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666666 · 23rd July 2008

Indeed, as other have said above, use only your ears... there are no rules.

However, be careful, for those who are less experienced, it is easy to fall into a "trap" of constantly boosting eq as opposed to cutting. Boosting provides a more immediately noticeable "reward", but often it's too much, often can bend the signal in a way that is ultimately not ideal.

Cutting a small amount in the right areas by comparison can potentially get things just right, but takes a bit more careful listening. That is assuming the tracks were recorded well.

So my advise to eq newbies... indeed close your eyes and use your ears... and specifically practice cutting small bits to get a handle on how helpful cutting can be. Again, it's often more of a subtle change that you need to become sensitive to.... and once you're tuned up to it, you'll be on a path to better mixing.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with boosting, if and when appropriate, but if you find you are boosting a lot to get things to sound "right" per your ears, this is an indicator that your tracks were simply not recorded well to begin with.

I remember a recording a did back around 15 or so years ago when I had way less experience. In the mix I remember boosting a ton of eq on everything... every track had an eq cranked severely, boosting like over +5db of mostly high-end frequencies. Back then I did not think much of it, didn't know any better. I recently came across some of the original unmixed tracks from that session and found them to all be totally muffled and lifeless, extremely poor frequency response, very weak upper-end, extreme "wool blanket over the sound" effect... so it makes sense as to why I had been boosting the heck out of all the eqs during the mix back then. Apparently I WAS hearing correctly back then and was boosting eq like crazy in order to compensate for very poorly recorded tracks. And yes, the recording had been done with cheap mics and cheap pres... how I regret using that crap... just didn't know any better back then. Just say NO to cheap crap!

Anyway, point is, if your RECORDINGS are good, you should probably not need a lot of eq boosting later... a tad bit of careful cutting is usually what turns out to be the most appropriate approach when dealing with well recorded tracks. An apparent "need" for lots of eq boosting in a mix probably means you need to look at your source recordings, there is likely a big problem there.

23rd July 2008	#20
666666 Lives for gear Joined: Jan 2005 Location: Long Island, NY Posts: 2,563	Indeed, as other have said above, use only your ears... there are no rules. However, be careful, for those who are less experienced, it is easy to fall into a "trap" of constantly boosting eq as opposed to cutting. Boosting provides a more immediately noticeable "reward", but often it's too much, often can bend the signal in a way that is ultimately not ideal. Cutting a small amount in the right areas by comparison can potentially get things just right, but takes a bit more careful listening. That is assuming the tracks were recorded well. So my advise to eq newbies... indeed close your eyes and use your ears... and specifically practice cutting small bits to get a handle on how helpful cutting can be. Again, it's often more of a subtle change that you need to become sensitive to.... and once you're tuned up to it, you'll be on a path to better mixing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with boosting, if and when appropriate, but if you find you are boosting a lot to get things to sound "right" per your ears, this is an indicator that your tracks were simply not recorded well to begin with. I remember a recording a did back around 15 or so years ago when I had way less experience. In the mix I remember boosting a ton of eq on everything... every track had an eq cranked severely, boosting like over +5db of mostly high-end frequencies. Back then I did not think much of it, didn't know any better. I recently came across some of the original unmixed tracks from that session and found them to all be totally muffled and lifeless, extremely poor frequency response, very weak upper-end, extreme "wool blanket over the sound" effect... so it makes sense as to why I had been boosting the heck out of all the eqs during the mix back then. Apparently I WAS hearing correctly back then and was boosting eq like crazy in order to compensate for very poorly recorded tracks. And yes, the recording had been done with cheap mics and cheap pres... how I regret using that crap... just didn't know any better back then. Just say NO to cheap crap! Anyway, point is, if your RECORDINGS are good, you should probably not need a lot of eq boosting later... a tad bit of careful cutting is usually what turns out to be the most appropriate approach when dealing with well recorded tracks. An apparent "need" for lots of eq boosting in a mix probably means you need to look at your source recordings, there is likely a big problem there.