5
Lift
Lift is crack… literally. It brings out the ‘crack’ in the midrange,
and just as noticeably it lifts the entire spectra north of those
mids upwards and forwards... hence the reason for its name.
Lift is the lowest of the 6 available shelves, and it is the only
band on the Clariphonic which actually grabs any meaningful
amount of the quintessential midrange, the 800 - 2.5k stuff that
our ears are the most sensitive to. This band is absolutely
amazing for breaking open the mids and top on sources that
are too low-mid heavy or boomy to coexist in a mix with other
harmonically rich sounds; boosting the top 2/3 of the sound
with Lift provides an appealing alternative to hacking apart your
precious warmth frequencies, allowing you to maintain the
phase coherence of a blooming low end while wiping away the
mud from the whole picture.
Perhaps more than any of the Clariphonic’s bands, Lift has the
power to completely transform the energy and attitude of a
recorded sound, and it can get very aggressive very fast. On
sounds that already have a lot of bite, this is almost certainly
not what you want; but on sleepy sounds that obstinately
remain hidden behind the mix no matter where you land the
fader, Lift can pull them forward and infuse them with life
without sounding like any effect was applied at all.
Listen to what Lift does to a sidestick snare sound in the
overheads, or a vocal that’s too boxy in the 200-400hz zone
and/or scooped in the 1k-2k area, or on a whole mix that’s
having trouble reaching out of the speakers . As with all the
filters on the Clariphonic, it’s tempting to fall into the trap of
turning it up more and more to hear the goodness, but it really
is crazy how little of this boost you actually need in order to
bring about meaningful change.
