Wednesday, November 6, 2024

38 thoughts on “Magic Frequencies for Mixing ACOUSTIC Guitar

  • The best sounding takes I've ever gotten sound almost exactly like the "not very good but useable" example 🙁

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  • I have to disagree. 5K just adds clutter. It gets in the way of everything else. Do a small shelf boost at around 900 to 1k, with a little goose at 10k. Then we use dynamic eq (compression) at 5k. Set the threshold so you are just barely compressing under a normal strum. When they start thrashing, there will be a lot of compression at 5k. This will keep it clean. It also adds gobs of sustain, so you get a strong tonal definition. Then depending on the instrument, you may add some dynamic eq (compression) around 300 Hz to clean up the low end. The compression at 5k tends to warm up the instrument a lot, so you need to balance that with some compression in the low mid. No one will know why, but you have a very rich sounding acoustic, that can be delicate or add a solid rhythm, depending on how it is played. The compression does the work for you, so you don't have to track what the player is doing.
    Interestingly, piano and acoustic are known for competing for the same space in the mix. With this setup, they easily stand up to each other and you have no problem picking each instrument distinctly out of the mix.

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  • awesome series of eq for different instruments and voice, and with the free chart, Thanks so much man, for giving us such a priceless information for free. Really cool!!!

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  • Bonjour. J'aime beaucoup ta façon de travailler et surtout ta conception sonore de chaque instrument à l'intérieur d'un mixage. Bravo!

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  • the singer sings like a little whinny boy… like why do so many singers sound the same? are they all using the same Auto tuner algos? seems like this style of singing is the modern sound…

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  • These magic freq. videos are a HUGE help! Thank you so much! I downloaded the pdf and use it all the time. I was wondering if you'd make a video for piano? Very dynamic and hard to pin down. I used "Rooms" on one piano and "Background vox" on another and it did sound pretty good. But hoping you could help us understand the piano frequencies to boost and cut.????

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  • Hi Jordan, really enjoying this video series.

    Have you considered a video for other acoustic/orchestral instruments? I'm working on a project with a (midi) saxophone that's proving very difficult to tune the EQ into something rich & full. I'd be curious to know how the same principles discussed in this series would apply to that!

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  • whenever i see an engineer with a sleeve tattoo i instantly feel confidence in whatever they are saying hahaha…

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  • Ok Riiight, but remember that this SSL G channel plugin is not only actually affecting just 1k, 5k, 10k, I thought It was worth mentioning this as it can lead to a lot of confusion….

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  • Just want to pick up on the bit later in the vid where you point out the 'less well recorded guitar' had too much 1K vs the first that needed more. Bravo! Too many videos say boost here, cut here etc but never tell you what level it should be at. That just leads to people copying settings etc

    Like with kick i think just EQing 3-4 completely different samples for the same track would is more helpful than just showing what needs to be done to one, implying that will work or all.
    So that's why I think this vid is great, your showing how to achieve good results from completely different examples, and that is waaaay more helpful

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  • YES FINALLY some acoustic!! I've often found that some amateur level guitars also have a plastic-y build up at around 4K… Great video! I would love to see a video about choirs & gang vocals!! That stuff can be super unpredictable to fit in just right – especially with a lot of frequency masking. Great work!!

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  • Am I crazy, or is the tuning a bit off in the first part? Probably the b string is a bit flat if it's played how I picture it.

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  • I've found your videos amazing. I'd love to hear your thoughts on fingerpicked guitar as well. I swear by your cheat sheet.

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