Before using EQ, try to get the desired tone quality by changing the mic or its placement. This gives a more natural effect than EQ. Many purists shun the use of EQ, complaining of excessive phase shift or ringing caused by the equalizer—a “strained” sound. Instead, they use carefully placed, high-quality microphones to get a natural tonal balance without EQ. The usual practice is to record fl at (without EQ) and then equalize the track during mixdown. Sometimes the instruments need a lot of EQ to sound good. If so, you might want to record with EQ so that the playback for the musicians will sound good. When you play the multitrack recording through your monitor mixer, the recording may not sound right unless the tracks are already equalized. (That’s assuming the monitor mixer in your board has no EQ.)
Uses of EQ
Here are some applications for EQ:
Improve tone quality. The main use for EQ is to make an instrument sound better tonally. For example, you might use a high-frequency rolloff on a singer to reduce sibilance, or on a direct-recorded electric guitar to take the “edge” off the sound. You could boost 100 Hz on a fl oor tom to get a fuller sound, or cut around 250 Hz on a bass guitar for clarity. Cut around 100 Hz to reduce bass buildup on massed harmony vocals.
The frequency response and placement of each mic affect tone quality as well. Although you can set the EQ for each track when it is soloed, a better way is to set the equalizers when the entire mix is playing.
That’s because one instrument can mask or hide certain frequencies in another instrument. For example, the cymbals might mask the “s” sounds in the vocal, making the vocal sound dull—even though it might sound fi ne when soloed. Create an effect. Extreme EQ reduces fi delity, but it also can make interesting sound effects. Sharply rolling off the lows and highs on a voice, for instance, gives it a “telephone” sound. A 1-kHz bandpass fi lter does the same thing. To make a mono keyboard track sound stereo, send it to two mixer channels. Boost lows and cut highs in one channel panned left; cut lows and boost highs in the other channel panned right. Reduce noise and leakage. You can reduce low-frequency noises—bass leakage, air-conditioner rumble, mic-stand thumps—by turning down the lows below the fundamentalfrequency
range of the instrument you’re recording. This information is shown in Table 10.1 . For example, a fi ddle’s lowest frequency is about 200 Hz, so you’d use a low-cut fi lter (highpass fi lter) set to 200 Hz (if possible).
This low-cut fi lter won’t change the fi ddle’s tone quality because the fi ltered-out frequencies are below the fi ddle’s lowest frequency. Similarly, a kick drum has little or no output above 9 kHz, so you can fi lter out highs above 9 kHz on the kick drum to reduce cymbal leakage. Filtering out frequencies below 100 Hz on most instruments reduces air-conditioning rumble and breath pops. Try rolling off the lows on audience
mics to prevent muddy bass. To reduce hum, set a parametric EQ for a 24-dB cut, Q of 30, at these frequencies: 60, 120, and 180 Hz (in the United States) or 50, 100, and 150 Hz (in Europe).
Compensate for the Fletcher-Munson effect. As discovered by Fletcher and Munson, the ear is less sensitive to bass and treble at low volumes than at high volumes. So, when you record a very loud instrument and play it back at a lower level, it mightlack bass and treble. To restore these, you may need to boost
the lows (around 100 Hz) and the highs (around 4 kHz) when recording loud rock groups. The louder the group, the more boost you need. It also helps to use cardioid mics with proximity effect (for bass boost) and a presence peak (for treble boost). Make a pleasing blend. If you mix two instruments that sound
alike, such as lead guitar and rhythm guitar, they tend to mush together—it’s hard to tell what each is playing. You can make them more distinct by equalizing them differently. For example, make the lead guitar edgy by boosting 3 kHz, and make the rhythm guitar mellow by cutting 3 kHz. Then you’ll hear a more pleasing blend and a clearer mix. The same philosophy applies to bass guitar and kick drum. Because they occupy
about the same low-frequency range, they tend to mask or cover each other. To make them distinct, either fatten the bass and thin out the kick a little, or vice versa. The idea is to give each instrument its own space in the frequency spectrum; for example, the bass fi lls in the lows, synth chords emphasize mid-bass, lead guitar adds edge in the upper mids, and cymbals add sparkle in the highs. Compensate for mic placement. Sometimes you’re forced to mike very close to reject background sounds and leakage. But a close mic emphasizes the part of the instrument that the mic is near. This gives a colored tone quality, but EQ can partly compensate for it. Suppose you had to record an acoustic guitar with a mic near the sound hole. The guitar track will sound bassy because the sound hole radiates strong low frequencies. But you can turn down the lows on your mixer to restore a natural tonal balance. This use of EQ can save the day by fi xing poorly recorded tracks in live concert recordings. During a concert, the stage monitors might be blaring into your recording/PA microphones, so you’re forced to mike close to reject monitor leakage and feedback.
This close placement, or the monitor leakage itself, can give the recording an unnatural tone quality. In this case, EQ is the only way to get usable tracks. “ Re-mix ” a single track. If a track contains two different instruments, sometimes you can change the mix within that track by using EQ. Imagine a track that has both bass and synth. By using LF EQ, you can bring the bass up or down without 206 CHAPTER 10 Effects and Signal Processors affecting the synth very much. Mixing with EQ is more effective when the two instruments are far apart in their frequency ranges. Improve the tonal balance of an entire mix. During mastering,
you can EQ the stereo mix of each song to make it better, to make the songs on an album sound more similar, or to make the album sound more like commercial albums. An effective tool for this purpose is Harmonic Balancer (www.har-bal.com). Whenever you record, the ideal situation is to use the right mic
in the right position, and in a good-sounding room. Then you don’t need or want EQ. Otherwise, though, your recordings will sound better with EQ than without it.
taken from (PRACTICAL RECORDING TECHNIQUE bay BARTLETT and BARTLETT,2009)
