Avoiding mix harshness

Amateur mixes often sound brittle or ‘spiky’ in the top end – characteristics greatly magnified when played in a club – and this harshness can usually be attributed to a congestion of frequency content in the high-mid region, either thanks to a consistently piercing sound in the mix, or the occasional harsh spike leaping up every now and then. Our ears are highly sensitive to those 2-6kHz frequencies, and the most important mix elements (vocals, synths, guitars, upper bass, snares, claps, etc) all live in this area to some degree. Crank up a harsh mix over a huge PA, and the potential for severe ear damage is obvious.

With that in mind, the best place to mitigate midrange harshness is at the arrangement stage: put together sounds that work together across the entire frequency spectrum; make sure you’ve only got one or two high-mid elements playing at any one time by swapping out sounds, fading levels in and out, and panning parts around; and generally avoid buildups in that area to start with. Furthermore, if bass weight is your end goal, why not buck the modern trend of ‘bright’ mixdowns altogether? A downwards shift in tone overall will emphasise a mix’s low weight, and tilt the listener’s ear towards the perception of ‘more bass’. Although as ever, mixing is a juggling act – so find reference tracks you like and work out how the mix engineer achieved that effect.

Overall, it’s always better to keep your high-mid and treble regions slightly ‘dull’, but dynamically smooth and even. That way, either you or a pro mastering engineer can simply lift up some ‘sparkle’ uniformly across the whole area with one boost of a high-end mastering EQ, rather than having to correct dynamic inconsistencies first.