a (hopefully) simple question

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TIGERSHARK

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i'm green at the recording-part of this stuff right now and have an apparently ignorant question. thanks for your patience. :)

i've been reading about EQ in the mixdown/mastering stages. what exactly does 'rolling off/cutting' the __Hz' mean? could someone please walk me through the basic steps of removing[?] those unwanted frequencies? i'd like to understand exactly what i'm looking for or what i need to do, in order to manipulate my wave files with EQ. (at this point, i'm using protools-free version for windows.) again, i'm at the starting-block with this stuff and am trying to fully understand the concepts. i certainly appreciate ANY help. thank you!!
 
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You're probably going to be reducing frequencies rather than removing them. For example if a vocal is too bassy or boomy you can cut it by 2 or 3 dBs at a low frequency like 200Hz. You can also boost frequencies to improve the sound. e.g. boosting at around 10,000Hz is supposed to add air and sparkle to a vocal.
 
I liked this article so much that I posted a link on my website & have pointed a few people on the bbs to it. I found it useful.

Prorec EQ article
 
follow-up question

thanks for the replies (and link). i appreciate it. yes, i had already printed that article for my binder. :) as a matter of fact, that's one of the articles that sparked my question. this may sound dumb, but when you say to 'cut' or 'roll off' such-n-such Hz. what physically are you doing to achieve that? do you dial in the suggested number then filter it out? (if so, how exactly?) i'm really, really new at the recording-side of the house, so i appreciate any basic answers. THANKS AGAIN!!! :)
 
A "cut" generally means a reduction in volume at a specified frequency. For example, cut 200 Hz by 2 db.

A roll-off means a gradual drop-off of all frequencies above or below a specific frequency point. Generally this would only be used with very low or very high frequencies (e.g., roll off everything below 50 Hz).

Here's an exmple of what they look like visually on a paragraphic equalizer.
 

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Here's the other (I couldn't figure out how to do two attachments on one post). :)
 

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thanks for the reply

i'll give it a shot. right now, i'm just working in protools free so it may be a little different for me to get to the general areas you're referring to. however, i think that that's helping me to slooowly understand a little more. again, thank you!!
 
TIGERSHARK,

Once you have some audio recorded in Pro Tools Free, Apply a parametric equalizer to it. If you want to roll off (decrease) a certain frequency from the audio file, set the EQ to the desired frequency that you want to cut. Then turn the gain knob to reduce the EQ to the amount of decibels that you want to reduce. That's pretty much it. With EQ you can boost (increase) or cut frequencies.

"Rolling Of" frequencies usually refers to cutting LOWER frequencies to reduce "rumble" or to take out lower frequencies. Rolling of is something that is done often to vocals, and some other high or midrange instruments (keyboards, guitar, etc). The object of rolling of a few dBs is to clean up the track and allow the mix to breathe better, since these instruments rarely have any meaningful information below certain frequency ranges (unless you're talking about keyboard bass, some drum sounds or other low frequency sounds).

It's very common to roll off vocals below 85 to 100 Hz. Try that and see how it works.

Rev E
 
again....printing that one off.

man, you guys ROCK!! this is definitely the place to get much-needed help. THANK YOU and keep up the great info!!!
 
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