How to Overcome the Mental Block of Visual EQ

I sent out this tweet yesterday about my kick drum EQ while I was mixing:

Well THAT’S a weird EQ curve…#kickdrum #EQ pic.twitter.com/u3fb19Y3rT
— Bjorgvin Benedikts (@audioissues) June 24, 2014

I thought it was funny looking.

But the thing is, the way it looked is completely besides the point. Fellow Twitterers were also quick to point that out.

We get so wrapped up in the visuals that we get scared if it looks like we’re cutting or boosting too much.

It has nothing to do with what it looks like and all to do with how it sounds.

Basic Kick Drum EQ

To be honest, that curve doesn’t really look that weird. I’m doing exactly what you would expect from EQ’ing a kick drum.

Shelving the lows – I’m reducing the really low mids to get rid of any overbearing low frequency energy.
Notching out a problem – There’s a notch at around 60 Hz that was causing all sorts of resonance problems so I notched it out with a high Q.
Boosting the fundamentals – Boosting the lows gives that added thump and thickness to the kick (minus that notch of course).
Getting rid of boxiness – Cuts in the mids get rid of the boxy sound. It makes the kick rounder and thicker.
Boosting the click – Boosts in the upper mids make the beater cut through.
Filtering the highs – There’s nothing really going on in the high frequencies in the kick drum except bleed from snare and cymbals so filtering that out cleans up the track nicely.

So in hindsight, that curve doesn’t look weird at all. It’s actually EQ’d with an exact purpose in mind.

Don’t EnginEye, EnginEar

I bet you think more about what the EQ curve looks like whenever you work with a visual EQ like that.

I’d also bet that you EQ more effectively whenever you use a channel strip plug-in that doesn’t have a visual component.

Because when you only have knobs, all you can do is listen.

So next time you’re EQ’ing with your visual EQs try to block that part of your brain that goes:

“Oh! Stitched NHL Patch That looks strange”

Instead, just listen to your ears and go with what sounds good.

P.S.

I’ve got a ton of easy and practical EQ tips in The Ultimate Guide to EQ.

Check out The Ultimate Guide to EQ here:

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

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