The ability to pick out and transparently eliminate offensive frequencies is half the ball game in getting a tonally balanced mix. And truthfully, it's what people pay us to do as Mixing Engineers. If you aren't absolutely certain what 3kHz sounds like in a single instrument within a dense mix, you are kind of shooting in the dark when it comes to Tonal Mixing. You might nail the gain staging and inadvertently land in a relatively balanced tonal place, but getting replicable, consistent and fast results every time will be a constant challenge. I liken it to painting while being partially color blind. How can you layer, combine, give contrast, depth and emotion without knowing exactly 'what' colors your using? Training your ear over time will give you a ground base of operations that you can apply to any mix(given the listening environment is flat/honest) and get results based on what you hear. Your ears are your greatest ally, train them.
One thing I like to do is take a sine wave and cue up an easy frequency/pitch knob that I can click, close my eyes, and start moving the frequency around. I find a random frequency and stop and try and guess what the fundamental(lowest octave) is hovering over. Then I take a look and see how close I can get and repeat. Doing this over and over daily you will start to hear what frequencies are "sticking out" from any instrument and all of a sudden you're not guessing with your EQ, you're reacting. There are also apps(QuizTones) that have bundled all this into an easy to use app. This can seem trivial, but is honestly one of the most overlooked premises in the students I see and the mixes I get. The results will be profound. You will find, oh I thought 500hZ was way lower than it really is, or man 5-8kz is way brasher than I thought.
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