EQ Frequency List

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StevenLindsey

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Recently someone posted a list in one of the forums that gave the frequency range for quite a number of instruments / sources for EQing purposes. Does anybody recall where this is? I have done a search but couldn't find it. I knew I should have printed it when I had the chance!

Thanks
 
HERE is a nice one, from an article by Paul White and Mike Senior (read the full article here )

PS: is the search function working again for the full contents of the site?

Hope it helps, Andrés
 
It was a fairly recent post. Shouldn't have to go too far.

Thanks Andres. Great article. I will make use of it.
 
cool

I was looking for a graph like this. Good artical too.




F.S.
 
I'm not saying these things are worthless, but just remember that often it is the higher harmonics of a note that you are hearing more than the fundamental.

A good example is the lowest "A" (bottom note) on a piano. The fundamental is 27.5 hz, but most of what we are actually hearing when we play that note is obviously quite a bit above that. Otherwise, if you recorded that note and played it back over small monitor speakers, you probably wouldn't hear anything at all!

A female vocalist may sing an "A" that sounds harsh to us... we can look up the frequency for that note and see that it is 440hz, but it may be the overtones at 880 or 1760 (or some sub-multiple) that is actually creating the "harsh" effect, so dipping your EQ at 440 may have no helpful effect.

Every individual instrument or voice is going to have it's own idiosyncratic spikes and dips. The only real way to locate them is to sweep back and forth while boosting until you find the offending frequencies. Even a spectrum analyser, while it may show you where some spikes are, will not necessarily tell you which are the "good" and which are the "bad" spikes.
 
I agree, your ears are the best judge.

I just look at it as a point of referrence for experamentation.
I would like to find another list just to see another point of view as well.



F.S.
 
Thanks littledog. Very interesting. I am just now trying to get a good handle on the subject of eq as it relates to what I have available to me. I still kind of cloudy as to how to find frequencies by "sweeping" but I'm starting to get an idea. I am just studying as much material now as I can get my hands on. I have semi-parametric eq on each channel of my mixer ( high & low shelf and sweepable mid ) with a 7 band graphic eq available on the main outs. Then I have a high and low shelf on each channel of the recorder ( Korg D8 ) and a parametric eq that is part of the effects bank of the D8. The effect eq has a low and high cutoff ( with selectable cutoff point ) with a +- 15 db gain and then 2 sweepable bands with a "Q" setting and +- 15 db gain. Any info that a gratuitous soul wishes to disseminate is appreciated. In the meanwhile, I will study.
 
Littledog is right. As a matter of fact, some bass enhancers work by adding harmonics of the original low fundamental, thus fooling your ear into hearing a bass that it isn't really there. Like MaxxBass from Waves:

"MaxxBass patent pending technology takes your bass to the maximum on more speaker sizes, from any source, by adding a series of harmonics to the signal.
These harmonics stimulate a psychoacoustic bass-enhancing effect – a phenomenon that small speakers rely on to play audible bass. MaxxBass simply maximizes this known acoustical phenomenon.
Thus bass frequencies are greatly enhanced without traditional EQ or bass compression. Taken to the extreme, you can actually remove the original bass signal completely and the ear will still "capture" the fundamental from the added harmonics."
(http://www.waves.com/htmls/prods/indi/maxbass.html)

Cheers, Andrés
 
Thanks for the chart, I can never get my glockenspeil to sit right in my mixes. ;)
 
Hey Stephen - a sweep mid type of EQ will limit just how much you can do with tracking down/fixing problem freq's - the technique is basically, turn UP the sweep level to + 9 or better, play back the track, change the freq control til it sounds the worst, then turn DOWN the level.

The problem with sweep mids is that they can'd do too much "surgery" without leaving big holes in the sound. This is where true parametrics come in - after doing the sweep thing to find the problem, you can narrow the Q down to just include the crap, then narrow the Q some more, turn DOWN the level of that band, and play with the Q, level, and freq controls to cut as little as possible out of the band and still fix the problem. With EQ, the basic rule is, "boost wide, cut narrow" - you don't have this choice with a swept mid, they're normally set wide enough to be "musical" when boosting.

If you want a really useful book on mixing, including frequency recommendations, try Bobby Owsinski's book Mixing Engineer's Handbook - It has a wealth of useful info on all aspects of mixing. It's available at Amazon.com if you can't find it locally... Steve
 
adjustable Q?

Can anyone name some boards with an adjustable Q on the parametric?? Hopefully some that don't cost $10,000? I would love to have one. You can do it with the plug ins, but the lag always makes you feel like you r are missing something.

Thanks

F.S.
 
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