If you hang around recording circles long, you’ll probably ask this question I got from Andrew:

Hey Joe, when should I use linear-phase EQ and why?

Linear-phase EQ is essentially a highly-accurate, “surgical” EQ.

Regular EQ’s have phase shift between the different bands. When you boost or cut 250 Hz, that frequency range is technically delayed by a tiny amount, which causes some…”smearing” is the word, I think.

Linear-phase EQ keeps all the frequencies 100% in phase. In other words, all the frequencies pass through the EQ at the same speed, resulting in zero phase issues between bands.

No, that’s not a super-technical definition, but I’m okay with that.

So…it’s easy to assume that since linear-phase EQ gets rid of any “smearing” that it must be better, right?

Maybe it is…but does that really matter?

Think about it for a second.

My wife and I have been in our current house for two years. Are there bigger, better, fancier houses out there? Of course.

Does that make our house inferior? Not at all.

Linear-phase EQ is a fantastic tool. It’s wonderful. But that DOESN’T MEAN that you can’t get fantastic results with a “regular” EQ.

I can see how linear-phase EQ would be useful for mastering, but I bet most home studio owners can’t hear the difference.

Or if you CAN hear a difference, neither would probably sound “better” to you…they would just sound different.

I wouldn’t be terribly concerned with it. “Linear-Phase EQ” is a really cool marketing term, but give a great engineer an entry-level EQ and he’ll make magic happen.

This applies to almost everything you do in the studio. There will always be a better option out there, but you’ll be much better off learning HOW to use the tools you already have, rather than constantly upgrading to fancy new ones.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not AGAINST linear-phase EQ. I’m simply trying to keep you from putting your hopes in a piece of gear or software to do things that only YOU (the human) can do.

Before you can “graduate” to linear-phase EQ, I recommend becoming a MASTER of “regular” EQ. That involves really understanding the concept of EQ and how to use it to get great results. And practice, practice, practice.

The practice part is up to you. I can help with the learning part here:

www.UnderstandingEQ.com

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. What is Phase?
2. How to Use EQ to Give Each Instrument Space in the Mix
3. 6 Tips for Reigning in the Bass in Your Mix

Jim asks,

I’m planning on ordering your Understanding EQ package. I was just wondering something about EQ in recording. Could you please explain why we have to EQ instruments in a recording? If we see a live performance without sound reinforcement there is no frequency manipulation. Why is it so different from recording and what we hear out of speakers? Is it an issue of sonic space?

This is a REALLY good question.

Why is it that I can listen to musicians playing in front of me and it sounds fine, then when I record them I have to do all this manipulation to get them to fit well together?

The problem is fairly simple, and yet it causes all sorts of trouble. So what’s the problem?

Recording isn’t natural.

When you’re sitting in front of a bunch of musicians playing in a room, you’re not thinking about how to deal with the muddyness you’re hearing. You simply listen.

The combination of good musicianship (knowing how to get a good tone from one’s instrument) and your ears makes for a pleasant experience.

You don’t need to EQ your ears.

Sadly, once you stick a mic in front of all the instruments, things start to change.

For one thing, when you record a single instrument, you’re usually placing the microphone fairly close (within a few feet) of the instrument. If you put it too far away, you pick up too much room sound. Multiply that by how many instruments/tracks you need to record, and that’s a lot of extra noise you don’t want.

Also, with the mics so close, they hear the instrument differently than you would hear them from across the room. It’s a cleaner sound, but it’s not as “natural.” We don’t listen to guitar amps from 1 inch away normally.

That adds to the unnatural nature of recording. Things like proximity effect come into play. That guitar amp may not sound very bass-heavy, but when you slap a mic 1 inch from the speaker it picks up a lot of extra low end.

That’s just one example of the “unnatural” things that happen when you multi-track record musicians.

There’s nothing wrong with it. But you need to be aware that all those somewhat “unnatural” recordings don’t tend to blend together well.

Enter EQ.

Everybody’s sitting on top of each other. EQ lets you separate them, give them each their own “spot” in the mix…making everything sound “natural” again.

When you think of EQ this way, it helps you make decisions in context of the entire mix, rather than trying to make each instrument sound awesome by itself.

