It actually makes total sense to me. Especially when you said towards the end that our brains get used to stuff quickly and we think it sound good when we eq stuff slowly when it actually isn't.
Man, when I saw this trick in your mastering course it blew my mind. This is one of the top mixing tips I've ever learned, and I've been learning mixing tips for decades now.
Thank you so much Greg! You've grown so so much as a producer, songwriter, and mixing engineer. I'm honored to have been part of that process. Cheers homie! 🤘
I wasn't quite getting the lowend right on a master, and I did this "bouncy" trick (instead of small adjustments) on the boost and attenuation settings for Wave's Pultec, and it came out so much better. That boost and attenuation can be tricky, but with this trick you can really hear the difference and better settle on a pleasing sound. Thanks again, Bobby!
Great advice - especially "work fast" - used to spend ages eq-ing things before hearing this advice years ago from Chris Lord Alge... it's amazing how quickly the ear adapts, especially to high frequencies - then you listen the next day and it's like nails down a blackboard! Watching other engineers, it's amazing how many 'bounce' their changes probably without being aware of it - excellently articulated!
I originally started doing this in Photoshop back in 2003 or whatever after watching Deke McClelland's tutorials (videos were strange before RU-vid) for it. He did a lot of back and forth bouncing of values in Levels and Hue/Saturation etc. to see where the picture looked right to him. I think I've unconsciously done this in Reaper forever too. :D Another useful thing I do is... I make a notch filter in EQ (a band where gain goes all the way down) and then do a sweep just to identify where the annoying frequency is. When the track opens up, that's when I've found it. I then dial the band to -3dB or -6dB according to what works (or use the bouncing method). A lot of people like to sweep by boosting, and I used to do this all the time too. But now that my ears are bit more tuned to listening to mixes, I find cutting sweeps a lot more useful. Also... NEVER look at the screen while you're doing the "bouncing". Your brain will tell you "it's too much" or "that's not enough" if you see the change you are making. Grab the control and close your eyes. Your ears will tell you the right spot.
It's very insightfull to watch you going through your mix commenting your findings. The bouncing EQ method seems to me the only one that brings good results that quickly. I believe in times when we were tweaking the knobs on the mixing console, when we had the full control in our fingers, it was a natural, intuitive movement that got lost since we are using only the mouse. I think it is a good idea to bring back this "oldschool habit" into our workflow, even when there are no knobs anymore to tweak on.
Exactly! It seems a lot has gotten lost in translation during the transition to primarily digital recordings. We are rediscovering so much that was left behind, which is a bit of a shame haha! Thanks for the comment!
When I saw this video pop up it seemed like it would have been gimmicky but I like the way you tried to help people approach eq. I'm a professional audio engineer and do actually tend to do something similar (I hadn't thought about it as a technique though), although when it's on live mixes I am more cautious because of feedback. One of the other things I do is once I think I found my frequency I'll slide back and forth the frequency once I've got it in place to make sure it's the right frequency. Sometimes a small shift up or down can make a big difference. I think the key is speed so your ears don't adjust to what your hearing and deceive you. Also don't be afraid to go back to 0 on something and make sure it's not just needing a volume tweak. It's easy for things to get out of control quickly with eq and just cause destructive phase and gain staging issues. Also don't forget the Q adjustment. Thanks for the video.
Usually that scratchy stuff is around 2-3 K. I'd probably try to cut something with EQ there or I might try a LPF around 3.5 Khz if the really high stuff is cutting through the mix. Hope that helps!
Bobby, I've noticed you use this channel strip EQ post the inserts. Is it something that you do by default? Shouldn't we balance the instrument frequency spectrum before we hit any of the plugins? I would appreciate your answer very much! Thanks! 🙂
It just depends. I generally do subtractive before, boosting afterward. That works in most situations. Sometimes compression changes the tone, and you might want to compensate with eq after.
Great catch! The EQ channel in cubase does (for the most part) come after the inserts. The reason I use it often for these videos is to keep things simple. The EQ you watch me use will directly effect the sound that you are hearing in a LINEAR way. If I use an EQ before a bunch of plugins that are NON-LINEAR, the results can be unpredictable and can confuse someone that is trying to fundamentally understand how an EQ works and how it impacts the overall sound. You are a week or two ahead... I'm going to do a deep dive into non-linear processing, aliasing, and the differences with analog gear... Can't wait for that one to drop! Hope that helps! Thanks for the good comment 🙂🤘
When someone completes your mastering course do their credentials come on certified cracker jack paper? Or at least a damn good copy, similar to those that you have. Something about your trick work though because normally I can bounce right past these infomercial garbage ads but I bounced on in and thought I'd say hi.
