EQ, frequencies and mixing

[mr.death]

I've been recording using cubase se for around 1 1/2 years and am happy for the most part with the final product but would like to learn more regarding EQ, mixing and frequencies. I understand you should have certain frequencies for certain instruments and too much of a certain frequency between instruments can get muddy and lose quality. Does anyone have any insight or links regarding this topic. Much appreaciated.

Rick...

[Jamie]

OK Heres some basic thoughts. You can let me know if you want to go simpler or into more detail on something.

The (or one of the) Theory

Your mix is like a crowd. Sounds jostle for position. Your work as a mix engineer is to make sounds fatter, thinner, bigger at the top or the bottom until they all fit comfortably together.

So......

You have a soundstage where you can put your instruments:

Pan - Left.....Middle.....Right
Volume - Foreground........Middle.......Background

Combine those two into a 3D area and you can start to lay instruments out within it. Does that make sense?

So you can have your hi-hat at front left by making it loud and panning left, and your kick drum at the back right by making it quiet and panning right. (Please do not actually do this).

In addition, you have EQ. EQ is where you can blend sounds to fit around each other if they have to inhabit the same place on the soundstage. Taken in the context of my example above, its the "fourth dimension" which explains why it is difficult and makes things so much better when you do it right.

Diversion: bandwidth and destructive EQ. Regardless of whether you can hear electric guitar above 10,000Hz, it still occupies bandwidth in your stereo mix bus. So if it is pumping out waves above 10,000Hz, something else cannot occupy that space - perhaps hi-hat "sizzle" or vocal "air". So the guitar above 10,000 is acting in a destructive manner to the hi-hat and vocals in this freqency range. HOWEVER. A cheap in-computer or outboard EQ will make adjustments to the whole of the frequency spectrum when EQing your guitar. So it will have a destructive effect on the sound of the guitar itself, if you EQ it. A very nice analog EQ can have a CONstructive effect. In general if you aren't sure about the quality of your EQs, it pays to a) perform basic EQ before tracking, and b) try to cut, rather than boost.

Basic Mix

So, heres what I would do for a basic mix. Note: basic.

1) Throw all faders up to equality, zero mix in cubase. Listen.

2) Make basic panning adjustments. Overheads will get thrown out to left and right, guitars spread across the spectrum. Usually the vocal, snare and kick will fight for the centre with the bass.

3) Listen to volumes. Make basic volume adjustments.

4) You now have a basic mix. The next steps assume you haven't performed these tasks on tracking.

a) Compression. You will need to compress most tracks to gain consistency within the bandwidth you have and allow mix decisions to be made on a consistent basis. Solo each track and apply enough compression that you are getting about 6db reduction on the peaks.

b) Reparative EQ. You just soloed the tracks. Did any of them sound bad? Do you need to fix them? Your basic knowledge of how to set your guitar amp should be enough here.

c) Effects. Are there very very necessary effects you need to apply? Apply them now, sparingly.

5) Listen again to your gently compressed, volume-levelled, panned mix. Make some notes on where you want to end up - say, key priorities for your mix. You may wish to grab a comparison or "reference" CD to give yourself an idea of where you want to head with the mix. Make sure you are realistic in your choices here. Remember things sound better louder sometimes, so don't allow that to distort opinion.

6) Centre stage. You now need to solo the bass and kick and get them sitting nicely together. This is the backbone of your track. Cut a little with a thin Q at 200-250 on the bass, and boost it on the kick, play around with the Q and frequency centre until this sounds good to your ears.

7) The unteachable. You now need to start bringing the other tracks in and out, ensuring you don't lose the key priorities you defined in (5). I'll define some of the techniques you will use below *** see below.

The "pad". Set up some FX sends. I like to start with a plate reverb for sending the drums to. A room reverb can also be used to thicken things. Finally you will probably want a third reverb for the vocals; a longer plate perhaps.

9) The vocal line. You will want (usually) some quite heavy processing on the vocal. You may wish to cut out all the breaths, compress it again, add some "air" at 20khz with a high shelf. Bring it into the track and see how it sits. Make some adjustments to the other tracks until your mix is finally seated.

10) "Mastering". While I wouldn't dream of handling this myself in professional terms, you may wish to put a multiband compressor and hard limiter across the master mix buss to bring your track to peaking at -1 to -3db and "commercial" volume levels.