What matters is how they all “play together” in the mix. Take something away from one track to make room for another.

To learn how to use EQ (and a fun technique for training your ears), check out:

www.UnderstandingEQ.com

P.S. Don’t assume that mic placement doesn’t matter. The best EQ I’ve ever used is called a microphone. Move the mic around. THAT’S how you get the sound you need in the mix. Sure, you’ll still need to use EQ, but you’ll have a lot easier time if you first EQ with the microphone.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. A Case for Mixing at a Lower Volume
2. One of the Most Overlooked Steps of Recording
3. Day 13 – LISTEN Before you Commit [31DBR]

To complete this series of EQ mistakes, we’ve got to talk about the big boy. The thing we all WANT to do when we first start messing around with EQ.

We’ve looked at EQ-ing without listening, not EQ-ing in solo, and EQ-ing out of context. Once you’ve really mastered those three, what do you do once you’ve got the EQ open?

The tendency is to say This kick drum needs more low end and high end. So we reach for the low and high bands and start boosting. As I mentioned recently, removing some of the low-mids (around 400 Hz) can accomplish the same thing…and it usually sounds much better and more natural.

Cut Before You Boost

I guarantee that almost every track in any session you’re mixing will need some sort of EQ attention. But how you wield that EQ depends on your mix philosophy. I’m a huge proponent of subtractive EQ. Why? Because there’s already SO MUCH happening in the song. You’re trying to cram all of these tracks into one stereo mix.

Something’s gotta give. It’s silly to think you can make everything fit in the mix by applying EQ boosts all over the place. If you recorded the tracks properly, you have everything you need to get a great-sounding mix. Chances are you don’t need to do any boosting. You need to take things away.

That’s what we did this past weekend at the Simply Recording Academy. We literally only used EQ to cut out frequencies in the tracks. We didn’t boost ANYTHING.

And? Yep, it sounded great. Because Graham and I have magic ears? Nah. it sounded great because we simply took away a few dB here and there on all the tracks. We made subtle adjustments to the individual tracks. When you add up all of these little changes, you end up with big, powerful results.

Every time I mix a song I’m surprised by how much more effective cutting is than boosting. Honestly, I’m still surprised by it. I think it’s my American brain. I assume that if the track sounds great, then boosting the great parts even more will make them sound even better. But the theory of less is more proves to be true…every time.

Are your mixes getting better? Need some help wrapping your mind around how to use EQ to make those tracks shine? I’d love to help. Go grab a copy of Understanding EQ and see if your mixes starting sounding better.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. Common EQ Mistake #2 – EQ-ing in Solo
2. Common EQ Mistake #1 – EQ-ing Without Listening
3. Common EQ Mistake #3 – Not EQ-ing with the Big Picture in Mind

So far we’ve looked at why you shouldn’t EQ without listening and should limit how much you EQ in solo. But what about the bigger picture?

If you’re being a good little mix engineer, you’re making your EQ changes while listening to the entire mix. But how do you know when to cut from one instrument or another? Do you think about how making one EQ change here will affect the mix over there?

Let’s say you’ve got some muddy build-up at 200 Hz. Do you cut 200 Hz in the bass? The vocal? The acoustic guitar? The piano? The answer is, of course, it depends. Depending on how much buildup is there, you may need to do a cut on more than one track, even all of them.

Mute Away

One thing I will do when trying to make this decision is mute each of the tracks in question. Then I’ll slowly add each one back into the mix by un-muting it. Try adding them back in a different order. Which track(s) really emphasizes that 200 Hz muddy-ness you’re getting? That’s probably the one you need to cut.

Playing Nicely = Compromise

Most problems you face while mixing aren’t quite as cut and dry. It may simply be a matter of not being able to hear all the instruments at once. You’ve got the levels set properly, but you still can’t hear the piano over the electric guitar. Neither instrument sounds bad, but you can’t hear either one as clearly as you’d like.

