Learning to EQ, how to approach it??

[J.DavisNJ]

I know this seems like a very general question. I'm getting much better at obtaining suitable guitar sounds with just one SM57, but want to know where to go from here. Like most guys here, I learn most of what I know from reading your posts and other stuff online.

Once I have a suitable guitar sound, drum sound (DFH superior), some bass, and vocals...what is next?

How do you guys approach EQing? How do you know which areas to EQ for a guitar sound? Do you look at the waveform and go from there? Tame the low end a bit?

Also, compression on vocals...how should I approach this??

If anyone can point me in the right direction, that would be great. I'm very new to EQing and post processing, so bare with me.

Lastly, if there are some great books out there that I should read, let me know!

Thanks.

-Joe

 

[smy1]

Never LOOK at a waveform. Just listen. You will know what area to EQ by comparing to a recording you really like.

The way I do it is this: switch off the EQ, listen to the sound you want to EQ and imagine how you'd want this sound to change and what you want it to sound like. Dial in an EQ, let's say -5db at 700hz with a Q of 1.5. Now switch on the EQ. You'll instantly hear what you dialed in. If you dislike it: switch off the EQ and change your settings. If you like it, cool.

Doing it this way has a few advantages to random sweeping:

a) you will learn what the frequencies sound like and you will be able to pick them out better after a while ("oh, this guitar needs less of 1,5khz")
b) you choose your sound in your head first and then try to aim for that sound, instead of just "getting what you come up with" by wildly EQing around
c) you won't look very busy, but you'll be quite fast after some time.

Try it, you'll like it.

 

[J.DavisNJ]

Never LOOK at a waveform. Just listen. You will know what area to EQ by comparing to a recording you really like.

The way I do it is this: switch off the EQ, listen to the sound you want to EQ and imagine how you'd want this sound to change and what you want it to sound like. Dial in an EQ, let's say -5db at 700hz with a Q of 1.5. Now switch on the EQ. You'll instantly hear what you dialed in. If you dislike it: switch off the EQ and change your settings. If you like it, cool.

Doing it this way has a few advantages to random sweeping:

a) you will learn what the frequencies sound like and you will be able to pick them out better after a while ("oh, this guitar needs less of 1,5khz")
b) you choose your sound in your head first and then try to aim for that sound, instead of just "getting what you come up with" by wildly EQing around
c) you won't look very busy, but you'll be quite fast after some time.

Try it, you'll like it.

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

For your examples, are you referring more to a parametric EQ?? The "hz" and "khz" examples also are new to me. I'm not much into the technical aspect of EQing yet, I guess I need to read up more on that.

Yes, I see what you are saying about EQing with your ears. I think I need to treat my room before anything actually.

-Joe

 

[smy1]

Hey Joe,

yes, treat your room first. Then pick up the book "The Mixing Engineers Handbook" by Bobby Owsinski. It will teach you the absolutely neccessary basics at first and months/years later you will come back to the cool interviews in the book and learn tricks that you were unable to understand in the beginning.

Happy EQing!

 

[J.DavisNJ]

Hey Joe,

yes, treat your room first. Then pick up the book "The Mixing Engineers Handbook" by Bobby Owsinski. It will teach you the absolutely neccessary basics at first and months/years later you will come back to the cool interviews in the book and learn tricks that you were unable to understand in the beginning.

Happy EQing!

Thanks much for the replies! I was just looking at that book actually. I might take a ride to the bookstore today to see if they have it.

As far as treating my room, I'm not looking to do any significant "construction" to it, but would definitely want to add the necessary bass traps, etc.

Would you think that appropriately place bass traps in the corners, on the walls, coupled with good monitor placement would be sufficient?

It's a fairly "echoey" room with wooden floors. I don't want it to sound totally dead either, ya know?

-Joe

 

[smy1]

Check this thread: http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...ou-not-thinking-about-treating-your-room.html

It should answer all the questions you may have.

 

[Grave Desire]

Great replies already, I guess I'm not adding much but kind of agreeing with the previous statements. But definitely work on subtractive EQing first rather than boosting. Alot of times you think your instruments/mix needs more clairty and you might want to boost the high end, but alot of the times if you just do a nice cut in the low/low mids the clairty will come right through, and your giving more room for other instruments in the mix.

But then again there are really no rules, Colin came on the board and talked about all the freq's he sometimes boosts after he tracks guitars, but I think he's expierienced enough to know when to boost rather than cut.

 

[J.DavisNJ]

Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated.

