5 EQ Secrets for Crystal Clear (but THICK) Mixes

[@FrightboxRecording]

►► Download your FREE Quick EQ Cheatsheet by clicking HERE: frightboxrecordingacademy.com/free-quick-eq-guide/

[@rawkinj6609]

My mixes sound 1000 times better and take less time because of these tips and this channel! Thanks so much Bobby! ⚡

[@sermilion_audio]

This dude just drops tips that actually work and are very easy to understand. Thank you good sir.

[@mwright80]

Dude your download made mixing so much easier. I used your settings as a starting point and i instantly knew why my mixes had been sounding so thin. Like you said... it aint rocket science.

[@petealba707]

Bobby knows his stuff! I chased my tail for a while but through trial and error, and videos like these I learned to EQ properly. I fooled with side chain and other things for clarity but the solution was always simpler though I didn't want to believe it. Bobby rules!!

[@chrisdudeword1]

Your content rules and is always straight to the point. Thanks dude!

[@dobroslaw_yt]

like the content and your personality, cheers from Poland

[@dougleydorite]

I do top-down mixing. I avoided it for so long because of these kinds of rules and mindsets, but when I gave it a shot, and mixed into a mastering chain that has big adjustments, I was able to make things gel together and have a cohesive sound

[@didymuskvist]

Thanks to your videos I do my EQing just like that. 🤘

[@JustinDayIsAnExtraCoolGuy]

Came from your very well written email! You had me nodding my head as I read, had to check it out!

[@stephenmooreguitaruk8365]

Absolutely great info, love your channel, keep up the great work! 👍

[@ediththeband]

Super solid info thank you!!!

[@jeffbridges6110]

I do all these steps except i'll hi-pass/lo-cut my master buss at or around 32-37hz. Awesome quick to the point tutorial.

[@replicayouth]

YES, a classic "DO NOT!!!" haha

[@maplefoxx6285]

thanks for the tips. your last few videos have been really helpful.

[@eddiebosnoyan6015]

Thank you Bobby! Looking forward to trying these settings! Keep up the great content.

[@MBBGun14]

I really must say that I love your channel. With my amateur mixing Im mostly down to experimenting, but I can't deny that your videos are very nice guidelines. Thank you!

[@BrentIraEnman]

Great tips man!

[@dysmorphobic3566]

hello bobby, i follow your youtube channel with enthusiasm. you do very good work. i have a question about recording guitars with plugins. i record one audio track hard left and one hard right. for the right channel i change bass, mid, treble and sometimes the IR in the guitar amp plugin very slightly. But sometimes i don't like the result so much and it's not comparable with commercial high end recordings. to my question: would it make any difference to use a different guitar for the other channel for recording? derived from the fact that a band with 2 guitarists also records 2 different guitars. thank you greetings from germany andrew

[@leearmitage]

Great advice and these can be achieved with an stock EQ in any DAW. Just wait for the comment for someone saying you need xyz eq lol

[@rome8180]

The last project I worked on with real drums, the drummer only used four mics: snare, kick, room, and overhead. This meant that a single overhead mic was responsible for both the toms and cymbals. That was really difficult to deal with. It meant I couldn't use any samples for the toms. It also meant that if I turned the toms up loud enough to be heard, the cymbals were way too loud. I tried duplicating the track, and high passing one to have only the cymbals and low passing the otheer to have only the toms. But that made the toms way too muffled. So eventually I ended up using a multiband compressor to tame the cymbals. I also applied fairly heavy saturation. Lastly, when all that wasn't enough, I turned down individual cymbal hits. Fortunately, he's a great drummer, so at least he wasn't hitting his cymbals way too hard compared to the rest of the kit. The point of this long story is that unfortunately sometimes moves like #1 aren't possible if you don't have ideal source tracks. But I literally think he only had four mics. And I wanted to work with him because I love his playing. So I made due.

[@FrightboxRecording]

I totally agree, you gotta make do with what you have. My only question is why would anyone only record 4 tracks of drums when you can get an 8-channel interface for next to nothing these days?

[@rome8180]

@@FrightboxRecording guessing it was more the mics that were the issue. And since he was doing it for free on my project, I wasn't going to ask him to buy a bunch of mics and an interface, even if we're only talking $700 for all of that. He's a film score composer mostly. I don't think he records himself playing drums a lot. I'd still rather have a flawed recording from an awesome drummer than an awesome recording from a bad drummer.

[@tigtheastronaut]

you could still sample replace the toms but it would be incredibly tedious. I've done it!