It’s time to start compromising. Which instrument needs to be heard? Ask that question first. If it’s the guitars, then determine which frequency range is the “key” range that you need to hear. If it’s 2-3 kHz, then consider cutting the piano at 2-3 kHz. What you’ll find is the EQ cut at the piano will give the electric guitar enough room to sit in the 2-3 kHz range without standing out or being too harsh.

Most Popular Example

The most common place where I do this little compromising routine is between kick drum and bass. They both sound huge and massive, but when I play them together it gets all muddy and indistinct. I usually hone in on the kick drum first. If it’s really kicking at 80 Hz, then I’ll cut 80 Hz out of the bass to try to balance the two.

It sounds simple, but it takes a lot of practice, trial and error, and a LOT of listening. But over time you’ll learn to love the synergistic relationship the tracks in your mix start to have. No one track is the star of the show, but each track has a specific role to play in the mix. It’s your job to make sure that track plays its role…and plays it well.

Want more EQ training, including real-world examples? Click here.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. Common EQ Mistake #2 – EQ-ing in Solo
2. Common EQ Mistake #1 – EQ-ing Without Listening
3. Common EQ Mistake #4 – Boosting First

In the last article we took a look at the problem of EQ-ing without really listening to the track. The opposite, however, can be just as bad for your mix.

What if you listen to the track TOO closely? What if there was a way to isolate that track and only listen to that track and mute all the rest? Wait a second. Yep, that’s called the solo button.

EQ-ing in solo, in my opinion, is one of the hardest habits to break. Think back to the very first song you ever mixed. What did you do first? You solo’d the kick drum, messed around with EQ for a while. Then you solo’d the snare drum, played around with EQ for a while. Then you solo’d the bass… You get the picture.

How did that work out for you?

The Problem with Solo

The Solo button is VERY useful. Don’t get me wrong. But to mix instruments in solo, more specifically to EQ in solo, is very counterproductive.

But why?

Imagine you’re baking a cake. If you’re like me, you need a recipe. There’s no way I could bake a cake without specific instructions. Let’s say you decide to bake it without a recipe. You know what ingredients you need — flour, eggs, sugar, etc. — how hard could it be?

So you get out the eggs, and you focus REALLY hard on them. You make sure you crack them perfectly, and you don’t let any shells get in the batter. Then you focus on the flour. You sift it like crazy, so your batter won’t have any lumps. Then you move on to the sugar…and so on.

You combine all your ingredients and what do you get? A pretty disgusting cake. You had no idea what the proportions should be. You used too many eggs, not enough flour, and WAY too much sugar. Who cares if you spent a bunch of time working on each individual ingredient! Nobody’s going to eat your cake.

It’s the same with your mixes. All these tracks were meant to be combined together into a stereo mix. What they sound like by themselves really has NOTHING to do with how they’re going to sound in the mix.

• That kick drum could sound amazing in solo. But it doesn’t matter if you can’t hear it in the mix, or if it’s overpowering the mix.
• The bass guitar might be HUGE solo’d, but when you put it in the mix, it just makes everything muddy and boomy.
• The lead vocal might sound perfect with the solo button pressed, but then you listen to it in the mix, and you can’t understand a word he’s singing.

The Solution

I’ve heard great-sounding mixes where the lead vocal, when solo’d, sounded really thin and harsh. But in the mix it worked perfectly. The mix is the ultimate goal. You make sacrifices and compromises to make the MIX sound great, not the individual tracks.

The best way to do this is to simply stop pressing the solo button. If you’re working on drums, listen to the entire drum kit. EQ the kick drum while listening to all the other drum tracks. It’s all about context. As much as you possibly can, mix your tracks while listening to all the others. It will force you to make decisions that will benefit the MIX, not the individual track.

While listening to the electric guitar in solo, you may think it needs to lose some harshness around 3 kHz, but then when you drop it in the mix, you notice that it sits perfectly. Had you done a cut at 3 kHz, you would’ve made the guitar more difficult to hear. You would have HURT THE MIX.

You may be asking, “But Joe, do you never use the solo button when you mix?” I do use it. I’ll use it to quickly hone in on that frequency I’m looking for, if I’m having trouble finding it, but then I immediately drop the track back in the mix to make adjustments. Or I’ll make a few adjustments, then I always listen to it in the mix again before moving on to the next thing.

