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.
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."
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.
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 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.
Couldn't tell the difference between the two mixes, and I didn't even know Linear Phase EQ was a thing - what the hell is all that about? Why is there pre-ringing? Why does a "normal" EQ change the phase? What is happening? Why did I watch this video? Couldn't I just have carried on in blissful ignorance, making my shitty music without a care in the world? I should have quit music years ago and become a typist.
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.
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.
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.
Amateurs often stare at charts and meters and draw conclusions about what they are hearing. It's the usual insecurity and problem creation that separates them from creative and skilled pros.
Why are you talking about phase in the context of just one track? Phase matters when there are multiple tracks of the same source playing at the same time. Am I missing something here?
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!
there's is no audible differente in the both examples, honestly : ) maybe because im hearing it on headphones, probably in a good pair of monitors u could hear a difference in the frecuencies u can feel more than hear it.
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.
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..🎧🎵
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.
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.
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!
I think A was high-passed, my speakers are too small to really hear all the sub-bass but example B sounded a little boomier coming from the kick whereas example A wasn't as smothered by the low frequencies and therefore sounded a bit more detailed in the lower frequencies as a result. Could be completely off the mark here but hey ho
: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!).
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.
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
Yes! Absolutely! Something I've recently changed in my production was ridiculous low cuts. Just cut the bassy part of a hihat bro, let that transient juice come out of that damn hat, if you want white noise hats just make it in 3oscx instead.
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.
I think problems occur when people take general advice (with anything…) as GOSPEL and do it without understanding why. When I high pass, it’s for a reason…guitars image a little nicer/wider without a ton of excess low end, I don’t always want my compressors, etc. having to contend with a bunch of meaningless rumble that takes up a ton of energy…things like that. Is this making it sound better? You should always learn why you do stuff and pay attention to the sound. If it results in a better sounding end product, it’s all good.
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.
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.
It blew my mind when I stumbled upon it accidentally. you just hover over the frequency numbers at the bottom and scroll with the mouse or click and drag up and down. I've never seen anyone show it in a tutorial but I use it all the time!
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 :)
Does this also go when you make really loud Techno with a lot of kick and bass? I always cut between 30.000HZ and 40.000HZ on the master chain? I'm confused after seeing this video.
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 !
It`s B that has the HPF on it. Not more than 18/48dB per octave. It amazingly sounds warmer and more produced, like if it was passing through the non linear HPF filter of an SSL ;). Can you show where the EQ is placed in the chain ? Cool video man.
A: processed, B: original. I had the 'feeling' B has a more focussed kick and bass, bit more punchy. (PS: only listening thru DT770 pro HP's directly in a Macbook Pro)
Most speakers don't play below 35hz, however some giant festival speakers do from what I hear. So SOME producers actually include 20hz frequencies. But it's extremely rare. And for stuff like jazz, frequencies between 40-100hz add character to kicks, but they're not very important, whereas for dance they're the most important frequencies
I believe A sounds less "bassy" so A has the Highpass. B is not filtered Im listening thru an OLD friggin sony home theatre system from like 2003, rigged to my PC via Optical Toslink...lol
Mix A has the highpass - because there is more apparent sub. I know this because I use my left elbow to gauge the amount of sub in a mix - the low frequencies resonate through my desk and if my left elbow vibrates, the sub is there. I produce jungle and have found that highpassing the lowest frequencies makes the sub more apparent (along with a healthy notch at 141Hz) Thangyou, thangyou very much (Elvis Parsley the Junglist has left the building).
I actually disagree with the "phase shift" terminology because it's not the phase changed. What's changed visually is the frequency of the low end because you've cut the lower frequency and you see the frequency higher than it was before you applied a HP filter. It sounds to me like "Ok I cut 20Hz and expect the waveform to go up and down on the same length on the graph" But if it revolves with the same wavelength - it's still the same frequency! And yes, you hear the difference because there're no more these frequencies which you have just cut out. Isn't it the purpose of HP filter?? Seems it's a problem which was made up of misunderstanding of physics. You can't hear phase shift until you try to add something to something other. Try determine the difference between cos and sin in blind test by ear. You actually can't. You can only if you play both simultaneously though.
