Find Your Sound: EQ

With so many plugins and emulations it can be overwhelming to know which one you need to reach for. You read that “so-in-so engineer” uses a specific eq but you’re having a hard time figuring out how they use it. Here are some tips for finding Your sound; EQ edition.

Hobby or Career?

We live in an exciting time in music because we’re not being restricted by time, budget, or location. Yes plugins still cost money, but having an SSL console at you fingertips for $750 in plugin form is a far cry from a $1,000,000 analog board. Not to mention the space, service, & power it needs on a daily basis. So I'm asking, is this your hobby or career?

Tracking or Mixing?

First lets understand what stage you’re at in the production process. Are you tracking or mixing? When I am mixing I tend to use the same console EQ to give the song a cohesive feel. This is how most mixing is done in the analog world and I like to work in that sort of mind frame. When I’m tracking though I like to use the EQ that fits the instrument I’m trying to capture. For instance, guitars reside mainly in the mid-range spectrum, so I will reach for a Pultec MEQ-5 style plugin to help enhance the mid-range. The Pultec MEQ-5 naturally complements the mid-range, so I usually reach it first when dealing with guitars.

Enhance or Clean?

Second, what are you using the EQ for? To clean up or to enhance? Not all EQ’s are created equal. If I need to clean up an instrument I will want to use an EQ that is very transparent and be able to have a narrow Q or even notch out certain frequencies. On the other hand, if I’m enhancing the track, I'll want some color added from the hardware emulation. That’s one of the benefits to using different analog models as long as they have been captured correctly. I say this a lot, I’d rather have a plugin that behaves like the original rather than just sound like it.

Now the fun part…

Pick an instrument you want to work on, in this case let's choose the bass guitar DI. Create a few AUX tracks and send the Bass DI signal to all of them. Next, Insert various & different EQ’s on each AUX track you created for the Bass DI and mute all of them. Now one at a time un-mute a track and EQ that channel. Check out how it fits in the song and how it stands out. Once you’ve got a something you like cleanse you listening palette by listening to a different song, then mute that aux track you just were working on and move on to the next track. Repeat the process how ever many times as you’d like. Now that you done so many tracks go through and listen to each one with the song and note which one is the most pleasing to your ear, what characteristics you like, and how much time & effort went into getting that sound. Write down your top three that you liked for that specific instrument. That way when you’re working on an instrument and you’re #1 EQ you like isn’t working you can try the next one you like.

Take Your Time

This at first may seem time consuming but in the long run you be able to discover effects you may not have at first wanted to try, and give you a new workflow. But this is your career we're talking about, right?