Stop Making These Beginner EQ Mistakes! Do THIS Instead
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- Опубліковано 12 чер 2023
- FREE Guide - Learn how to finish at least one great-sounding song per month: pickyourself.com/framework
In this video, you'll discover how to avoid the 3 critical EQ mistakes that 95% of music producers make (and ruin their mixes by doing so). My name is Philip from Pick Yourself, and I've created this channel to help electronic music producers like you make meaningful progress with their music.
EQ, or equalization, is a fundamental tool in mixing and mastering electronic music. However, many producers often fall into common traps that make their mixes and masters sound lifeless and boring. In this video, I'll share with you practical tips and techniques to improve your EQ skills and take your mixes and masters to the next level.
Firstly, let's talk about resonances. Don't neglect them, as they can make or break your mix. Resonances are those frequency peaks or dips that can create harsh or muddy sounds. But here's the catch: removing too many resonances can also strip away the character and warmth of your track. I'll show you how to strike the right balance and enhance your sound without sacrificing its unique qualities.
Next, let's talk about hi-cut and low-cut filters. While these filters can be useful in certain situations, applying them to every track indiscriminately can result in a dull and lifeless mix. I'll explain when and how to use them effectively, so you can sculpt your sound while maintaining energy and impact.
Lastly, let's debunk the myth that fancy techniques like MS-processing, dynamic EQ, and linear phase EQ are always necessary. While they have their place in specific scenarios, applying them unnecessarily can overcomplicate your workflow and hinder your creativity. I'll guide you through a practical approach to using these techniques, helping you understand when they're truly beneficial and when they're just unnecessary distractions.
By the end of this video, you'll have a clear understanding of the critical EQ mistakes to avoid, enabling you to achieve cleaner, more balanced mixes that truly represent your artistic vision.
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FREE Guide - Learn how to finish at least one great-sounding song per month: pickyourself.com/framework
This was very helpful, easy to undertand and logical. Thank you for this! Im gonna try it out.
Good video and advice. What I will say about high-pass EQ with kick and bass: if you are LAYERING sounds together, you'll want to avoid high-pass on your lowest kick / sub bass and leave well alone. But for layers further up towards the lower mids, you ARE going to want to high-pass those so they do not mask the lower bass area.
Another great video and amazing approach! Thanks again!
EQ-ing is like make-up. Over do it and you no longer look like yourself. If the starting condition is so "wrong" that too much complexity needs to go into EQ-ing (make-up)....then you're better off solving the underlying issues where possible...and just like in make-up...it doesn't help if you apply it on a pig...it's still a pig...and no amount of make-up (EQ-ing) is gonna change that...unfortunately.
Haha I love that analogy! 💯
You can’t polish a turd!
as an edm producer with over 7 streams in less than a few years I find your videos very helpful in keeping me on my toes and remembering subtle techniques to make better music.
This was actually genuinely helpful to me, I'm gonna subscribe
That means a lot, thank you!
You are one of the best teachers for me nowadays 😂 A big thank you for what you are doing ✌️😎
thank you for your posts! will download your guide
Your channel it’s so sick dude!! I really love it 😍
Geeze…helpful detail🎉 thnx
Great tips Phillip! Thank you :)
Awesome, happy to hear that you got something out of it! 💯
echt super, vielen Dank :)
Fantastic advice. Thank you
This video is sooo helpful! Thanks Philip!
So great to hear that, much appreciated! 💯
Great strait to the point video, and I did learn a few things! Thank you.
Top Content 🙂 sehr hilfreich. Danke
Great channel, pro and clear explanation. Subscribed and thank you for sharing your knowledge.
I truly appreciate your comment!
Your videos are clear to understand and very informative. Thank you. This helps a lot
Thanks that means a lot!
very helpful, thank you :)
Glad it was helpful!
Another great video Philip! thank you for using your every day personal experience to share and teach others about what you are seeing done incorrectly in your field -In hopes to make a difference in the mixes of those at the intermediate and beginner levels of mixing. Much appreciated knowledge.
That means a lot, thank you!
Thank you to talk about the true and give really helpful tips
My pleasure, thanks for the great feedback!
thanks i appreciate this a lot as someone who needs to get better with EQing
Awesome, thanks a lot!
Great video as always!
If I have two elements occupying the same frequency range, is it ok to reduce mids on one element and sides of the other to create a balance and remove mud?
