When it comes to EQing and compression... I have no idea where to start

[vurt]

Adding a hipass filter on every track, cutting away all lower frequencies on tracks that are just messing things up, is one of my simplest and easiest way to fix a track. Sometimes that's all I do.

if its all itb, this isnt really necessary, thats mainly for extraneous mic noise.
removing it at source via sound design is the best option, work like an orchestra, pick the sounds that compliment rather than fight one another. (unless thats an effect you are going for of course)

[Spin Boyz]

Try mixing in mono. Your DAW should have mono button on the master channel if not use something like bx_solo. Bypass your eqs and compressors. Do all your panning and a rough mix in stereo. Then start balancing your mix (in mono) with just the faders and monitor at a low volume. There's a YT vid by Kush Audio that explains this better than me.

[DrGonzo]

Adding a hipass filter on every track, cutting away all lower frequencies on tracks that are just messing things up, is one of my simplest and easiest way to fix a track. Sometimes that's all I do.

if its all itb, this isnt really necessary, thats mainly for extraneous mic noise.

Oh no, my experience is the opposite. If you are using synth plugins all kinds of devilry can sneak the sound chain. Especially when using FM, granular synthesis methods, but even properly coded subtractive synths can create massive unnecessary low and sub frequencies that are just chewing up the bandwidth.

[legendCNCD]

Adding a hipass filter on every track, cutting away all lower frequencies on tracks that are just messing things up, is one of my simplest and easiest way to fix a track. Sometimes that's all I do.

if its all itb, this isnt really necessary, thats mainly for extraneous mic noise.

Oh no, my experience is the opposite. If you are using synth plugins all kinds of devilry can sneak the sound chain. Especially when using FM, granular synthesis methods, but even properly coded subtractive synths can create massive unnecessary low and sub frequencies that are just chewing up the bandwidth.

Same experience here, there can be 10hz -3dB generated in some sounds, even in some samples, when you are playing them from fex. 400hz key. Cut that lowend bump out or shelf at least most of it. Also hardware synths can generate lowend crap.

[CrystalWizard]

get a few real print books (like mike seniors' already mentioned, look up back issues of magazines like SOS, Mix magazine, Tape Op, and many more. If it's in your abilities find someone local who needs a hand who has the skills. Spend another thousand hours playing with it. Take advice from the experts on forums, actually all of the internet with a few kilos of salt (except of course this), unless your are extremely familiar with their work. Seek out the few decent videos, interviews and articles by those whose work you rate highly.

[junostar]

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Yeah there’s lots of resources you can use to learn the whys behind compressors and EQs but what I find most useful is to have some quick references you can pull it up as a starting point. For example, Pinterest has a lot of great infographics type images that have a lot of super helpful tips for music production and sound design.

So I have a Pinterest board dedicated to all of those little tips that I refer to all the time when I start asking: “What’s a good compressor setting for drums vs bass” or “What frequencies should I focus on EQ’ing with a snare drum”. Here’s an example of the type of infographics I save on Pinterest:
https://pin.it/6EMogGd (https://pin.it/6EMogGd)

[Synthman2000]

You need quality reference points. Quality music refs, quality monitoring and acoustics. Then you need to have goals to use compressors and EQ.

The fact you are side chaining anything before you know how to use EQ and a compressor gives great insight into the online world of those with very little real world sound engineering experience teaching those who know no better. Youtube mixing guru's at a guess ?

You need to perceive a problem that needs correcting and in tandem you need to know what problems eq's and compressor can resolve. The trouble is without accuracy you cannot know what is a problem in your source material, be it tonal or dynamic related and what is a problem with your monitors and room colouring your perception.

So you have no idea what you are doing. Having good monitors and a good acoustic is the fundamental basis of accurate presentation of sound so you know what the reality of the situation is. Until then you will be flailing around like 100,000's of other home producers learning nothing much and wondering what the hell is going on.

Compression does not always make a source better that is certain and you can mess things up severely with an EQ.

What do you want to know and I will explain it from my perspective as an audio professional. We don't just EQ and compress for no reason or because it is cool, a new valve compressor is cool to use and everyone does it so I must do it. That is garbage engineers presenting garbage information.

We process audio only when we are certain it will make it better. Otherwise don't bother.