They sound VERY familiar but A. Is Highpassed imo. Low-end (especially from the kick) sounds like it has got less of a subtail and those cymbals and synths feel a little bit more plastic. Whole Mix sounds like it sits closer together in A. In B, for me the bass and kick have more common subfrequencies and they clash creating some minor phasing (which i personally don't consider bad always) in A it feels like those hardsubb-frequencies aren't clashing and both get a little more room to breathe.
in option "A" I hear a low-frequency hum, unlike option "B". So for me option "B" is a high pass filter :) I'm not sure about that though, since my headphones cost less than 10 dollars, plugging them in through a sound card.
Lol on my computer speakers both kicks sounded nearly the same. I'm sure on my sub they wouldn't. Besides, who says the high passed one wouldn't sound better in the context of a mix? Everyone blows everything out of proportion. There is no such thing as "linear phase EQ" in analog. All analog EQs cause phase shift. Almost every console has a high pass on every channel and they were used often. Some like the SSL are variable, while smaller consoles only had a high pass button fixed at 60/80/120hz. Every classic record today was mixed on one of these and used EQs with "phase shift" and they sound just fine. The only time phase shift can become a real issue is in the context of ANOTHER sound, where the phase should line up but gets shifted out of place. This may or may not happen, and may or may not be an issue. Just use your ears. If it sounds good, do it. If it sounds bad, don't. Using your ears is the hard part. I've had things that you would assume shouldn't have any LF like hihats just sound "wrong" when hi passed. Sometimes there's just a little energy down there that just sounds "wrong" when removed. Mixing is more about critical listening than just doing things. If it sounds right, keep it on, if it sounds wrong, take it off. Also, B is the highpassed version because it sounds better lol. TBH I doubt I can actually hear a real difference.
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.
I HPF vocals at 82 Hz and synth bass at 47 Hz and kicks at 27 Hz. I sometimes don’t feel like that’s aggressive enough, even. And I’m doing this with analog equalizers.
So i don't know if this makes sense or if it is even relevant, but I noticed the hats moved a little more towards the sides in B, but since it happened gradually, I'm assuming they were supposed to do that, they also got weaker with the change... maybe it's just an auditory illusion that i have made up. listening on M20x headphones, so noticing changes below 50Hz is kind of not possible
In analogue world there's no more than 24db/oct slopes. So if you don't use steeper thing you get good results. But some people use HPF like a "waterfall brickwall" or whatever you called it like 96db/oct which is ridiculous! I almost always use only two slopes. 12 and 18. And remember to use only one when you use ex 2 eq's on a channel.
"A" sounds much better, so it's with Low-Cut EQ, "B" - without. Mix A has more harshness in sound and way louder, because it hasn't this low frequencies, that trigger compressor. Let me know if I'm wrong, please
omg crapshoot advice! totally misleading! highpassing the subkick at 50hz is similar to lowpass high hats at 2k... mindless of course never use these high-order (48-72dB) filters... no man does, as known to ringing and messing the phase, in this current case totally pointlessly
The Phase shift is also only a problem if you mix it with an unphased variant of the same (e.g. with kick bleed on other mics). Guess what. If you high-passed your other mics that can't happen anymore. Also, the waveform looking different: Yeah? That is kinda the idea of any effect - if the waveform looked the same before and after the effect did nothing. That being said you can use resonant Highpass filters to ADD low end in very specific spots, not uncommon e.g. in Eurorack world. As a professional freelance mixer for cinema, it is absolutely normal to slap a HP filter on literally every track and remove/shift it only when needed.
I mean, if you're HP'ing your sub bass with a cutoff that's too high, of course then there's less bass. What's even the point of making that argument? Then, in terms of phase, why would a phase-shift matter? If you're not doing parallel EQ'ing on the same source, it doesn't matter if the phase is one way or another. Sure, maybe you want to align kick and bass perfectly, so just do it after EQ'ing. And ironically, if you go with linear phase EQs in a context where you're not parallel EQ'ing, then you actually can get into trouble sound-wise because of pre-ringing the linear phase setting will introduce.
