EQ in a virtual environment and your approach.

[BigBasserino]

I'm going to sound like a noob but I'm still fresh (after years) to EQ in a DAW (with parametric settings) compared to a "set" (can't remember the term but you know, "bass" "mid" "treble" knobs). Usually I go for a mid-driven tone with a flat bass and treble. Sounds easy enough right? I usually find a lot of sound comes through way too raw or scratchy. But that's bass. Drums I fare a little bit better. Last night I was experimenting with hard compressing, EQ, distorting, compressing, then EQ and applying band stops to remove the "bad" sounds (honking).

I don't have monitors, just a decent pair of monitoring headphones (sennheiser HD 280s; don't use them a ton), my amps, or laptop speakers. In my near mid 30s I am starting to believe playing at full volume with bands has proven to chip away at my hearing (and patience but that's another story) so I have a feeling part of it is me but I'm trying not to blow out my drums using "authentic" methods of engineering.

What's your take/approach/method?

 

[Mcgiver69]

Is always good to think about EQ (in DAWs) as a surgical tool, where you can trim or add certain frequencies. My only advice is to mix or apply any effect in context; this means that you should not just solo the instrument and apply the effect until you found a sound you like it has to be done while listening to the whole mix so you can find the sound that works the best with your mix. Big picture that's the name of the game.

 

[EastCoastThump]

Two tips for getting started with instrument eq for a mix:

• Listen to isolated bass tracks in your project's genre. This'll give you a clearer—and sometimes surprising—sense of what finished bass tracks can sound like when soloed.

• How the bass guitar is *perceived* to sound in a full mix depends enormously on the space the other instruments leave for it. If you're only used to working with amp-style eq, spend some time playing with putting high-pass filters on the *other* tracks in the mix. This clears out the low end in the mix to leave room for the kick and bass to breathe. (This concept extends to the whole mix—identifying which voices are most prominent in various eq ranges in key moments of your mix. But just to start, use HPFs to unclutter the basement.)

 

[JRA]

Big picture that's the name of the game.

 

[EastCoastThump]

My only advice is to mix or apply any effect in context; this means that you should not just solo the instrument and apply the effect until you found a sound you like it has to be done while listening to the whole mix so you can find the sound that works the best with your mix. Big picture that's the name of the game.

Absolutely agreed: that's the end game. For beginners, though, until they've trained themselves to attend to eq changes in the full mix, it's often hard to spot the differences until the eq is extreme.

Partly, that's just the nature of attention and perception. But beyond that learning curve, beginners are also more likely than old hands to be mixing sessions that weren't tracked very carefully. So there's often a lot of spill and masking that'll hide the smart eq choices on individual tracks until most of the basic mix is roughed in.

Training your ear is part of the process, and working with professionally recorded iso tracks and stems is the new quick way to learn.

 

[seamonkey]

It's hard to know what the average person can hear compared to what you hear.

Those headphones can be calibrated.
Reference 4 sound calibration software
There's demo version. You'd at least know in frequency response if what you're hearing is close to what others would hear.

One thing mixing with speakers is you can turn your head a little bit to hear one part versus another.
It is just natural.
There IEM monitor systems that do this now.
And Waves NX Nx – Virtual Mix Room over Headphones | Waves
If you find yourself moving your head a lot when listening to monitors, you might want to try a virtual room mix plugin.

 

[Mcgiver69]

Absolutely agreed: that's the end game. For beginners, though, until they've trained themselves to attend to eq changes in the full mix, it's often hard to spot the differences until the eq is extreme.

Partly, that's just the nature of attention and perception. But beyond that learning curve, beginners are also more likely than old hands to be mixing sessions that weren't tracked very carefully. So there's often a lot of spill and masking that'll hide the smart eq choices on individual tracks until most of the basic mix is roughed in.

Training your ear is part of the process, and working with professionally recorded iso tracks and stems is the new quick way to learn.

You are totally right, in recording the principle of garbage in garbage out applies. If you don't have a good or great take it makes it way to difficult for the engineer to get good results no matter how much eq is applied (you can't polish a turd).

 

[BigBasserino]

If you're only used to working with amp-style eq, spend some time playing with putting high-pass filters on the *other* tracks in the mix. This clears out the low end in the mix to leave room for the kick and bass to breathe. (This concept extends to the whole mix—identifying which voices are most prominent in various eq ranges in key moments of your mix. But just to start, use HPFs to unclutter the basement.)

On one hand I recall I used to do mixes where the kick "had" to be full force full freq but I used to put out a lot of mixes where that would kill the subs and it was back to the drawing board. I get the feeling actually that a lot of metal and the bass/snare click is invested in the top end of the mix. If you can solo bands of your songs (I use fl studio's maximus plugin) I find you hear the bulk of the drum mix perfectly nestled in the highs region. I think honestly the kick is likely split to two tracks. ....the click (treble) track and the punch (bass) track.

Still referencing here and there but that's one thing in particular I notice when listening, that I hear more of the kick than I feel (which was what made me experiment with band stops to begin with). Lately I'm still bandless so I'm trying to make a virtual band; being I can play (theoretically, not literally) one note at a time and use pitch ID Software, I'm hoping to get good results routing identified midi notes to other plugins to make a sort of cheese-core.