Short'n Snappy #2 - EQ

Hello All! This has been a strange week. I don't really know what has happened. Maybe it's just me and my wonky brain, but I have felt that I have had ample time to concentrate on my mixing thingies. In addition to this, I went out and listened some live bands. Did some some recordings for our project band (cant wait to get this one out). And on top of it all, our cover band seems to have activated in to a more active state. And I like it! There are of course still lots of stuff on my desk to be done, but still my mind seems to be slowly approaching Zen-state.

Short'n Snappy Equalization

Here's the second installment of my Short'n Snappy series, featuring the fundamental almost all-mighty equalizator. The standard tool of choice for the ever vigilant mixer, seeking clarity, separation and infinite tonal shaping possibilities. Onwards to the Short'n Snappy road to the sweet sweet EQ, Welcome!

What is this EQ?

The actual concept of EQ is quite simple. Sound (usually) consists of a wide selection of different frequencies combined together. Low bass sounds might consist of a mass of low frequencies and brighter instruments are more pronounced at the higher frequency area. Below you can see a snapshot of an acoustic guitar sound (from my mix of Dark Horses) as seen on a frequency chart. I captured two pictures from the same part, one without the track fx (including EQ) and one after my edits. As you can see, I molded the acoustic sound quite a bit.

Acoustic guitar before applying track fx - such as EQ

Same acoustic guitar after processing

EQ in essence, is just a set of volume faders working at different frequencies. If you want more bottom end to your sound, just raise the volume, say at the range of 30 - 200 Hz. Need a brighter sound? Lift the volume at high frequencies >6 kHz. Sound is too muddy? Lower the volume at lower end of the spectrum. Pretty simple when you think about it.

Why would I want to EQ anything?

The fundamental role of EQ is related to the overall balance of the tracks. After the tracks are balanced in volume (the static mix), EQ can be used clear the mix of overlapping clutter, so that all individual instruments can be distinctively heard. For example, two similar guitars playing concurrently can just cause a wall of sound where neither of the guitars can be heard. By allocating both guitars their own space in the spectral chart, they could be more separated from each other for a more clear presentation.

Two guitars with complementary EQ

One simple use for EQ comes to mind quite naturally, when considering sonic attributes in a normal listeners context. Welcome the tonal shaping of an instruments overall character. If the recorded instrument is too muddy or bright, fix it with the EQ. If that guitar has a sweet spot of character at 1 kHz, then turn that up. Also perhaps use complementary EQ on some other tracks to really pop that sweetness out of the mix. You can drop nasty resonances or wonky tone easily by lowering the annoying frequencies. EQ is a great way to enhance the good things of an instrument and hide the not so great parts. Just remember to EQ the instrument while playing the other tracks too, so you find the best sound for the whole mix. Nobody really cares what a particular instrument sounds like when soloed, if it isn't never alone in the song.

And of course, there is always an option to do some extreme shaping to achieve some crazy effects. Vocals can be Lo-Fi'ed or transformed to a telephonic style. This seems to be pretty common in many places and even I have used this in a couple of my mixes. If used all the time this might get old quite fast. Apply with taste and extreme prejudice.
 

Basic controls for EQ

EQs come in lot's of different forms. The traditional EQ with sliders for example the Kjaerhus Audio Classic EQ (as seen on the first picture in this text). These EQs mirrors the idea of simple slider adjusting certain frequencies. I will not dig in more to these as I hope the idea is quite self explanatory.

The graphic (or parametrical) EQs have different parameters that you can control, that will shape the EQ curve. I could briefly go through some of these terms for you to see, but as these often(?) have a graphic representation of the EQ, you can simply play with parameters until you see(hear!) something you like. Sorry about that ;) Instead, I will demonstrate my EQ for the acoustic guitar seen earlier. These include some pretty rough tonal modifications so viewer discretion is advised.

Enough jabbering. Lets get down to business!

My main EQ workflow consists of two EQs. I usually use Reapers own ReaEQ for the surgical sniping of bothersome frequencies and also major cuts and drastic molding. After that I introduce IK Multimedias T-RackS CS Classic EQ to shape the tone some more into the direction I feel it needs to go. Some might criticize (and perhaps with good reason) that two EQs are a waste of processing power, but that's how i roll. First the rough shape and then the flavor. Here's my first step with ReaEQ.

ReaEQ on the acoustic guitar

There was some quite heavy hi-pass filtering going on (1) cutting the booming low tones away and giving more room for the bass instruments to have fun with. I also caught two nasty resonant frequencies that I wanted to get rid off with some sharper cuts (2, 3). Last but not least, I felt that the acoustic sounded quite sweet somewhere on the 2 kHz area, so gave that a little boost (4). After this, the second EQ was applied.

T-RackS CS Classic EQ doing its thing

The interplay with ReaEQs points (1) and (2) made it so, that the (2) also pulled (1) down causing some acoustic body dropping from the 160 Hz area. I still wanted to keep the rough hi-pass from (1), so i kept it as it was and used the second EQ to do a slight 1.3 dB boost at 160 Hz. After that, my final move was to get the acoustic pop a little more out of the mix with a 3dB high shelf from around 2 kHz onwards. I definitely enjoyed the sparkle.

Be sure to check out this mix at Youtube and focus on the acoustic. The song starts with it, so you can easily hear what the overall sound of the instrument is (bright like I like it). And when the song really gets going, listen how the acoustic fits the mix. I personally think I did ok with this one.

 

Final words

I would have liked to put another example on this one, but I felt that the SHORT and snappy format was at risk. So I'll leave something for another blog. Lot's of interesting stuff coming on as we will explore 'the analog sound' and compare some EQs. Keep an eye/ear open!


Please leave a comment, how is your EQ today?