The result is a mix that’s smeared and muddy in the lower frequencies. Keep in mind that instruments overlapping in the low- and low-mid frequency range will combine and reinforce in uneven and unpredictable ways. When you consider that left and right are all we really have in stereo and that the center image is an illusion, an instrument, with a preponderance of lows, even though inaudible, can unbalance a mix in a way that’s difficult to audibly pinpoint (an effect more noticeable in headphones, subconsciously drawing your attention).

That means they permeate the stereo field. In DAW mixing, the exceptional ability of digital sampling to capture bass, even in the inaudible range, turns your background gray, clouding your mix.īass frequencies act omnidirectionally, whether they occur as waveforms in reality space, or as “1s” and “0s” in the digital realm. The concept is as follows: If you think in terms of instruments and voices as colors projected on a black screen the contrast makes the colors appear that much more vivid and defined while maintaining a cohesive overall image.

How to achieve it is quite another story.

Well, it’s not a secret insofar as you’ve heard it on classic records for decades. One of the best-kept secrets of mixing records is referred to as the “black background” effect.

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