So thats the basic steps you will go through. This is in no way a linear process. I'll try & lay out some techniques for the grey area (7) above soon. Also I will dig out a thread that lays out the important frequency bands - where the "meat" is on a snare, where the "fizz" is on a hi-hat, etc. I have a printout I've been using for years at the studio, hopefully its got a URL on it.

[Jamie]

So in (4) above I laid out some kind of "pre-production" work you wanted to do on each track - compressing to "normalize" the dynamic range of each track and make the mix job easier, basic EQing to make things sound good solo, etc. This is where you want to focus on actual "preproduction" - write down the problems you had to fix at this stage, and try, the next time, if you have a good outboard EQ or compressor, to fix them before tracking.

Nothing too drastic. Avoid pumping of the compressor, giant frequency shelves, gating which might lose essential "grace notes", etc. The skill in preproduction is not to take out that which you might want to replace later.

In (6) we then looked at the centre stage. This will usually comprise Vocals or Guitar Solo, Kick, Snare, and Bass.

You have to try & squeeze all these instruments into the centre of the mix without making it sound "mono" and without them overcrowding each other.

Here's where it gets subjective. The tips or suggestions below may NOT work dependent on the quality of your EQ, reverb, or monitoring system. It all depends on your sounds and these are guidelines only.

Some things you can try:

a) As mentioned, remove some kick at 220 and boost the bass. Or vice versa. Put a high pass on both of these and remove all the high frequencies so they dont interfere with the snare and vocal.

You may then find you need to add a little peak at 3000 or so to hear the "click" of the beater on the kick drum, and the attack of the notes on the bass.

You now have peaks at 220, 3000, and 4000, say, and you've made space in the top half of the bandwidth.

b) You can put a low pass on the snare and vocal (lots of mics have a low pass built in switchable for vocals) to remove unnecessary "rumble" and let the kick and bass breathe. You will sweep the midrange of the snare to find the sound you want. Ideally you will have already achieved this with microphone placement and won't need to EQ your drums. Say you end up with a peak at 2500. You may then want to remove ugly dink noises from the snare, or the overtones you didn't realize you had till now, so you make a cut at 7,000.

You now have peaks at say, 220, 2500, 3000, 4000 a trough at 7000 and you've aligned the kick & bass in the bottom half of the bandwidth, and the vocal and snare in the top half. Each instrument is developing a sonic signature within your mix and contains certain boosted frequencies that others dont.

c) You may now wish to try doubling effects on the vocal. You can start sending some vocal reverb to the FX sends, and try to blend this with the snare reverb. You may want to add some boost with a high shelving EQ about 15-20kHz to add "air" to the vocal.

d) As you send these tracks out to the stereo FX busses, you start to add stereo depth back to your centre stage, and start to fill the fringes out.

Can you see that as we do this we fill to bursting point some areas of the spectrum? By the time we have these 4 basic points aligned - Vocals or Guitar Solo, Kick, Snare, and Bass - we have already created 4 or 5 peaks despite not wishing to use any boost, we've had to make room in the bottom and top, and crowd the middle with peaks, our left and right areas are already full of reverb and vocal effects.......

So now you have to bring the guitars, keyboard, backing vocals, and any other instruments, into your mix.

Thankfully we haven't used much EQ cut yet.

[Jamie]

So, step III. You are now "juggling" frequencies.

Each instrument needs to be brought into the mix. Listened to solo, in context with your "centre stage" mix, and in context with all the other instruments jostling for position.

You will have some basic placements & rules, but these are not hard & fast rules.

Hi-hat halfway to one side.
Overheads panned hard left & right - make sure the hi-hat is in the same place for both
Toms spread across the spectrum in the same relation to the hi-hat and overheads. Toms may wish to be gated.
Rhythm guitars out to the hard left & right if doubletracked.
Backing vocals with more reverb on them to put them into the background, usually off to one side; perhaps the other side from the hi-hat or almost hard left & right if you have 2 or more.

