OT: An observation and question about frequencies.
So, as a producer I have used a frequency analyzer more than once. But I really haven’t used it too much since I last recorded my industrial/metal album 2 years ago. Recently I have been observing frequencies on my music. And like a good producer I looked at songs with 10 times better production than mine. What I’ve noticed is a huge cut in anything over 20,000 hz.
So why is this? I think it may be cutting off the supersonics, but I’m not sure. Is it more for the clubs, super loud PAs?
Maybe it is because 20khz is the most common upper bound and some club systems might exhibit the annoying supersonics that are hidden in a track normally due to the range of most speaker systems maxing there.
You sound like you have far more experience than me so I am basically guessing.
I figure its what both of you said. I tried looking it up and can’t find anything on it. I’ll try looking at other genres and see if they all show the same traits. I’m wondering if I should start doing this just in case what mpetersen said is true.
These frequencies still exist in the music however because they even though you can hear them their change the way that you percieve the music. This is why the mimimum sample rate you usally see is 44.1kHz and not 20khz.
This is not totally true. The maximum frequency you can reconstruct from a digital signal is HALF of the sample rate.
That means that for 44.1kHz you will be able to hear up to 22.05 kHz. For 48 kHz you will hear sounds up to 24 kHz. If the sample rate would be 20 kHz you will only be able to reproduce sounds up to 10 kHz.
More info here:
and here:
Are you sure that this happens only to the good tracks? Because any track that had been sampled to 44.1 kHz (CD and mp3 standard) would have any frequency higher than 22 kHz significantly reduced.
It is true that even if you cannot hear the frequencies higher than 15 kHz (this varies from person to person and with age), they significantly affect the way you perceive the track.
This is partly due to the harmonics produced from/and inserted by the higher frequencies affecting the lower frequencies that you can hear. Similar to playing a 2 octave chord on a piano, your ears/brain will insert the next 2 notes because of the harmonics, just in reverse in this case.
Leaving the higher freq in tracks can set off certain emotions without you knowing, im studying psycho acoustics at university and we cover this alot, same with low freq u cant hear, but they are ther doing ther bit.
Holy Jesus, that sounds goddamn interesting. Of course you get effected by
the sound, it may be too much or too less for your ears., but your body still receives the audio waves.
Edit: Oh shit, thought it was English. Its about torture with low frequenct about 5-25Hz, that makes you puke. Or Audiowave Guns.
They also built huge mobile soundsystems to play a low frequency at a riot.
And really low frequencies can cause inner bleedings which can kill you.
The range of human hearing stretches from 20hz-20Khz and generally tails off as you get older. Most people can’t hear above 15-18Khz.
It’s thought that we can perceieve frequencies higher than 20Khz, but can’t hear them - although it’s never been conclusively proven and IMHO is something people say to sell the latest technology - 96Khz workstations for example.
Having any frequencies above 20K or below 20hz will only rob any mixes of energy, particularly when mastering, so it’s wise to put cuts in to remove those frequencies to maintain the optimum level. In practise most dance music will cut at about 18khz.
The more high frequency content there is in your audio, the more fatiguing to listen to it is.
