exceptions of specific productions where some percussion elements or other low end instruments wanting to play in that frequency range as well. More often than not, I see useless low end information in hihat samples, snare samples, vocals, strings..etc..etc. And highpass filters is one of the first things I do in a mix when mixing for others. In fact, quite often this fixes all the clarity issues.
The answer for me is B - I’m listening with the iphone earplugs on a train, so maybe not the best surroundings but i get the sense that B has the low cut on, in zero latency/ Natural phase mode - the reason being is because i can hear the 180 degree phase shift which usually translate in an enhancement of the mid-low frequencies, very frequent in what is called the ‘Gibbs effect’, not too audible but that’s what my ear tells me.
For ‘enhancement’ i mean an increase in amplitude in an aera really close to the applied Low Cut. Having a low cut/eq on, doesn’t necessarily mean that there’ll ve a reduction in amplitude of the overall dynamic, as in this case. Phase shift needs to be taken in consideration.
Exactly, lowpass and highpass are used to transform the original shape of the sound to make space in the mix and get more control, NOT FOR RUIN anything... Take account if the master are commercially squashed at -5 dB LUFS, the filters are an essential process... thanks.
I finally unlearned the habit of highpassing most sounds a couple years ago. Ill Gates has a fantastic seminar called "The 80 20 of Mixing" where I first learned about the phase cancelation problem.
Glad to see you are also putting out this corrected version of the information 👍
Did you watch the whole video lol. He is debunking the advice that highpassing most sounds is a bad idea.
@@Teuntjuhh did you read my comment?
you should watch videos instead of just looking at thumbnails and leaving comments
He's not even discussing phase cancellation here, phase cancellation is only something you need to worry about if you're doing parallel EQ'ing. If using an EQ in serial/as an insert at 100% mix for example, you don't need to worry about phase cancellation.
A is the high passed Mix as the kick thump is definitely more present there compared to B. This is because (when correctly high passed), removing unwanted low frequencies increase the perceived volume of our tracks and helps to remove the bass mud.
A is with filter because B is more full sound and youre plugin is very welcome, already thanks for aal the videos , tips&trics, you are the mixmaster
Hello and thank you for the advice, very helpful. I've started using them to consistently publish my songs on my RUclips channel.
I'm gonna go with B. It sounds like there's more low end, so the first guess is it's definitely wrong, but good high passing eliminates inaudible frequencies; if good high passing is done, you should actually hear *more* frequency content, because your limiters and such are only triggering when more content is there.
The "B" version is the original one. It has a bit more Low-End and the kick is a little bit more round.
I've been wondering this forever. Ever since I started HP again I've been hitting -2 LUF easy. When I was just shelving it was never possible. Thank you for confirming this
Great vid! My take is generally if you have phase issues, you'll hear 'em. New engineers are probably overthinking phase. I only worry about phase when placing mics, or when I hear a phase issue while mixing - which is actually quite rare.
Also if you really want to ensure your phase is correctly aligned, there are plugins for that. I have used them, and no longer do.
i wish people would stop talking about phase generally …. there’s so much misunderstanding about what it actually means and there are so few situations where phase shift actually causes problems.
obviously if you have two related sounds playing on top of eachother phase shift matters.
but for example with kick and bass your kick and bass will never be in phase!!! they’re completely different and unrelated signals. in the same way like this video says the phase shift from highpassing a single track will literally never ever be an issue
You are right, but I actually leave the low frequency as it is because nobody can hear it and for "me" it doesn't make any difference
I’m listening on my phone and I’d say A has the high pass because it sounds louder to me, meaning less information on the low end allowing more higher frequencies to be audible. That and I could hear more lower frequencies on B
This is brilliant. I've always tried and experimented with HPF s but never tried to visualize it with something as simple as a kick. This cleared up the topic so much. Thank you. Another thing I struggle with is creating space and depth in the track and I've always wondered how to use the combination of stereo and mono reverb and delays in a track to achieve a clean yet deep mix. If this topic is worthy of a video please make something, nonetheless I will be satisfied with an explanation in the comments. Thanks 😊
My guess is:
[A] is highpassed, [B] is unprocessed
It's more like a feeling since I got no Sub and no large monitors so I went with my ATH-M50x.
