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Old 01-20-2022, 07:34 AM   #1
for
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Default Masking, frequencies and timbre?

So they say having insturments with same frequency creates masking issues

but sometimes i think if the instruments have much different timbre its not a problem?

so why is the focus more on if there's frequency masking when the timbre can be solving the problem on its own?

unless i'm totally wrong...

thanks
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Old 01-20-2022, 08:48 AM   #2
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Timbre is the frequencies produced by an instrument or voice. Not just the fundamental note, but other frequencies that make up the character of the sound.

Timbre can also be affected by frequency masking.
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Old 01-20-2022, 08:57 AM   #3
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It's not necessarily a problem. Of course, you generally don't want to mask vocals with a loud guitar!

The blending of sounds is what makes music interesting and enjoyable! It's up to the composer, arranger, producer, and mixing engineer to get a good overall sound & mix, and this is mostly done by-ear.

Frequently, different instruments are playing the same notes and sometimes a recording is "doubled" or two (or more) of the same instrument are playing the same-exact part.

The most frequent recording problem seems to be when a bass guitar and kick drum are "taking-up the same space" but that's an issue of headroom, and it's not a problem with live music.

There is a lot of masking going-on that we are not aware of. A single instrument or single voice contains masked components! MP3 compression mostly works by throwing-away masked sounds and it can often sound identical to the uncompressed original.
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Old 01-20-2022, 10:20 AM   #4
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It's true that a well arranged collection of sounds, each with their own frequency band kind of mixes itself. It can also be true that polite safe mixes can be painfully boring!

Music has to have some life and attitude! The first example I said certainly can also do that! Don't take that wrong. And so can some punk attitude mix with every single sound source stepping in the same frequency bands! Don't start "cleaning it up" either or you'll ruin it!

The only thing I've heard that's truly hopeless is the click track karaoke band with the robot voice "singer". It's been really popular for a few years now though so what do I know!
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Old 01-20-2022, 11:18 AM   #5
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So they say having insturments with same frequency creates masking issues

but sometimes i think if the instruments have much different timbre its not a problem?

so why is the focus more on if there's frequency masking when the timbre can be solving the problem on its own?

unless i'm totally wrong...
You're not wrong. Most music wouldn't be listenable if this was a severe problem. And this is exactly what makes mixing and producing fun. Distortion and saturation is our friend in order to "separate" timbres and "depth-of-field", in conjunction with eq most of the time.
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Old 01-21-2022, 01:31 AM   #6
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Distortion and saturation is our friend in order to "separate" timbres and "depth-of-field", in conjunction with eq most of the time.

can you explain this more please i never thought distortion as a tool to separate timbres
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Old 01-21-2022, 02:29 AM   #7
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can you explain this more please i never thought distortion as a tool to separate timbres
Distortion amplifies overtones in relation to the fundamental, as well as their harmonics.

Are you familiar with the harmonic series?
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Old 01-21-2022, 02:43 AM   #8
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can you explain this more please i never thought distortion as a tool to separate timbres
"Timbre" is nothing else but an overtone mix which ‒ by experience ‒ makes our ear/brain discern/distnguish e.g. a guitar sound from a piano (although both are based on the same physical principle).
Distortion, which is only one aspect of "timbre" ‒ is also a certain series of overtones (mostly 2 and 3 though irl) which you can add on top of an already recorded timbre in order to separate the distorted from the non-distorted signal. Or use odd-vs.-even / tube-vs.-solid-state / transformer-vs.-diode stlyes of distortion. They all sound different and will alter a signal's timbre, from enhancing (original character is kept) to annihilating (original timbre is overshadowed by the overtones of the distortion unit).
It's math in the end.

EDIT: otoh you can timbrally glue everything by using a (virtual) console, a tape machine, a set of transformers, basically whatever you like, on the master buss. IM(read: non-scientific)O that's the main difference between digital summing and analog summing and probably one of the controversial aspects about which sounds "better".
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Old 01-21-2022, 07:07 AM   #9
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Looks like everyone covered it pretty well. Biggest thing is to use your ears. If you can’t separate out two instruments well and want to hear one over the other without increasing volume then a light use of Trackspacer VST can work really well; but it can also easily destroy a mix if overused

https://www.wavesfactory.com/audio-plugins/trackspacer/
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Old 01-21-2022, 07:23 AM   #10
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Also worth noting that timbre can change depending on how an instrument was recorded.

The breathiness of a close mic'd flute has a different timbre to recording a flute from the other side of a concert hall.

Both have timbre associated with a flute, but very different timbre within that recognisable class.

You can similarly change the timbre of instruments with EQ.
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Old 01-21-2022, 07:25 AM   #11
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... the takeaway is that timbre and frequencies are not separate things, but the same.

Timbre is essentially any frequency information outside of the fundamental note, and the relationship between them. It's what makes any instrument distinguishable from a pure sine tone.
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Old 01-21-2022, 10:10 AM   #12
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I would add that distortion is more the addition of a harmonic series that wasn't necessarily there before, we often call it distortion because it's a distortion of the waveform. IOW, a perfect sine wave has zero harmonics, anything that changes the shape to non-perfect-sine (distorted shape) will result in harmonics - how it is distorted dictates what the harmonic series consists of.

Some see that as a chicken/egg problem, which came first the waveform or the harmonics, but based on my view of nature, I lean towards the waveform though I could swing either way depending.

OT: I tend to be pretty good at coming up with melodies - it's a welcomed talent due to all the other things I suck at. I have noticed over the years that the reason why is that my ear picks up on the harmonics in the chords/notes themselves.

