Boom! Today I'm going to show you the 11 EQ mistakes I've made hundreds of times myself over my 25 year career in producing
music, in the hopes that you can avoid making these mistakes and save yourself loads of
time and make your music instantly sound way better. Now, it's worth noting, it doesn't
matter which genre of music you produce or which digital audio workstation you're using,
these 11 mistakes and fixes are going to apply to you. My name is Will from EDM Tips, over the
last six years I've been teaching thousands of bedroom music producers just like you get their
music to a professional level and released on some of the world's biggest labels like these
guys showing up on the screen. Now, but before we go into these 11 EQ mistakes, let's just
listen to a track before i've identified these mistakes and then listen to it after
these mistakes have been identified and fixed. So, it sounds pretty good but now let's listen to it once we've identified
these mistakes and fixed them. Hear the difference? It's quite subtle but
it's more full-bodied, powerful, and just a more professional thick sounding mix. Now, mistake
number 11 ties all of the other mistakes together so make sure you stick around for the whole
video to understand how each point affects the others. Without further ado let's hop into the
DAW and get it done. Oh, and if you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to my channel for tutorials
like this each and every week, and if you want more mixing tips, you can download my free mixing guide
below this video to instantly improve your music. Okay, so we're going to go straight for the jugular
for this first mistake and this is something that I'm guilty of advising people on. It is using
surgical EQ sweeps too much. Now, using surgical EQ sweeps is really a useful thing for identifying
problems in a sound. So, if we listen to this guitar sound from a track that I've just released,
which you can check out below, it sounds like this. Okay, cool! So, with an EQ sweep usually what you
would do is you would load on an EQ. In this instance I'm using the FabFilter Pro Q3, great
EQ, and then you would boost a bell curve like this to quite a high level and quite a narrow cue
setting, and then sweep up and down, listening for any resonant tones that just pop out and sound
horrible. Now, the trouble is and what people often do is they will do this too much and if you
boost any frequency with a high EQ value too high, it's going to sound horrible. Like listen
to that. It's all resonant and horrible, awful. So, the usual thing to do at that point
would be to cut that down by a couple of db, and so it goes. So, then you might add
another one and then look for a horrible sounding frequency but the mistake is,
again, we've got a narrow bell curve ... Oh, that sounds awful. We best dip that
down. Now, if you imagine doing that like eight or ten times on every sound, what you end
up with is this strange comb filter type sound. So, if we just do it a few more times, let's
boost up listen for a horrible frequency. Oh, well that's horrible, isn't it?
The thing is as I've just mentioned every frequency is going to sound horrible if
you boost it that much, simply because it's too loud compared to all the other frequencies.
Now, if we turn this off, it sounds better and, if you imagine doing this another
five times, what you'll end up with is a thin and really sounding instrument,
and that's what you want to avoid doing. Now, having said that, as I've mentioned,
surgical EQ is very, very useful. So, if you've got a vocal or a guitarist, and you listen
to it without any EQ on it, and you can hear a problem frequency, you just think: "Okay, there's
something that sounds a bit ringy or a bit tinny." That's when you use the surgical EQ sweep and
then you do exactly what I've just shown there but not so high, perhaps like plus 10 or plus 15
db, until you hear it just really boost at that resonant point, and then by all means you can duck
it down by a few db but, as I said, if you overdo this and you use it where there isn't a problem,
any frequency that you boost with a narrow cue and a bell curve is gonna sound horrible and then
you run the risk of ducking too many frequencies and ending up with a bad sounding instrument. So, we
kind of went in at the deep end there but I wanted to cover it straight away. So, let's get on to EQ
mistake number two and that is not using high pass and low pass filters on pretty much everything. So,
if you think about a mix, especially when it comes to dance music, but really all kinds of popular
music, you've got a lot of information down in the bass frequencies and the low mid frequencies
because that's where a lot of instruments share those frequencies. So, when you think of a voice
or a piano and some of the drums as well, there's going to be a lot of information down in that 200
hertz, between like 100 and 400 hertz range, so we need to make sure that we're cutting out unwanted
low frequencies. Now, especially with dance music, you want plenty of room for your kick and your
bass, so if we listen to our kick and bass here, and we've got the drums in there as well,
that's fine, that's taking up pretty much all of the low end, so we need to make sure
it's got the space to breathe, and we're not going to end up with a muddy mix. So, if you look
at our piano here and listen to it on its own, it sounds a bit tinny but that's fine because
it's all about the context and you can see here i've just taken out everything under about 110
hertz, quite brutally, actually. So, if we were to take that EQ off, you can see there's
all of this low end information here that's completely unneeded. All
it's doing is muddying up the mix, and similarly if we go over to the
vocals, let's listen to the vocals... You can see here, there's all of this low frequency
in this spectrum analyzer that's not being used and if we roll off all of the high end just
