Mixing Tutorials
Improve Your EQ Technique With These 5 Tutorials
The use of EQ can be one of the most powerful tools at your disposal while mixing a song. When used tastefully, EQ can can accentuate the frequency content of your track and maximize the sonic character of important elements within your songs.
While EQ can reap amazing results in your mixes, the opposite can also become true when EQ is used in the wrong ways. That said, there are many particular uses for EQ that can bring your mixes to life, and we have compiled 5 tutorials below that will help you achieve this!
1. Common EQ Mistakes
As was stated above, it can be very easy for EQ to be used in ways that are detrimental to your overall mix. The video below will demonstrate some of these common mistakes with EQ so that you can be cognizant of avoiding them during your mixdowns.
2. Do You High-Pass Too Much?
Similar to what’s expressed in the video above, it is important to steer clear of removing frequencies that are important to the character of your instruments. While there is a general tendency to cut lower frequencies in order to avoid mudiness, these low frequencies can be vital for maintaining the body of your mix, and it is crucial to not cut too much of these out.
3. Eliminating Bad Frequencies
Something that EQ is great for is removing nasty frequencies that come to the forefront of a mix when played at high volumes. A common problem area is in the high-mid (1kHz-5kHz) and sub-bass (<100hz) frequency ranges.
In addition, it can be useful to reduce certain frequency ranges from tracks that really don't need them so that the tracks that do need these frequencies can really flourish in your mix.
4. Subtractive EQ vs. Additive EQ
While using EQ, there are generally two choices you have to make, and that is to either increase or reduce the amplitude the frequencies of an audio track. With that said, the video below provides several techniques in which you can take full advantage of both subtractive and additive EQ.
5. EQ’ing Your AUX Sends
For anyone that has used AUX sends, we know how easy it is for these busses to get cluttered up and sound muddy as we continue to send more and more signal to them. While it is better to avoid this excess signal in the first place, the use of EQ on your AUX sends is an excellent way to clean up the sound of your overall mix – especially when these AUX sends are important to the character of your song.
We hope that you found these EQ tutorials to help you take advantage of this vital mixing tool! If you are interested in diving deeper into expanding your EQ knowledge, we highly recommend our course, Understanding EQ – The Ultimate EQ Crash Course.
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