-Joe

 

[ahjteam]

Basic glossary
Filter aka equalizer aka EQ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization
dB = logarithmic audio-unit, that indicated sound pressure level (aka SPL) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel
boost = increase amount, eg +2.1dB
cut = decrease amount, eg -3.7dB
Filter frequenzy aka hz aka hertz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertz
khz = kilohertz, and you already knew that kilo means 1000 (if you went to school), so then 3khz means 3000hz and 3.1khz is 3100hz etc
Subtractive EQ = an EQ that only cuts and doesn't boost, on electronics it would be called "passive" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtractive_synthesis
Q = width of the filter, usually within 0.25 and 3 octaves

Filtertypes are "peak", "notch/bandpass", "hi/lo-shelf" "hi/lo-pass". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_design#The_frequency_function
peak is something that looks like a spike or a bell
notch removes a certain area completely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notch_filter
bandpass does the opposite and leaves only that certain area http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandpass_filter
lowshelf boosts basses, highshelf boosts treble
highpass removes basses, lowpass removes treble http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-pass_filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-pass_filter

Also this is my sig in KVR audio forums just because it gets asked so frequently:
"Basic EQ tip: highpass all that don't hit subs, usually all but bass and kick"
This gives more room for kick and bass to work and increases clarity on the bottom end

A short story about yesterday...
I was doing a mix last night (oh wait, I just woke up and its 2am now, so it must've been day when I was mixing... fokken darkness) and I doing EQing for kick and when I was switching the bandtype from "bypass", then I accidentally clicked on the "notch filter" instead of a "peak" in the EQ and I had the Cubase tapesaturation plugin (Magneto) after that and I was amazed that the notch filter actually sounded really f*cking good. The filterfrequenzy was right at the middle of the mud by default, so guess it was between 400-800 (I usually use subtractive EQ style around that area when I'm mixing bands live, so I was not wondering why it sounded good), but I was amazed how F*CKING GOOD it sounded when I actually widened it up a little and it sounded even better! I mean, sometimes good accidents happen.

I really suggest that if you don't have a treated room, put that on high priority on your TODO-listen and while waiting start using headphones and your current system and then start using EQ. After you are done, listen to your finished product with different systems and then fix if something needs to be fixed. This way you can get much faster to actually "doing the thing" instead of first redecorating your room for one month. But remember to rest your ears, they can get really tired after 30 minutes of mixing. I suggest 20-30 mins mixing, 5-10 mins break, repeat. And mix with your ears, not eyes. To find out what sounds like shit, boost any free band +9..15dB and then start slowly sweeping the frequency and stop when you find it. Then cut it, until it start to sound good again.

 

[JBroll]

One thing that helped me a great deal was to just take a parametric EQ, boost something as high as it'll go (usually about 20dB), and sweep it up and down to figure out what regions sound like in given contexts.

Jeff

 

[J.DavisNJ]

Basic glossary
Filter aka equalizer aka EQ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization
dB = logarithmic audio-unit, that indicated sound pressure level (aka SPL) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel
boost = increase amount, eg +2.1dB
cut = decrease amount, eg -3.7dB
Filter frequenzy aka hz aka hertz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertz
khz = kilohertz, and you already knew that kilo means 1000 (if you went to school), so then 3khz means 3000hz and 3.1khz is 3100hz etc
Subtractive EQ = an EQ that only cuts and doesn't boost, on electronics it would be called "passive" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtractive_synthesis
Q = width of the filter, usually within 0.25 and 3 octaves

Filtertypes are "peak", "notch/bandpass", "hi/lo-shelf" "hi/lo-pass". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_design#The_frequency_function
peak is something that looks like a spike or a bell
notch removes a certain area completely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notch_filter
bandpass does the opposite and leaves only that certain area http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandpass_filter
lowshelf boosts basses, highshelf boosts treble
highpass removes basses, lowpass removes treble http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-pass_filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-pass_filter

Also this is my sig in KVR audio forums just because it gets asked so frequently:
"Basic EQ tip: highpass all that don't hit subs, usually all but bass and kick"
This gives more room for kick and bass to work and increases clarity on the bottom end

A short story about yesterday...
I was doing a mix last night (oh wait, I just woke up and its 2am now, so it must've been day when I was mixing... fokken darkness) and I doing EQing for kick and when I was switching the bandtype from "bypass", then I accidentally clicked on the "notch filter" instead of a "peak" in the EQ and I had the Cubase tapesaturation plugin (Magneto) after that and I was amazed that the notch filter actually sounded really f*cking good. The filterfrequenzy was right at the middle of the mud by default, so guess it was between 400-800 (I usually use subtractive EQ style around that area when I'm mixing bands live, so I was not wondering why it sounded good), but I was amazed how F*CKING GOOD it sounded when I actually widened it up a little and it sounded even better! I mean, sometimes good accidents happen.

I really suggest that if you don't have a treated room, put that on high priority on your TODO-listen and while waiting start using headphones and your current system and then start using EQ. After you are done, listen to your finished product with different systems and then fix if something needs to be fixed. This way you can get much faster to actually "doing the thing" instead of first redecorating your room for one month. But remember to rest your ears, they can get really tired after 30 minutes of mixing. I suggest 20-30 mins mixing, 5-10 mins break, repeat. And mix with your ears, not eyes. To find out what sounds like shit, boost any free band +9..15dB and then start slowly sweeping the frequency and stop when you find it. Then cut it, until it start to sound good again.

Whoa...thanks for all the info man. I'm gonna dive in right now. Much appreciated! Oh, I know someone studying in Helsinki.

JBroll, yeah...I suppose experimentation is the best way to learn any of this stuff, combined with a good amount of technical information too.

-Joe