Interactive cheat sheet
Every frequency chart tells you that mud lives around 300 Hz. This one lets you hear it. Click any range or instrument to boost, cut or solo it on pink noise or real recordings, then take the cheat sheet into your next mix.
Click any range to hear it. Use headphones and keep the volume low.
Instrument frequency chart
The solid bar is each instrument's fundamental range, the notes it actually plays. The faint bar shows where its harmonics and noise reach. Click a marker to hear that frequency on the instrument's own recording, or on the source selected above.
Click any range or marker to hear it. Use headphones and keep the volume low.
The spectrum, explained
Human hearing spans roughly 20 Hz to 20 kHz, ten octaves in all. Engineers split it into seven ranges so they can talk about it. Here's what lives in each one, and what goes wrong when there's too much or too little.
Felt as much as heard. Kick drum weight, 808s, sub synths and the lowest notes of bass and piano. Many small speakers can't reproduce it at all.
The foundation: bass guitar, kick body, low piano, cello and the chest of male voices. Fundamentals of most low instruments live here.
Body and warmth of guitars, keys, snare and vocals. It's also where they all pile up, so it's the most common problem area in home mixes.
The core of nearly every instrument and voice. The mids decide whether a sound sits forward or back, and they're what survives on phone speakers.
Attack and intelligibility: guitar bite, snare crack and the consonants that make lyrics understandable. Our ears are most sensitive around here.
Definition and closeness. A small lift brings a source toward the listener; a small dip pushes it back without touching the fader.
Cymbals, sibilance around 5–8 kHz, sparkle and the "air" above 10 kHz that makes vocals and acoustic instruments sound open and expensive.
Reading a chart is step one. Recognising 250 Hz by ear is the real skill.
Try the frequency trainerWant to know what exactly 63 Hz or 12 kHz sounds like, or test your speakers' range?
Open the tone generatorEQ cheat sheet
Engineers describe problems with words like "muddy" or "harsh". This table translates the words into frequencies and a first move to try.
| It sounds… | Look around | Try this first |
|---|---|---|
| Muddy, cloudy | 200–400 Hz | Cut 2–3 dB on several busy tracks rather than a lot on one. High-pass parts that don't need low end. |
| Boomy | 80–200 Hz | Find the resonance with a narrow boost, then cut it. Check the room too: boom is often a speaker placement problem. |
| Thin, weak | 100–250 Hz | Gentle wide boost, or turn down the high-passing you already did. |
| No weight or punch | 50–100 Hz | Boost the kick or the bass, not both at the same frequency. Check on headphones if your speakers are small. |
| Boxy, cardboard | 300–600 Hz | Narrow cut. Sweep a boost slowly until the box jumps out, then cut there. |
| Honky, nasal | 800 Hz–1.5 kHz | Gentle cut of 2–3 dB with a medium Q. |
| Harsh, fatiguing | 2–5 kHz | Small cut, or a dynamic EQ band that only acts when the harshness appears. |
| Buried vocal | 2–5 kHz | Lift presence on the vocal and dip the same area slightly on guitars and keys. |
| Sibilant ("sss") | 5–8 kHz | Use a de-esser or a dynamic EQ instead of a static cut that dulls the whole vocal. |
| Dull, lifeless | 8–16 kHz | Wide high-shelf boost of 1–3 dB. |
| Hissy, brittle | 10 kHz + | Gentle low-pass or shelf cut. Check whether a bright reverb is the real culprit. |
Reference table
The same data as the chart above, in a format you can scan. Treat these as starting points. Every instrument, player, mic and room is different.