[A] sounded more "airy" and "cleaned up" to me where [B] sounded "mushy" to my ears.
Anyways:
Thank's alot for your videos and the effort you put in. Your channel is solid gold 🙏
Track A has been processed / HPFed due to the ambient synth that's been side-chained sustaining all of the track audibly having more bass / low-mid frequencies around the 150 hz range on track B. This bleeds into the pluck bass and mostly the arpeggiated synth with a similar timbre. To the point where some of it's lower register is obscured. Right as the transition happens you can subtly hear a right pan biased low saw wave tone compound with the bass pluck pumping on the offbeat. It's very subtle, but a reduction in mix clarity.
Please never leave this platform. Love from US 2024
:36 There's there's another thing to be aware of here though which is in the spectrographs the fft band spacing isn't equal. What does that mean? It means that because of overlap in the bands and the fact that you've got one band for all the low frequencies it looks like there's a bunch of energy down there but that's just the curve that it's drawing over the values which would be able to be displayed for example as a bar graph. Try making a sine wave maybe using something like operator in Ableton and do it on a low E1. It's a sine wave so you know by definition it's just one frequency. Now open up spectrum and instead of the standard view set it to just look at the fft bins. You will see what would effectively be a normal distribution If sound wasn't geometric in nature because of the fft bin overlap and you'll see that there are way less bins for lower frequencies. What does this all mean? It means that even if the spectrograph shows that there is stuff down there there often isn't stuff down there.
That is an important point that I didn't address. However, in my example at 0:36, I did actually make sure there was a low end down there by synthesizing a low pulse wave (for the sake of the visual only!).
With my earliest efforts I knew little about EQ or compression, except that cutting some of the lower end in sounds made the resulting mix clearer. Along with attenuating at 16000, 8000 & 4000 Hz, It's still one of the most important things I have learned about music production. There is no single rule of thumb for where to cut low end. You need a good audio setup for monitoring low end & you have to use your ears. A gentle slope is best of course. And the linear phase trick is handy.
So happy to see this, been thinking about it forever. Thanks for clearing it all up, Mike. Great as always!
B is highpassed, because you can hear the kick's sub being shorter, so it sounds instant/punchy, but A has the opposite, like if it had a longer decay
To me A sounds like it had a high pass filter because I could hear the difference in the kick in the B kick had a nice thump whereas in A it didn't.
B is the high passed one. There's a hollow phasey sound when the kick hits
I believe A has a highpass on it. It felt like the kick and snare did lack just a little bit of power & Clickiness in the transients in comparison to B. This I believe would be due to the phase shift caused by the non linear cutoff messing with the signal phase :)
I think there's some advice online that is bad if it's not given with enough context or explanation for why or when to apply it. One example is the common technique offered to beginners to sweep an unnaturally boosted EQ band to "find" problem frequencies that are too loud and need to be cut. Without explaining that this is only useful if there is an obvious problem frequency and you need some help finding it, novices go around hunting for "bad" sounding frequencies. And guess what? If you've got an EQ boosting a frequency band by 10dB or something, you'll find plenty of them! It's a classic example of a solution in search of a problem. Inexperienced mixers need to learn to trust their ears, and not search for problems that may not exist. They are bound to find plenty of real problems and their ears will tell them about them. That's the time to figure out how to solve them, and hopefully how to avoid them in the first place. High passing is a different kind of case, because you're kind of dealing with things you CAN'T hear, but you can hear the effects when all the headroom is being eaten up inaudible of unneeded frequencies. However, you still need to know why and when it's actually useful to apply it. There's a lot of content online in which people say "Yeah, do this," without explaining why or when it's actually useful. They may not know themselves, their just making content out of things they've heard or seen from others. I'm barely more than a novice myself, and my advice based on my own mistakes is "Don't do something unless you really know why your doing it with the specific thing you're working on." Generally novices should be doing less and focusing on more fundamental things like simply getting a good balanced static mix. This is going to offer greater returns in the actual sound of the mix and also help them gain more useful experience than "three weird tricks" kind of stuff.