so we're hearing what's going on down here, all it is is muddying up our mix. So that's why on
pretty much every element I recommend a roll off of the low end, so a high pass filter. The only
thing to look out for is that you don't roll it off too high. So, for most instruments you can
roll it off around 80 to 120 hertz, somewhere like that, without losing the body that you need,
especially when it comes to vocals you; don't want to be rolling it off too high, but when it comes
to things like high hats and the really high up instruments, you can roll you can roll it off up
into the thousands of hertz, it's fine. Anything that's not needed, just get rid of it. Now, the
flip side of that is having a low pass filter. So, there's a lot of information in the high end
as well, especially when you've got high hats, maybe synthesizers and stuff like that, so anything
that can be rolled off slightly in the high end with the sound that's not needed is also
possible. So, if we listen to our strings, they're quite low down strings. So I might see what I can get away with. Rolling off some of the high end. Now, this has
a much less of an impact than rolling off the low end because low end waves are much bigger but
it's still important to consider is having the low pass filters to make sure you've got enough room
in the high end for the most important elements to shine through your mix. Okay, on to EQ mistake
number three. Now, this one is a bit advanced and I don't recommend this for most people most of
the time but if you're creating music that has an acoustic instrument, like a vocal or a
guitar recorded, sometimes there might be a frequency that you don't like but only in a part
of that take. So, you might like that frequency to be there for say most of the guitar but then you
get to a particular part of the guitar, where that frequency is not wanted. Now, if you remove it with
a normal EQ, then you're going to be taking away the energy that you like from the rest of the
part. So, if we listen to this guitar, for example, there are two parts to it: one part's lower
and one parts higher. So, let's listen from here and then we go up higher but you can hear here... Hear Hear!? You
can hear here that the guitarist has accidentally hit a lower note, so you
can hear this lower strum as well. So, if we were to apply an EQ to get rid of that, you can hear we're getting
rid of that low frequency, which is great, but if we keep that low
frequency removed for the whole guitar part, it sounds a bit thin here,
especially when we go lower. So, this note here sounds a bit
thin, whereas if we turn the EQ off, there's a bit more body to it, and
let's see if we can hear it more here. So you can hear if we remove that frequency for
the whole guitar part, we're taking out some of that low end energy. Now, what you can do at that
point is simply automate your EQ. Now, as I said, you won't need to use this in most situations but
just because something is going to utilize the EQ and make it sound better at one point in the
take it doesn't mean it's going to do that at every point in the take so in this example
you might just automate this node to come on just for that high part of the guitar,
and then automate it to turn off again after that part has happened. Now, mistake number
four is something that I made for years, which is not training my ears to be able to determine these
different frequencies. So, if you struggle to hear some of the nuance in the last few examples that
I showed you, I thoroughly recommend a couple of websites. Either one is great. You've got SoundGym.com and you've got the Quiz Tones Ear Training app. Now, both of these involve spending five or ten
minutes a day, playing these little games. They're actually quite fun and they help you determine
what frequencies you're actually hearing, which will help your mixing immensely.They also work
on what you're hearing, in terms of compression and reverb, and I recommend these tools to my
Accelerator students and we swear by them at EDM Tips. Just a few minutes of using these apps
every day or two, and you're going to be way better at determining what frequencies you're actually
hearing within a couple of weeks. Now, EQ mistake number five is something that's often taught over
the internet. I've taught it myself as well but there's more to it than that, and that is mixing
just by cutting in your EQs, just by using eq cuts. Now, hear me out. Yes, EQ cuts are super
important because you need to get rid of the unwanted frequencies, as I just showed you
with the guitar sample a couple of points ago, If there's a low frequency there that you don't
need or whatever the frequency is, of course, you need to cut that to get rid of it but additive
EQ does have its place as well, and sometimes there's nothing that will get the job done rather
than just a little bit of additive EQ to add some high end sparkle or some body in the low end; but
there is a caveat to that. I'm about to show you an eq mistake number six. Before we do that, let me
know if you're enjoying this video so far, leave a comment below, give me a "hell yeah" or "amen brother"
if you are feeling holy, and let me know what do you struggle with with music production. I can't
promise I'll be able to help but I can promise to try and if you're enjoying this video so far,
please, hit that like button below. Only takes a second and it really helps me out. Okay, on to EQ
mistake number six and that is only using digital parametric EQs. Now, don't get me wrong, these tools
are exceptionally useful, especially when it comes to cutting problem frequencies, as we already
looked at. So, for example, the EQ8 in Ableton, there's a parametric EQ, we can see the readout,
helps us determine where we want to be cutting. We can choose exactly the frequencies and the
EQ values, all very good, but there are a couple of problems to only using this kind of EQ as
opposed to the other kind of EQ that I'm going to recommend, which are analog modeled EQs. See, we