Some ideas you can use here.

i) Solo the track. Sweep a deep, wide, cut through it. What can you lose without affecting the sound (to your ears)?

ii) Try the same sweep in the context of the mix. Does it have as devastating effect? Can you in fact lose whole swathes of Rhythm Guitar IV without making any difference to its cutting power and definition? Does it help clarify another instrument?

iii) The threshold of the compression you use may be a factor. If a volume adjustment up or down does not suit, then the EQ, the reverb depth or the compressor threshold may be used as a tool for altering the balance of the instrument. Perhaps you want to squash the hell out of the track and use it to "pad" and thicken the mix.

iv) Does it sound better at high volume? Does it sound better at low volume? Why? Remember things sound better louder sometimes, so don't allow that to distort opinion.

v) Is it fat enough? Perhaps you want to duplicate it, squash one track heavily and pan it in stereo out to the sides to widen it.

vi) Once you have made the relative decisions with respect to how much EQed track you retain, panning, volume level, and used tools like compression threshold, reverb send level, and EQ to "place" the track in the stereo spectrum, you have placed your track. Go back to step (i) for the next track, and place it. The "key points" you identified earlier should help you with overall placement, and you will need to compromise track by track perhaps until they all settle.


Tweaking the Mix

After all these decisions are answered, you have brought in your remaining tracks. You now need to listen to your mix on a variety of systems:

- small clock radio
- home 5.1 cinema system
- decent car audio
- crappy car audio
- system with subwoofer
- computer speakers
- in mono
- on your favourite hifi

....make notes of problem areas, major adjustments.

i) Try to "solo" each track in your head. Does it cut through? Does it sound sweet? Is there anything that grates?

ii) Try to memorise the signatures of each instrument and how you want to adjust them. Perhaps compare to a reference CD again.

iii) Go back to your mix. You can now apply tweak techniques like volume level programming, or any of the techniques laid out above, to try and get closer to where you want to be.

iv) You may want to A/B the uneffected sound of each individual track against the final effected sound. Remember volume changes may distort impressions here. Do it in context and in solo. Have you really improved this track? Or did you over-use effects or processing?

v) Remember you may want to listen to this with, and without mix bus processing. You may be running out of processing speed. Listen to the unmixed version again. Does this really sound that much better? What did you do that was unnecessary? Is it in fact degrading the mix as a whole?

As you can see, plenty of questions can be raised and plenty of knobs tinkered with. And every single one of these jobs is made easier by getting a better recorded product in the first place. This of course can only be identified after you hear that instrument in the context of the mix and with hindsight. So document everything! You can't improve if you set everything up a new way each time! Its a circular process and as you go round and round you will find shortcuts, improvements, and yes, things that you don't agree with and want to do differently.

[Jamie]

So, I will find you the link of all the frequency bands. Its a killer ref, it has pertinent frequencies for every instrument from snare through types of guitar, down to viomilin and saxamaphone.

And you should also google 'anatomy of a mix' - its similar to what I just wrote out for you above but i think it took the guy a bit longer than my 5 minutes and might be just what you need.

The frequency thing is at the studio. I might not be there till Tuesday now.

Peace.

[mr.death]

Thanks for the replies. LOTS of info which will come in handy for sure. Exactly what I wanted to read and I will look into researching "anatomy of a mix". Much appreaciated.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Dee]

It's a good idea to have some reference CD's. Take a CD of something you like the sound of. Try to get similar results with your track.

I haven't read the whole thread, it's a bit overwhelming, but the parts I did read seem like good advice. I'm not sure if someone mentioned it already, but double-tracked guitars should be panned hard right and hard left. Compressors on the mixdowns shouldn't be heard, they should be transparent and not pump too much, if you know what I mean. Too much heavy compression will make the music "breathe". Not good.

Lastly, don't saturate the instruments in heavy effects, unless of course you're aiming for a particularly strong sound.

[Jamie]

Edited and incorporated your ideas into the checklists Dee.

[Rotti]

Wow, thanks for the info. Very cool stuff.

[sugizo_esp]

Jamie, thanks for the big guide.
really helpful stuff

[rty13ibz98]

really helpful, jamie. its always best to mix drums and bass first. my mixes have actually gotten better when my mix enviroment was improved. getting a room flat is also very important in mixing, it will make you mix less due to having less "real world" remixes(coasters). controlling the rooms bass frequencies and standing waves will fight ear fatigue as well. you can mix at lower volumes, too, because the mixes will sound better at lower volumes.


rich

[Jamie]

Theres a myriad of other considerations.

A good room is worth far more to you than any single piece of equipment. I covered some simple options for this in another thread. Once the chap there is finished maybe we can talk about this some more.