Namaste Sir , I think Mix B has a slightly high pass enabled mix , and all the frequencies sound more clear and create space ... kick sounds more thumper in Mix B ... Love from India ...🇮🇳😊
I think I'm shadowbanned, but The high passes were on in B. The kick was clear, has it's space for the entire sample. It's the only thing producing any waveform probably sub 100hz.
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.
Any trick to fix an already filtered drum kick? I have tried to recover the transient for 60hz, and it sound acceptable, but I got a super changed phase, even with linear-phase option activated.
I may be wrong but this is what my gut's telling me... I believe A is the high passed mix, although it sounds at first the other way around. Many speakers struggle with anything under 20hz, and as well is around the limit of the human ear (around 20 hz). In a mix, too much energy in this area can destroy the mix, and even take away the audible frequencies around it. Speakers/headphones etc perform better at producing that nice bass response when those ultra low frequencies are removed. For your low end to clean up, you must first clean up your low end. Edit: I'm listening on open back headphones... not sure if there's audibly more sub sound on B as some others have pointed out listening to on their monitors, but A sounded more audibly deep and clean through my open backs.
My unsolicited 2 cents: The general current canon (popular loud music) says to high-pass everything but your kick and bass at some frequency above the fundamental octave. this intersects with another popular maxim about removing any content outside of a selected frequency bandwidth for a given instrument. panning plus frequency sculpting are the primary tools for placing sounds in a mix. rendering applied processing to a visually alignable audio clip can make phase shifts obvious. phase incoherence, however, is an undesirable byproduct of extreme settings on inappropriate filter types. under the hood, filtering can be achieved by a variety of means, not only the traditional FIR and IIR filters, but by a wide variety of techniques ranging from frequency domain bin manipulations to wavelets to convolution, but i digress. the fundamentals of interference (constructive/destructive) and phase response exist and can be exploited, in any case... the appropriate usage of various kinds of filtering is based upon understanding the characteristics of the tools used. cargo-cult tool fetish, though rife in audio "engineering" is not an actual byproduct of engineering, which looks at the context, rather than using hammers on phillips head screws etc.
Is it B that has the high pass filter? When switching to B the bass became a bit clearer, and it's quite apparent around 110hz (or rather there is a pronounced A-note. It's not just 110hz but also the overtones) where I can hear a more distinct/fuzzier hum which should be due to the cleared headroom from the high pass? Sorry for the lack of proper technical explanation lol
Both mix variations sound weird to my ears. HPF from vintage analog gear sounds sweet, if you do record actual instruments (like violins, banjos, harps) with real players to tape you will feel when to use it to fit a mix. Don’t overthink this stuff.
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'd say A has the high-pass enabled. B sounds a lot more ''muddy'', I don't know how else to describe it 😂😂 whenever the kick hits in B it has a lot more ''body'' it and it doesnt sound as clear as in A. I'm listening on DT770 Pro headphones!
The waveform changes because, the shorter the waveform, the higher the frequency.... so filter does what filter does. The implication of a filter destroying the mix is we mix only with faders and everything else happens in front of the mic. A filter has trade-offs, everyone who mixes should know that. We could, of course lessen the bass response by release time in a gate or compressor, but unsurprisingly that also changes the waveform and phase. Edit: I initially missed 'allegedly' and assumed the video made a point that highpass ruins your mix...
Ah Pluggnb. Some of the best beats, beautiful progressions. Some of the worst rappers though ngl, I've seen some people ruin good beats. I watch Silo cookup anytime he release a new VOD.
Ok I’m going to answer this using a “wrong” approach - listening on my phone. I think mix B sounds less good to my ears. Like the kick is a little stifled and almost compressed. Whereas mix A sounds a bit sharper and punchier. Again, this is listening in my phone speakers, so it’s not a good way to test which has the low pass filter. I’m away from my studio but thought it would be interesting to see if anyone else hears it the same. I wonder if the high pass is on B but unexpectedly making it sound punchier on a phone.
