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EQ for the whole band

wideyes

wideyes

May 9, 2007
991
22
Eugene, OR
#1
Hey y'all! I'm currently playing in a trio, and we're pretty set-up techwise. We have our own PA (which I'm playing through), guitarist uses an old Mesa Boogie with a lot of EQ options, and the drummer uses triggers. We have a lot of possibility as far as blending and shaping our sound. So my question to you would be, how to EQ? I have a feeling we could sound a lot better if we were more intentional about boosting / cutting in our respective ranges. Any tips / tricks? Our genre is soul / funk.
 
#2
How to eq can vary with every room you find yourself in. It's not a set it and forget it thing.


Work on your band mix slotting itself...meaning your natural tones from your instruments and amps blend well and compliment each other before anything even gets to the PA.

You then send that to the PA, and mix/eq the overall sound for the room (or lack of one) you're in.
 
#4
General rules of thumb- if the goat and bass are clashing, either the guitarist should turn down his lows, or the bassist should turn down his low mids (like 200hz). If you clash with the bass drum, either try cutting that frequency or ~60-80hz.
 
#5
For funk, I'd say dial back the deepest bass out of your bass a little bit, with a corresponding boost for the kickdrum a bit there. Let the bass be naturally fat in its upperbass/lowmid area, with guitars a bit on the cleaner side, or at least not bass heavy.
 
#8
No hard and fast rule for frequency slotting. Basically it varies with the players, the instruments, production values and goals... I personally start with the kick and the drummer. Fast feet, busy kick, well tuned drum, I tend to EQ is a little high and punchy, I'll slot the bass lower and play less. Busy bass guy, drummer is kicking 4's ? The drum goes deep, the bass less so... None of which really helps as the salient point here is... You gotta use your ears. Period... It's your band after all...

With electronic drums, selecting the right dum sample is a great place to start. Mostly it's about the guys foot IMO...

I refer to the above as slotting as it is a concept that illustrates a point. In reality, I'm just mucking about with the EQ and emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain regions. Actual slotting requires dedicated low pass and hi pass filters and possible a number of them per instrument... In a live sound environment that isn't usually available to us unless we happen to own some really serious console. Something far more capable than my Studio live anyway...
 
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