How to use High and low-pass filters??

[Tordenguden]

Hello friends.

I need to put together a demo, i cant afford to go to a pro studio, so ill use my home studio. I know alittle about recordings, but i realy need to learn how to use High and Low pass filters.

I play a cross between death and black metal, so what kinda filter do i wanna use on my guitars? And on my bass? and on my drums? How much do i need to cut and so on?!

Can anyone give me a clue here? hehe

Thanks alot for your help and time.

 

[DSS3]

Wow... you're asking how to mix in general.


Guitars: HPF at 60-80hz depending on your tuning, LPF at 11-14khz depending on fizz.

Bass usually just gets eq'd heavily.

Drums: HPF at 500-600hz on the OH's, get that damned nasty low end out of your cymbals. Boost that with a high-shelf until it sounds good to you.

 

[Ryan]

I actually was trying to clear my mixes up a bit with EQs and such, thanks for asking this question.

 

[Hexer]

DSS3 gave some good advice there

in general: see where the important frequencies for every instrument are and try to clear that frequency-range from heavy signals from other instruments. this is a pretty rough description of course

thats what DSS3 is doing there for example:
HPF at 60-80Hz because you dont need the ultra-low frequencies in the guitar-sound, this is where the low-end of your bass should be (and the kick-drum)
LPF at 11-14kHz because in a guitar-signal this is just fizz and the cymbals are somewhere around that frequency-range

 

[DSS3]

thats what DSS3 is doing there for example:
HPF at 60-80Hz because you dont need the ultra-low frequencies in the guitar-sound, this is where the low-end of your bass should be (and the kick-drum)
LPF at 11-14kHz because in a guitar-signal this is just fizz and the cymbals are somewhere around that frequency-range

Yup!

I do the HPF on the bottom end based on tuning - in E, your lowest string hits about 62hz, so I'll filter from there down.

In D, you're at 71hz, so I go from 70 on down.

At B, it's at 62hz, IIRC... I believe C is at 66.

 

[Nik]

Thanks so much!

 

[smueske]

I don't know. I wouldn't recommend using any hi or low-pass filters until you've tried EQing and compression. I mean, all the filters are for are to block out ranges of the signal. Unless there are certain parts of the mix that sound like complete shit, then you're better off working with EQ. Also, remember to use EQ before compression. If you do it after, you're going to get wild changes in the sound.

 

[zimbloth]

I don't know. I wouldn't recommend using any hi or low-pass filters until you've tried EQing and compression. I mean, all the filters are for are to block out ranges of the signal. Unless there are certain parts of the mix that sound like complete shit, then you're better off working with EQ. Also, remember to use EQ before compression. If you do it after, you're going to get wild changes in the sound.

Well that's the point dude. When I record with my home amp, basically anything above ~4 kHz is fizz/noise...so I roll it all off and it goes from sounding like a Metal Zone direct to the board, to an actual good tone. All the EQ'ing in the world wouldn't fix that issue. I think you should use the HP/LP filters, THEN eq. Just my opinion.

 

[Matt Crooks]

I'll high pass 7-string guitars up to 90 if needed - it clears up space for the bass to provide the low end. However a multibnad comp with just the low band turned on works nicely to control the thump in a 7 stirng gtr.

I also will not cut the cymbals all the way up to 500-600 everytime. The 200-600 range has a lot of the "body" of the cymbal. If all you want it attack and shimmer, sure, but a lot of the sound of a cymbal is below 600.

 

[Hexer]

well, actually a filter could be described as a kind of extreme EQ as EQing is about boosting or cutting certain frequencies. BASICALLY your doing just that with a filter

 

[DSS3]

Well that's the point dude. When I record with my home amp, basically anything above ~4 kHz is fizz/noise...so I roll it all off and it goes from sounding like a Metal Zone direct to the board, to an actual good tone. All the EQ'ing in the world wouldn't fix that issue. I think you should use the HP/LP filters, THEN eq. Just my opinion.

Seriously, you roll off that low? I find the fizz to be at 11khz+... 4k-8k is just air, but not hiss.

 

[Drew]

See, that's the problem with threads like this - SO much of how to mix is personal taste, so simpe "do this at this" statements quickly fall into debate.

Anyway, there's a lot of good jumping off points here, so don't take everything above as gospel, exactly, but take it all and try it and see what sounds good.

Also, a LPF/HPF sort of IS an EQ, just with an on/off instead of an adjustible boost/cut...

EDIT - what Jeff said - below 5k is really the point where guitars begin to really sound rolled off in the treble, to my ears... you can do it and in a dense mix it might actually be beneficial, but if you NEED to do that to not sound like ass, I'd experiment a bit more with different mic positions and mics. That's a hell of a low threshold.