Finally using some EQ in my tracks. Its a big improvement and makes thigns sounds a bit better!
Does it really matter which EQ you use ? I can use the 31band grapheq but it eats away at my DSP. I can use simple EQ's in FLStudio which seem todo the trick.
I was hoping if someone could share their experience with differnt Scope EQ's, and if it really matters what you are using....
thanks
What EQ Do you use ?
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Counterparts
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FrancisHarmany
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using an eq is an artform.
here are a few tips:
1. the parametric eq is more flexible than the graphic eq, and sound better than fft eq.
2. the more Q you add the more the phase of the signal gets distorted. when possible use wide Qs
3. subtracting will sound cleaner than adding. its better to cut frequencies than to boost. for the simple fact is that when you boost you essentialy cut all of the other frequencies (its all a matter of balance) when you cut you have more precision in controling the tonal balance, and you wont loose most of your sound.
4. this is a matter of taste, but i prefer not to use shelfs. the low shelf will add even 20 hz to teh signal which you dont need, and the high shelf will add frequencies near nyquist which most eq's have a problem with. im my taste, bells are much more preferable for bass and trebble boosting or cutting
5. using a hipass filter you can cut rumbles and unwanted low end from the instrument. i usualy like to have my bass channel clean just kick and bass, and not to get any bass frequencies from all of the other instruments (low mids yes ofcourse!)
6. always check your eq against the bypassed version. does it actualy sound better after the proccess? maybe i boosted the qrong frequency? maybe i cut somewhere i shouldnt have?
7. linear phase eq's or minumum phase eq's are best for punchy transparent sound.
8. dont eq if you dont need to! its better to place the mic in the right place from the begining.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ReD_MuZe on 2006-08-30 06:18 ]</font>
here are a few tips:
1. the parametric eq is more flexible than the graphic eq, and sound better than fft eq.
2. the more Q you add the more the phase of the signal gets distorted. when possible use wide Qs
3. subtracting will sound cleaner than adding. its better to cut frequencies than to boost. for the simple fact is that when you boost you essentialy cut all of the other frequencies (its all a matter of balance) when you cut you have more precision in controling the tonal balance, and you wont loose most of your sound.
4. this is a matter of taste, but i prefer not to use shelfs. the low shelf will add even 20 hz to teh signal which you dont need, and the high shelf will add frequencies near nyquist which most eq's have a problem with. im my taste, bells are much more preferable for bass and trebble boosting or cutting
5. using a hipass filter you can cut rumbles and unwanted low end from the instrument. i usualy like to have my bass channel clean just kick and bass, and not to get any bass frequencies from all of the other instruments (low mids yes ofcourse!)
6. always check your eq against the bypassed version. does it actualy sound better after the proccess? maybe i boosted the qrong frequency? maybe i cut somewhere i shouldnt have?
7. linear phase eq's or minumum phase eq's are best for punchy transparent sound.
8. dont eq if you dont need to! its better to place the mic in the right place from the begining.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ReD_MuZe on 2006-08-30 06:18 ]</font>
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hubird
I think he means that a low shelf for example will increase anything below its frequency setting - including non-useful frequencies like 20 Hz. If you choose a parametric bell curve you can instead just affect the frequencies you want.
I don't think he meant that a low-shelf will generate 20Hz frequencies... that wouldn't be good at all.
I don't think he meant that a low-shelf will generate 20Hz frequencies... that wouldn't be good at all.
thanks darkrezin thats what i ment.
katano
if yu always need to eq every channel in the same way you should consider the 3 posibilities:
1) your room acoustics might be problematic in that frequency range (low mids).
2) your monitors have a problem with this frequency range (perhaps over emphasing the low end and low mids?)
3) your miking technique is to put the mic where the sound is louder - this is the wrong thing to do. you have to listen where the instrument would sound like the end result you want and put the mic there.
if a channel doesnt have any low content anyhow, it would be best to leave it alone. you may not hear alot of difference on solo channel, but when you mix you will start hearing phase issues, and the sound would be dull.
batch procceses in mixing is in my opinion wrong. each channel sounds diferent and needs (or on the good case doesnt need any) different procceses.
katano
if yu always need to eq every channel in the same way you should consider the 3 posibilities:
1) your room acoustics might be problematic in that frequency range (low mids).
2) your monitors have a problem with this frequency range (perhaps over emphasing the low end and low mids?)
