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Offline Ultfris101

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Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« on: July 17, 2014, 01:39:16 PM »
I'm trying to get better at applying EQ in post processing. My goal is not so much improving a recording (which can mean a lot of subjective things) but essentially getting as close to what being there sounded like and making the recording sound natural. If it gets "better" so be it, but I'm trying to stay in a somewhat objective realm.

So I've done a little experimenting with a recent recording and I'm starting to see an inverse correlation between what I'm doing in a parametric EQ interface in Samplitude and the frequency plot. By this I see that places where the frequency plot for the particular mic drops below 0 I am wanting to bump up a little in EQ and vice versa.

I'm probably over simplifying as I try to grasp some basic concepts, but assuming you're not recording in strange conditions to begin with and thus compensating for a lot of low level reverb or something does it make sense to shoot for a flatter frequency response? Meaning right off the bat if the recording doesn't happen to sound right do you start by correcting for the known variances for the mics you used?

Is this coincidental or is this a reasonable strategy to begin with? And is it what people who EQ keep in mind when they are processing recordings made with mics they are familiar with?

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Offline Sloan Simpson

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2014, 02:05:30 PM »
In a very general sense, yes, the "hump" in the frequency response graph is usually what I aim to flatten out a bit. Of course this should be something that your ears tell you is improving when you change it, but the visual can definitely give you a clue of where to start.

It can easily be overdone however: if you keep going until the response looks perfectly flat, it won't sound good. Less is more and all that  :)

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #2 on: July 17, 2014, 03:19:40 PM »
My goal is not so much improving a recording (which can mean a lot of subjective things) but essentially getting as close to what being there sounded like

A) I suspect you're working from memory then, as each mic will color the sound and it seems like you're trying to compensate for that.
B) I'm assuming that this is with the goal of creating a document more than something just to listen to?
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Offline ScoobieKW

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #3 on: July 17, 2014, 03:39:16 PM »
One of my favorite tools in Reaper is RealFIR

It's default mode is EQ, with a large frequency graph and an overlaid eq curve. click to add a point, drag to move it.
you can see the original response as well as the eq'ed response.

Easy-peasy
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Offline 2manyrocks

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #4 on: July 17, 2014, 05:22:05 PM »
http://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Product_FreqAnalyst/

Free plug in you can use to plot your favorite commercial recordings to visualize the end result of their EQ decisions.  You can use it to visually compare to your own EQ choices. 

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #5 on: July 17, 2014, 09:15:40 PM »
My goal is not so much improving a recording (which can mean a lot of subjective things) but essentially getting as close to what being there sounded like

A) I suspect you're working from memory then, as each mic will color the sound and it seems like you're trying to compensate for that.
B) I'm assuming that this is with the goal of creating a document more than something just to listen to?

Sort of. It's from memory but the point is more that I'm correcting for coloration the mics might have added and to do that, whether I ultimately like the sound or not one place to start is to compensate for what the frequency plot suggests.

So yeah, I guess I'm coming from the standpoint of capturing the event at least as a starting point.

Maybe this is kind of an obvious concept, but I hadn't thought much about it before. I was noticing in this recording that the guitar didn't sound right and I do know that electric guitar is in the mids so I started bringing it down a little and found a place around 500 Hz that I liked it brought down a few db. I looked at the frequency plat and there's a bit of a bump up around that frequency. Similarly I liked the way it was sounding (and was more closely matching an omni source) with some bump up around 5000Hz which is also suggested by the frequency plot.

I guess I like the fact that I can use both my ears and another more objective point of reference to make me feel like I'm on the right track.


2manyrocks,

I like the idea of that plugin. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm interested in.

I learn best by trying to recreate things I've seen others do and then go off on my own once I get an understanding of the basics.
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2014, 10:09:13 PM »
To get a bit philosophical first..

My goal is not so much improving a recording (which can mean a lot of subjective things) but essentially getting as close to what being there sounded like and making the recording sound natural. If it gets "better" so be it, but I'm trying to stay in a somewhat objective realm.

Stereo is subjective illusion.  Getting a recording sounding closer to what it sounded like to you when you were there for the live performance is making it subjectively better.

There are plenty of good reasons not to EQ or do any post processing, but when people claim their reasons for not doing any of that are because they want to faithfully and accurately record what it sounded like when they were there, I claim they are simply deluding themselves.  I don't mean to be snarky, and I realize that is not at all the position you are taking, actually asking for sort of the opposite.

For accuracy in an objective measurable sense, record using a single calibrated flat measurement mic referenced to an SPL meter.  If the goal is recreating the experience of being there, that's a subjective thing, often moving in the opposite direction from objective measureable accuracy.


Some more useful but non-specific answers:
Play around with simple graphic EQs. I think simple graphic EQs are better for this self-education than more complicated parametric EQs.  Move to those later when you’ve learned to hear what you want to do better. Boost and cut each band enough on it's own to get an ear for what each frequency band sounds like.  Go up and down the spectrum making broad sweeping smooth corrective curves, and listen how even minor changes in the general shape of broad curves are very audible (to start throwing some terminology in, broad curves are low 'Q', single slider bands are high 'Q'). Listen for how making small tweaks in a single band within a broad curve changes is also very audible but in a different and more subtle way, often more so as things get closer and closer to being subjectively 'right'.  Revisit different frequency regions iteratively.  Regularly bypass the EQ to remind your brain what that sounds like.

All that is sort of like practicing and instrument, after a while you'll hear something and just recognize what frequency range needs correction, have a general idea of the shape of the curve, how broad it needs to be, how sharp and narrow, etc.  You'll still need to listen, adjust; listen, adjust again; listen, adjust something else; listen, re-adjust the first thing again, and over again..  but you'll begin to home in on things quicker and quicker, and get things were you are happy with them faster and easier.

When actually working on EQing music for release you'll need to make sure your playback system is well balanced in a timbral sense, but that doesn't really mater for this kind of experiential ear training stuff.