Part B sounds processed cuz high-passing makes changes in phase Then we’re getting audible boost on a filter frequency And so, as result, B sounds more subby, more punchy That’s the trick
Does the phase changing even matter ultimately? After filtering, it's a different waveform altogether, so would it even matter whether it's out of phase? It would only be "out of phase" with the original signal, which presumably is no longer being played after the filter is applied anyway... Does that make sense???
eh… the comparison wasn't much… my big issue is that 2000s style over pumping of the compressor. That's the actual thing that ruined modern music... especially techo.. There are better ways to make the BD slap than pumping the rest of the songs elements through a the BD side chain. It's just grotesque at this point ;)
A is unprocessed and B is with the highpass on. I hear more thumping at around maybe 40hz, subtle high pass like low shelf around 20hz will boost the upper bass harmonics im using computer speaker with dedicated subwoofer, i have monitor headphones but im too lazy to pick it up.
The correct answer is (and this is demonstrated by all the different answers and opinions here in the comments) - it doesn't matter. Real listeners of the music (not mixing folk) will likely never know the difference or care.
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.
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.
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
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
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 👌
Seems like mixing visually is naturally encouraged by YT. Remember these 👂👂 ?
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."
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.
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 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!
Couldn't tell the difference between the two mixes, and I didn't even know Linear Phase EQ was a thing - what the hell is all that about? Why is there pre-ringing? Why does a "normal" EQ change the phase? What is happening? Why did I watch this video? Couldn't I just have carried on in blissful ignorance, making my shitty music without a care in the world? I should have quit music years ago and become a typist.
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 think mix A and B are the same mix. I couldn't really hear a difference, so I cheated with a frequency spectrum analyser and they look identical.
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.
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.
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
Amateurs often stare at charts and meters and draw conclusions about what they are hearing. It's the usual insecurity and problem creation that separates them from creative and skilled pros.
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.
Why are you talking about phase in the context of just one track? Phase matters when there are multiple tracks of the same source playing at the same time. Am I missing something here?
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!
there's is no audible differente in the both examples, honestly : ) maybe because im hearing it on headphones, probably in a good pair of monitors u could hear a difference in the frecuencies u can feel more than hear it.
You REALLY stand out from other Mixing engineers on RUclips! Great video
B sounds like has hi pass on it. Kick drum sounds less punchy and sounds a bit thinner (I’m listening on a iPhone though!)
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 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..🎧🎵
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❤❤
A has HP applied. Tighter low end, B sounds softer but fuller
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.
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.
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.
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!
Nice thought about panicking over subtle things you didn't know existed just because you saw a video. People, trust yourself more ;)
I am glad more people are recognising it these days. Fear is such a good way to get views but it’s not good for us!
i'm never gonna use vocal compression because when i compressed my vocals by 40 or 50 db they sounded distorted squashed and unnatural.
I think A was high-passed, my speakers are too small to really hear all the sub-bass but example B sounded a little boomier coming from the kick whereas example A wasn't as smothered by the low frequencies and therefore sounded a bit more detailed in the lower frequencies as a result.
Could be completely off the mark here but hey ho
Thank you for sharing your answer. I'll share the correct answer next week.
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 has the high pass filter ,it because of the softness of the kick .
Thanks for answering! I'll share the answer on my community tab next week (or when enough people have answered!).
: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!).
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.
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
1st Happy Saturday guys 💯
Indeed you are first. Happy Saturday.
Yes! Absolutely! Something I've recently changed in my production was ridiculous low cuts. Just cut the bassy part of a hihat bro, let that transient juice come out of that damn hat, if you want white noise hats just make it in 3oscx instead.
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.
Very misleading thumbnail, not a fan.
I think problems occur when people take general advice (with anything…) as GOSPEL and do it without understanding why. When I high pass, it’s for a reason…guitars image a little nicer/wider without a ton of excess low end, I don’t always want my compressors, etc. having to contend with a bunch of meaningless rumble that takes up a ton of energy…things like that. Is this making it sound better? You should always learn why you do stuff and pay attention to the sound. If it results in a better sounding end product, it’s all good.
That is absolutely brilliant advice. It’s usually best to work with intention!
@@inthemix
🕺 🕺
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.
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.
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.
wait! how did you just zoom in like that at 0:32 second? I have never seen that!!!! wtf
It blew my mind when I stumbled upon it accidentally. you just hover over the frequency numbers at the bottom and scroll with the mouse or click and drag up and down. I've never seen anyone show it in a tutorial but I use it all the time!
