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Posted by Fenix6448 on Oct-10-2008 23:17:

Working the EQ's

So I'm growing in my mixing skills, and I want to work on my EQing now.

When I first started, for the most part I left the mids and highs alone, and only switched the lows when appropriate.

I know this is inappropriate and sounds sloppy to the trained ear.

The question is - how do you guys EQ? I know every mix should be different and adjusted as needed, but is there a pattern you guys seem to follow? Playing with the highs last, slowing changing your levels or just slamming them, not touching certain EQs, etc?

Any explanations/hints would help!

Cheers!

Edit: Also, I've noticed that now I tend to bring the volume of a channel all the way up before adjusting EQ's because they are relatively low and unnoticeable to my ear when making the adjustments. Should the EQing be done before full volume is reached?

Posted by woscar on Oct-11-2008 04:54:

Whatever sounds good, I guess.

Anyway, I find that I play with the mids and highs first adjusting as I see fit, kinda like slowly bringing in the melody in the coming track. Then I begin to switch the lows, sometimes it's a slam and sometimes I gradually lower the bass on the track that's going out while bringing it in in the track I'm introducing at about the same ratio. Whatever works best. Also, I am by no means an expert...I'm still learning and this is what I've found to work for me

Posted by Trance Nutter on Oct-11-2008 06:48:

just experiment and find your own method.

Theres no rules or 'proper' way to djing, just do your own thing and find your own style.

Posted by n3lly on Oct-11-2008 14:05:

quote:
Originally posted by Trance Nutter
just experiment and find your own method.

Theres no rules or 'proper' way to djing, just do your own thing and find your own style.

While I love the way this forum is notorious for using the above line I also think sometimes people just want to hear which way you do something. Not because they are trying to find an easy way out of doing something but just to have something to compare.

I personally have had no mates to bounce ideas off as i'm the only one who dj's out of my friends. Therefore everything i've ever done has been self taught. I would love to have someone to get tips and tricks from but that's why I visit this site I suppose.

I'm still getting used to my Xone 92 but the way i'm doing things at the moment is:

A song is playing out.
I cut all the bass and lower the mids of the incoming track.
If the highs need a slight bit of adjusting as they're clashing I drop them just a little bit.
I then usually put the fader right up as with the EQ's turned down slightly the channel shouldn't add too much extra volume.
You should be able to hear the highs a little at this point.

Next step is messing around with lows and mids. Depending on the position of the track I might kill the mids completely on the song that is playing out. Wait a little while and then introduce the mids of the new song.

At the same time i might kill the lows on the song that is playing out so there's no bass at all. Everything goes quite and then you just drop the new bass line in.
Other times i introduce the cued lows in slowly while reducing the lows from the song that is playing out.

As you can see, The reason why Trance Nutter said "do what sounds good' is that there are literally 1,000s of ways to go about this.

Sometimes i'll use the crossfader (rarely) and chop one song in then snap right back out of it.

Anyway, I'm in the mood to spin a few tunes now lol..

Posted by Zild on Oct-11-2008 15:11:

I use mainly the channel faders with just a little bit of EQ to make sure my levels don't spike or drop out. I find most beginner to intermediate DJs abuse the EQs way too much. If you program your set properly you hardly have to touch them. When you do use them make small cuts to open up space for another song to fill without increasing the overall volume level of your mix.

Posted by Dj Gracjan on Oct-11-2008 16:42:

i usually just hit the mids.

everything stated below is in terms of a clock. eg. 10 O'clock

- I always have my knobs @ 12
- I put the mid to about 10on the incoming tune then i either
- Slam the volume of the incoming song to about 7-8 OR gradually increase the volume as i see fit for the particular situation.
- I slowly start putting the mid to 12 while slowly taking the other mid down to about 10
- then i eventually slam the volume full on the incoming while lowering the other song slightly to avoid clashing and sounds better (imo)
- then i either change the low's or mix them in depenind on the sound again. when I mix them I tend to hit the incoming one to about 7 while lowering the main one to about 10 and then eventually either switch them opposite or just hit the one and kill the other

Posted by Neo95gt on Oct-11-2008 16:56:

I'm a pretty big nooob but have taught myself everything as I don't have any friends that dj either, but here's how I do it.

