Audio Frequency Band Chart
Human hearing runs from about 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. That range gets talked about in bands — "the low mids", "the presence region" — and the names are useful shorthand once you know which sounds actually live where.
This page is the reference: what occupies each band, where it appears on a spectrogram, and what people usually do about it. If you have not read how a spectrogram works yet, start there.
The bands
| Band | Range | What lives there | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sub-bass | 20–60 Hz | Kick drum weight, bass guitar bottom, rumble from traffic and air handling | Felt rather than heard. Most of what is down here in a voice recording is unwanted. |
| Bass | 60–250 Hz | Bass instruments, the body of a kick, male vocal fundamentals, mains hum at 50/60 Hz | Where a mix gets its weight, and where it most easily turns muddy. |
| Low mids | 250–500 Hz | Lower body of most instruments, the "boxy" part of a voice | Cutting a little here often clears a recording that sounds thick or closed-in. |
| Mids | 500 Hz–2 kHz | Most of speech intelligibility, guitars, snare body | The ear is very sensitive here. Small changes are very audible. |
| Upper mids | 2–4 kHz | Consonants, attack of picks and sticks, where a voice cuts through | Boosting adds clarity, but also listener fatigue. |
| Presence | 4–6 kHz | Sibilance ("s" and "t"), string noise, detail | Where harshness lives. Also where a recording starts to sound close and immediate. |
| Brilliance / air | 6–20 kHz | Cymbals, breath, room air, tape hiss | A gentle lift sounds open. Whatever noise your recording has, it is loudest here. |
The boundaries are conventions, not physics. Nothing changes at exactly 250 Hz. They are useful because everyone roughly agrees on them.
Where voices sit
The fundamental is the pitch you perceive. It is usually not the loudest part of a voice — most of the energy you hear as "the voice" sits in the overtones above it.
| Voice | Fundamental range |
|---|---|
| Adult male speech | 85–180 Hz |
| Adult female speech | 165–255 Hz |
| Children | 250–400 Hz |
| Singing, all voices | roughly 80 Hz to 1,100 Hz |
This is the practical reason a high-pass filter at 80 Hz is safe on most spoken word and dangerous on a bass guitar.
Notes and their frequencies
Point at a line in the analyzer and it names the note for you. This table is the same information in reference form — useful when you are working the other way round and want to know where a note should be.
It is generated from the same code the readout uses, so a frequency here and a note name in the tool cannot disagree.
| Note | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | 16.35 | 32.70 | 65.41 | 130.8 | 261.6 | 523.3 | 1047 | 2093 | 4186 |
| C# | 17.32 | 34.65 | 69.30 | 138.6 | 277.2 | 554.4 | 1109 | 2217 | 4435 |
| D | 18.35 | 36.71 | 73.42 | 146.8 | 293.7 | 587.3 | 1175 | 2349 | 4699 |
| D# | 19.45 | 38.89 | 77.78 | 155.6 | 311.1 | 622.3 | 1245 | 2489 | 4978 |
| E | 20.60 | 41.20 | 82.41 | 164.8 | 329.6 | 659.3 | 1319 | 2637 | 5274 |
| F | 21.83 | 43.65 | 87.31 | 174.6 | 349.2 | 698.5 | 1397 | 2794 | 5588 |
| F# | 23.12 | 46.25 | 92.50 | 185.0 | 370.0 | 740.0 | 1480 | 2960 | 5920 |
| G | 24.50 | 49.00 | 98.00 | 196.0 | 392.0 | 784.0 | 1568 | 3136 | 6272 |
| G# | 25.96 | 51.91 | 103.8 | 207.7 | 415.3 | 830.6 | 1661 | 3322 | 6645 |
| A | 27.50 | 55.00 | 110.0 | 220.0 | 440.0 | 880.0 | 1760 | 3520 | 7040 |
| A# | 29.14 | 58.27 | 116.5 | 233.1 | 466.2 | 932.3 | 1865 | 3729 | 7459 |
| B | 30.87 | 61.74 | 123.5 | 246.9 | 493.9 | 987.8 | 1976 | 3951 | 7902 |
Two anchors worth memorising: A4 is 440 Hz, and middle C (C4) is 261.6 Hz. Every octave up doubles the number, every octave down halves it.
Using this while working something out by ear
The reason to have both the chart and the tool open:
- Play the passage and look at the lowest bright line. That is the fundamental — the note.
- Point at it. The readout gives the frequency and the nearest note with its octave, so you do not have to count lines on a chart.
- Leave Mark lines of the same note ticked to confirm you are on the fundamental and not on one of its overtones. If the dashed markers land on the lines above, you are on the right one.
- If a bright line does not line up with the guides, it is a different instrument — or something that should not be there.
For noise hunting the same method runs backwards. Find the shape that should not be in the picture, point at it, read the frequency, then look it up in the table above to know what you are dealing with. A rigid line at 50 or 60 Hz is mains hum. A wide haze across the top is the noise floor. A vertical stripe is a click.
Open the analyzer and try it on one of the examples, or read what an audio spectrum analyzer is for if you are still deciding whether you need one.