This video made me resub again. Well put!
B was the bypassed, a bit overdone but nothing objectionable.
Very interesting observation!
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 :)
track A was high passed the kick is less punchy
Does this also go when you make really loud Techno with a lot of kick and bass? I always cut between 30.000HZ and 40.000HZ on the master chain? I'm confused after seeing this video.
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 !
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
It`s B that has the HPF on it. Not more than 18/48dB per octave. It amazingly sounds warmer and more produced, like if it was passing through the non linear HPF filter of an SSL ;). Can you show where the EQ is placed in the chain ? Cool video man.
A: processed, B: original. I had the 'feeling' B has a more focussed kick and bass, bit more punchy. (PS: only listening thru DT770 pro HP's directly in a Macbook Pro)
Most speakers don't play below 35hz, however some giant festival speakers do from what I hear. So SOME producers actually include 20hz frequencies. But it's extremely rare. And for stuff like jazz, frequencies between 40-100hz add character to kicks, but they're not very important, whereas for dance they're the most important frequencies
I believe A sounds less "bassy" so A has the Highpass.
B is not filtered
Im listening thru an OLD friggin sony home theatre system from like 2003, rigged to my PC via Optical Toslink...lol
Mix A has the highpass - because there is more apparent sub. I know this because I use my left elbow to gauge the amount of sub in a mix - the low frequencies resonate through my desk and if my left elbow vibrates, the sub is there. I produce jungle and have found that highpassing the lowest frequencies makes the sub more apparent (along with a healthy notch at 141Hz) Thangyou, thangyou very much (Elvis Parsley the Junglist has left the building).
I actually disagree with the "phase shift" terminology because it's not the phase changed. What's changed visually is the frequency of the low end because you've cut the lower frequency and you see the frequency higher than it was before you applied a HP filter.
It sounds to me like
"Ok I cut 20Hz and expect the waveform to go up and down on the same length on the graph"
But if it revolves with the same wavelength - it's still the same frequency!
And yes, you hear the difference because there're no more these frequencies which you have just cut out. Isn't it the purpose of HP filter??
Seems it's a problem which was made up of misunderstanding of physics.
You can't hear phase shift until you try to add something to something other. Try determine the difference between cos and sin in blind test by ear. You actually can't. You can only if you play both simultaneously though.
They sound VERY familiar but A. Is Highpassed imo. Low-end (especially from the kick) sounds like it has got less of a subtail and those cymbals and synths feel a little bit more plastic. Whole Mix sounds like it sits closer together in A. In B, for me the bass and kick have more common subfrequencies and they clash creating some minor phasing (which i personally don't consider bad always) in A it feels like those hardsubb-frequencies aren't clashing and both get a little more room to breathe.
I think B is high-passed - the bass drum feels more attack-y which I guess is a result of the slightly high-passed waveform becoming more tapered
I'll share the correct answer next week on the community tab!
in option "A" I hear a low-frequency hum, unlike option "B". So for me option "B" is a high pass filter :)
I'm not sure about that though, since my headphones cost less than 10 dollars, plugging them in through a sound card.
Lol on my computer speakers both kicks sounded nearly the same. I'm sure on my sub they wouldn't. Besides, who says the high passed one wouldn't sound better in the context of a mix?
Everyone blows everything out of proportion. There is no such thing as "linear phase EQ" in analog. All analog EQs cause phase shift. Almost every console has a high pass on every channel and they were used often. Some like the SSL are variable, while smaller consoles only had a high pass button fixed at 60/80/120hz. Every classic record today was mixed on one of these and used EQs with "phase shift" and they sound just fine.
The only time phase shift can become a real issue is in the context of ANOTHER sound, where the phase should line up but gets shifted out of place. This may or may not happen, and may or may not be an issue. Just use your ears. If it sounds good, do it. If it sounds bad, don't.
Using your ears is the hard part. I've had things that you would assume shouldn't have any LF like hihats just sound "wrong" when hi passed. Sometimes there's just a little energy down there that just sounds "wrong" when removed. Mixing is more about critical listening than just doing things. If it sounds right, keep it on, if it sounds wrong, take it off.
