28 Nov Pro-tip: Be wary of frequency holes.
One of the biggest red flags I encounter when mastering projects for people is the presence of big holes in the frequency spectrum of their songs. Luckily, having someone else (like a mastering engineer) listen to your song will mean these issues should be quickly revealed. These issues can be the result of poor monitoring, poor listening environment or just carelessness in production and getting too caught up in other production processes.
While it’s important to remember that just seeing something like this on a frequency analysis doesn’t always equal a problem, it’s equally important to pay attention to and reevaluate the mix and frequency content of your tune if you see a big dip or hole in your frequency analyser.
It’s fairly typical to see holes in some genres that sound great; fairly scooped mids tend to be common in great minimal, techy drum and bass tunes. At other times, you might see big holes in low-mid or bass regions but everything actually sounds great and that’s just how the tune is.
In general, just be aware of any big gaps in your songs’ frequency spectrum and if in doubt, compare it to some sonically similar tunes to see if it may be lacking anything.