Spend a bunch of time playing around with adjusting your recordings or other tapers recordings until they just sound better and more 'right' to you.  Then compare with the EQ switched out.  Write down the settings or save the curve, then do it again another day and see how different and how similar the curves you end up with are.  Notice how you'll tend to EQ certain microphones or recordings made in specific venues, or different types of music differently.  Always suspect your choices and second guess them.  Notice when you just can't seem to get the timbre right for some recordings not matter what you try, and how some microphones seem to be able to withstand much more EQ adjustment than others.  It might be something other than your EQing ability or anything you could see on an RTA display that is the problem.

Comparision with good sounding, well recorded material which is similar is useful, both by ear and by eye is a powerful learnign tool.

Beware of the visual trap.  Displays can be useful tools, but can also just as often mislead you or hide things.  They are sort of learning a whole different angle on it, just as complex as listening.  Your ears and brain will mislead you too, and should also be suspect, but are generally more reliable in assessing sound than eyes, and are the ultimate target audience.
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Offline Sloan Simpson

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #7 on: July 18, 2014, 10:44:18 AM »
Lately I've been using the Waves Scheps* 73 EQ plug as a starting point for broader "shaping" EQ. It's a 3-band with selectable center frequency for the Mid and Low controls, and the High is fixed at 12KHz.  No Q/width to mess with. In retrospect I wish I had started off with something like this rather than a full parametric, as the parametric can be a lot easier to go drastically wrong with.

If I need to do a "surgical" correction after I've shaped with this one, then I'll use a parametric with a narrow Q in a subsequent step.


* nothing to do with Schoeps, it's named for the engineer whose board they modeled this from

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #8 on: July 18, 2014, 12:13:45 PM »
Marking thread...
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #9 on: July 19, 2014, 03:14:10 AM »
A few thoughts on some aspects of this: 

I'd not necessarily objectify what it sounded like there (unless that somehow was great).  That "there" may have been relatively better or worse and as we know varies greatly depending on where you are in a room.  If the ambient sound involved a PA you're actually starting with someone else's EQ (I doubt many sound engineers have ever run all the EQ pots flat on their mixers).  Likewise with instrument amps, effects, tone controls on pickups, and so on.  Presumably the musicians know what they want their stuff to sound like but that's not nearly a safe assumption when it comes to house engineers, especially ones that don't know the music well.  A garden variety example of the original premise are the many people on the trackers who think and say a rumbly, muddy, reverberant mess sounds "great" (because that's what concerts always sound like to them in the back of a giant arena). 

IMO EQ is actually most critical on a mixer in an amplified setting (before the house sound is recorded).  A few weeks ago I wound up running a pop up sort of stage at a fest we go to.  The musicians would arrive, plug in, and we'd roll.  I'd do a quick EQ adjustment on the elements I could based on what I was hearing when they started.  Though only three knobs (hi/mid/low) my friend who was helping instantly remarked (without being asked) "that sounds a lot better" after I tweaked to what I thought the musicians would want to sound like (if they were in the crowd rather than on stage).  With vocals and such there's no one setting fits all that works out of the gate, nor would I say most things sound best flat (no eq).  With more effects the value (and need) for EQ diminishes. 

Your ears should be your guide.  In that sort of live setting it's easy to hear the difference and with a limited set of options in some ways very easy to know when you've improved any channel of it. 

With 30 bands or parametric in post it's easy to get lost in the weeds.  When it is needed I favor as gentle as possible EQ to deal with tonal matters that approach is appropriate for. 

While tone can be adjusted to at least some extent, instrument balance is even more important in the mix of what is being recorded.  That can almost never be fixed in an ambient recording since the ranges of nearly all (or all) the elements overlap. 

I think the "book learning" engineering principle is also generally to remove what is overly present rather than try to add what isn't there (which is sort of a futile endeavor when framed that way). 

I also tend to favor filters (rather than EQ) to deal with the real problems (where there is a clear spike of something unpleasant that should be reduced).  An FFT filter can really be targeted and work wonders on very specific sorts of issues. 

Having watched many sound checks I can for certain say that many musicians know exactly what frequencies need to be tuned.  The pros go through and call out to the engineer what frequencies to adjust.  Those who record music rather than play it rarely have so finely developed an ear, but the musicians learned it by experience (whether or not they are more sensitive to that skill to start with), so almost anyone else can too. 

In terms of the flatter lines element, what generally sounds best is on some sort of a diagonal starting from lows and declining toward the highs (in a linear FA view).  Most recordings naturally look like that.  The peaks and valleys are what give them character.  Some of those peaks and valleys are of a pleasing character, others may not be. 

Often a spectral display is of more analytical value than a linear frequency analysis view.  There are lots of great sounding recordings but the pictures of them can look considerably different from each other. 
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #10 on: July 19, 2014, 04:00:17 AM »
There are plenty of good reasons not to EQ or do any post processing, but when people claim their reasons for not doing any of that are because they want to faithfully and accurately record what it sounded like when they were there, I claim they are simply deluding themselves.  I don't mean to be snarky, and I realize that is not at all the position you are taking, actually asking for sort of the opposite.

I agree and disagree with this. I never EQ my recordings before I share them (or at all really) because I have no idea what the downloader is listening with. I have nice Klipsch speakers, and reasonably good 7506 cans, and I've ended up with gear that makes tapes that sound pretty good through them. If the downloader is listening with soup cans connected with piano wire, I can't pretend to think my tapes sound good through them, or that any EQ I will do will make it sound right or good. Better to just release them into the wild and let the listener decide. Here's some gratuitous self promotion, Phish/Kevin Shapiro only did some mild EQ on this before they released it into the wild:

http://phish.com/tours/dates/sat-1992-03-28-variety-playhouse/
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Offline Ultfris101

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #11 on: July 19, 2014, 09:17:54 AM »
To get a bit philosophical first..

