Electronic Music 411 - EQ, Compression, Reverb, etc tips

EM411.com
Electronic Music Production, MP3's, Live Shows, Blogs and Community

Share your music and get feedback.

jdg's emID

null, Washington, USA

Message me

View my emID

EQ, Compression, Reverb, etc tips

StoreTags: Compression, EQ

Author: jdg on June 14 2006

Viewed 19911 times. 78 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.

People who enjoyed reading this: Mr12000, sprouts, implexgrace, Otterfan, relcad, kc9akb, BadddSpellah, Zanf, MyUtopia, nekomook, isaiah, skab, colin, nagrom, breakscience, Jomdom, lunatinker, joerex, frnortnr, FailedSitcom, cbit, multitude, room, martin, kwyj, Jeremah, filarion, daswesen, pierlu001, bla, bodo, mlbot, thie1210, airliner, interstitial, flies, Plissken, Blair, gasper, dumafuji, LogicFray, datathinner, Logo, energygiant, Jenoki, quip, nordfiend, tbeals79, RogerRoger, Adjective, Taxis, DrexonField, Artsigreg, SenorFrio, hma, quicks, GregTArtZ, soft, LeoMANXVII, reehc, dataplex, monkvolcano, notcool, tylth, Jetsom, jaq, ali555, theflame, ignatius, zfigz, Mesothelioma, credo, delete, Radio909, celibacyclub, eyesnine, xLefr, lematt

--> old info into new format
Visual Guide: link
|EQ|

Instrument Frequency ranges
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Kick Drum
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz.
Try a small boost around 5-7kHz to add some high end.

Frequency Effect
50-100Hz Adds bottom to the sound
100-250Hz Adds roundness
250-800Hz Muddiness Area
5-8kHz Adds high end prescence
8-12kHz Adds Hiss
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Snare
Try a small boost around 60-120Hz if the sound is a little too wimpy.
Try boosting around 6kHz for that 'snappy' sound.

Frequency Effect
100-250Hz Fills out the sound
6-8kHz Adds prescence
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi hats or cymbals
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz.
To add some brightness try a small boost around 3kHz.

Frequency Effect
250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6kHz Adds presence
6-8kHz Adds clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Bass
Try boosting around 60Hz to add more body.
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz.
f more presence is needed, boost around 6kHz.

Frequency Effect
50-100Hz Adds bottom end
100-250Hz Adds roundness
250-800Hz Muddiness Area
800-1kHz Adds beef to small speakers
1-6kHz Adds presence
6-8kHz Adds high-end presence
8-12kHz Adds hiss
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Vocals
This is a difficult one, as it depends on the mic used to record the vocal.
However...
Apply either cut or boost around 300hz, depending on the mic and song.
Apply a very small boost around 6kHz to add some clarity.

Frequency Effect
100-250Hz Adds 'up-frontness'
250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6kHz Adds presence
6-8kHz Adds sibilance and clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Piano
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off around 300Hz.
Apply a very small boost around 6kHz to add some clarity.

Frequency Effect
50-100Hz Adds bottom
100-250Hz Adds roundness
250-1kHz Muddiness area
1-6kHz Adds presence
6-8Khz Adds clarity
8-12kHz Adds hiss
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Electric guitars
Again this depends on the mix and the recording.
Apply either cut or boost around 300hz, depending on the song and sound.
try boosting around 3kHz to add some edge to the sound, or cut to add some transparency.
Try boosting around 6kHz to add presence.
Try boosting around 10kHz to add brightness.

Frequency Effect
100-250Hz Adds body
250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6Khz Cuts through the mix
6-8kHz Adds clarity
8=12kHz Adds hiss
------------------------------------------------------------------

Acoustic guitar
Any apparent muddiness can be rolled off between 100-300Hz.
Apply small amounts of cut around 1-3kHz to push the image higher.
Apply small amounts of boost around 5kHz to add some presence.

