What's the deal with EQ's?

It seems it doesn't matter what I do, which project or even which EQ I use it doesn't work right.
 
Example... Tonight I recorded a clean bass track, cloned that track and added EQ and a little dirt to it. Somehow some of the drum track bled into that making some of the cymbals sound harsh.
 
The last time I did this with a different EQ the track quit working all together until I turned off that EQ. One EQ was included with Sonar and the other is 3rd party.
 
I have had these EQ problems with every version since X1 that I can remember.
 
Am I somehow using the EQ's wrong or are there known issues with this?

I can safely say I've never had a problem with EQ in any version of Sonar.
 
Let's just go over the basics - you've recorded a clean bass track, ok, I get that, now before you did anything else, did you play it back to see what it sounds like? Any sort of bleed from other tracks would manifest itself here, it's nothing to do with cloning. Secondly, why are you cloning the track? If you're playing the original and the clone back at the same time albeit with a bit of EQ added, you are going to get phase cancellation and comb filtering happening at different frequencies.
 
How was your bass recorded? Are we talking bass guitar through a miked up amp or are you using a soft synth?

So did you mute the original on playback? If you didn't you'll get the phase issues I mentioned above

Bristol_Jonesey So did you mute the original on playback? If you didn't you'll get the phase issues I mentioned above

 
No, from what I understand from the video Ola made you leave the original recording and add the cloned dirty track to it in order to get a thicker bass tone.
 

jih64 Boogex is an 'amp sim'
 
Anyway, good to see you got it sorted, or it went away after restarting, but if as you say you have been having these EQ issues in every version since X1, there must be some problem somewhere which may be advantageous to sort out, and the gentleman above would be a good candidate to help there if required.
 
I haven't had any issues with EQ's in Sonar at all, unless you include incompetence

 
Yeah, I meant to say there's no sims or FX on the clean track, just added to the cloned track. :)
 
It seems anytime I have an issue like this it's caused by an EQ.
 
I am curious about something though. My input device is a Presonus FireBox. I plug the bass directly into that and record, so I'm wondering if using a DI box would be beneficial for this?
 
 
 
 
 
 

If you want to blend the original track and the effected track, create a bus, insert a send from the original to the bus and put the FX on that bus. Set the output of the original track and the new bus to a third bus to use as a submix. Blend to taste then you can use the third bus to set levels in the song.
 
Regards,
Dan
 

This as Kylotan has also noticed: 
Example... Tonight I recorded a clean bass track, cloned that track and added EQ and a little dirt to it. Somehow some of the drum track bled into that making some of the cymbals sound harsh.
 
This should not happen in a normal setting. 
This could only happen by the playback looping into a newly recorded track somehow. 
There's no way one audio track "bleeds" into another ever on a DAW.. On tape yes. 
 
And often 3rd party vst's that no one else has used can be in question as to what they do behind your back. Try using Sonars tools first. 
 
Be aware that using "clone" has it's pitfalls. All editing is shared between the 2 tracks thereafter. 
It's best to copy/ paste into a new audio track if you wish to edit only one of the tracks.
 
And 2 bass tracks to me is a no no. Use one track as the source and send it to 2 different busses where you can experiment with effects would be smarter. 
 
If good bass tone is important to you, start with upgrading the Pick ups and new strings for the bass. 
Often a good bass tone can be achived with the right instrument. 
I use a Joe Meek 3 Q to record bass , it made a huge differance so consider purchasing a good pre amp as a upgrade to your recording gear.  
 

Thanks guys. I'll give it another go tonight and experiment with it. Once again, some good info, much appreciated. :)
 

Jeff M.
I think that vid was was Glenn Fricker, not Ola.
 
