Most importantly: Every voice is different, and every song is different. That advice bears remembering, even if you’ve heard it dozens of times. When you find yourself approaching a vocal mix on auto-pilot, applying effects “because they worked last time,” consider disabling the EQ altogether to gauge just how badly the adjustments are needed.

Reasons to EQ: The 3 main reasons to filter a vocal with EQ are
 1) to help the voice sit better in the mix,
 2) to correct a specific problem, and
 3) to create a deliberate effect, like “A.M. radio voice.”

If you’ve EQ’d a vocal track for some other reason, be sure the result is improving the mix.

Gentle boosts: The “cut narrow, boost wide” guideline applies to vocals perhaps more than any instrument. Our ears have evolved remarkable sensitivity to the sound of human speech. (Consider how easily we pick up a single conversation in a crowded noisy room.) So we’re immediately, instinctively aware when a voice has been processed unnaturally.

High-pass: Most vocals – though of course not all – benefit from a low cut filter. The average fundamental frequency in an adult male voice is 125Hz, and often you can roll off up to 180Hz without affecting the sound. (If your mic or preamp has a low-cut filter, consider engaging it when recording vocals, as most subsonic audio in a vocal track consists of mic-stand noise, breath rumble, popping, and other undesirable sounds.)

Bypass: Especially with high-pass filters, it’s easy to remove too much body from a vocal, as our ears adjust so quickly to new sounds when mixing. If your EQ has a bypass option, use it periodically to make sure you haven’t gone too far with an adjustment.

Common fixes:

• To reduce a nasal sound, try dipping a few dB around 1kHz, and moving the center frequency slightly up or down to find the most effective point.
• To treat popping P’s and T’s, cut everything below 80 Hz.
• For a little extra clarity and presence, try gently boosting the “vocal presence range” between 4kHz and 6kHz.

Reasons NOT to EQ: EQ can’t make your voice sound like someone else’s.

See Also: Better vocals improve your recordings, Great free vocal plugins

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There are some great reasons to heed this advice. But they’re not immediately obvious, especially if you’re unfamiliar or uncomfortable with parametric EQs, and they’re rarely fully explained. I’ll explain and demonstrate below, and you can use the information to improve your EQ adjustments, and in turn your mixes.

Background

In brief, equalizers alter the tonal quality of audio by applying gain to a specific frequency range. (For something a little less brief, Sound On Sound’s Equalisers Explained is the best EQ primer I’ve read.)

Every EQ filter has 3 settings: Frequency, Gain, and Bandwidth.

Frequency determines where in the tonal spectrum an adjustment occurs. Low frequencies correspond to bass sounds, high frequencies to treble.

Gain determines the magnitude of the adjustment. Positive values increase the signal level at the specified frequency, and we call this a “boost.” Negative gain values decrease the signal level, and we call this a “cut.”

Bandwidth allows us to choose the range of neighbouring frequencies that our adjustment affects. Bandwidth is usually called “Q” (for esoteric reasons from filter theory.) Higher Q values affect fewer frequencies, and we refer to this as a “narrow” filter. Low Q values, on the other hand, yield “wide” filters that affect many frequencies.

This is easier to understand as a visual:

The diagram above shows 4 key combinations. From left to right:
#1 – A narrow cut – Note the high Q value, and negative gain.
#2 – A narrow boost – Note the positive gain.
#3 – A wide cut – Note the low Q value.
#4 – A wide boost.

Your EQ plugin may not look the same (for comparison here’s the above illustration using Reaper’s EQ) but all parametric equalizers support the same 3 basic options: Frequency, Q, and gain. And using these options, we can “cut narrow, and boost wide.”

But why is it good advice?

In practice, wide EQ cuts remove more signal, and therefore more of a sound’s defining characteristics. Remove too much signal, and the audio you’re treating no longer sounds like itself. This can certainly produce interesting effects, but it won’t yield accurate mixes.

Narrow surgical cuts, on the other hand, remove only specific frequencies, and as such leave the signal largely unchanged. The narrowest cuts can be practically inaudible, as they remove so little from the sound. Often, we use narrow cuts to remove only “problem frequencies,” such as ringing overtones from a drum or boomy resonance from an acoustic guitar, without affecting the overall character of the sound.

