Boxiness in your mixing?

Don't you just hate it when everything you seem to be mixing sounds like a cardboard box? I do. Whether it's a bass drum, your voice or a piano chord, everything seems to be living inside a box.

I don't especially enjoy the sounds cardboard boxes make, especially when they're interfering with my 26” kick drum sound, and I don't suppose you do either.

That's why I want to let you into the secret to deleting that cardboard box preset out of your audio productions once and for all.

Given that you couldn't save the sound when you recorded it, or that you were given a lousy recording to mix, you have to try to get rid of unwanted boxiness with some EQ in your mix.

There's not a lot of magic involved in getting rid of boxiness. You just have to know where to look.

Each frequency represents a certain sound.

For example:

Fullness being around 150-200Hz
Presence around 5 kHz

By knowing that, we just have to find out where the boxiness hides.

By inserting a parametric EQ on the sound you need to fix try boosting the middle frequencies with a fairly narrow Q.

Sweep through the spectrum, starting at around 300Hz, going up to 600Hz. There will most definitely be a spot where the cardboard sound jumps out prominently.

Set your EQ setting to KILL and cut that certain frequency until you've effectively eliminated that dreaded boxy sound.

In the example below you can hear my kick drum. First example is horribly boxy, because I boosted 620Hz 24dB. You can definitely hear the annoying boxiness that frequency generates.

In the other example you can my EQ bypassed, without those extra boxy frequencies.

Eq it out!

So next time you are struggling with a cardboard box effect, try some corrective EQ'ing, and zero in on those problem frequencies that you find in that area of the frequency spectrum.

If you have other problem regarding your mixes, be sure to check back to the mixing page for more quality articles. If you liked this article, please use the box below to share the love!

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