What happens? I almost always have to make adjustments after hearing the track in the mix. No matter how perfect I think it sounds in solo. I might think I “nailed it,” but then I listen in the mix and have to make a few more adjustments.

Comment Time!

Your turn. Do you agree or disagree with me? Do you EQ in solo? Do you think it’s helpful or hurtful? What are you going to do about it?

If you struggle with how to EQ tracks and want to learn how to stop randomly twisting knobs and start EQ-ing quickly and effectively, check out Understanding EQ.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. Common EQ Mistake #4 – Boosting First
2. Common EQ Mistake #3 – Not EQ-ing with the Big Picture in Mind
3. Common EQ Mistake #1 – EQ-ing Without Listening

On last night’s webinar, I talked about EQ. During one section, I focused on common EQ mistakes. I wanted to share my thoughts here on HSC, too.

EQ-ing Without Listening First

Are you guilty of this? Come on, be honest. Have you ever opened up a mix and started slapping EQs on every channel and twisting away at the knobs?

It’s okay, I’ve done it, too. Do you know why this is a bad idea?

Last night I was working on a mix, and the ol’ temptation to throw a bunch of plugins by default came a-calling. I held strong, though, and starting mixing WITHOUT any plugins. I brought up all the tracks, kept everything in mono, and started balancing levels.

A few minutes later, the mix was already sounding pretty good. WHAT?! A decent-sounding mix without plug-ins? Shocker, right?

But that’s the point. Sometimes simply balancing levels can cut out the need for a bunch of plug-ins. Bass too boomy? Sometimes all you need to do is turn it down rather than EQ it.

That said, you obviously need to use EQ to clean up the mix and make everything audible and purdy. But before you reach for that favorite EQ, listen to the tracks. Maybe you’ll decide you don’t need an EQ. Maybe you’ll still need one, but you’ll have a much better idea of what the track sounds like and what you like/dislike about it.

Have a Goal

This ties into listening. When you grab an EQ plugin, do you know what you’re trying to accomplish with it? If not, scroll back up a few paragraphs and listen some more. If you don’t know WHY you’re using EQ, you’re probably not going to come up with anything super helpful.

Here are some examples of “goals” I have with EQ:

• The bass is muddying up the midrange a bit. I’m going to clear out some of the low-mids with EQ to make room for the other instruments and give the bass some punch.
• The kick drum could be punchier. I’m going to use EQ to cut out around 400 Hz to do that.
• The lead vocal is hard to understand. I’m going to remove excess low end with a high-pass filter and some low mids with EQ.
• The delay on the vocal is too obvious. I’ll use a high-shelf and maybe a low-pass filter to roll of some highs and give it a darker, low-fi sound.

Know what you’re wanting to accomplish.

Be Realistic

You can’t work magic with EQ. I can’t make Music Man bass sound like a Jazz bass. I can’t make a crappy vocalist sound like Jeff Buckley. And I can’t make a thin snare sound huge and beefy.

Rather than trying to change the sound with EQ, try using EQ to enhance the sound. It’ll make life a lot easier.

So…are you guilty of EQ-ing without listening? Leave a comment below.

Ready to learn all about EQ? Go grab a copy of Understanding EQ.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. Common EQ Mistake #2 – EQ-ing in Solo
2. Common EQ Mistake #3 – Not EQ-ing with the Big Picture in Mind
3. Common EQ Mistake #4 – Boosting First

One of the things I love most about recording music is that there are no rules. One guy decides to use a cardboard box as his kick drum sound…and it sounds awesome. Another guy decides to sample in the sound of a screaming cat and blend it with the cymbals. (Okay, I’ve never seen that, but I bet it’s awesome.)

You’re free to do whatever you want. Maybe that’s why so many people record music as a hobby. They spend 40 hours a week being told what they can and can’t do, but in the studio they can do whatever they want. The only real rule is that it needs to sound good. Ah, recording…

But there is one “rule” I almost always follow when mixing drums…and it almost always works. So, of course, I want to share it with you.

It’s really simple. Suspiciously simple. Cut 400 Hz.