Great content all over your channel, please keep up! Subscribed! If you do requests, I'd be interested in a full mix session, where you tell about your mixing philosophy. I've been working with sound and music professionally for 15 years and the biggest challenge I face is remaining objective once the mix is nearly finished. I can get the mix 90% quite quickly, but the last 10% can take multiple sessions. Would also be interested in your take on reference curves for electronic music and best sounding mixes overall. Thank you!
Wow, super good input, I immediately added this to my content list for upcoming videos.
He has my name, I trust him
Double click in q3 below 20 and above 10k to get pass filters
Maybe some de-essing for the speech in this video would be a nice tip too? 😊Otherwise an ok video 👍🏻
Thanks very much for sharing your knowledge Phil. I was curious to hear certain processing of the signal can lead to phasing issues. Would you be able to elaborate on this and on the issue of phasing in another video? I also remember you mentioned psytrance in another video, do you have much experience in mixing and mastering this style of electronic music?
I’ll do a video on that subject for sure! In terms of psytrance: it’s not the main genre I work in but I love the festivals and know the scene ;)
this was an amazing video, very well articulated and explained for someone like me who's dabbled in music for the last decade and finally wants to take it more seriously. my question is, when you mention "headroom", do you just mean generally making spaces ANYWHERE in the mix for other elements of the song? or is it something else, sounds like it might just apply to highest and lowest frequencies? thanks :)
oh my gosh and the summary in the description in brilliant. this whole video is packaged so fkn brilliantly, what a gem of a youtube channel. thanks for making these videos for all of us, and thanks for putting such attention and care into them
Sehr geil! Vielen Dank. 100% meine Meinung, einen Punkt würde ich gerne hinzufügen: mit den Augen EQen statt den Ohren. Deswegen verwende ich lieber meinen MDW 5 EQ statt FabFilter Pro Q: ich habe keine Spektrumsanzeige und muss mit den Ohren eqen. Und die verarschen mich weniger :D
Thanks Philip - would you advise the same "don't always low-cut" even if it's with a 18-24db/oct slope @ 10-20hz on the entire mix?
Great advice! Grüße nach Berlin!
Danke dir, freut mich sehr! 🙌🏻
Not sure if you already have one but would be awesome to see you dive a little bit more into mid/side EQ and its benefits, what it actually achieves etc :)
Great idea! I’ll put it on the content list :)
I'm really interested how Merzbow removes annoying resonances from his songs?
as an edm producer with over 10 mil streams in less than a few years I find your videos very helpful in keeping me on my toes and remembering subtle techniques to make better music. I really like the advice you gave when it comes to Bass and how dynamic bass is not ideal since you want a stable amplitude, most problems with bass and an overall piece occur when some part has way too much volume / amplitude of bass compared to other parts.
Do you tend to use natural phase on the majority of your pro q3's or zero latency? And in which case would you use Linear phase? Could potentially cover this topic as a video
That’s a great idea, I’ll put it on the list, thank you!
Yes, natural phase is my default. It’s the best of both worlds. I use linear phase only in very special situations. For example: M/S EQing. I just don’t want the phase to be messed up more than necessary. Zero latency, in my opinion, only makes sense if you want to be super CPU efficient or use it in a live situation.
@@pickyourselfofficial Great to hear i'll continue as normal with natural phase, thanks!
I did mentorship with one of the most known artist from my genre which was pretty expensive and extensive and I know for a fact that he never told me to low/high cut the kick.
I know however that he specifically told me to low cut everything below around 100hz that is NOT Kick or Bass so would you say that this advice I got from someone very well known for his abilities is also wrong?
I honestly never heard anyone telling anywhere the low cut the kick like this 😅
Why would I lo-cut and hi-cut everything ?
Who does this ?
Your example with the bass drum killed the personality of the bass drum !
Excellent presentation, danke schoen.
Bill P.
Yeah. I don’t get it either but it gets propagated again and again…
@@pickyourselfofficial There is so much bad information on the internet, and everyone gives a 'master class' when they're not fit to teach kindergarten !
Bill P. 😀
Wouldn't it be more phase conscious to add a lowshelf instead of a lowcut filter in the last example (with mid side eq'ing)?
