EQ Rules of Thumb

  • Thread starter Thread starter doncol07
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SouthSIDE Glen said:
OK, now it's time for your adolescent response something along the lines that I'm a chicken shit for not posting, or that I'm a fake, or something like that.
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Somewhat OT, but my favorite chicken shit line is:

"You can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit".
 
SonicAlbert said:
Somewhat OT, but my favorite chicken shit line is:

"You can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit".
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Well, you probably can, it just woundn't taste very good :)

Kind of like tracking, eh?

G.
 
just to be clear:

modern country has no more basis in reality than modern metal, or pop40, in fact I would say less than metal, as in modern country, everything is about 80's metal. VERY big kicks, gated reverb, pyrotechnics, and vocals so loud and processed that they have absolutely no anchor in the real world

And have you heard any modern country WITHOUT autotune lately?

and dance?

when was dance EVER about capturing reality with a microphone?
 
Experimentation

Hey everybody,

WOW...thanks to everybody who has commented on this thread. I did try some things out today and I believe I did have a "lightbulb" moment, thanks to some things I've gotten from each of you so far.

First of all, in Sonar, I turned the bass midi track to audio so I could adjust it easier with some plugins, only parametric EQ for now. Some of my keyboards play multiple parts over one single set of stereo outputs, so I went ahead and turned individual midi tracks into separate audio tracks. Would you all agree with that approach? (By the way, could you all recommend a good plugin for parametric EQ. I'd really like one with controls that look like a real EQ. I'm using the one from Cakewalk right now, and honestly, I don't know if it's good or not or how to judge, but I don't care for the interface. I thought it sounded good though.)

Ok, back to what I tried. With just this bass line and a drum loop playing, I cut around 120 Hz by 6 dB and boosted 80 Hz by 6 dB on the drum loop (kick in there) and did the reverse on the bass line. So where one was boosted and cut, I did the opposite on the other. I could certainly tell a difference, subtle, but I could tell. That seemed give each one a more distinct frequency just for it, letting each breath better and have more space. I'm looking forwarwd to playing around with this some more. Should this alone be a subtle change or potentially something really noticeable?

Is boosting/sweeping the best way to determine if frequency clashing/cancellation is happening. I don't want to inadvertently adjust parts that don't need it in the event they blend well in their original, respective states. Wow...my high school choir teacher used to emphasize "blend" all the time, and here it is again.

I've found myself listening differently too...all day today on TV while I was installing some floor tile, I tuned in more to some parts being really present, less warm, some warm and less present, and so on, instead of every individual sound being huge and fat.

One last thing...from my original post, my setup has the potential to turn out some really good sounding music right? (Dependent of course on my ability to learn to use it and my ears to their potential.) I have a friend about an hour away who has ProTools but prefers Sonar as well. Not sure why, but it made me feel good about that choice I made a while back.

Thanks everybody!

Donny
 
Strait Bass

I really like George Strait's drum/bass sound, especially the bass. Anybody know the approach for that? "Blue, Clear Sky" and "Write this Down" are coming to my mind now as sounds I really like. I'm venturing a guess that the bass is compressed pretty good and sits below the kick frequency wise?
 
doncol07 said:
One last thing...from my original post, my setup has the potential to turn out some really good sounding music right? (Dependent of course on my ability to learn to use it and my ears to their potential.) I have a friend about an hour away who has ProTools but prefers Sonar as well. Not sure why, but it made me feel good about that choice I made a while back.
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*Absolutely* your setup has the potential to turn out some really good sounding music!

The eq on the DM-24 is good in a neutral kind of way. Not great, but good and very useable. There are also eq presets you can use as starting points, which can be helpful. I've found the presets in the DM-24 to be generally well programmed, if you consider them suggestions only and adapt them for your own needs.

The KSM32 is an excellent mic, I used to have a couple of those.

The amp you are using for your monitors would not be first on my list, but it's okay. Your monitoring really may be the weakness that you would want to upgrade first.

Of course, the Kurzweil keyboards and modules are excellent, and have a lot of programming possibilities.

The whole ProTools thing is that it is compatible with so many commercial studios and post production houses. If you don't need to interface with them, then you don't really have a pressing need for it. I set my brother up with a ProTools rig and he loves it, but that's because he just likes the interface and it was easy for him to learn. I've seen Sonar in action and it's a very cool program.

I like your setup a lot!
 
doncol07 look at the eq links earlier in the thread. The Paris eq is awesome, free, and you probably have a pretty good idea where it comes from.

The other, the nyquist EQ, can do some things near the top end you wont find with most DSP eq's, and it is also free
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
So much for the stopping of the name calling. Can't say I didn't try.

If words and ideas mean nothing to you because you can't reason like a homo sapien, there's nothing I can do about it.

The guy was asking how to liven up his modern dance and country pop music that he was tracking himself, and how to seperate his bass from his kick, and your response was to EQ the fuck out of it and make it a heavy metal mix.

I've never heard any of your work either. But I have brains. I can read and comprehend what I'm reading, and respond to it in kind, which I did. And I know enough about this racket to understand that no matter how friggin good your mixes are, your advice for the question was about as wrong as wrong can be. This is true REGARDLESS of what your mixes sound like or how much experience you have.