The "Solution in search of a problem" is all too common these days.
You first said “gentle high passing of 20-30hz is good”, but then later you also said “I’m gonna set it far too high to 20hz”, so is 20hz too much or not?
It depends on the track. On an individual vocal or guitar, 20-30 Hz will do no damage at all. On the master of a full EDM track, 20-30Hz could be disturbing the sub bass. It all depends on the context.
I can't say anything with absolute certainty. However looking at the recorded audio through a spectrograph view has me thinking that both sides are identical and that any perceived difference may just be because we have been primed to believe there's a difference.
This is awesome, been watching your videos and have been trying my hardest to learn all these skills you give us. I’ve been runnin the trial version of FL for moooonths now. Been trying to get fluid on it before I purchased it. Thanks for the content man, keep it up!
Thanks for this. Could you do a video on mixing sub bass? I always seem to struggle with this part of my mix especially as my monitors don't pick it up great. Thanks
A is the one with the high-pass filter. You can hear it on the kick; it's warmer on B.
Completely agree! Use HP accordingly. I wouldn't use it in the kick that I'd intend to be my Lower kick. But in my Transient kicks, definitely!
What I don’t understand is that humans cannot hear anything below 20hz and most monitors don’t project anything below 30hz unless you’ve got subs. But then when you cut out the inaudible range, it loses some of its dynamics. One of the strangest issues I’ve spent years trying to wrap my head around as an engineer.
Good video!! And all I know for sure, is that I like example "B" much more. And no matter the processing I would choose... that is where 'my' ears and musical sensibilities would take me. 😊
Mix A has the highpass enabled. You can hear the low end come in when switched to B. It’s subtle but you can definitely hear it
The phase shift is only an issue if you mix the HP'd signal w/ the dry signal. Or if you used multiple mics/channels on a source and don't HP all the channels together.
If you understand how your tools work & how to use them properly there won't be any audible problems.
This is what we have spectrum analysis for: only cut away the _noise,_ not the *signal.*
I use high passing on _every_ microphone track because there can always be low freq rumble from your steps on the studio floor - or from thumping the desk - reaching the mic via the mic stand.
Do you really know what noise is? I mean in terms of frequency spectrum. If we could easily filter it out noise when it is present in the signal we would not need low noise audio pre-amps and ADCs.
@@hbo001Does _who_ really know what noise is? Anyone who doesn't know their rumble from their hiss doesn't belong anywhere near a mixing console in the first place.
Anyone who wants to *learn* can _solo_ and loop any noise to get a good long look at in a spectrum analyzer. Train your ears _and_ your eyes.
Comapring A and B I feel that B would definitely be the Hipassed sample if you listen closely the Bass on the Kick seems to be more tamed neutral sounding compared to sample A where you feel the kick thumping in the low end.
I'll say it :P is there a possibility the exact settings are applied to both examples? Both examples sound the same to me at least.
B is the HPF. A Original. The sub frequencies in B from the kick are high passed allowing the bass to carry the track more. 👏👏👏
Using high pass filter on everything like crazy definitely ruin mixes, otherwise, it's not a big of a deal.
For the listening test, would have been nice to tell what kind of high pass you used. Cause the slope can really affect low feeling on an entire mix.
So let's say you applied a very smooth high pass, to my ears B has the high pass on, can hear some subtles movements in the very low on the A and not on the B, like an offbeat groove of the bass that goes off on B, and kick sounds more round on B less boomy, also feels more open overall.
And if a very high slope (48dB/oct) + slight bump in gain to compensate the loss, can be A having the high pass, the energy feels more humpf on the kick which often appears when using such filter, but yeah, phase is f***** if so ^^ Well maths wise, but in tastes can be what we want !
Hey you mention bit meters and spectrum for mastering? Can you make a video why you use those while mastering?
Mix A has the highpass on it. Mix A sounds more clear/less muddy but also doesn't hit me in the chest the same way as Mix B. Mix B almost sounds like it has a slight pumping/sidechaining effect to me as the bass volumes dips when compared to Mix A.