It might seem the same should be true of boosting – that narrow boosts are the least audible. But in fact, because of how our ears work, narrow EQ boosts usually sound unnatural and jarring, where wide boosts are much less obvious. (The reasons behind this involve science a little beyond the scope of this article. Summarized: Human brains evolved an innate understanding of the harmonic series, and narrow EQ boosts affect specific harmonics, producing timbres that we sense can’t possibly have occurred naturally.)

The effect should be clear in the examples below. These 5 audio files illustrate the various extreme EQ adjustments. First, an untreated track:

In the next sample, I’ve used a narrow boost at 2060Hz. [diagram]

The ringing is immediately apparent, and sounds unnatural and distracting. (Your ears and brain sense, based on the other frequencies, that there shouldn’t be a loud harmonic at that frequency.)

Now, here’s a wide boost at 2060Hz. [diagram]

While the sound might not be great, the ringing effect introduced above isn’t apparent, because the boost affects so many other frequencies:

The next example illustrates a wide cut at 2060Hz. [diagram]

Notice how much of the guitar’s character disappears:

Finally, in this example the narrow cut is barely audible at 2060Hz.[diagram]

All we’ve done is remove the ringing frequency, though since it wasn’t readily apparent in the original sample, its removal is hard to hear.

Caveats & Footnotes

These examples were contrived to illustrate an effect. (i.e. You’d never actually apply at 14dB boost at 2060Hz to an acoustic guitar track.) However, the principle applies regardless of the audio with which you’re working.

Note, too, that this technique is relevant only to adjustments made with parametric equalizers. Graphic EQs have a fixed bandwidth at each frequency, so “narrow” vs. “wide” cuts aren’t possible.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the advice is generally useful but NOT a set-in-stone rule. Sometimes, a ringing effect or hollowed-out sound is exactly what a mix requires. As with everything in audio engineering, let your ears be the final judge of what works best.

See Also: The Rule Of Mixing, General EQ Guidelines

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In effect, posing one of these questions tells the world you’re an amateur. But I hope that by explaining why the questions don’t have the simple answers a rookie expects, you’ll appreciate how an experienced engineer thinks about each problem, and be better equipped to identify gaps in your own knowledge.

Questions

1. What are the best EQ settings for guitar?
Or its many variants: “What are the best compressor settings for vocals,” “what reverb settings should I use for mastering,” and so on.

This question has a straightforward answer: The best settings are the ones that sound right. But for most beginners, who haven’t yet learned critical listening skills, this advice seems trite.

Unfortunately, any other answer is meaningless. Every track, in every song, has its own unique requirements. And the best settings, for EQ or compression or any effect, are dictated solely by the requirements of the song. (See the Rule of Mixing for more.)

2. Which is the best microphone?
We’d all love to own a U87 or a C12. But engineers covet those mics because they’re reliable and versatile, not because either is inherently superior. In fact, there are as many ways to define “best” (and for that matter “worst”) as there are sounds to record. As with the question above, what’s best ultimately depends on what fits the song.

3. How do I record my song to sound like The Foo Fighters?
This question stems from the misconception that The Foo Fighters, or any band, sound the way they do because of their equipment. Acquire the same instruments and mics, the thinking goes, and you can duplicate their recordings.

Most professional recordings have deceptive clarity. They sound, at least to listeners unfamiliar with the process, as though they should be easy to reproduce. But the question above has only one honest answer. To sound like The Foo Fighters:

• Buy quality instruments, and learn how to play them well.
• Write songs suitable for the genre.
• Arrange those songs to support Foo Fighters-style production.
• Practice. Lots.
• Record in a great live room.
• Spend time on microphone selection and placement.
• Play every part till you get it right.

In other words, there are no shortcuts, and it’s not easy. Great recordings take time and talent.

4. What vocal chain does Paul Simon use?
Also commonly worded as “I want to sound like John Mayer. Which microphones and settings should I use?”

Beginners ask this question assuming that we can recreate a track by knowing how it was recorded. Unfortunately, even if you bought Paul Simon’s complete signal chain, you’d have little success matching his recordings. His voice, and John Mayer’s voice, and of course the voice of any famous musician, is unique, as are his performances.

