EQ for Guitar: Finding the Nasty Frequencies

We have talked about sweeping EQs in earlier blog posts but this time we are going to get even more detailed. The goal for this post is to find the nasty frequencies in your guitar tone (or any other instrument) and reduce it in order to bring the savory nuances to light and allow them to cut through in your mix.

For starters, you need to have a flat EQ as shown in Fig. 1:

You will need to know the frequency range of your instrument in order to precisely adjust your EQ. For guitar, much of the juiciness sits between 250 Hz and 5 kHz. You will probably want to go ahead and use an HPF or high pass filter (the grey node to the left that slopes down sharply) and adjust to taste as shown in Fig. 2:

I have also tightened up the Q on the LMF node (orange) and maxed it out. You want the Q as tight as it can go because this mixing technique is about isolation and honing in on the nasty frequencies in a particular track. If you have a wide Q, there won't be as much isolation and it will be harder to tell which frequency is the bad one. Please note that this is NOT a pleasant setting to the ears, but that is the idea. You have to go bad, before you make it sound good. This EQ was used for a guitar track and I swept (moved the node) back and forth (the orange one in this case) until I found the worst frequency possible in the guitar. So go ahead and sweep your EQ and find the villain that is causing issues.

Once you have found the nasty, lower the gain on the frequency by moving the node down as shown in Fig. 3:

When it comes to how far you should lower the gain, you will need to use your ears. While that frequency when overused could cause issues in your track, it may contribute a small something that would be missed if eliminated entirely. When you think you have found the proper gain setting on your troublesome frequency, widen the Q a bit. This will help to grab any slightly troubling frequencies surrounding the one you dropped. However, if widening the Q seems to thin out the sound too much, then leave it alone. Again, use your ears and don't go overboard.

At this point, you might be done with your particular track in regards to EQ. Sometimes subtractive EQ offers just the right amount of sound to cut through the mix and therefore requires no further adjustment. However, if your track does need a little more proceed with caution as too much salt will ruin a meal.

How do you approach EQ and finding nasty frequencies? Please leave comments and responses below!

Reference Recordings: Getting out of your own mix!

And . . . I'm back at it after a short hiatus while on tour. So far we have only discussed some segmented concepts in the mix. EQing, depth, space, reverb, delay. Now, we are going to take things a step further, but not with adjusting your mix. This time we are going to actually get out of the mix for a moment and into something called reference recordings. A reference recording is anything that you feel you want your music to sound like (a finished, commercially produced product). By sound like, I don't mean copy cat. We are talking about mix, not song-writing. You should already have your song worked out and recorded (and possibly mixed to some degree) if you are delving into this step. At most, your reference recording should be within the same style. Here are a few things to think about before selecting a reference recording:

1. Instrument Sound  

You should ask yourself a few questions. How big are your guitars? What about your kick drum? Snare? Piano? Do they fit in the mix? Or do they sound segmented and out of place? Do specific instruments shine through the way you would like? Regardless of instrument, you need to think about what your mix sounds like when you hit the playback button and then what you WANT it to sound like. What are you going for? 

2. Depth

We have already discussed this in an earlier post and it is something to consider here. Is your track 'deep' enough? Is there enough distance between each instrument? Should there be more? Do you want more? Does the style call for a lot or a little?

3. Compression

I have not discussed the inner workings of compression as of yet in this blog (it is coming soon) but it is something to consider here (please message me if you don't understand this step and I can give you more of a synopsis). Do you want your track squashed and have everything as loud as possible with no dynamic range (lots of hiphop and rap records are mixed in this fashion)? Or do you want to maintain the dynamics of your original track and allow some ebb and flow? 