My goal is not so much improving a recording (which can mean a lot of subjective things) but essentially getting as close to what being there sounded like and making the recording sound natural. If it gets "better" so be it, but I'm trying to stay in a somewhat objective realm.

Stereo is subjective illusion.  Getting a recording sounding closer to what it sounded like to you when you were there for the live performance is making it subjectively better.

There are plenty of good reasons not to EQ or do any post processing, but when people claim their reasons for not doing any of that are because they want to faithfully and accurately record what it sounded like when they were there, I claim they are simply deluding themselves.  I don't mean to be snarky, and I realize that is not at all the position you are taking, actually asking for sort of the opposite.

For accuracy in an objective measurable sense, record using a single calibrated flat measurement mic referenced to an SPL meter.  If the goal is recreating the experience of being there, that's a subjective thing, often moving in the opposite direction from objective measureable accuracy.


I get your point, but you are kind of making my point (or the point I was trying to make), if I don't have a calibrated, flat, measurement mic but a less expensive mic which is not flat, could I get closer to what the measurement mic would have picked up by starting with an EQ setting which compensates for deviations in the particular mic's frequency plot?

And yes, if I'm needing to do this at all then it must be because I didn't like the raw result and somehow want to improve it so I'm creating a bit of a paradox.

I have several top shelf mics now and they yield a faithful representation of what the venue and board master yielded. I am also experimenting with some less expensive (not "cheap") mics and they have a less flat frequency plot to the point that in a couple frequency ranges even my novice ear can spot it but a little bit of EQ seems to have "fixed" it. And by fixed I mean made it sound a bit more like it did for the audience and also what I hear when I compare to the DPA omnis that were sharing a stand. That's my real reference point since I don't trust my memory.

I plan to post a rig pic thread and I'll include some before and after samples once I get some more of the mixing done.

Thanks for all the input from everybody. This has been a very helpful discussion both practically and philosophically.
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #12 on: July 19, 2014, 09:23:13 AM »
There are plenty of good reasons not to EQ or do any post processing, but when people claim their reasons for not doing any of that are because they want to faithfully and accurately record what it sounded like when they were there, I claim they are simply deluding themselves.  I don't mean to be snarky, and I realize that is not at all the position you are taking, actually asking for sort of the opposite.

I agree and disagree with this. I never EQ my recordings before I share them (or at all really) because I have no idea what the downloader is listening with. I have nice Klipsch speakers, and reasonably good 7506 cans, and I've ended up with gear that makes tapes that sound pretty good through them. If the downloader is listening with soup cans connected with piano wire, I can't pretend to think my tapes sound good through them, or that any EQ I will do will make it sound right or good. Better to just release them into the wild and let the listener decide. Here's some gratuitous self promotion, Phish/Kevin Shapiro only did some mild EQ on this before they released it into the wild:

http://phish.com/tours/dates/sat-1992-03-28-variety-playhouse/

But wait  how did Phish know what people would listen on?  ;)

Mild EQ is great! Nobody is suggesting radical moves. Perhaps it's my gear but it's exceedingly rare that I make a recording that isn't improvable by a gentle EQ move or two.


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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #13 on: July 19, 2014, 10:32:49 AM »
There are plenty of good reasons not to EQ or do any post processing, but when people claim their reasons for not doing any of that are because they want to faithfully and accurately record what it sounded like when they were there, I claim they are simply deluding themselves.  I don't mean to be snarky, and I realize that is not at all the position you are taking, actually asking for sort of the opposite.

I agree and disagree with this. I never EQ my recordings before I share them (or at all really) because I have no idea what the downloader is listening with. I have nice Klipsch speakers, and reasonably good 7506 cans, and I've ended up with gear that makes tapes that sound pretty good through them. If the downloader is listening with soup cans connected with piano wire, I can't pretend to think my tapes sound good through them, or that any EQ I will do will make it sound right or good. Better to just release them into the wild and let the listener decide. Here's some gratuitous self promotion, Phish/Kevin Shapiro only did some mild EQ on this before they released it into the wild:

http://phish.com/tours/dates/sat-1992-03-28-variety-playhouse/

But wait  how did Phish know what people would listen on?  ;)

Mild EQ is great! Nobody is suggesting radical moves. Perhaps it's my gear but it's exceedingly rare that I make a recording that isn't improvable by a gentle EQ move or two.

Likewise. I admit it, I'm lazy. ;)

Being an omni addict, I find I need to turn off the "bass boost" on my stereo to make my tapes sound good at home. On the other hand, I seldomnly listen to my own tapes, I listen to y'all's.
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #14 on: July 19, 2014, 12:10:25 PM »
There are plenty of good reasons not to EQ or do any post processing, but when people claim their reasons for not doing any of that are because they want to faithfully and accurately record what it sounded like when they were there, I claim they are simply deluding themselves.  I don't mean to be snarky, and I realize that is not at all the position you are taking, actually asking for sort of the opposite.

For accuracy in an objective measurable sense, record using a single calibrated flat measurement mic referenced to an SPL meter.  If the goal is recreating the experience of being there, that's a subjective thing, often moving in the opposite direction from objective measureable accuracy.

This. I don't intend to be snarky or demeaning about it when I say that I see the reason most people choose gear is because they like how it sounds (not how faithful it is), but they don't want to EQ because they don't have the necessary skillset or knowledge to do it well instead of trying to be faithful. Sometimes we don't really understand our objective, or we respond to different cues and go in a direction without knowing it, or a plethora of other reasons. I work in education, an industry fundamentally built around eliminating ignorance (which is just not knowing something), so I approach this as a teachable task and not something to be embarrassed about. I came from an analytical background, and it took me a couple years to really grapple with the fact that audio creation (and it's various steps) is an art, not a science. There are scientific elements, but those elements don't play the major part in decision making. I'm not going to say that doing "documents" for live events is futile, but I think it takes a careful approach and an honest assessment as to what you want to keep and what is better to embellish given a value system (professed openly or subconsciously hidden) in people who will listen to it later.