Also, B is the highpassed version because it sounds better lol. TBH I doubt I can actually hear a real difference.
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.
A is the one with the high-pass filter. You can hear it on the kick; it's warmer on B.
I HPF vocals at 82 Hz and synth bass at 47 Hz and kicks at 27 Hz. I sometimes don’t feel like that’s aggressive enough, even. And I’m doing this with analog equalizers.
So i don't know if this makes sense or if it is even relevant, but I noticed the hats moved a little more towards the sides in B, but since it happened gradually, I'm assuming they were supposed to do that, they also got weaker with the change... maybe it's just an auditory illusion that i have made up.
listening on M20x headphones, so noticing changes below 50Hz is kind of not possible
Sarcasm warning, what applying a filter changes the Waveform oh my gosh!!!!!!!!!! Run for the hills.
In analogue world there's no more than 24db/oct slopes. So if you don't use steeper thing you get good results. But some people use HPF like a "waterfall brickwall" or whatever you called it like 96db/oct which is ridiculous! I almost always use only two slopes. 12 and 18. And remember to use only one when you use ex 2 eq's on a channel.
"A" sounds much better, so it's with Low-Cut EQ, "B" - without. Mix A has more harshness in sound and way louder, because it hasn't this low frequencies, that trigger compressor. Let me know if I'm wrong, please
This is incredible advice!! Thank you so much for all the help
omg crapshoot advice! totally misleading!
highpassing the subkick at 50hz is similar to lowpass high hats at 2k...
mindless
of course never use these high-order (48-72dB) filters... no man does, as known to ringing and messing the phase, in this current case totally pointlessly
A is before B is after... You can hear the very low sub mud A. I'm listening on Sony MDR7506 headphones.
The Phase shift is also only a problem if you mix it with an unphased variant of the same (e.g. with kick bleed on other mics). Guess what. If you high-passed your other mics that can't happen anymore. Also, the waveform looking different: Yeah? That is kinda the idea of any effect - if the waveform looked the same before and after the effect did nothing. That being said you can use resonant Highpass filters to ADD low end in very specific spots, not uncommon e.g. in Eurorack world.
As a professional freelance mixer for cinema, it is absolutely normal to slap a HP filter on literally every track and remove/shift it only when needed.
I mean, if you're HP'ing your sub bass with a cutoff that's too high, of course then there's less bass. What's even the point of making that argument?
Then, in terms of phase, why would a phase-shift matter? If you're not doing parallel EQ'ing on the same source, it doesn't matter if the phase is one way or another. Sure, maybe you want to align kick and bass perfectly, so just do it after EQ'ing. And ironically, if you go with linear phase EQs in a context where you're not parallel EQ'ing, then you actually can get into trouble sound-wise because of pre-ringing the linear phase setting will introduce.
Namaste Sir , I think Mix B has a slightly high pass enabled mix , and all the frequencies sound more clear and create space ... kick sounds more thumper in Mix B ...
Love from India ...🇮🇳😊
B sounds slightly more boomy. I am in my car and don't have subwoofer. So I imagine no one without subwoofer will pay attention to it.
I think I'm shadowbanned, but The high passes were on in B. The kick was clear, has it's space for the entire sample. It's the only thing producing any waveform probably sub 100hz.
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.
Any trick to fix an already filtered drum kick? I have tried to recover the transient for 60hz, and it sound acceptable, but I got a super changed phase, even with linear-phase option activated.
I may be wrong but this is what my gut's telling me... I believe A is the high passed mix, although it sounds at first the other way around. Many speakers struggle with anything under 20hz, and as well is around the limit of the human ear (around 20 hz). In a mix, too much energy in this area can destroy the mix, and even take away the audible frequencies around it. Speakers/headphones etc perform better at producing that nice bass response when those ultra low frequencies are removed. For your low end to clean up, you must first clean up your low end.
Edit: I'm listening on open back headphones... not sure if there's audibly more sub sound on B as some others have pointed out listening to on their monitors, but A sounded more audibly deep and clean through my open backs.
