Fat, thin, bright, dull, nasal, hollow, boxy - Understand what all these tonal balance terms mean
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- Fat, thin, bright, dull, nasal, hollow, boxy - What do all these words mean? TONAL BALANCE is vitally important in audio and you need to learn how to speak its language. This video demonstrates with audio examples what the terms mean and what they sound like. Check out the Audio Masterclass Music Production and Sound Engineering Course at bit.ly/3W3tpKo
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0:00 Introduction
0:11 What is tonal balance?
1:18 Quick list of tonal balance terms
1:45 EQ for newcomers to audio
2:47 A few important caveats
3:38 Tonal balance: Fat
4:36 Tonal balance: Thin
5:20 Tonal balance: Bright
5:59 Tonal balance: Aggressive
6:49 Tonal balance: Smooth
7:44 Tonal balance: Dark
8:40 Tonal balance: Dull/muffled
9:30 Tonal balance: Air/airy
10:34 Tonal balance: Harsh
11:26 Tonal balance: Nasal/honky
12:21 Tonal balance: Muddy
13:07 Tonal balance: Presence/bite
13:59 Tonal balance: Scooped/smile curve
15:07 Tonal balance: Hollow
15:57 Tonal balance: Boxy
16:52 Summary
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Fat, thin, bright, dull, nasal, hollow, boxy - Understand what all these tonal balance terms mean 0953am 7.7.23 lazy intonation and lax desire to deliver one's thoughts coherently... (lazy peoples per se) is basically the basis of regional dialect. that said, the home counties plummy tongue does nothing for me, either. it is said, due to industrial revolution vs pastoral living - speech became more nasally in the cities and towns due to bellowing smog and smoke as opposed to the countryside wherein folk became more coherent.. this is not the case... we dont even take into consideration the alleged elite's desire to distance themselves from anything deemed of the lower orders - speech included. i curse my nasally vile odes but that's due to a desire to distance myself from nasally and allegedly industrial volk. not due to any aloofness.. that and the masses of crushed bone and matter situated atop the bridge of my nose after having run into a tree during the early 80's. i do wonder what my speech would have sounded like if 1: i was not brow beaten by northern-ease and 2: i had not run into that tree all those years ago. p.s that anecdote is worthy of a response in anybody's book.
1970s Open University content quality with a 2020 quality of delivery
And I mean that in the nicest way possible. Great combination of audio and visual cues with the usual no nonsense approach to teaching.
Thanks for another great video
Thank you for your comment. Looks like I'll have to choose between a polo neck or knitted tie for my next video. DM
3:38 Tonal balance: Fat
4:36 Tonal balance: Thin
5:20 Tonal balance: Bright
5:59 Tonal balance: Aggressive
6:49 Tonal balance: Smooth
7:44 Tonal balance: Dark
8:40 Tonal balance: Dull/muffled
9:30 Tonal balance: Air/airy
10:34 Tonal balance: Harsh
11:26 Tonal balance: Nasal/honky
12:21 Tonal balance: Muddy
13:07 Tonal balance: Presence/bite
13:59 Tonal balance: Scooped/smile curve
15:07 Tonal balance: Hollow
15:57 Tonal balance: Boxy
16:52 Summary
This is simply one of the greatest videos on youtube about music reproduction. Now I know why I like (and don't like) some sound profiles. Thank you so much!
“ TREMENDOUS CLARITY”: #1 my 58 year old hearing is great, I could hear every example the video demonstrates! #2. I prefer “Flat” in every example which makes sense given that it is the same when listening at home- my stereo amplifier settings 95% of the time are set to flat, or bypass tone control all together. Very helpful video sir, excellent content and I am continuing to learn from the videos on your channel….cheers!!!👍from USA
Discovered channel mid 2023, going thru many past vids. Found this excellent example. Thanks.
This reference song makes me want to play a mobile game
Wonderful....cheers !
You have a great perspective thank you for sharing it.
What a great explanation, thank you.
Excellent job, well done!👍✅
Very informative!
