Eq clarification

duckstep

Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2012
I've been kinda bummed out not being able to get good sound and not understanding the reason to why. Finally snapped out of it and went back to the drawing board and think that i figured out what i was doing wrong, the eqing.

So i've read everywhere that your meant to leave each part of a instrument a own part @ the spectrum to let it shine. I was cutting out everything except x frequency on every instrument(i understod it as mud cleanup rather than mud reduction).
Sufficed to say my drums got that shit sound.
:oops_sign

Anyhow, to the question of the topic. Im looking for a clarification in the most practical sense on how you do the eqing to split up the instruments, ie how much do you cut out/boost to make a instrument stand out.
Maybe a stupid question but im trying to understand so i can find a logic on how to do the eqing, feel free to post a picture of your spectrum of different instruments.

Thanks
 
There was a nice chart of the frequency spectrum with some basic sounds and their range, tho every sound is different in many ways so best way should be adjusting them differently and watching where they land. Basic rules there are of course but they only work in so many occasions. I'd suggest tho the snare punches around 100-200hz, cut everything below, reverb into highend, low freq reverbs make it muddy, kickdrum punches around 100hz, depending the tune you are making and such electro house shizz usually goes down to 50hz. Hats and such are usually left only highend, but they may start sounding very thin shizzle. It's all about the sample. Where it has it's loudest point in spectrum is where it punches so avoid collisions. Sidechaining does help with colliding, all about mixing every elemt together.

Someone who has more time could find some of the charts that show typical mixdown.
 
I'd suggest tho the snare punches around 100-200hz, cut everything below,
Everything as in clean the spectrum so theres nothing left sub 100 or as in lower most of it? If first then is this special case eqing that you dont use on everything?
What i mean is if you cut off all sub 100 on a bass a lot of the good parts of it disappear, or do you automate eq cutoff specifically when there is only instruments aligning?

kicksss.png

And to clarify topic question i supplied a picture, what i want to see is how much do you let the part standing out of the spectrum be higher than rest(poor paint skills and not how typical eq is shaped but just a clear way to describe it).
 
for kiks and snares yes you dont want anything below 100 (or thereabouts).** for DNB music**
you sub nass needs to live up to 100 - so low pass your subbass and high pass everything else at say 100.

I get problems with bass eq'ing. Some bass frequencies overlap with kick and snare frequencies.
If you completely cut them out then the bass sounds shite. guess at times like that you need to use sidechain compresion or something else.

would liek to know how people eq a bass that has niceness in the snare/kik range so it dont sound lame
 
You can't make it sound good when you cut those freq's yes. I'd say it's done by sidechaining. I use it alot.

Here is some snare and kick eq's from my projects, these are very minimal adjustments and there is compressing and such involved also.

13513016.png
 
for kiks and snares yes you dont want anything below 100 (or thereabouts).** for DNB music**
you sub nass needs to live up to 100 - so low pass your subbass and high pass everything else at say 100.

I get problems with bass eq'ing. Some bass frequencies overlap with kick and snare frequencies.
If you completely cut them out then the bass sounds shite. guess at times like that you need to use sidechain compresion or something else.

would liek to know how people eq a bass that has niceness in the snare/kik range so it dont sound lame

I usually leave a gap between my sub and my mid bass to let the kick punch through, and i cut a little gap out of the mid bass for the snare to poke through, i find that the sound isnt really affected when i do this tbh, but if it is you can sidechain like you say

And cutting kicks off at 100 seems a bit extreme to me, I usually cut them off lower than that. Check where your sub bass is peaking on a spectrum analyzer and as long as your kick is peaking at higher than these areas you should be fine

Snares are fine to cut off at 100 tho, i usually cut them off a bit higher say 150hz.
 
Thanks for the replys, think i got the drum eqing down now, interested to see something about other instruments eqing in practice with example.
 
You can't make it sound good when you cut those freq's yes. I'd say it's done by sidechaining. I use it alot.

Here is some snare and kick eq's from my projects, these are very minimal adjustments and there is compressing and such involved also.

13513016.png

This.

I used to be of the mindset the steep cuts/aggressive separation of low end elements was the way to go...but now I think a bit of overlap (like in Elzerk's screen grabs) creates a more natural, cohesive overall sound between the instruments.
 
Pitch plays an important part too. Rehaping with eq will get you so far but choosing samples that actually hit in the area you want them hit to start with will make it easier.
 
Pitch plays an important part too. Rehaping with eq will get you so far but choosing samples that actually hit in the area you want them hit to start with will make it easier.

