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Unbalanced EQ
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| Somershine |
Hi everybody!
My songs miss a professional and when I play my songs in Winamp I think I know why. Only the left part of the EQ show tones and not the right part:
so I am missing a lot of the spectrum. But the problem is I have no idea how to find a solution for this. I am using fruityloops with several vsti's. I already tried the Fruity 7 band eq to increase the high notes, but this does not work.
Please give some help!
Somershine |
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| DeZmA |
| post a sample of your problem cause you didn't make yourself clear (at least I couldn't make sense out your post ;) ) upload a short sample and I'll listen to it. |
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| Somershine |
I posted a sampel of my evanescence remix I am currently working on.
http://stuwww.uvt.nl/~s900427/4.wav
When you play this song you will see something like this:
while more professional songs show a full spectrum of notes.
thx for the help!
somershine |
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| Damie Mckeown |
please stop mis-using the word notes.
Anyway, it sounded Clean and good. Very good.
So I personaly wouldnt give a .
Did you cut the Higher frequencies? because that could be why.
add some high hats, I dunno. |
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| DeZmA |
This is just mis-eq'd
the mid's are over eq'd and the bass and especially the hi's are not enough eq'd. I've cut out some mids and boosted some lows and hi's HERE In fact I think it's a bad idea to eq your master, it is just for small subtle changes, you need to eq every channel itself otherwise your mix will sound like crap.
and do yourself a favor and do some research about the right words, it will be more likely people will understand what you are saying :)
ps : it's more practical to post in mp3 |
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| Damie Mckeown |
| Lol. Moan, moan moan |
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| Somershine |
Your file already sounds much better. The notes ;) sound much better. I tought that I had to EQ all patterns. What programm did you use to change the EQ settings.
Thanks for the advice and moaning :)
Somershine |
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| Dj Thy |
Like Dezma said, it's usually best to avoid Eq'ing your total mix (master) to get the sound you want (unless it's subtle changes). You just don't have enough control over what you're doing (and unless your using linear phase filters, you'll be messing massively with phase in your mix).
If it sounds badly balanced, well then it's that there is just something wrong with your mix (which is in fact basically a balance of levels). Fix the individual instruments when needed, and if it's not right then, it might be a level balancing problem, or you lack the right instruments.
How to explain this... You should look at your mix like it's composed in layers. Those layers are not only volume related and stereo image related, but also in frequency.
You must make sure you have all the elements that compose the spectral balance. For example, if you don't have any instrument that goes beyond 10 kHz (I'm exagerating so you get the point), it will usually sound crap if you just use an eq and boost the out of the range above 10 kHz. It would be better to find something that goes that high in the frequency range without even needing to eq it...
And that's true for every part of your song.
If you're sure that the totality of your sounds pretty much cover the whole audible frequency range, then it's pretty much a matter of balancing everything well.
And there's always two methods to get where you want. Either you increase one part, or you decrease another.
If you find you lack high frequency content, you could either increase the level of the high frequency instruments (hihats and the like), or you could decrease the low and mid content a bit. Both can give the result you want, experimentation (and experience) is the key.
But please, oh please, don't do what I see so much beginners do... An example. They find the song lacks bass. So they increase bass. But because they did that, the high frequency content is too low. So they increase high. Suddenly, they realise now they can't hear much mids anymore. So what do they do? They increase mids. And then... and then... They always add, and add, and eventually it all ends up a big sloppy mess. While the original problem could have been nothing more than that there was too much mid or hi, and decreasing that would have solved the problem.
That's the same with EQ, except radical tweaks, prefer cutting to boosting (it also helps on analog stuff, where boosting irremediably accentuates unwanted noise too).
As for eq'ing individual instruments or sounds, an error I see much beginners do is spend lots of time tweaking and eq'ing sounds in solo. Nothing wrong with that, you can do that to get a general sound. But keep in mind, stuff that sounds great when heard alone, doesn't necessarily sound good in the mix. You might need a completely different EQ setting to make it sit in the mix. So, it's pretty important, that when you do EQ tweaks on individual instruments, keep checking it in the mix. Because the mix is your final product, and what you want to do is to integrate the instrument/sound as good in that mix as you can. For example, when working on kicks... When you tweak the kick, a very good practice is to do your tweaks when listening to the kick in conjunction with the bassline. Seriously, a kick and a bassline that sound great on their own, rarely sound perfect together. |
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| Somershine |
Thanks DJ Thy!
That is some pretty good and very useful information. I recognize the ever increasing (bass > high > mid) cycle. I have been experimenting and I found an EQ table, which indicates what frequency levels influence what kind of instruments and how they chance them. I removed the EQ in the mastering file and all the other EQ's and started from scratch, just making minor changes and it is already sounding much better.
However I have one question left. When you have multiple mid (instrument) melodies how could you use the EQ to make them sound better together. Or shouldn't you combine those and use a higher instrument for the other melody?
I really appreciate your informative reply!
Somershine |
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| Dj Thy |
Well a trick that is given to much people is to use EQ as a "cleaning" tool.
As in remove all the unnecessary frequencies in every instrument. Like removing most of the high frequencies in a kick, removing most bass in hihats. Even if you don't hear them (because either the frequencies are very difficult to hear for us, or they are masked by the rest), they can still contribute to the overal loudness (and they definately register on the meters, so if you want everything as loud as possible, it's a very good first step). Kinda giving each instrument it's own place in the frequency spectrum (of course there will still be overlaps, and there SHOULD be overlaps, otherwise it would sound very strange). That can be done to help solve some problems.
But again, a very common phrase I hear is "we'll fix it in the mix" (and even worse, when the mixing is going on and a problem is encountered, "we'll fix it in the mastering"). That's just delaying problems, and in the end you'll see you'll have to start all over. What I mean is, a lot of the work should already be done in your head in the conception stage.
If you have three lead lines, and they all share the same frequency range, that's asking for problems. Either spread the melodies over different parts of the song, or try to find other sounds to play the melodies, so they don't fight with each other in the frequency spectrum. And of course, mix them well. You don't NEED to have all the melodies at the same level. Sometimes it works much better if you keep it to details. There are numerous time I heard songs, and after 5 times listening to it, I suddenly hear there's in a fact a second melody playing in the background, barely audible. It's those details that really show when there has been serious thought about the song.
Which takes me to another mistake I hear a lot (yes, they are beginners, they make mistakes :D). Try to keep it as simple as possible. If you feel there is something missing in the tune, don't immediately say "hmm, I'll add another layer or instrument". Try to find if you can make what you already have more interesting. Usually that will end up for the best. The more layers you have, the more troubles you'll have to fit all that at the mixing stage. Don't clutter up your mix if you could solve it another way. The less you overdo it, the more your mix will breathe. |
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| DeZmA |
Good reply from thy ;)
If you really want to keep the sound another solution would be to put the sound in a sampler and cut some frequencies (put a hipass filter on one lead line of the same sound) or use an eq all the same just cut some things untill they sound right. |
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| DeZmA |
| quote: | Originally posted by Somershine
Your file already sounds much better. The notes ;) sound much better. I tought that I had to EQ all patterns. What programm did you use to change the EQ settings.
Thanks for the advice and moaning :)
Somershine |
graphical eq in sound forge 6.0 but you should be able to do this in any decent wave editor |
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