EQing - Some questions.

I've had a little success on a track I'm working on, I've managed to EQ some of the bass fret noise out and make the kick and snare a little more prominent I think. EQing the instruments is a little more difficult as I find that I'm changing the bass sound per section, and I'm not sure if it's actually working lol.

Considering your Monkey Man mix sounded so good, I have faith that if you were to have a little listen, I'd benefit a lot from a few points that you were to give me. If you have time I'd be very grateful.

https://homerecording.com/bbs/gener...inic/start-my-first-mix-379365/4/#post4308792

Thanks.
 
Thanx a lot, Phil. Monkey man was fun to do, for sure.

I'm trying to listen, but Soundcloud seems to be hung up. It's trying to play the track, but it's stuck. If it doesn't work now, I'll definitely try again late
 
PhilLondon said:
Thanks for that. So, according to that I should insert an EQ Plugin, cut all the frequencies that I need to, then insert compression, do all my compression, then insert another EQ Plugin and sort out anything that I want boosted?

This stop the compression affecting boosted frequencies in a negative way.

So will this just make it easier to control the compression basically? And is it really recommended or is it something that you would do if you were having issues with EQ and compression?
Click to expand...

As a general rule, yep. Knowing that boosting frequencies will cause the compressor to react to them can be used as a tool as well, but unless you are specifically aiming for that kind of effect, you should insert your EQ after the compressor if you want what it does to be unaltered. There are also tricks you can do, like boosting the high end pre-comp, which will cause the compressor to squash down on them, reducing the noise output over all (as the hiss caused from make up gain is most notable in the highs). Obviously you wouldn't want to do this to a track where you want to preserve or enhance the highend, but on a track you were planning on rolling off, it's a neat trick.
 
The term "pass" maybe makes more sense when you look at an old analog EQ. Basically, if the slider is in the center the signal is at unity and it passes through unaltered. Band Pass gets its name from the many "bands" (frequency ranges) included on the EQ - so a 24 band EQ has 24 discrete (non-overlapping) sections of frequency you can boost or cut. A 31-band has 31, etc. While the bands do not overlap, there is often a control for how the slope at the edges of the band are shaped. Obviously if you took a "square wave" approach to EQ it would sound really unnatural. By that I mean if the band starts at 120.01Hz, and ends at 140.00Hz and you boosted that frequency range without any curve-shaped rolloff the fact that there was no transition would sound really artificial. On some EQs you can control the bandwidth (increase or decrease the range of frequencies affected by the boost or cut) using the "Q" control. This is all digital now so you see a picture of a narrower or wider bell shape on your screen instead.

In live sound it is a common trick when you're getting feedback to go to the range you know its coming from and just flick the EQ sliders up really quickly and listen for the sharp feedback. Then drop a few dB off that band and you're good to go. Same with mixing - if there is a sound you want more or less of, just go down the line and boost/cut areas until what you want is more prominent and what you don't want is gone.
 
You have a very 'all or nothing' way of looking at eq. EQ is about balance. The reason that you would cut 2-3db of a certain frequency would be to bring that part of the tone into balance with the rest of the intrument'so tone or the mix.

For example, if you recorded an electric guitar and it is harsh sounding, you could use an eq to lower the 3-5k range in order to balance the sound. If you took too much of that range out, you would be left with a muddy, indistinct sound.

Someone else's example for a high pass filter is perfect. The pedal noise and other mechanical clunking on a piano is not the part of the sound that serves the song, if it's too loud it can distract from it, so you use the filter to push it back.

There are plenty of things that have too much useless garbage up top as well, a low pass filter is good for that sort of thing.

The rest is just about listening to the tonal balance you have, imagining the tonal balance you watch t, then setting the eq to change what you have I to what you want.
 
Bringing up a drum EQ template may have lead to some confusion as drums have lots of low freqs and so the response may have been tuned to enhance there.

The 100Hz rolloff rule is pretty common because fan noise and air conditioner and refrigerator rumble is a common problem. Note that there is some slope to the EQ response curve meaning that it doesn't CHOP off everything below 100Hz but there is a tapering. You can shape the tapering and you can move the knee of that curve to make it sound the way you like.

I've been learning some of this stuff myself and have used EQ to mellow out a harsh single tone I have from the open G string on one of my guitars ("notch filter" using a high Q to make a narrow range of suppression). Have also boosted some mid-range freqs on a 12 string and suppressed some high freqs to tame the jangle.

This is a powerful tool and deserves some time spent learning what it can do and what it sounds like when you are making changes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top