Trying to become a better at EQ'ing

Hello yall. Like the title obviously stated I have been working on EQ (Equalization) for the past few days. My friend actually let me buy a nice Waves Bundle off him which I researched and heard was pretty good. I also bought this Mixing Engineer's Handbook which was actually one of the most helpful tools ever.

The problem is: On one of the pages, there is a "Magic Frequencies" section that gives good frequencies for EQ'ing to make instruments sound better, but I do not know the exact terms.

For example: Bass Guitar - "Bottom at 50 to 80Hz, attack at 700Hz, snap at 2.5kHz"

When Equalizing this is all I see:



Sorry for the long post but I guess what I'm confused about is how whether he is saying the sounds will have bottom, attack, and snap at certain frequencies, or whether the more I EQ the more it sounds bottomy, snappy. Sorry but honestly, so confused right now!

It means boost at 50 to 80Hz to add bottom.

you see under the window the numbers:
16 32 64 128 250 500 .........

those are the frequencies. the line in the middle is 0.. which if everything is at 0 nothing has been raised or lowered... now you raise or drop the buttons in or move them to shape the line (the yellow line). now instead of the line being straight at zero.. you will hear the sound at the new level of the yellow line.

so that: "Bottom at 50 to 80Hz" is the bottom of the bass guitar which on your parametric eq will be from between 16-32 up to around in between the 32-64 area. get it now?

picture it like the treble and bass dials on a stereo... except instead of being able to adjust only bass and treble... you have 6 dials... low bass, bass, upper bass, low treble, treble, upper trebble... those being each of the 6 dots on the yellow line of the EQ..


not too tough. play around with it and experiment.

oh and the reason it goes 16,32,64,128,250... etc.. is because we can only hear between 20hertz and 20,000hertz. so those are what need adjusting... bass lower then 20 can only be felt not heard... and pitches higher then 20,000 cant be heard but dogs can hear higher... that is how those silent dog whistles work.

mr_debauch wrote:


you see under the window the numbers:
16 32 64 128 250 500 .........

those are the frequencies. the line in the middle is 0.. which if everything is at 0 nothing has been raised or lowered... now you raise or drop the buttons in or move them to shape the line (the yellow line). now instead of the line being straight at zero.. you will hear the sound at the new level of the yellow line.

so that: "Bottom at 50 to 80Hz" is the bottom of the bass guitar which on your parametric eq will be from between 16-32 up to around in between the 32-64 area. get it now?

picture it like the treble and bass dials on a stereo... except instead of being able to adjust only bass and treble... you have 6 dials... low bass, bass, upper bass, low treble, treble, upper trebble... those being each of the 6 dots on the yellow line of the EQ..


not too tough. play around with it and experiment.

Your the Effin man. Thanks dude.

And those magic frequencies...
They're all different in every article/book I read.
They contain an essence of truth, but don't stick too much to it.
Every track has it own 'magic frequencies'.

Like what mr debauch said, play around.

subtractive eq is the best way to go. Carve out space for other elements in your production. You would be amazed at the results when done right. An occasional boost in the lower mid range or high end is not a bad idea either. It all depends on the source..

#1 thing i recommend is sweep the whole freq spectrum of each source and identify whats happening. Narrow Q boosted all the way and sweep around. Once you find desirable / UNDESIRABLE freq Open up the Q a little bit and boost or CUT the freq until it feels right. Bypass occasionally to make sure your not changing tonal characters ect.

Kind of just a starting point. You can never rely on an organic source to be the same everytime.

eq madness, oh boy!

dopedee wrote:subtractive eq is the best way to go. Carve out space for other elements in your production. You would be amazed at the results when done right. An occasional boost in the lower mid range or high end is not a bad idea either. It all depends on the source..

#1 thing i recommend is sweep the whole freq spectrum of each source and identify whats happening. Narrow Q boosted all the way and sweep around. Once you find desirable / UNDESIRABLE freq Open up the Q a little bit and boost or CUT the freq until it feels right. Bypass occasionally to make sure your not changing tonal characters ect.

Kind of just a starting point. You can never rely on an organic source to be the same everytime.

eq madness, oh boy!

Yeah alright sounds good. I'll prob check manual on plugins on how to sweep and what not cause I dont know how.

Those are TDM plugs so what PT setup are you using?

Sovereign wrote:Those are TDM plugs so what PT setup are you using?

I think that eq pluggin comes with waves mercury collection.. runs standard vst.

http://www.propellerheads.se/substance/record-u/index.cfm?fuseaction=get_article&article=part2a

Pretty good article on eq I think.
Although written for their software, same principles apply elsewhere.

mr_debauch wrote:

Sovereign wrote:Those are TDM plugs so what PT setup are you using?

I think that eq pluggin comes with waves mercury collection.. runs standard vst.

I'm referring to what he has pictured not the format of Waves Plugs.
The Linear Phase first showed up in the Masters Bundle and then in other later bundles.

I didn't know if it was just a picture or a real screen shot from his setup.