Could this common mixing tip ruin your mixes? 🤔

There are no rules. You don't need to high-pass every channel in your mix.

[masteringcom]

What do you think? Do you high pass filter every channel?

[MartinPoulter]

A good reminder to always use your ears, and to only cut things out of your mix intentionally rather than following a formula

[lost.empathy]

it depends on genre. if you have heavy kick and reese basses and loud mastering you definitely need to cut a lot in pads, vocals etc. I think this example is just rough indie stuff. so there you don't need to mix much actually, vibe is more valuable

[unclemick-synths]

Even when EQ is needed, high-pass isn't always the best choice - sometimes a low shelf or a regular bell does the job better.

[barrysangkol]

thank you....this one of my many terrible mistakes. Im paranoid about having too much low end

[tordfjermestad]

One of my uni teachers made fun of this concept by showing how silly it was when a sound had no information below let's say 300, to then put a high-pass at 250. He really disliked this trend haha

[RJJ]

But who would hi pass at 100? I think it's more around 50-60.

[KarenBasset]

Not every channel, no but I do hi pass a lot of instruments where needed. Acoustic guitars, vocals, electric guitars, so those lows that may or may not be heard aren't muddling things up or affecting compressors etc in an unwanted way (on mix bus).

[ZINIKOTV]

YEAH low end also gives a lot of expansion

[kj]

if you cut to 100 hell yeah its gonna be think just tame the low end

[WalkinonSunshyne]

So I guess the question that I want to know is it genre specific. I agree blanket advice is dangerous, and high passing too close to your fundamental probably could lower the fundamental/cut warmth or create detrimental phase. But what if you have a high q to add warmth back in, what if the genre is club music or EDM, does it make a difference then. Are peoples mixes going to get worse cause they aren't cutting the lows?
I think this is good advice but, I think what to do instead would be better advice.

[chucksneed]

If you cut everything at 100hz of course it will sound weird, I get what you're saying though.

[MaartenFranken]

The logic of the statement isnt correct. It seems to me you misunderstand the technique of high-passing in this way. Why would you high-pass everything at the same and at such high frequency? This makes no sense. The logic of high-passing everything, is setting, for instance, the bass at say 25Hz and the kick at 20, to give the kick its own layer to come forward underneath the bass, and accordingly, lets say piano at 30, to leave a free layer for the kick and bass, etc. The whole idea of high-passing everything is to give every instrument its own bottom end to create layers in the low spectrum, but you still have to fill up the whole spectrum all the way down to the bottom, of course. High-passing everything at 100Hz is like cutting of the complete low end of the mix, which will ellimenate the bennefit of high-passing this way. The goal here is to clean and tighten up the low-end, not completely removing the low-end from the mix.