How to Make Sure Your Track Fills Out The Full Frequency Range

Can you see what's wrong with this picture?  The image above is a spectrum analysis of one of my (work in progress) tracks.

I sent it off to Björgvin over at www.audio-issues.com for a review and loved his feedback even though he doesn't really work at all in dance music. 

I had asked him to review what's done well, and what red flags does he see or hear.  His concern is my track is quite bottom heavy and lacking in mid-range.

This sent me back to the drawing board.

First thing I did was find a tune that I think sounds good, so I popped one of Harvey McKay's tracks into Ableton with Voxengo Span on the master fader. Span is a free spectrum analysis.

No surprise that Harvey's tune looks and sounds lovely.

I took a screen shot of Harvey's track to get a snapshot of what the spectrum looked like.

I then played my own track and too a snapshot and looked at them both side by side to see what was missing.

I was missing content from about 250Hz to 1500kHz.  So I played Harvey's tune and discovered that his chord riff is a big part of how he fills out that range of sounds in his tune.

So my tune needed a similar riff or hook which I added and you can hear in the video.

Very worthwhile exercise of getting feedback from another expert and implementing something new.

The little chord sequence I added definitely gives the tune a need boost of sonic character.

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Bjorgvin Benediktsson - May 9, 2017

Happy to be of service!

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    eric - May 9, 2017

    thanks again

    Reply
izzy - May 29, 2017

Eric
I've learned so much from your posts and have gained a deeper insight into the methodologies used by various artists.
I love how you always return to the fundamentals when explaining your creative workflow and in highlighting the components leading to a great mix.
Thanks for everything you do!!

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    eric - May 30, 2017

    Thanks Israel! Glad you got the point of this post, it too was rather simple, yet people today are so bombarded by the "seemingly" interesting that good, basic stuff flies over their heads. Check the members area - the track in this video is done and back from mastering and all students have access to the master, final mix, all stems and more. I could have released this on a label but am self releasing mainly to give you students some upfront completed tracks to work with and learn from. Take care. Eric

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