How to EQ Drums

eeeek ewing drums can be a very rewarding process you do need to keep in mind that mic placement is critical if you don't place your mics right on the drums you'll never get a good sound using EQ so let's dive in it we'll start at the kick drum and work our way down first thing we'll do is make sure they're a high pass filter is turned off because you want the low frequencies on a kick drum then we'll take out some low mid energy we'll start around 250 Hertz take some of that out the next thing we'll do is take out some mid-range frequencies we'll do a cut around 250 Hertz and another around 5 or 600 Hertz now this helps get rid of the boxy sound or keeps the drum from sounding like it's made out of plastic now that we've got rid of this unwanted frequencies will add some low frequencies and then we can add some high frequencies for attack now if your console lets you choose your low frequency you can choose anywhere between 40 Hertz and 80 Hertz and on the high frequencies you can add some 4k or some 10k now let's move on to the snare snare drums come in a lot of different shapes and sizes and all have their own unique sound first thing we'll do is turn on the high-pass filter this gets rid of any unwanted low frequencies we'll play with a few different frequencies and let you hear what they sound like here and you can decide what you want your snare to sound like low mid frequencies in the snare drum can be a very good thing you might not think that initially but they add a lot of warmth and body to the snare and keep it from sounding too thin and too painful so I'll add some 250 Hertz and let you hear that and then if I take it away you'll hear how thin the drum sounds so I'll go back to zero I'm gonna add just a little now you can also add some three or four K if you want more attack or more cut through the mix [Music] now you have to be careful because this frequency you can also be very painful so too much of it is a very bad thing as you're here it definitely cuts more now if I take this away the drum comes very dull and very dark and would be very hard to pick up mix so we'll go back and add just a little bit now you can also add some high frequencies around 10k this adds air to the drum you may also notice that you hear the cymbals more so you have to be careful and not add too much now every drum is different so any combination of these boosts and cuts might be helpful for you [Music] now I'll move on to the hi-hat first thing we'll do in the hi-hat is put our high-pass filter on to get rid of unwanted low frequencies we'll also go ahead and take out some low frequencies on the EQ just in case anything else is getting by now hi-hat mics are usually used just the supplement when needed so you're probably not going to want a lot of it but if you do you're going to want the high frequencies you might want to take out some three or four K to get rid of the hurt and then you can add some high frequencies if you want it if your hi-hat mic sounds muddy you can take out some low mid frequencies if your hi-hat Mike sounds muddy you can take out some mid-range frequencies so that's hi-hat pretty simple now we'll move on to Tom's now we'll move 1 the Tom's Tom's are similar to kick drum and how you EQ them first thing we'll do is take out some load method energy we'll take out somewhere around 250 Hertz and then we'll also take out somewhere around five or six hundred Hertz so this gets rid of the plastic er boxy sound of a drum now you can add some low frequencies if you need to and then we'll add some high frequencies to this ads attack to the drum you can usually cue both Tom's in a pretty similar fashion and get good results so that's Tom's now we'll move on to overheads now we'll move on to the overheads the first thing we'll do is make sure that the high-pass filter is on because we don't want any unnecessary low frequencies in our overheads now we can start by taking out any mid-range energy that might make the cymbal sound muddy but don't take out too much because you can make your cymbal sound too thin now if your cymbals are piercing or painful to listen to you can try taking out some three or four K this makes the cymbals more pleasant and allows you to push them louder without being painful so that's overheads now I'll push the whole drum kit up and let you hear what everything sounds like altogether [Music]

Channel: OwnTheMix

Views: 278,355

Keywords: eq, audio, Intermediate, console, kick, analog, mixing, snare, to, overheads, ownthemix, how, drums, cymbols, toms, drum heads, cut, boost, midrange, highs, lows, how to

Id: oe0PQDBAlHg

Length: 6min 52sec (412 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 14 2017