EQ'S

I was going to use a EQ to separate some bass & guitar , it seems there are 3 EQ'S available on each track. Do you use all 3 or is the graphic EQ better for some things the parametric for others & so on. From what i can gather ,the EQ can boost or cut signals to enhance the mix

macbook 2 GH Intel Core 2 Duo /1GB SDRAM-, Mac OS X (10.5.5), It is my first computer and it is amazing!

Posted on Oct 14, 2008 2:05 AM

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8 replies

Oct 14, 2008 2:27 AM in response to william062

Since all EQs do basically the same (raise the volume in some frequency bands and lower them in some others), I would strongly discourage using several of them in parallel. While it won't degrade the quality of you recording, it's just counterintuitive: Each of the EQs tells you it does somthing very specific, while another one in the background does just the opposite.

Which one you use is pretty much a matter of taste: The Graphic EQ is good for getting an overall picture of how the frequencies are treated. You can give it a nice "wave" shape. Also, you can use it to single out a "bad" frequency that you don't want, like a resonance or even a hum in some narrow band, and lower its volume.

However, the parametric EQ is better suited to do the latter – you can pick the exact frequency and determine how "steep" the curve is to the left and right of it (with the "Q" parameter).

The Visual EQ is kind of a combination of both - it's a 4-band parametric equalizer (without "Q" parameters). You pick the 4 frequencies you want to affect and their respective gain values. The fun thing is the interactive graphic interface which shows you how the overall spectrum is affected, so you don't have to enter values numerically. And the "Analyzer" shows you immediately how your track's frequency spectrum is affected.

As I said, it's a matter of taste, I've come to like the Visual EQ more and more.

Oct 14, 2008 7:18 AM in response to william062

I like the visual EQ also, it helps to see visually what going on. Usually when I add EQ to the bass track I'll also add some compression to it.

For drums the EQ will depend on to loop I'm using in respect to the rest of the music track. Most often I'll bring out the top end of a drum loop, snares, cymbals, because i like that kind of thing a lot. I might also experiment with a little compression on the kick drum to bring out dynamics.

With both EQ and compression I find a subtle approach works best at first.

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EQ'S

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