EQ Article by Paul White & Mike Senior, with actual examples

[cordura21]

I know many of you know this one, but is a great article since it has acutal examples in well known records. Here are some excerpts:

"The punch component of most bass drums lies between about 80 and 100Hz, and meaty kicks such as those in AC/DC's 'Back In Black' and Britney Spears' 'Baby One More Time', tend to have a lot of energy in this range. Below this area, you'll mostly feel, rather than hear, any boost, and it's easy to overdo. Warmer kick sounds, such as those in James Brown's 'I Got You (I Feel Good)' and Stevie Wonder's 'Sir Duke', major on the 200-300Hz region. Where the kick needs to cut through on smaller speakers, then you might also consider a boost in the region of 2.5-6kHz, which will tend to emphasise the click of the beater. As an illustration of the sort of effect this has, compare the lack of any bass-drum click in the James brown example with the aggressive kick sound in the Madness single 'My Girl'."

It goes on talking about guitars, bass, strings, vocals, etc...

It has a nice point of view, it can use it to calibrate your ears to actual music that you know.

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/aug01/articles/usingeq.asp

Cheers, Andrés

 

[searchengine]

Thanks for the article Andres,

'Technique by example' is the most efficient way to teach this amateur.

 

[chessrock]

I've actually noticed that the beef of most of the real "umph!" bass drums is right at 64 hz. Almost dead on.

 

[Empty Planet]

Perhaps that 64 hz thing is true with your monitors and the room you're listening in, Chessrock, but just as a friendly tip I'd be careful about such cut and dried pronouncements. Bass response will vary wildly from room to room and system to system, possibly even from skull to skull, and in my experience the kind of exactitude you're talking about is only useful if you know what speakers and in what room what piece is going to play at what volume. YMMV.

Peace,

Seth

 

[BrettB]

Thx for the great article...

I'll search between the 50 Hz and the 100 Hz for the basdrum's attack, depends on the type of basdrum

 

[zip]

Thanks!

Printed and in the binder...