The best video about EQ on CZcams
As ever, the words of David Mellor are very informative and accurately focused. Excellent graphics.
Super helpful tutorial. Simple. Clear. Great examples.
Thank you! Straightforward but essential stuff with clear examples!
Very useful and simply explained . To keep handy. Thanks
I thank you for your good advice my friend I have been thinking a lot about what you said on my last post, thanks.
Finally someone explains these terms in a way I can understand them!
Probably the best and most useful tutorial I have ever seen since I started music production three years ago. Thank you.
First time visit and this is new to me. Fantastic stuff, understood it all. Jam packed and very well presented. Subbed!
Thank you for clarifying these commonly used terms and putting some numbers to them. Cheers!
Very helpful.
Fantastic presentation of audio information! Thank you for taking the time to share this!
You're welcome. DM
Got a specific 'boxy' tone I want for a guitar effect on my synth + vox genre-type tune. Didn't know you existed or even spoke my language. I'm still teachable. Hurray!
It is the best reference to mixing!! I was always confusing to my mixing strategy even with reference track, but I am absolutely clear now, thank you!
Very helpful video. Thanks for posting!
You're welcome. DM
Thank you David. Great video!
You're welcome. DM
Dude, thank you for this great explanation. I was missing something and I believe I may have it now because of this cool vid.
Very good explanation with no frantic arm waving or histrionics
Legendary video
Well explained interesting to lean of what the frequencies do. I know a little but this helped me more.
Köszönjük!
Thank you! Excellent
You're welcome.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome. DM
thanks for knowledge, now I understand more about listening music and how to describe it
Thank you very much!!!!
You're welcome.
great.......................
this videos will be my live changing stuff in 2022,
exceptional content, thanks
Glad you think so!
Thank you so much!
You're welcome. DM
Thank you, Paul McCartney.
What a great video thanks 🙏
You're welcome. DM
its amazing how dull the mix sounds after boosting the highs like that
Absolutely excellent video. This is the most comprehensive video on this subject I've seen.
Thank you for your comment, which I appreciate. I should say that I didn't invent any of this - these are just terms that are commonly used. But if my explanation works, then that is very pleasing. DM
I really appreciate this video you made, thank YOU x 10! I know a lot of things you say but when I hear it, the disclarity in my mind disappears. Thank you. I particularly appreciate the term AIR and NASAL, and the boosting of sound range differentiates the speakers that we buy. Thank you so much.
Nice
This is the best video I've ever seen on the subject matter. Thank you so much for your work!
Thank you. DM
great video
Glad you enjoyed it. DM
Excellent demonstration of the effect of changes to different parts of the audio spectrum. I have home-brewed speakers which comprise open baffle bass drivers plus distributed mode mid/treble loudspeaker panels. I use a miniDSP HD as an active crossover and REW to tailor driver responses and overall room EQ. With EQ, the system will play flat down to about 35hz. it still tends to sound a little thin at the bottom end, perhaps because OB bass and DML panels load the room differently from traditional 'point and squirt' speakers. Perhaps, therefore, the overall response needs a bit more of a boost in the 'fat' region and over a smaller frequency range than I'm currently giving it.
Excellent video, thank of you from Cali Colombia.
You're welcome. DM
I need to do some more ear training to hear the subtler differences, especially Hollow tones. Thankyou !!
Thank you so very much Sir.
You're welcome. DM
Thank you so much, it helped me a lot
You're welcome. DM
very helpfull
Thank you for watching.
Now I understand why I like my Sennheiser HD-600 so much.
Great video ✅
Thank you. DM
Thank you for illustrating the tonal descriptions that people use to describe spectral shapes of sound.
In a recording studio, these descriptions might be useful, but in an auditorium, I don't see the value of these descriptions since multipath fading causes a plethora of frequency nulls and crests throughout the auditorium and since the locations of people affect the frequency response of a room.
Years ago, I built a scalar audio network analyzer using a sinewave generator, a wideband flat amplifier, an oscilloscope, and a wideband microphone. It was controlled by a laptop driving a GPIB bus. The program sweeping frequencies included a calibration sequence to ensure the tones heard by the microphone were adjusted from 10Hz to 20kHz to be flat.
