How to use it
- Point at the chart. The readout above it shows the frequency under the pointer, the nearest note and the bands it falls in.
- Press a band (sub, mud, harshness and the rest) to read what it sounds like and the usual cut and boost, and to hear it as filtered pink noise.
- Press an instrument to see its fundamentals, the range its overtones reach and where engineers usually look. Filter the rows by family.
- Use the converter to turn a note into hertz or hertz into a note, with the A4 reference set to match your track. The chart below it lists every note from octave 0 to 3, the range most 808s and bass lines live in.
The named bands
Engineers name regions by what they sound like. The edges are soft and overlap: mud and boxiness share the low mids, and where one ends depends on the source. Treat these as places to start sweeping, not fixed rules.
| Band | Range | What it sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Sub | 20 Hz to 60 Hz | Felt as much as heard. The fundamentals of kicks, 808s and the lowest bass notes. Too much eats headroom and makes a limiter pump; too little and the track feels small on a system with a subwoofer. |
| Low end | 60 Hz to 250 Hz | Weight and punch: bass notes, kick body, the low half of guitars and piano and the chest of a male voice. Warmth when balanced, boom when overloaded. |
| Mud | 200 Hz to 500 Hz | Where mixes turn cloudy. Many instruments stack their low harmonics here, so a mix can sound thick, dull and indistinct even though no single track is wrong. |
| Boxiness | 300 Hz to 700 Hz | A hollow, cardboard sound, common on close-miked drums, vocals recorded in small rooms and some cheap microphones. |
| Honk | 800 Hz to 1.5 kHz | Nasal, telephone-like and honky. Horns, some guitar tones and nasal voices push hard here. |
| Harshness | 2 kHz to 5 kHz | The ear is most sensitive in this region. A little brings clarity and presence; too much is harsh, brittle and tiring at high volume. |
| Sibilance | 5 kHz to 10 kHz | The s, t and sh sounds of a voice, plus hi-hat and cymbal splash. It gets exaggerated by bright microphones, compression and high shelf boosts. |
| Air | 10 kHz to 20 kHz | Openness, breath and sheen. Gentle lifts sound expensive; overdone, a mix turns brittle and noisy. Hearing up here fades with age, so check it on a spectrum analyzer as well as by ear. |
Instrument ranges
Pitched ranges come from each instrument's standard written range, converted at A4 = 440 Hz (sounding pitch for transposing instruments). Drums are typical working ranges. Fundamentals are the notes; everything above is overtones, attack and noise, which is where most tone shaping happens.
| Instrument | Fundamentals | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Kick drum | About 40 to 100 Hz | Thump around 50 to 100 Hz, boxiness around 300 to 600 Hz, beater click around 2 to 5 kHz. |
| 808 and sub bass | Usually C1 to G2 | Almost all of the note is the fundamental. Saturation adds upper harmonics, which is what lets the note read on phone speakers that cannot play the fundamental. |
| Snare drum | Body about 150 to 250 Hz | Body around 150 to 250 Hz, crack around 1 to 4 kHz, wires and sizzle around 5 to 10 kHz. |
| Toms | Floor to rack, about 60 to 300 Hz | Tone at the fundamental, ring and boxiness around 300 to 700 Hz, stick attack around 3 to 5 kHz. |
| Hi-hats and cymbals | No single fundamental | Stick and bell sound from about 300 Hz to 1 kHz; most of the energy is shimmer from about 3 to 15 kHz. |
| Bass guitar | E1 to G4 (four strings, 24 frets) | Weight at the fundamental, growl around 600 Hz to 1 kHz, string and pick noise around 2 to 5 kHz. A five-string adds a low B0. |
| Piano | A0 to C8 (88 keys) | Body in the low mids, hammer attack around 2 to 5 kHz, air and room above 10 kHz. |
| Electric guitar | E2 to E6 (standard tuning, 24 frets) | Chunk around 100 to 250 Hz, mud around 300 to 500 Hz, bite around 2 to 4 kHz. Guitar speakers roll off steeply above about 5 kHz. |