Play around with simple graphic EQs. I think simple graphic EQs are better for this self-education than more complicated parametric EQs. Regularly bypass the EQ to remind your brain what that sounds like.

All that is sort of like practicing and instrument, after a while you'll hear something and just recognize what frequency range needs correction, have a general idea of the shape of the curve, how broad it needs to be, how sharp and narrow, etc.  You'll still need to listen, adjust; listen, adjust again; listen, adjust something else; listen, re-adjust the first thing again, and over again..  but you'll begin to home in on things quicker and quicker, and get things were you are happy with them faster and easier.

Spend a bunch of time playing around with adjusting your recordings or other tapers recordings until they just sound better and more 'right' to you.  Then compare with the EQ switched out.  Write down the settings or save the curve, then do it again another day and see how different and how similar the curves you end up with are.  Notice how you'll tend to EQ certain microphones or recordings made in specific venues, or different types of music differently.  Always suspect your choices and second guess them.  Notice when you just can't seem to get the timbre right for some recordings not matter what you try, and how some microphones seem to be able to withstand much more EQ adjustment than others.  It might be something other than your EQing ability or anything you could see on an RTA display that is the problem.

Beware of the visual trap.  Displays can be useful tools, but can also just as often mislead you or hide things. 

If I need to do a "surgical" correction after I've shaped with this one, then I'll use a parametric with a narrow Q in a subsequent step.

While tone can be adjusted to at least some extent, instrument balance is even more important in the mix of what is being recorded.  That can almost never be fixed in an ambient recording since the ranges of nearly all (or all) the elements overlap. 

Those who record music rather than play it rarely have so finely developed an ear, but the musicians learned it by experience (whether or not they are more sensitive to that skill to start with), so almost anyone else can too

In terms of the flatter lines element, what generally sounds best is on some sort of a diagonal starting from lows and declining toward the highs (in a linear FA view).  Most recordings naturally look like that.  The peaks and valleys are what give them character.  Some of those peaks and valleys are of a pleasing character, others may not be. 

Mild EQ is great! Nobody is suggesting radical moves. Perhaps it's my gear but it's exceedingly rare that I make a recording that isn't improvable by a gentle EQ move or two.

This is solid advice (the entire post is actually, I can't disagree with it. The above is just bits that need to be reinforced). Sometimes I just wait and let Lee et al do my work for me.  ;D

Specifically about decreasing volume in frequencies that bombdiggity notes, i've seen the rule of thumb that you're sub 2khz. should be relatively flat, and above that it trails off. I think for room recordings, it's best to drop that to around 1.3khz and then trail off. My rationale is that low frequency reverb sounds more spacious and pleasing compared to high frequency reverb which I find I want "real" details in, not reverberation.

In general, it's a skillset as I mentioned earlier. Getting good at it takes time and a methodical attention to what you're doing. Some tips on getting started I think would be to pick a couple recordings, and listen to them on 3 or 4 radically different setups (your home speakers, your best headphones, your car playback with the engine off, office speakers, etc). What stands out? Make notes as Lee says. Now learn how frequencies sound. I used to take a low Q value (that gradually grew the higher up I went) and amp something by 10DB and do a gentle sweep so I could hear what 400hz sounds like, what 1k, 2k, 2.6k, etc. Learn these. Now listen to the recordings in those environments again and make more notes using your new knowledge of frequencies. Over time things will get better and the various environments will show you something different compared to each other. I have an excellent set of headphones (in terms of flat tonal response and transient response) and a plugin to simulate speakers. Thats well and good for the workhorse of adjustments once I got a feeling for it, but it doesn't replace those other environments. Once you do this enough, it becomes easier to anticipate what you'll hear in other environments. Thats mixing with anticipation as Sloan points out.

It's not easy, or fast (took me a solid year or two to really get as far as I am now) but it's very rewarding to get good at it. I'm going to whip out one of Lee's favorite quotes:

"At the core is the illusion vs document debate. I look at it more as an "effort/ROI" question." —page

How strict of a document do you want? Who are you trying to fool into thinking it's a document? (and will they care) How much do they need to be fooled? If you do the job well enough, they may not even care (or know) that they aren't hearing "reality" so much as a view. You can create a view that sounds like reality (and that sort of sounds like what you want), but if you chuck that requirement out the window, you have more freedom to create something even better.

I get your point, but you are kind of making my point (or the point I was trying to make), if I don't have a calibrated, flat, measurement mic but a less expensive mic which is not flat, could I get closer to what the measurement mic would have picked up by starting with an EQ setting which compensates for deviations in the particular mic's frequency plot?

You can on the assumption that you have a mic which has a consistant polar pattern through the entire frequency range (so that eliminates LD mics and a ton of SD mics), OR you are EQing to return just one segment of the experience back to "flat" (the PA, the room, etc). In my experience, in beautiful rooms, it's less of an issue, in crap rooms though, the off-axis of your polar pattern will exacerbate this decision. It's inherently a trade off.

And yes, if I'm needing to do this at all then it must be because I didn't like the raw result and somehow want to improve it so I'm creating a bit of a paradox.

correct.

Phish

completely off topic; the Gin from Randalls night one is a sick jam. I forgot what I was typing a couple of times during it. And thats my post for the day.
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #15 on: July 19, 2014, 12:24:38 PM »
A side note to say that I'm excited we're discussing this. I like that processing is becoming less taboo here, because taperssection is one of the only places to learn about audience recording in particular.

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #16 on: July 19, 2014, 01:06:25 PM »
A side note to say that I'm excited we're discussing this. I like that processing is becoming less taboo here, because taperssection is one of the only places to learn about audience recording in particular.

