EQ'ing synths

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Dr. Jeep

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Looking for any recommendations on cutting or boosting synth parts. Primarily, I laid some cool moog sweeps over my track and want to articulate the resonance without getting shrill or "cheap". I know that I can easily overdo it, but because the synth patch is rather bassy in parts, I don't want that to get the low end too muddy.

Overall synth eq techniques are appreciated.

Thanks all.

jeep
 
That's a very very broad question and is pretty much unanswerable. I'm not being a smartass. You can have myriads of sounds. Myself I'm doing electronic music (industrial/noise and some DnB) and I'm confounded with the same question on a daily basis. There are no cookiecutter answers. You have to analyze each sound on its own, decide what is it that it adds to the overall mix, what is its purpose which will then help you decide where it needs to be in the mix.

For example, if it's a bass sound, then obviously you don't want to cut the lows. On the other hand, a lot of the pads would benefit from hi-passing (low-cutting) to prevent the mix from muddying up.

When you do resonant sweeps, sometimes it helps to compress them, or even use multiband compressors, because when the cutoff hits a harmonic of a given sound, then you'll have resonant peaks here and there. Compression will help tame those kinds of issues.

In the case of your moog sweep question, you have already partially answered your own question. You don't want it to muddy the sound up too much and from the sounds of it, it's not really a bass part. So experiment a bit, you may either need to low-cut it or low-shelf it. Maybe use a parametric and carve out a bit of a notch too in the low-mids. Again, it's hard to answer your question. It's very dependant on the sound itself and more importantly the sound's role in the mix as a whole.
 
Yes - I am aware the question was broad - hence the lack of response. I messed around with it last night, and addition to low shelfing it I notched out some stuff. I just didn't want to commit the sin of over EQ'ing and strip the sweep of all its fullness.

I think compression will help, because it peaks and clips just a tad at the high end of the sweep.

Thanks for you input - just needed to hear it from someone who had experimented themselves.
 
for me the answer is real simple:

turn the volume of your monitors a bit down....
take a parametric or sweepable EQ, boost your frequency +16 (to the max) and sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep trough the entire midrange and listen to what sounds the worst, then go back to that rotten frequency and cut it away (i never try to cut more than 6 db!)

now do the same for the bass and the highs

i hardly boost anything when i record, i only cut the dirt out of my music,
then during mixdown i gently boost where needed,


i've always been a cutter ;)

and thats the only way i can tell you to find How to Eq anything....
listen.....

but now, most of the time i don't put too much bass on synths since i want my bassguitar and kick to fill the spectrum with lowend,
but sometimes i mix a real calm, slow song and then fat,thick synths are needed.........


my 3 cents
 
Speaking of cutting - or boosting for that matter - how narrow or broad of a Q are you using? I have done sweeping to cut the offending frequencies - but such narrow Q make it appear like nothing much has been done for better or worse.

Any rule of thumb there?
 
Synths usually sound best with little or no EQ, maybe a touch of highpass filtering if the low end is too much for a background part. Re-amping synths, however, is a great technique to add some air to the whole affair.
 
Cloneboy Studio said:
Synths usually sound best with little or no EQ, maybe a touch of highpass filtering if the low end is too much for a background part.
Click to expand...
There is another reason why you might need highpass (low-cut) EQ on digital synths: aliasing. I tend to use a fair amound of aliasing synths in my arsenal (Kurzweil K2600XS, Absynth 2 with antialiasing turned off most of the time, Reaktor, and some others). Aliasing tends to produce some seriously low frequency components (sometimes in the <20Hz range that's can't be heard). This both eats up headroom and screws with the rest of your mix, amp, monitors, etc. So, I either highpass (if possible) the sounds that don't need the lows either in the synth, or afterwards, using EQ. Many times, at least with stuff like K2600 and Reaktor, you can counter this by setting an HPF's frequency at the fundamental of middle C (or what corresponds to when you play middle C on the keyboard as sometimes we tend to tune oscillators an octave down or up) and have it controlled by keytracking, but it's not always possible.
 
I see what you are saying about the highpass. As to "reamping" the synth - I am using a softsynth being streamed into my mix - ReWire (Reason). Is there a particular amp modeler that will work to this end?
 
i rarely have to EQ my synths much at all other than just to fit them into the context of the song. the sounds are created to sound as good as possible from the start. but, if certain frequency are stepping all over each other, then it would be a good idea to try to get some of them out of the way. other than that though, the original sound of most decent synths are usually very useable.
 
Dr. Jeep said:
Is there a particular amp modeler that will work to this end?
Click to expand...

That sort of defeats the purpose. You're not looking to add a speaker sound/mic coloration, you are looking to add "air" to an otherwise synthetic tone. You want to hear the sound of the instrument in the ROOM and how it reacts.

I've done experiments both ways--using Izotope Trash (probably the *best* distortion/speaker/mic modeler on the market) versus running the signal to some JBL's in the main tracking room and miking them. The room reamp feels better everytime.

Heck, I've miked the keyboard so you could hear the sound of me playing the squeaky Pratt-Read on my Prophet 5. It's about adding some real world character to vaguely sterile instruments.
 
ndycus1 said:
i rarely have to EQ my synths much at all other than just to fit them into the context of the song. the sounds are created to sound as good as possible from the start. but, if certain frequency are stepping all over each other, then it would be a good idea to try to get some of them out of the way. other than that though, the original sound of most decent synths are usually very useable.
Click to expand...
Are you talking about purely electronic music or adding synths for backing tracks?
 
I dig what you are saying - I thought you meant coloration at first. Considering that I am using virtual synths I don't know if that applies to what I am doing. Even in pro studios - I direct lined the synths. Then again, I wasn't after ROOM characteristics. Maybe I should have been. Sound pretty interesting. I have Izotope trash and can always play with some mic and cab placement - although it vexes me how thin things become with virtual mic placement. Cloneboy - will you reveiw my mix when I am done?
 
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