EQ plays a major role in a contemporary mix. In fact it's so important that even a small format mixing board like the one we saw earlier in the course has an EQ section on every single channel strip. So, it's important to know how an EQ would be used in a mixing context. We know how the individual bands work and function, but now let's think about how we would actually use an EQ on an instrument in a channel strip. We'll use it for both corrective uses to kind of remove noise and rumble, and we'll also use it for more creative purposes and that mixing goal of kind of adjusting the focus of the listener. One of the most important EQ's that we have on a mixing board and it's even on many microphones is a high pass filter. Musical sounds in general have a fundamental frequency, right? A lowest sound they, they make, and then there are numerous overtones or partials above that, that formulate and make the tamber of the instrument. We're safe to remove the energy beneath that. In fact, most of the sonic energy that exists beneath that fundamental frequency will be noise and rumble. If you think about a microphone recording something in a room, recording a voice, maybe, everything below the fundamental frequency or lowest frequency of that voice, will be breath noises, will be foot stomping on the ground. And that vibration traveling up the microphone stand. the HVAC or the, the air conditioning in the room. So we can get rid of that and remove noise. So a high pass filter is a switch on many microphones and it's a button right at the input section of a mixing board very often. Usually we'll actually use that filter except if you're recording very, very low frequency things like a kick drum or a base. Very often though it's quite nice to have that in. As you move down the channel strip, you'll find the, the kind of mixing EQ section. It's usually going to consist of a low shelving filter, a high shelving filter, and one or more mid-range parametric filters. Now, in a mixing context, the high shelving filter is a very important control. In that it really helps guide the listener to the important thing in the mix. We're naturally attracted to the brightest thing, and it's common to make the brightest thing in your mix the focus. So if I want the listeners to focus on the vocal, I'll tend to boost the high end of the vocal just a bit and then reduce the high end on all the other instruments. And that's really going to guide the listener to listen to that one vocal element. So, that high shelving filter provides a really important tool in, in focusing a listener. The low shelving filter is also very nice at providing kind of the base. Right? That kind of boom and emphasis and kind of warmth that you might want. On a bass, for instance, I might have the high pass filter cutting the very lows, and then the low shelving filter boosting a bit to give a nice bump around 100 hertz. To get that, get that body of the bass coming through. Then those mid-range parametric EQs I find are the most difficult to use. It's hard to really get them just where you need them to be. What I would suggest, focusing on cuts in the mid-range. A boost in the mid-range can be very obvious and can sound unnatural. But a cut can be very nice. And one of the most common uses for em are removing unwanted resonances. Many times you'll have an instrument that has one frequency that's just really loud. Particular with percussion, a snare drum, or a clave. And if you can rule that one frequency with a pretty narrow notch you just, move that one frequency, you find you can bring the instrument louder in the mix. It won't distort as much when you bring it up. And it'll just be more pleasing. So removing unwanted resonances is a really important tool for those mid-range parametric EQs. If you can just focus on those things to start with, as you start EQing, it's going to be a really great beginning. Again, the high pass filter is there to remove the low end rumble that might've been in the recording. The high shelving filter will be used to control the brightness, and try to guide the listener to the one focal element in your mix. And your mid-range parametric EQs are wonderful for removing unwanted resonances. In this video, we're going to show how to apply some of those techniques in a contemporary mix. In trying to make sense of a complex device like this, I find it's very handy to go to see what developers of large mixing boards have done. It's actually quite easy to add more parameters and more options in a piece of software. But it's very expensive to do it in a piece of hardware. So if we look at a large format mixing board, and see the EQ sections there. We get a good idea of what the most important types of EQ are in any. Any standard mixing context. So in this example, we'll configure an EQ the same way that a large format mixing board is configured. The first thing we'll have in most mixing boards is a high-pass filter. This is often on the input section and its design is to remove rumble during recording. Very often, the very low information is not necessary and remember any information below the fundamental frequency of your instrument is most likely noise and rumble that you don't want there, so this is a very important type of EQ. In this device it's set at 75 hertz and in the example it's at 18 decibels per octave. The EQ I have here does not have an 18 decibel per octave option, so I'll set it at 24 decibels per octave and I can enable or disable this if I need it. The next thing we see on a standard EQ in the mixing board is going to be a low shelving filter, so we can configure that now. It's interesting to note that the low shelving filter on an, on this mixing