to Q or not to Q? how do you know what frequencies are causing problems? (1 Viewer)

[schmegeggin]

Sorry if these questions have been asked before but....

Can someone please explain what Q is in relation to eqs ( I have a yamaha aw4416 and i has one on it but I can't figure it out )?

Also how do you know what frequencies are causing problems?
eg this statement was made on the boards

try dropping off the frequencies in this range, in around the 500hz by about 3-5db, with a Q of about 1.4

Is this knowledge gained only through experience????

thanks

Richard .|..|

 

[egg_]

Is this knowledge gained only through experience????

Kind of
What you're listening out for when you're EQing is usually tracks masking each other - for instance the high frequencies of your hi-hats are louder than the high freqs from your guitar and therefore you can't hear the guitar's high freqs and it sounds dull, or maybe the bass and the bass drum have most of their power in the same frequency range and so they tend to mask each other and when you turn up the bass you can't hear the kick and vice versa.

You can figure this sort of thing out in a painstaking fashion - solo your problem track(s), then add other tracks in turn and see if they're causing the problem. Fiddle around making EQ cuts to the problem causer until the problem goes away. Repeat ad infinitum. You get better at hearing the problems and guessing the causes with experience

There's other things you can do with EQ too - boost the low freqs on a bass or toms to give em more power, boost high freqs in cymbals to give em more 'air', cut low freqs on voice to get rid of mud. It's trial and error at first, but you'll get better as you go.

One other thing, different EQs sound different - '6dB cut at 1.3kHz with a Q of 2' only gives a rough indication of how it's going to sound

 

[schmegeggin]

Sorry if these questions have been asked before but....

Can someone please explain what Q is in relation to eqs ( I have a yamaha aw4416 and i has one on it but I can't figure it out )?

thanks egg, found this on the Q knob

Q knob
This sets the steepness at which the boost/cut will occur at the center frequency specified by the F(requency) knob. Higher settings will produce a steeper curve.
For the LOW band EQ, turning the Q knob all the way in the clockwise direction will switch the EQ type to L.SHELF (shelving), and turning it all the way in the counter-clockwise direction will switch the EQ type to HPF (high pass filter).
For the HIGH band EQ, turning the Q knob all the way in the clockwise direction will switch the EQ type to H.SHELF (shelving), and turning it all the way in the counter-clockwise direction will switch the EQ type to LPF (low pass filter).

 

[egg_]

thanks egg, found this on the Q knob

Ho ho, re-read your post and I see I didn't answer your main question at all


Yeah, the Q knob controls the steepness of your cut/boost curve - if you're boosting 12 kHz and up with a very high Q, you'll get no boost at 11.9 kHz and lots at 12 kHz. If the Q is low, you'll get a bit of boost at 10 kHz, a bit more at 11 kHz, a good bit at 11.5 kHz, etc

 

[kmastering]

Q is bandwidth boys. If you turn up 1Khz with a wide bandwidth then you'll turn up a whole chunk of freqs, if it's narrow you'll turn up those freqs immediately around 1Khz (depending on how narrow it goes). A wide bandwidth or low (?) Q sounds more authentic than a narrow band width. Digital eq (most) sounds better with a wide bandwidth.

 

[Pantone247]

I'm ashamed to say I have no EQ plug-ins... therefore...*gasp* NO EQ!

It used to kill me but I've gotten around it... though I really wish I could add a bit of sparkle to my accoustic guitar... currently I run it thru MDA's Combo amp sim plug in... actually anything needing a treeble boost gets the MDA combo... it's... y'know... okay.... I guess...

If anyone has a good FREE FULLY WORKING VST EQ plug in for a Mac Os 9

please help me....

 

[karljacuncha]

I'm ashamed to say I have no EQ plug-ins... therefore...*gasp* NO EQ!
...
If anyone has a good FREE FULLY WORKING VST EQ plug in for a Mac Os 9

please help me....

no eq?!!? meep
what host program you using? there must be _some_ eq you can mess with...

...dang - can't find it now, but i had a list of stuff (mostly gleaned from the net or those computer music mag cds) that i use (cubase4 on os9) - i'll try n remember to post it here tomorrow if yer interested

-karl

 

[egg_]

though I really wish I could add a bit of sparkle to my accoustic guitar...

Use brand new strings. I'm sure you know that anyway, here's something you mightn't know though - restringing an acoustic with just the high strings from a set of 12-string strings can add a nice bit of fairy dust. Course it means you'll have to be doing a lot of re-stringing if you want to switch back and forth

(Now if only you could figure out a way to get access to a nice mic you wouldn't need EQ to make your guitar sparkle ...)

