I’d love to see a tutorial on EQing in ableton.
I often get in a right mess with my tracks sounding muddy very quickly. This often makes me ditch the track because its sounding bad therefore I think with a bit more knowledge on EQing I may stick with my tracks for longer and actually get something finished.
Cheers,
Simon
+1
I noted that I was over eq’ing - especially notching and cutting certain frequencies - only really found out by looking at those Ableton files that Minus released a couple of weeks ago
I was surprised too when I took a look at some of them.
Theres the chance though, that they might have been EQ’d already.
Best practice is to keep track of where all your frequencies are & the areas that they’re prone to build up. If you keep in mind the Tunings of different elements etc… you’ll remember the octaves etc… that everything is sitting in & can adjust, or avoid accordingly.
There are some things that you can get rid of a bit, but again, you are talking about Minimal Artists. They dont have a lot of stuff in their tracks. I was surprised just how few tracks they had in those projects.
Less stuff - Less possibility for clashing. Less harsh EQ. You’ll probably hear it soon enough, but you should trust your ears at the end of the day.
I really liked watching Nick Thayer in the recent CM Vid’s talking about EQ’ing. I usually cut & scoop a little here & there… But he ran a Hi Q through the whole spectrum (as well as your regular lo-cutting) & dropped out the Freq’s that really resonated.
+1 for an E.Q tut
E.Q tutorial sounds pretty hot!
yeah, would be cool! +1
+1 for an E.Q
i think the really basic is to learn how to use the EQ from your DAW if you purchased a EQ then you might want to read the manual since all EQ have more or less features than other but the use of i would be the same .
the next step would be to Train your ears and learn when to eq. usually there is some techniques like swaping frequencies . but there is more than that.
i still training my ears .
i think making an EQ tutorial wouldn’t help that much unless since it involves alot of training how to listen conflicting frequencies
but would be nice to SA post some Shortcuts or techniques about it
I disagree. I think it would be really helpful to see someone else going through the motions of EQing the different parts of a song, especially for a beginner like me.
Suppose really all you need to do is look at the waveform. Understand where the main Freq’s are. Cut them if they clash with something else in the same Freq range.
Its essentially Musical. Read somewhere, cant remember where - but if you are going to EQ - Make it Musical. Makes total sense.
If you get the Freq to Musical Pitch charts on the Net, they really help. Helped me anyway… oh, and Voxengo Span. A Free Spectrum Analyser which tells you the Musical Pitch / Note / Octave when you hover the Cursor over the Peaks in the waveform.
Handy.
As you probably all know you can equalize at different stages:
- each individual instrument in solo on its way to the multitrack
- each individual instrument in solo during mixdown (a little eq)
- each instrument relative to eachother during mixdown
- entire mix in the mastering stage
Don’t use any effects like reverbs, echoes before the equalizing stage !
- Bass zone 40-200Hz
Instruments Bottom 40-100Hz:
Bass-Kick-Floor Toms-Vocals-Piano-Organ-Cello/Double Bass/Percussion (bongos-congas)
Instruments Fullness 100-200Hz:
Bass-Kick-Snare-All Toms-Vocals-Piano-Guitars-Organ-Cello/Double Bass/Horns/ Percussion (bongos-congas)
– decide which instruments should take care of the bottom 40-100Hz
*MAKE SURE
– if you didn’t at the second stage “each individual instrument in solo during mixdown (a little eq)” solo each
instrument and clean them up by throwing away all unnecessary frequencies
– solo the instrument which sounds the best to your opinion
– check this one together with the worst sounding instrument and get them sounding as transparent as possible
together and listen in mono (one speaker)
– now you have a good transparent foundation and add the next instrument and make them sound transparent as
well with the three together. Repeat the same steps with all the following instruments and listen in mono. You will
see that you will getting to know the bottom of your mix very well and that you will treat each added instrument
serving the others
- Muddiness zone 200-800Hz
Instruments:
Bass-Kick-Snare-All Toms-Hi Hat Cymbals-Vocals-Piano-Guitars-Organ-Cello/Double Bass/Horns
If you didn’t at the second stage “each individual instrument in solo during mixdown Most of the mudd is in the
280-350Hz range.Repeat all the steps of 1) from “solo the instrument which sounds the best to your opinion”(Mixing each instrument relative to eachother in the third stage)
- Midrange 800-5 Khz
Instruments:
Bass-All Toms-Hi Hat Cymbals-Vocals-Piano-Electric Guitar-Strings
– Check the Piano for muddiness in this range.