+1

Not much else to add, as I agree with the bull bulk (F'g auto correct) that has been discussed.

In my experience, I have found is to try different tools, as certain eq's do certain things really well, and no eq does all things equally well...
« Last Edit: July 21, 2014, 10:22:12 AM by macdaddy »
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #17 on: July 20, 2014, 07:41:18 PM »
This. I don't intend to be snarky or demeaning about it when I say that I see the reason most people choose gear is because they like how it sounds (not how faithful it is), but they don't want to EQ because they don't have the necessary skillset or knowledge to do it well instead of trying to be faithful.

I "chose" not to EQ for a long time for this reason.  I knew I didn't know what I was doing and stuck to a Hippocratic first-do-no-harm approach.  A few experiences where others greatly improved my recordings with pretty minimal EQ convinced me I needed to learn how to do it myself.  I am definitely still no master, but I have been able to improve my recordings substantially through a pretty painless process.

Now learn how frequencies sound. I used to take a low Q value (that gradually grew the higher up I went) and amp something by 10DB and do a gentle sweep so I could hear what 400hz sounds like, what 1k, 2k, 2.6k, etc. Learn these.

This is what I worked on first.  I know it sounds kind of stupid, but I downloaded a cheap app that, at the basic level, played a tone and gave you four choices of frequency.  A few minutes a day, for a week or two, and I vastly improved my ability to identify frequencies.  In the more advanced level, the app would select random snippets of music, play the un-EQ'ed clip, and then play the same clip with EQ applied at some frequency.  Again, with four choices.  The cool thing here is that you could tell the app which folders to choose the clips from, so you could do it with your own recordings.  At the same time...

Play around with simple graphic EQs. I think simple graphic EQs are better for this self-education than more complicated parametric EQs. Regularly bypass the EQ to remind your brain what that sounds like.

...I started playing around with the 10- and 20-band graphic equalizers.  Just sliding the various sliders individually, you can quickly get a sense of what content you are likely to find in the different frequency bands.  I am still using these for most EQ, because I am still a novice, but also because it's quick and easy, and because I discovered that:

Mild EQ is great! Nobody is suggesting radical moves. Perhaps it's my gear but it's exceedingly rare that I make a recording that isn't improvable by a gentle EQ move or two.

I almost never add/subtract more than a couple dB (assuming there is no specific flaw in the recording that I am trying to address).  Less is definitely more.  In the same vein, I have often found that a dB bump in one spot and dB decrease in another achieves the goal I am aiming for better than a bigger change in a single band.  For example, I have recorded a lot of piano/bass/drum trios where the piano is a bit "submerged".  A little EQ up in the mid/low-high bands coupled with a little EQ down in the lower frequencies seems to bring out the piano better than a larger change in either the highs or lows alone.

Anyway, I don't think I really added anything to the conversation (as evidenced by my liberal use of quotes), but I tried to summarize how easy it is to improve your skill-set (as page put it).  I am definitely still a beginner, but my skills are improving and I am now working on other mastering tools with a little more confidence.  In the end, it's so subjective.  I shoot for what sounds good to me on my playback.  Anyone else can always tweak it to their own preferences...

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #18 on: July 20, 2014, 11:00:19 PM »
Sometime more radical EQ is necessary and entirely appropriate.  Though I don't go into it expecting great things, I've been surprised at how quite radical EQ has let me rescue a few recordings I initially figured were completely hopeless, or get surprisingly good results out of rather mediocre starting points.

Yet generally, 'less' and 'smoother' are very good guidelines to good sounding EQ adjustment.  Say I run through a graphic EQ in Foobar a few times listening to something, and carefully adjust things while sort of listening for best results in specific ranges, getting things as good as smooth sounding and unfatiguing as possible.  I'll then look at the curve of slider positions and play around with smoothing out the sharper corners in the corrections I arrived at earlier, while listening a bit more with the whole in mind in addition to that specific region.  More often than not, I can improve the overall sound slightly by making a few minor smoothing adjustments.  Even if it comes at the expense of what was the perfect correction while concentrating primarily on that particular frequency range alone, that process of finding the optimal compromise makes for a better overall result.  It can be difficult to switch mindsets and objectively hear the whole instead of the corrected flaws. 

As the adjustments become more subtle, the twin challenges become maintaining mentally objective listening and avoiding making adjustments which are nothing more than corrections specific to your particular monitoring system.   

This. I don't intend to be snarky or demeaning about it when I say that I see the reason most people choose gear is because they like how it sounds (not how faithful it is), but they don't want to EQ because they don't have the necessary skillset or knowledge to do it well instead of trying to be faithful.

I "chose" not to EQ for a long time for this reason.  I knew I didn't know what I was doing and stuck to a Hippocratic first-do-no-harm approach.
 
This is one of the best good reasons.  I think when deciding to EQ a recording for general release, there is something of a responsibility for objectivity involved, which doesn't apply when just EQing to suit your own playback environment and personal enjoyment.  The aim should be good sound in general, which works on as many different systems as possible.  The danger is making it sound great on you own monitoring system, but not realizing some of the changes you are making are corrections to your monitoring system, which don't apply elsewhere.

Another good one, far less important to the majority listeners, but important around here, is providing useful points of comparison for tapers.  Once EQ'd, a recording sounds much better, but that limits its usefulness for microphone comps.  Though if well done it does provide an example of what the gear is capable of.
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #19 on: July 21, 2014, 09:34:07 AM »
Two comments. 