 

[kraster]

if you're boosting 12 kHz and up with a very high Q, you'll get no boost at 11.9 kHz and lots at 12 kHz.

Egg, sorry to be a complete anorak but This isn't entirely true. Because no Eq (Apart from Really expensive Weiss Eqs) Have that steep a Q curve. You will get slight boosting around the Center frequency because Q is curve based not linear. Also Masking is not always caused by the same frequencies being used. It's also caused by comb-filtering as a result of bad phase correlation. In digital systems When using digital plugins it's 100% essential to compensate for the delay incurred by plugins or your mixes will sound washed out from lack of phase coherence.

 

[Pantone247]

no eq?!!? meep
what host program you using? there must be _some_ eq you can mess with...

...dang - can't find it now, but i had a list of stuff (mostly gleaned from the net or those computer music mag cds) that i use (cubase4 on os9) - i'll try n remember to post it here tomorrow if yer interested

-karl

I have a cracked version of Cakewalk Metro 5, came with an EQ plug in, so I backed all this on CD, then lost everything in a crash, when I took it back off the CD everything but the Plug Ins worked.... the plug ins were fucked.

So I had to start from scratch, good because I dumped sooo many shit plug ins... I've a really nice lean bunch of good VSTs now... but bad because I've never got a decent EQ back in there... *sigh*

Yeah if you could point my in the direction of one that would rule

I so could not be arse Peer to Peering for hours on end looking for one...

 

[Pantone247]

(Now if only you could figure out a way to get access to a nice mic you wouldn't need EQ to make your guitar sparkle ...)

ha ha ha ha... if only!!

of course then I'd need a decent pre-amp... then a decent guitar... then a decent basswith no warp on the neck... before you know it all my lo-fi cred is out the window!!



I've heard that tunning trick, referred to as Nashville tunning quite a lot (for obvious reasons), I'd love to have a shitty cheap acoustic strung like that, I imaigne it's quite nice double tracked in there...

 

[egg_]

Egg, sorry to be a complete anorak but This isn't entirely true. Because no Eq (Apart from Really expensive Weiss Eqs) Have that steep a Q curve.

I realise that dude, I was just trying to explain the concept

Also Masking is not always caused by the same frequencies being used. It's also caused by comb-filtering as a result of bad phase correlation.

... but that's comb-filtering, not masking, isn't it? The causes and remedies for the two are quite different, I would have thought. Am I wrong?

 

[karljacuncha]

So I had to start from scratch, good because I dumped sooo many shit plug ins... I've a really nice lean bunch of good VSTs now... but bad because I've never got a decent EQ back in there... *sigh*

Yeah if you could point my in the direction of one that would rule

ok so - it took me this long to get around to replying, and i'm too lazy to go through all this properly
but there's 100+ plugins of various sorts (VSTIs and VSTFX) slowly uplaoding to:
http://symbollix.org/dl/VstPlugIns.sit
(should be there from 4pm)

you probably have some already, some are crap, some only work with vst 2 (or is it 3? - they won't work in cubase 4 anyway), some i've never even tried using
...but there should be _something_ in there of use to you

is 66MB too big?
well tough shit if it is

anyone else who wants 'em - work away, but they're all mac os 9 ones only

-karl

 

[kraster]

I realise that dude, I was just trying to explain the concept


... but that's comb-filtering, not masking, isn't it? The causes and remedies for the two are quite different, I would have thought. Am I wrong?

Anorak again. Masking is but one of the effects of comb-filtering. There are other equally unpleasant effects like bad stereo imaging, phase cancellation
Lack of or too much bottom end. Etc etc. But the basic issue is with phase. As regards digital eq you can get a lot of uneven partials and clangorous sounds because they are not linear phase. Comfy Anorak.

 

[Cooperman]

Bunch of nerds..

Your all really missing the point. Theres lots of deffinitions about eq and q up there (by the way kmastering, digital eq is better with wide bandwidth???? a bit general dont you think. And someone mentioned that eq, bar the fancy wiess, dont have sharp slopes, that aint true either)

Your all sound like your mixing by numbers, obvously its useful to know what the tecnicalities are but really its all about how it sounds and if theres a knob or button you cant figure out by listening to the effect it has then dont bother going near it.


Listen for god sake!!! Thats what its all about


Coop!

 

[Chocohead]

ive been using the graphic on itunes to clean up the eq of two mixed but muddy tunes. works very handy. I know that answers nothing.