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so i am having problems with how clean i need to eq each sound what i was wondering is if some one could throw up a couple of screen shots of some individual sound in a spectral analyzer before and after so i can see how clean i need to get stuff i think that would help out a lot



thanks

what type of sound and also what kinda vibe do you want?
you can eq to leave in some dirt or extreme eq to a sterile lab type sound

mostly the cleaner stuff for like kicks and snares

Best advice I got was 'play with it 'till it sounds good'. Learn Shelving and notching 'n you should be ok.

the good doctor wrote:mostly the cleaner stuff for like kicks and snares

i'm not gonna open up apps and take screenscots atm (prolly couldn't with current state of this comp) but generally say kicks cut as much as you can in the sub-bass range (low cut) same for snares and try to keep the aspects of each you like (attack etc) and cut higher end you don't need or any in range interfering with other sounds headroom

kicks: if you have a heavy sub bass (40Hz-60Hz) cut the low end of your kick anywhere from 70hz-100hz.

snare: i usually cut everything until about 200-400hz. and then I lower the hi shelf about -6db around the high end where the bright part of the hats are playing

hats: boost a bit of the highs, cut or lower up until the range of the snare

it's all respective, if you have a strong sub bass you cut the sub of the kick, if you have a weak bass, don't cut the kick, and cut the frequencies of the bass around the higher end of the low end of the kick.

that should help. keep in the mind though, eqing does not make up for bad choices of drum samples, bad qualities drum samples, or lack of compression/distortion/clipping.

but still for pads and leads and what not, even your wobble bass, i use the eq to sculpt the sound a bit sometimes. Especially pads since you want to use a bandpass filter to just hit a small range of frequencies.

also a boost sweep at max dbs can help to isolate the ugly freqs in a sound

it's all respective, if you have a strong sub bass you cut the sub of the kick, if you have a weak bass, don't cut the kick, and cut the frequencies of the bass around the higher end of the low end of the kick.

higher end of the low end of the kick.
huh

Just subtractively EQ for the time being.

Look at every track in an analyser, look for the main body frequency, and decide where the 'essence' of the sound is coming from, then chop everything else away from it.

the good doctor wrote:it's all respective, if you have a strong sub bass you cut the sub of the kick, if you have a weak bass, don't cut the kick, and cut the frequencies of the bass around the higher end of the low end of the kick.

higher end of the low end of the kick.
huh

So say you have a kick that has lots of sub frequencies around 42hz-100hz. And you want the kick to dominate the sub frequencies. You can either cut your bassline, or lower the eq, of the sub part of the bass in your song, or if you're bass is weak in those frequencies already, you don't need to do anything. What I meant by "higher end of the low end of the kick" was say if you have a bass line that is really punch around 70-120hz, then you could lower those frequencies that the bass dominates in the kick's eq to create some space, or "clean" it up.

the good doctor wrote:if some one could throw up a couple of screen shots of some individual sound in a spectral analyzer before and after so i can see how clean i need to get stuff i think that would help out a lot

It wouldn't

How would you know someone wasn't messing with you, posting up pictures of duck farts, or an eq'd car engine, or or or....

There's no shortcut via a spectrum analyser - listen to some of the good advice here, don't obsess over eq but do obsess over sound selection, and make it sound good. That will help you to develop a lot more.

Its a bit clinical, but every tune i make now when auditioning kickdrums i make sure that its peak is hitting 100hz, and trim any sub bass it has upto 85-90hz. 100hz is one of the 'critical bands' and will stand out in your mix. Once you have your sub bass there you don't even notice te lack of sub bass from the kick.

Here's an example of My kick-



As for my snares, its peak should be around 200hz but not all the time as you will layer claps and much brighter quieter snares on top.

And here's my snare-



And here's a pad thats been notch filtered and high passed-



Most EQ is subjective as everyone has their own style.

My EQ approach is a drum & Bass trick i learnt last year. Anyone else upto this?

the reddish vertical bars represent volume on that frecuency, the kick ain't showing that much, because I don't have a kick and a snare hitting at the same time. I usually go with a more sterile mix.

Ecliptic wrote:Its a bit clinical, but every tune i make now when auditioning kickdrums i make sure that its peak is hitting 100hz, and trim any sub bass it has upto 85-90hz.

For the pictures, which EQ plug were u using?

jobbanaught wrote:

Ecliptic wrote:Its a bit clinical, but every tune i make now when auditioning kickdrums i make sure that its peak is hitting 100hz, and trim any sub bass it has upto 85-90hz.

For the pictures, which EQ plug were u using?

It was Logic Pro 8's channel EQ.

Yep just a standard channel EQ. Im not much of a fan of it tho, just used it for demonstration purposes

yo thank you for the info my girls been complaining about quality time so i ain't been able to post back but the info helps me to wrap my head around the concept

try to cut instead of boost. The digital EQ's aren't that great in boosting. Well its being better all the time but the digital don't really sound good in boosting as an analoge EQ. It's not a must but keep it in mind. Your mix will also sound rly decent and balanced when ure not boosting everything.

another thingie thats quite importent.

when youre boosting. Lower the volume
when youre cutting (you can) Pump the volume

EQ'ing is pumping up the volume of a small type of freq. Thats why i advice u to lower the volume when youre boosting. When youre lowering the freq volumes, like givin it a lowcut. You can pump up the volume overall. It gets more space in the mix and can upmped more easily




enjoy