A good tip based on your last ask... discern every sound 1 by 1 as you add it to your track. What is the quality like, if it is muddy from the start why are you putting it in the track ?

Make judgements and that goes back to accuracy otherwise there will be years of tail chasing and great impediment to knowledge.

You need to get your monitoring right, right at the start if you are serious about sound engineering progress. You also need to discern sources of information, the complete and utter cack presented online is immense.

I am going to make this absolutely crystal clear.

A $300.00 set of monitors in an untreated room is never going to let you make good quality mix results. Unless you are a especially gifted and that is a rare exception.

People look for a quick easy fix, ahh a tube eq, ahh a Germanium compressor, ahh transformers, ahh an emulation of a $500,000 mixing console. ahh total BS in a GUI

All useless, totally and utterly useless.

Dump all your money on monitors and room treatment FIRST.

If not you are on the back foot for a decade.

[CrystalWizard]

You need quality reference points. Quality music refs, quality monitoring and acoustics. Then you need to have goals to use compressors and EQ.

The fact you are side chaining anything before you know how to use EQ and a compressor gives great insight into the online world of those with very little real world sound engineering experience teaching those who know no better. Youtube mixing guru's at a guess ?

You need to perceive a problem that needs correcting and in tandem you need to know what problems eq's and compressor can resolve. The trouble is without accuracy you cannot know what is a problem in your source material, be it tonal or dynamic related and what is a problem with your monitors and room colouring your perception.


So you have no idea what you are doing. Having good monitors and a good acoustic is the fundamental basis of accurate presentation of sound so you know what the reality of the situation is. Until then you will be flailing around like 100,000's of other home producers learning nothing much and wondering what the hell is going on.

Compression does not always make a source better that is certain and you can mess things up severely with an EQ.

What do you want to know and I will explain it from my perspective as an audio professional. We don't just EQ and compress for no reason or because it is cool, a new valve compressor is cool to use and everyone does it so I must do it. That is garbage engineers presenting garbage information.

We process audio only when we are certain it will make it better. Otherwise don't bother.

A good tip based on your last ask... discern every sound 1 by 1 as you add it to your track. What is the quality like, if it is muddy from the start why are you putting it in the track ?

Make judgements and that goes back to accuracy otherwise there will be years of tail chasing and great impediment to knowledge.

You need to get your monitoring right, right at the start if you are serious about sound engineering progress. You also need to discern sources of information, the complete and utter cack presented online is immense.

I am going to make this absolutely crystal clear.

A $300.00 set of monitors in an untreated room is never going to let you make good quality mix results. Unless you are a especially gifted and that is a rare exception.

People look for a quick easy fix, ahh a tube eq, ahh a Germanium compressor, ahh transformers, ahh an emulation of a $500,000 mixing console. ahh total BS in a GUI

All useless, totally and utterly useless.

Dump all your money on monitors and room treatment FIRST.

If not you are on the back foot for a decade.

Indeed, do this first. Then do some reading...

[Roger Podacter]

I completely agree with Synthman, there is so much crap on YT and elsewhere that is complete nonsense. In my own experience, a lot of this content is to drive plugin sales or some other wares which, again like Synthman says, can be just complete garbage in a GUI.

I will throw my $0.02 to say there are *paid* tutorials from known entities that allow you to watch a qualified engineer do a full mixdown. This helps to cut down on the YT noise and takes some of the burden off of you trying to discern if the video you are watching is wasting your time and hurting your progress. I've even found some mixdown vids on sites like Udemy for a fair price. After you watch a few of those, it should become apparent that you will need to spend a lot of time listening and experimenting with what you already have on the truck (don't go out and buy a bunch of fad plugins for the sake of plugins).

I would much much much rather cough up a little dough on quality instruction than the latest plugin fads any day of the week.

If you don't want to/can't afford to pay, I give a +1 for Spin Boy's recommendation of Kush on YT. That guy is a little out there at times (what good musician isn't though?), and he IS selling stuff, so use your judgement, but I think he has some good pearls of wisdom to be gained.

And I'm new here, so you should take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, too!

[Synthman2000]

Thanks for the rare supportive commentary. I watched a video about compression a while back. It is absolutely no wonder people don't know how to use a compressor because of precisely what you just said, in part promo and just inability to listen to what you have actually done (the fundamental reason of action and process).