I’ve heard it over and over again from mix engineers. Drums sounding boxy? Missing that definition you need? Cut 400 Hz.

It’s hard to explain. You just need to go try it, but it’s especially effective on kick drum and toms. Grab an EQ, do a cut at 400 Hz and nothing else. Then compare the different sounds. What I hear is that the low end becomes more pronounced and has more punch. I can also hear the high-end detail much more clearly?

This is all without boosting the lows or the highs. That’s why I always suggest that you cut before you boost. Emphasize one frequency range by DE-emphasizing another one. It’s kinda like budgeting:

You’ve got a set budget for the month.

You’ve got a set number of frequencies to work with.

You decide you want to spend an extra $200 on a piece of gear.

You decide you need more low end in your kick drum.

You take $200 out of ANOTHER part of the budget to pay for the gear.

You cut 400 Hz to bring out the low end down at 80 Hz.

This doesn’t ALWAYS works, but you’d be surprised how much a simple cut can work better than a boost.

Hear it for Yourself

Here’s a kick drum track, dry without any EQ:

[See post to listen to audio]

And here’s that same track with a 400 Hz cut:

[See post to listen to audio]

I did a fairly exaggerated cut to make it easier to hear. Even so, it’s not a super obvious change in sound. What I hear is that suddenly the low end beefyness of the kick is much more prominent than before. It sounds like I boosted the lows, but I actually just did a single cut to the low-mids. Funny how that works.

Side-note: Obviously 400 Hz might not be the EXACT frequency you need to cut, but it’s a great starting point.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

And if you want to learn my process for effectively EQ-ing anything, plus a killer ear-training technique, check out Understanding EQ:

www.UnderstandingEQ.com

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. An Unlikely Kick Drum
2. 3 Tips for Working With Virtual Drum Software
3. FREE EQ That Works Better than Anything I’ve Tried

If you’ve been mixing for any length of time, you know how valuable the high-pass filter can be. It removes excess low end from your non-bass-heavy tracks, allowing you to clean up the low frequencies, making room for the kick and bass.

But then there’s this thing called a low frequency shelf. What’s that all about? In the picture above you can see both a high-pass filter and a low frequency shelf.

A high-pass filter actually filters out the low frequencies entirely. The curve slopes downward at a specific “steepness.” As you move further to the left in the frequency spectrum, the signal gets progressively lower and lower.

If you set the HPF at 150 Hz, for example, 120 Hz will still be audible, but will be turned down. 80 Hz will be much quieter than 120. 40 Hz will likely be completely unheard. The high-pass filter essentially REMOVES those lower frequencies.

But let’s say you don’t want to completely remove the low frequencies, but you’d like them to be turned down a bit. That’s where a low shelf can come in handy.

If you look at the graphic again, a low shelf looks just like it sounds. It’s a horizontal line. Any boost or cut applied to the shelf also applies evenly to every frequency below it. This can be extremely helpful on a bass track that has just a little too much low end. You can turn everything below 150 Hz down by 3 dB. You’re not getting rid of the good stuff down at 80 Hz, you’re just turning it down.

Where I use this a lot is on a bass track, where I use a regular EQ curve to cut out some of the muddyness around 120 Hz, but then I’ll also use a low shelf to turn the bass frequencies down a bit…if needed. This lets me shape the tone of the low end with the bell-curve, and then increase or decrease the loudness of the low end with the shelf. Here’s what that looks like:

As you might have guessed, the same can be applied on the other end of the spectrum, when dealing with the high frequencies. I tend to use this on the lows more than the highs, though.

What do you think? Do you ever use a low shelf? Leave a comment below. Thanks!

Also, if you want in-depth EQ training, click here.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. Day 24 – Wield the HPF [31DBR]
2. Mixing Acoustic Guitar Part 1 – EQ
3. Mixing Bass Part 2 – EQ

I love the movie What About Bob. One of my favorite parts is when Bob is encouraged to take “baby steps” when dealing with any potential issues that he faces.

It’s not bad advice, especially for you in your studio. What am I talking about? It’s easy to overdo things in the studio, especially if you’re new to recording or simply excited about a song.

