cuz you a soft spoken bitch who's nuts ain't dropped yet..Originally Posted by Dr. Swag Sauce
*feels*
Ain't dropped YET..
cuz you a soft spoken bitch who's nuts ain't dropped yet..
*feels*
Ain't dropped YET..
sub bass hoecake....i said sub bass...good ol' synthesized sub bass.....im sorry your monitors dont respond to that frequency....but i rather enjoy it on my shitty ass old speakers...maybe i will be tracking a harp anyway....could be fun....i think ima track a douchebag too....gonna be hard to choose between the squash squash of a classic douchebag, or the yap yap yap of the more modern douchebag as shown in this post...
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cuz i stay gettin the wires on em caught on shit, and yankin em out my ears...fuckin pisses me off..
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would this be the ideal way to go about it:
EQ to all vocal pieces first, then adjust everything to right volumes.. then EQ the instrumental if any parts seem a bit weaker?
not really neccessary to EQ the intrumental unless theres something about the sound of it that u dont like...aint something u HAVE to do...
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ite well lets put it this way, when I get my vocals to the right level & everything, there sorta standing out more than the beat.. even tho there at equal levels, so another question is, when it comes to then EQing the instrumental.. I just mess around with the low ends mainly right... don't really go beyond that right?
nah nah man...your taking it all wrong....niether ya vocals, or instrumental should only have the lows messed with....unless the only frequencies your having a problem with is the lows...
anything that doesent right to you, should be eq'ed...no matter what frequency....problem is, recognizing what doesent sound right...
i think ya just need to read up man...seems like your havin trouble grasping the concept..
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You need to lower mids in vocals to give room to lower mids in a instrumental, same for lows highs etc right?
^ or atleast I've read this & it said that you do for lows, sooo basically I need a proper method of how to actually do this ... do you get what I mean? Do I EQ vocals then go to instrumental if it still dont sound right... then after I figure out what ''instruments'' it is do I uhhh lower spots in my vocals EQ to make room, orwell what is a good method?
Last edited by Tebo; February 24th, 2010 at 06:32 AM
if u have an instrumental, and a set of vocals, that are occupying too much of the same frequency, then u usually u would only need to lower ONE of them....if u lower both, then your just going to be leaving a gap...but there could be a situation where lowering both would be beneficial...u might have to lower on so much to balance things out, that it make it sound like shit....in that case, it would be a good idea to take away from both...if its in the mids, then usually you would want to try to lower the instrumental, because the mids is the most important part of vocals...
the best method, is to play it by ear...and use it when you hear it neccessary...which comes with time....looks like youve got a basic concept of the uses/purpose of the EQ, and ya starting to understand it more....so now the only thing to do is to try it out....
if your askin about this so much because your tyin to get a project your working on perfect right now, its probably not gonna happen man....just try to best....mix the track a couple different times...and keep the best results...
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I try to get my levels all "right" first... then I'll eq if I need to, but I pretty much always drop out the lows on my vocals... that, to me, ain't so much an eq process for the sake of eq, but more to make room... once that's done, I'll begin to apply effects as I see fit... startin' with reverb, then delay... the reverb is what's gonna make your vocals not stand out, like you say you're strugglin' with... the reverb will help your vocal to blend/fade back into the mix a little better... sometimes, once I've got a decent mix, I'll go back to eq and add just a slight bump around 2K... 2K gives the average male voice a good presence, but don't get carried away... and remember to use bus tracks for effects, and the sends on your vocal tracks to apply them, rather than applyin' the effects directly to each vocal track...
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This is a copy and paste btw
read it all,and digest it
it tells you the basic theory and what we are trying to achieve when using EQ
which really is just a tool to put everything into its own place (along with volumes, pans and reverbs)
I assume that we all know that the range of what most humans can hear runs from 20 hz to 20khz, so from 20 to 20,000 frequencies per second is all the human ear can deal with.
Those lower frequencies around 20 to hmmm about 100 maybe 200 are felt, just as much as they are heard. Ever wonder why that is so? Why does your shirt and chest rattle in the night club when the bass and kick are pounding away? Those low frequecies are full of energy, and that energy can actually attempt to move what it is trying to go through.