Frequency Effect
100-250Hz Adds body
6-8kHz Adds clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Strings
These depend entirely on the mix and the sound used.

Frequency Effect
50-100Hz Adds bottom end
100-250Hz Adds body
250-800Hz Muddiness area
1-6hHz Sounds crunchy
6-8kHz Adds clarity
8-12kHz Adds brightness
------------------------------------------------------------------

Low Bass: anything less than 50Hz This range is often known as the sub bass and
is most commonly taken up by the lowest part of the kick drum and bass guitar,
although at these frequencies it's almost impossible to determine any pitch. Sub
bass is one of the reasons why 12" vinyl became available: low frequencies
require wider grooves than high frequencies - without rolling off everything
below 50Hz you couldn't fit a full track onto a 7" vinyl record. However we do
NOT recommend applying any form of boost around this area without the use of
very high quality studio monitors (not home monitors - there is a vast
difference between home nearfield and studio farfield monitors costing anywhere
between Ã‚Â£5,000 and Ã‚Â£20,000). Boosting blindly in this area without a valid
reference point can and will permanently damage most speakers, even PA systems.
You have been warned!

Bass: 50-250Hz This is the range you're adjusting when applying the bass boost
on most home stereos, although most bass signals in modern music tracks lie
around the 90-200Hz area with a small boost in the upper ranges to add some
presence or clarity.

Muddiness/irritational area: 200-800Hz The main culprit area for muddy sounding
mixes, hence the term 'irritational area'. Most frequencies around here can
cause psycho-acoustic problems: if too many sounds in a mix are dominating this
area, a track can quickly become annoying, resulting in a rush to finish mixing
it as you get bored or irritated by the sound of it.

Mid-range: 800-6kHz Human hearing is extremely sensitive at these frequencies,
and even a minute boost around here will result in a huge change in the sound -
almost the same as if you boosted around 10db at any other range. This is
because our voices are centred in this area, so it's the frequency range we hear
more than any other. Most telephones work at 3kHz, because at this frequency
speech is most intelligible. This frequency also covers TV stations, radio, and
electric power tools. If you have to apply any boosting in this area, be very
cautious, especially on vocals. We're particularly sensitive to how the human
voice sounds and its frequency coverage.

High Range: 6-8kHz This is the range you adjust when applying the treble boost
on your home stereo. This area is slightly boosted to make sounds artificially
brighter (although this artificial boost is what we now call 'lifelike') when
mastering a track before burning it to CD.

Hi-High Range: 8-20kHz This area is taken up by the higher frequencies of
cymbals and hi-hats, but boosting around this range, particularly around 12kHz
can make a recording sound more high quality than it actually is, and it's a
technique commonly used by the recording industry to fool people into thinking
that certain CDs are more hi-fidelity than they'd otherwise sound. However,
boosting in this area also requires a lot of care - it can easily pronounce any background hiss, and using too much will result in a mix becoming irritating.

|Compression|

The basics
Compression basically explained: the reason people ask about compression more than anything is because they find it the hardest concept to understand or hear. A basic explanation I heard when I first started was thinking of compression like an automatic volume control, when the audio is loud it gets turned down and when it's soft it gets turned up. This means sharp signals are now curved and fading signals are now picked up and last longer. It also means smoother sounds and fatter notes. AB

Soft knee, hard knee
Unless you have a software compressor or a really high-end model, you won't be able to choose the setting. You simply have to decide whether to get a soft knee compressor or a hard knee one. Try to buy a soft knee compressor as it will be useful on practically everything without crushing the sound. Mostly used on vocals and mixes, it means a larger amount of compression can be applied, while hard knee compressors, which can be heard working, will be typically used on bass. It is more of an audible effect than soft knee. AB

Yours is a Urei
Kate Bush was rumoured to have two compressors across her vocals: the infamous studio compressor Urei 1176 one on its flat-out setting (all ratio buttons pushed in) and another added just in case any peaks got through. It sounds crazy, but the 1176 is famous because of its super-soft character on vocals, and on this high a setting she would have had every breath picked up by the mic and every peak squashed. This gave her a unique sound. AB

Vocals
Vocals are one of the hardest and most dynamic sounds you may come across. My advice would be to try and catch the peaks in the song. Use soft knee, set the ratio around 2:1 (but maybe as high as 6:1 for voiceovers and spoken word), attack to 0.09ms, release to 100ms then adjust the threshold to catch the loudest parts of the song, so you get about 8dB of reduction.

