Understanding EQ / Everthing in its own space

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Everything can be done digitally. I mean, you dont neeed million dollar hardware. No way. You can fix EQ, add warmth, add distorcion with plugins. Life changed and music production chganged and we need to take advantage of it. I do that every day. Pc's changed music, changbed my life..changed ideas, it made people like me and you musicians.

YOu need ideas to create a mix. Good ideas lead to great music.
 
This is not my bailiwick, I'm just giving this EQ-ing thing a try.

I use Waves Diamond. How would i go bout' putting 250-800Hz if the "Q" Value in the Waves Paragraphic EQ does not go beyond 100. :confused:
 
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fretsafire said:
...Now that having been said, someone who has an excellent grasp on all the concepts presented so well earlier in this thread (thanks a lot everyone!!!) and a significant amount of experience can make a better mix on budget equipment than someone who just buys the most expensive stuff he can find, and expects the price tag to dial it in for him.
Basically, from what i've seen, knowledge is more powerful than having the "world's best equpment", so read read read, then practice!
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Great advice!
 
Love this thread. Anyway I have a question. We've had a lot of talk about how we need to focus on how sounds sit with each other, and how it's even ok if a certain part doesn't sound so hot on it's own as long as it's sounding good in the mix. All good stuff, but what if you have a section of the song where instruments drop out and a part is solo'd for a few moments? Now you've got this thin sounding guitar all exposed, it sounded great with the bass under it filling in the lower freq's that you cut from it, but when standing alone it doesn't stand up. What are your responses to this issue?

My other question is, for absolute best results, if money was no issue, do you go software or hardware? And if you go hardware, do you go analogue or digital?

Lastly, at what stage in your mixing process do you apply EQ? And do you EQ individual parts, and also EQ again in submixes, and again on the final mixdown? I'm particularly interested in the final mixdown EQ, as there seem to be different issues there as opposed to the basic mix issues we've talked about such as notching to achieve clarity etc. What principles guide the final mixdown EQ?
 
Buddha said:
Love this thread. Anyway I have a question. We've had a lot of talk about how we need to focus on how sounds sit with each other, and how it's even ok if a certain part doesn't sound so hot on it's own as long as it's sounding good in the mix. All good stuff, but what if you have a section of the song where instruments drop out and a part is solo'd for a few moments? Now you've got this thin sounding guitar all exposed, it sounded great with the bass under it filling in the lower freq's that you cut from it, but when standing alone it doesn't stand up. What are your responses to this issue?
Click to expand...

Generally, a mix isn't static. Your levels, EQ's, etc. can change as the song itself changes. If your mixer, whether it be software or hardware, has automation, utilize it. Or you may want to send a channel to two seperate busses, and EQ the busses accordingly (one for a full mix and one for a solo, for example).
 
Apply envelopes to, say cut some out of a guitar while the vox are happening, then restore when the vocals end.

I've found that a tremendous amount of EQ tweaking is not usually necessary anyway. Only in some cases.

A few things which are universal are: maybe a 2db cut at 3hz from guitars to let vox cut through...a high pass filter on guitars at 100k, and a high pass filter on vox at 100-150 k.

Besides that, keep in mind while composing. Try to keep each instrument playing in a unique range to begin with...that's what Led Zeppelin used to do. That's why Plant sang in high registers so often.
When Plant sang in lower registers, Page's riffs were usually covering the high registers.
In this case, EQ is going to be minimal...if used at all.
 
Cool ... I take it that the guys who promote minimal EQ are more audio guys, recording real instruments. I know for me that if I'm using synthesised drums and bass then they just sound really tinny without EQ.

How about my other question: Do you guys recomend software of hardware EQ, and if hardware, analogue or digital? Right now I'm just using the EQ in Cubase and it's pretty limited.
 
i know ive been working with wave golds EQ and theyre not bad, got my alesis PEQ comin in so i can test that out, not top of the line but all i can affored, ive heard it used and i think its better than plugins...
 
I am planning to do some live covers work over backing tracks on Dat. I have imported tracks from CD into Cubase but found that eq'ing out the vocal degrades the rest of the track too much. Now I'm reduced to finding sections of the song with no vocal and cutting and pasting. I don't think it's going to work, so I'll probably be programming it all. Tried a bit of that today and it's a mess, music is close but the sounds are a world away. What can I expect though, trying to reproduce a Craig David track with a Roland XP80 and Cubase ...
 
I love the PSP MasterQ. It is really something...
On some things, I like the sound of the Voxengo GlissEQ. The Gliss is sweet, because it allows you to see your spectrum in real time - and you can open it up in more than one track and actually compare what each track is doing, eq-wise.
Sort of what we're talking about here, you can actually see where two instruments are fighting.
 
Hi all, this thread is totally amazing! Although I am not a producer I have learnt a lot about the importance of EQ and how to keep things under control or be able to hear multiple instruments.

My angle on things come from playing in a rock band. The band is 4 piece, two guitars, bass and drums. I do the singing and play rythm guitar. Is there anyone here who has any experience with live band set ups?. What's the best way to optimise the EQ so we can all hear each other clearly without needing to turn up. Turning up just seems to make the sound more mushier, muddier and annoyingly louder (feedback beckons ouch...). I always taperecord our practice sessions as well and recently I have cut down low end on my guitar and asked the bassist to mould his high/medium end and the overall clarity is improving. More advice would be useful though.
 
I know its been said 10x over in this one thread , but i have to give it up to you guys and gals here at FP. I cant believe there are so many people / producers that are willing to share their hard earned knowledge with people like me (the bothersome newbie) :) anyways...Much Praise to the creator of this website and to all the participants. Thank you.
 
I figure this is as good a thread as any to post this in.

I recently got Nuendo, and I notice that the eq's that come bundled with it do not include shelving eq/ low pass or high pass filters. Can anyone recomend some really good eq plug ins that have these features?

And while I'm here, same goes for compression plugins.
 
I spent my whole day avoiding my boss with this thread being minimized and opened numerous times on my desktop to read this thread.

I can hear the clarity of the music in my head already.

Thanx everyone and as a new member I would like to think Mano for his amazing vision in building this site.

Brilliant!!
 
Buddha said:
I recently got Nuendo, and I notice that the eq's that come bundled with it do not include shelving eq/ low pass or high pass filters.
Click to expand...

Yes they do! The LF and HF bands both allow you to set them for shelving, passing or adjustable Q.
 
my problem is this:

I often produce reggea/hiphop tracks at home consisting of:

- sampled electric bass (trilogy)
- kick
- snare
- organ sound riff (vst, b4)
- piano sound riff (sampler:Garritan ORCHESTRA)
- self-recorded acoustic riff
- self-recorded electric riff

I can't get the sound to shine as in burning spear, bob marley, lewinghton, black uhuru's tracks.

I use the following EQ setting (waves req EQ vst):

kick: low cut 40 hz; boost 80-100 hz +4 decibel
bass: low cut 50 hz; decrease 80-100 - 5
snare: low cut 120 hz; decrease 350-500 hz -6 decibel (this space is taken by the bass); increase 3000hz for snap
organ riff: low cutt 140 hz; decrease 250-400 hz, -4; decrease 500-800, -4
acoutic guitar riff: low cut 120, decrease 350-450 hz, decrease 400-800, -3, increase 7000-9000 hz for shine.
electric guitar riff: low cut 140 hz, decrease 150-400 hz. increase 3000-4000, +3

And still the sound is not clean enough. I pan the rifff at 100 left and right or sometimes at 55 % left and right. I use individual compressor and tube-emulators on each track (PSP saturator and Lm2).

any tips?
 
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