Nice content ! Thank you! Greetz from x-berg
Great question! So with mid-side, I often EQ it in linear or minimal phase mode anyway. In this specific example I didn’t really hear any issues with significant phase shift and it’s more a sound design choice how things come together. But on a theoretical level it’s correct that low-shelf has less of an effect on phase than a high-pass filter. Cheers from Neukölln 💯🙌🏻
3:43 This beat is 🔥
🙌🏻💯
What Armin Van buuren was saying, is too pretty much cut everything, and then what you're doing is your building your Kik from the pieces that you like. So you know one kick might not have the exact attack so you copy and pasted from another kicked it does have a great attack only grabbing the attack specifically. He says when you do your hyecuts and low cuts it's going to create space to add other layers. But he does say in the end you can end up with a lot of extra processing. I would say it's just a matter of taste. Some people want to go to armin rout where you're doing a lot of processing to make it great. To add extra textures and layers. And then sometimes you might go with this route where you're just trying to piece something quickly together that sounds really great but is maybe not so complicated. Both ways of working I think are equally exceptional if you're picking out really good sounds. That's the part where I would take my time make sure every single sound is the best thing you've ever heard.
I especially support your last statement. That's a big one! In regards to the kick drum layering specifically, I've made a video in which I talk about the pros and cons of that approach and suggest something that is more in line with the final statement in your comment: ua-cam.com/video/UUybhqf3WgQ/v-deo.html
@@pickyourselfofficial perfect, you're the only person I will listen to besides Armin. Let's partner up. I'm just about to explode onto the scene. I got DJ sets that will light the dance floor on fire. And I'm just looking for a mentor/partner that seriously knows what they're doing. My vision is, getting to the point where we throw are own festivals. And a percentage of each ticket goes to, I have two main passions one is not just feeding and nurturing, but also helping families living in ghettos get to the point where they can buy their own homes. Really working with individual families, and helping them get to the point where they own their own business and have land. Another passion is taking a small town and making sure every animal that's in that dog pound in that town, is freed from the dog pound and put on land where they can live free. I think between my ear for picking tracks and your ability to carve sound I think we would be an unbeatable duo out to bring the best sound to the world, Plus help families and animals. Let me know what you think. And we can schedule some type of chat about it.
@@davidcarter3976 I really appreciate your passion for this and wish you the best of success with it! I’m currently not available for partnering up as I’m following a very specific mission and don’t want to go into too many directions all at once. Once again, all the best to you and I hope you will make your vision come true :)
@@pickyourselfofficial tell us more about your mission brother? Keep in mind you might reserve judgment until you listen to My demo. I would love to help you with your mission as well.
EQ-ing starts with sound selection / sound design. Or am I wrong? I mean, if you have a bad sound, you probably need to throw tons of EQ / saturators / this / that on it to make it sound less horrible. But if you have a sound which you like and which fits the goal you try to achieve, then you don't need to manipulate it so much.
The cymbal is a perfect example for that. If I have a cymbal where I have to manipulate so heavily, then it is probably not the right cymbal. I don't use EQ so much because I have a strict policy which worked for me since I've switched to Ableton: Kick and Sub MAY be EQ'ed by filtering out some high end if needed, everything else MAY be EQ'ed by filtering out the low end. The magic line is mostly at around 100 db. But this may only work in these situations that I've experienced so far.
Yep, sound selection is key. I actually made this video that makes this point (among other things): ua-cam.com/video/lxuPuNdvFak/v-deo.htmlsi=IDCz8eD9CZ1r3Lb3
do you offer mixing services?
Yep! Specializing in electronic music: copilco-productions.com
👍
Since I am still in "Skill-up" phase with producing, I am seeking out mastering EQ firstly... I appreciate how you explain the fundamentals while demonstrating
If you haven't already, would you consider making an EQing series spotlighting the things that amature producers "don't even know that they don't know"?
Thanks for the value content you post...its life changing from my experience!
That’s a great idea, thanks so much for the input! I’ll put it on my list :)
How does the cymbalhave 20hz frequencies!!
Haha yep…
@@pickyourselfofficial I wrote that comment, 5 seconds later you said it in the video.. Beat you to it! 😉
Hi Philip, great channel and therefore subscribed right away!
What leaves me with a question mark about this video: On the one hand, you talk about not doing an HPF everywhere just to have done it (which I find good that someone clearly addresses it), but on the other hand you refer to the graphic EQ and the sub-frequencies in the cymbal that can be "seen" there. As you can see in this video (ua-cam.com/video/RwJpcapzz6Q/v-deo.html), it is impressively shown that these sub-frequencies are often visible in the graphic EQ, but in fact do not exist at all, because the representation of the sub-frequencies comes from the way these EQs are programmed and not from them being really there. Isn't this a bit inconsistent / contradictory?
