matt's bedroom said:
this subject has no doubt been broached many times before, but i was just wondering what everyone does:
do you apply equalisation when recording the signal, or do you leave it untouched and then add it afterwards if necessary?
or have i got something wrong and does EQ only really refer to the equalising of something that's been recorded?
It refers to both but when you use it depends on your equipment setup and needs.
Depends on your equipment. If you have the ability to record every individual instrument to it's own track then applying eq afterwords would be the preferable route. Allows you more flexibility at the mixing stage.
If you don't have the setup to record each instrument on it's own track, then;
For example, you have two inputs to a soundcard, but want to record a drumkit with 4 mics. You will probably want to do some EQ while recording, as you won't get the chance (on each of the four individual tracks) to do so afterwords. So in otherwords, you would use 4 mics (EQ each accordingly) and then submix it to two tracks, and out to your two input soundcard.
Other instances of EQ'ing while recording would be boosting the highs if your recording to analog tape, that way you don't boost the tape hiss when adding some high boost to drum overheads etc. Othertimes, digital or analog, a low frequency cut might be benificial on certain instruments while tracking, to reduce low freq rumble etc. But this can be done after the fact once in digital.
What's your equipment setup, might make the answers more specific to your situation.
