What frequency range is the singing voice?

Sung fundamentals run from roughly 80 Hz for a low bass to about 1,100 Hz for a soprano, but on a finished, mixed hit vocal the energy peaks between 500 and 800 Hz, sits 2 to 5 dB lower from 1 to 2 kHz, 6 to 12 dB lower from 2.5 to 5 kHz, and is 30 dB down by 100 Hz.

Where should I high-pass a vocal?

Hit vocals carry almost nothing below 100 Hz: the 100 Hz band sits about 30 dB below the vocal's core and the 80 Hz band about 35 dB below. A high-pass filter between 80 and 100 Hz on a lead vocal matches what 3,054 hits do.

Does genre change how a vocal is EQ'd?

Yes. Relative to the all-hits average, country vocals carry about 5 dB more energy in the 80 to 200 Hz bass region and the least air, pop vocals carry about 3 dB less bass, hip-hop vocals have the most sub and bass and the least mids, and electronic vocals are the brightest above 5 kHz.

Should I copy this curve with an EQ?

No. The curve is the result of the singer, the microphone and the whole mix chain, not an EQ setting. Use it to spot where your vocal differs from the hits, then fix the band that is off. The free vocal analyzer overlays your vocal on this chart and names the band.

Why does the curve drop so fast above 12 kHz?

Partly because sung vocals have little energy up there, and partly because the AI stem separation used to isolate the vocals loses some air above 12 kHz. Treat the top two bands as a rough guide, not a target.

Vocal EQ Curve of 3,054 Billboard Hits

A vocal frequency chart built from 3,054 Billboard Hot 100 vocals, 1990 to 2025. The bold line is the average hit vocal. Every thin line is one song.

Genre

Hear the curve as filtered pink noise

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What this vocal EQ chart shows

I separated the lead vocal from 3,054 Billboard hits released between 1990 and 2025, measured how much energy each vocal has in 30 third-octave bands from 25 Hz to 20 kHz, and averaged them. The chart above is the result: a frequency chart of finished, mixed and mastered hit vocals. Not raw recordings, not a textbook diagram of the human voice. It shows where professional engineers actually leave the energy when the song is done.

Use the genre selector to split the average ten ways, search a song to see one artist's curve, or turn on the #1 Hits line. Every curve is normalized for level, so you are comparing shape, not loudness.

Where hit vocals put their energy

Reading the average curve band by band, relative to its peak at 500 to 800 Hz:

Region	Frequencies	Level vs. the 500-800 Hz core	What it means
Sub and low bass	below 100 Hz	30 dB or more down	Almost nothing survives. This is where high-pass filters live.
Bass	100 to 160 Hz	14 to 31 dB down	Steep slope. 160 Hz is already 14 dB below the core.
Body	200 to 400 Hz	2.5 to 8 dB down	Hits keep their body. The low mids are not scooped out.
Core	500 to 800 Hz	0 dB (the peak)	The loudest region of a mixed vocal, centred on 630 Hz.
Upper mids	1 to 2 kHz	2 to 5 dB down	A gentle slope. Intelligibility lives here.
Presence	2.5 to 5 kHz	6 to 12 dB down	Present, but well below the core. Hits are not as bright here as tutorials suggest.
Brilliance	6 to 10 kHz	11 to 12 dB down	Flat shelf. Sibilance and sparkle sit here at a steady level.
Air	12.5 to 16 kHz	17 to 27 dB down	Falls away fast. Part of this drop is the stem separation losing air.

Levels are energy per third-octave band, so a band at 8 kHz covers far more hertz than one at 250 Hz. Read the table as the shape of the curve, not as EQ boost and cut amounts.

Vocal EQ by genre

The all-hits average hides real differences. Here is how each genre's vocal curve moves against that average, in dB, in the four regions that change the most. Positive means the genre carries more energy there than the average hit.

