We’ve all been there. The drop you just finished is heat, but it feels muddy: the low/mid end is so strong to the point that it’s ruining the clarity for the rest of the mix. For a track to be mixed well, it should have a good balance of the frequency spectrum (for the typical adult human, the range of audible frequencies is from 20Hz-20,000Hz). There are instances which call for going under 20Hz, and for the most part, high-bitrate and lossless audio will exceed 20,000Hz. More often than not, a production that hasn’t been mixed properly will typically have stronger low and middle frequencies than highs, even for people who have been producing for years.
To understand why this is, it’s important to recognize the human body’s perception of sound. On a flat-frequency basis, a higher frequency sound will sound louder than a lower frequency sound if played at the same volume. Because of this phenomenon, we tend to overemphasize the lower frequencies. It’s also important to note that speakers come in all shapes and sizes, and most will emphasize certain frequencies over others (in general, the low and high end are boosted on commercial speakers). A seemingly balanced bass on reference speakers may end up too boomy and overwhelm the ears in the car.
A further consequence of having a low-heavy mix is that those sounds end up masking the higher frequency sounds. Think of your mix as a pie with different sections: you only have one pie to work with, so if the low end slice is too strong, it’ll not only sound muddy but give less breathing room for the other slices like the high frequency sounds.
One really simple and effective way to remedy a low-heavy mix is to drop the low frequencies for most sounds. When looking at an instrumental, there are five main sections (I go over these in detail here): melody instruments, chord progression instruments, bass, drums, and effects. It’s best not to remove the low frequencies of bass and drums, as they are designed to provide those frequencies to balance out the mix. Instead, group all your main melody and chord progression instruments and apply EQ to cut off all frequencies under 90Hz. All the frequencies below 90Hz for these instruments will do nothing but clutter up the mix and give less room for the bass and drums to shine.
The principle can be applied further on a per-track/sound type level. From my personal experience, I’ve found that cutting everything under 120Hz will work for chord synths. In some cases, even a cut from 160Hz+ is fine, especially for higher-octave synth sounds when layered with lower octave synths. Remember that your frequency cutting completely depends on what the individual sound is and what the overall layered stack sounds like; always experiment to see what sounds best for you!
Vocals are similar to synths: everything under 120Hz can easily be removed. I wouldn’t personally remove anything over 120Hz, as some of the “weight” of the vocal will be lost, resulting in a thin and tinny sound.
Think of these frequencies as a base for the pie analogy—the goal is to create a complete picture without everything interfering with each other. All the different parts of the song should be easily distinguishable from one other for a clean mix.
If you have any further mixing questions, feel free to reach out to me!
Telegram: @galactiv
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