-As song is playing out I start the new song in beat and phrase with volume all the way down

-I then raise the volume with the eq's slightly down, sometimes I raise it slowly, sometimes all at once, sometimes little by little on the beat. Either way it's not huge of difference since the eq's are down a little

-Then, depending on what I think will sound good I start bringing in and out the lows, mids and highs. I don't just kill the eqs on the song going out, they're pretty small adjustments. I do this all on beat and try to do big adjustments at the beginning of a new phrase. If a song has strong lows or mids you may want to be sensitive around that because if you take it out too fast it may sound fucked up. Or if the mids on the song going out are really grooving with the incoming track, maybe some light vocals, you might want to keep them up longer than usual, etc. Either way, it ends up with the oncoming song being at full volume with full eq with the other outgoing song having lowered eqs and volume.

-When the incoming song, now basically the primary song playing, I kill the other song (that you can still hear slightly, depending on situation) at the start of a new phrase. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

Also, always gotta check your levels to make sure the volume isn't dropping out or spiking.....lowered volume levels can really kill the mix. Gotta watch out for those quiet songs.

Anyways, I have no idea if what I'm doing is right or what, but would like to see what other people do

Posted by Yohan on Oct-11-2008 22:23:

My take
For prog and trance: blend
For techno, tech trance, minimal: cut

Posted by Storyteller on Oct-12-2008 07:17:

I cut and boost as I see fit. A lot of times all my eq's are on -inf when I start mixing in. Or the lows to -inf and higs + mids at 9/10 o'clock ish.

Posted by sleepydragon on Oct-12-2008 16:43:

i never touch the mids and dont turn the highs that far down cant see the point in using mid seems like to much like messing around when you dont even need to use them.

Posted by ZeJayMan on Oct-12-2008 22:38:

i reckon this is worth a sticky

Posted by CiTrus on Oct-12-2008 22:58:

do you guys ever mixed and realized everytime you bring in a new track in the volume will get much louder or so in the waveform once its recorded.

that means crappy EQing? normally what do you guys do to the outgoing track when u bring the incoming track in to make the volume as balanced as possible, other than perfect EQing?

Posted by Zild on Oct-12-2008 23:03:

Posted by Storyteller on Oct-13-2008 07:08:

quote:
Originally posted by CiTrus
do you guys ever mixed and realized everytime you bring in a new track in the volume will get much louder or so in the waveform once its recorded.

that means crappy EQing? normally what do you guys do to the outgoing track when u bring the incoming track in to make the volume as balanced as possible, other than perfect EQing?

I don't do anything. When you record a transition it's obvious there's a volume increase. But the increase in power is not to apparent to the average listener. The low frequencies contain the most power and I almost always have one on -inf and the other at 0dB to make sure there won't be any rediculous peaks in the recording. I also afterwards process the recording with a limiter to even those peaks out, just as they do in any proper club . If you want to mix super clean I guess you should be a bit more careful, but I really don't care that much because it already sounds good in my ears.

Posted by JD8180 on Oct-13-2008 08:40:

Posted by C3sharp on Nov-06-2008 19:46:

quote:
Originally posted by ZeJayMan
i reckon this is worth a sticky

Or at least a bump. There's some good info/opinions in here.

Posted by elFreak on Nov-06-2008 20:34:

quote:
Originally posted by Zild
I use mainly the channel faders with just a little bit of EQ to make sure my levels don't spike or drop out. I find most beginner to intermediate DJs abuse the EQs way too much. If you program your set properly you hardly have to touch them. When you do use them make small cuts to open up space for another song to fill without increasing the overall volume level of your mix.

that works fine on 2 decks, but try doing this on 3 and it simply will not work. Eq is a tool that is great for creativity.

Posted by PutBoy on Nov-06-2008 21:17:

These are some of the things I do:

* This is what I pretty much always do. The track I mix in I generally lower the bass to about halfway to the lowest. I guess that's 9 'oclock. At an appropriate phase-shift, or rather a couple of beats before, I start to lower the base on the original track. At 4 bars before the phase-shift, I kill the bass on the track I'm mixing in. Having the bass killed allows me to set the bass to 12 o'clock on that channel. At the phase-shift, or rahter milliseconds before it, I unkill the bass. I find that not killing the base, and instead just setting the bass to 12 o'clock, you often either set it a tad too low or a tad too high, and you will spend a second resetting it properly. I find that doing this while having the bass killed instead, before I need the bass in the track, allows for more smootheness.

