Separation and EQ High Pass

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keano

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I want to get rid of unwanted frequencies and have better separation in my mixes.

Is it safe to say that on guitars (rock) to have a high pass at 120, vocals 200, bass 30. Strings (keyboards) 100

Should the drums be left as they are?
 
You need to get away from cookie-cutter generalized "standard" EQ settings. You need to train your ears so that you can hear what needs to be done to each sound - that doesn't have to be in terms of Hz or kHz - you just need to be able to hear what's not right. The problem with cookie-cutter settings is that every recording of every instrument by every player is unique. Even the same instrument and player on a different song will probably need different EQ.

So, by all means start with standard EQ settings - there's a stack of them out on the web if you do a Google search - but the main thing is lots of practice with EQ. Most important is to do comparisons with commercial recordings (turned DOWN to match the level of your mixes) and you will fairly quickly learn to hear the difference in tone between your tracks and the commercial ones and with practice you'll find the right places to boost or cut to make your tracks sound right.

Another point is to think about the arrangement - are there a bunch of guitars and keyboards all trying to occupy the same sonic space? If so, it's best to get the band to do some work on the arrangement to solve the problem rather than trying to use EQ and have someone whining "my guitar sounds thin" when they hear the mix. The song will be better for it.
 
thanks for response. But won't the fact that they were mastered and EQ'd in mastering sound different then the actual mix I am working on.
 
keano said:
thanks for response. But won't the fact that they were mastered and EQ'd in mastering sound different then the actual mix I am working on.
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The only factor that's a problem with mastered material is the dynamics (or lack-of on any recent CD), if you turn down a mastered CD to match your mix volume, it will have less punch and dynamics than your mix unless it's quite an old non-remastered CD or a jazz or classical CD. On a heavily limited CD you might have to adjust the CD volume for "quiet" sections downwards compared to "loud" sections because the mastering has destroyed that dynamic - hence the quotes because the quiet sections are just as loud as the loud sections on some CDs :)

The tone of the instruments in a mastered recording are still what you are aiming towards because any EQ changes in mastering will be to correct for problems in the mix or to bring the various tracks to a common "sound" if they didn't sit well together. A professional recording will be EQd to be translatable to sound good on almost any player and that's just what you want from your mixes. You don't necessarily want to match the sound of their instruments - different instrument, different player, etc - but you want to aim so that your mix could be included in a compilation album with the reference songs and not sound out of place.

A key thing with comparisons to references is that otherwise it's easy to let the automatic adjustments that your brain makes to your hearing fool you. Your mix could be getting brighter and brighter but you're not aware of it. A quick switch to a reference CD will "reset" your hearing in a few seconds. This really helps avoid that syndrome where you work all day on a mix and come back the next morning and you wonder what the heck you thought you were hearing. With frequent references, you'll find that the next morning you'll just want to make a few final tweaks and the mix is "done!".

Going back to your original question, you might want to high-pass these instruments but first listen to them and how they interact with the rest of the instrumentation in the mix. Are they stomping all over the bass guitar? If so, do EQ but let your ears tell you what sounds right.
 
Thanks!

I will take a song of an artist which I am going towards influenced by and try and have it fit with it. Is that the right path then.

thanks
 
Sounds good to me. But also reference other recordings that are known to be good quality. References don't even have to be in the same genre - just well mixed and mastered.

I burnt a special reference CD with a variety of material on it (all adjusted to my usual mix level) and I just leave that running continuously in the CD player so there's a certain randomness to which song is playing when I switch.

Good luck! :)
 
but doesn't that make it more difficult. Say if your doing a soft rock song in the frame of Chris Cornell, Richard Ashcroft. Similar big sounds on those. Woldn't you be better of using references closer to your song?

ACDC type song use Cinderella, ACDC, Led Zep?
 
I think different genres make it easier to avoid the temptation to try to replicate the exact sounds on the reference. My reference CD includes ballads, rock, pop, reggae, etc. Each track has something I aspire to (the detailed dynamic texture on Bob Marley's "Exodus") or something I want to avoid (the mangled sounds on Ricky Martin's "She Bangs").

Having said that, by all means compare to songs that embody the sound you're aiming for but if the tracks you're mixing don't sound close already, you might end up over-EQing and mangling a sound that has potential but in its own way. The guitar playing the solo on Pink Floyd's "Money" sounds just like that off the multitrack - when they cut out the big reverb, that's the sound of that guitar amplifier playing that sound in the room it was recorded in.
 
Thats just it. I know listening to a reference CD I am going to be listening to the EQ trying to replicate it. Still don't understand I am listening to reference Cd for overall EQ sound right not individual elements. that is tough ha!
 
you are listening for the quality of the mix. how many times have you been working on a mix and you think it sounds great but then you listen to something else and your mix is suddenly unbalanced in one area or the other. if you go back and forth between other material throughout the process your ears have a goal to work towards. even if it is a different genre/instrumentation/whatever, you are still working toward a professional result in the end.
 
Give it a try, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it. You'll get to be able to hear when an individual sound that was recorded isn't going to give you the results you want. Either re-record it or just work with what you have and try to make it sound as good as you can. You are listening for individual sounds but in the context of the overall sound. Like anything, it just takes practice.
 
Number one rule in EQing a mix is just that... EQ the mix...

Don't spend hours EQing solo guitar, bass, vocal, etc track, to then mix them together into a muddy mess... Some tracks will fit best in a mix when at their worst solo'ed.

Sure, EQ while tracking to resolve only what can't be captured better by better mic placement or other performance technique... but save final tweek for the mix.

A good trick for finding problematic frequencies is to actually boost the suspect frequency on the suspect channel, narrow the Q, and sweep the band listening for the worst response, the muddiest sound. When you find that spot, just trim there, adjusting the Q, until... there you have it... the sound you were looking for
 
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