I love talking about this stuff, but within the confines of the Jemsite its I guess limited by the fact that there are better resources out there than my ramblings.

It can be argued that mixing louder will cause you to make a better mix as you won't be mixing bass-heavy to create artificial "loudness" (like the loudness button on a stereo/hi-fi).

The room will of course affect this decision.

In the absence of a good room (and bear in mind a couch and a couple of blankets on the side walls is a good start), then checking on other systems is vital.

And even on a studio monitoring set up to give you accurate midrange/bass response/flat response/extreme high frequency/wide frequency response (delete as appropriate) you can sometimes get a glaring error as soon as you shove it into a car.

I'd like to keep updating into the first threads but I can see this getting way out of control.

[jl2556]

Jamie,
Thanks for your time on all this!!!
I have a question regarding recording bass
guitar. How do you get all the notes to have the same volume?
It seems like the high strings don't record as loud as the low strings.
I have a presonus 8 channel compressor. I try to use the limiting
but it seems the compressor "pumps".When I set the attack at a
slower rate it lets the signal "clip" My bass has passive pickups.
Will a set of active pickups help very much? Iuse
a BBE 383 bass preamp going direct.Should I use the compressor
on it?? How would you do it? Sorry for all the questions...

P.S. I guess I should ask how do you get the max signal on to
tape (Adat XT)

[Jamie]

Well, yes its compression. For bass to have that kinda weird (to my ears) quality you get on commercial records where its very unobtrusive, yet very powerful, you need some quite extreme compression.

Unless you have a very good compressor, you should try to do your compression afterwards.

I generally track bass through a mic and also a Sansamp DI, going through a Buzz stereo compressor. I'll take about 5-6dB compression on the peaks from the Buzz.

You need to try & get a good balance between getting a "hot" signal to the ADAT (good signal-to-noise) ratio, and understanding that you can't go above the input threshold because it will clip, as you have seen.

So don't *limit* on recording, just mildly compress. Use a medium attack, fast release, and set the threshold so you are just taking off anything from 3-9db from your peaks.

Also try just recording uncompressed and lowering the input volume so you don't clip.

Then try compressing in the same way, after the event. You will have more control but probably more noise in your signal. YMMV.

After I get the bass in I usually compress a second time. Dependent on what I am doing the compression CAN approach hard limiting, but I have good compression so it does this in a constructive way, whereas your Presonus obviously pumps the signal.

So I am compressing, then compressing the compressed signal. You should be able to do the same. I don't know about how you ca use plugins with the Adat XT - you have that and then you use an 8-track desk to mix with?

You may need to use the Presonus comp on tracking and then put it in as an effects loop. If you are working in a computer then use Blockfish, its a free compression plugin. Or let me know what you have.

If you are recording to ADAT to get the tape sound and then moving it into a computer, I would be suggesting not to do this anymore.

If you want to buy something, the FMR RNC (really nice compressor) is cheap and cheerful. Buzz are cheap for pro gear, and sound fantastic on everything I think.

Also you could try raising the pickups slightly on your high side, and playing more consistently!

Let me know some more details.

[jl2556]

I'm an old schooler...
I have 3 adat xts and a mackie 24/8 board with the meter bridge.
I haven't gotten into the computer world yet. My outboard gear is:

Guitar: I almost always go direct due to space limitations. I use a
Hughes & Kettner tube man.I'll put a TS-9 infront to add a little more
gain (works very well...)

Bass: I use a copley 5 string neck-through w/passive pickups
(I've been told they are music man sting ray pickups) into a
BBE383 going direct.

Drums: I use a old alesis hr16 to run 2 alesis d4s.

Effects: I have a ibanez sdr1000 reverb (not the sweet one )
and a alesis quad 4 (WHAT A PIAN IN THE A$$ TO PROGRAM!!!)
A art duel channel tube preamp, a bbe 422 sonic maximizer)

Mixdown: mackie 824s, and a alesis master link (what do you think of
the master liknks?)

Question: on my presonus comp. (per channel)I have a
"soft knee" button and a "-60db" button. What circumstances
would those be used?

I think I should have enough to make a good recording and I think I do
fairly good job but I need more dos/dont's...

Here are a few tips I have gotten through the years: 1k freq. is almost
always taken down 3-5db in most cases. It's a frequency that's not
pleasant to the ears. Also, if you want to get the right delay time, take
the beats per minute and divide that by 60,000.