Result: there were dozens of nulls in a typical house room and hundreds in an auditorium! What's more, the entire spectral response changed drastically as people were added to the room and moved around! Also, these spectral responses changed as the microphone was moved, as expected.
Point is, you can never adjust equalization to the satisfaction of 90% of people in a room, and those 10% who are content with the spectral response will change as people move around in the auditorium.
There is therefore no point in trying to be precise with your language describing these sounds. The spectral responses of a large room are too numerous and varied to allow simple descriptions like this. The descriptions only have meaning in small highly dampened rooms of a recording studio and in the subsequent mixing of recording tracks.
I still thank you for giving us some idea what these crazy descriptions look like spectrally and how they might sound. This has been driving me crazy for decades!
It has been so nice to 'at last' understand why my system sounds the way it does. I will get onto my EQ circuit tomorrow! Thank you so much.
normally people don´t understand what the equalizer do to the music and also equalizers sold for home systems are very bad ,in the 80´s i bought a kenwood that also had the reverb ,and it felt better than others till today ,the dbx equalizer is better in a way that if someone does know how to work with it ,it includes a lot of frequencies that can be changed but this is a professional equalizer ,at home i don´t use any, if one knows when hearing music what frequency should be changed for the better this when playing cds,it´s easy but most of the users never really undertstood what it does to the music ,those V shape equalization decrease what already is decreased so it looks so bad having it on one´s system, it can be seen in several videos on youtube or it could ,this new youtube it´s kind of a deal that stole everyone in this planet
Although used by professionals in the recording industry, these fundamental terms for communication are also very useful for layman and enthusiasts. Thank you!
Thank you for this amzing content sir. Really one of the best youtube videos explaining all these commonly used adjective among producers. Now, I can watch my prefered youtube and understand exactly what he means when he uses all of these terms.
Another question if you permit sir: where do sit the terms "boomy" , "hooded" and "tiny" compared to the terms you evoqued in your videos.
I would say "boomy"= fat and "hooded"= smooth and tiny= combination of thin and harsh. Would you agree?
Thanks.Can I use it on a vocal track?
Excellent as always David! I loved the sound of the example file when it was showing the presence/bite term. Thanks for all that you do!!! By the way, to the one who gave thumbs down to this video , You should be ashamed of yourself, giving thumbs down to such great information...oh let me guess...your mixes are so perfect that you don't need this kind of help? Then go somewhere else but don't try to diminish the great work of such instructor and his amazing content!!! Sorry for the rant haha...
Thank you for your comment. You are right that this music does seem to like a bit of presence. Of course other music might respond differently. Regarding the dislike (maybe there will be more to come), I don't mind at all - It keeps me on my toes. DM
Actually, I've seen people hit that dislike button by accident and not realize it, so a dislike is
not always relevant. By the way, thanks for the great info, David!
Does anyone know where more content like this is openly available?
I took a 2 year long course with Point Blank Music School and they never showed us anything so helpful. Thanks, sir.
Thank you for your comment. I'm pleased to be of help. DM
This is useful, but I think it might be great to also explain the different tonal balances by add and cut of dbs. I like though to know where across the hertz each tonal balance can be affected. I imagine it is best to play by ear to know the add and cut of dbs. Could you mate, also suggest the tonal balance by instrument piece?
You saved me thank you 😭🙏🏻
You're welcome. DM
I've heard 'air' used to describe heavily boosted bass. I guess because it 'moves more air'?
You're really good at explaining the various topics, bur exposition style sounds too formal and verbose, with that said I love this video, it has helped me realized some important facts about sound that I think will always help me out.
I agree, I'm not so good on camera, but I practise. You will find my more recent videos better I think, and I might come back to this one sometime and remake it. DM
Very useful. Any chance of a similar class with voice only?