So, if there are two or three chords in a cadence, my brain hears all the harmonics popping in and out and dancing around, and the melody is literally heard in the sequence of harmonics my brain picked up on. And it depends on which ones pop out when (to my ears) that allows me to find multiple melodies.
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Old 01-21-2022, 10:18 AM   #13
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Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
I would add that distortion is more the addition of a harmonic series that wasn't necessarily there before, we often call it distortion because it's a distortion of the waveform. IOW, a perfect sine wave has zero harmonics, anything that changes the shape to non-perfect-sine (distorted shape) will result in harmonics - how it is distorted dictates what the harmonic series consists of.
But even harmonics added to timbral overtones will give the perception of amplifying them, plus clipping the waveform will bring up overtone levels in relation to the fundamental.

It took me a minute to think about beingmf's post, but it makes sense.
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Old 01-21-2022, 11:18 AM   #14
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But even harmonics added to timbral overtones will give the perception of amplifying them, plus clipping the waveform will bring up overtone levels in relation to the fundamental.

It took me a minute to think about beingmf's post, but it makes sense.
I agree about perception but it's a better understanding (long term) to start with a pure sine wave and work up from there, which has none of this. I do think we should be careful with clipping bringing up overtone levels as it is also creating new ones. Point taken though.

Yes you are right but at the heart of it, it's *any* change to the shape of the waveform whatsoever, not just clipping off the top/bottom.

Sorry for being over-scrupulous, I just think it's best to start with a sine wave and work from there. Even better with an oscilloscope + FFT and a way to modify the waveform - it is truly eye-opening IMHO.

As far as masking, from my early years, I believe that it is any frequency source that is louder than any other frequency source of the same pitch, will mask/hide the lower one. But that's more about competing instruments and poor orchestration choices etc., sort of like phase interaction, everything we hear, is a result of phase interaction, it only matters when it doesn't sound good.
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Old 01-21-2022, 11:37 AM   #15
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I agree about perception but it's a better understanding (long term) to start with a pure sine wave and work up from there, which has none of this. I do think we should be careful with clipping bringing up overtone levels as it is also creating new ones. Point taken though.

Yes you are right but at the heart of it, it's *any* change to the shape of the waveform whatsoever, not just clipping off the top/bottom.

Sorry for being over-scrupulous, I just think it's best to start with a sine wave and work from there. Even better with an oscilloscope + FFT and a way to modify the waveform - it is truly eye-opening IMHO.

As far as masking, from my early years, I believe that it is any frequency source that is louder than any other frequency source of the same pitch, will mask/hide the lower one. But that's more about competing instruments and poor orchestration choices etc., sort of like phase interaction, everything we hear, is a result of phase interaction, it only matters when it doesn't sound good.
Don't be sorry, it's good stuff!

I think I made the point higher up that masking can affect timbre, too. For example, if you have acoustic guitar competing in the 3kHz region with a female vocals and a lot of cymbal work on a drum kit, then that guitar will sound more muddy and dark, even if the fundamentals aren't being stepped on in the arrangement.
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Old 01-21-2022, 12:05 PM   #16
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I think I made the point higher up that masking can affect timbre, too. For example, if you have acoustic guitar competing in the 3kHz region with a female vocals and a lot of cymbal work on a drum kit, then that guitar will sound more muddy and dark, even if the fundamentals aren't being stepped on in the arrangement.
Makes sense to me.

I think it is often missed, misunderstood and underrated just how much music sort of mixes itself if it is composed with such things in mind, where everything has it's place from the start. Missing that then using terms like "carve" further down in the mixing process is basically trying to shoehorn in something that was sonically competitive from the beginning.

And it doesn't always have to be intentional. I'm certain there are bands for example that just happen to have complimentary instruments, composition, orchestration and songwriting that makes them a joy to record and mix, because it just happened to be that way with those people and the choices they naturally made.

My point there is anything we can know about this up front, surely makes everything downstream better.
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Old 01-21-2022, 12:48 PM   #17
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Makes sense to me.

I think it is often missed, misunderstood and underrated just how much music sort of mixes itself if it is composed with such things in mind, where everything has it's place from the start. Missing that then using terms like "carve" further down in the mixing process is basically trying to shoehorn in something that was sonically competitive from the beginning.

And it doesn't always have to be intentional. I'm certain there are bands for example that just happen to have complimentary instruments, composition, orchestration and songwriting that makes them a joy to record and mix, because it just happened to be that way with those people and the choices they naturally made.

My point there is anything we can know about this up front, surely makes everything downstream better.
Definitely.

And masking doesn't have to be a bad thing. The whole point of unison parts is to create a new timbre through the melding of two different timbres.

I am also a fan of old style bass drum and bass guitar relationships, where they mask the hell out of each other to form a cohesive whole... and they actually have lower mid content, where all their important articulation is!
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Old 01-21-2022, 02:28 PM   #18
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Also worth noting that timbre can change depending on how an instrument was recorded.
Yes ‒ and here's where microphones and even the mic preamp comes into play.

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And masking doesn't have to be a bad thing. The whole point of unison parts is to create a new timbre through the melding of two different timbres.
Right! In order to know when you'd (aesthetically) want A or B, you need to know how A (separation) and B (amalgamation) sounds in the end.
We have all the choices and tools at hand ‒ how we use them for our vision is in our own hands. But as always: only if we really have the knowledge, we can really decide what we want.
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