Beepster
Anyway... I'm REALLY lucky to have Danny and you taking an interest. Every snippet of advice gets hoovered up and applied and it's having a very positive effect I think. I'm doing a lot more precise frequency hunting and compression and it's making things pop a LOT better (and more importantly representing the material as it's intended).
All the general advice I get here is brilliant but you guys are specialists in these styles which I'm slowly learning are very finicky and kind of need special techniques that aren't necessarily in the usual "textbooks".
I've also got my own bent ear on how I like things to sound (due to the punk/hardcore years) so learning the specifics helps me dial that type of thing in with some actual insight instead of just twisting dials willy nilly hoping to luck into what I want.
Basically... you guys are awesome. Thanks a million.
Cheers.
Never a problem beeps. Just please understand, though I didn't really answer your question about EQ and sort of gave an opinion over an actual answer, I'm glad Tim made a mention about being basic also. At the end of the day, if the sounds you choose aren't very good....you then have multiple layers of crud.Not saying that's your case...just saying, it's important to know good sound selection.
My whole thing that I continuously try to ram home to you is to grasp the concept of getting good mixes with less instruments before you jump to massive amounts of instruments that can bring on massive headaches too.
I never want you to stop learning and experimenting. But with this stuff it's like the guitar player that goes too fast too soon....he picks up bad habits and is never clean. Some of those habits are hard to break. The same with this stuff....though you don't even realize it, you ears are training themselves each time you mess around. If what you think is a good sound really isn't and you times that by 8, now you're 8 times the bad sound.
Granted, sound/tones will always be subjective. Who am I or to tell you "those tone aren't very good" if you like them and believe in them? I've heard albums that sold millions where I would have never settled or tracked those sounds. Heck, I am astonished some of the producers are granted god status for some of the stuff I've heard.
Does it make me wrong for not agreeing with the masses or the producer/critics? Probably....or maybe it further proves my own opinion that I simply do not belong in this world as I will just about always be in the minority with everything and everyone. Each day of my life, I find this out more about myself. From what I believe in politically, to my religious beliefs, my way of communicating with others vs. their way of not giving me the same common courtesy, my consideration for others vs. them being inconsiderate, and of course the music I think that is poorly performed and sounds like crap vs. what I believe to be well done and performed in all aspects.
A little off topic there, but that's how subjective everything is. Realistically examining my above paragraph, it's actually a good thing because it shows there is no right or wrong other than what YOU consider right or wrong. Subjectivity opens up a totally new dimension. You can create something totally new and fresh and 12 million people may love it....so never stop creating or experimenting. The point again....create and make your core sound incredible. Once you have a great track record for yourself and get continuous feedback from others that your stuff is good, you know you have a handle on it.
For example, I know not everyone likes my stuff, how I play, how I write, how I produce. But I don't think my mixes or sound selection would be so bad people would bash me into the ground. I've gotten "not for me, but good for what it is" which is not negative really. You need to get to that place man. And it can take quite a few songs.
If you don't have a full grasp on making 10 instruments in a mix sound good, don't have the magic to make a kick drum and a bass sound like a match made in heaven, lose your rhythm guitars behind vocals or keys and keep riding faders and can't control a mix to where nothing is buried by another, why move on to massive layering? See my point? When you layer so many instruments and are learning at the same time, it's easy to forget what a core of "good" is.
To answer your mirror question now that I've played daddy Danny.....
Each mix needs different stuff as you know. If I boost something on a bass, I'm going to cut a little of that on a kick drum and boost something else on the kick. For guitars....each time you run a slightly different eq, it makes the sound change. Ever record two independent guitars and have the same eq? At times, you will literally hear those guitars phase and go center because you played the exact same part at the exact same time! Yep...even while hard panned this can happen.
With the eq being different, you limit the chance of noticing this. That said...
I always do my main guitars first. These are the ones you hear the most of. I call them the core guitars or the mid range guitars when layering. I want these to hold precedence over everything and sound the best. They will have a bit of everything but will have the nice mids I need.
