Lessons

Lesson Info

Additive and Subtractive EQ

That's where we get into additive versus subtracted E queuing. So subtracted, be queuing conceals trouble problems. Uh, has minimal overall volume loss and little colorization. And that is where when I had this, I just I need something with lots of harmonics. So it's beautiful. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Like going the pink noise album. Oh, yeah, Well, okay. For your sensitive, sensitive years on Lee, I understand because I like you. I was just curious Why? Why did this? Okay, so we have this sound here, right? Well, if I'm doing subtract of you queueing, you're like, not even really hearing it as I move over because it's so specific. Like I can take out that ring and it's not really disrupting the overall sound. That's why I use a subtracted queuing. Use narrow boost now, Nero, uh, cuts. Now, if I had it wide like I was saying, it would be very obvious and very unnatural. Now, additive, you keeling is when you increase the track volume. But out of queuing does increased track ...

following you. It can increase noise and it can add color and tone. And Tambor what I mean by that Well, this is kind of like mid rangy sound, right? If I want to bring up the mids, I'll do that type of boost. Now, one thing you'll notice is watch with this off. I'm looking right here. Minus 12. Now turn this on. E increased my volume because I'm increasing these frequencies. Same thing like compression where you want it to be about equal. You should turn it down your game. That's why the gains there so that you can properly a b right. That's why that's there. You will only use that on well, generally on additive on subtracted. It's so specific, it's not gonna affect the volume. Generally it might, but and by affecting the Tambor, what I mean by that is it's giving a brighter sound. It might kind of change the harmonic quality a little bit. And that's the advantage to additive you queueing. You could never do that with subtracted, you queueing additive. So, in other words, additive for enhanced tone and timber subtracted for removing flaws. Now let me show you an example. Get ready. This is gonna be like a scary demon moment. So we have this. This is a metaphor. We have read How do we get? How do we make it? So this red doesn't seem so obvious. Well, if we were doing additive queuing, be like that, we're making everything red. And now it's not that big a deal because it's just a red picture that might not be what you want, where subtracted, be queuing, just takes out the red in that area that that's the difference. So this drastically changes the quality. This is very specific. Lessee. Q. Is better. Ah, pre compressor e que and post. I showed you guys those examples. Just remember that when you're using you queueing and in queueing also happens at the source. Now what I mean by that is, if you record a vocalist, the difference between the mic being right here in the mike being right here is Ik Ewing at its very fundamental nature. And that's why you get into the world of Mike placement because slight movement in your mike completely changes the quality. So if you can get rid of that low rumble by changing it slightly on your guitar, you should. That is the cleanest way to doing it. Because e queuing does affect the sound in a negative way. Not that much, but he's thinks stack, so try to do it at the source. Another example is, if you have a synthesizer, do it at the source of the synthesizer as compared to Ah, you know, if you haven't Q and the synth or changing the the parameters of the oscillator and then you queuing out the things that you are putting into it, that's just silly. So do it at the source. When you can this you're gonna have to play with its a little fun abstract idea. But keep this in mind. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A dip around Hertz can have a similar effect as a boost around five kilohertz, right? If you have a track and you're you say, Hey, I wanted to be really Basie, and the base is really hot. By the time it's mastered and pushed right, that's your peak. Now your highs air super low. So now people are gonna say it sounds muffled. That's the problem with these things. Just turning one thing up does not make it sound better. You're looking for balance. Adding base makes the tracks a dollar adding highs makes the base seem thinner. All these things were reacting off each other. The key is to try to obtain balance, be like a jet. I balance with the force, listen to the overall mix and adjust accordingly. Okay? Yeah. I don't have example for that, but we could could look at Theo's track. Where is it? There we go. Now there's a problem with Theo's track and that it is well done. I was hoping for some very bad examples so I could help you all a little more with it. But it's this housing problems. Oh, yeah, getting in the way, making it try to sound good and stuff. Um, so if I look here, one thing I noticed when I was actually looking at it just straight away, this is very common. Just look at that base. And then I think you're kick. Is there? I know about on the kick. Well, if you look at this kick, this is the kick. There's a lot going on that back part that is very much the same as this base. The base is right here, right? That's where it's peaking. Generally, I really don't want that where the kick is because the fundamental hit of this really seems to be there anyways, I would. This is a great instance of using a sharper cut. Granted, I am making it softer by the way I'm using it because you've got a choice. You always have a choice, and there's really only two. You can try many other ways, but I have yet to find it toe work. But your choices are a kick that people can hear and a base people can feel or a base people can hear and kick. People can feel those are your two choices, really, And you need to understand that that, yes, it will come through on this like, lower mid range. But it's not gonna hit like it's not gonna like. Move your body like the base will if it's a sub base. But you can't have a sub basement sub kick. I mean, you could with side chain and really try. I just never seen it never seems to work as well, and you listen to that. A lot of music like dub step people think it's a super basing music. Well, the funny thing is, it's a lot of top base. It's a lot of these high end based sounds, and then the super look kicks. It's not the other way around and vice versa. So you just have to keep that in mind. So in this case, it looks like you're going for kick. You