I've always trusted my ears more than anything else because I know what I like.  For this reason, I've always EQ'ed almost everything I record because I almost always find something lacking.  I master using the same set of ATH-M50 phones I've used for eons.  I don't necessarily use any guidelines about less is more or anything like that because I know what I like and it's possible that I may need alot of EQ.  Hell I've added as much as 15 db of high end onto some recordings that were dull and totally lacked presence and the result was spectacular.  I can do this because I record with high end gear and the detail is there.  With low end gear, that detail may not be there.  Analytics are great, but absolultely they're no better than what I find that I like when I listen....ever.  That's not to say that someone else wouldn't EQ different than me, but how can I concern myself with that when I only have one perspective I can satisfy?  I've always felt this way even back to the days when people tried to tell me that the original tapes that I made when I recorded onto HiMD mini-disc back in the day sucked simply because they were made in a lossy format, which I still completely reject.  Nevermind they might sound fantastic.

Second comment is that even though I trust what I like above all else, it usually takes me more than one time to get it right.  I find that what sounds perfect last night might sound a bit off this morning.  So, don't settle on a final conclusion after one listening session.

Footnote to the above is that some people say that I shouldn't EQ because I'm changing what the musician laid down.  To me that's just not a logical perspective because, as gutbucket's comment suggests, the musician has no control over what my gear sounds like or what the FOH guy dials in, etc.  So what makes the FOH guys settings any better than I can do myself, especially when the FOH sound may be different than the sound of my gear or my specific location at the venue? 

This is a GREAT discussion topic.

« Last Edit: July 21, 2014, 09:45:58 AM by tonedeaf »

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #20 on: July 21, 2014, 09:59:30 AM »
I was a never EQ my recordings guy for many years. Now, I use it gently for some recordings. As pointed out above by tonedeaf, don't commit right away to any changes you have make without stepping away for a while. Your ears do get fatigued and perceptions change after getting away from it for a while.  For example, I don't stay up late after a show and try to EQ it. I find that I don't make good choices doing it that way. One thing I find very useful is to warm up by listening to well mixed and mastered music for a bit before you dive in and start EQing your own stuff. There have been plenty of threads here with great recommendations on finding high quality reference music to listen to.
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #21 on: July 21, 2014, 11:20:26 AM »
Mild EQ is great! Nobody is suggesting radical moves. Perhaps it's my gear but it's exceedingly rare that I make a recording that isn't improvable by a gentle EQ move or two.

I almost never add/subtract more than a couple dB (assuming there is no specific flaw in the recording that I am trying to address).  Less is definitely more.  In the same vein, I have often found that a dB bump in one spot and dB decrease in another achieves the goal I am aiming for better than a bigger change in a single band.

This is a similar theory to mixing in mono; there is one balanced position for each fader, much like a child's mobile that spins around. Anything else and it's unbalanced and falls over. When you adjust one, you may need to adjust another. There are some cheap tricks to employee for each instrument or environment (e.g. the 450hz area is notorious for goop that I want to carve away at)


I was a never EQ my recordings guy for many years. Now, I use it gently for some recordings. As pointed out above by tonedeaf, don't commit right away to any changes you have make without stepping away for a while. Your ears do get fatigued and perceptions change after getting away from it for a while.  For example, I don't stay up late after a show and try to EQ it. I find that I don't make good choices doing it that way. One thing I find very useful is to warm up by listening to well mixed and mastered music for a bit before you dive in and start EQing your own stuff. There have been plenty of threads here with great recommendations on finding high quality reference music to listen to.

Solid stuff, definitely agree. I got in the habit of burning 15 minutes every hour as unproductive on a long Saturday mix session. 10 of it would be to get up and listen to silence, and another 5 would be to play a track off of an album I think sounds like what I want a piece to sound like (and then go back to mixing for about 40 minutes or so).
"This is a common practice we have on the bus; debating facts that we could easily find through printed material. It's like, how far is it today? I think it's four hours, and someone else comes in at 11 hours, and well, then we'll... just... talk about it..." - Jeb Puryear

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #22 on: July 21, 2014, 11:24:32 AM »
Yes, I've found listening breaks to be very important.

 Another tip a friend gave me is to occasionally change your monitoring volume. When you've been working on something (and particularly if you're getting frustrated), turn your monitors down and judge the balance at that lower volume. When you decide it sounds good, turn it back up and listen that way again.

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #23 on: July 21, 2014, 12:07:59 PM »
Yes, I've found listening breaks to be very important.



+1

And this is why I never understood the race to be first on bt.etree or the lma...
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #24 on: July 21, 2014, 12:29:46 PM »
Good points on listening breaks, being warry of mixing while tired or after a show when your ears are fatigued from loudness, and also on the strong influence of listening level.  Dynamics and average level play a very large roll in frequency perception.

And good points earlier from Steve, which reinforces a few things I was trying to getting at.  The ear is the final judge.  Assuming you are listening objectively, not correcting for flaws in the monitoring system (repeating those things because they are critically important and difficult to isolate from EQing the music), and relatively sure your corrections will translate well for others, use as much EQ as necessary to get things sounding right.  It is 'sounding right', not the ways of getting there which is the goal. 

Guidelines such are 'less is more' aren't goals in themselves, just helpful guides in the search for the elusive best version of 'sounds right'.  As users get better at using EQ, vering outside of those guides when necessary becomes less potentially problematic.  Yet even then I think it is still a good self-check to go back once you get things sounding right and try dialing the amount of correction back a bit, or play around with smoothing the curve a bit more.

Getting philosophical again, in regards to visual displays- a measurement always reflects the particulars of the detector and how it is set.  No detector tells the entire story.  They are both useful and limiting because of their specific-ness, focusing on some aspect to the exclusion of others.  We need to understand both what it is measuring and how it is doing the measuring to choose the appropriate detector and it's most appropriate settings, and to interpret the output of any detector in a useful way.  Understanding the workings and limitations of the detector is critical to correctly interpreting the data it provides in order to make it's insight useful.

And all that applies to the ultimate and most important detector as well- the ear/brain of the listener.
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #25 on: July 21, 2014, 12:56:15 PM »
Yes, I've found listening breaks to be very important.



+1

And this is why I never understood the race to be first on bt.etree or the lma...

