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when equing a sound, are there any helpful rules of thumb one should keep in mind regarding the physics of equing?

i was messing around with izotope ozone 4's paragraphic equaliser, which i applied to my master channel, and felt as though some settings sounded better than others (i'm coming to a point, bear with plz).

basically, my question is, is it reasonable to "balance out" your eq, say, if you were to boost at 300hz by 2db, and then subsequently attenuate at maybe 12000hz by 2db to counteract the boost at 300 ? and if so is there anything written about this kind of relationship?

or should i just stfu and mess around with the settings til it sounds really good lol

65L wrote:or should i just stfu and mess around with the settings til it sounds really good lol

Pretty much, yeah


Every tune is different, and every element of every tune is different and reacts differently to itself. Try boosting/cutting the EQs of the various elements and listen to how they interlock with each other. By all means keep a spectrum analyser on the master channel (Voxengo's freeware Span is a good choice) to help identify elements visually at the same time you're hearing them - this helps especially when you're first starting out - but the moral of the story is trial & error.

yeh Span is great. very articulate. thx for reply, figured as much heh

A good rule of thumb if your going for a clean sound is use the mid/side eq in isotope and cut some from bass from the sides and boost it 1db in the middle. Makes the low freqs sound better. Do the same for the sides but opposite. where to boost and cut though is tune variant.

eq is one of those things that takes quite a bit of practice to become good at. so yeah, trial and error is necessary to get there, as well as reading about different eq techniques to get a perspective. it helps a lot.

as for reading, i'd recommend these sources: 'thinking inside the box' by dnbscene, 'mixing audio' by roey izhaki, and various eq articles by sound on sound.

Instead of guidelines maybe techniques would be better to study
How to use an eq effectively and how to find problem frequencies and stuff
I don't use a spectrum analyzed so maybe this might not apply to you
even when I do though I like to use narrow q sweeping

After spending some time working with EQ you start to get some more intuition about what to do.

There are general guidelines (cut kick around 400-500hz etc) but really it comes down to what's required for that specific element.

And sometimes a bit of trial and error is necessary.

Spending some time time with EQ plus proper mixing is one of the best things you can do for your production - if you get these right then compression, reverb etc. become creative effects and afterthoughts rather than mix tools.

for one thing, Izotope Ozone is an amazing plugin

this video is more for mastering, but it has some nice tips, theres part 1 and part 2 i would watch it
very resourceful!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z2mMJT4Iqo

i hope you find it just as useful.

as far as Eq, actually Ozone has some real nice presets that you can tweak to your liking, otherwise i think trial and error is your best bet until it sounds nice

this is great, thanks one and all for the input