If you do not hear a problem, there is no problem. Especially if you have trained ears and good monitoring - also, listen to in your car, mix in your songs in playlists to get a good comparison.
The native FL Studio EQ 2 can draw the exact phase rotation curve, so you can clearly see at which frequency which degree of phase rotation is applied. Helps keeping the bass phase intact and allows creative use as well (e.g. when you intentionally want to rotate phases around a cutoff)
I've only listened quickly via my smartphone inears, but B should be with a high-pass filter. At least it sounds less precise and "fatter" to me than without the highpass filter.
I've known about this topic for a long time because it's also a big issue in loudspeaker development. A much more important point, in addition to the phase, is the time consistency. With loudspeakers, the so-called 'group delay' is measured. This is a frequency-dependent impulse response. With steep IIR filters, the problem is that this impulse response rises very sharply at the frequency of the filter. Put simply, this makes it sound muddier and less precise. This is not only an issue with high-pass filters, but a general problem with small-band EQs.
Cool video - thanks for making the topic more transparent for the general public!
"Put simply, this makes it sound muddier and less precise. " Like tape?
Thank you very much, for the FL Studio tutorials which have increased my knowledge in this DAW. I'm still an amateur just learning about DAW FL Studio🙏
There are situations where high passing isn't good for the signal, I believe square wave sourced sounds are the biggest culprit if I remember right even lightly high passing them can cause increases of 6+ dB from the shifted phase. I think triangle wave sources may also cause this to a lesser degree where sinusoidal signals are safe from this prob. Correct me if Im wrong but I seem to remember this as being the case.
i really like the term low cut over high pass. High pass makes you think about the high frequencies. Well you are letting them through 'pass'. But for example Pro-Q has a preset named Low cut, doing exactly that. Cutting out the low end
You know, it’s funny that you mention that. I default to calling it “low cut” as it seems intuitive to me. However, all the critiques I’ve received have called them “high pass” filters. So I was hoping to reach that audience and it seems to have worked.
Off camera, I called them low cut filters too :)
I'm going to say B is the processed example, because I can hear the bass coming through cleaner and clearer, which only happens when you get the low frequencies out of each others way.
This isn't by any means a hate comment, but besides the clickbait-y title, there's a bit of ambiguity that may turn into, well, bad advice. The general takeaway of the video is that you shouldn’t overdo HPFs, but what it fails to mention is that cutting closer or even above the fundamentals not only is common practice, but usually makes sense in the context of the mix. This could make newer engineers hesitant, if not completely deterred to try it in the first place. It would also be great if you could help further de-mystify the phase coherence in filters, which I think you're in the right track for. Keep up the good work!
Intersting as usual. With headphones I don't perceive any difference in the deep bass between A and B. But in B I perceive greater clarity of the midbass (high pass on?)
Man I cant imagine how many sounds ive pushed too far with HP at this point. I love the way it sounds though its an acquired taste
as a high pass user for lowend user. this vids gonna change my mind & my ears ,thankss!!!
B is processed I believe since even with linear phase EQ you always get a little bit more punchiness in the sub region of your mix especially when it comes to Kick drum. The sub will have a bit more transient therefore it sounds punchier.
On my studio headphones A and B sound absolutely identical. Not sure what system you have to be on to notice a difference. But thank you so much for the insight! :)
Yeah, I haven’t got my monitors hooked back up at the moment, and on headphones it’s hard to tell the difference.
Well, you effectively need good headphones to hear the signal part below 60Hz ! I hear it with a Sennheiser HD 25-13 II...but it's more accurate with big monitors and good acoustic environment.
Yeah, I was listening late at night on buds and it was tough. When I get back I’ll give it a proper listen on monitors and I’m sure it will be obvious.
I feel really good about my answer now. Haha
The issue I find is sometimes I won’t even notice something is causing an issue but I will know there is an issue somewhere or I won’t be able to hear it because it’s too subtle but when I remove it, it somehow makes the track cleaner and fixes major issues I didn’t know existed
Is it better to just use a linear pgase eq to not worry about this problem?