Agreed, though I kinda understand 'the race' because all tapers know that downloaders are idiots  ;)  The guy that posts first gets the most downloads and I'm sure all of us enjoy, at some level or another, having our recordings downloaded alot.

I don't usually enter 'the race' because, as you point out, I'd rather make sure my recordings are to my liking before posting.

The ones I don't understand are the downloaders that automatically go for the most downloaded show as 'THE' source to grab.  OK, on etree I kinda understand because you don't really want to grab 10 copies just to figure out which might sound best, plus the most downloaded version usually has more seeders so a much better download speed.  But the dumbasses can listen direclty on LMA and they'll STILL download a version that sounds like ass from LMA just because it's downloaded most even if there's a much better sounding version that has fewer downloads only because they say took a few days to post it up. 
« Last Edit: July 21, 2014, 01:01:30 PM by tonedeaf »

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #26 on: July 21, 2014, 01:43:11 PM »

I have several top shelf mics now and they yield a faithful representation of what the venue and board master yielded. I am also experimenting with some less expensive (not "cheap") mics and they have a less flat frequency plot to the point that in a couple frequency ranges even my novice ear can spot it but a little bit of EQ seems to have "fixed" it. And by fixed I mean made it sound a bit more like it did for the audience and also what I hear when I compare to the DPA omnis that were sharing a stand. That's my real reference point since I don't trust my memory.


Not to be snarky but I'd not use DPA's as my reference point...  They have a pronounced low-end flavor that IMO emphasizes the reverberant characteristics of the settings in which they're employed.  I don't view them as a neutral sounding mic. 

As any A/B test indicates you can stick 2 or 4 or 10 different mics on the same stand and every one will come away with a different sounding recording.  Which one is definitively how the room sounded?  Well maybe all of them or maybe none of them...   That may get back to the point about we favor the mics we use because we like them. 

I'm reminded of a little experiment I ran Thursday where in a truly terrible sounding room (totally reverberant to the point the musicians were freaked) I ran my SP's and MK4V's (stage lip as there is absolutely no other place to even consider in that setting).  Normally I don't even bother with bringing the 4V's there because the room is that whacked, but I have the run of the house and it was too promising and unique a show not to use whatever I have.  There was of course a big difference between the two but what surprised me was the 4V's actually made a great recording (that I wouldn't eq or touch in any way).  So in this case (with both actually) the recording sounded far better than the sound in the room.  No one there (including me about 4 feet back of them) heard anything like what the mics got.  The SP's actually pretty well nailed the sound one would want, but the V's were like another realm. 

So in the case of a bad room why settle for what the room sounded like? 

Of course I do see your point and would agree there probably are definitive adjustments (from/to each different pair of mics) that could be used to adjust the pickup of lesser sets of mics one needs to use to sound more like the better ones one would like to be able to use.  However I think there are tonal qualities in mics that probably can't be altered.  For me the thing about mics is not so much the frequencies recorded as it is the tone itself, where differences can be quite subtle (or not at all subtle) despite little to no apparent difference in the specs.  A lot of high end mics don't have the tone I'd want for the kind of money they cost. 

« Last Edit: July 21, 2014, 01:54:00 PM by bombdiggity »
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #27 on: July 21, 2014, 01:45:26 PM »
Another thing I do is try to listen on different systems...

I have a soundcloud account I use to post my stuff to listen on the car stereo, and a few other pieces, and only when it sounds right there do I know I am finished...
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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #28 on: July 21, 2014, 01:50:25 PM »
And I too used to be in the no EQ camp.  I still don't unless I really think something needs it (for personal listening I'd leave it alone and just eq the playback or turn the tone controls a bit), but as noted some things do benefit substantially from adjustment and can pretty definitively be identified as needing it. 

I'd prefer that those uploaders who don't really know what they're doing or don't have solid ears not EQ but others I've gotten used to and I don't think twice when I see they said they eq'd something they recorded. 
Gear:
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>
Oade C mod R-44  OR
Tinybox > Sony PCM-M10 (formerly Roland R-05) 
Video: Varied, with various outboard mics depending on the situation

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #29 on: July 21, 2014, 03:05:52 PM »
I'd prefer that those uploaders who don't really know what they're doing or don't have solid ears not EQ but others I've gotten used to and I don't think twice when I see they said they eq'd something they recorded.

I mean, I guess I understand, but how do you know that when the guy with lousy ears EQed, he didn't make it sound exactly like he wanted it to sound?  Along those same lines, for reasons mentioned above, I've never mentioned in my notes whether or not I EQed my source.  It's not because I don't care if anyone knows...but because  to my way of thinking, it's almost totally irrelevant.  If the FOH guy had too much bass on the mix for my taste and I had to EQ bass out to make it sound like I wanted it to sound, I don't really see why my personal taste in EQ would matter to someone else.  The only exception would be to evaluate the native sound of the gear I used, but we've discussed how even that sound is going to be subjective to the room, location, source, FOH, etc.

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #30 on: July 21, 2014, 03:22:51 PM »
I'd prefer that those uploaders who don't really know what they're doing or don't have solid ears not EQ but others I've gotten used to and I don't think twice when I see they said they eq'd something they recorded.

I mean, I guess I understand, but how do you know that when the guy with lousy ears EQed, he didn't make it sound exactly like he wanted it to sound?  Along those same lines, for reasons mentioned above, I've never mentioned in my notes whether or not I EQed my source.  It's not because I don't care if anyone knows...but because  to my way of thinking, it's almost totally irrelevant.  If the FOH guy had too much bass on the mix for my taste and I had to EQ bass out to make it sound like I wanted it to sound, I don't really see why my personal taste in EQ would matter to someone else.  The only exception would be to evaluate the native sound of the gear I used, but we've discussed how even that sound is going to be subjective to the room, location, source, FOH, etc.