Get what you pay for
Software compressors are fantastic now and the built-in compressor in Emagic's Logic has done the job for me on many vocals now. However, I still went out and paid for a classic compressor like the hand-wired perfection of the all-valve Chiswick Reach. This put across the outputs of Pro Tools is amazing. A lot of money compared to software, but the sound is worth every penny. AB

The beat goes on
Drums can be transformed by compression in a mix. On a snare try a soft knee, use a ratio of 4:1, a long attack and a little longer release, then adjust the threshold to just grab the first couple of dB of reduction. Now try adjusting the attack shorter, and the threshold higher to adjust the sound to fit the track, the R&B type of snap or the pop type of slap. AB

Stereo low
Old-school engineers often use the trick of sub grouping the drums to a stereo pair then applying a stereo compressor to achieve a pumping sound. AB

It's for everyone...
Think of compression as just as important a creative tool as reverbs and delays. It's not just an engineers' tool.

...and for everything
Pretty much everything will sound better with a little compression, the whole sonic from bass drums to flutes. DH

Take care on tape
Always remember that, if you're committing to tape, then err on the side of caution. Remember you can always add more if you want to, but it's impossible to remove. DH

Try and try again
Don't be afraid to experiment and, as with all things audio, 'use your ears!' If it sounds good to you, then it must be right, regardless of what the manual says. DH

The basic rule
Yes, yes, it's been said before, by many people, but you can never have too many compressors! DH

Double your money
Instead of putting a whole sound through a compressor, a neat trick is to split it to two channels, heavily compress one of them and mix that with the uncompressed channel. This works particularly well on drum sounds and can be applied to, say, an individual snare drum or a stereo submix of the whole kit (or some of its constituent parts). The compressed version of the sound can be tweaked to make it pump by setting an appropriately short release time and can then be added to the uncompressed version to get a more exciting and dynamic rhythm bed. TC

Multiband
When working with a sound source which covers a full (or at least large) frequency spectrum, such as a complete mix, normal compressors tend to introduce a 'pumping' effect. This is because the lower frequencies which tend to trigger the compressor will normally be doing something quite different to the higher frequencies, yet the compressor will attenuate the entire output by the same amount. Multiband compression, as the name suggests, uses a crossover to split the full-bandwidth input sound into smaller bandwidths which are then compressed separately. The results are then mixed back together, the result being a much louder,tighter mix which doesn't pump or sound squashed.

Sidechain
The sidechain, or key, is the signal within a compressor which is used to control the output level. It is when this signal exceeds the threshold that compression is applied to the main signal running through the unit. A lot of hardware compressors (and some of the better plug-ins) have external sidechain - or key - inputs so you can use the characteristics of one sound source to compress another. In this way you can, for example, use a kick drum track to make a synth pad pump in time with the music. AC

De-essing
Used mainly on vocals, this is a technique for reducing the level of sibilant sounds ('s' or 'sh', etc) which are significantly louder than the other sounds associated with speech. The problem areas of these sibilant sounds tend to be above 7-8kHz,so reducing a microphone's volume when these frequencies are encountered is the order of the day. Take an auxiliary send from the vocal channel, feed it through an equaliser and then into your compressor's sidechain input. Insert the compressor into the vocal channel. Then use the equaliser on the sidechain to boost the sibilant frequencies. You'll need to be able to monitor the sidechain in some way, as, as with all things, using the old shell-likes is the only way to go. Listen to the main vocal channel to determine the best settings for the threshold and ratio, but use a fast attack and release time to make the effect as transparent as possible. AC

