Putting a fFlter on Decreases my Headroom

Hi guys, just a quick question here because it feels like I’m missing something fairly obvious.

I’ve been using Renoise’s native filters to cut the low end from non-bass instruments to clear up my mix and I’m noticing that a good majority of the time filtering out this low end actually decreases the amount of headroom on that track, rather than giving me more. This goes for both Moog type filers and both butterworths. It happens on drum samples as well as synths. Any idea why this might be happening or what I can do instead?

All help appriciated, thanks a lot. =)

Maybe filter raises the frequency next to the cuttoff? May be if you dont cut the loudest frequency but some next to it.

yeah, that happens, the best way to see why is to high pass a square wave.

even if it’s playing at 440Hz and you cut it off at 50Hz, you’re still going to see the wave increase in amplitude. It’ll sound the same, but I think that it means that the filter has shifted it’s phase somehow.

It’s tradeoff ultimately. Try low passing the sound before you high pass it, and if there’s no audible no noise bellow the main frequencies, you really don’t need the high pass.