I'll high pass all the way to whatever it takes to totally get rid of any low end "whoosh". Sometimes I may have to go all the way up to 180 Hz. It depends on the sound. I don't want much low end in these...not much high end. A really good neutral sound in case I have to sweeten them a little. Slightly different eq's but nothing drastic. One may have a bit more mid and the other a bit more high end sizzle etc....experiment until you get it right. I may boost from 640 to 860 Hz for thickness. You gotta be careful here though as too much of this will congest the mids. Watch 250-350....you can lose a guitar in mud in 2 seconds adding too much of that!
Your bass foundation guitars need to have some girth in the low end, but that low end whoomf/whooosh I spoke about before can kill everything. I can't tell you where to remove it because every sound is different. Listen to a single guitar and pan it up the middle while you tweak it. Run a high pass and sweep it until you hear a "whooosssh" type sound disappear. When it disappears, roll a little of it back in. Once that is done, you now know how low your lowest guitar frequencies can be.
You want these guitars to be thick, but you don't want them to whoomf if you chug chords or walk on the bass guitar. Frequencies to watch....anything under 200 Hz because guitar players always seem to boost those freqs. It's ok to boost them if you need them, but you have to determine if too much of them exist. Some guys just cut because so and so said to. You can't cut a freq that doesn't exist or isn't dominant enough to cut.
Watch mids and highs because though you need some, you don't need them to be too dominant here because your other guitars are orchestrating those parts. You want meat on these guitars, but you have to be careful. Make sure you don't have the mids you boosted in the core mid range guitars accentuated. This allows us to maintain a voice for everything. Now here, you can push a little 160-320 IF you don't have much of those in the tone. I know...it sounds a bit contradictory....but again, the tone you have will dictate your options.
For the high guitars, you need them to cut through. Eliminate any low end and if you have to high pass to 300 Hz do it. We want these to sound thin and almost lo-fi. The high end they add, if done right, will make you smile. Watch mids here and try to think of that Stryper type tone you messed with without any low end. That sizzle can be just what the doctor ordered for stuff like this.
You're going to get sizzle from 3k to 6k that makes a huge difference. From 7 k to 10k you start adding in some air....from 11k on up, you basically add hiss....but you can add some of this "super air" as I like to call it, and sometimes it can make a difference for the better.
From there, you just mess wit things until you get the results that you are looking for while constantly monitoring whether your changes are burying things, or exposing things to where individual voices are being heard. Slightly different eq settings without going crazy for each guitar should be enough to make things stereo enough. Too drastic, and then you worry about offsets in volume. One has too much bite, that is the one you hear the most. One has too much mid....it may appear too thick. I'm not saying don't do that, but those are some of the issues you may encounter.
The tough thing to explain here is....the starting points I've given are all crap if your sounds:
1. Have too much of those frequencies
2. Have too little of those frequencies
This is why starting points are so bad and the worst advice you can ever live by no matter who the engineer is. The reason being...each tone if so different, you'd need the engineer to literally hear your tone before they could give you the right advice. I can't tell you to add 860Hz if your tone is already loaded with that. I can't tell you to high pass severely if your tone doesn't have low end garbage in it to begin with.
Example....my guitar tones in my opinion, need just about nothing for the songs I do other than a light high pass and a light low pass depending on the song. Sometimes I need a little cut, so I won't low pass at all. Other times for say, country rock or a ballad....you don't want the extra sizzle so I'll low pass from 7-10k just to nip the top off a bit. Sometimes I may need a little mid or low mid bump...other times, the tone is fine the way it is. I just about never have to high pass much because none of my tones have anything boosting in the low end area that would become a problem. Most times I'm HP'n 80 and below or 120 and below depending on the sound and the material. But for layering, I'd treat the low end differently as I mentioned above.
So hopefully while keeping some of this in mind, it may help you to get a better understanding. You can do other methods as well....but those are good starting places to at least experiment with. One day at a time bro. And remember, there's no right or wrong way if something sounds good....the only "way" that IS important, is keeping instruments out of each OTHERS "way". :)
-Danny