After thinking about these things, get ready for the mirror. Select a reference recording (or more than one) . . . then play it back to back with your track. Don't be shocked if the difference is pretty great. Keep in mind that a commercial recording is already mastered and has probably been mixed with gear that is worth more than most of your possessions combined. However, don't worry . . . one thing I was told when I first started tearing into audio production, was that 'your mixes aren't going to sound like everyone else's, and that's okay.' You are going to have your own sound, and that is a good thing and nothing to be ashamed of. However, you still want to have a quality product so listen to your reference recordings. Remember the concepts mentioned earlier? Instrument sound, depth, and compression? Analyze the references using these concepts except this time, use the info you find to tweak your own mix. One of the best ways to learn is to watch (in this case listen) what others have done and expand your knowledge and capability accordingly. I have used recordings from Prince, Bruce Hornsby, Whiteheart, Steve Stevens, and others to assist in this process. These artists (among others) have some of the best engineers alive working on their stuff and they are fantastic sources to utilize for learning. Also keep in mind, that this whole thing is very subjective. Finally, if you are unsure of yourself (and you should always be somewhat unsure because that is what will keep you striving towards perfection), let someone whose opinion you trust hear it.

And when you are happy with your mix . . . this is what you'll look like:

EQ your Mix: Creating Space

Aloha! After re-reading yesterday's post, I began thinking more about the other ways of creating space in a mix and I figured that right now might be as good a time as any for some more spacial discussion. So without further ado . . .

EQ, short for equalizer, is probably one of the most common forms of adjustment for music outside of the volume knob. Let's go old school for a moment . . does anyone remember the old boom boxes? If I remember correctly, mine had a 5-band EQ on it. At the time, I really had no idea what it was beyond making my cassette tapes sound different when adjusted. Even more basic is the typical car stereo EQ featuring treble, midrange (or mid), and bass. Often, we might change these settings based on the style of music we like and adjust accordingly to taste. What is really going on here though? Essentially we are adjusting the gain for a predetermined range of frequencies. As the names suggest, the controls on a car stereo (or basic home stereo) adjust the upper, middle, and lower areas of the frequency spectrum. Growing up, most of us have tweaked the sound of our favorite tunes in this fashion. EQ usage in mixing is WAY more in depth though . . . 

Hang with me here, this will connect to mixing. Guitarists are notorious (I count myself in this discussion) for adjusting their amps (treble, mid, bass) and sounds in the same fashion as mentioned above. For starters, this IS NOT WRONG. However, this perspective can get an aspiring artist into trouble on occasion when mixing his/her guitar tracks in with other instruments. Again, I will repeat . . . there is NOTHING wrong with adjusting your amp in this fashion when you are just hanging out and jamming. Recording, mixing, and playing with a band is a whole different story though. We guitarists love big, thick tone. At times, this tempts us to crank up the bass (for example) on our amps. In a recording situation, you can start running into issues with the bass track if you overdo it. Despite the temptation to crank the bass, the juicy parts of the guitar speak very vibrantly in the mid to upper range of the frequency spectrum. In a mixing environment, very few times is a guitar track ever going to need anything boosted down in the 100 Hz area (specifics are going to really depend on the style of music and taste, keep that in mind when reading these posts). The more you turn up a frequency that tends to sit in a different instrument's range, the more you can unnecessarily fill up space in the spectrum and overshadow important aspects of the mix. In order to combat this and help make space for your tracks, you can use what is commonly referred to as 'subtractive EQ.' All this means, is that instead of turning up a needed frequency, you turn down a different one that isn't as important or essential to that specific track in order to showcase the desired frequency to a greater extent. You could be subtracting in order to bring out something within the track itself, or you could be doing it to bring out another aspect of the mix. You can also use to it to aurally de-clutter your mixes. Check out Ex. 1: 

If you take a peek at the leftmost section of the grid (this is an EQ i used for a guitar track), you will notice that there is a high pass filter applied which, in this case, is sloping off the lower side between 300-400 Hz. The meatiness of a bass guitar tends to sit right around and below the area where we sloped off. What we have done here is used subtractive EQ to make space within the mix by removing some unnecessary frequencies in the guitar track. This paves the way for both the guitar and bass to coexist nicely within the mix.  This can help to make more space in your mix when not only used with guitar or bass tracks, but also when used on other instruments as well. Here is another example of subtractive EQ: 

Ex. 2

I used Ex. 2 to cut some of the low end boominess and some of unpleasant midrange coming through an overhead mic on a drum set. Subtractive EQ doesn't always have to appear this extreme, but sometimes you have to get nasty with the settings in order to get the right amount of space necessary to make other elements cut through. As always, it is subject to the style and the desired sound. To close, play with the settings, and use your ears. Also, use reference recordings. Listen to what other people have done to make their mixes rock. It just takes lots of practice.