Remember a few tips back when I was talking about seeing sharp drop off in frequencies below 30Hz? These super low frequencies can consume a lot of mix headroom without contributing much to the outcome. These frequencies can cause limiters to respond very agressively and really make a mess of things. They can also contribute to the bottom end of a mix sounding less punchy and more muddy.
Therefore, experiment with cutting the lows. Do it agressively and listen to the results. Not only might you land on something that actually works for mastering, it can be quite a learning experience and may contribute to improving your mixing skills as well.
If you’re working with Live’s EQ 8, set up a high pass filter at 30Hz:
Notice that the EQ is before the Limiter. This is important. Not only should the Limiter always be the last item in a mastering chain, it’s also very important because cutting the lows is going to change how the limiter responds.
Also notice that the EQ 8 is inside the Effect Rack I suggested earlier. Always good to be able to easily turn your mastering chain on and off for comparison.
If you want to try more agressive cutting, turn on additional filters, with the exact same settings:
In the above example, I’ve turned on filters 2 and 3, both set to 30Hz, both set to high pass mode. This creates a steeper curve and cuts more low frequencies.