Guitars
Overdriven and distorted guitar sounds rarely need compression as the process of overdriving them introduces a fair amount of compression anyway. Clean and acoustic guitars are a different matter. For that classic, funky, clean sound, use a fairly low threshold, a ratio of at least 3:1, fast attack and quite a slow release. Add a touch of chorus or flanging to add the extra icing on the cake. Strummed parts, electric or acoustic, are better with a higher threshold, the aim being to reduce the volume of the transient parts of the sound (the strums themselves) while keeping a steady overall level. As ever, use your ears! AC

Bass
One of the best uses for a compressor is on bass sounds - get a solid, steady foundation to your track, and the rest will stand up beautifully. Probably. Optimum settings vary here, as much depends on the type of bass sound - synth, electric, acoustic, etc - but as a general rule, use fast attack and medium release times, a medium threshold and a ratio of between 3:1 and 5:1.

Have an idea
I realise all those dials and buttons are just calling you over to start fiddling as soon as you plug the compressor in, but have some sort of purpose first. Are you trying to make the sound more punchy, more smooth or just keep it under control? Listen and think before you leap. ST

On the attack
I try to have the attack up (ie, not at its quickest setting) a little on most things if possible; guitars, for example, really benefit from extra 'front'. Many recommended compressor settings for parts such as vocals suggest the quickest attack time, but try it up and see what you think. You can add a little attack on the most unlikely things to help them stand out more. ST

Using bypass
Having a stereo compressor over the whole mix is generally a good thing, but monitoring through it when mixing is hard work. While it can be useful to know what the final compression will do to the mix, you'll probably just be fighting it the whole time. Leave it on bypass until the mix is almost finished. ST

For effects
There's lots of fun to be had compressing effect returns, if you have the free mixer channels to set it up. If your delay doesn't quite fade away as you'd like, then compressing the return may give you the control you're after. ST

Pre- or post-EQ
The difference between having the compressor before the EQ section or after it can be drastic. When learning about compression, try both options and hear the way the compressor affects your EQing, and vice versa.

|Reverb|

when i mix music. i do not use reverb as a mix tool, only as a special effect.

so i went and stole this: (pls add your own tips)

1. Reverb creates the illusion of space, but in doing so it also 'smears' the stereo localisation of the original sound source, just as it does in real life. If you want to maintain a specific stereo placement for one or more sounds in a mix, consider using a mono reverb effect and panning the reverb to the same position as the original dry sound.

2. Reverb is very useful for making vocals sound more musical and for making them sit with the rest of the mix, but adding too much will have the effect of pushing the vocals back, rather than allowing them to take front position. Experiment with pre-delay values of 60-100mS to help counter this, and also try using a reverb patch that has a lot of early reflections, as these help reinforce the dry sound. You can learn a lot from listening carefully to records you like to see how much and what type of reverb is used. Often it's rather less than you think.

3. Bright reverbs can flatter vocals, but may exaggerate sibilance. As an alternative to de-essing the vocals, try instead de-essing the feed to the reverb unit, so that sibilance is removed before the reverb is applied.

4. Reverb is probably the most important effect in the studio, so don't compromise by using a low-quality software reverb plug-in just because you're short of processing power. Use a good external hardware reverb unit if you have one, otherwise choose a more powerful software plug-in to treat the vocal track in non-real time. This may involve off-line processing or doing a real-time 'bounce to disk' of the vocal track in isolation, via the plug-in.

Digg it | Delicious

Read jdg's other blogs.jdg's Recent Blogs

cmj loves fredo

What is your favorite track that you've made? (Tags: lego my ego)

joebacca

thief

We Open (Tags: sugar)

Comments

1 | 2

06/14/06 + Mr12000

*stored* thanks again mang!

Recent blogs: BeardologyRecords Interviewed!, Clark - Body Riddle, NEW Beardology Release