Learning how to use EQ

[Meat Truck]

Hey all. I'm relatively new at all this, and I have a question about EQ-ing and frequency stuff. I kind of get annoyed when I hear "seasoned veterans" at this when they say stuff like, "hmm..that drum sounds too boomy, lets cut out a bit at 5K," or "that guitar has an evil tone at 15k," or whatever. Does anyone know of a good reference/guide I can find somewhere which shows what instruments operate within what frequencies, and possibly how to go about learning how to EQ them when mixing? Thanks much.

[jeam25]

Ok meat!

All the trick is not on the EQ is in
your ears.That is the best audio analizer
that you have.But yes there is some freqs.
reference to start ;here in the forum you can
find a lot of topic of that . Made a search
you wiil find a lot of thing that can help you.

have luck!

[bjoneill74]

Meat Truck,

I've been learning a lot about EQ lately myself, and it's very important. Everything needs it's own space to sit well with the other sound sources. It's easy to have guitars, keyboards, vocals competing for good space in a mix.

Most tutorials tell you to start with the source and the mics before adding a ton of processing, but I performed a search on the DUC a while back and found this link to be very cool. Hope it helps.

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/aug01/arti cles/usingeq.asp

Brian
http://www.landofchocolate.net

[elijahsongs]

"The Art of Mixing" by David Gibson is an excellent book which has, in several charts, the information you're looking for... EQ's for different instruments, frequencies that correspond with words like "warm", "tinny", "hollow", etc...

There is another book I have, can't remember the name of it, it's a home-recording type book with a picture of Peter Gabriel on the cover, done by the guys who produced Men at Work... it's a good book with the same EQ information and some suggested cuts/boosts.

Hope this helps...

[Meat Truck]

Thanks for all the responses! Yes, my ears are the answer, but I need to learn that if my ears hear something they don't like, I have to know where to go to fix that. But it's a good way to look at it. And thanks for the David Gibson book suggestion, I have a friend that recommended that too, and just lent it to me. Looks good. I'll have to keep my eyes open for that other book with Peter Gabriel on the cover, and I'll look up those url's too. Thanks, all. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[keny]

About the art of mixing, Yeah it's good, but don't those pictures with the guy and the headphones with his buc teeth imagining things just rub you the wrong way? With a look like that, he must be a drummer turned studio guy.

Keny

[Carl Fuehrer]

As a pro I can tell you, just because a track sounds like it need some high end, don't always boost some highs. Try cutting some bass to see if that helps the track first.

Think of the track having certain sections of energy, such as low, low mid, mid, high mid, highs, adn ultra highs. Listen to see what there is too much of and/or too little of. The more you listen the faster things will come. Try to learn the regions of EQs so you can zoom in to a frequency range quickly.

Sometime if you can do some critical listening, grab some CDs and listen to how each one sounds different from one another. This is due to different instruments, engineers, producers, and mastering. Then check out some genres, like [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] (gulp) pop music
like O-Town, Timberfake, Agulara, and such. They all tend to focus on certain concepts like solid dance style bass and brite, in your face vocals. Use ideas like these to deceide how you want to EQ your tracks by listening to artists you like and trying to copy the EQing you hear. Remember to be yourself too! Do what you like. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

I originally learned about EQs by sitting with a 31 band graphic EQ with some CDs and just started boosting and cutting frequencies to see what they did. I understand that most people might not have this luxury.

Hope this helps.

[alterdigital]

www.moultonlabs.com

check out the "Golden Ear" cd's, they're killer!!

Audios

[keny]

you may try downloading some demo eq's forom people like waves, who offer 15 day trials, but if you have the time their graphic eq's are way better than the digirack eq's. The visual display will really help you understand things better.

[Jorge442]

Originally posted by Meat Truck:
"seasoned veterans" at this when they say stuff like, "hmm..that drum sounds too boomy, lets cut out a bit at 5K," .

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">no comment on that!

LOL

Lalaman posted some links a while back that were just what you´re looking for.

a couple of general tips:

rolling off the bass on a track can make it stand out. Rolling off the highs will make it blend in...

Make little ¨holes¨ for stuff to get through. Like for instance you might want to dip/duck a little in the 240hz range of a thick guitar so that the 240hz found in the snare comes through...

cheers

jorge