I heard drums, the person described what a comp controls are reasonably well and then compressed the drums and they sounded truly diabolical. 10 x worse than they were before the compression. Worst advert for a plug in and sound education I have ever seen in my life.

A great tip to save you your valuable time on production videos.. go to the end of the video if the audio sounds bad, don't watch the video.

We can all memorize what a parameter does and parrot it, we can take 2 seconds to insert a plug in on a track that emulates high quality equipment. The key is knowing, why and when and how to use it and be able to hear is something is a genuine sonic improvement or not. That does not come from a 10min YT video.

Actual knowledge is doing something in reality over and over again on wide varieties of source material of varying quality.

I know it is fun, that's great but there is immensely weak information out there, worse than weak, it can confuse you to the point where you are worse off than before watching it. I would run my own in depth channel and clear this weak info up once and for all but I do not have the time or inclination as yet.

[Benedict]

Mixing is far more an "overall" process than most seem to imply. Sure there are technical things done but that is like digestion, it happens, you don't need to know the details, simply avoid too much McFood lest it gum up the works.

This presents a very practical way to get a working mix every time. Put aside what you think you know about technical stuff and focus instead on the Flow of the Scene & Story of the Song.
https://youtu.be/cyS9CxI7v08

This is a deliberately ass-about piss-take on the sorts of things that so often get posted and how to reimagine the song and mix to have it work better (not that this song ever has a great future )
https://youtu.be/r0g0arjPfSk

[BONES]

In recommend the book by Mike Senior "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio".

f**k me! That book is Au$83 on Kobo/Kindle and $120 as an actual book, FFS! For that money I'd expect him to do the mixing for me.

I was struggling to EQ a rhythm guitar part. No matter what I did, it just wouldn't fit. Realized, the problem wasn't EQ or compression or levels or any of that; the problem was that the chord voicing was too much. Switched from barre chords to just using the three highest strings, and suddenly I didn't even need EQ at all.

Well-composed, well-arranged, well-performed, well-recorded music (as opposed to "meh, we'll fix it in post") seldom needs a heap of processing to sound right—at that point, it's more about "spice" than about trying to "fix" things. If I find myself making huge corrective EQ moves, that's my cue to take a step back, put the EQ away, and solve the problem at the source.

This is excellent advice. On our new album, which we think (hope) is the best thing we've done, I've only used EQ on the drums and vocals and only those same channels get any compression before the master channel (for different reasons). The rest of the mix has been refined by tweaking the synth patches and/or choosing sounds that work together.

I think it's easy to fall into the trap of putting the sounds first, especially if one of them is what has inspired the song in the first place. But you have to be ruthless and always put the song first. It is quite easy for me most of the time because I am taking my bandmate's musical ideas and working on them. I usually end up removing half the things he's thrown into his rough mix and sometimes he'll complain that the thing that he'd built the piece around was gone. But he's always happy at the end if it sounds better (or maybe he's just too polite to tell me to my face that I f**ked up his song?).

[imrae]

In recommend the book by Mike Senior "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio".

f**k me! That book is Au$83 on Kobo/Kindle and $120 as an actual book, FFS! For that money I'd expect him to do the mixing for me.

I paid less than half that for the Kindle edition, sounds like pricing alorithms are messing around...

[vurt]

In recommend the book by Mike Senior "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio".

f**k me! That book is Au$83 on Kobo/Kindle and $120 as an actual book, FFS! For that money I'd expect him to do the mixing for me.

librarys gave us power!

whats that in real money? about 60 quid?
yeah, i didnt pay half that for mine, but that was a long time ago.

although, i have spent more on individual books depends how valuable the information is to you at a given point in time, i probably wouldnt buy those books now, as im not being paid to do the work they assisted with nowadays.

to the whole subject, like anything, we learn by doing, and making mistakes, then correcting those mistakes, over time we learn not to make mistakes.
unlike driving/brain surgery/archery, mistakes in audio (rarely) cost lives.
do it! then assess it! then fix it.
thats all there is to it

[MadDogE134]

mistakes in audio (rarely) cost lives.

unless you HEAR the rounds coming in and fail to duck