5

Often times I am faced with a problem where I lack a decent amount of mid-range warmth in my sound. When producing a track with this in mind I am then often faced with a muddy sounding mid-range. How do people deal with this? I am aware that the 'mud frequency' is around the 200-300hz mark is it wise to literally eq this out? If so is it best to do this per channel or across the whole mix? Will this reduce any mid-range warmth?

Thanks

6
  • 2
    Perhaps this should migrate to the AV stack?
    – horatio
    Sep 21, 2012 at 17:54
  • Most definitely!
    – NReilingh
    Sep 21, 2012 at 18:32
  • The MUD has a lot to do with the source material. What are you mixing?
    – filzilla
    Sep 21, 2012 at 19:24
  • @filzilla Many things, mainly samples and output from various synths, samplers etc.
    – Magrangs
    Sep 21, 2012 at 20:07
  • Hmm, odd, looks like my accounts haven't synced together (I'm showing up as Magrangs here).
    – Magrangs
    Sep 21, 2012 at 20:11

2 Answers 2

5

As we tend to work with up to 50 separate tracks before mixdown, including synths, drums, live instruments, vocals etc.,getting this right is essential in my band.

Core to our approach is compression and equalisation:

  • Every channel has a compressor added for final mixdown to ensure we have a predefined range per channel
  • Each channel has an equalisation profile (sometimes with a temporal component) to ensure all frequency ranges have an equal weighting, so while I may play my guitars live with a fair amount of bass, in a studio mix I cut almost all my bass and mids as these areas are full of bass guitar, synths and some drums. Similarly, our bassist plays quite a trebly mix on stage, but in the studio we cut all his mids out and leave just enough treble to let his slap ring through (this varies - eg a song designed to sound fat will have more mid and bass etc, but you get the drift)

So if you are getting a muddy mix, see how many tracks are all competing in that 200-300 Hz space and start to cull them one by one.

6
  • Thanks for the info. I guess this is a process that is different for every track and there are really no 'hard and fast' rules. What do you mean by "temporal component" by the way?
    – Magrangs
    Sep 24, 2012 at 11:37
  • p.s. sorry I can't accept your answer at present as somehow my accounts haven't merged properly!
    – Magrangs
    Sep 24, 2012 at 11:38
  • By temporal component, I mean that in a final mix you may have changing equalisation throughout the track to balance the natural variations that happen when playing.
    – Rory Alsop
    Sep 24, 2012 at 12:26
  • Would you eq out the 200-300hz on all tracks or would you leave some non-competing tracks in that range to cover the whole audible frequency spectrum? I guess cutting out all of it can take the 'body' out of the sounds?
    – Magrangs
    Sep 24, 2012 at 13:18
  • I would decide which track I wanted to be forefront in that frequency range and pull the others down, not cutting out everything in that range.
    – Rory Alsop
    Sep 24, 2012 at 17:42
2

Generally mud in mixes isn't a problem with a specific instrument or sound, its a general problem of too many instruments with content in that mid range. For instance you could create a mix where the only instrument playing in lets say 200 - 400hz is a synthline, but in reality guitars, drums, bass, etc all have different components of their sound which can extend into this range. One solution is to totally cut this content from these sources, but this will have a nasty side effect of killing some of their harmonic content and making them sound weird. It also likely leads to thin mixes like you were describing, your earlier problem of cutting away too hard in that region.

My approach with this is to listen to my mix and decide on which instrument I want to have occupy this mid range region (normally with some form of eq visualiser). I will then apply complimentary eq, I will slightly dip the other instruments in that region, unless I am sure they should have no content there - in which case I use a filter or a notch to cut that area out of them. This approach stops them from sounding strange, and still gives a strong mid range to the mix as a whole (Try to avoid cutting more than about 3db over an octave range, this way you shouldnt leave anything too thin).

As a final note, when you cut 200-300hz across the entire mix, you are actually cutting that range in every instrument, its like applying a cut on them all seperately. This really doesnt solve your problem of having clashing instruments in that range. You will have the same mud, just quieter. An effecient option could be to bus all the other instruments except your chosen one, for that range, together and cut the mid range on those all at once. That would still leave the one instrument in the mid range.

2
  • How do you use the eq visualizer for that?
    – atoth
    Mar 26, 2015 at 22:34
  • 1
    The visualiser on your eq should show you how much volume you have in ech of the frequency ranges. You can then determine which frequencies in the 200-300 range are the problem issue for any given part in your mix. Mar 31, 2015 at 8:30

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.