I call this switching the bassline, because that is really what you do. Works really well if you have a track that starts of with its baseline as a mix-in track. Or if the baselines are just running simultaniously.

* For vocals: Lower the mid on the track without vocals. This makes the vocals a bit more clear. You can also raise the mid in the track with vocals. For male vocals, you might also consider fidging with the lows. For female vocals, the same applies to the highs. This is especially usefull if the other track has a melody in it that would otherwise deafen the vocals.

* Here is what I use the hi for: before I mix in a track, I listen to both tracked mixed in the cue channel. I try to determine if the track I'm mixing in has more hihat than the other track. In that case I will lower the highs until the hihats doesn't stick out. If you ever made a mix, you know that some track will have these hihats that just sticks out too damn much. Lowering the highs really help making mixing in such tracks more seemless. I will generally reset the highs at an appropriate phase shift. Sometimes I will gradually raise it during the blend as well.

I do not recommend raising the hi's if the opposite is true (if the first track has more highs that sticks out). In that case, I just gradually lower the highs on the first track during the blend.

* "One step back-two steps forwards". You've probably heard that phrase before, and I think you can relate it to mixing. This is an idea that I have about how to use EQ's (and effects as well). Consider you have a rather uplifting track and you want to mix in a more mellowish track. If you just mix them in vanilla-style (Xfader only), what you get is just sudden drop, which doesn't sound good at all imo. This is a good situation to use the principle of "one step back-two steps forwards". What you do is you use the EQ's in such a way that you make the uplifting track sound more mellow before the acctual "track-shift". Perhaps, lowering the highs gradually some bars before a phase-shift. What you want to try and do is make the mix seem more mellow than the mellow track. If there is a strong melody in the first track, drop the mids, and so on. What this does is that you make the mix gradually take two steps backwards, and then suddenly one step forwards (in reverse of the principle, but that works as well).

Had you only mixed them vanilla, you'd have more of a "one step backwards" effect, but this way, you first take two steps backwards, enjoy, and then you're on your way again by taking one step forwards.

If you instead have a mellow track that you want to mix in with an uplifting track, instead of just going "one step forwards", you backwards, drop the highs and the mids of both of the tracks, creating a whomp-whomp part (which is "one step backwards"), then, all of a sudden, get the EQ's back, hopefully at a good phase-shift (which is "two steps forwards"), and you'll have a really nice mix.

Posted by Allied Nations on Nov-07-2008 01:35:

I will add this to the Sticky

Posted by jayxthekoolest on Nov-07-2008 03:09:

I just found a DJ I liked, and listened to their mixes carefully to see how they did it. It really helped me a lot, because they definitely know how to do it about as well as anyone possibly can.

Posted by Zild on Nov-07-2008 03:46:

quote:
Originally posted by elFreak
that works fine on 2 decks, but try doing this on 3 and it simply will not work. Eq is a tool that is great for creativity.

I agree with that, but everyone has their own way of doing it. I tend to use filters a lot more than I use EQs. I didn't even think we were talking about three decks because the guy said he is just getting started.

Posted by elFreak on Nov-07-2008 15:19:

Oh definitely, I was just pointing out a situation where working the eq a lot was not "abuse".

Posted by jpgrdnr on Nov-07-2008 23:52:

Another piece of advice as a training technique someone has mentioned when starting out is: try mixing a set without touching the EQs, leave them at the 12 o'clock position.

EQing isn't meant to clean up your mistakes.

Also record your sets (practice or otherwise) to check the EQing.

That being said I think I saw Dave Clarke use the grounding wire for an interesting effect so to each his/her own.

Posted by IpLaYWiTLiGhTs on Nov-08-2008 10:13:

quote:
Originally posted by jpgrdnr
That being said I think I saw Dave Clarke use the grounding wire for an interesting effect so to each his/her own.

lol, no way? guess I shouldn't be surprised though, the man is a monster.

Posted by sleepydragon on Nov-08-2008 15:01:

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