EQ Plug Ins
- Thread starter ibmorjamn
- Start date
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ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
Plugin Alliance is still at it. 2 for 49.
Check this tutorial out from fabfilter.
It's easy to get lost in this but bass filtering is a great subject.
www.fabfilter.com
Check this tutorial out from fabfilter.
It's easy to get lost in this but bass filtering is a great subject.
FabFilter Video Tutorials
Video tutorials that will help improve your mixing, mastering and music making skills.
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Just remember…time spent on this stuff is valuable/useful, but in the end….you will need less of these mystical tools if you first learn how to get a good clean capture/recording of a performance using the equipment you have on hand. Learn your gear outside of the box, and you will spend less time in the box, trying to polish a…..well….you know.Plugin Alliance is still at it. 2 for 49.
Check this tutorial out from fabfilter.
It's easy to get lost is this but bass filtering is a great subject.
FabFilter Video Tutorials
Video tutorials that will help improve your mixing, mastering and music making skills.
That said, EQ and compression are super important tools when mixing.
Subtractive EQ, to filter/cut unnecessary frequency content for the instrument on a given track, in the digital domain.
Do not over use compression. Once you remove/reduce the dynamics, you can’t get them back(unless you go all the way back to reload the original track(s)..if they are available.
OP
ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
It is definitely a world in itself.
Here’s an example….not a great one….but something at hand….
I took this screenshot after rendering an audio file of this project…
Note: All of the effects used are pictured in the mixer…two instances of reverb, one instance of EZDrummer, and one limiter on the master channel. Only five tracks of actual audio. Track seven is a video/image track(I originally made this a video). There is no mix automation. All edits are visible(only tracks trimmed down to necessary bits, to reduce unwanted noises). Two guitars( tracks 2 & 5), one bass (track 6), and two vocals (tracks 3 & 4).
A static mix… This is the result:
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ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
Sounds good!
Thank you sir!
I guess the point I was trying to make was, if you take care to capture the performance in a good way…there’s absolutely no need for those expensive/expansive plugins to mix it well enough for mere mortals.
I took the trip down that rabbit hole(2004-2012). I had a lot of stuff amassed in my old XP studio computer….like…really….a lot.
None of that stuff did more for me than learning how to capture a performance in a good way. And do it with what I had on hand….because you can make good recordings with some really basic gear, if you take the time to learn how. Good mic’s and preamps did way more for me than any of the “fluff” plugs.
I’m not gonna get into the expenditures….but….I wish I had spent it on good preamps, channel strips, and microphones…not fancy skinned plugins.
OP
ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
I guess engineers look at it differently but they are payed to do a job.
I try to do as good as I can recording. I am going straight in through the HX Stomp interface/amp. No mics. I have a SM57 but I don't use it much lately.
And you’ve done pretty well using that stuff so far! Better access to the (recording) deck would help, by the sound of things.
Just my opinion…it’s not a bad thing to pick up tools along the way though.
Sapient
Ambassador of Vocal Inspiration
I'm confused here. You don't render the effects into the track do you. The effects I've always used are real-time and never "baked" into the track.
OP
ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
I was so close to buying another state of the art interface.
Sapient
Ambassador of Vocal Inspiration
Naa. The nice expensive plugs let ya do this:
Vocaroo | Online voice recorder
Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs.
voca.ro
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ibmorjamn
Ambassador of Moar Jammin
Damn, he sounded exactly like Danzig.Naa. The nice expensive plugs let ya do this:
Vocaroo | Online voice recorder
Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs.
What do you do besides compression ?
