Mosvalve
Danny Danzi
Mosvalve
pathos
Mosvalve
Does anyone ever use 32 bands of eq on a track? I would just record the track better.
I take it you're new to eq & recording! You'd use it for setting up your listening environment.
Well I'm no expert for sure but I'm not sure if eq'ing your monitors is a good thing to do.. Wouldn't room treatment be a better way to go for that?
Hi Bob,
Personally, I think monitor eq far exceeds room treatment. The reason being? I've mixed in bad rooms with no monitor flattening due to not having the tools or a choice at the time....and I've mixed in bad rooms to where all I did was correct the monitors so they were flat. Never an issue that way. So for me, monitor eq wins hands down every time. Sure room correction can be super important too, but none of that matters to me if the monitors are not right to begin with.
As for the 32 bands thing, I do this all the time in mastering. I have Roger Nichols eq's that are custom created for me on every new job. The eq's allow the user to add as many bands as they need. So it's nothing for me to have an eq of nothing but low to mid low freqs, another with mid to high mid freqs and then an eq with nothing but highs. I COULD just use one and have everything there....but I like the triple eq system, it just works for me.
So though you may never use anything like this for mixing, it can be quite helpful in a serious mastering environment. :)
-Danny
Hey Danny, I suppose an eq like this is useful or needed in mastering though I'm not versed enough for serious eq mastering. I know there are many opinions on the subject of eq'ing monitors and you sparked my interest in the subject. Where can I find out about eq'ing my monitors? If eq'ing them is going to solve room issues I want to be on board with that.
Hey Bob, well eq's, effects etc...will always be subjective as well as a per person preference...so in that sense, yeah an eq like that is definitely useful to someone like me. But it's definitely not a necessity or for everyone, that's for sure. :)
On the monitor tuning thing, it will NOT solve room issues. That's a separate entity. I'll explain a little about it for you as well as tell you a few things you can do to take care of it.
If you went out today and had some big time coin and bought the most expensive set of monitors you could find, they would not be perfect. You hope they would be for the price you paid for them, but unfortunately, they need to be tuned before you can truly rely on them. When your monitors are not tuned, the decisions you make can make this the most frustrating hobby you've ever pursued.
Let's take a look at a small example. So you got these new monitors. You paid big bucks for them, you set them up, you mix a song and then you start listening to this mix in other places. In these "other places" you notice the mix sounds muddy with too much low end while accentuating the wrong low end. You know that other professionally recorded music sounds great on these systems, why doesn't your stuff sound good? It should sound great...I mean heck, you just bought these killer monitors right?
Here's what happened. The monitors you bought ARE incredible. But because of the effects of your room and the way monitors are built to push or favor certain frequencies, what you heard when you mixed was not a good representation of what SHOULD have been coming out of the monitors. This is why room correction gets mentioned so much.
However, if you eq the monitors to be flat, the effects of a bad room are not as intense as they would be without monitor correction. Keep in mind, there ARE rooms that will suck the life right out of your monitors....so in cases like those, a bad room can wreak havoc. But to be honest, if you are in a bed room, spare room, office, finished basement etc, forget that ugly room correction stuff. It's hideous in my opinion and not needed in most situations.
Monitor correction: In my opinion Bob, everyone should have a good set of monitors along with a sub. There will be people that will argue against me on that. But I'll never agree. Little nearfield monitors NEVER show you the low end they claim they can get. If you get a sub and then correct the monitors along with the sub, your issues are cut down by at least 75% or more and you will never second guess how much low end you have in your mixes.
So definitely consider a good set of monitors and a sub to go with them. Once you have that in place, there are several free programs you can search for on the net that you can try along with a mic and and eq that will help you dial in your monitors. Me personally? I hate this idea and of all the people that have claimed to use it while bragging about it, I've never heard any of their mixes and said to myself "I need to listen to this guy more often." So in this field, it's important to try to investigate who you may be taking advice from...myself included. If you have ever heard my stuff and think it sucks, you don't want to listen to anything I have to say. Seriously....it's important that we lead by example or shut up and leave it to people that know how to get good results that CAN lead by sound examples.
If you're still with me and I may have passed your "I like your mixes" tests, I would personally recommend ARC by Ik Multimedia. Again, people will fight with me about it because they believe it does not make any corrections at all. I can't say for sure what it does other than, it corrected my monitors to the point of what I hear in my studio, is what I hear everywhere after I've mixed or mastered something. Just about all the guys in the song forum here that are putting out strong mixes, are using ARC. All my engineer friends are using it and it's been one of the best tools of all time for me as en engineer.
Those that are NOT using ARC that are getting great results in the big leagues have professionals come out and scope their rooms. They pretty much do what you'd do with ARC....meaning, a guy comes out, he puts a mic where you sit at your sweet spot, he blows some noise through your monitors and it creates a readout on his machine. It shows where your monitors may be putting out too much low end, not enough low end, too much high end, not enough high end....you get the picture.
From there, you supply an eq to this guy and he sets the eq so that the graph on his analyzer reads flat. So his eq curve on the graph will look like this after setting the eq you supply: =====================
You NEVER touch this eq no matter what. If you move the monitors or change the room arrangement, the entire procedure will need to be redone. This is the good thing about ARC. You can do the correction anytime you want and with as many monitors as you own and you don't need to call a guy to come out. So if I were you, this is where I'd look and honest when I tell you, this is what has worked for me in both my studios as well as every studio I have worked in. The first thing I do when I work in another room is ARC the monitors and I've been golden. There have been a few guys that have been unsuccessful with ARC. So there is a small % that don't do well with it. But for me and several others, I/we can't say enough about it as it truly has made an incredible difference. I have an old ARC thread in the software forum if you search for it. It's a pretty good read that may shed some more light on it for you.
Good luck Bob....I hope some of this helps in your search.
-Danny