– Check the folowing instruments for presence: Bass-All Toms-Vocals- Piano
– Check the following instruments for irritation: Hi Hat Cymbals-Electric guitar-Strings
Repeat all the steps of 1) from “solo the instrument which sounds the best to your opinion”
- Highs 5-8 Khz
Instruments:
Bass-Kick-Snare-Toms-Hi Hat Cymbals-Vocals-Piano-Guitars-Organ-Strings/Horns/ Percussion
This range is for the high ends of Bass Kick and Toms and clarity for the others.
In this range you can get real presence for the snare.
Repeat all the steps of 1) from “solo the instrument which sounds the best to your opinion”
- Hi Highs > 8 Khz
Instruments:
Hi hat Cymbals-Vocals-Piano-Guitars-Strings
Here you can get the sparkling and hisses of the instruments.
IN THIS WAY YOU WILL GET TO KNOW ALL THE FREQUENCIES OF YOUR MIX IN DIFFERENT AREAS.
Get rid of unnecessary frequencies of your instrument before
mixing together !
The reason I set up this step to step guideline is to start your mix as clean as possible and use only the
necessary frequencies of your instruments.
Before you start the mixing process of the instruments together do following:
First Target: knowing all the frequencies below the midrange (below about 800Hz)
- Solo your instrument, for instance an acoustic guitar
- Insert an equalizer
- Use a high pass (low cut) filter with the steepest setting you can get
- First listen to your instrument how it sounds without any processing
- Now start your low cut filter slowly from the bottom 20Hz and go upwards and listen and notice where you
firs thear the bottom of your instrument change and stop
- Take a pen and write down at what frequency, for example at 100Hz
(Get rid of unnecessary frequencies of your instrument before mixing together)
- Do it again and stop at the at 800Hz
- Listen now with and without the equalizer several times
Second target: limit the bottom of your intrument
- Start your low cut filter at the change point you wrote down (in my example at 100Hz)
- Now slowly move it upwards and stop at the point you think your instrument still sounds good in the bottom
- Do it again and decide where you set the cut off frequency. This could be right at 100 Hz or at 130Hz or elsewhere
- Leave it this way: you just limited the bottom
Third target: knowing all the frequencies above the midrange (about 5 Khz)
- We continue using the same instrument and the same equalizer
- Use a low pass (high cut) filter with the steepest setting
(Get rid of unnecessary frequencies of your instrument before mixing together)
- Listen first again without any processing and start at the top 20Khz down and stop at the point where your instrument
changes
- Take a pen and write down at what frequency, for example at 12Khz
- Do it again and stop at 5Khz
- Listen now with and without the equalizer several times
Fourth target: limit the top of your instrument
- Start your high cut filter at the change point you wrote down (in my example at 12Khz)
- Now slowly move it down and stop at the point you think your instrument still sounds good in the highs
- Do it again and decide where you set the cut off frequency. This could be right at 12Khz or at 11Khz or elsewhere
- Leave it this way: you just limited the top frequencies
*OBVIOUSLY MAKE SURE YOU ARE NOT HITTING YOUR EQS HARDER THAN -20dbfs to -18dbfs.PROPER GAIN STAGING ENSURES YOURE LEAVING YOURSELF PLENTY OF HEADROOM TO AVOID DIGITAL CLIPPING,THIS IS PROBABLY SOMETHING SONIC SHOULD START COVERING!
sonalksis makes free-g,grab it,the rms level is what you should be looking at 
Hey Bobby,
Thanks for taking the time to write such a helpful post.
I’ll hopefully try this stuff out at the weekend.
Cheers,
Simon