Selectively cutting maskers and boosting masked content unmask a sound within a mix.

Evidence

This is because the ability of the equalizer to modify particular frequency ranges can be used to make a particular sound become more or less masked by the sounds around it. This is similar to the way the singer’s formant is used to allow a singer to be heard above the orchestra, as mentioned in Chapter 4. … By selectively reducing the frequency components of the instruments at around 1.5 kHz while simultaneously boosting the components in the vocal line over the same frequency range, the frequency components of the vocal line can become unmasked, as shown in Figure 7.42. This has the subjective effect of bringing the vocal line out from the other instruments. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2438

Categorization

• XREF: Explicitly ties back to the singer’s formant discussed in Chapter 4, and forward to masking—both core psychoacoustic concepts.