EQ before or after recording?

[Pouckypluysch]

It seems a bit of a question about the basics, but up until now I mostly made music with VST's. Now I'm starting to do more and more recording alongside it, and I started to wonder wether it is better do record the signal as neutral as possible, or to record an already eq-ed signal...

I can imagine that in the latter case I will save time, and when I record a neutral signal I will have more possibilities later.

[crusces]

EQ-ing /before/ recording requires you to exactly know which EQ-ing to use. Yes, it might save you time mixing your track, but unless you can record through a parametric EQ-unit, or a >10 band EQ-unit, I'd do it in software.
There are a lot of EQ-ing plugins out there, most of them featuring multiple parametric bands, shelving and/or Lo/Hi pass options. Getting that kind of functionality in hardware is expensive. Plus, you won't be able to adjust your EQ-settings if they don't sit nicely in your mix.

[kritikon]

Yeah...I almost always record everything 100% uneffected. I may often record another version with some Eq or compression or whatever on it, but I rarely omit the dry version. Even if you're using h/w, you can still route the recording back out to the h/w for tweaking it later. I almost never get my mixes etc right the first time, so personally I think it's one of the few audio rules that exist - keep a copy of all your initial recording dry, uneffected and unfucked-with.

I suppose an exception to that is hipass filtering to cut out rumble and bass... I can accept that.

[Torben]

Generally EQ after recording (digitally). But if you know that the sound needs some high end I would apply it before converting as a high-end boost after conversion might bring out digital noise.

Torben