Well if someone changes a recording to sound the way they want it to and that is lousy (or worse than the untouched recording) it is that much harder and more a waste of time to get the recording to sound better (or even to sound like it started before the processing).  Some things can't be undone (or attempts to remedy those things will be futile). 

Like with the "remasterers" who don't know how to remaster (or master) recordings anything can be ruined by unnecessary or improper processing. 

A bad set of changes is certainly worse than none at all.  So if one doesn't know what they're doing it is better not to do it (for circulation), though it seems those who don't know what they're doing are often most firmly convinced they know exactly what they're doing and everyone else who points out how something was botched is wrong.  There is one series of "remasters" with a pretentious "label" where those behind it clearly have no idea of many basic principles of audio engineering and editing, but they've hacked up a lot of shows and sent them on the way to thousands of downloads. 

Of course one can do whatever they want to do to their recordings (and many do).  If that includes (as an extreme example) a crappy eq job made into MP3's then the remaining option is not to listen to it (though I'd hope it wasn't some special show there are no other sources of).   There are some that are just too annoying to listen to.  I don't know if they started that way but they certainly ended that way for me. 
Gear:
Audio:
Schoeps MK4V
Nak CM-100/CM-300 w/ CP-1's or CP-4's
SP-CMC-25
>
Oade C mod R-44  OR
Tinybox > Sony PCM-M10 (formerly Roland R-05) 
Video: Varied, with various outboard mics depending on the situation

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #31 on: July 21, 2014, 04:19:32 PM »
I won't argue what people should note and what not to, but I do think post manipulations like EQ are one of the more relevant things that might be noted if one is inclined to do so, given those influences are far greater than detailed lineages listing meaningless post-ADC digital chain details, or even relevant but more subtle and less influential signal chain details like microphone cables, preamps and recorders. 

The most important things I personally look for in recording notes are what sources were used, what microphones were used, the microphone configuration (important yet all too often lacking), general placement, and an indication of whether any sound changing pre or post production stuff was done  such as rolloffs, EQ, compression, limiting, exciters, stereo imagers or whatever.  Not necessarily advocating calling all those things out and listing details about what was done, just a heads up that the recording is not a straight microphone feed.  I don't care much about stuff which doesn't change the sound of the raw recording, like if it was peak normalized (which often is noted).

Mostly that gives other tapers, gear-heads and more serious collectors a heads up that there may be significant sound modifying influences beyond the mics and their configuration which affect the technical attributes of the recording, altogether separate from the quality of the music performance.  Sampling various recordings made with the same microphones, listening for trends, as is done by tapers and often recommended around here as an insight into selecting appropriate microphones, is a subset of that.  Once post-manipulated, a recordings strongest comp value is how good it might be made to sound.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2014, 04:22:01 PM by Gutbucket »
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Offline bombdiggity

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #32 on: July 21, 2014, 06:27:09 PM »
^ In terms of others' recordings (as with EQ-ing one's own) there's often no substitute for listening despite what they may or may not say about them.  Certain people's efforts do carry a general TMOQ though. 
Gear:
Audio:
Schoeps MK4V
Nak CM-100/CM-300 w/ CP-1's or CP-4's
SP-CMC-25
>
Oade C mod R-44  OR
Tinybox > Sony PCM-M10 (formerly Roland R-05) 
Video: Varied, with various outboard mics depending on the situation

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #33 on: July 21, 2014, 06:46:00 PM »
When is there ever a substitute for listening?  It really the entire point, no?
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline bombdiggity

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #34 on: July 21, 2014, 06:58:16 PM »
When is there ever a substitute for listening?  It really the entire point, no?

Yep.  My point was more that some people will bring it back alive and I don't need to listen first to know if I should download or not, others I know what to expect and avoid (usually because of what they do in post!).  There is a sea in between though. 
Gear:
Audio:
Schoeps MK4V
Nak CM-100/CM-300 w/ CP-1's or CP-4's
SP-CMC-25
>
Oade C mod R-44  OR
Tinybox > Sony PCM-M10 (formerly Roland R-05) 
Video: Varied, with various outboard mics depending on the situation

stevetoney

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #35 on: July 21, 2014, 08:00:58 PM »
When is there ever a substitute for listening?  It really the entire point, no?

Yep.  My point was more that some people will bring it back alive and I don't need to listen first to know if I should download or not, others I know what to expect and avoid (usually because of what they do in post!).  There is a sea in between though.

It's not the same, but I'm much more annoyed by the pro's that futz up a recording by normalizing the sh** out of if than the tapers that mess up their EQ job.  Then again, I record so much on my own that I haven't been downloading a hella lot of other peoples recordings over the last 3 or 4 years.

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Re: Learning to EQ with purpose - response curves help?
« Reply #36 on: July 21, 2014, 10:02:20 PM »
It's not the same, but I'm much more annoyed by the pro's that futz up a recording by normalizing the sh** out of if than the tapers that mess up their EQ job. 

limiting and compressing, not normalizing. Small nuance.

I haven't been downloading a hella lot of other peoples recordings over the last 3 or 4 years.

+1  :-\

This. I don't intend to be snarky or demeaning about it when I say that I see the reason most people choose gear is because they like how it sounds (not how faithful it is), but they don't want to EQ because they don't have the necessary skillset or knowledge to do it well instead of trying to be faithful.

I "chose" not to EQ for a long time for this reason.  I knew I didn't know what I was doing and stuck to a Hippocratic first-do-no-harm approach.
 

This is one of the best good reasons.  I think when deciding to EQ a recording for general release, there is something of a responsibility for objectivity involved, which doesn't apply when just EQing to suit your own playback environment and personal enjoyment.  The aim should be good sound in general, which works on as many different systems as possible.  The danger is making it sound great on you own monitoring system, but not realizing some of the changes you are making are corrections to your monitoring system, which don't apply elsewhere.

I agree. Not all of my posts have been stellar, but then again, some have. I think as long as someone's making an effort, then have at.

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