A TRICK FOR FINDING THE RIGHT FREQUENCY TO CUT OR BOOST:

(Not only does it help you zone in on problem frequencies, but it can also be a really cool sounding effect.)

1. Duplicate a mono track. Keep the panning and the volume the same for both tracks. Invert the phase of one of them. You should hear silence.

2. Put an EQ box on the original channel. Starting with a narrow band shelf, sweep the frequency range until you hear the instrument you're looking for. Every frequency other than the one you have shelved will be cancelled out, leaving only the sound you want to boost.

3. Now that you've found your frequenc(ies), remove the dummy track and set the level of EQ to a usable level.

HOW MUCH DO YOU EQ? (question posed to the board at large)

this post made me think - how much does everyone here use EQ? the last handful of things i've done, i haven't done hardly any except when there's something that's really bugged me - and when i did eq, it was almost all subtractive EQ. so it getsa me to thinking - have i just hit like stage 2 of EQ'ing, reacting against stage 1, when i EQ'd the fuck out of everything, and then thought everything sounded like shit when i was done anyway? maybe i gotsa long way to go - or maybe i'm on the right track...

i'm at a place now where if it sounds not right over the monitors, i'll go back and a) move mics or b) swap mics before switching the EQ in the chain. (excepting polarity) but i'd be curious to you pros out there, how many channels (roughly) do you have EQ engaged on during mixdown or tracking? something tells me there's a stage 3 ahead where i EQ more than i do now, but not as recklessly as i did in stage 1. i'm finding that i'm closer to where i want to be as i use more restraint and keeping the signal chain as short as possible.

do you boost LF on the bass drum to tape? do you use the overheads and ambients as full spectrum mics, or are your overheads just pulling the brilliance off the kit? do your close mics only capture the attack, and let your OH and ambients pick up the body - or does each mic sound natural on its own? do you have any "EQ philosophy" to live by, or is it "mess with it till it sounds good"

i have heard somewhere along the way, "if you want it to sound different - use additive EQ, if you want it to sound better - use subtractive EQ" - please share your experiences.

thanks for your insight,
-nick

i EQ like crazy. but that's because my gear is all garbage so to speak, and so is my room, so no matter how well i do with mic placement, there really isn't so much in the way of mic selection, and nothing comes out sounding good. but i pretty much do fuckaround recordings in my basement, which have served well as demo tapes and stuff. the last studio recording i did, out of roughly 24 tracks, there was only EQ used on 1 of them that i know of, and that was the snare. at the time, i only had a piece of shit snare, so to make it sound like less of a piece of shit involved some creative mic selection, duct tape, and EQ. i don't believe the engineer used EQ on the bass, though he may have and not told me about it.

i think my theory on it is, don't ever use EQ. except when there's no other choice.

if the money's there, then the room should rock and mic selection should be there. the mic placement fucking better be there, or something's very wrong. if the money's not there, and the room's not there, and the mic selection isn't there, then EQ becomes a necessary evil. for shit polishing and such.

re: the first post. another approach you can take is to send generated noise through your EQ and to your speakers. and listen to it flat. and then boost or cut one frequency at a time, until you know what each frequency sounds like. if i remember right, i learned this from jack alexander during the class when he focused on feedback (live sound) and how you need to instantly be able to identify the tone that's ringing so you aren't fiddling with your EQ trying to figure it out. it needs to be automatic and instantaneous. for live sound, anyways. the benefit of learning to do that carries over to the studio environment, too, i think.

well ive graduated from the world of using a mackie 1204 as a "reference" console to a neotek series IE. so its ingrained in my mind that you cant EQ, you can't add outboard processing, or heaven forbid compression. even with the neotek, i go directly from my mics into my rack mounted pres, and then to tape. i feel more comfortable working this way, and i have more options when mixing. im sure everyone has done this. you add tons of outboard processing to a mix only to just try it without all that junk and you like it better! after spending 2 weeks tweaking the shit out of it, very frustrating.

outside of that i think many will agree that your best bet is to get the best sound to tape via the shortest signal path. using mic placement, mic/pre amp selection.

sndo wrote:A TRICK FOR FINDING THE RIGHT FREQUENCY TO CUT OR BOOST:

(Not only does it help you zone in on problem frequencies, but it can also be a really cool sounding effect.)

1. Duplicate a mono track. Keep the panning and the volume the same for both tracks. Invert the phase of one of them. You should hear silence.

2. Put an EQ box on the original channel. Starting with a narrow band shelf, sweep the frequency range until you hear the instrument you're looking for. Every frequency other than the one you have shelved will be cancelled out, leaving only the sound you want to boost.

3. Now that you've found your frequenc(ies), remove the dummy track and set the level of EQ to a usable level.

did you get this from audioeng group on livejournal? or did somebody take it from here and post it?

am i not allowed to talk about livejournal here? its a little embarrassing, i know. . .

it'd be nice to know that someone else on that group isnt interested in using computers.

-wiggins

Hi guys,

I agree, the shortest signal path is the best, EQing should only really be used as a corrective tool, or to make slight changes to a track, you should get a decent recording in the first place. With digital plugin EQs, you have to keep things like quantisation error in mind, which gets introduced when you add more plugins to a track. The main thing is to get the recording sounding great.

My 2 pennies worth,

Neil.

wiggins wrote:did you get this from audioeng group on livejournal? or did somebody take it from here and post it?

am i not allowed to talk about livejournal here? its a little embarrassing, i know. . .

it'd be nice to know that someone else on that group isnt interested in using computers.

-wiggins

I posted it both here and on LJ. And I love analog but I use computers out of the cost factor.

I agree with everyone about the shortest signal path and only using EQ as a last resort... but that's only when I'm recording something to sound natural. And I usually don't. I like to fuck with sounds by any means possible. Too much EQ is a great effect, just like too much compression, too much distortion (I love feeding a distortion box with another distortion box or maybe even have three in a row.) Remember how they always say "do what SOUNDS good?" Well, in some cases avoiding EQ sounds good, and in other cases, I think over-indulging sounds good too.

Aye!

As with all things audio, there are no rules, just guidelines. If you do something unconventional that sounds great then that's awesome.

Neil.

Just been tinkering around with the Waves plugins and found a linear phase EQ in there! For those that don't know, it will not affect the phase of the frequencies it works on, so there will be no 'colouration' of the signal at all! Great for mastering. I just used it on a mix of a classical quintet I recorded as a rumble filter and the results were great. It hogs plenty of CPU though.

Neil.