Sapient
Ambassador of Vocal Inspiration
Sapient
Ambassador of Vocal Inspiration
In that example, the guitars/bass were recorded, and touched with nothing inside the DAW. All effects were played/recorded from the Kemper, live. Vocals were done with the compression and any eq character outside the box on the way in, as performed(UA 6176, SM7b handheld and I was seated in an office chair). Only a plate reverb was used in Reaper…I didn’t bother setting up a reverb bus, just strapped it on the channel, chose a factory preset, and adjusted the wet/dry mix to taste. Once I got a static mix I liked, I strapped a limiter plug across the master and adjusted to taste, and rendered. That project was for the “quick & dirty“ challenge, from the Game of Toanz thread. I made absolutely zero efforts to tweak anything else…didn’t bother to clean up the mud with any eq in the box etc. Although, the limiter plug across the master did have some tonal control.
As I said previously, this wasn’t a particularly good example, it was at hand. Though the final product isn’t perfect, at least it’s reasonably intelligible with very little manipulation in the DAW. You are hearing my capture of my performances(and EZDrummer), and only a little reverb, and limiting(on the master bus only -this is another topic altogether- I set the mix without the limiter on the bus, added the limiter plug, and adjusted the plug only…not the mix…mixing into a limiter plug is less than desirable to me). I could easily go in, and tidy up tracks with eq etc, and come out with a cleaner final product…but that wasn’t the goal of this particular recording... it was to be done “quick and dirty”. I went into the studio with a legal pad, a pen, and no song. I sat down and went to work, recording as I wrote. Four hours later, I rendered the posted track. I stopped for a while, probably about an hour during the process, to cook and eat dinner.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is…learn to capture a performance well, and the mix results will be easier and more satisfying…less work fiddling around. Sorry for mouthing off too much.
Sapient
Ambassador of Vocal Inspiration
Oh, no biggie. I was just confused if you were rendering in real-time plugs.
Nope….super rare…I may when I do something with the NAM (Neural Amp Modeling) plug-in that I’ve been goofing around with. But I was capturing external effects as a component of the raw stems.
Guitars were recorded with all the smudgy stuff, and would have benefitted the whole with some eq, like a high pass filter.
Same with the bass…not much smudgy stuff used though.
Vocals were captured with compression and EQ, and I tried to duplicate the reverb I’d set up when monitoring in an external mixer. They would have benefited from some basic EQ correction.
I usually render the EZDrummer plug to audio once I’ve settled on the programming.
I’m torn when recording guitars…wether to capture with, or without, time based effects. Clearly better results come from adding time based effects in the box, but the presence of them during performance is so interactive that it often affects the performance in a positive way. Much like feeding a vocalist some reverb/delay in monitor cans while tracking, but only recording the dry signal. It leaves way more room to work, and makes any editing easier. So, guitars often benefit from a “naked” DI track, taken right from the instrument, before it hits another pedal or amp. That DI track can be sent out for reamping through whatever, or run through whatever amp suite suits you.
I gave your treatment of the track a casual earbud listen. Sounds as good as could be expected when working with a mix that’s been slammed into a limiter. Thanks for even wanting to spend any time polishing that turd. That was very nice of you.
Sapient
Ambassador of Vocal Inspiration
That was an awesome tune I think I mentioned. Yea, what is hilarious is it wasn't until my headphones were unplugged from my laptop that I played the song again and noticed the compression pumping and too much distortion. (I'm sure you noticed but are just being ...kind. Lol) My LAPTOP SPEAKERS revealed this not my DT770PRO cans. Unbelievable. So, sorry I overdid it.
Seems you have some good recording experience with your theories and methodology. Very cool. I never did a whole lot of "band" style recording myself to have special opinions on getting effects while recording and such. I was mainly into mastering, not recording per se. I developed an early pet peeve about wandering about and setting up mics and testing them, then doing it again and again. Also, the anxiety of knocking stuff over and getting around tight places could eat me alive.
You should finish that track, man. It was that good. And the vocals were HUGE!!
If I were submitting it to be mastered, amongst other things, I’d clean it up with some EQ on the stems, and take the limiter off the master to leave the dynamics(and some headroom)for the mastering tech to play with. Mastering is a different rabbit hole altogether….VooDoo magic. Expensive gear.