How to Remove Muddiness and Enhance Shimmer and Sheen

Björgvin Benediktsson 2 Comments

There are two particular EQ problems many of you struggle with.

Muddiness and Shimmer.

You might know them as boom and sheen, or thickness and air.

They go by different names, but their presence won’t go unnoticed.

Muddiness is the bane to your low-end existence, cluttering up the mix and reducing definition and clarity.

The other does the exact opposite. It opens up your mix and brightens your instruments.

Removing Muddiness

Filter – quick. Most of the time you won’t even notice any change in the sound of the instruments, but you will notice a lack of mud.

Low Mids – If that doesn’t help, cutting the low-mids is where you should look next. It’s crazy how much build-up you can get of the lower mids once you start adding instruments into the mix.

Shimmer & Sheen

Boosting the high-mids and high frequencies adds a lot of air and brightness to instruments, but be careful. Too much and you get a lopsided mix that has much more highs than lows.

You always want a good balance.

Guitars and Vocals -The high-mids really help bring out the presence of the guitars and vocals. If your guitar sounds dull then adding some bite in the high-mids helps.

Similarly, high-mids can clean up nasal sounding and “bleh…” vocals (sorry, that adjective was the first thing that came to my mind).

And if you need crispness from your cymbals, high-shelving EQs in the high frequencies can really bring out the airy quality of your drum mix.

Frequency Problems

Learning exactly which frequency to boost and cut is an in-depth subject.

Big enough for a series of blog posts.

Or a few chapters in an eBook?

In Mixing Strategies you will find an in-depth guide to vocal EQ, 35 mixing tips on making your drums sound punchier(it has a lot to do with EQ) and various techniques to make your low-end sound tight and controlled.

Also, I’ve added an extra bundle option for those that like saving a little money. It’s called the Strategies Bundle Plus. See what’s included here:

www.mixingstrategies.com

Image by: Bill Selak

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