DrewPeterson7
Sage of the Order
Then I also just have to ask you guys, as a last question, if you always cut very much (or at least to me as a not so experienced mixer) on the instruments and vocals? I started being a little bit unsure when I saw Pinky's presets on this page: https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=147446 ... Should (or "should") one cut so much to make room for all instruments? Do you also have presets you REALLY would appreciate to share
just so I get an idea??
/Svedde
Pinky actually isn't cutting as much as you think.
I mean, if you look at his acoustic guitar presets, he's cutting everything below 80hz, rolling off a bit between about 80 and about 300, and then rolling off between maybe 7k and 10k, and then cutting everything over around 10k.
If you look at that, sure, it looks like a huge cut. But, consider that on an acoustic guitar, there's really not much going on below 80hz and above 10khz. If you low-pass at 10khz, and high-pass at 80hz, and then A/B a playback between the sound with the EQ on and the sound with the EQ off, you'll bbe surprised at just how little of a difference you'll hear - all he's doing with those two cuts is sort of saying, "Ok, so there should be nothing in an acoustic guitar signal below this point, and nothing above [/i]this[/i] point, so let's use this equalizer to cut out everything outside of that band because anything that IS there isn't adding to the sound of the acoustic, and is most likely just noise or hiss or rumble that the mix will sound better without.
So, really, there's only two material tweaks there that will make a strong impact on the "tone" of the acoustic - he's rolling back a lot of the bass and low mids(80 to about 400), to tighten up the low end, and then he's rolling off a little of the high end as well (8khz-10khz) to smooth out the upper register.
He's a touch more heavy handed than I generally am - I would leave more of the low and low mid of the acoustic in the mix if it was an acoustic driven song, myself, though I'd probably cut as hard if not harder if it was a background element supporting an electric guitar - but most of what looks like a huge cut in that EQ curve is just reducing to 0db parts of the sound that have almost no guitar in them anyway.
PS - normal disclaimer - I'm no pro myself, either, and I just screw around for fun on a desktop system in my bedroom. But I've been doing this long enough (probably about 5 years) that I've begun to get the hang of it and develop a relatively good ear, so...