can get distracted by our eyes sometimes, it's very useful to have a look and see what's going on but
sometimes we can rely too much on our eyes when we should really be learning to use our ear, which,
again is going to help determine what frequencies we know we need to be cutting and boosting, and
this comes with practice; and if you're only using an EQ more like this, which is an analog model
EQ, then you can see we've got limited controls. Our readout only shows the levels, it doesn't
show which frequencies are being hit, so we have to train our ears to use these but the second
reason I recommend using these as well, especially for boosts, is that they have a musicality to them
because they are modeled on analog equipment so the modeling also involves the circuitry, so
it can warm up a sound, add extra harmonics, smooth out that, and just sound a bit less tinny
and a bit more pleasurable to the ear. Especially when it comes to boosts. Now, let me give you a
quick example of that. If we've got our vocal here, I'm going to do an extreme example
so you can really hear the difference. Let's just give a little bit
of a boost at five kilohertz, just to give a little bit
more brightness to the vocal. Now, we could do that with the parametric
EQ as well, so I could do it with the pro q3. Was that five kilohertz and how much
was it? I think it was two decibels wasn't it? So, let's just do a two decibel
gain and if we switch them out. It's quite hard to hear the difference
when we're only doing a two decibel boost. If we start boosting this more though,
say to nine decibels, obviously, this is going to be way too much and
the vocals will sound too bright but it still doesn't sound too unpleasant. If we
were to now put that 9 decibel boost with our pro q3, which is a lovely
transparent digital parametric EQ. So, let's just boost that up by nine decibels and now let's listen to it. It's a very subtle difference but it's a tinier
sound. It's just less pleasant as the frequencies are super digital and super focused in. There's
no, kind of, rounding it off with extra harmonics, it's a very subtle difference in this example, but
if you have this over many different items in your track, you can really start to hear the difference.
And on the master channel as well. If you've got a little bass boost with analog modeled EQ, and then
a little high boost with an analog model EQ, it'll just give you a more musical, smoother, more organic
finish and that's why I generally recommend doing EQ cuts with a parametric digital EQ but
then EQ boosts with an analog modeled EQ. Now, the next mistake is an absolute game changer,
and that is contrary to the previous point: not using spectrum analyzers. So, the spectrum
analyzer I recommend to my students is Span by Voxengo. It's free and it does enough of what you
need to do with just a free version, but the main reason I really like it is that it's resizable. Now
whilst, yes, using your ears is ultimately important, the trouble with that relying totally on your ears
is that we can lose objectivity, especially when it comes to mixing. If we listen to the same loop
over and over again, and I know you know what that feels like, you can start to lose track of what
it should be doing, and that can be really hard, so every good producer I know, will use reference
tracks, especially when it comes to the mix. So, if we listen to the mix down of my track,
this is an older project (same track but an older version of the project), you can see I've got a few
reference tracks here. One of which is Tiesto's The Business. Now, I want to get the frequency spread
to be pretty similar because they're both modern house tracks in the same genre so I know what I
need to be aiming for, and this is what I use as a reference. Now, you can see here on this track
I've got one of these Voxengo Spans. Boom! And then on my master channel I've got a Voxengo Span
as well. I open them up to be the same size and if we now look at them, we'll play my track and
we'll be able to see Tiesto's track as well. You can see this is Tiesto's track. There's the
kick, there's the bass there, and here's my frequency spread; and you can
see by having them the same size, side by side, I pretty much got that match nicely. It rolls
off a little bit at the top end here, the low end energy is about the same as well, and then it's
a pretty even spread across the mid frequencies. Now, I've used this reference whilst making the
changes on my track, especially the last tweaks say with the EQ on the master channel, like
so, and, yeah. So, using a spectrum analyzer is ultimately important. Yes, of course you want to
be ultimately or firstly relying on your ears but your ears aren't perfect so using visual
cues as well is very important trick. Now, the next EQ mistake is one of the biggest mistakes
I ever see people making and that is thinking that EQ is going to solve just having the wrong
sounds in your mix. And it really doesn't! I mean, I'm going to give you a little example here of
how choosing the wrong sound will make all the difference, regardless of whether you
add any EQ after it. So, in the track we've got this kick and I'm just going to switch it out
whilst we listen to it. So, let's have a listen. let's just find a different kick. Listen to the difference. That's the new
kick, this is the other one. On its own. Just the kick and the bass.
Let's put that new kick in. Just doesn't work. For some tracks
it will work but not for this one. So, regardless of what EQ or compression I was
going to do after that, kick it's always going to sound bad and it's always going to sound weak
because I chose the wrong sound in the first place. And I think I made a video on this a few weeks
ago so I'm going to link to it there if I did. Anyway, that's a really important tip. An absolute
game changer. Just spend the 10 or 15 extra minutes choosing the right sounds at the beginning.
