Topic: ISO EQ help (Metallica)

[travelinbeat]

I have a show that I've been avoiding processing for a couple months now because I can't seem to get an EQ that I like.  With a decent set of cans, you should be able to tell right away wha tI don't like about it (super distant and thin sounding).  I'm wondering if any EQ experts out there may be so kind as to tinker a bit with the sample I've uploaded and share your processes.  I'd love not only to start and finish tracking this recording, but also to learn a little about what (if anything) can be done in post to any future recordings I may make with similar issues. 

Thanks in advance!

PS:  The show is actually the Concert for Valor on the National Mall in DC-- featured Metallica, Zac Brown Band, Bruce, Dave Grohl, Eminem, and some others.

77MB 24bit/96kHz 4min flac:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/qswzrwngnggmxmh/metallica_sample.flac

[anr]

http://yourlisten.com/bigdee/metallica-sample-edit


A genre not to my taste.  But for what it's worth, here's my effort.  I won't try to analyse it too much but your description was pretty accurate.  The channels were very unbalanced in both frequency and volume which would make if horrible to listen to on headphones, so I concentrated on that. 

[Sloan Simpson]

I don't have headphones here with me at the moment, so just for kicks I checked it out on my monitors and did what I would do if it were my recording.  In this case that meant I used the Waves API-550A EQ, shelving everything below 400Hz down 4dB, then did a mid boost at 3kHz of 4 dB.

http://www.southernshelter.com/private/metallica-eq-sloan.wav

I dunno, may be worse but there's my couple minutes worth of fiddling with it.

[bombdiggity]

Seems like a hard environment to get anything good in... 

Your left channel is averaging at least 3 dB lower than the right.  I'd balance them first.  That helped by itself. 

There's also a DC offset (only on the left channel).  I'd eliminate that next.

You need to have them comparable before going further. 

It is unusually weak from roughly 500Hz to 3200Hz.  That is certainly a major part of why it seems thin.

That kick drum is mixed way too loud but that may not be too fixable (but you need to watch out for that in the eq). 

I'm not sure where the bass is (nor a full sound on the drum kit). 

I don't have cans so won't commit any eq but with a band like this you need some pounding low end.  Not sure that element is there, but contrary to the other comment I would boost the lows rather than dropping them. 

I'd probably boost 1K to 2.5K more than the rest of what I'd boost.  That gets a little fuller sound hopefully without overemphasizing that thin drum sound.

By "boosting" I'd say that sort of change relative to the original so you might experiment on achieving that or some of it by dropping the higher end equivalently (or partially).  It often sounds better to reduce than increase (though with this being relatively thin raising bands shouldn't hurt).

For eq I'd focus on trying to get a decent sound out of the drums and a meaty low end. 

I think the core issues are that the live mix sound of the drums is not good and you were probably far enough back that you lost a lot of the lower end (the bass will thin out at large distances outdoors). 

I think it can sound a lot better (I got something I like a lot more, at least on cheap speakers doing the above in five minutes or so) but I don't have time... and really can't stand listening to these guys...   

[travelinbeat]

Thanks for all the great inputs so far!  Yeah I'm definitely more inclined to feel like the natural fix lies in bringing more low / low-mid to the party.  I tinkered a little with the specific frequencies mentioned and got closer to something I like, but there's still a blary quality persisting in the product. 

You're right to assume that I was pretty far back-- the event had set up tons of delay towers all the way down the National Mall, but I don't believe they included any subs, so my low-end was probably about 7 city blocks away (which also makes sense for why it tends to sound out of sync with the music). 

Am I wrong to feel that there is a way of EQ'ing this into something I could be happy with?  Is it possible to "cure" a weird sounding recording?

Thanks for all the help so far!

[bombdiggity]

Thanks for all the great inputs so far!  Yeah I'm definitely more inclined to feel like the natural fix lies in bringing more low / low-mid to the party.  I tinkered a little with the specific frequencies mentioned and got closer to something I like, but there's still a blary quality persisting in the product. 

You're right to assume that I was pretty far back-- the event had set up tons of delay towers all the way down the National Mall, but I don't believe they included any subs, so my low-end was probably about 7 city blocks away (which also makes sense for why it tends to sound out of sync with the music). 

Am I wrong to feel that there is a way of EQ'ing this into something I could be happy with?  Is it possible to "cure" a weird sounding recording?

Thanks for all the help so far!

Well the blare-y thing you can probably address by not going too heavy on the upper-mids and perhaps dropping the upper-mids and highs to get a more natural overall curve.

The positional background helps.  I'm quite familiar with the Mall but would only go there to record Folk Life, or when I was younger and the music was good Inaugural events, where you're dealing with a large tent at most. 

If the delay towers didn't have all the sound and you've got internal phase contradictions mixed together (the out of sync thing) that may not really be fixable but would explain "blurriness".  perhaps that is behind the other suggestion to just cut the lows but I don't think that works with this sort of music. 

Phase left-right can be fixed.  Phase of an entire part of the spectrum vs. other parts of the spectrum I'm not so sure unless they are discrete.  If that internal phase contradiction is really your issue and there is some sort of clear division in the ranges you could essentially go multitrack and double both channels (make it two sets of the same content in a multitrack editor).  Then kill all the highs above your break point threshold on one set and all the lows below the breakpoint threshold on the other.  You would probably have to experiment to see where the right breakpoint is.  Then time align those two components with each other as if they were out of phase channels and mix back together.  That might get you somewhere (essentially moving the bass frequencies only that were coming from way far away back forward on the timeline to get aligned with the rest of the sound that you were getting a closer read on).  You can eq those components independently to get a better sound out of them before combining them and in combining them can vary the output levels to play with the balance of them.  Maybe try that for a few minutes? 

I would agree that often what people think is an eq or frequency problem can be a phase issue (and phase can take different forms).  You did at least clearly get to what your problem was with a little back and forth here.  The problem is whether it is fixable, since differing timelines were all mashed together where you were (and then as you recorded it).