To sound like Paul Simon, in short, you need to have him sing your vocal

5. How do I remove the room’s ambiance from a recording?
Conceptually, it makes sense that since we use reverb to add depth, there must be some way to reverse the process.

There isn’t. If you don’t notice until you’re mixing that a guitar track has too much room sound, you have 2 options: Live with the sound, or re-record.

6. Is this mix finished?
Rookie engineers like to think there’s a golden standard sound to which they aspire, and once they’ve attained that sound, their mixes will thereafter be perfect.

We should be so lucky! In truth, our learning never stops. We continue (hopefully) to improve, but none of us is ever done acquiring knowledge, as true of recording and mixing as it is of life. But this is OK. Learning, after all, is the fun part!

To the question: As a general guideline, a mix is finished when it best represents the song. Of course, “best” is open to interpretation here as it is everywhere in recording. You need to use your ears and your gut, and make the call when it feels right. In other words, only you know when the mix is finished.

Unless someone has paid you, in which case the mix is done when the deadline arrives.

Finally, a surefire question to signal your newbie status to the world:
7. How do I use this $1,200 plugin that I just happen to have installed on my machine?
Answer: You read the manual, which comes with the software when you buy it legally.

In Closing

You’ll out yourself as a novice by asking these questions of an experienced engineer. But really, there’s nothing wrong with that. In some senses, we’re all amateurs.

Take the colleague of my friend Paul, who once asked him, “what does a compressor do?” The question seems innocent enough until you learn that this colleague has been a film industry sound engineer for over 20 years, and has worked on dozens of major motion pictures. Of course, Paul now has difficulty taking his colleague seriously as an audio professional. But the guy still works on movies as a sound engineer, so the anecdote should be comforting for the rest of us amateurs!

See Also: Tips for more professional recordings

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But cheap doesn’t have to mean bad. With a little effort, even the most cost-conscious mic owner can capture great sounds.

To that end, here are 7 tips for getting the most from your cheap microphones.

1. Understand your mic’s shortcomings.
Correct use of a mic depends on knowing its characteristics, and cheaper mics tend to share some common traits. Cheap condensers can sound overly bright and tinny, where their dynamic counterparts tend toward a boxy, midrange sound. Keeping this in mind will help you decide when and where your mic should be used.

2. Don’t assume your most expensive mic is best.
If you have several microphones, and especially if you have a choice between different types (condenser, dynamic, ribbon,) resist the temptation to reach for the most expensive mic every time. Many professional engineers, with gear lockers full of names like Neumann and Earthworks, still swear by the SM57 for certain tasks. What’s “best” changes from musician to musician, and instrument to instrument. So try all your mics, and record with the one that sounds best, even if it didn’t cost the most.

3. Adjust the source.
Rather than rely on effects to compensate for your mic’s shortcomings, try changing sounds at their source, before recording.

If your mic sounds dull or dark, push more high frequencies from the source: Use fresh guitar strings, clean your cymbals, boost your amp’s presence. On the other hand, if your mic is too bright, work at softening the treble sounds in whatever you’re recording. Try heavier gauge strings, dampen cymbals and drums with felt or tape, and sing through a pop screen or other wind filter.

4. Play with position.
Getting the most from budget equipment always requires effort. With microphones, this effort should focus on positioning. Everything about a mic’s placement affects how it captures sound: Its distance from the source, the direction it’s pointing, even its distance from the floor and walls.

This takes time of course, especially for those of us without assistants. But the improved sound you capture can only help your recordings.

5. Check for mods.
To keep prices down, manufacturers of cheap microphones often cut corners, and use discount components. If you’re comfortable with pliers, most microphones can be tweaked to compensate for these production efficiencies.

I’ve discussed ribbon mic mods before, but virtually every mic can be modified. And in some cases dramatic improvements in sound are possible. Google is your friend here – see, for example, the myriad modifications one can make to an SM57. The Prodigy Pro forums are also a great resource, full of schematics, diagrams, and like-minded hackers!

6. Try wide corrective EQ settings.
Narrow EQ adjustments can introduce ringing, and in extreme cases will accentuate the characteristics of your mic that make it sound cheap. Broad EQ corrections sound much less obvious.