Sound is energy, plain and simple, just like a vehicle driving down the road at 60 mph, put an object in front of it, and both sound and the vehicle are going to attempt to plow through it. The lighter the vehicle and the higher the frequency, the less energy either have when impacting the wall, therefore the less ability they will have to move what they are hitting. Some are so lightweight they just bounce right back the other direction until they hit something the in the other direction.
So, this means the low frequencies are full of energy and the higher ones are just a bunch of lightwieghts bouncing all over the place. Now take this one step further.
Let's say you made a track with a thunderous bass, man it just vibrates the crap out of your shirt and is cool as hell, but then you have the amp from hell to drive that track. Next thing you do is burn the CD and run out to your car, but it sounds like crap. My god how can this be? You just created the next million seller and your car stereo is ruining it.
Well in your studio at 100 watts there is plenty of energy for all of your little freq buddies to play and be happy, but pop it into the car stereo with maybe 20 watts and there just isnt enough juice to go around. Somebody is not going to be heard. So the big energy robbing heavy hitters get their way and the little bounce off the wall wimps get left in the dust. It is only going to sound like one big bass/mudd line.
Ok so now we know that the lower freq's need to be restrained just a little, so we put some roll off below 50. (Side note, personal choice on where to roll it off) Now that lets the weaklings play along side the heavy hitters down at the bottom, but wait, it still sounds like mud. Damn it, what is going wrong here.
Now we have to think about other things and this is where it can get even more complicated. Let's say for arguments sake that you have 10 instruments playing in your track. Every instrument is going to have, what I like to think of as, its dominant frequecncy range. And some of this I am going "off the cuff" because I can never remember the ranges of all of these instruments, so I always go back and check my notes.
Bass and kick are going to be in that low high energy group from 20 to about 200, but then they are going to have harmonics that reach out beyond that, maybe even up into the 4000 freqs or more.
Keyboards are going to be in that 400 up to 3000 with harmonics beyond that.
Snares ride in the 400-1000 depending on tuning with harmonics
Vocals same thing and on and on.
Now you can see that things start to build up in the middle, somewhere between 400 to 8000 and all the stuff beyond are generally the harmonics all of these intruments produce.
It is in that 400 to 8000 range that you have to carve out little nitches for all of those instruments that sit there. If they all try to occupy the same place at the same time, then someone is going to lose and it all sounds like a muddy mess.
If you didn't capture the perfect sound that sits just right, EQ becomes your trusty fix. This is your swiss knife to carve up that precious little space of frequency spectrum and hand it out to each instrument. With EQ you are giving each instrument, the boundaries where it is allowed to play and be heard. No more, no less.
So exlcuding the kick and bass which you held back at below 50 hz you have, not including the snare, toms and cymbals, about 5 instruments that you really need to deal with. Those 5 have to be carved up into frequency nitches to allow them to be heard.
This doesnt mean that you take instrument 1 and roll it off at 300 and 600 and instrument 2 at 600 and 1000 etc. If you did that it would sound like a bad AM radio. It means you use cuts and boosts to give each one its prominent space. What one gets the other doesn't and vice versa and in the end you have 10 instruments all happily being heard.
I hope others jump in and offer some opinions. And I hope the newcomers understand that using EQ is not something you use, "just because", but a tool to carve out niches for all of your instruments to sit inside the limited frequency spectrum of 20 hz to 20 khz. Of course panning, volume and reverb can even play into this, but for now we are only thinking about frequencies.
Okay when thinking about mixing and EQ never lose sight of the purpose--which is to create an intelligible mix with clarity and power. Myself I have an approach that may be a little bit more radical but has served me fairly well.
First off I'm a big believer in using shelf filters to nip and tuck sounds. I use a LOT of high pass filtering to roll off bass frequencies on almost every instrument. For all practical purposes I filter everything in some way or another.
I usually run a high pass filter to eliminate anything below 100hz on guitar, snare, toms and so forth. For cymbals I usually start the cutoff around 500hz. Vocals about 150hz or so. The reason I do this is I only want the bass and kick drum occupying the space below 100hz to allow for a powerful, yet uncluttered, low end.
Suprisingly this technique works really good for getting that low end down. When I am done with a mix I usually run another highpass filter over the whole mix around 55-60hz to eliminate a lot of frequencies that you can't really hear or feel--and aren't reproduced on most stereo systems. This low end mush can really sap a power amp and speaker of its ability to pump. Once cleaned up it is amazing how punchy your tracks will be, without any apparent loss of low end.
