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Lesson Info

Segment 8 - General EQ Questions

When you have a song with three or four guitar tracks at one time, how do you allow each guitar track to sound clear when you're fighting around the same frequency range? That's that's a great question, so that is what's going on here with like my electric guitars, here's the one in the left channel here's the one in the right channel I do it's called complimentary e q carving and that's what I was trying to focus on with this. This guitar sounded good at one k, so I featured it a little bit more with a three d b boost. And so then I took out one k on this opposing guitar, and then this guitar that it took out some it's on a good two and a half k, so it took out from two and a half k on opposing guitar, then finding complimentary frequencies and letting okay, okay, this guitar, you're going to live here, this is going to be your little moment to shine this little baby your place, so if we're on a line, you two can't stand in the same spot on the line, so you're gonna you could be sligh...

tly next to him, but you got to be here and then you'd be here, so if you're here, then that means you can't be here at the same times all cut you know I'm the making room that's all I'm doing every if we're all standing in a bunch than the audience can't see us but if we all take our spot on a line visually the audience can see all of us at once and that's we're trying to do the mix is be able to hear all the tracks at once and some tracks sound better in certain frequencies to let them live there you know, like ideally both of these guitars probably have frequencies in both of those ranges, but I picked one where I thought this guitar sounds really cool at one k so let's take out one k on the other guitars and I might do that if there's like a lead guitar part and it sounds really cool at a frequency I might take that frequency out all the other guitars so the other five or six guitars aren't fighting for that lead guitar want that league a target that's its spot you know? So you just kind of how do you know what it's the right spot? Because that's, the next question is do you don't you just start to find out stuff so like this guitar um was solo it here it's get rid of this I'm not there's no like maybe this is one of the questions that will come up because I get it a lot like what is the right q best frequencies for an electric guitar on I have no idea depends on what your guitar so I just go hunting for stuff so let's zero this out we'll start with a new one and see kind of how we got to this um thankyou curve if I'm listening to this guitar sound good three k is not a sweet spot this guitar so let's keep looking for sweet spot that doesn't sound good four hundred that's definitely at the sweet spot so you start to hunt for it that sounds pretty cool it doesn't sound harsh it sounds like mohr of that guitar so I'm thinking maybe one k is a good spot for that guitar to live so I'll back that down you know the three d b and if that sounds good there then I'm gonna go to the other guitar and take out one k because I've already decided this good targets to live at one case of the next guitar can't and that's as scientific as it gets for me and then I do the same thing for the other track I find out where that sounds good and that's over here you know looks like we boosted two and a half k you can sort of see how we found that let's grab thank you figure out where these are by now so one case where the other guitar is like I'm on the right plugging that's right? I'm not hearing it so if one case with the other guitar sound good ah I'm not even going to really go there has already said that's where the other plug is gonna live some take out a little bit of one k and instead I'm going to go find this guitar's sweet spot that's as pretty mid ranging but that's kind of cool too it's not harsh it kind of sticks out in cool way I might say that feels cool I'm gonna back that down tio conservative level about three d b and then go cut that frequency on the first guitar and what I've done is if you listen closely in a easier for you as a home watching this if you listen closely that's pretty much most of what's happening in these u q curves the green and the blue are swapped on both these you see it greens up blues down of the guitar green's down blues up that's most of what I've done here on both these guitars have scooped out the same two sixty that that sounded pretty nasty and I've done a high pest filter but most of the carving is up top take a listen to these two guitars I'm a bypass the shoes and listen to the clarity disappear knows a little bit hard if you're not right in the middle of speakers listen to the clarity disappear on these guitars when I get ridicu if you're hearing this like and headphones and speakers you almost it almost sounds like you kind of tell their left and right in the moment you cuts in they almost separate a little bit more it's almost like they got wider because they have less in common now they each kind of have their own world to live in just a little bit more. We didn't do anything extreme but it's those little subtle differences that that complimentary carving that's what I do with guitars all the time to get them to have their own place it doesn't take much but a little that across all your tracks can add up big time question on that from triangle trev and wants to know graham do you use this complimentary q move for all of the doubles for instance, if it's an acoustic guitar doubler vocal double would you use that same move? Yeah, probably um especially if it's the exact same guitar and amp or you know if it's acoustic if you just might get your acoustic and played a riff and then you set up another track and doubled it, I would that's a little harder because there's they're both going to have the same sweet spot because the same guitar but I might try to do a little bit of e q carving and make one a little morbid ranging than the other just so they they split out a little bit more on the knicks um well, yeah, a lot of times I would definitely if you doubled them that's probably why you doubled them because you want to have one on the left and one of the right if they're playing the same part but if you do a mix and you've got let's say you recorded doubled electric guitars doubled, accused two guitars doubled since everything's double because, you know, somebody told you doubles things double things sound bigger, which they do in their cool but too much doubling means too much sameness and just because you've got him all left and right all of a sudden it's again it's all the same and what he was doing is making sure everything is slightly different it has its own place along that line so that a little bit of this cq carving can really make things stick out the next perfectly all right and there's a question here from kid calleigh and he wants to know how do you make a synth sound? Fuller? Because if you duplicate a sound and pan them, the sound comes back to the center mano is it better to use an imager or is there another way to do that? Ok, yeah so it doesn't really eat you related, but this is a common thing I see is this question, so I've got a synth or I've got a guitar part and I can because it's a computer aiken