A high-shelf cut at 10Khz, even if only 2 or 3dB, can work wonders to take the edge off a brittle-sounding condenser. A gentle high-shelf boost at 8Khz can add some life to the sound of a dull mic without over-emphasizing its shortcomings.

7. Adjust your performance.
Imagine recording a “cymbal basher” with a cheap condenser. The drummer produces too many high frequencies to begin with, and the mic inherently captures extra treble, so the recording will likely end up a useless wash of high-end white noise. When you can’t change mics, there’s only one way to address this: Have the drummer hit the cymbals softer and less often.

And practically every performance can benefit from this removal of extra material. Remember what Debussy said: “Music is the space between the notes.”

Or think of it this way: The fewer notes you record, the less your cheap mic needs to capture!

Of course, no two listeners hear music the same way – a truism easily proven by arguing with Linkin Park fans about what constitutes good rock – and mixing engineers themselves must contend with this subjectivity in our senses. But it often appears that music production lacks any rules; that mixing engineers essentially just follow their whims behind the console.

No “rules,” just “rule”

Indeed, most so-called “rules of mixing” are no more than guidelines. For example, “boost EQ in wide bands,” and “use a slower attack when compressing drums.” Both are great tips, but hardly true in all situations.

However, one overarching principle does apply in every mix, to every song, and to every mixing engineer. I think of it as the Rule of Mixing:

Though it may at first appear trite, this rule simply and powerfully covers the fundamental practices of mixing. A good mix supports the song, presents only what the listener needs to hear, and leaves out unnecessary distractions. Good mixing, in turn, requires keeping the rule in mind at all times to accomplish these goals.

Implications

Some of the rule’s most important implications:

Have a plan
How can you reliably judge which effects and fader moves to keep? In short, by knowing before you start mixing what you want to achieve. Mix with a clear plan in mind for the song, and every change that doesn’t get you closer to this goal is simply not needed.

Don’t use effects “just because”
If you routinely, automatically high-pass guitar tracks, or compress the kick drum and bass guitar, you’re probably violating the Rule of Mixing. Decide before adding one of these effects whether it’s really needed this time. Worded another way: Just because something worked on your last 5 mixes doesn’t mean it’s right for this song.

“Improved” can mean many things
Note that the rule doesn’t say “only do that which improves the sound” (with emphasis on sound.) Sometimes, in order to improve the end result, you need to destroy the sound, for example by adding distortion, or creating a lo-fi mix. This is perfectly OK, if that’s what the song requires.

Mixing starts long before you move the first fader
Taken to its logical extreme, the Rule of Mixing implies that in a perfect world, a mix would require no changes. Just bring the faders up, and you’re done. While that’s obviously impractical, it’s still a great thought to keep in mind when recording. The closer a recorded sound comes to the required final result, the easier it will be to adhere to the Rule of Mixing. This suggests, and not by accident, that you should form your mixing plan even before you start recording!

Favour simplicity
An important corollary to the Rule of Mixing holds that the simpler of two identical-sounding signal chains is always preferable. If you add a plugin but don’t hear a difference, the plugin doesn’t belong in your mix. Whether the effect was too subtle to detect, or your ears simply can’t hear any change, the end result is the same: If you can’t confirm that the change is an improvement, then it’s not needed.

It’s easy to bloat a track with plugins designed to add character or warmth or depth – stereo enhancers, tube and tape simulators, harmonic distorters. But while these tools serve a purpose, their use should always be secondary to your main goal: Improving the song.

Be honest with yourself

More than anything, the Rule of Mixing keeps mixing engineers honest with ourselves. Music is subjective, for listeners and creators alike. But with the constant awareness that every change we make must improve the end result, we force ourselves to think of the mix as a bigger picture.

Phil Spector and Glyn Johns got different end results because they approached their respective mixes with different plans. But both mixes sound great, and emphasize The Beatles’ songwriting, a sure sign that both engineers followed the Rule of Mixing.

See Also: lots more mixing tips!

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That’s a pity, because the plugin is fantastic. Although it’s colorful, so not appropriate for every EQ task, it’s sometimes perfect for bass guitar and vocals (I referenced the Paris EQ in my best free vocal plugins article.) On some material, I’ve even preferred the Paris EQ VST over the much more expensive Waves REQ.