I do a similar thing with a low pass filter on most of the instruments as well to eliminate any extraneous high frequences. I usually start rolling off guitar around 8khz gently, the kick drum around 6khz, toms around 10khz and snare around 12khz. The only things I want to inhabit the area above 10khz are cymbals, high hats--and most importantly--the "air" of the vocals.
It is amazing how much vocals can cut thru a mix and still keeping a high sheen on the overall mix using this method. Your seperation is often enhanced as well. And you don't have to resort to awful harmonic exciters like BBE and Aphex... which are usually poorly used and can sound very sour to me.
After I have filtered my frequencies I actually begin to EQ things. Now I have a few rules of my own when it comes to using EQ that keep things under control. Once again, these are just guideline rules that I occasionally break but I have found that they are applicable for me 90% of the time:
1.) Always use a parametric EQ. Graphic EQ's are for wusses.
2.) When boosting Q must be wider (less than) than 2.
3.) When cutting Q should be narrow--from 1.5 or greater.
4.) No cut or boost may be greater than 6db +/- in any case (occasionally broken for cutting).
5.) 75% of my boosts are less than 2 db. 90% are less than 4 db of boost.
6.) Never cut more than 8db of anything unless notching out specific small frequencies.
7.) It is okay to occaionally "pile on" a wide Q boost or cut with another narrower boost/cut if you need a radical increase in that particular frequency (this makes it sound more natural and less like a resonant peak).
Okay, when I am using EQ--which I admit I do a lot of *subtle* EQing--I always aim at doing one of two things:
1.) Remove the 'bad' qualities of the sound such as rattles, hums, hiss, muddy frequency areas and so on.
2.) If there are no bad qualities that need to go, then accentuate the positive elements.
After I have taken care of those problems I then move on to actually mixing the instruments together. I always ask myself "where does this particular track live?" and aim towards cutting other tracks that intrude on that area by a few db's. The idea is to cut away parts of interfering signals to allow certain instruments to shine in particular bandwidths. This is my general schema (these are relative and only guidelines--individual mixes/use may vary):
80hz - rumble of the bass
100hz - thump of the kick
200hz - bottom of the guitar
250hz - warmth of the vocal
350hz - bang of the snare
400hz - body of the bass
500hz - clang of the high hat
600hz - clang of the cymbals
800hz - ping of ride cymbal
1000hz - meat of the guitar
1200hz - body of the snare
1400hz - meat of the vocal
1600hz - snap of the kick/plectrum on guitar (attack)
2500hz - wires and snap of snare
3000hz - presence of the vocal
4000hz - ring of ride cymbal/top end of bass guitar
6000hz - sizzle of the high hat
7000hz - sizzle of the cymbals
8000hz - top end of the kick
9000hz - brightness on snare and cymbals
10000hz - brightness on vocal
12000hz - air on vocal
14000hz - air on cymbals
Generally I want each listed element to be the "star" of that particular frequency range--anything that is near that range that is stealing the thunder of the instrument gets a gentle 1-3db cut across a fairly wide bandwidth. For example, almost universally you have to cut guitar at 3khz to make room for the vocal--especially at high gain settings with tons of harmonics. Lower the guitar a bit in that region and POP... the vocals come out.
I realize my method is a LONG one that takes some time, but results in superior mixes for me. I like to feel that the entire frequency spectrum is represented by something unique in each area to allow the full instrumentation to shine through. I also make ample use of panning to get clarity and seperation and sometimes take that into consideration--especially when two elements are in the same frequency band. It is good to have one or both panned differently from one another. A perfect example is the ride cymbal and top end of the bass: the bass will be coming at you down the center and the ride cymbal should be off a ways R or L--thus avoiding conflict.
To understand EQ and its intricacies you need hands-on experience, but to help you get started, here's a table of general uses and the different ranges that EQ can affect. As every sound is different, though, these are necessarily very general guidelines...
Kick Drum
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz. Try a small boost around 5-7kHz to add some high end.
