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Stereo master plug ins5/31/2023 You may still need to apply small amounts of corrective, narrow-band boosts or cuts to tame certain resonances or bring attention to certain frequency ranges. Ideally, a two-band EQ, like the Dangerous BAX, can effectively shape the overall master. Apply as little EQ as is necessary to achieve your goal. Remember that every move you make, every step you take in mastering changes the sound of the song. How many EQ bands are necessary for mastering? If the top-end is fine but the low end is lacking boost the low end with a wide bell or gentle shelf.If the low-mid region is muddy, use a bell-shaped EQ to reduce the offending frequencies.If the track is too bright but the low end sounds fine use a high-shelf cut to tame the top end.It’s all about the issue you’re facing and which approach makes the most sense at that moment. The legendary Pultec EQP is revered for its colorful low and high frequency passive circuits.Īll in all, there’s no right or wrong when choosing whether to boost or cut. Be careful! Steep high-pass filters, especially minimum- phase filters, can create audible artifacts as high as 2 or 3 octaves above your filter frequency. High-pass filters would be an exception, where gentle slopes with a very low corner frequency can produce a subtle but effective result without creating audible artifacts. Subtractive EQ is generally done using a narrow Q to avoid affecting anything more than the frequency ranges you wish to fix. Then increase the track’s overall level to make up for the loss in perceived volume. Likewise, to increase both the low- and high-end of a track, simply reduce mid frequencies with a wide-bell filter. To our ears, dipping low-frequencies produces a similar effect as boosting the high-frequencies. Use Subtractive EQto reduce a frequency build-up in one area and you will notice that other ranges of the mix become clearer. Conversely, a build-up of high-mid frequencies can create a harsh-sounding mix. Too much low-end eats up headroom and can overpower delicate high-frequencies. Often, the clarity of mix comes down to the proper amount of low-frequency energy vs. While recording or mixing a live show, we must focus on proper gain structure, but in mastering we often manipulate our gain structure between plugins to optimize the tradeoff between color (saturation) and headroom. Some people claim there’s no right or wrong, while others differ. It’s customary for some top mastering engineers to send a mix back to the mixer if they need to EQ something more than 2-3 dB. Pay careful attention to how the EQ changes you make impact the overall sound-particularly how one change affects everything else in the master. In the context of mastering a full mix, any EQ adjustment affects all the tracks that make up the mix, so incremental changes (even 0.25 to. Mastering is all about making small changes with great results.
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