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Basics of Equalization

Lesson 18 from: Mixing Electronic Music In Ableton Live

Isaac Cotec

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Lesson Info

18. Basics of Equalization

Lesson Info

Basics of Equalization

queueing equalization techniques. Okay, so if I play when I play this, I have no e que one. Right now, all the accuser off and the kick in the base are hitting each other basically. So when I hit play, it's going to play that and you're gonna see it's clipping over here. Now I'm gonna hit Oh, on my computer, which turns on my eq use. No volumes have changed particularly, but you will notice. So on off, I do get a little more volume out of my base. But really, it's not that perceivable, But I saved, like, two DBs a volume just by slightly taking out where the kick is right and slightly taking out these other frequencies that were overlapping. Now they work well together. This is the point of the Q. You queueing isn't making the other parts fit together and making sure they don't overlap. We do this with live in Q. If you're nude alive, you can turn on your different filters here. Then you can move, then go around, change different filter shapes. You can also use these knobs and so on. J...

ust play around with it super intuitive. You will pick it up. That's you know, that's the basics of the e que. But we're gonna get deeper, deeper into it, hopefully to the point of exploding brains everywhere. Like what movie was that attack from Mars like that suffer without the country, music frequencies can overlap, causing spikes like I showed you. Now I'm going to give you a what I call the frequency worksheet comes with the course if you grab it. And what I use it for is I draw the different parts and health we know when they're overlapping. So this is an instance where I have my vocals are taking up this range my basis taking up that range, my kick and so on. Well, I can obviously see Well, this kick is overlapping here. I've got tons overlapping there. Probably That's the That's the trouble zone. I got a little overlapping there and then I go in with my eq You. So I do this by hand by listening, putting in and I'll show you how to do that with Spectrum Analyzer. And then I go in and I can just eat you out those little trouble spots. If you look look at how that's not even much on this one. That's probably not that important on the vocals either. But all of the sudden, all these frequencies are much more separate, right? By just taking a little off of everything. I can get a much, much more volume and much cleaner mix real quick to show you how to do that. They're well within live nine. It actually shows you the frequencies here so you can see where they're peaking. Or you can come into your audio, fix a spectrum and shows you the frequencies rights. You just look at that. You look at where the peaks are, draw that out on the worksheet. It's gonna really help. You know exactly what's happening to your mix again that comes with the course. And then I just made this whole image, which also comes for you guys to help you know where the different characters and qualities of the equal right or the frequencies are right here we have the low end under 100. We have a lot of what people called boom and thud and impact all those air happening around 100 in this area. That's where people get warmth, warm quality It's kind of that lower mid range clarity is in between. Clarity is also where the vocal ranges in general, I think someone asked, aware of the different frequencies. So this is this is a big part of it. So that is where you find vocals, then the top part is where you get overtones, like a lot of harmonic overtones. So your note might actually hit on lower this part. But then you have this overlapping extra harmonics over that way. You also get the click sound like a click sound from a kick or, uh, the top kind of attack sound of a guitar attack. And finally way up there. You get hiss and sharpness. So when someone says, that sounds really sharp talking about way up there on this bottom part, we've got high fidelity. Substance speakers can actually get all the way down here. Most like a computer won't it doesn't play anything under 100 but High Fidelity does car subs or right around here. That's why hip hop is so high at like 80 hurts because it's really pumping that that kick right around there and then lo fi speakers like my laptop or crappy earbuds all around here. And then actually, high Fidelity speakers air up there as well. Granted, lots of things play those highest frequencies, but they sound a lot better on the high fidelity system. So you just keep that in mind that the super intricate sounds a lot of people on bad earbuds are never going to hear so that we know those are our frequencies. We just need to e que things to bring up or down those qualities and how do we go about it?

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Drum Placement
Freq
Frequency Worksheet
Read Me - Mixing with Ableton Live
Sharing Tracks
Ableton Live Pack

Free Downloads

Syllabus

Ratings and Reviews

Jose Gerardo Rendon Santana
 

Excellent Course, Isaac Cotec is a great instructor and a great producer. The course is very well organized explaining each important step of the mix. as well as great tips and techniques. He also includes a great deal of support material with the course including an Ableton Live Pack with tons of great presets and tools to put to practice the knowledge acquired in the course.

Ian turner
 

this is the best thing money can buy in my life. Isaac makes it look easy and the way he teaches makes you understand everything and makes it easy for you as well. its exactly what i wanted to learn in each video! i cant even sleep because another video loads and im like "ohhhh i need it" lol. i thank god for this class being affordable and the real deal.

a Creativelive Student
 

Isaac covers an amazing amount of material in a clear and concise way. Great intro to mixing with Ableton or review for the intermediate user who wants to solidify their best practices, DAW knowledge as well as gain some production tips.

Student Work

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