I would encourage you to take it easy and take things one step at a time, rather than making big, dramatic adjustments that could, in the end, prove harmful to the music.

1. Don’t go crazy with plug-ins.

Whenever you add a new plug-in to a track, it’s really easy to start turning knobs like crazy and doing something really dramatic. Very rarely is that helpful for me when I’m mixing.

I love to use plug-ins only when necessary and, when I do use them, I try to make subtle adjustments here and there to only improve the sound of the track, not change it dramatically.

If you’re in the habit of doing really big moves in an EQ or a compressor, try taking it easy and going more subtle. You may find that those big moves were only hurting things.

2. If you got it right at the source, you don’t need lots of EQ or compression.

That speaks for itself. I talk all the time about getting it right at the source. If you truly take your time in the recording phase to make the tracks sound like you want it to sound, you may not need any EQ or compression. As a matter of fact, I think that should be your goal. Your goal should be to record things in such a way that you don’t need any plug-ins at mix down.

Does this ever happen? Rarely, but it’s a great goal to have, and it will transform the way you record tracks.

3. The 3 dB rule

I sent an email to my mailing list recently talking about EQ. I told them about what I call the “3 dB rule.” The rule is simple. Whenever making an adjustment, only move things 3 dB at a time.

If you’re using an EQ, rather than doing a gigantic 10 dB cut on a guitar track, only cut it by 3 dB. Then, listen to the track and see how it sounds.

If you’re using a compressor, rather than yanking the threshold all the way down and compressing by 15 dB, only allow 3 dB of gain reduction. Then, listen.

This is hugely important because it allows you to take baby steps, incremental adjustments, to your tracks as you’re mixing. You’ll find that, while you thought you needed a 10 dB cut, it turns out 3 dB was all it took to make it sound great.

So the moral of the story today is take baby steps.

What ways can you implement this in your studio workflow today?

[Photo Credit]

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. CONTEST: Gilder Baby Pool
2. MY Steps for Recording a Song (plus a BIG announcement)
3. What Are Your Steps to Recording a Song? (Need Your Feedback)

As is my custom, I was listening to the Home Recording Show the other day. They mentioned a comment left on Episode 121 that I thought was awesome.

Here’s the comment, by Edward Mowinckel:

I used the steak analogy. You can burn a steak, but after you burn it, it’s burnt. You can cool it off, but it’s still burnt. If you cook it medium, you can still cook it more, or just enjoy a medium steak!

He was referring to the process of recording with levels too hot. Some people think you have to peg the meters to get a good recording. His point was that, when setting levels for recording, you don’t have to go in NEARLY as hot as you had to in the analog days.
And if you record TOO hot, you end up with clipping, which, like a burned steak, can’t be undone.

While this applies to levels, it also works nicely for using processing (like EQ or compression) on the way in.

Commit…but don’t overdo it

I mentioned in yesterday’s post about how you should try to commit to the sound of your recordings more.

It’s fun to use analog hardware. It really is. But it’s very easy to over-compress or over-EQ something.

You get caught up in the excitement of seeing meters bouncing and turning knobs. Always give it a listen before you start tracking a bunch of takes.

If you think you might regret it tomorrow, back it off a bit. Subtlety is your friend here.

Have a Plan

You need to have a plan, a goal for how you want the song to sound.

I’m not saying be a big dork and spend 3 months planning everything out in excruciating detail. But you do need to have a fairly good idea of the overall sound you’re going for.

That goal will inform all of your decisions along the way.

If you know you always squash the life out of your bass recordings when you mix, then maybe you experiment with crushing the bass on the way in…save yourself some time and processing later.

It all comes back to doing things on purpose. If I was to sit next to you in a session and ask “Why did you do that?” for every decision you make, you should have an answer.

Don’t compress because you think you should. Compress because you know what a compressor will do to the sound, and that’s the sound you want.

Want some compression training? Check out Understanding Compression.

What do you think about the steak analogy? Are you over-cooking your recordings?

[Photo Credit]

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

1. Do You Always Use Compression?
2. Day 14 – Setting Levels for Recording [31DBR]
3. Day 28 – Compress the Master Fader? [31DBR]