Learning how to listen is an important skill for any mix engineer. Unfortunately, it takes a long time to get it right. With that in mind, I tried to create an overall cheat sheet containing all you need to know about what sound would go where on the frequency spectrum.
You can find a lot of information on this graph:
- what is considered low, mid and high in the audible frequency range
- how a sound curve translate to a specific sound character
- the tones that reflect in a specific eq range to be too high or too low
for example: a muddy mix may have too much sound in the range between 100 Hz and 400 Hz, while a hollow mix may lack sound between 150 Hz and 1k Hz (or 1000Hz) - the range of an octave in frequency (more or less)
- where instruments are usually positioned within a frequency range
- with the exception of a piano, which can range between A0 (the min) until 7B (the max)
- I did not indicate the higher harmonics of those instruments, so please dont start cutting-off your guitar at 1.3KHz, but rather at 4KHz (or up to 8KHz for steel guitars) to include those higher harmonics or your mix will sound very dull indeed 😉
Hopefully this sheet will help you find the right frequencies more easily.