[@rome8180]

@@tigtheastronaut well, not with Trigger I couldn't. Would have had to be by hand. And due to the complexity of the part it was hard to even identify where all the hits were. I would have done it if I had to, but I was exhausting my other options. In the end, it was fine. People used to record drums with a single room mic.

[@tigtheastronaut]

I rarely EQ my master bus, and if so its usually just a db or less to fine tune the overall balance between bass, mids, and air. However I am not big on high and low pass filters in general. Sometimes sure there is obvious junk in that range. But I do really find that subharmonic content makes a small but noticeable difference in how any instrument feels in a mix. I'm much more likely to do a big cut with a narrow Q bell filter around 30dB or a moderate cut with a shelf around 80-200 than use a full on hi pass filter.

[@danmenez]

Hey! You're right!

[@a.michaelpadilla844]

Hey Bobby. This question might be off topic, but can you do a tutorial about mixing kick on top of bass and bass on top of kick? I don't see any videos or articles covering the subject.

[@Al69BfR]

I do roll off my lows below 600 Hz on my cymbals and roll of highs and lows on my guitars but not as aggressively. Also my low cuts on vocals are mostly around 120-130Hz. And I roll of low end where else I need to. But TIL I can certainly be more aggressive. 🙂

[@Pesso86]

I am doing most of these thing, but not aggressively enough: high pass vocals at 100, low pass lead guitars at 10k, these kind of stuff. I will try to push it more

[@MattyB3]

Hey Bobby, awesome information. Just wondering will these type of techniques work on country rock or even classic rock sounding music. Thanks.

[@FrightboxRecording]

Definitely! Anything with drums, bass, guitars and vocals.

[@oldguysplaymetal5517]

My "top down moves" are never eq. I'm with Bobby on this one. I rarely, if ever, make significant eq moves on the master bus. I might add a little "air" or shape the low end if bass and kick are fighting, etc, but that's about it. Its mostly just placing the limiter and metering on the master bus so as to hear the mix pushed into it, and then hopefully, this will cue me in as to when its too loud or the snare/ kick transients are being too harshly clipped. This just helps the mix be a great mix to master.

[@zlimag]

Great video! Now I can make my shitty guitar solos sound crystal clear within the mix 🤘

[@FrightboxRecording]

😂

[@synapticschism]

My Mix Bus EQ moves are very small (usually less than 1dB) however, I do that EQ very early on in the mix. In fact dealing with the mix bus is the first thing I do to get the track in the ballpark sound I want, sort of a top down approach. Is that something you do also?

[@FrightboxRecording]

If it works for you stick with it, but I'm the opposite. I don't touch mix buss EQ until the last 5% of the mix before mastering.

[@Ryan_Messenger]

69th like. Noice. Edit - This was very helpful. Thanks, man. 🤘

[@FrightboxRecording]

Thanks for watching, Ryan. Glad to have been a help!

[@CicconeRitchie1]

I think you skip the part with phase issues on the drum bus when highpassing. I don’t think phase issues are less important than messy low end. They are both equally important. But to claim “don’t worry about phase issues” is kind of a stretch. I know the guys at URM and JST Tones would disagree too😅

[@dremcfleuve]

Fuck yeah for default EQ! I had a fight over how it won't sound good if you don't use PRO-3 or some shit... As if you somehow HAVE to use the super expensive EQ that gear shills on youtube use to have a good sound... It's not a gooderizer knob and the most expensive the better... There's a task to be done and different tools to do it. If you don't know how to use a hammer, you'll squash your finger just the same with a super expensive hammer than you would do your granddad's wood handle hammer

[@FrightboxRecording]

1000% bang on.

[@robloyst4514]

Are these ezdrummer samples??? I need them like now lol

[@FrightboxRecording]

No, these were real drums recorded in my project studio.

[@diiosaodiiosa]

amen

[@responddrumming2642]

um, how come your OH mics have no shell sound ? Played twice ?

[@FrightboxRecording]

I mic my cymbals very close to reject the hat, shells and snare as much as possible. Also, the filtering removes a lot of the shells.

[@responddrumming2642]

@@FrightboxRecording Love it man. Thanks!

[@CrushingAxes]

Man even in country or super clean stuff I always high pass everything. I had a chance to check some of my mixes with a very good system with a sub, or working several hours in a mix just to find it's complete gargabe in the car, sometimes in front of a producer or even in front of the band, and that was very embarrasing.