I saved the install file I downloaded, so as a service to my fellow homerecordists who may not have a chance to try the plugin, here’s a link:

And here’s Matt’s description of the plugin from the readme file:

The Paris VST EQ is a 4-band parametric stereo VST equaliser plugin utilising the same algorithm as the E-mu/Ensoniq Paris system. It offers the same musicality and quirkiness as the original including soft-limiting, grungy distortion ability, and resonant behaviour under certain conditions.

Previously only accessible to those who owned the Paris custom DSP hardware, this unique EQ is now available to all PC DAW users.

(Note that it’s Windows-only.)

If you can’t play a part, don’t record it.
Practice until you can play it, or change the part so it’s easier to play. If you don’t nail the performance, it will show in the recording.

Stock your recording space with spare parts
Stuff breaks, but with a good emergency kit on hand, it doesn’t have to mean the end of a recording session. This is especially true if you record other people: Don’t trust the guitar player to remember a spare E string, but count on him breaking the one on his guitar.

The essential emergency kit: A multi-tool (like a Leatherman,) guitar strings and picks, drum sticks, band aids (!), instrument and microphone cables. And duct tape. No recording studio should be without several rolls of duct tape. You can keep a busted guitar together with enough duct tape. (Don’t ask.)

See Also: More Recording and Mixing Tips, Cut narrow, boost wide

The article covers the basics of using an equalizer to shape your sound. But it also describes some of the more subtle psychoacoustic issues that a rise from EQ use:

Another psychoacoustic effect which can be manipulated with EQ is the perception of distance. This is because the air damps high-frequency sounds more than low-frequency ones. If a sound source is very close, this effect is negligible. However, the further a sound has to travel through the air, the more the high frequencies are damped. Therefore, if you roll off a little high end from a sound, it seems further away. This technique is often used to bring a lead vocal to the front of a mix otherwise dominated by backing vocals, for example. The backing vocals are cut a little above 10kHz or so, while the lead vocal is given more energy above this frequency.

• What the Experts Say About Recording. 3 pros discuss some of their studio techniques.

  On recording vocals: “It’s a big mistake letting the singer record their own vocals. They’re not the best judge of their own voice. They’ll think they sound bad, when everyone else is saying, ‘That’s the take! That’s the take!’“

• How to avoid useless purchases when shopping for gear. I’m sure you’ve had experiences like this (for example, on every other visit to Long & McQuade …): “If your sales rep cannot give a clear, quick and concise reason why you need the gear in question, they may not know the product any better than you do, they may not believe in the product, or they may and just want to make a sale.“
• And finally, Perfect iTunes EQ settings doesn’t have much to do with home recording, but you might still find it useful for two reasons: 1) The breakdown of each frequency range and its purpose, and 2) the realization that you can work hard to balance the spectrum in your track, but sometimes your listeners are going to mess it up all on their own.

Cheers!

]]> http://www.hometracked.com/2007/03/09/quick-links-2/feed/ 0 http://www.hometracked.com/2007/01/04/general-eq-guidelines/ http://www.hometracked.com/2007/01/04/general-eq-guidelines/#comments Thu, 04 Jan 2007 22:59:41 +0000 des http://www.hometracked.com/2007/01/04/general-eq-guidelines/ Equalizers are mysterious beasts for beginners. And the advice most commonly offered, “try different things” and “use your ears,” is meaningless when you don’t know what you should be trying, and what your ears should be hearing.

John Vestman’s EQ Settings That Will Make Your Mixes Come Alive has just those types of getting-started tips. Advice like “Add 2 to 6dB at 2.5k to 5K, cut 2 to 8dB at 300 to 500hz, add 50 to 100hz.” for kick drum, and “the bass should have more mid-bottom from 150 to 200hz, and from 1K to 3K for clarity.”

John also outlines some of his general miking and mixing philosophies.

A great sounding kit starts with the player who knows how to dynamically balance his or her drums with the cymbals. BIG LOUD cymbals make your kic, snare, and toms sound softer… if you want the drums to sound BIG, hit the cymbals significantly softer.

Previously: Instrument-frequency chart

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