SUMMERY:

Knowing how to use an equalizer is a fundamental skill for anyone working with audio, Here are some tips on using your EQ more effectively.

Find The Frequency

Knowing what frequency to adjust is the most challenging thing for a beginner working with audio. With time you will begin to become aware of the most common frequencies, but a lot of the time we find ourselves dealing with something we just can't figure out what we want to get rid of, or what we want to hear more of. Here is an easy way to find the right frequency every time.

What you need is a parametric EQ, or at least an EQ that allows you to control the target frequency. I mostly use Digi's "excuse me, Avid's EQ7".


Start by boosting one of the bands all the way up. If the band has a “Q” control make it quite high (Q stands for “quality factor” and it controls how much on either side of the target frequency is being affected). Next it's usually best to select the piece of audio your working with and have it loop. Now play the sound and slowly sweep the frequency back and forth until you find the point where the tone you are looking to focus on is loudest. Make a note of the frequency and put the EQ back to zero. You now know the frequency where your target tone occurs and can cut or boost appropriately.

Think before you apply

Before you apply any eq think about where this instrument is going to sit in the mix. Always apply EQ in the mix. Don't just solo the instrument and play around with your EQ and expect it to sound great with everything else. A lot of the time a great guitar tone can sound terrible in a mix or buried under everything. Case in point a lot of the time a guitar track can sound terrible when you hit solo but works great with the rest of the mix. Obvioulsy we all tend to solo an instrument to get the fundamental tone we are after but that's where it should end.

It's always best practice to take the time at the very beginning of the recording process to think about what role every instrument has in the mix and plan its tone accordingly. This should affect your choice of instrument, mic, mic placement, and what sort of room you choose to record in.

Cut Narrow, Boost Wide

A good rule of thumb that when cutting it’s best to use a narrow (high) Q, while it is better to have a wide (low) Q when boosting. This will help keep your EQ subtle.

Make Cutting Your First Instinct

This took me a long time to figure out. Excessive EQ boosting in a mix usually results in muddiness and loss of clarity. Boosting instead of cutting can also lead to phasing problems. A quick note, phasing problems occur when waveforms get slightly out of alignment. The result to your tone can be drastic and is generally very undesirable—but I’ll leave the details of phase for another tutorial. Boosting should be done sparingly.

Make Some Room

The more instruments you have in your mix, the harder it will be to to keep it from getting muddy.

When a mix starts to get full, the more important it becomes to keep it from getting muddy. Each instrument needs its own place to sit in the mix, so always find that space by checking there are not a lot of overlapping frequencies accuring. The Hi Pass Filter is your friend. What's a Hi Pass Filter? Well it simply lets the hi frequencies filter through and cuts off everything below the desired amount. Use it on everything. I throw a EQ7 plug-in on EVERY track just to use the Hi Pass Filter. Even on tracks like vocals where you would think it doesn't have a lot of low end. 24 tracks of those kind of tracks can really eat up your head room. The best way to use it is to grab it, and slowly start to sweep until you actually hear it start to do something in terms of knocking off the bottom end, then roll it back off a bit so your not effecting the fundamental bottom end of that track.




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