| Instrument | Fundamental | Key frequencies |
|---|---|---|
| Kick drum | 40–100 Hz | 60 Hz weight; 100 Hz punch; 400 Hz boxiness; 3 kHz beater click |
| Snare drum | 150–250 Hz | 200 Hz body; 500 Hz boxiness; 5 kHz crack & snap; 10 kHz sizzle |
| Hi-hats & cymbals | 3–16 kHz | 300 Hz clang; 8 kHz sizzle; 14 kHz air |
| Bass guitar | 41–350 Hz | 60 Hz weight; 250 Hz mud; 800 Hz growl; 2.5 kHz string attack |
| 808 & sub bass | 30–100 Hz | 50 Hz sub; 100 Hz thump; 800 Hz harmonics for small speakers |
| Electric guitar | 82 Hz–1.2 kHz | 100 Hz boom; 300 Hz body; 800 Hz honk; 2.5 kHz bite; 5 kHz fizz |
| Acoustic guitar | 82 Hz–1.2 kHz | 100 Hz boom; 250 Hz body; 700 Hz boxiness; 5 kHz clarity; 12 kHz sparkle |
| Piano | 27.5 Hz–4.186 kHz | 80 Hz low end; 300 Hz mud; 3 kHz hammer attack; 10 kHz air |
| Violin & strings | 196 Hz–2.637 kHz | 300 Hz body; 2.5 kHz bite; 7 kHz rosin & air |
| Male vocals | 82–523 Hz | 120 Hz chest; 300 Hz mud; 3 kHz presence; 6 kHz sibilance; 12 kHz air |
| Female vocals | 175 Hz–1.047 kHz | 250 Hz body; 1 kHz nasal; 4 kHz presence; 7 kHz sibilance; 12 kHz air |
Method
A frequency chart is a map, not a recipe. "Cut 300 Hz on guitars" is a reasonable first guess, but the right frequency depends on the instrument, the player, the mic and everything else in the mix.
Every note has a fundamental, the lowest frequency that sets its pitch, and a series of harmonics above it that give the instrument its character. A violin's fundamentals stop below 3 kHz, but its bow noise and harmonics reach past 10 kHz.
That's why the chart shows two bars per instrument, and why EQ far above an instrument's playing range still changes its tone. Boosting 5 kHz on an acoustic guitar adds string detail even though no note is that high.
When two sounds share a range, the louder one hides the quieter one. Look at the chart: kick, bass, 808, piano, guitars and male vocals all overlap between 80 and 500 Hz. Most "my mix is muddy" problems are masking problems, solved by deciding which part owns each range.
Boosts here go up to +9 dB. Start with your volume low, especially in solo mode and on the sub bass range.
StudioEars trains the skill behind the chart. Match EQ moves with real faders, name boosted frequencies on 11 different sources and build the habit with a short daily session.
Download on theApp StoreMore free tools
FAQ
A common way to split the audible spectrum is into seven ranges: sub bass (20–60 Hz), bass (60–250 Hz), low mids (250–500 Hz), mids (500 Hz–2 kHz), upper mids (2–4 kHz), presence (4–6 kHz) and brilliance (6–20 kHz). The boundaries are conventions rather than hard rules, but they give you a shared vocabulary for EQ decisions.
Mud usually builds up between about 200 and 400 Hz, where the body of guitars, keys, bass, drums and vocals overlaps. Small cuts of 2 to 3 dB on several tracks, plus high-pass filters on parts that don't need low end, usually clear it up.
Intelligibility lives mostly between 2 and 5 kHz, so a gentle presence boost there helps a vocal cut through. Often it works even better to cut mud around 200 to 400 Hz on the vocal and make room around 3 kHz on competing guitars and keys. A wide high shelf from about 10 kHz adds air.
Most kick drums have their fundamental between about 40 and 100 Hz, which gives weight and punch. Boxiness tends to sit around 300 to 500 Hz, and the beater click that helps the kick cut through small speakers is around 2 to 5 kHz.
The fundamental is the lowest frequency of a note and defines its pitch. Harmonics, or overtones, are quieter frequencies above it that give an instrument its character. That's why a piano and a guitar playing the same note sound different, and why EQ moves far above an instrument's fundamental range can still change its tone.
Yes. Use the Print button or your browser's print command. The page switches to a clean, light layout with the frequency ranges, instrument chart and cheat sheet, and leaves out the interactive controls.