I have nothing in my posession that's done on A-list gear that I have the rights or permission from the artist to release to the public. The only stuff I have in my posession that I could probably get permission to release is a mix job of a CDs-worth of instrumentals performed by a local musician which he tracked himself direct via DI and Pod and I mixed and pre-mastered in Cubase and Sound Forge. Stuff that while I am proud of what I did with the mix, I'm sure you would rip apart from your throne up there in the Great Wet North.

Not that you wouldn't rip it apart anyway. At this point I could give you some stuff recorded at the Sony Studios by Nickelback and engineered by Rick Rubin, but if I put my name on it, you'd discount it as shit anyway. Besides, none of what I have is metal that has been squished to a 3dB dynamic range, so you'd not only hate it, but you would be the very definition of underqualified to judge it.

And if you bothered to read past the video part of my earlier post you'd see some of my musical credits. But then again you didn't bother to read Donny's original question all the way through, why would you bother reading my crap, right? Not that you'd think about it even if you did read it.

OK, now it's time for your adolescent response something along the lines that I'm a chicken shit for not posting, or that I'm a fake, or something like that. The first would just highlight your stupidity and the second your hypocracy. But please, don't let that stop you. You go right ahead and rip into me, sparky.

G.
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You don't read so well do you? WHERE did I call you a "name" after you offered to stop? WHERE? You ain't gonna find it.

So, you may not be able to host some stuff you have produced on your website (funny, no link to your website either! I know where it is, but YOU don't provide it), but I am sure the bands you have produced have websites, and bands ALWAYS have their music on their website. So, you can provide some links to some bands you have produced.

Come on man. Most low level pro's like you are more than happy to show off their work! I mean, you must have a LOT of experience recording and mixing bands, and a LOT of clients! Give us a few links! Everybody is dying to hear your work. With your purist approach, I am SURE it just sounds astounding!
 
Ford Van said:
You don't read so well do you? WHERE did I call you a "name" after you offered to stop? WHERE? You ain't gonna find it.

So, you may not be able to host some stuff you have produced on your website (funny, no link to your website either! I know where it is, but YOU don't provide it), but I am sure the bands you have produced have websites, and bands ALWAYS have their music on their website. So, you can provide some links to some bands you have produced.

Come on man. Most low level pro's like you are more than happy to show off their work! I mean, you must have a LOT of experience recording and mixing bands, and a LOT of clients! Give us a few links! Everybody is dying to hear your work. With your purist approach, I am SURE it just sounds astounding!
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I'm sure you're really good at mixing audio.

But on a personal level, you sicken me.
 
Southside, I will go ahead and share the good, the bad, and the ugly!

http://www.phoenixlightandsound.com/Audio

Whole bunch of demo's, stuff off of full CD's, push mixes, live mixes on there. All of it is stuff I at least mixed. Some of it I didn't track.

The stuff I think is the best is The Heavy Brothers, Sky Blue Mind, BOD (Better Off Dad) and some of the Porterhouse stuff.

Go ahead. Share your work with the world!
 
Flower People in the Stardumb folder is currently at #5 on the Comedy charts on garageband.com . :) That one is all me, except the bass guitar and "Chong" voice. Not bad for a basement recording done with ART and A&H preamps.
 
But the company put those presets in there. They MUST be good!
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Ford Van's naiveté is finally shown. :p

U Rule southside Glen (just saying that to angry up the blood of you little boys... u r all so cute with your posturing.)

As has been proven with every version of Windows, companies just love to put crap in their programs that doesn't assist them to work properly or better in any way, shape or form. I bet you believe there is a war on terror too, silly guy.

The real problem with people like you, Fordie, is that you are working with no talented shits. It's not your fault, they just make your work so much harder.

Southside, on the other hand, works with what those old folks like to call 'musicians' - you know, people who can actually PLAY instruments. So Southside's muse is the perfect sound, and with talented musos, it is so easy and pleasurable to get great sounds with minimal fixing later on.

Metal is entertaining, sure, but it's so much hard work to make a lot of those rookie no talents sound half decent. You have your work cut out for you Fordie, and you know it.

No wonder you have to experiment so much. I experiment too: BUT NOT JUST IN THE MIX. When I am lucky enough (sure Southside will agree here) I work with decent musos, and try hard to mike them up properly in the first place to get decent sounds. Half the creative battle is in the arranging and performing.

I think, Fordie, you have forgotten the JOY of making and creating music. If you still loved it, you'd see the challenge and creativity in the 'setting em up' not just in the 'knocking em down'.

So rookies, take note: start slow, and experiment in EVERYTHING, not just your mix.
 
josiek said:
So rookies, take note: start slow, and experiment in EVERYTHING, not just your mix.
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Where do you suggest they start experimenting with mixing techniques, then? ;)
 
Woohoo, this should get nice and heated up again

Josiek, while we await the beatdown Ford is surely typing up as we speak, perhaps you could tell me some good examples of purist recorded albums and tell me how theyre better than ones that werent

hint, dont even think about bringing up;

the beatles

Steely Dan

Pink Floyd

as purist recordings
 
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