can feel which your base is already doing that, and another thing I like to do is generally bring out a fundamental that really seems to hit just a slight amount to make it kind of. And there's this cool thing, Um, where if you hit this headphone, it's just playing that part of the EU que right on Lee when you hit it, super useful because then I could Here we're that it's, um Right now those two are gonna fit together a lot better. And then the only thing I would do here is flight low end. And then where that kick was hitting with right around here and make it just a little bit higher. Just there's some upper. There's some harmonics there. If I clean up both, those fit a lot better together, right? Great. So other e queuing you would come in here, you would just look at your frequencies. See how they overlap, change them and so on. Deal with any trouble? Um, I don't know if I saw you had a lot of queuing, but, I mean, a lot of these seemed pretty pre processed by this point. Yeah, a lot of more bounce down, so you've already acute a lot of them. I would say this is a great example of e que more towards the end, if possible. Just because you might change your mind, you might have room. So if you're going to put an e que on something, don't freeze it like copy it off, freeze the track, and then put it on. You'll just have more room to play. Uh, yeah, lots on you queueing. We could each of his track for a while, but do we have any questions on basically queuing? And then we have Israel says thes examples are great. First of all, um, and then Jose wants to know, Do you recommend using a phase e que all the time instead of a normal e que talking about linear phase versus? Well, good question. And, uh, I was thinking about putting this in here about phase Andy queuing. That's very esoteric. So I won't spend too long on it because it might be over a lot of people's heads. But understand this, Uh, every e que ever causes a phase. Well, sorry. Accuse I said that wrong could do two things. They can either be fast and cause phasing issues, or they can cause Layton, see, and not have facing issues. That is linear phase versus, um I forget what fab filter calls it. So if I go into fab Filter que the trying so right here I have zero late and see or linear phase that I'm sorry. Linear phase means it doesn't have that problem. That phasing issue resin zero latency does have that issue. It's very hard to show off an example of that, except for anyone. Go check out fat filters video on linear face. They have a fantastic video on it. He a bee's goes through everything. Everything you could ever want to know about it. And really, at the end of it, the guys like I know there might decide you want it might not. It's like totally up to you. And you should watch it because I can't. It's like a pretty in depth video. Yeah, it's just YouTube. They put it out for free to explain this process to people. I would say in general, do use your ears because you would notice the phasing issue, especially in the low end. But if you just use your ears, you compensate for it. Able to live does cause phasing issues. It is specific for live performance. So it is fast and it does not have Linsi. Is that an artifact of the the VSC digital aspect of the e que versus If I were to paint ticket outside, signal out and routed through, actually que yes, it's it's mainly how we have to process it because it's, I mean, I can't even get into the math idea of dealing with, like, incoming signal and how you would create these and choose these effects very complicated. So they have to either causal agency or not, which causes phase or down. Do you recommend cutting below 40 hertz of the high pass filter and cutting above 18 kilohertz with the low pass filter on all your tracks? I don't actually do the hype. The low pass one. I don't generally have sounds that have that high of a quality. I think you might if you're using, like, outboard analog gear and stuff that might cause hiss And then you should keep that under control As far as the high pass. I do high pass quite a bit, but soft. High pass, right. Like I've been showing not a really sharp one. And I go to 30 like, 30 for my base. Sometimes my kick and then mostly other elements start getting up around 100 like a vocal should never go past 100. Go under 100. So you know, most instruments are are never going there. Do you have a limit on how much you boost and cut? I've heard that six decibels there. Cutter boost. It is a good rule of thumb. So do you do any I've heard that ends. I mean, generally, I'll naturally do that. Sometimes I'll really want to affect something and make it sound really high. P and really just like totally mangled synthesizer. It doesn't matter what you do. You can design the crap out of that because it's unnatural. Sound a lot of a lot of the things that we hear from people in the in the mixing world are based off of analog and and bands, and we need to realize that when we start moving into Dawes, especially in electronic music, that we aren't held by those rules as much. But it's good to know, like if you did minus, like over six on a guitar, uh, or or even like an upright bass, you're gonna hear it's going to sound really weird. But if you do that on a sine wave base like it's just Elektronik sine wave base, yeah, um, so final question kicks based snares in mono versus stereo. What else in mono stereo? So how do you what do you do? I wouldn't actually put, um, sneering model. Personally, I put it slightly to the right or left, and that is the next section we're gonna go into specializations. We'll actually take a whole drum kit, put it into its proper placement and and talk about that for a lot of articles about the whole kicking base in the middle thing. There's two reasons for that. One of whom is because of vinyl, because originally, vinyl, if you had based on a two hot on one side compared to the other. It would change the groove and it would ruin the vinyl plate. So they put things in mono, and they actually had special equalizers during the printing process that no matter what would put it in motto, that's why we have that. The second reason we haven't nowadays is if you're at a club, you do not want to be playing a gigantic festival or something or club and having based on one side of the room. So we just put it in the middle. Um, but you can't move it anywhere. Sometimes I do put the kick slightly to aside. It's not normal, but you can. These are all free. Just know that it specifically came from vital, um, and we will go over all of that.