Sound stuff has too many words

Trying to get some idea if there is too much highs, lows, compression etc can be like pulling teeth lol. Putting something subjective as sound, especially when folks have impaired auditory systems, into words is not an easy thing.
Can you imagine how the poor FOH guy feels when the guitar player, keys or bassist comes up and says there's too much "mud" in my sound, or the punter asks him to turn down the acoustic drums (that are already muted in the house!)!
 
One thing to always take into account is how screwed peoples ears are from years of gigging and standing next to a Drummer ;) . At my Work we have mandatory health tests every year including hearing, in 28 years mine has hardly changed because I always wear earplugs when I Gig or go to Gigs and wear suitable protection at work. The reason I state this is because not everyone is starting from a level playing field when it comes to tone sound etc as their top end might be very affected or tinnitus giving their hearing an upper mid range tweak
 
Can you imagine how the poor FOH guy feels when...the punter asks him to turn down the acoustic drums (that are already muted in the house!)!
LOL. I mix for a swing band. I only reinforce vocals, keys, and a couple of solo woodwinds. The rest of the band—drums, amped bass, and a dozen brass and woodwinds—I run acoustic. And I still get requests to turn down the band. :)
 
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I see mud as a lack of definition in the sound. Usually this happens in the lower frequencies, when they interfere with each other. It's the reason why chords played on bass usually use inversions that spread the notes out over more than an octave. Two many low frequencies close together becomes, well, muddy.

There's another thread on the front page now talking about muddy sound with stereo delay. The consensus seems to be that the delay time and feedback levels are causing the lower frequencies to mess with themselves. It fits my understanding of mud.
 
I see mud as a lack of definition in the sound. Usually this happens in the lower frequencies, when they interfere with each other. It's the reason why chords played on bass usually use inversions that spread the notes out over more than an octave. Two many low frequencies close together becomes, well, muddy.
Mud creates a lack of definition, but it's not the bass frequencies that do it. It's the lower mids. There are lots of things that can cause lack of definition. Mud is just one of them.

Mud comes out when you play low notes into a distorting amp. The amp creates harmonics of those notes. Those harmonics fall in the lower midrange—the "mudrange"—and too much of that makes the tone muddy.
 
Mud creates a lack of definition, but it's not the bass frequencies that do it. It's the lower mids. There are lots of things that can cause lack of definition. Mud is just one of them.

Mud comes out when you play low notes into a distorting amp. The amp creates harmonics of those notes. Those harmonics fall in the lower midrange—the "mudrange"—and too much of that makes the tone muddy.

What is definition in this context exactly?

@Burn Witch Burn
Thanks, I kinda like this forum and writing here keeps my english better.
 
Not trying to speak for Rex, but in this case the word "definition" means clarity (how clear the note sounds). I hope that helps you understand Gore.
 
You said "cause lack of definition", what is definition? Another word which is hard to get :)

I think in this respect it's referring to the clairity of perceived frequency of the sound. I'm not sure of the physics of it, but it seems that with bass notes, your ears get confused when there's too much happening. My guess is that it's because of the non-linear nature of sound frequencies. Low E on a bass in about 40hz, and the next octave up is 80hz. Compare that to A on the fifth fret on high E string of a guitar - around 880 with an octave above that being 1760. Clearly, in terms of absolute frequencies the lower notes are more crowded together. I think that, to our ears, this means that it becomes more difficult to differentiate the notes when there's too much going on at the lower end.

And, as has already been pointed out, distortion tends to add harmonics and ghost notes and so on. It's like mixing paint, if you put too many colours together, the result ends up looking like mud. Too many things in the bottom end is the audio version of that.
 
You said "cause lack of definition", what is definition? Another word which is hard to get :)
Ah. I understand. Good question.

Definition means clarity. When you have definition, you can hear individual notes as individual notes.

Example: for male voices, definition lives around 3 KHz. If there's not enough energy around 3 KHz, you can hear that someone is saying or singing something, but it's difficult to determine what the actual words are. Even if there is enough energy around 3 KHz, but there is too much energy in the lower midrange, you might still have to wonder, "What did he say?" The mud will obscure the words.
 
My mum is def. she can only hear up to about 700-1000hz and nothing without her hearing aids. She got some Resound Enzo 9 aids but just getting her comfortable with them was absolutely draining on everyone's patience

My grandmother is also deaf. We have to shout to make ourselves audible to her. But she's still fighting against using her hearing aids. She's one of those people who ignores everything we, or the doctor, say on this matter, because someone, god knows how long ago, said something to the contrary. And for some reason that person has become the complete and utter authority on that matter. In this case some acquaintance who had a bad experience with a hearing aid ten years ago. So good luck trying to convince her otherwise.
 
Don't let djent confuse you, all it means is "I want to play progressive metal but my skill level isn't quite at John Petrucci level so I will make up for it with extra strings". Lol
 
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