THIS! make a beat and make sure its already sounding nice before you even start processing it, your drums have gotta be in tune, if you put a sample in and it sounds wack even after tuning take it out and try another one. After a while your ears will start to pick out good samples that are in key. then once you've got your nice beat do your EQ and other processes and your nice beat will sound even better. you definately cant polish a turd.
 
I usually leave a gap between my sub and my mid bass to let the kick punch through, and i cut a little gap out of the mid bass for the snare to poke through, i find that the sound isnt really affected when i do this tbh, but if it is you can sidechain like you say

And cutting kicks off at 100 seems a bit extreme to me, I usually cut them off lower than that. Check where your sub bass is peaking on a spectrum analyzer and as long as your kick is peaking at higher than these areas you should be fine

Snares are fine to cut off at 100 tho, i usually cut them off a bit higher say 150hz.

Agree with all of this. I would say my kicks are usually in the 65 to 90 hz range and typically just fit the sub below that or arrange them to not overlap.
 
How do you make the vocals stand out without raping the sound? Since most vocals cover a big part of the spectrum and sidechaining wouldnt be viable as it would lower all the other sounds completly
 
How do you make the vocals stand out without raping the sound? Since most vocals cover a big part of the spectrum and sidechaining wouldnt be viable as it would lower all the other sounds completly

For me personally, vocals are the biggest pain in the dick of the lot for a couple reasons--but there are ways around certain pitfalls:

- A lot of times I find what may sound "even" in the monitors turns out to be a bit loud on typical audio systems, so I have to rely heavily on A/Bing with a professional tune with vocals to try to get the levels about right. I think it has to do with the fact that the freq range of vocals sits in the most dominant part of the spectrum where the human ear can pick up sound–I could be completely wrong with this statement so correct me if I am.

- Sometimes I find the vocals just aren't cutting through the mix. I've found that a bitcrusher set to hi-resolution (24bit) with very minimal drive & no downsampling can do wonders in helping cut through the mix by giving it a bit of extra drive. You can also do this by setting up a send to a bus with overdrive and just applying a very subtle amount of signal to the bus.

- Surgically eqing out the mud is a huge help. You have to be sure not to go at it too long or else listener's fatigue start's to kick in and your vocal ends up sounding muffled and flat. Also, cutting out some of the offending frequencies from other sounds occupying prime vocal frequencies (roughly around 500Hz, 1000Hz and 2000Hz) can help as well.

- Subtle FX can add a nice touch. I've recently found that using Logic's pedal board with the pedal that emulates a "singing" Leslie effect (sorry, the name of the pedal escapes me at the moment) really adds nice character without making the vocal sound watered down. The effect is similar to the vocal on Drumsound & Bassline Smith's "Close."

Cheers.
 
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Not really about Eq but a question about sidechaining on percussion. Do you use it? And if so in what scenarios?

Im using a lot of different hihats and breaks on my current beat and started thinking about doing it but aint sure if it would be practical and work.
 
Not really about Eq but a question about sidechaining on percussion. Do you use it? And if so in what scenarios?

Im using a lot of different hihats and breaks on my current beat and started thinking about doing it but aint sure if it would be practical and work.

Works a treat mate, I use it all the time, bus all your percussion together and sidechain to either the snare or the kick and snare (if you wanna do that bus the kick and snare to one bus, then use that bus as the sidechain signal) high ratio, high knee, little attack, play with threshold and release to get your percussion pumping right. not only does it make your percussion sound great it also lets your kick and snare punch through loads more :)
 
Thanks for all the replys, im really starting to learn mixing.

Playing around with a break where i sent it to 2 different channels hi/mid end, and sidechained kick+snare to the middle one so i still kept the high end.

Music is so awesome, the sky is the limit! Also they should really add the amount of effects you can have on one mixer track in fl studio, have to send it to another one to keep adding. :cry:
 
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Elzerk-

When you made the cuts on the kick in your example, does that make an audible difference? Obviously the HP is audible, I'm more referring to the cuts at 600 and around 2k. Is that something you can hear or did you just cut there to make room for something else which peaks at those frequencies? I'm having a lot of trouble getting my EQ right (been a member for 5 minutes here, but been doing music for MUCH longer, lol), I tend to over-do the cuts, and when I come back to it later, my drums sound thin. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm cutting until I can hear an audible difference, but I find that sometimes it'll take a lot more than what you've got there (6-10 dB, not in all cases, but often). I guess I'm just wondering if you can actually hear the difference between it being cut at 600 and not cut at 600 with the kick solo'd.
 
Looking at his pictures unless he have 2-4 more eqs/high passes that he aint showing us he's leaving a bit of the "cut"(its more like lowered) spectrum remaining.
 
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