Okay, EQ mistake number nine and that is not gain matching your EQ after you've made boosts
or cuts. And that basically means you're either increasing the volume or decreasing the volume,
when you're making your boost or your cut, and that's going to confuse your ears as to what the
eq is actually doing. Because, generally speaking, if it sounds louder, your ears are going to think
"oh, that sounds better", and if it sounds quieter you might think "oh, that sounds worse". When really
it's not a fair match, you're not comparing apples to apples. So, this is how you do that. If we've
got our vocals here and we just have a listen. I'm going to add a bit of an EQ boost, as shown
before, with this analog modeled EQ from Waves. Let's open it up. Okay, now let's add the boost. So, we'll
turn that EQ on, we'll add our boost. So I've added two decibels at five kilohertz, so that's actually slightly louder.
The whole signal is slightly louder because I've boosted these frequencies. Now, the way
to get around this is to just take the output down of your plug-in of your EQ and if it doesn't
have an output on the EQ, you can just use a trim plug-in in Ableton. It's called the Utility
but it's called the Game plug-in if you are using Logic, I think. It's the game plug-in so
you just need to kind of gain match it and the way to do that is go to your mixer channel and see what levels it's hitting before you
do any EQ. So, let's just reset that Okay, it's peaking about minus 6.6 So, if we turn
this on, let's see what it's peaking at now. Minus 4.7. So I need to now take this down
so it's peaking at about minus 6.7. Again. Okay that's about right. So, now,
if we just group these together Let's take the mouse and group them together. Now we've got a fair test. So, when
we're a/b checking to see if the EQ has actually improved our sound or made it worse, now we're going to be listening to the same
gain going in and the same gain going out. So, now I'm only listening to the difference
that the EQ boost is making without having the whole volume increased. Very
important tip. Okay, EQ mistake number 10 and that is not EQ'ing in context; and
that means listening to your element in the mix with everything else playing. Now,
I'm going to give you some tips on how to avoid making that mistake now as well.
So, if we listen to our piano on its own, you know it kind of sounds a bit weak, and that's because i mixed it in context,
whereas in the mix with everything else it sits perfectly in the mix.
And that's because it's useless making a sound sound amazing on its own if
it's going to clash with everything else and not sound great. Now, as I said, I'll
give you a tip on how to avoid that issue. So, first let's listen to what the piano
would sound like if I just mixed it not in context. This is what it would probably
sound like, I'd get rid of this bouncing effect,, i'd probably have more low end, probably a bit of a boost in the low end, actually, like that. Sounds more powerful, right? So,
that's what it would sound like if i was just mixing it on its own, not in context. So, what
I recommend doing is firstly do mix it on its own so it's sounding good with nothing else playing.
That's what I would have done with this first but then when you bring it into everything else,
you're going to have to do some of that mixing again, and it's usually going to involve taking
out frequencies because you've already got it sounding really good. Now, the way that you can
do that is using my top down mixing approach. So, if you mix the most important elements first,
that is the kick, the bass, the main clap, or snare, and the main vocal or lead synth, everything else
just has to come up underneath that and sound good; and you can cut out everything that's not
adding to your mix or everything that's clashing with those core elements. So, if you can get those
four or five core elements sounding great together, everything else you can be really quite ruthless
with when it comes to chopping out the EQ, chopping up the frequencies. So mixing in
context is really important, EQing in context. Which takes me on to EQ mistake number 11
and this is super, super important and it is having an intention. By that I mean when you put an
EQ onto a sound and start making tweaks, make sure you already know what you want to be doing. Trust
your ears, like when you listen to a sound and you think "okay, it needs boosting in the high end" or "it
needs cutting out this frequency" or "I should take the low end rumble out", make sure you've got that
in your head before you actually load on the EQ. Otherwise you're just kind of putting an EQ
on for the sake of it and shooting in the dark. So, having an intention and this really applies
to everything you do in music production, apart from when you're experimenting with sound design
and stuff like that, just knowing what you want to achieve before you set out and get the tools to
achieve it. If you think about when you're hanging a picture on the wall, you already know that you
need a hole in the wall, you know what drill bit you need, you know what size screw needs to go in
the hole, etc, etc. You wouldn't just get out a drill and start randomly drilling holes in the wall. You
have an intention beforehand and it's exactly the same when it comes to EQ'ing so make sure you
have an intention. Anyway, if you do want more mixing tips, if you want some of my most powerful
mixing tips, do download my free mixing guide below this video and I really hope you found this useful.
If you do want more in-depth coaching, if you want some one-on-one time with me and to get to a
professional level as quickly as possible, and join some of my other students getting signed to
some of the world's biggest labels, making music full-time for a living, then check out my Music
Production Accelerator course. You can find out all the details, you know, below this video and
perhaps we'll be working together soon. Thank you so much for joining me. Hope you found this useful,
and until next time. Cheers and happy producing!
