Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Arnold B. Krueger]

Are you sure that isn't breath noise?
That's one of the main reason for adding a HPF to vocals, to cut out the plosives that exist down there.
Not to say that no vocals ever go below 200 Hz, but ...

Good point. Just because the FFT/RTA shows *some signal* below the effective vocal range doesn't mean that "some signal* is music. 

Since some of us tend to work with less-skilled singers, the lower frequencies are where aud8ible problems with breath control and popping show up.

In additioin to the normal roll-off, both Fletcher-Munson and also concurrent spectral masking can keep signals that are measurable from being heard. From an audibility standpoint, both the relevant Fletcher Munson curve and the masking curve add to create even less audibility.

[Stu McDoniel]

My Mackie  mixer has a HP filter at 100hz. I am thinking it would probably be best to use it all the time on vocals channels to reduce boomy-ness, handling noise, and staying out of the bass guitar and kick freq's area. Are you in agreement with this idea? Are there times that you would not want to have the HP filter on? I am thinking if your source is not close to the mic and there is no proximity effect, perhaps then you would turn it off to add more lower frequency's?

ALWAYS...and if it is a mix with no high pass 80hz or 100hz rolloff switch on the mixer I roll
the low bass tone control back somewheres in the 10 oclock position or more on vocals.

[Stu McDoniel]

I use a high pass on EVERYTHING.  Assuming it has adjustable freq.  If it is a fixed freq, then it gets used on everything except instruments that have content below the "tuning freq".  ie bass guitar-keyboards-kick/floor tom-tracks etc.

It helps to keep the rumble out of the system, clean up the low end, reduce "muddines" and also helps keep subs from blowing up.

Go ahead and laugh-but this past fall I had a situation I had to repair where no highpass was used on the choir mics, and with a stiff breeze the rumble from them completely made the 2x $12,000.00 sub woofers jump out of their baskets and tear up (16 drivers total).

There was no highpass on the subs either and lots of power available.  I didn't do the setup and wasn't there when it happened.

A high pass should be used on EVERYTHING-to help keep down overexcursion.

A highpass is your friend.

WOW...thats all I can say to that one

[Matthew Donadio]

I know all situations are different, but out of curiosity, for those that are highpassing pretty high, what do you typically do in a situation where a console has a fixed HP at a lowish frequency?  Will you use a parametric to do further low end cleanup, or use them for other fixes?  More and more I am wishing that my HP and low shelf had higher frequencies so that I didn't have to use a parametric to compensate for them.

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

I know all situations are different, but out of curiosity, for those that are highpassing pretty high, what do you typically do in a situation where a console has a fixed HP at a lowish frequency?  Will you use a parametric to do further low end cleanup, or use them for other fixes?  More and more I am wishing that my HP and low shelf had higher frequencies so that I didn't have to use a parametric to compensate for them.

Like any time in life where you have limited resources - prioritize the problems and address with the equipment you have.  If reducing LF is the biggest need - do what you need to do, though be aware that most LF EQs on analog boards are shelving, which is very different than the HP rolloff.

This in my experience is one of the benefits of a digital board.  Even a relatively low-end one such as the 01v96 has very substantial EQ that rivals very expensive analog boards.

This area is also one of the major benefits of aux-fed or group-fed (my preference) subs.  You can keep everything totally out of the subs simply by not assigning those inputs to the sub bus.

[Taylor Phillips]

I know all situations are different, but out of curiosity, for those that are highpassing pretty high, what do you typically do in a situation where a console has a fixed HP at a lowish frequency?  Will you use a parametric to do further low end cleanup, or use them for other fixes?  More and more I am wishing that my HP and low shelf had higher frequencies so that I didn't have to use a parametric to compensate for them.

I've used one of the (or the, depending) semi-parametric bands to clean up low-frequency stuff I would have used the variable HPF for.  I guess you could also try boosting the higher frequencies more than usual and bring the overall level down, but I don't think that would be as effective. 

[George Dougherty]

I know all situations are different, but out of curiosity, for those that are highpassing pretty high, what do you typically do in a situation where a console has a fixed HP at a lowish frequency?  Will you use a parametric to do further low end cleanup, or use them for other fixes?  More and more I am wishing that my HP and low shelf had higher frequencies so that I didn't have to use a parametric to compensate for them.

Use the HPF and your ears to adjust as necessary and as the tools allow, that's all you can do.  A sweepable mid down in the 180-300 range can help quite a bit where a sweepable HPF isn't available.  IMO, to do even a passable job of EQ you need at least one sweepable mid and two is a significant improvement.  +1 to digital though.  I got hooked on multi-band parametric with the original 01v and never looked back for my own rig.  Once you have at least 2-3 bands of fully adjustable parametric plus a HPF, maybe even a LPF on a channel you can really sculpt a nice clean mix.

[Arnold B. Krueger]

I know all situations are different, but out of curiosity, for those that are highpassing pretty high, what do you typically do in a situation where a console has a fixed HP at a lowish frequency?  Will you use a parametric to do further low end cleanup, or use them for other fixes?  More and more I am wishing that my HP and low shelf had higher frequencies so that I didn't have to use a parametric to compensate for them.

Depends on the degree to which the lack of resources is causing a problem. If its not broke, then I don't fix it!

If it is broke, I prioritize the importance of the problem and if it is really important, I determine what resources are availble to fix the problem.

[Mike Allgeier]

Always. Unless I really want that bass singer to boom.

[Tim Padrick]

Remember that the mic has a big boost centered at 200-ish ( http://www.padrick.net/LiveSound/Proximity.jpg ).  You can run the high-pass up pretty high and still have an overall response that's relatively flat to the bottom of the normal vocal range.  And since IME most systems have a nasty bump around 80Hz, it helps for your non-low-Hz sources' channels to be attenuated a fair bit by then.

[ProSoundWeb Community]