50-100Hz ~ Adds bottom to the sound
100-250Hz ~ Adds roundness
250-800Hz ~ Muddiness Area
5-8kHz ~ Adds high end prescence
8-12kHz ~ Adds Hiss
Snare
Try a small boost around 60-120Hz if the sound is a little too wimpy. Try boosting around 6kHz for that 'snappy' sound.
100-250Hz ~ Fills out the sound
6-8kHz ~ Adds prescence
Hi hats or cymbals
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz. To add some brightness try a small boost around 3kHz.
250-800Hz ~ Muddiness area
1-6kHz ~ Adds presence
6-8kHz ~ Adds clarity
8-12kHz ~ Adds brightness
Bass
Try boosting around 60Hz to add more body. Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz.If more presence is needed, boost around 6kHz.
50-100Hz ~ Adds bottom end
100-250Hz ~ Adds roundness
250-800Hz ~ Muddiness Area
800-1kHz ~ Adds beef to small speakers
1-6kHz ~ Adds presence
6-8kHz ~ Adds high-end presence
8-12kHz ~ Adds hiss
Vocals
This is a difficult one, as it depends on the mic used to record the vocal. However...Apply either cut or boost around 300hz, depending on the mic and song.Apply a very small boost around 6kHz to add some clarity.
100-250Hz ~ Adds 'up-frontness'
250-800Hz ~ Muddiness area
1-6kHz ~ Adds presence
6-8kHz ~ Adds sibilance and clarity
8-12kHz ~ Adds brightness
Piano
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz. Apply a very small boost around 6kHz to add some clarity.
50-100Hz ~ Adds bottom
100-250Hz ~ Adds roundness
250-1kHz ~ Muddiness area
1-6kHz ~ Adds presence
6-8Khz ~ Adds clarity
8-12kHz ~ Adds hiss
Electric guitars
Again this depends on the mix and the recording. Apply either cut or boost around 300hz, depending on the song and sound. Try boosting around 3kHz to add some edge to the sound, or cut to add some transparency. Try boosting around 6kHz to add presence. Try boosting around 10kHz to add brightness.
100-250Hz ~ Adds body
250-800Hz ~ Muddiness area
1-6Khz ~ Cuts through the mix
6-8kHz ~ Adds clarity
8=12kHz ~ Adds hiss
Acoustic guitar
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off between 100-300Hz. Apply small amounts of cut around 1-3kHz to push the image higher. Apply small amounts of boost around 5kHz to add some presence.
100-250Hz ~ Adds body
6-8kHz ~ Adds clarity
8-12kHz ~ Adds brightness
Strings
These depend entirely on the mix and the sound used.
50-100Hz ~ Adds bottom end
100-250Hz ~ Adds body
250-800Hz ~ Muddiness area
1-6hHz ~ Sounds crunchy
6-8kHz ~ Adds clarity
8-12kHz ~ Adds brightness
1. Increase to add more fullness to lowest frequency instruments like foot, toms, and the bass.
2. Reduce to decrease the "boom" of the bass and will increase overtones and the recognition of bass line in the mix. This is most often used on bass lines in Rap and R&B.
__________
100Hz
Increase to add a harder bass sound to lowest frequency instruments.
Increase to add fullness to guitars, snare.
Increase to add warmth to piano and horns.
Reduce to remove boom on guitars & increase clarity.
