What is the "sheen" / top-end sound coming from?

[duluxdog]

Hi guys,

Can anyone tell me where the "sheen" / top-end type sound is coming from on so many tracks?

I hear it a lot in audio demo tracks on websites of online mixing and mastering houses.

To be specific, what frequencies are they emphasising, if it is EQ? Or if it some other thing, what is it? Is it something relating to compression, etc. Also, what are people commonly referring to this sound as - I've sometimes read it described as sparkle - is this the same thing?

Example of tracks with the kind of thing I'm talking about (wait til it kicks in):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v41qe042EJ8&t=200s

An example of tracks without:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjsQpLIe27I&t=86s

The latter seems to sound more open because it doesn't have the top-end sheen sound on it.

Thanks for your help with this.

[Stromkraft]

I didn't listen to your examples, but what I call sheen is

• A Well balanced track that gradually slopes off from the bass to the high end
• Quite a bit of what I'd consider "sheen" begins already at 7-8 kHz.
• Clarity and pocketing are both key. Also heavily distorted and complex sounds can have clarity.
• Contrast, where only a few instruments have a little more 12-15k and up top end
• If digital instruments these are running in high quality mode, typically including 88.2-86 kHz (In an exact multiple of the sample rate of the set) and any remaining ugly aliasing is filtered away.
• Using high quality EQ with little or no aliasing for high end adjustments, in which to my big surprise I won't include EQ8. Not because that is inherently badly sounding, but because other EQs simply sound better to my ears (picked out by myself blindly using Hofa Blindtest).
  
  Arguably you can get very far with EQ8 in oversample mode, but I simply find other EQs faster to get to the sound I want. Probably this is a taste thing or a slope thing, but I've made my choices.
• If externally recorded instruments these have been recorded well capturing the nature of the sound.
• Saturation, not to the point of you noticing it, can give presence. Saturation is most usable below 12 k though.
• Compression is not overdone, but balanced and controlled, at least in the high end
• The mix has been done by someone that could hear what they were doing, likely because they have monitors they know well and the room isn't masking their true sound.
• All processing are to the point of being unhearable until you remove it and you notice something is missing.

There's probably a lot more to this than what I just wrote, but those are my thoughts on the subject.

All this said, I think too many tracks released in certain genres, are over-compressed, untasefully EQed and have no balance and are in different ways being pressed too much in the mastering stage to the point of them sounding harsh and weak at the same time. Truth is you can wreck a track at any stage no matter what great equipment you have. "Louder is better" is a very real syndrome.
We probably should wreck a few mixes though. Because that's how you learn.

[Tarekith]

A lot of it is less about what processing you're applying and more about what you're NOT applying. Start with good source samples or sounds that don't need a lot of processing, and don't start adding a bunch of EQ or compression if you don't HEAR a need for it yourself in that specific instance. Over-applying those types of effects and muddy things right up, even on the top end.

If you do need to use some EQ to brighten up the high end, try using a Bandaxall curve or gentle high shelf to boost from say 14kHz and up. Pultec emulations are great for this as well. Usually just 2-3 dB is all you need, if that. It's one of those things that might seem like it's always making things better at first, so be sure to A-B without the EQ too once in awhile. Often times it can make things too harsh and brittle if overdone.

[Emanresu0891]

I don't know what sheen means, but this is the usual Vaporwave/Futurefunk track.
To make Vaporwave do the following

* Find a track that no one has heard from the thrift store
* Slow part of the track down and loop it
* Add an unusually wide stereo sound field
* Heavy reverb
* Heavy Compression
* Add slight digital clipping the master signal

This also applies to Futurefunk and Mallsoft and all other sub genres of Vaporwave