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Imagine a friend has just got into audio production, have chosen their DAW, and are starting to produce their first song. What advice do you give them about EQ? Are there any strict rules you would tell them to follow? Do you know any tips that would stop them pulling out their hair?
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By Adrian Try
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Listen – don’t look when EQing.
A/B EQ changes – switch it in listen switch it out – make a change to the frequency centre and repeat.
Avoid sweeping EQ frequencies. Try to listen and pick the frequency (roughly) you want to boost or cut. Switch the EQ in and out adjust. It’s slow at first but much quicker in the long run – like knowing which spanner to use without trying a bunch of different sizes.
Broad Q’s sound more natural.
Try cutting before boosting (esp. when using plugins).
Listen to commercial tracks you really like the mixes of and try using high and low pass filters to hear where different instruments sit sonically in a mix – it will teach you a lot about frequencies.
The biggest point is – listen.
PS. Make sure your speakers are set up properly and spend some time making your room the best listening environment it can be.
A few things — definitely nothing that hasn’t been said or pointed out before!
- I think it’s helpful to get to know the frequency ranges of a variety of different instruments. Get to know them, as much as you can. something like: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/attachments/so-much-gear-so-little-time/35730d1179883856-eq-frequency-chart-instrument-frequencies.gif (but, Google it… there are plenty of references out there). Understand what the ranges are….Bass guitar may occupy low ranges in the EQ in general, but also higher frequencies for things like the articulation of the picking or fingering. Same with a kick drum. You may or may not want those other higher frequencies, but know what they are, and that they’re there before you accidentally cut them, or you could have unintended muddiness.
- Try to begin by choosing instrumentation from the start that doesn’t compete for those same EQ spaces. Much harder to “fix it in the mix” later.
Just paying a little attention to those things can allow you to carve out EQ space in the mix so your mix doesn’t sound muddy.
Of course, that is just a starting point. Once you get to familiarize yourself with those concepts, through trial and error and experimentation, you can improve your skills and even get to be more creative and break rules, or use EQ tweaks for creating interesting effects, etc.
The best advice I can give a beginner about EQ is this: Whatever you do, don’t be tempted by the loudness wars. Compression and EQ is an art, and it takes time to learn. I can’t stress this enough: take EQ in baby steps. Don’t be tempted to EQ early, either. I’ve made that mistake many times in the past. Once you turn on an EQ or compressor somewhere, things start sounding clearer, punchier, bigger, and it’s hard to go back. The problem is that if you start doing this too early, you may end up with a very muddy production overall. Try to work flat at least until you’ve finished most of the composition.
Imagine what would happen if you were making macaroni and cheese and you decided, because cheese tastes so good, that you’d put the cheese in while the pasta was still boiling. Who knows what mess you will end up with! Long story short, patience is a virtue. :)
When struggling with an annoying frequence, sometimes what you are actually looking for is that frequency’s overtone not its fundamental.
Cut more, boost less. Cut narrow, boost wide. Try to avoid boosting more than 2db unless particularly necessary. Always a/b monitor with the device on/off. Above all… LISTEN! Textbook settings will only get you so far.
Learn proper mic placement… This will save you a lot of time, and having to sweep for frequencies. And what everyone said besides me.. All great tips.
LISTEN!!!
Listen :)
Use an high pass (low cut) filter on every instrument that doesn’t need bass frequencies; adjust cutoff frequency and slope by judging how the instrument fits in the mix. This will help to prevent muddiness.
If an instrument sounds ‘annoying’, try to cut between 1 and 4 kHz; these frequencies don’t really affect the timbre, but more how it fits in the mix.
If an instrument needs to be more clear/pristine, boost quite wide around 5kHz.
Don’t worry about EQ or none these technical things, i would recommend to learn about songwriting, music theory, structure, and the formula how to make a hit song. then just make a hot pop song, after that hire a professional mixing engineer to mix it for you, after that = profit ?
:)
Cut before boosting.
Narrow EQ for looking.
Filter on both sides when needed.
Learn to know the frequencies by ear.
Broad boosts if needed.
The first few times, try a few things right off:
- On non-bass instruments use a high-pass shelf filter to remove bass and see what the track sounds like
- On bass instruments try a low-pass shelf – move the shelf around and see what happens to the bass sound
- Pick a parametric EQ plugin – make a pretty tall and narrow filter band and move it around while listening to the music – first, this is how to go about fixing narrow specific EQ issues, so it’s practice :-), and it also will help you learn what the effect of EQ is on sound
- Start by modifying sounds where possible instead of EQ; if the sounds are recorded via mics then experiment with the recording process more
- Strive to not just push up EQ but also to cut – generally you don’t want to us EQ as a gain stage…
Some common, basic tips (I think). Have fun!
Try to only use the EQ to do things that only the EQ can do. It’s too easy to treat it like a fix-all for every problem we encounter. Ask if the problem we’re trying to fix can be fixed another way before resorting to trying to EQ it away. Is the recording bad? is the mic placement bad? Is it a bad arrangement? There’s lots of places we can look in order to fix a problem, with the EQ being one of the last. EQ should be the icing on the cake. But if the cake is a turd no amount of icing will fix that.
- Cut before boosting (or cut everywhere you can add output gain instead of boosting – execpt for hi-shelv)
- Cut Narrow at fondamentals and Harmonics instead of cutting large
- Always A/B
- EQ In the mix not in SOLO (except for very precise little things)
- HPF everything you can, the more you can
- Oversample when Hi-shelving if possible
- Don’t sweep! use band pass instead for finding the area you want to tweak
- Mic placement is more efficient than EQ… If you had to EQ more than 6 db… ask yourself about your mic placement or instrument tone
- EQ on group or buss is a lot better for phase than EQing individual tracks
- Use M/S everytime you can… a lot more easy to create space WHERE you wanna create it
- Every EQ in the world sounds good … The most important is what you’re doing with
- DON’T EVER USE ANY EFFECT IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE DOING!
For REAPER user’s
-Use sidechain EQ via parameter modulation (kick to bass , bass to guitars, vox to guitars, …) everytime you can! a lot more natural sounding