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Originally posted by Pappa Here's a question for Eqin. How many tracks do you EQ at once? I'll give an example Layout. Track 1 = Lead Arp Track 2 = Main Bassline Track 3 = Supplement Lead, or Other Element to compliment Lead Track 4 = Kick Drum Track 5 = Off Beat Bassline Track 6 = Snare Drum or Claps Track 7 = OHH Track 8 = CHH Track 9 = Shaker or other Percs how would someone tackle this. Would you guys get the Kick's and Bassline sitting pretty with each other, and then work up to the Percs/Hi's, and then maybe the Lead's? or tackle it all in one wop, or some in a wop And would you eq as your construct your song, or wait until the end? I know it's all about pref, and creativity, but there has to be a formuala for the groundwork to go by. Pappa And Here's a hum-dinger for you, has anyone ever had this happen : 0:00-1:00 everything fits right, and then through out the song, what you had EQ, start's to not sit right?

I first eq-ed every percussion on it self but this time i did it al in one and it sounded more pro.But maybe it can also be archieved with every perc. with eq.

Hihats have always to be eqed (if you want to eq) with a boost on high freq.

- I mostly eq the bassdrum because the bassdrums are mostly not as i want them.
- Shaker is same story as hihat since i useally use it as layering of hihat.
- Main Lead and Lead arp i think it's a must to eq it otherwise it will sound verry flat.
- Bassline is also good to eq it to give it some dynamics but i never but an compressor on it.I think you can only better do that when its strugling with the kick (try to avoid kick-on-bass bassline).

Thy will most likely follow this all up with a huge post making anything I say pointless, but oh well:

Cutting vs. Boosting : Better to cut than boost, definatly.
It isnt recommended that you cut or boost more than 3 dB.
Removing, or shelving off areas that are barely audible for a given sound is a good idea, e.g. high shelf at 20 khz, or cutting off the low end of a hi hat.

I personally use very little eq on everything, very small touch ups, nothing major, this seems to make everything sound warmer. The key is not always to eq to shit, but to ensure your levels are good. It's often necessary to adjust the levels of your elements throughout the song to ensure things come through as you intend. Its not always the best solution just to eq everything to hell and leave it like that. As different things are introduced, the needs of your eq's will change, don't you think? It would be hard for everything to sit perfectly together throughout the entire mix.

Eq'ing in groups is good, in my opinion, but I tend to stay away from eq'ing all of my percs at once. Maybe in groups of two or three is best for me. But thats just me.

BIKKELs table is good, use that to achieve what you want your stuff to sound like.

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Originally posted by nectario Thats exactly what frustrates me. (Boost or cut) For example, my saw lead in some small CD player sounds like crap (sounds like it's gated) but its not that way with professional trance songs...

sounds like youre using an EQ that's not so good

it makes a big difference if you use a good or bad EQ, always remember that!

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Originally posted by davedresden i suggest getting the gabriel & dresden prog-a-minute. in 3 easy steps you too could change the face of dance music. batteries not included. - dave

Cool, some good tip's to try out.

To All: what are good level's to try to achive with each indv sound for the most part? -6 on the Meter? I heard that if you make your ruff draft mix all around -6 that gives you room to boost if needed. Anyone heard of this, or have I lost peeps on what IM trying to explain.

Here's example

Kick Drum is going, and nonthing else.

my Hardware Mixxer Meeter is showing -6 or Green LED 6 before it get's to Yellow

and then say I add Snares. my level of Snares should sit right with the KickDrum, and maybe my Level as a total may go up to say 5 or 4 on the Green LED scale. as I add sounds, I guess just volume them in as they need to sit in the mix? Just asking how you guys do it.

Pappa

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Originally posted by Pappa To All: what are good level's to try to achive with each indv sound for the most part? Pappa

I may be mistaken, but I don't think you can pick -6 or any other value as arbitrary. If I understand correctly, the Ideal spot for your meter to fall is going to be at the edge of red, but not in it, and that's going to be at a different level on some mixers.

On mine though, The best results I've gotten are from sending each set of tracks through a group send, then routing each of those sends to a master bus, then from there to the main. That way, I can process groups of tracks with the same effects, then process all the tracks at once, and then master. Doing it this way, I can have every track hitting the red, but I can cut further down the chain to eliminate clipping. You get a louder mix by using the main as your FINAL volume cut.

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Originally posted by Pimp_fu I may be mistaken, but I don't think you can pick -6 or any other value as arbitrary. If I understand correctly, the Ideal spot for your meter to fall is going to be at the edge of red, but not in it, and that's going to be at a different level on some mixers. On mine though, The best results I've gotten are from sending each set of tracks through a group send, then routing each of those sends to a master bus, then from there to the main. That way, I can process groups of tracks with the same effects, then process all the tracks at once, and then master. Doing it this way, I can have every track hitting the red, but I can cut further down the chain to eliminate clipping. You get a louder mix by using the main as your FINAL volume cut.

Wow, interesting Idea, what kinda Mixing board do you have to do all that fancy shit? I just got an Behringer UB16622FX, I got it cheap, and it's something to get me started. Here is how my metter Reads.

Clip Clip
| 10 | <-- Yellow
| 7 | <-- Yellow
| 4 | <--- Yellow
| 2 | <-- Yellow
| 0 | <--- Green
| 2 | <-- green
| 4 | <-- Green
| 7 | <--- Green
| 10 | <---- Green
etc
etc

So, it's cool to go past 0 and get into the yellow?

Pappa

I'm actually not using a hardware mixer at all, I'm running Sonar 3 Producer and using a Radium49 keystation as the control surface. All of the routing is done internal to Sonar. The audio output faders
from each synth are assigned to a slider on the midi controller, busses are assigned to knobs, and the main is assigned to the data input slider. That way, I can control the levels on up to 16 faders plus the master.

The meters go From -39 at the bottom up to -3 by 3db intervals. 6 is where it hits red, and there is no yellow exactly, yellow only shows up if you're peaking in that zone, and then the value that you peak at is displayed under the meter in yellow lettering. There's a pretty good sized red zone above -6, but not numbered.

As for clipping in the yellow, I think that's going to depend on your gear, I can be pegging out every track AND the busses, and as long as the main isn't in the red much, I don't clip.

At this point I have problems EQ:ing my strings/pads. If I leave too much low frequencies, they start to interfere especially with my sub bass. If I EQ away most of the lower frequencies, they start to sound too thin, and especially on bigger monitors they almost disappear, while they can sound pretty okay on my Sennheisers.

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Originally posted by BetaFactory At this point I have problems EQ:ing my strings/pads...

what are you using to eq them?

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Originally posted by Pimp_fu what are you using to eq them?

Just a basic software parametric EQ. I also have a Fisher hardware EQ-unit, but I use it only for final output or what to call it, so count that one out.

If you want, export whatever to .wav and send it to me and I'll see if I can help you out.I've got about 12 different EQ plugins [email protected]

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Originally posted by Pimp_fu If you want, export whatever to .wav and send it to me and I'll see if I can help you out.I've got about 12 different EQ plugins [email protected]

Which one do you like the best that you use?