grab it and make a copy of it and I'll pan one left and one right but then what happens? It sounds like it's still coming up the center in the middle because it's all it is a digital copy of something play them together left to right it doesn't matter it's going to be up the center because that's the exact same thing you just made track louder it's not really a double so that feeling of having something sound fat and wide or doubled you literally need a separate recording up it because they're there in the imperfections is what you hear if something is perfectly the same on the left and perfectly the same on the right it sounds like it's coming up the center that's how stereo works there is no middle speaker and yet we can hear things in the middle like we can hear things as if they're coming out of the screen that's that's a phantom image is that there's no speaker there right it's all the way to do that as you play that vocal that the same volume in the left and the right and it sounds like it's coming up the middle and effect that's all of this this has been happening if you take your synth and double it pan it left and right it's going to come up the middle that it's the same performance you need an actual separate performance that's wifi record accused to guitar and I wanted to sound full and doubled I needed then goes recorded again because there's no way I will ever play that accused of guitar part one hundred percent the same second time there'll be slightly different be closed slightly different and that's what you're here can distinguish as separate and then they appear on the left and the right so if that's what you're talking about in terms of fuller, you wanted a real double actually re record it on a separate track stereo imagers are just doing smoke and mirrors and tricks to take a track and and duplicated and then they're trying to delay it a little bit so it plays a little bit behind the original so then you're here kind of here's that separated because again it's now it is slightly different, but then you create phasing issues and it gets a little weird so I don't love those kind of plug ins because it's not a true natural double it's pitching something slightly different, putting behind slightly different and it sounds why don't excuse me? Why all of a sudden but it's not it's not really natural, so I would just say we record something or get the right for it to sound fuller all right, here's a question from dominica's and wants to know how would you seek mixes with small instrumentation iii, just vocals and acoustic guitar? Would you use less? Subtract evict you that's a great question, so fewer tracks means fewer problems if you think about what accuse helping us do it's it's removing the things that are covering tracks up the fewer tracks you haven't a mixed in theory, the easier should be teak you, because if it's just in a guitar and a vocal there's not much else to cover up, so it should be faster to mix because you don't have to meet problems. That doesn't mean I would do less subtracted the key because that guitar might sound full, but it might still be a little wonky in one area, so I'm going to remove the frequencies that I don't need to be there in the guitar. So what? I hear of the guitars only the best part of the guitar, but I only have a whole masking issue that I won't have a bunch of drums or her sense covering up that guitar. So yeah, it's it's easier to keep fewer tracks, then that's a big that's why I'm a huge advocate of fewer tracks to mix don't record a hundred tracks if you record ten tracks and taken sound huge and it's less of a hassle fewer tracks means fewer covering, masking problems, less geeky. You have to do to get the same big result, so less is more. A lot of times we tracking yeah, less is more and any, uh, questions from you guys. I was just wondering how you feel about linear face, accused to reduce the effects, the face, the issues, it's a great court, I don't I don't use any oven in theory, there's stuck. When that comes with logic, sometimes they use in theory they are really clever devices because they can q without the artifacts that e q creates naturally by boosting and cutting different frequencies, and then the crossover points are weird, but I never use him because I just do, I'm really simple, and I don't do anything really extreme with my cue, but it's great to the have I mean, I have friends that swear by their linear q when you're facing, I just I just use the stock stuff, and I used I like the ssl channel strip because I'm familiar with kind of the curve and how it sounds and when it but at its core up again, I'm not that smart and I don't I don't feel need to go there, so I just stick with what I know what I like is he usually from were extremely queuing. I would say that's the from what I understand of what it exists for, I would say that's the cool thing about it is it can handle more extremely queuing maybe without introducing his many artifacts but at its core it can be a great cue in general because should it's hopefully will sound really, really good but for what most people need, you don't need a linear faizi q but there's nothing, I have nothing against them. Okay? All right, we'll get one more question here from the chat room before we had to our break this comes from see pedro and he says, how do you approach he too when it comes to rooms either drum room or a guitar room? Oh, great question so think about what if any problem is with the room or what you like or don't like about the room like so I don't I don't have a room mike on this mix the room I recorded and did not sound good, so I didn't like it but here's here's what I run into with like drum room mike's is sometimes I like the energy of the drum room mike, but there's so much symbols just like symbols air so loud in the room that that mike here's a lot of the symbols so I will use an e q on the drum room mike too scoop out some of the top end, roll off some of that symbols and then the state might be true. There's a lot of low end in the room like they're the kick drum is just like a little too massive and so I might carve out some low end on the room like so all they really here is the cool mid range iness of the snap penis of the snare of the toms. Um, but there has there has to be a reason. So if you listen to the room I can it sounds cool and there's no problem, then leave it. But if you listen to the room, mike, and every time you bring in the room like it makes your drum sound a little too muddy, then maybe there's a muddy frequency in the room. Mike, you can cut. Remember the drums sounded cool, but then if you introduce the room mike and it makes the drum sound less cool there's a problem with the room mike and that's. Why I would maybe reach for q and just try to find was that problem and I'm not very scientific or technical about it I go and the room mike sounds really bright too harsh on the symbol, so I'll reduce that or there's too much going in that room might mean it's driving me crazy saul. Scoops of that out. But it's, same thing with guitar rooms. You just want to sculpt it so that you get the sense of the space and the energy, without any frequency overtaking. How great the rest of your track sound. It always comes back to don't let anything cover up the goodness in your track.