Another way of doing it:
 - Clone the clean bass track and add the distorto fx to the second track.
 - Low pass the clean track somewhere around 300Hz
 - High pass the distorto track around the same 300Hz
 - Adjust the "crossover" clean/dirty to taste - might be 250Hz, might be 400Hz.
 - Blend the two tracks to get a good composite sound.
 - Send output to a bus and comp/eq as needed.
 - Maybe comp/eq the clean/low, distorted/high tracks if necessary.     
 
This will keep the low thump more defined so it doesn't mush out with the distorto.  

You are correct, Glenn does have a video that I watched as well. Glenn basically says the same thing Ola does. After watching it again I realized I did some stuff wrong. I'll give what you said a go too.
 
Thanks again, guys. :)

Cactus Music
 
Be aware that using "clone" has it's pitfalls. All editing is shared between the 2 tracks thereafter. 
It's best to copy/ paste into a new audio track if you wish to edit only one of the tracks.
 

 
I am not sure that this is true.  There are problems with S.I. tracks, where both tracks use the same synth, but I am pretty sure that a cloned audio track is entirely separate from the original.
 
OP - As for bleed on the bass track, I think it is likely that your bass pick-ups are microphonic.  Try recording the tack whilst monitoring over headphones.

Hi. Is this something that occurred before you installed Equilibre?  If it is behaving differently with another EQ, I would say that your Equilibre EQ might be to blame in this case.
Are there any updates to that plugin, that you have not installed yet?
Best of luck.

Cloning DI bass is indeed a common technique. I haven't seen those specific vids but have seen/read similar tuts detailing that process. You keep the original, clone twice, on one of the clones you add the dirt (with a sim or simple tube saturation) on another you dial in the pick sound (and roll off the lows). The original is the clean meat sound. You can roll off the tops and dial in the bottom end better because the other two tracks are taking care of the definition and tone. There are other ways to screw around with this stuff as well with two tracks or messing with what does what. It's kind of neat but I've moved on to other ways to get the bass sound I like.
 
They are not exact clones because you alter the sound of each track significantly so it doesn't just "sum" as one and merely add volume. It's a blending trick. It's almost like splitting out the freqs of a guitar signal with a multiband compressor (set to NOT compress... just silence all but one band) and clones then dialing in each range individually with whatever effects you are using.
 
Not saying it's the greatest technique but I've used it extensively in the past and it can do some interesting stuff. Kind of a PITA actually and can get muddy real quick in a thick mix though which is why I've kind of stepped back from it.
 
That has nothing to do with whatever weirdness OP was describing but I saw some people saying that cloning bass in this manner was not legit. Try it out.

Just noticed a vid on pensado´s place about 
one of his  ideas  to mix metall bass....
Hope , it´s inspiring.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykfWhM-1H1U 
Cheers

In addition to reducing track clutter, there are a couple big advantages of using a send to a bus vs. cloning the track:
 
- With a bus, the output can be 100% wet, adding only the level of the "effected" signal you need without summing any additional "clean" signal which is unavoidable using cloned tracks.
 
- With a post-fader send, you automatically have the level of the processed sound follow any subsequent mixing and editing changes you make on the one track without having to mess with control and clip grouping or copying automation.

konradh
For the record, I have had trouble with EQ.  Sometimes the Pro CHannel EQ doesn't do anything.  You can see that it is on, but it doesn't change the sound.

I used to get that in X1 sometimes and maybe X2. Haven't had that problem for a long time though. Not sure what was up with that.

I got zippering when changing eq frequencies in X1 or X2, can't remember which, using the original pro-channel eq but that was fixed in an update.

Tracks bleeding into other tracks or being affected by the processing on other tracks is something I've never seen in any DAW. I can't easily imagine how it could even be possible outside a hardware mixer's summing bus. Some interfaces have less than ideal cross-talk levels but again that wouldn't make track 2 affected by plugins on track 1.

Not being able to solo tracks is another thing I've never seen. Not much help I know....

Maybe contacting Cakewalk support would be a good idea, see if they have any ideas. If there is a bug associated with track solos they need to know about it.