Deliberately avoiding certain frequencies (especially highs)

[SuperFreq]

This is something that has intrigued me, but I've never been brave enough to do, ever since I first heard of it.

I first heard of this regarding Peter Gabriel's Security album. Supposedly he insisted on "nothing metal", meaning no cymbals, no hi hats, nothing that fills in the shimmery top end the way we're accustomed to hearing in rock music. I think his results were the proof in the pudding. It's an amazing album with an organic, tribal vibe, and he even tricked us by using metal-like sounds that actually aren't. Prime example, listen to the track San Jacinto where the background loop sounds 'metallic' but not quite. Maybe it's some sort of koshi bamboo chime, who knows. But I think the effect is a lot more pleasing to the ear than any metal ringing instrument. Also on that same track, when it kicks in at the end you might expect big symphonic crashes to go with the orchestral swells--and probably 9 out of 10 orchestral arrangers would call for that--but Gabriel's track doesn't go there. Instead all percussion keeps to  the low end with the only 'crash' coming from the electric guitar.

My question is: has anyone else tried this approach, deliberately avoiding metal objects which to me equates to avoiding the super high frequency range? I've sometimes started a project this way, but I always reach a point where it feels naked without filling that empty real estate up there. How did Gabriel pull it off with such a commercial success?

[Byron Dickens]

Hell no! I've spent too much money on good cymbals to let them go to waste!

[bats brew]

YOU DONT want to avoid frequencies,

you just want to get good at mixing them at the right level.

 

gabriel is an outlier...

that album is great, but stands in it's own little corner, specifically because of arrangement decisions.

 

if you are emulating an old gabriel recording for a specific purpose, simply NOT using cymbals cuts out a lot of high end.

but i'd never place an eq over the mix just to take out certain frequencies... that gets done at the track level.

[Glenn Stanton]

On 11/7/2023 at 10:59 AM, SuperFreq said:

I first heard of this regarding Peter Gabriel's Security album. Supposedly he insisted on "nothing metal", meaning no cymbals, no hi hats, nothing that fills in the shimmery top end the way we're accustomed to hearing in rock music. I think his results were the proof in the pudding. It's an amazing album with an organic, tribal vibe, and he even tricked us by using metal-like sounds that actually aren't.

the making of his So album - where the producer/engineer got him to use cymbals resulting an another massive album... one thing i found cool - even in his new studio - using an SM57 on a flex neck for recording over a boombox for monitoring his vocals... scary good skills there.

[Byron Dickens]

On 11/7/2023 at 10:59 AM, SuperFreq said:

How did Gabriel pull it off with such a commercial success?

Because he's Peter Gabriel.

 

You're not.

[SuperFreq]

17 hours ago, bats brew said:

YOU DONT want to avoid frequencies,

you just want to get good at mixing them at the right level.

 

gabriel is an outlier...

that album is great, but stands in it's own little corner, specifically because of arrangement decisions.

 

if you are emulating an old gabriel recording for a specific purpose, simply NOT using cymbals cuts out a lot of high end.

but i'd never place an eq over the mix just to take out certain frequencies... that gets done at the track level.

I think you misunderstood my post. I'm not trying to copy Gabriel. It's just that he is 1 artist who successfully did what I want to do.

There's a particular song I'm doing that requires a visceral, tribal feel. In technical terms we might say bottom heavy. But it just feels naked to me, and I think the objective listener would find it muddy or lacking in energy. That's why I asked this question, to see if anyone had successfully done a song or album with that "woody" organic vibe like we get in Gabriel's "Jan Jacinto" or "The Rhythm of the Heat".

[bats brew]

ok, but this:

 

"Deliberately avoiding certain frequencies"

[Starship Krupa]

I think I get what you're trying to go for. You're not eschewing a whole frequency range, you're staying away from the instruments that traditionally put energy up there.

Big fan of Peter's back in the day.

Yes, if you eschew cymbals in a rock song, it may sound like something is "missing." Our ears are tuned to like high frequency transient sounds, as the ability to hear such helped humans survive in the wild. Listening for the footsteps of predators and the like. That's what our hearing evolved (or was designed, if you like) to pay attention to.

Deep Ambient, which is designed to fade into the background, eschews spiky transients for this reason.

One answer to this is to focus on emphasizing transients from the instruments you are using. They give the ear something to grab on to, and Security has lots of great processing of transients. Do a Google search for "transient shaping" and give it a shot.

I have dedicated plug-ins for it, and I use it when I'm cleaning up phone-recorded jams, one of my favorite tasks. It makes instruments pop out of the otherwise muddy non-mix. It can also push otherwise spiky sounds more into the background.

Check out EDM, which often uses no cymbals and manages to be exciting nonetheless. They use synth sounds and glitch processing to put information into the attention zone. David Tipper, Telefon Tel Aviv....