EQ - by Davide Carbone
EQ used well, particularly with subtle compression can bring the final professional touch to your mix. Mastering houses usually always apply high end EQ’s to bring out certain frequencies in your mix. Try doing this with a cheap and nasty EQ and you will ruin your mix.
Focusrite, Manly and Avalon are the most commonly used EQ’s in professional studios. They offer multi band eq and shelving filters which allow total control over the entire frequency range of a mix. Unfortunately you need to pay good money for precision engineering.
So for the rest of us there are more economical and effective ways of getting more out of your mix using EQ. If you have a good plug in or stand alone EQ then they are best applied to individual parts of your track before going through the main mix.
Taking out is much more effective than adding. If you want your snare to stand out try removing the same frequency from other parts in your mix. If for example you need your sub to have more presence, try removing everything below 80hz in the other parts of your mix. Same with top end or vocals. Every time you add a part to your track you should remove the frequencies which you don't need. This will ensure that every part has room and is not fighting for space thus allowing for a much bigger presence.
There are several VST EQ's of quality including the Waveshell, TC and TL series. For basic applications such as low cut or high pass) many of the standard EQ's will do.
There are several reasonably priced outboard EQ’s on the market, try and stick with a reputable brand such as Joe Meek, TL Audio or Focusrite. If you can get an eq that offers shelving filters and multi band eq then you will find many ways to improve your mix.
Thanks to Davide Carbone from www.bs1records.com for this article - See his great Sample collection at Loopmasters today.
Related products
Drum and Bass Masterclass is an unparalleled collection of pure drum and bass samples produced by one of the scenes most respected producers, Davide Carbone. The CD features 20 brand new drum and ......
more
