Color me EQ’d?!?

I borrowed a P.A. for a show a couple weeks back.

I played a big bar so I needed some extra oomph for the vocals and acoustic guitar.

The thing about this P.A. though was that it was too user-friendly.

Or at least the designers tried to be very clever without consulting any of the engineers that would use it.

You see, instead of any recognizable numbers and names it was all color-coded.

So you could turn the EQ knob from Blue….to….Red….?

That’s about as unhelpful as I can imagine.

No frequency numbers. No guidelines on what the EQ was doing.

It was just like the kitchen sink, either hot or cold.

I can understand that a P.A. that’s probably marketed towards non-engineers might have some special design to it but throw me a bone here!

So if I move it towards the red, does it get warmer?

Does that mean a boost in 200 Hz? Or does it slightly increase 500 Hz while notching out a little bit of 1 Khz?!?

What’s the frequency curve here!

Understandably, I was frustrated. I know I shouldn’t expect a graphical EQ from a small bar P.A. but even just “lows,” “mids,” and “highs” would’ve sufficed. Chris Janton, a subscriber and friend was there and can vouch for my frustrations.

So I just EQ’d my acoustic through the amp and left the P.A. at neutral. Then I EQ’d the vocals to “cold” which was probably a mid-cut of some sorts because it sorted out the muddiness.

I guess if you know NOTHING about EQ the cute, color-coded knobs are fine because you wouldn’t know any better to begin with.

But I recommend actually understanding the frequency spectrum. Knowing exactly which frequencies to cut and boost are a valuable skill to have when it comes to balancing your mix and making your instruments play nice with each other.

It’s the reason I created EQ Strategies – The Ultimate Guide to EQ. When you hear a sound that makes you go “hmm….that’s a little too muddy” I want you to be able to zero in on that frequency and take care of the problem immediately.

None of this EQ’ing in the dark with red and blue knobs. Just simple to use, practical EQ tips that you can use right away to improve your mixes.

Here’s what Joseph, a recent reader had to say about it:

“I like the specific EQ tips for each instrument. They’re all very helpful and I learned quite a few new things: bass harmonics, how to make the beaters pop on kick drums, adding more punch to snare drums, and tips to make guitars sit better in the mix (which also works for lead synths).”

Hit the link below to start getting better at EQ:

www.audio-issues.com/ultimate-guide-eq

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