My unsolicited 2 cents:
The general current canon (popular loud music) says to high-pass everything but your kick and bass at some frequency above the fundamental octave. this intersects with another popular maxim about removing any content outside of a selected frequency bandwidth for a given instrument. panning plus frequency sculpting are the primary tools for placing sounds in a mix.
rendering applied processing to a visually alignable audio clip can make phase shifts obvious. phase incoherence, however, is an undesirable byproduct of extreme settings on inappropriate filter types.
under the hood, filtering can be achieved by a variety of means, not only the traditional FIR and IIR filters, but by a wide variety of techniques ranging from frequency domain bin manipulations to wavelets to convolution, but i digress. the fundamentals of interference (constructive/destructive) and phase response exist and can be exploited, in any case...
the appropriate usage of various kinds of filtering is based upon understanding the characteristics of the tools used.
cargo-cult tool fetish, though rife in audio "engineering" is not an actual byproduct of engineering, which looks at the context, rather than using hammers on phillips head screws etc.
Is it B that has the high pass filter? When switching to B the bass became a bit clearer, and it's quite apparent around 110hz (or rather there is a pronounced A-note. It's not just 110hz but also the overtones) where I can hear a more distinct/fuzzier hum which should be due to the cleared headroom from the high pass? Sorry for the lack of proper technical explanation lol
Both mix variations sound weird to my ears. HPF from vintage analog gear sounds sweet, if you do record actual instruments (like violins, banjos, harps) with real players to tape you will feel when to use it to fit a mix. Don’t overthink this stuff.
A is High passed. Low end sounds clearer and increased perceived loudness overall on A. Would love to try your plugin on my mixes. Thanks :)
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'd say A has the high-pass enabled. B sounds a lot more ''muddy'', I don't know how else to describe it 😂😂 whenever the kick hits in B it has a lot more ''body'' it and it doesnt sound as clear as in A. I'm listening on DT770 Pro headphones!
The waveform changes because, the shorter the waveform, the higher the frequency.... so filter does what filter does.
The implication of a filter destroying the mix is we mix only with faders and everything else happens in front of the mic. A filter has trade-offs, everyone who mixes should know that. We could, of course lessen the bass response by release time in a gate or compressor, but unsurprisingly that also changes the waveform and phase.
Edit: I initially missed 'allegedly' and assumed the video made a point that highpass ruins your mix...
Have you ever made the sub genre Pluggnb? I love it.
Ah Pluggnb. Some of the best beats, beautiful progressions. Some of the worst rappers though ngl, I've seen some people ruin good beats. I watch Silo cookup anytime he release a new VOD.
Ok I’m going to answer this using a “wrong” approach - listening on my phone.
I think mix B sounds less good to my ears. Like the kick is a little stifled and almost compressed.
Whereas mix A sounds a bit sharper and punchier.
Again, this is listening in my phone speakers, so it’s not a good way to test which has the low pass filter. I’m away from my studio but thought it would be interesting to see if anyone else hears it the same.
I wonder if the high pass is on B but unexpectedly making it sound punchier on a phone.
Part B sounds processed cuz high-passing makes changes in phase
Then we’re getting audible boost on a filter frequency
And so, as result, B sounds more subby, more punchy
That’s the trick
Does the phase changing even matter ultimately? After filtering, it's a different waveform altogether, so would it even matter whether it's out of phase? It would only be "out of phase" with the original signal, which presumably is no longer being played after the filter is applied anyway... Does that make sense???
eh… the comparison wasn't much… my big issue is that 2000s style over pumping of the compressor. That's the actual thing that ruined modern music... especially techo.. There are better ways to make the BD slap than pumping the rest of the songs elements through a the BD side chain. It's just grotesque at this point ;)
A is unprocessed and B is with the highpass on. I hear more thumping at around maybe 40hz, subtle high pass like low shelf around 20hz will boost the upper bass harmonics
im using computer speaker with dedicated subwoofer, i have monitor headphones but im too lazy to pick it up.
The correct answer is (and this is demonstrated by all the different answers and opinions here in the comments) - it doesn't matter. Real listeners of the music (not mixing folk) will likely never know the difference or care.