When someone first gets into home recording they often think of the mixing process in terms of volume level and the pan position from side to side.

I learned early on just how important EQ of instruments, post recording, can be.

My first lesson was after I had recorded my full band and had every instrument panned correctly and the levels appropriate:

Vocals and kick and bass and snare center.

Guitars 10 and 2

And any guitar colors or extra tracks panned more to one side or another.

I found this level and pan by simply copying off a demo track on my digital recorder. 

I was of course mystified why the demo sounded great, yet in my mix the bass was all but sonically invisible, the vocal was buried at the right level and sounded too loud when turned up, and the mix generally sounded very indistinct and mushy.

What I failed to realize was that, although all the instruments were recorded well and sounded good soloed on the mixer, all these signals coming through two speakers at the same time causes a sonic problem.

That problem being that when you have two similar frequencies coming from the same source they will compete, overlap and even mask each other.

While part of mixing is making seperate tracks sound cohesive and together, you still want to be able to hear the nuances of each instrument in a pleasant balance.

Most musicians in bands don’t realize this because they are used to hearing their instruments on stage all come out of separate amps.  So, of course they all sound good even though some of the frequencies might be competing, because the instruments are all coming from different sources.  This is why the front of house sound is sometimes not so good, everything is coming through the same speakers and without any sort of eq can really sound like mush.

So, often times someone who is say, a guitarist, and new to recording, won’t understand that although their guitar sound may be great live, it still has to be EQ’d for the mix to be right. 

The best example I can think of this is heavy rock bands where the guitar players have a lot of bass in their sound.   In order for the bass to be heard, instead of just blending in with the guitars, often bass frequencies have to be cut from the guitars.

Some guitar players will argue you are ruining their sound. But, if you take just enough off, the change to the guitar is not even noticeable but the bass is more audible without adding more volume to it.

The main point here is that when mixing a recording every instrument should have it’s own balance of EQ in relation to the other instruments.

For instance here is some EQ I did for one of my recordings:

Bass:  +5 mids / -3 lo mids / +2 lows

Kick:  +5 highs/ -10 lo mids/ +2 lows

You will notice that more ”lows,”  is added to both instruments, but we take more ,”lo mids,” from the kick. This allows the bass to be heard and not blend with the kick and sound like a blended mush.  You will also notice the bass had only ”mids,” added and the kick had only highs added.  This allows both instruments to still be heavy bass instruments but still have an EQ that lets them be heard within the mix.

In the usual rock band setting…. (one or two guitars, drums and bass,) this is the usual frequency challenge, having the drums and bass get along and be heard without being too loud in the mix.

Similarly, to make a vocal stand out in the mix against a distorted guitar I simply turned up the “highs,” up by about +5.   This allowed the vocal to sit better in the mix and be more audible without sounding like it was too loud in the mix.

That is the real magic of EQ within a mix, to make every instrument heard as if it was a live performance where you can hear every instrument at the correct level.

Some people think that EQ is to fix certain sounds, or a make up for a bad vocal performance.  Such is not the case.

EQ within a mix, is to designate within the sonic spectrum where each instrument is audible.

If you need a guide to mixing then the best book I ever bought was:  The Art of Mixing A visual guide, By David Gibson.  I really can’t say enough about this book.  If you are new to recording this tells you what you really need to know in very understandable terms.

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