3) your miking technique is to put the mic where the sound is louder - this is the wrong thing to do. you have to listen where the instrument would sound like the end result you want and put the mic there.
if a channel doesnt have any low content anyhow, it would be best to leave it alone. you may not hear alot of difference on solo channel, but when you mix you will start hearing phase issues, and the sound would be dull.
batch procceses in mixing is in my opinion wrong. each channel sounds diferent and needs (or on the good case doesnt need any) different procceses.
I don't really believe this when working in the digital domain.On 2006-08-30 06:15, ReD_MuZe wrote:
3. subtracting will sound cleaner than adding. its better to cut frequencies than to boost. for the simple fact is that when you boost you essentialy cut all of the other frequencies (its all a matter of balance) when you cut you have more precision in controling the tonal balance, and you wont loose most of your sound.
When you cut, your signal loses amplitude and you would need to boost it. I don't see the difference between a cut + boost than a additive (boost) approach.
Can you explain this?
When EQ-ing, if you boost stuff all the time you're going to lose headroom in the mixing bus.
You don't have a magical source of infinite loudness - boosting 1 element of the song will usually mean you have to make cuts to lots of other tracks.
EQ = equalization. This means that you're making lots of elements sit together in a mix better, by making 'pockets' for each element.
It's not meant to make everything sound 'big and fat' by boosting everything until it all just becomes louder and distorted and you have to turn it all down again.
Hope this makes sense.
You don't have a magical source of infinite loudness - boosting 1 element of the song will usually mean you have to make cuts to lots of other tracks.
EQ = equalization. This means that you're making lots of elements sit together in a mix better, by making 'pockets' for each element.
It's not meant to make everything sound 'big and fat' by boosting everything until it all just becomes louder and distorted and you have to turn it all down again.
Hope this makes sense.
true darkrezin,
it has to do alot of the technique of mixing, and proccess of work that will more easily lead to good results.
when you boost a bell, it is like you are denouncing the importance of the other frequencies a bit. in my experience, a well recorded channel will have more usefull frequency content than not. this means its better to leave the usefull frequency content and just cut out the not.
besides that, and i will not go into too many details, boosting creates more phase distortion than cutting.
to add 12db you have to add twice the signal from the filter (200%). to reduce 12db you have to subtract 3/4th of the signal (75%).
the less you add or subtract from the sound the less you degrade it.
hope thats clear enough.
im not saying "dont boost" im saying try cutting befor boosting. cutting will "fix" more problems than boosting statisticaly....
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ReD_MuZe on 2006-08-30 09:14 ]</font>
it has to do alot of the technique of mixing, and proccess of work that will more easily lead to good results.
when you boost a bell, it is like you are denouncing the importance of the other frequencies a bit. in my experience, a well recorded channel will have more usefull frequency content than not. this means its better to leave the usefull frequency content and just cut out the not.
besides that, and i will not go into too many details, boosting creates more phase distortion than cutting.
to add 12db you have to add twice the signal from the filter (200%). to reduce 12db you have to subtract 3/4th of the signal (75%).
the less you add or subtract from the sound the less you degrade it.
hope thats clear enough.
im not saying "dont boost" im saying try cutting befor boosting. cutting will "fix" more problems than boosting statisticaly....
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ReD_MuZe on 2006-08-30 09:14 ]</font>
I should have been clearer i think... this is only meant for a point to start! the creative process comes after that...On 2006-08-30 07:49, ReD_MuZe wrote:
thanks darkrezin thats what i ment.
katano
if yu always need to eq every channel in the same way you should consider the 3 posibilities:
1) your room acoustics might be problematic in that frequency range (low mids).
2) your monitors have a problem with this frequency range (perhaps over emphasing the low end and low mids?)
3) your miking technique is to put the mic where the sound is louder - this is the wrong thing to do. you have to listen where the instrument would sound like the end result you want and put the mic there.
if a channel doesnt have any low content anyhow, it would be best to leave it alone. you may not hear alot of difference on solo channel, but when you mix you will start hearing phase issues, and the sound would be dull.
batch procceses in mixing is in my opinion wrong. each channel sounds diferent and needs (or on the good case doesnt need any) different procceses.
appreciate your comments, but like to say something more to explain and refine how it works for me. furthermore, i have to say i'm a non pro, but got some sae reference material for studying.
To your 1)
You're right, i have a room accoustic problem in the lower mids and low end range caused of a lack of bass traps. nevertheless i often hear mud sounding records (no pro stuff indeed), and it works great to reduce that mud. maybe it's not neccessary to do it in each channel. I mostly lower some "muddy" freqs on guitar tracks.
