Good EQing: it is not imprecise
This one is way overdue: I need to address a mixing "trick" that's been thrown around the internet for years, and it's seriously hurting a lot of people's mixes. It's getting even more popular, and the thinking behind it is very much a shot in the dark as opposed to being precise.
This seriously needs to stop, and I want to help you all EQ better and be more aware of what you are doing.
Good EQing is precise, and not an approximation. Being precise means being fully aware of what you are doing, and being critical. And it's this frequency critic mindstate that has to be right for you to mix right.
Sure enough, mixing happens with your ears, but the philosophy that guides you is between them.
Let's stop approximating our mixing, and that starts with a sharp, critical mindstate.
I will do a few videos on EQing to help you all improve your EQ game.
This first episode deals with philosophy of EQing, and this one we have to get out first.
A lot cranky mixing guy talking, but also EQing as he goes.
Buckle up, I'm going to trash this technique that many of you do…I'm not happy.
Also coming up: new breakbeats, making DNB, and a lot of the goodies.
2026 should be GOOD around these parts!
Comments (19)
Quick question Fanu, what about the situation where there is a melodic techno or heavily produced tech house tracks. How do we tackle 3 different synth basses that plays together should we not high pass there ?
I don’t really HP. In your scenario you need precision: look for frequencies where they clash (overlapping is of course natural to an extent) and possibly dip and boost it n different freqs for each sound to highlight different character and improve definition between them.
How to know how much dB should I cut with the EQ? E.G. cutted here 2dB in the low mids, how much is too much cutting, is 5dB too much? Is there a rule for too much/to little or is everything individual?
No rule: when it sounds good!
With my limited knowledge, I think some of the most damaging advice I got was high pass everthing and compress everthing.
100%
Needed this! I've taken numerous mixing lessons at this point, and literally everyone tells you high pass EVERYTHING. And they usually get very defensive if you ask why 😂
Oh man, yes: the world of audio advice is a Wild West and there’s a lot of stuff that gets thrown around. An absolute classic is “premaster must be -6”… it’s not bad advice per se, but not really based on reality or facts (that level can be anything because we can set the level easily to anything we want). The next time someone says that, ask them to explain why it has to be -6 and watch what happens ;)
Very nice video and I already heard you talk about the high passing technique and that is should not be automatic. Maybe you could do a video about dynamic relationships between elements/frequencies in a song ?
Yes I need to cover that and EQing more in general 👌🏻
That's very interesting, I didn't know the EQ visual spectrum is different from SPAN, cos every time I just cut when the Lows appear on the EQ and never look at SPAN before cutting lol. Thanks for pointing out the details, it makes me so much clear about EQ in 12 mins than 3 years of Youtube tutorials haha.
Amazing video, best line of the video "it is getting thin... and shit" XD
One question I did have was, let's say you had a chunky synth. In SPAN how loud would the signal have to be in the subs for you to even thinking about shelf / HP the synth if at all? Like if theres a signal in the subs thats hitting -60db in span. Hopefully this question makes sense haha
What about high passing two different basses to avoid sub clashes. For example a mid bass and sub bass are clashing in the sub range. Do you prefer a shelf on the mid bass ?
That for sure. Only one sub at a time, always, for clean subs. This week, mixed a song that had two subs and the bass felt like a mess. Clean cut the other bass sub, and bassline started working.
I am very grateful to you for delving even deeper into the subject for us than you have done so far. 🙏
My pleasure 👊🏻😇
I knew before clicking that it was gonna be high passing 😭
Rooting out bad practices one at a time ;)