Genre	Songs	Bass 80-200 Hz	Body 200-500 Hz	Presence 2-5 kHz	Air 8-16 kHz	Read
Country	416	+5.2	+1.6	+0.7	-1.9	The most low end of any genre, and the least air.
Hip-hop	299	+2.1	-1.8	-1.3	-0.8	More bass and sub, less of everything above 200 Hz. Rap vocals are bottom-heavy.
Christian / gospel	245	+0.4	+1.2	+1.0	+1.2	Forward presence and air on top of a full body.
R&B	409	-0.3	-0.5	-0.8	+0.5	Slightly softer presence, a touch more air. Smooth by the numbers.
Rock	311	-0.3	-0.4	+0.6	+0.2	Close to the average with a little extra bite at 2 to 5 kHz.
Alternative	270	-0.6	+1.1	-1.1	-0.5	The darkest presence region and more body: the mellow end of the chart.
Electronic	415	-1.8	-0.6	+0.8	+1.6	The brightest vocals in the dataset: most energy above 5 kHz, least bass after pop.
Latin	407	-2.4	+0.2	-0.4	-0.4	Lean low end, otherwise on the average.
Pop	238	-3.3	-1.2	+0.1	+0.1	The leanest low end of all: pop cuts the most below 200 Hz.

The takeaway: the bass region is where genres disagree, by as much as 8.5 dB between country and pop. Above 2 kHz they agree to within about 2 dB. If you make pop and your vocal has country-sized bass, that is the first thing a listener will notice.

How to use this as a vocal EQ cheat sheet

Don't recreate the curve with an EQ. It is the result of a singer, a microphone, a room and a whole processing chain, not a setting. Use it the way a reference track is used: to find where your vocal is off. Four reads that hold across all 3,054 hits:

High-pass at 80 to 100 Hz. The hits carry about 30 dB less at 100 Hz than in the core. If your vocal has audible energy below 100 Hz, it is not matching any hit in any genre.
Don't scoop the body. 200 to 400 Hz sits only 2.5 to 8 dB below the core. A deep cut at 300 Hz, the move every "mud" tutorial recommends, pushes you away from the average, not toward it.
Presence is lower than you think. 3 to 5 kHz sits 8 to 12 dB below the core on a finished hit. If yours is within a few dB of the core up there, it will read as harsh next to the references.
Stop chasing 16 kHz. The air band is 17 to 27 dB down on the hits. A 16 kHz shelf boost adds hiss and separation artifacts before it adds sparkle.

The free vocal analyzer overlays your vocal on this exact chart, names the band that is off and by how much, and suggests the setting to fix it. The measurement pipeline is identical to the one that built the chart, so the comparison is apples to apples.

Vocal EQ chart FAQ

What frequency range is the singing voice?: Sung fundamentals run from roughly 80 Hz for a low bass to about 1,100 Hz for a soprano. On a finished hit vocal, though, the energy peaks between 500 and 800 Hz, is 2 to 5 dB lower from 1 to 2 kHz, 6 to 12 dB lower from 2.5 to 5 kHz, and 30 dB down by 100 Hz.
Where should I high-pass a vocal?: Between 80 and 100 Hz for a lead vocal. The 100 Hz band sits about 30 dB below the core on the average hit, and the 80 Hz band about 35 dB below, so a filter there removes nothing the hits keep.
Does genre change how a vocal is EQ'd?: Yes, mostly below 200 Hz. Country vocals carry about 5 dB more bass than the average hit, pop vocals about 3 dB less. Hip-hop has the most sub and bass and the least mids. Electronic vocals are the brightest above 5 kHz. Above 2 kHz, all ten genres sit within about 2 dB of each other.
Should I copy this curve with an EQ?: No. Treat it as a reference, not a preset. Find the band where your vocal differs most from the hits in your genre and fix that one band. The analyzer does this comparison for you.
Why does the curve drop so fast above 12 kHz?: Partly because sung vocals have little energy there, and partly because the AI stem separation used to isolate the vocals (Demucs) loses some air above 12 kHz. Treat the top two bands as a rough guide, not a target.

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