2) my monitors are fine
3) how do you know my miking technique?
I didn't understand why i should get phase problems when i do a lowcut on some tracks, can you explain this further, please?
Lets say i record a guitar with 3 miks. Shure if i do a lowcut, i have to do it exactly the same on all 3 recorded channels. but why should this give me other phase issues on the rest of the channels?? *confused-i-am*
I don't like the batch based mixing, eighter, but this is how it's teached by sae... first, clean your channels, remove unneeded audio material (if you don't gate it), then lowcut and highcut the channels to reduce the noise... this is more ore less batch... then, the creative process starts. this is only how sae teaches it, it does for shure no match to every project or personal taste, but for me as a hobby musican, it works fine...
cheers
Roman
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: katano on 2006-08-30 09:30 ]</font>
lowcut/highcut to remove noise? Are they still using tape at SAE? 
Low-cut I can understand, in order to remove muddiness. But highcut?
And would you low-cut everything, even bass/kicks?
The advice you have extracted is not necessarily false - it could indeed be one approach to the first stages of a mix.
However, it's probably a bit dangerous to follow that SAE manual like a bible and use it on absolutely everything.
I'd agree with Red - it's great to know certain processes/tricks, but to use them on everything without thinking about it is dangerous. It's better to approach each track independently and listen to it to find out what it needs.
The less processing of ANY kind, the better. EQ and also compression are usually a 'problem-solving' technique.
Low-cut I can understand, in order to remove muddiness. But highcut?
And would you low-cut everything, even bass/kicks?
The advice you have extracted is not necessarily false - it could indeed be one approach to the first stages of a mix.
However, it's probably a bit dangerous to follow that SAE manual like a bible and use it on absolutely everything.
I'd agree with Red - it's great to know certain processes/tricks, but to use them on everything without thinking about it is dangerous. It's better to approach each track independently and listen to it to find out what it needs.
The less processing of ANY kind, the better. EQ and also compression are usually a 'problem-solving' technique.
your right low mids is a problematic zone, and by bad acoustics, or impropper miking, those frequencies can sound muddy.On 2006-08-30 09:26, katano wrote:
To your 1)
You're right, i have a room accoustic problem in the lower mids and low end range caused of a lack of bass traps. nevertheless i often hear mud sounding records (no pro stuff indeed), and it works great to reduce that mud. maybe it's not neccessary to do it in each channel. I mostly lower some "muddy" freqs on guitar tracks.
however with proper miking, tuning of the instruments and arrangement, the low-mids can sound fantastic and you can actualy have alot of them without souning muddy, but FAT.
i dont. i wrote you should consider it. i dont know how you record obviously, but cutting low-mids usualy means that the miking is made from the loudest point, and not the most balanced one.
3) how do you know my miking technique?
every filter introduces phase distortion. this can be emphased by another channel that has a diferent phase distortion. ofcourse of you eq all channels the same way you will get the same phase distortion for all channels. but lets say your dealing with drums, orchestra, vocal duet, recording a guitar amp and the string pics together and more and more...I didn't understand why i should get phase problems when i do a lowcut on some tracks, can you explain this further, please?
Lets say i record a guitar with 3 miks. Shure if i do a lowcut, i have to do it exactly the same on all 3 recorded channels. but why should this give me other phase issues on the rest of the channels?? *confused-i-am*
btw if your recording the guitar in 3 channels, a way to avoid using eq, is to align the time of all of teh channels and compensate between the distances of the mics with a sample delay.
mixing is not science. its art aided by science. no book can tell you how to do your art. some of arts greatest aspects, is to learn the rules and then once you know them, you can break them. this is what makes your art unique.
regarding low shelf:
you could put a low cut around 30Hz and then use a low shelf if you need to boost some lows.
regarding phase distortion:
to make it even more complicated, it is not a phase shift in regard to another channel but in regard to frequency. Better said by sending a signal through a filter, some but not all signal frequencies are shifted depending on bandwidth, frequency, gain and filter kind.
linear phase filters don't exhibit this behaviour.
btw, an EQ is a kind of distiortion as well.
have fun !
you could put a low cut around 30Hz and then use a low shelf if you need to boost some lows.
regarding phase distortion:
to make it even more complicated, it is not a phase shift in regard to another channel but in regard to frequency. Better said by sending a signal through a filter, some but not all signal frequencies are shifted depending on bandwidth, frequency, gain and filter kind.
linear phase filters don't exhibit this behaviour.
btw, an EQ is a kind of distiortion as well.
have fun !