EQing Kick Drum

Hi there,



I was wondering what exactly you’re listening for when you boost an eq curve and sweep through the frequencies? Tom Demac did it in the chicago house tutorial, but I find every frequency he sweeps through has a distinct sound, and don’t find any of them particularly pleasing at that extreme, so I’m not quite sure what made him pick out the frequencies that he did.



Thanks,



John

Hes looking for the fundamental or secondary frequencies… these are where the sounds main energy is.



Its these areas that when you EQ will control the sound the most.

Great thanks Phil! What about cutting frequencies when EQing? What exactly are you listening for in that case?

It depends… Could be resonant overtones that you want to soften or holes you are cutting for other sounds.


When you say “fundamental or secondary frequencies”, do you basically mean he’s looking for the interesting sounds he’s looking to enhance as that’s what I got from it.

I thought his use of the EQ8 was great, it shows how a little eq’ing can make all the difference in the end. I’ve used the 808 kick that comes with Ableton before, but the way he used it sounded a million times better. It was good how he used Abletons inbuilt sounds as usually they get overlooked, I hardly ever look at them tbh, but obviously I should!

Awesome thanks Phil!