| Acoustic guitar | E2 to C6 (standard tuning, 20 frets) | Body boom around 80 to 200 Hz, string detail and pick around 3 to 5 kHz, sparkle above 10 kHz. |
| Male vocal | About E2 to C5 (bass to tenor) | Chest around 100 to 250 Hz, nasal honk near 1 kHz, presence around 3 to 5 kHz, sibilance around 5 to 9 kHz. |
| Female vocal | About F3 to C6 (alto to soprano) | Body around 200 to 400 Hz, presence around 3 to 6 kHz, sibilance around 6 to 10 kHz, air above 10 kHz. |
| Violin | G3 to A7 | Warmth around 200 to 400 Hz, nasal tone near 1 kHz, bow and rosin around 3 to 6 kHz. |
| Cello | C2 to A5 | Body around 100 to 250 Hz, bow detail around 2 to 5 kHz. |
| Trumpet | E3 to B♭5 (sounding) | Fullness around 200 to 400 Hz, blare and brightness around 1 to 5 kHz. |
| Tenor saxophone | A♭2 to E♭5 (sounding) | Body around 150 to 300 Hz, honk around 800 Hz to 1.5 kHz, breath and key noise above 5 kHz. |
| Flute | C4 to C7 | Tone at the fundamental with few strong overtones; breath noise around 3 to 10 kHz. |
Tuning an 808 to the key
- Find the song's key. If you do not know it, the Key and BPM Finder reads it from a bounce.
- Decide which note the 808 should hit, usually the root of the key or of each chord, and look up its frequency. In F minor, the root F1 is 43.65 Hz.
- Find the 808 sample's own pitch: put a spectrum analyzer on it and read the lowest strong peak, then type that into Frequency to note. The cents readout tells you how far it is from a true note.
- Transpose the sampler by the difference in semitones and fine-tune by the cents offset. Check that long notes stay in tune as the pitch envelope settles.
If the track itself is tuned away from 440, set the A4 reference to match. The Key and BPM Finder reports the tuning reference it measured.
Common EQ mistakes
- EQing in solo. A cut that sounds thin on its own often sits perfectly in the mix. Make the final call with everything playing.
- Boosting what you could cut. Lifting 3 kHz on a vocal to make it clearer can do less than cutting the 300 Hz build-up on the guitars around it.
- Cutting the same band on every track. If everything loses its low mids, the mix loses its body. Treat the tracks that pile up.
- High-passing too hard. A filter at 150 Hz on a vocal can remove its chest. Set filters by ear, per source, and check in the mix.
- Judging with your eyes. Analyzers and charts show where to look. Loudness changes fool the ear, so match levels before comparing an EQ on and off.
Questions
What frequency range is muddy?
Mud usually builds between about 200 and 500 Hz, where guitars, keys, pads, vocals and the upper harmonics of bass and kick overlap. Cutting two to four decibels there on the tracks that pile up clears it faster than cutting the same amount on everything.
Where does harshness live in a mix?
Mostly between 2 and 5 kHz, the region the ear is most sensitive to. A little brings presence; too much is tiring. If the harsh sound comes and goes, a dynamic EQ band or a de-esser treats only those moments.
What frequency is an 808?
An 808 is a note, so its fundamental depends on the pitch it is tuned to. Most sit between C1 (32.70 Hz) and G2 (98.00 Hz). Use the converter to turn the song's root note into hertz, then tune the 808 until its fundamental lands there.
What is the frequency of middle C?
Middle C is C4, 261.63 Hz when A4 is tuned to 440 Hz. Change the A4 reference in the converter and every note moves with it.
Why do my instruments show a solid and a faint bar?
The solid bar is the range of fundamentals, the notes an instrument plays. The faint bar is where its overtones, attack and noise add character. EQ moves above the solid bar change tone and presence rather than the notes themselves.
Is the listening preview safe for my speakers?
It only starts when you press it, fades in, stops by itself after 20 seconds and is capped at -12 dBFS. Start with your monitors low anyway, especially for the sub band.