I don't see why not, but I tend to make videos on whatever interests me in the moment. If the thought sticks in my mind for a while, then I probably will. DM
The articulation of these videos is spectacular. I've been making, mixing and mastering music for a quarter of a century now, and I still quite enjoy watching these videos.
The jazz population would go insane with those descriptors
I'm fifty seven and i find i have to cup my hands behind my ears to hear the real sound of my mixes. Thank you for all your good advice it has helped me a lot even though some i don't agree with... haha maybe i'm just a prick. thanks Mate.
I'm surprised how well that piece of music and some headphones demonstrate the different tonal balances.
Is there a name for when there is a clear trough between low and mid, and between mid and high? I've got that issue in my car and it sounds terrible.
What is the song being used, its so good. Sounds like Paul Hardcastle
It's just one of my musical doodles. DM
Hi, you say (smoother or Darker) can be a good thing, high frequencies are rolled off perhaps for background music with voiceover. But is it common to roll off the frequencies on everything other than a vocal? Especially if the song has no drums, but instead is just an acoustic guitar only arrangement?
I never can tell if the tradeoff is a good thing. You lose the airy acoustic guitar/pick attack at 10k but the vocal takes a huge leap forward and becomes very intelligible and intimate along with a nice warm overal sound.
I actually really liked the low shelf boost at the start of the video (thick or Fat) demonstration. I would guess you lose a ton of headroom but my ear loves warmer mixes, and that boost didn't seem to blow up the low end while listening on my low end heavy speaker.
It's usual for finished product to have a full-range frequency balance. So if the high frequencies are only in the vocal, that can be OK. But rather than roll off the high frequencies in the instruments, you might try a dip at around 3.5 kHz, lowish Q, just a couple of dB. That will keep the high frequencies in the instruments and at the same time allow the vocal to come through. DM
@@AudioMasterclass I really appreciate your response. That is some great advice and it helps me more than you know.
Thank you
While the information contained in this video is good, the YT audio compression has definitely made it difficult to actually hear the changes you are making to the EQ. If I make the same changes on my own EQ program, the differences are much more apparent, resulting in less confusion. Just a heads up to anyone else watching this in the future.
Absolutely stellar! I'm not an engineer, I'm simply the audience but I've struggled all my life to communicate clearly with other enthusiasts (for example when discussing equipment or rooms). We all know the terms but most apply thrm incorrectly. I'm going to share this video far and wide. I do have a, question though : what do the terms "wet" and "dry" and "fast" or "sluggish" mean?
Wet and dry refer to the level at which an effect is operating on a sound. The 'wet' signal is the one with the effect applied. The 'dry' signal is the original, unaffected signal. The 'wetness' of the sound is the extent to which the effect is affecting the signal. I have no idea about fast and sluggish
@@IllusionistBeatsOfficial Cheers! I certainly wouldn't have guessed that on my own.
@@RasheedKhan-he6xx no worries!
Hollow has always been an issue for me to listen for in any sound source. Any tips to really distinguish that particular frequency band?
Dips in the frequency curve are always harder to hear, and probably therefore less to worry about because your audience is in the same position. I'd say experiment with your EQ on a variety of sound sources, comparing dips at various frequencies against flat.
It's balanced. Aside from that, what do you think of the Giles Martin White Album 2018 mix? Are mids on Beatles represses dull and the mix muddy overall? Do they need to bake the master tapes and let a real engineer remix them??? I know I'm off topic, but with all these Beatles, Giles Martin boxes, are they grails or total fu*king Bollocks? I got the White Album box, and it sounds fine if there is nothing else to compare it to. I most definitely love buying a record nobody has ever owned or played so I enjoy playing it, but f**k me, it sounds muddy af
I would have liked to hear tonal balancing individual tracks- if a mix is bad- just adjusting overall mix eq won’t fix it
Yes it would be useful for me to cover EQ on instruments and vocals, however I needed something with the full frequency spectrum to make this demonstration. Regarding a bad mix, yes there's only so much you can do with EQ. I would say that in mixing, the aim should be to get a good overall frequency balance with EQ in the channels. However, it's a rare (good) mix that can't be improved still further with EQ in the master. In fact that's one of the functions of the mastering engineer - to improve the frequency balance and make it compatible with existing commercial releases. DM
Hi.
this sounds like after masterizing the recording it doesn´t allow to change the sound that much with a weak equalizer
I'm one of the few people who can produce a mix that is fat, thin, bright, dull, nasal, hollow, boxy and (my speciality) muddy.