__________
200Hz
1. Increase to add fullness to vocals.
2. Increase to add fullness to snare and guitar (harder sound).
3. Reduce to decrease muddiness of vocals or mid-range instruments.
4. Reduce to decrease gong sound of cymbals.
__________
400Hz
1. Increase to add clarity to bass lines especially when speakers are at low volume.
2. Reduce to decrease "cardboard" sound of lower drums (foot and toms).
3. Reduce to decrease ambiance on cymbals.
__________
800Hz
1. Increase for clarity and "punch" of bass.
2. Reduce to remove "cheap" sound of guitars
__________
1.5KHz
1. Increase for "clarity" and "pluck" of bass.
2. Reduce to remove dullness of guitars.
__________
3KHz
1. Increase for more "pluck" of bass.
2. Increase for more attack of electric / acoustic guitar.
3. Increase for more attack on low piano parts.
4. Increase for more clarity / hardness on voice.
5. Reduce to increase breathy, soft sound on background vocals.
6. Reduce to disguise out-of-tune vocals / guitars
__________
5KHz
1. Increase for vocal presence.
2. Increase low frequency drum attack (foot/toms).
3. Increase for more "finger sound" on bass.
4. Increase attack of piano, acoustic guitar and brightness on guitars.
5. Reduce to make background parts more distant.
6. Reduce to soften "thin" guitar.
__________
7KHz
1. Increase to add attack on low frequency drums (more metallic sound).
2. Increase to add attack to percussion instruments.
3. Increase on dull singer.
4. Increase for more "finger sound" on acoustic bass.
5. Reduce to decrease "s" sound on singers.
6. Increase to add sharpness to synthesizers, rock guitars, acoustic guitar and piano.
__________
10KHz
1. Increase to brighten vocals.
2. Increase for "light brightness" in acoustic guitar and piano.
3. Increase for hardness on cymbals.
4. Reduce to decrease "s" sound on singers.
__________
15KHz
1. Increase to brighten vocals (breath sound).
2. Increase to brighten cymbals, string instruments and flutes.
3. Increase to make sampled synthesizer sound more real.
Low Bass: anything less than 50Hz
This range is often known as the sub bass and is most commonly taken up by the lowest part of the kick drum and bass guitar, although at these frequencies it's almost impossible to determine any pitch. Sub bass is one of the reasons why 12" vinyl became available: low frequencies require wider grooves than high frequencies - without rolling off everything below 50Hz you couldn't fit a full track onto a 7" vinyl record. However we do NOT recommend applying any form of boost around this area without the use of very high quality studio monitors (not home monitors - there is a vast difference between home nearfield and studio farfield monitors costing anywhere between £5,000 and £20,000). Boosting blindly in this area without a valid reference point can and will permanently damage most speakers, even PA systems. You have been warned!
Bass: 50-250Hz
This is the range you're adjusting when applying the bass boost on most home stereos, although most bass signals in modern music tracks lie around the 90-200Hz area with a small boost in the upper ranges to add some presence or clarity.
Muddiness/irritational area: 200-800Hz
The main culprit area for muddy sounding mixes, hence the term 'irritational area'. Most frequencies around here can cause psycho-acoustic problems: if too many sounds in a mix are dominating this area, a track can quickly become annoying, resulting in a rush to finish mixing it as you get bored or irritated by the sound of it.
Mid-range: 800-6kHz
Human hearing is extremely sensitive at these frequencies, and even a minute boost around here will result in a huge change in the sound - almost the same as if you boosted around 10db at any other range. This is because our voices are centred in this area, so it's the frequency range we hear more than any other. Most telephones work at 3kHz, because at this frequency speech is most intelligible. This frequency also covers TV stations, radio, and electric power tools. If you have to apply any boosting in this area, be very cautious, especially on vocals. We're particularly sensitive to how the human voice sounds and its frequency coverage.
High Range: 6-8kHz
This is the range you adjust when applying the treble boost on your home stereo. This area is slightly boosted to make sounds artificially brighter (although this artificial boost is what we now call 'lifelike') when mastering a track before burning it to CD.
Hi-High Range: 8-20kHz
This area is taken up by the higher frequencies of cymbals and hi-hats, but boosting around this range, particularly around 12kHz can make a recording sound more high quality than it actually is, and it's a technique commonly used by the recording industry to fool people into thinking that certain CDs are more hi-fidelity than they'd otherwise sound. However, boosting in this area also requires a lot of care - it can easily pronounce any background hiss, and using too much will result in a mix becoming irritating.
__________
A.I
Hip Hop Uk Resurrection
there standing out from the beat because there are other instruments occupying the frequency of your vocals, because you have no control of seperate instruments in your mix you cant sit the vocals in correctly you can only hope to have them on top of the beat or below
you can however try to mesh them a bit better by using subtractive eq EQ on the instrumental at the vocal frequencys
sweep a negative eq around 3khz on the instrumental until you get it to slot in...reverb may help set the vocals back a bit in the mix
A.I
Hip Hop Uk Resurrection
One way to think of a mix is like a 3D stage, panning pushes instruments left and right..reverb will push them back or bring to the front because it gives an illusion of distance, volumes deal with height and Eq can deal with all 3 really
A.I
Hip Hop Uk Resurrection
go check into your tournament match yo...
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oh, will do..
A.I
Hip Hop Uk Resurrection
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