MasterScope
08

Tonal balance

Tonal balance is how the energy is spread from sub to air. MasterScope compares each octave with pink noise, which has equal energy per octave and sounds balanced to the ear, so a flat line means balanced and the bars show where your mix leans.

MasterScope tonal balance chart, octave bars relative to pink noise
Octave bars relative to pink noise. Most releases fall gently from bass to treble, a tilt of about 0 to −3 dB per octave.
Tilt
The overall slope from 63 Hz to 8 kHz. Steeper than about −3 dB per octave sounds dark and woolly; above 0 sounds bright and thin.
Low-mid build-up (250 to 500 Hz)
Where mud and boxiness live. Many parts overlap here; small cuts on the busiest ones clear space.
Presence (2 to 5 kHz)
Where the ear is most sensitive. A mix with too little presence sounds smaller at the same loudness. Most releases sit around 3 to 6 dB below the low mids here.
Sub (20 to 60 Hz)
Felt more than heard. Phones and small speakers can't play it, but it still takes up peak room.
MasterScope spectrogram of a full song
The spectrogram shows frequency over time. Horizontal lines are sustained notes or resonances, vertical stripes are hits. Click to play from any point.
Use a reference. Genre matters more than any rule of thumb. Load a released track you like on MasterScope's Compare tab: both play at −14 so loudness can't fool you, and MasterScope lists where your track differs most and whether the gap is tone, density or arrangement.
Put it into practiceOpen a mix in MasterScope, or get Liminal for your DAW.
Analyse a trackGet Liminal