I know this is old, but just wanted to comment anyway.
"B" is the mix that is high-passed. Can tell because less sub frequencies are hitting the master compression/limiter. The result is cleaning up the pumping effect coming from the kick drum, and allowing the overall mix to feel less heavy and giving more clarity. Though I could be wrong, as my open-back headphones aren't great for sub frequencies. Sometimes I get tricked by the low-bass, rather than sub because of that...
The main issue I ran into with OVERDOING it with the high-pass on the master, was that due to the phase shift, the input on the limiter INCREASED, even though I was only trying to "remove" frequencies. The mix ended up being hit harder by the limiter and sounding more squashed, even though there was no audible difference in level coming out of the EQ... First time I'd come across that and man did that ever throw me for a loop. Because of this, the answer could be "A", especially if linear phase is not enabled, because the phase shift could be causing a higher level to go into the limiter, which would cause the pumping. Without a doubt, the highs are clearer on "B".
Dang, sucks to be wrong. But even after viewing this track on a spectrum analyzer, don't even see a difference either!
Love how in depth these are!
I stopped watching RUclips videos on production I have decided to sit down and put inn the work because the song making process comes with a lot of ups and down. Sometimes what works for A may not work for B. Your advice is good great advice
I think B has the hi-pass, because the swell between the kick hits feels tighter, and that makes me think that the low frequencies didn’t “make the cut” of the compressor’s attack in A are now gone in B.
I'd say B is high passed. A appears to have a long sub frequent ring on the kick drum. It almost sounds like the high pass happens before the master compressor/limiter because B also seems to have less "pumping" on the kick. Didn't look through the comments, I'm certain this has been figured out in the last 5 month.
I'm guessing that B has the High Pass filter applied, because to my ears it sounds a tiny bit louder overall. I think because by removing the inaudible low-end frequencies, those frequencies won't contribute to the level going into the compressor and/or limiter, leading to slightly less volume reduction from those plugins and a higher overall level.
Hopefully I won't be completely embarrassed when I see the answer in your next video!
Well, I could be wrong about one or the other, but I'd say the B version is filtered. The kick on the B version seems thinner and there's also a kind of transient that 'clicks' ? Also, when I listen to the relationship between the kick and the claps in version A, there's a completely normal distinction between these two elements, whereas the transient of the kick in version B seems to blend with the claps. With this kick clap relationship, version A sounds more neutral, version B sounds lightly filtred.
Also on my big speakers, when B comes on, I get the impression that there's less subwoofer, at the same volume, in version A, I felt the subwoofer in my body, and in version B, the music didn't reach me physically as much, so for me B has less sub.
Maybe it's the other way round and it's version A where the filter is, but that doesn't change what I said above and what I've heard and felt. Perhaps I'm over-interpreting by playing the game of which version is filtered and I'm becoming totally biased and my brain is playing a trick on me? That's my honest answer, now I could download the video, extract the audio, watch it on SPAN for example or try to do a null test...
Phase would only be an issue if you were doubling up the same sound in parallel.
I'm taking a wild guess after listening only once to A and B on my crappy cell phone 😂
A is the high passed one, B has no low cut.
I think I'm hearing lots of sidechain pumping that's making way for LF to push the thump through the mix. So - the pumping effect seems to be more pronounced in B and the reason is that there is more low end. A has the sub bass frequencies cut, therefore the sidechain is fed with less signal and the gain reduction on the rest of the mix is less.
Right?
I'm guessing that A had the high pass filter. I felt the kicks in B had more punch, and so had more of the low end, compared to A, where the kicks didn't have that same punch.
the kick in A seems a bit beefier but at the same time sticks out more and the mix doesn't feel as glued. while as in example B, the tiny difference in the subbiness of the kick makes it feel weaved into the track and fits the aesthetic better in my opinion :)
B was high passed. For a crisper sounding bass. Sub frequencies are larger and therefor longer. Cutting the sub in the kick or master can tighten up the overall mix. I hope I'm right...