^ Yeah, pretty much. Well, saying that something's been "professionally EQed" just demonstrates a lack of understanding of what EQ is really for. It's not usually done to make an instrument or sample sound better, it's done to make it sit better or stand out more in a mix. If your mix doesn't sound muddy with no EQ, great!

As for compressing the kicks, most "professional" kick samples are NOT already compressed. In fact, most knowledgeable people will tell you never to use pre-processed kicks. If a kick has already been compressed to shit, then when you compress it again with the bass it's going to sound clipped and stupid.

Personally, I compress my kick and bass separately and then put a compressor + limiter on the group channel. If you're able to do that without causing any pumping, it can give some really chunky bass. But you still sometimes need to EQ them to make sure that the kick is distinct from the bass, otherwise it just sounds like chunky mud.

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quote:

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

No I won't

I've written a long enough guide for the tranceproduction site already.

Cutting vs boosting is mostly right for corrective EQ (as that's the cleanest way to do it, boosting will generally bring up unwanted stuff too, especially with shelves). For "creative EQ, it's part of the sound you're creating, so do whatever you want.

But one thing about the "don't eq because pro's already eq'ed it". There's one thing you should take in account, and it doesn't apply for EQ only, but for all the other effetcs or processes you do.

There is a big difference between making sound something good in isolation and making something glue with the rest. If you buy sample cd's, the treatment done on the samples is usually done to make them sound good alone, so you'll go "wow" and buy them.
Eq'ing to make something fit in the mix depends on the mix itself. If you make ten songs with the same sampled kick, you'll probably end up eq'ing the kick ten different ways.

It's all good to know some basic frequencies to work faster, but as Subtle already mentioned, your ears are the most important tools. The best advice I can give you isn't about frequencies and db's and whatnot. It's just that : listen to what you are doing in relation to your complete mix, dont't try to make it sound great in isolation.

When I do mixes for clients, most of the time I'm eq'ing while listening to the rest of the instruments, not in solo.

See, moth, my post wasn't soooo big

It would be great if someone could make two .flp files. One with a muddy kick + bass and the other with eq used to fit both in the mix. I want to see how you 'pro's' do that. Such an example would really help me (and i think many others) in understanding how to eq

From what I have learned it's best to EQ as little as possible. It's important to get samples that sound good in the first place. And tweak your synths to sound good without effects, dynamics or EQ. After that you could EQ slightly, but I wouldn't use EQ to completely remoddel a sound becouse the quality will no be as good.

If you do accentuate a certain frequency too much than you drown out other frequencies of the sound. This is especialy harmfull to the harmonics of a sample.

Also when mastering you would often add a compressor, maybe a multiband-compressor. These tools react to the amplitude of the sound. If one sound is extremely loud in a very small freqency range then the compressor will react to that level. Giving you a very unnatural sounding master.

hope this helps you.

kind regards,

Charlie Darwin

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Music has survived wars, famines, the plague and many other things and has evolved with man across many cultures. Dance music is just the next step in the evolutionary chain. My guess is that it will probably be with us untill we are extinced.

good point, charles

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as Subtle said, it's all about your ears and what is between them. if you think your track sounds good, then it probably does sound good no matter how many articles you've read or not about eqing.

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It's actually pretty funny to read the interplay between the EQ advocates, the Compression advocates and the musical purists. Everyone either thinks that EQ is everything, or EQ is worthless. Compression is everything, or compressors are garbage.

Guys, for pete's sake, please listen: EQ and compression are tools to be used when needed in a mix. You do not need a compressor on every track, and you do not need EQ on every track! I fear that the phrase "use your ears" is falling on deaf ears, on people who think that if they can just find and apply the right formula then they will suddenly and magically be able to hear the fine details. Or, on people with mediocre production skills who believe they have found this magic formula and want to feel important by imparting it.

EQ should be used for the specific and SOLE purpose of changing the balance of instruments in a mix. Some tracks may never need a single EQ - great! Most tracks will need at least a handful, though, because there will be instruments which are similar in pitch and tonal quality and need to be made more distinct. Or perhaps in some cases, less distinct! Sometimes we want to create musical "textures" which means creating a little bit of blur/muddiness. In any event, it is an absolute waste of time to apply EQ to a sound without context (i.e. the rest of the mix), and it is pure ignorance to believe that a sound will need no EQ simply because it was "professionally" made.

I know how a lot of people feel about EQ, and it took me a while to get my head around this as well: no matter how kick-ass something sounds on its own, it's not always perfect for a mix. An arp or a pad may sound like absolute *shit* on its own after we've tacked on a highpass filter at 250 Hz, but you'd be amazed at how inaudible the change is when you have your kick and bassline playing. And even though it's inaudible to your ears, it's absolutely ESSENTIAL to remove that "bass mud" from your track in order to bring your master level up and get yourself a nice chunky low end.

Also remember that EQ can be automated. If you've got lush pads that need to have their bass cut in order to sit back in a mix, you can always EQ the bass up again during a breakdown sequence when your kick and bassline are not playing.

Finally, what many people believe to be amazing compression is actually EQ or other mix tricks. Professional tracks may *appear* squashed in a spectrum analyzer or other benchmarks, but they do not usually *sound* squashed. Many producers (including myself in some earlier tracks) will brutally overcompress their work in order to emulate the professional tracks. Guess what - EQ is also a wonderful tool for making tracks sound loud! If you take a very bass- or mid-heavy sound and boost its higher frequencies, you'll find that it barely increases the *actual* volume at all, but may still SOUND much louder. But don't go thinking that you can just throw this kind of curve on your master track; remember that EQ changes the balance of instruments, and boosting the mid/high on the master may sound like crap compared to boosting it on 3 or 4 individual tracks in the mix.

I am by no means perfect in my production skill, but any success I've had I owe to discovering these things *by myself* and not relying on silly formulas or overused "tricks".

/rant

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excellent read diginut, as always

I absolutely agree DigiNut. but assuming you're referring to me as a "musical purist" - when I said use your ears, I meant when you're eqing and/or compressing (of course there're elements that don't need either). I've never said and never will that these tools are worthless (or everything).

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I had a 80 % improvement in my dynamics when i started cutting everthing in the frequency range 80 Hz to 150Hz,i just boost the subbass like +/-4 db @ 40Hz and set the gain to about 2.0 db gives me very good results indeed but it all depends on the synth u using cause i cant get the same dynamics using a Subtractor oooh it sound very muddy !I need to work on that one.

Yeah i use cubase sx eq it sound clean and is CPU friendly!

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DigiNut u are so right man !
DigiNut rules cause he know what hes talking about.

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quote:

Originally posted by ronk I absolutely agree DigiNut. but assuming you're referring to me as a "musical purist" - when I said use your ears, I meant when you're eqing and/or compressing (of course there're elements that don't need either). I've never said and never will that these tools are worthless (or everything).

LOL, no, not at all actually. The people who say "use your ears" are right - it's just that the people who are asking the questions don't really understand that answer.

There is a certain cross-section of people here who believe that it's somehow wrong to artificially edit any sound and that things like EQ and compression only wreck the musical purity of a track - hence my referring to them as musical purists.

I believe that those silly ideas come from listening to tracks which have been overcompressed or EQed really badly and assuming that it's the norm. Or maybe they just fear what they don't understand. Regardless, you don't want to listen to those people.

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