Nice one, I'm a learner with a capital "L" and this a subject that kept flying over my 60 year old brain. Thanks for providing real world examples. Would it be possible to point me in the direction of an equivalent for diologue narrative and podcasting?
The same idea applies to all kinds of audio, that it should be possible to communicate frequency balance issues with standard language. With speech however the language would probably be different in some ways. For instance, the bass increase caused by a close-up directional mic wouldn't normally be described as 'fat' and really needs its own word. Other terminology would be the same as for music. 'Presence' for example is totally applicable to speech. 'Warm' is also a good word for speech that has a full bass and is slightly rolled off in the HF. I don't know of a resource that specifically references speech, but I will keep my eyes and ears open for the terminology that people typically use. DM
@@AudioMasterclass Thanks very much for your reply.
I do not recommend podcasting or narrating for you. You cannot even spell dialogue. That counts you out. You need a firm grasp of the language to narrate. I charge $150+ PFH. You need to charge $45-50 if you do decide to do it.
Honesty hurts, sorry.
@@TheINFJChannel Yeah sorry about that, I was too busy blocking out twats like you. I'm shocked that you even get any business frankly but I'll make sure to make a comment about your stellar people skills wherever you might be advertising your skills. Hmm I wonder if channel 11 is a clue? Btw
my skills include editing in 2 other languages, are you a twat in any other languages?
To me, 'air' or 'airy' refers to the arrangement - whether cluttered or sparse.
Lack of tonal balance is also what fools some people into thinking something is more detailed or clear than it is.
Focal clear headphones lack low bass, so the mids and treble sound clearer. Quad and Klipsch la scala have no low bass at all, and they are described as "fast." They sound thin to me. The original la scala are aggressive, shouty and harsh. The quad don't move much air, and owners will proclaim they make other speakers sound "Bloated and slow". I consider quads thin and etherial. Quads and la scala need a sub and eq to balance. Elac Debut reference 6 sound dull and muffled to me. While the midrange and bass are nice, the treble is so weak that it doesn't balance them out. Final audio Sonorus IV and VI, Some Beyer dynamic, Sennhieser 700 and 800 (not s) have a sharp 7-9khz and I call them "death by treble" headphones. Muddy? Beats and bose products.
👍
To learn this, prepared a good headphones or loudspeaker with as less coloring or less characteristics as possible...
Hollow 1K is hardest to hear, but lacking of it can dramatically make mix lifeless and not real.
1:24 How is it that "woody/tinny" aren't among those?
I'll see myself out
Now look wait a minute. There's only one thing to remember here. And it's a mantra. I've lived by. Since 1979. And that is:
An Ounce of Punch. Is Worth a Pound of Sound. And that came from Media Sound Studios, NYC. The home of Bob Clearmountain. To name a few hit engineers from there. And I'm sort of one of them. I maintained and tweaked everything. I modified equipment. I improved equipment. And then I would substitute for other engineers who didn't show up to do recordings. Because most of the assistant recording engineers were unreliable flakes. And us maintenance guys. We had to be thorough, complete, knowledgeable, on the ball, on-time and always at the ready.
And so if you live by that, motto. That mantra. And you engineer in that manner. You don't need to think about anything else. And you can tell.. That's why Bob Clearmountain''s recordings and mixes sound the way they do. So do mine, mostly. It's a thing you learn. A simple thing. And other simple things. Even though Bob Clearmountain also recorded Simple Mines when others were Tears for Fears. As Bob was also, Born, in the USA. And recorded the Springsteen man and Max Weinberg. Whom I've also recorded. What a lovely guy. Un-neurotic, humble, complementary, speaks quietly. I recorded him at the Stone Pony in, Asbury Park, New Jersey. Same place where Linda Ronstadt got put on the map. And I knew I was on hallowed ground. At that legendary place. That was so cool! When we were still all young and beautiful. The good old days. The days we thought would never end.