board that I'm using as an example, does not allow you to change the frequency of that filter. Instead it's fixed at 80 hertz. And we can see that boosting that, or cutting that, is going to give us quite a bit of a bottom end bump. Perfect for adding weight to basses or warmth to keyboards. The next thing we see on our standard mixing board EQ is going to be a low, mid range EQ. This is going to be bell shaped and it's sweepable from 100 hertz to 2000 hertz and it can boost up to 15 decibels, and cut up to 15 decibels. I think a 15 DB boost would be quite extensive. So I would say boost maybe a max of six decibels, but feel free to cut quite a bit. On my mixing board filter I can't adjust the width of these. That's something I can do on the software, though. So I'll set it around a, a Q factor of one. And note that this filter I should probably sweep from a low of, 100 hertz, to 2k. So it has quite a wide, so it has quite a wide range, but that's it. And I'll set the gain to zero for now. The next thing we see is a high mid range, which is set similarly. I'll set the queue also to one, and it can sweep from 400 hertz all the way up to 8k. So we're getting a sense of what the most important filters are in a mixing context. The final filter we have in our standard EQ is a high shelving filter. And in this model that we're using, it's set at 12 kilohertz, or 12000 hertz. That can boost up to 15 DB which I think would be excessive, or can cut up to 15 DB which might be useful at some point. So there you go. We've configured an EQ to line up with a standard large format mixing board EQ section, and have seen the important ranges and filters we have there. I would suggest using this as your starting point and saving it as your default preset. This time every time you open up your EQ plugin, these filters will be there waiting for you. And you'll be ready to mix effectively. Now that I have my EQ, configured the way that a mixing EQ board would be. I'm going to try to apply it to a few of the tacks, and the song I'm working on. Let's hear it without the EQ. [MUSIC] For this track what I like to do is highlight what the instrument is really good at and reduce what it's not. This is the base. It's going to be the bottom end of my mix, and I want to highlight that a little bit by increasing the bottom end slightly. So I'll use that low shelving filter and just give it a few decibels of gain. And then I don't really need the high end in of the bass. I have other instruments to take care of the high end of my mix. So I'm going to reduce the high end on this instrument. let's hear it now. [MUSIC] Now, it's a good idea to be able to A, B, or compare the plug-in with the off and on, so here's without the EQ. [MUSIC] And then width. [MUSIC] So it's a little bassier, a little warmer, and I think it's just what I want in my mix. And this kind of approach of highlighting what the instrument is good at, and removing what it's not good at, is a great one, and one to explore. I also like what I have done here. And I have kind of shifted the spectral balance of the instrument. Boosting the bass while cutting the highs. And I find thats a common approach in using the two shelving filters that we have on a standard mixing board layout. In this example, I'm going to EQ the keyboard part and the guitar in my mix. Very often when equalizing you'll need to take into account two separate tracks at once, because it's the interaction between tracks that really matters in a mix. Sometimes it's not important how the track sounds in isolation, but how it sounds in the whole mix that really matters. You often have situations like this, where two tracks are occupying the same frequency range and may even have a similar role in the mix. The challenge is giving them both space and making them work together. Let's hear the tracks as they are right now. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] So both instruments are playing chord parts, but the piano part also has the melody. What I think I need to do is let the guitar take most of the base energy and let the keyboard part provide the high end. So, I'll go to my guitar part, and I'm going to isolate or emphasize the base frequencies by cutting the high end. Pretty drastically. Let's hear just the guitar part right now. First without the EQ. [MUSIC] Then with the EQ. [MUSIC] So it's a duller, smoother sound. I think that'll work because it's going to let the bass come through on this part. Now, lets listen to the keyboard part. [MUSIC] We see that the fundamental frequency, the lowest notes we're hearing, are around 200 hertz. So, I'll bring in my high pass filter and though the standard mixing board had it set at 75 hertz, I can actually increase that a bit so its just barely reducing those lowest notes. [MUSIC] And then, I can bring in a low shelving filter, to reduce the bottom end even further. On my traditional mixing board, I might have been limited of leaving my shelving filter at that one frequency, but I can increase it to reduce the bottom end of this part drastically. Play. [MUSIC] Now it sounds kind of thin on its own, and if I just heard this patch, I might think well that needs a little more bottom end. But, when mixed with the guitar, [MUSIC] and letting it fill in the bottom end, you don't notice, and they are blending quite nicely together. And now in the whole mix [MUSIC], we get a really nice blend and a whole mix. So when EQing, it's very important not to think of instruments in isolation but think how they will appear in the context of the mix. And very often you'll have to do a kind of mirror EQ between two parts. Cutting one instrument to let the best part of another one come through.