Another question about your video: You do a M/S EQ step in the bass because you don't want low frequencies to be present in the sides. Would it be better / equally good to just make bands with e.g. an OZONE Imager or Spectral Shaper and put all low frequencies (say 150 Hz down) in mono? Or will I incur other more serious disadvantages compared to the M/S approach?
Something else I forgot: I once saw a video in which it was shown that it is better to always "shelve" instead of cutting (HPF / LPF) (I think it ist b/c of phasing). According to this, one should actually expect to see you with lowshelfs / highshelf instead of, for example, HPF in your videos? Or is this another myth?
Thank you very much and greatings from Stuttgart 😎
Thanks for the great comment, Tom!
To your first point: I’d have to talk to an experienced DSP programmer to confirm that statement. What I can say is that all my other meters (also external ones) show the exact same information so I’d assume that this is the case.
To your other question: The quick answer is “if it sounds right, do it and don’t overthink it, there’s more important stuff to spend your mental energy on”. The more nuanced answer is that all m-s processing tools like imagers are much more than just an MS EQ. Most of them use some form of internal delay between the sides, some even a bit of saturation and you never know what gets introduced where. Especially with something that’s supposed to “just work without too much thinking” like the Ozone imager. It’s a great tool, don’t get me wrong.
I hope that helps :)
Hi Phillip. There is a 'Server Error' when trying to download the framework guide
Oh strange. At what step do you get an error? I just tested it and it worked on my end. I can also send it privately to you, just hit me up via philip@pickyourself.com
@@pickyourselfofficial it's the welcome email and where it states confirm subscription and download guide 'click here' it opens a page stating there is an internal server error. I have just rried it again and got the same error.
@@roymitchell5894 okay I’ve just checked. Seems to be server downtime by my email tool. I’ve sent you a direct email. Hope you can access everything now :)
Update: Everything should be back to normal now :)
Omg I low cut kick in every single track I did…but what about bass? Is it necessary to low cut?
The rule of thumb: if it sounds good, it is good. Just don’t “cut everything” because some tutorial told you to. Trust in your listening skills and make conscious decisions
@@pickyourselfofficial it’s blowing my mind…thank you. And sorry for any grammar mistakes, English is my second language.
Your link doesn’t send the free pdf product
Strange. Send me an email and I can personally send you the guide: philip@pickyourself.com
Make sure to de-ess your drum-bus 😁
Seriously though... Visual mixing is a mistake. Glad to have that data... But music is auditory... Not visual
Agreed. I rarely look at meters while mixing and mastering client projects. Only to double check from time to time. But it’s great for learning and demonstrating. The video I made a while ago on analyzers and reference tracks goes specifically into this direction.
But I agree 100%, the actual critical listening (also checking your emotional reaction to the music) is SO MUCH MORE important!
Well I agree but meter’s exist for a reason, they can really help confirm what your hearing or allow you to see potential issues in the mix like the low end being extremely wide using a phase scope which can tell you a lot about mono compatibility, the same goes with any type of correlation meter.
LUFS meters are great to give you an idea of the perceived loudness of your track, I don’t think it would be wise to master only with that in mind but it’s a great tool.
True peak meters with rms are great to tell you how close you are to full scale and your peak to average ratio or crest factor.
If you don’t like it then sure if it works for you, great but I don’t think it warrants a complete rejection of meters, they aren’t essential for making great songs but it’s the same with most of the amazing tools we have, could I do it without them, sure but does it help, absolutely.
@@memeswillneverdie that’s great input! I believe it’s not a “one or the other” kind of thing because in the end, they cross-influence each other. The better your critical listening skills, the more you get out of looking at what a meter really tells you (and what it doesn’t). But on the other hand, your critical listening skills will get much better if you use some basic metering in the beginning to get an idea about frequencies, dynamics, etc.
@@pickyourselfofficial exactly I’d never turn off my monitors and mix only using an analyser but I wouldn’t mix or master without meters of some kind because they have their merit when used in conjunction with each other like you said. I understand the reluctance to meters since it feels like it’s somehow lying since audio is obviously something you need to listen to, to make decisions but I would say that audio is really just science, that includes the way we perceive it we should take advantage of anything that might bring us closer to creating great sounding music instead of saying “your not a real mixer if you need meters” or any of the other silly sentiments you hear online.
Meanwhile you forgot to de-ess your spoken audio
Haha, okay okay. I heard you and will make sure in the next edits.
@@pickyourselfofficial /salute
I like many of the tools you use but I hate ILok. It always slows me down.
Can’t cope with all this connecting to the mothership rubbish.