Why can't I go back in time if I want to? I would like to relive my early professional childhood.
RemyRAD
Shouldn't Level be used in dBm instead of dB ? Since guitar signal is measured in volts and dB has no unit.
When you say a guitar signal is 80dB , what is it the reference? 1 Volt? or 1 miliVolt ?
In digital audio, level is measured in dBFS or dBTP (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBFS). The reference levels are 0 dBFS and 0 dBTP. Differences or changes in level are measured in dB (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel). No reference is needed as the two different levels, or the levels before and after the change, reference each other. It is similar with electrical signals. Level can be measured in dBu where the reference is 0.775 volts, or dBm where the reference is 1 mW, or levels can be compared in dB.
@@AudioMasterclass Many thanks for answering. So, this means that the level is implicit and the reference is the maximum possible digital value, right? Let's say for example that I have a guitar pedal Noise Gate with -80dB threshold, how can I know this implicit maximum value that is being used as reference? Seems kind of a problem for me, because it's like you are missing a information, while you could have given it by using dBm or dBu.
@@pqpguilhermepqp For other readers let me say that by 'implicit' I understand 'not stated plainly'. So if a newspaper report stated that the noise level in homes close by an airport was 100 dB, what's implied there is that the level is 100 dB higher than 0 dB SPL, which is explicitly 20 micronewtons/square metre. It wouldn't be strictly accurate, but most people will get the gist. So the same with electricity. If the calibration on a physical noise gate says -80 dB, then in all probability it means -80 dBu. In digital audio, 0 dBFS is the highest level that can be stored in a fixed point WAV file, although DAWs can go higher internally. If a plug-in noise gate has a calibration marked -80 dB, it almost certainly means -80 dBFS (though plug-in emulations of physical equipment might possibly apply a different standard, or just be approximate). dBm isn't commonly used in audio, although sometimes you will see dBm stated in error when it should be dBu.
@@AudioMasterclass Thanks a lot for clarification. Makes much more sense now. Then I can understand that dB or dBFS is more proper for Digital Audio, but I think dB and dBu shouldn't be used interchangeably for Analog Audio devices.
The bright/airy sound is why many people turned Dolby off when playing back cassettes. They liked the ~10db boost that Dolby applied to the high end when recording.
I find quite a few shows I've attended the last decade or so have a harsh sound. It's very annoying and makes me want to jump in the booth and correct it. I just keep thinking, "can't they hear that? What the hell is wrong with them?" Then I realize that they grew up in the generation that equated distortion with volume when they are totally unrelated.
i remenber when dolby apeared ,the decks had a lack of highs ,so people record it with dolby but listen without also increasing the noise ,i myself when home recording never used dolby or any other nr. system, it sounds better and no noise also one can record with the volume louder using the quality of the deck at 100% not limited by a NR.
1:19 I must have it all wrong cause that sounds so harsh to my ears I'd see that as a resonance frequency, guess I have no idea what I'm doing anymore.
I'm not sure which part of the video you mean because there is no demonstration at 1:19. I will say however that all of these terms are subjective and different people will hear things differently. My demonstration tries to strike an average that most people will agree on, but not everyone will agree and in your own work you should trust your own judgment. DM
14:12 - I see what you did there.
Can I just say that the original audio has quite a low cut so if some people with more experience listens, keep that in mind.
Great subject! This issue is one that I paid close attention to while developing the process I market to postmaster audio. The AI has seemed to adopt a different curve than most engineers end up with. I suspect that this may be because many mastering headphones have a bump at the extreme ends and mastering is being biased away from the ends unintentionally. Hear the difference for yourself here: czcams.com/video/mLhbOygKkOM/video.html
i find hollow the most difficult to identify
Ah! Aren’t you edging into timbre??