Mixing Tips: Subtract Over Add
Mixing engineer Nathaniel W. shared key production advice: avoid overloading early song sections with full elements like pads and adlibs to give the chorus room to build. He advocates subtraction over addition in EQ and compression — cut harsh 4kHz vocals instead of boosting elsewhere, and save width, octaves, or distortion for impact.
The mixing engineer cited, Nathaniel Wing, is a European sound engineer with a degree in acoustics and psychoacoustics who has mixed and produced hundreds of songs for artists in Europe and North America. He is in the top 1% of mixing engineers on the audio professional platform SoundBetter and shares mixing advice on his X (formerly Twitter) account, @natemixing. The "subtraction over addition" philosophy, often called "subtractive EQ," is a foundational concept in audio engineering. Instead of boosting the frequencies you want to hear more of, the engineer cuts the frequencies that are masking them or cluttering the mix. This approach is often favored for creating a more natural and transparent sound. A primary technical benefit of subtractive EQ is that it creates more "headroom" in a mix. Boosting frequencies adds volume and can lead to digital distortion or "clipping," while cutting frequencies frees up space, allowing for a cleaner and louder final master. Many engineers find that cutting frequencies is also more precise than boosting. The advice to cut harsh vocals around 4kHz is a common technique to address frequencies where the human ear is particularly sensitive. This range can often sound abrasive or piercing, and a narrow cut can reduce this harshness without losing the vocal's presence in the mix. Some engineers may also use a de-esser or a multiband compressor to dynamically tame these frequencies only when they become too prominent.
