Starter EQ Settings

[Rakie]

Originally Posted by garageband

Wow, that was like, months ago. I am glad to see you gave it some thought, though.

I've been away for quite some time, haven't even loaded up pro-tools in at least 6 or 8 months, had a lot of interesting stuff happen in my life recently.

It's been so long my ears and skills are certainly rusty... It's a real shame, but hopefully things will start leveling out and I can spend some more time in this world.

[danielvds]

Caution: only add to ONE instrument, otherwise you will lose the definition in the low end.

This is the bit I needed to be more careful about when attempting the "Mix This #4" mix.

Otherwise, pretty much know what sounds right to my taste after messing with some songs of mine- I gotta say though, working with that much real audio was a good test of skill (The 'Mix This' Challenges).- Put another way, I can only reinforce what bd says:

With that said, I think it's 95% unnecessary. Fire up a mix. On every track, take a narrow parametric EQ (with a "Q" or "bandwidth of about 7 or so) and boost it 10dB. Slowly scroll from 20Hz to 20,000Hz.

If you don't have audio to do this with, grab some samples or use the "Mix This" tracks found here: Member's Only Forum

[KEVIN BALLARD]

Its quiet simple cut rather than boost eq frequencys, parametric Eq is good help in mixing where you can adjust the Q of certain frequency. this leads to reduction of artifacts(possible phasing) to your mix.
Cheers

[Freddy G]

cut problems using a notch or narrow Q (and of course high and low pass filters), but there's nothing wrong with gentle boosting....but using a wide Q is much more musical sounding than boosting with a narrow Q

[tfreeze]

Sweet. I like the small details listed.

[craw]

Originally Posted by jrhager84

"Catch a man a fish; Feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; Feed him for life"

Teach people how to hear the difference and what to look for, and they won't need a graph. Just my thoughts...

I much prefer my philosophy

"Give a man a fire, keep him **** all night long. Set a man on fire, keep him **** the rest of his life"

[Gabriel_S]

EQ is without doubt the most important parameter a sound engineer has within his control. Reverb and compression, etc, we could live without at a pinch. Without EQ it would be very difficult.

This is a very subjective topic. Some folks find raising frequencies Taboo. Bottom line is this, using EQ literally depends on the tracks you are sent and any ambiance you may want to add. As a general rule of thumb though, you never want to raise or lower any frequency by more than 5-6 dB. If you find the need then the problem lies within the track itself, time for a retake. You know the old saying "Crap in, Crap out". Then we have the all mysterious Q. Not going to get into it here but many engineers swear the magic number is 1. Me I usually reside between 1 and 2.4 for my Q.

Understanding EQ is essential for music production and there is no quick fix (forget those presets). It takes time and dedication to learn but eventually you can pick out bad frequencies by simply listening to a track.

I start all my recording processes with everything in MONO and EQ each track so every instrument is sitting in it's own domain frequency wise (eliminates most phase issues immediately). Only after I am satisfied with my Mono mix do I even start adding compression, reverb, de-essers and whatnot.

Learn your EQ and everything else will fall in place

[brandondrury]

you never want to raise or lower any frequency by more than 5-6 dB. If you find the need then the problem lies within the track itself, time for a retake.

This isn't a terrible guideline, but you've got to be a little careful. I think it applies to "fixing'.

However, I don't think I've ever gotten the click of a death metal kick drum without at least 10dB of boost at 10k (sometimes 20dB). So there are exceptions in creativity land. Being creative is WAY different than "fixing".

[Gabriel_S]

Well that's quite true Brandon. My reference was certainly referring to the "fix situation". I've been known to boost to 20 db for certain effects. But with that said we can do that only with a real good recording to begin with. Try boosting an overly distorted guitar file sent to you where the wav file is one big box rather than having peaks and valleys in it ....