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Middle Management A few years
back I came across the following quote by audiophile legend J. Gordon Holt:
"If you don't get the midrange right, nothing else matters." And although at
the time he was referring to the frequency reproduction of loudspeakers, he
was also addressing a universal aesthetic and truth in all sonic endeavors.
Regardless of what style of music you're recording, mixing, mastering or
listening to, midrange is the most important aspect.
Think about it: Every instrument utilizes some degree of midrange to
comprise its sound, from timpani to triangle. In reality, midrange
constitutes the majority of what we hear…and are capable of hearing. The low
and high frequency ranges, though very important, more or less serve as
bookends. Midrange is the book.
By way of design, and millions of years of evolution, our ears are more
sensitive to midrange frequencies than anything else. Consider how easy it
is for you to discern one person's voice from another, or even tell what
type of microphone a vocalist is using. According to experts in the field of
speech and hearing the average human voice ranges from roughly 500Hz to 2
kHz, with the most energy centered around 1 kHz. And through history this
"instrument" has been the most important thing for us to hear. So although
the shape of our outer and inner ear has a lot to do with our hearing
propensity, the brain has also been wired to key in on midrange.
But science, evolution and audiophile wisdom aside, what does this mean to
you, the recording musician? Simply, that to achieve the
professional-sounding recordings we're all striving for, you have to be very
careful how you treat the midrange when processing your mixes. It's a lot
easier to get away with casually applying a low-frequency cut filter or
high-frequency boost without hearing the negative side effects all
processors have, because work at this level will either start in or end
beyond our critical hearing range. With midrange, though, there's nowhere to
hide.
From a mastering engineer's perspective of dealing with musicians' mixes
day-in and day-out, the most common request I get is to apply something that
will remedy the ubiquitous thin, edgy veil that plagues most homespun
recordings. All too often the problem is attributed to consumer-grade gear.
And, to some degree, that's probably valid. But as the adage goes, only a
bad carpenter blames his tools. In my June 2002 EQ article, "Better Drum and
Bass Recordings," I stated that the disparity between professional- and
amateur-sounding recordings isn't rooted in technology, but basic audio
knowledge. Processing midrange is definitely one great case-in-point. So
instead of focusing on the price of our current equipment, let's look at how
it's being used.
Check out some recent projects you've mixed. I'll bet that most of the
equalizing was done by narrowly notching or broadly scooping out some amount
of midrange, as well as boosting high frequencies. Here are a few rules of
thumb that I keep in mind when looking to achieve warm, analog-sounding
mixes:
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Keep the
body of a recording intact. The more midrange you remove, the edgier- and
thinner-sounding something becomes.
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All great
mixes have a balanced sound, from bass through mid to treble. So if you cut
too much of one area out, it really draws attention to other areas. In the
case of midrange, you either end up with a less-defined mix, or an edgy mix
that focuses too much attention around ear-fatiguing high frequencies.
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Since
midrange constitutes the majority of what our ears hear, perceived loudness
is diminished when it's removed. And so is a considerable amount of volume.
To recapture that lost gain you'll have to push the track harder,
sacrificing impact and clarity.
I won't
argue that buying the best quality gear you can afford is paramount to
getting a professional sound. But if you don't know how to avoid some common
recording pitfalls, you'll end up with the same sound quality you always
had, just with a lower noise floor. If you really want to turn out
professional-sounding work, use good equipment, spend the time to create
solid mixes and go easy on the midrange. After all, if you don't get the
midrange right, nothing else matters.
© 2005
Paul Abbott. This article originally appeared in the May/June 2005 issue of
Tape Op. |
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