EQ Suggestions

 BY FREQUENCY

 50Hz
1. Increase to add more fullness to lowest frequency instruments like foot,  toms, and the bass.
2. Reduce to decrease the "boom" of the bass and will increase overtones and the recognition of bass line in the mix. This is most often used on loud bass lines like rock.

100Hz
1. Increase to add a harder bass sound to lowest frequency instruments.
2. Increase to add fullness to guitars, snare.
3. Increase to add warmth to piano and horns.
4. Reduce to remove boom on guitars & increase clarity.

200Hz
1. Increase to add fullness to vocals.
2. Increase to add fullness to snare and guitar ( harder sound ).
3. Reduce to decrease muddiness of vocals or mid-range instruments.
4. Reduce to decrease gong sound of cymbals.

400Hz
1. Increase to add clarity to bass lines especially when speakers are at low volume.
2. Reduce to decrease "cardboard" sound of lower drums (foot and toms).
3. Reduce to decrease ambiance on cymbals.

800Hz
1. Increase for clarity and "punch" of bass.
2. Reduce to remove "cheap" sound of guitars.

1.5KHz
1. Increase for "clarity" and "pluck" of bass.
2. Reduce to remove dullness of guitars.

3KHz
1. Increase for more "pluck" of bass.
2. Increase for more attack of electric / acoustic guitar.
3. Increase for more attack on low piano parts.
4. Increase for more clarity / hardness on voice.
5. Reduce to increase breathy, soft sound on background vocals.
6. Reduce to disguise out-of-tune vocals / guitars.
  

5KHz
1. Increase for vocal presence.
2. Increase low frequency drum attack ( foot / toms).
3. Increase for more "finger sound" on bass.
4. Increase attack of piano, acoustic guitar and brightness on guitars (especially rock guitars).
5. Reduce to make background parts more distant.
6. Reduce to soften "thin" guitar.

7KHz
1. Increase to add attack on low frequency drums ( more metallic sound ).
2. Increase to add attack to percussion instruments.
3. Increase on dull singer.
4. Increase for more "finger sound" on acoustic bass.
5. Reduce to decrease "s" sound on singers.
6. Increase to add sharpness to synthesizers, rock guitars, acoustic guitar and piano.

10KHz
1. Increase to brighten vocals.
2. Increase for "light brightness" in acoustic guitar and piano.
3. Increase for hardness on cymbals.
4. Reduce to decrease "s" sound on singers.

15KHz
1. Increase to brighten vocals (breath sound).
2. Increase to brighten cymbals, string instruments and flutes.
3. Increase to make sampled synthesizer sound more real.

By Instrument:
Drums
Kick
40 to 60 Hz - Bottom: The tone of the reverberation in the shell, sometimes too rumbly, can be undefined/indeterminate depending on the mic'ing/speakers

60 to 100 Hz - Thump: The "punch you in the chest" range of the kick

100 to 200 Hz - Body: This is the "meat," if you will, of the kick sound

200 to 2,000 Hz - Ring/Hollowness: Wide open bandwidth for ringing and muddy kick sounds. Happy hunting.

2,000 to 4,000 Hz - Beater Attack: This is the range to look for the "thwack" sound of the beater, critical for getting that "basketball bouncing" kick sound.

Snare
200 to 400 Hz - Body/Bottom: The central fundamental of most snares

400 to 800 Hz - Ring: The hollow "ring" in snare tone is oft unwanted but it may give life in the mix

2,000 to 4,000 Hz - Attack: stick on head "crack" often found around 8,000 Hz (Sizzle and Snap). The overtone sound of the snares themselves can be accented or dampened around this point. Gates/Compressors, Comb Filtering? Toms

100 to 300 Hz - Body: Tuning Matters... controls variations between "boom"  and "cardboard box"

3,000 to 4,000 Hz - Attack: Crack, stick on the head...

Cymbals
200 to 300 Hz - Clank: Here's where, especially on your hi-hats, the "chink" sound of the cymbal lives.

6,000 Hz and up - Sizzle: This range is where the "tssssssss" part of the cymbals can be brightened up to add some more life and "air" to a cymbal wash, or  bleeding from the ears

Synth "Kick"
If someone went to the trouble of synthesizing it,  they probably like the way it sounded.  Don't mess with it.

Bass
I think of Kick and Bass as one unit dancing with one another. High passing everything else to make these dominate... May be a good idea, maybe not.

40 to 80 Hz - Bottom resonances

80 to 200 Hz - Fundamentals: The primary fundamental of the bass. Right around
180 to 200 Hz is where you can try to cut in on a bass that is too "boomy" to clean it up while preserving fundamentals

200 to 600 Hz - Overtones: These are the upper harmonics of most bass tones, depending on the sound you're interested in. If you're having trouble getting a bass to cut through in a mix, especially a low-end heavy one or one that's getting played back on smaller speakers, this can be where to look

300 to 500 Hz - Wood: Particularly in upright basses, it's that distinctive, woody bark
800 to 1,600k Hz - Bite: The growl and attack of most basses can be either emphasized or toned down around here
2,000 to 5,000 Hz - String noise: Pretty straightforward here, I think

Guitar
Acoustic
120 to 200 Hz - Boom/Body: This is where you'll find most of the explosive low end on a mic'd acoustic that tends to feedback in the live world or be disruptive in the studio. A little bit here adds warmth and fullness on a solo performance, but in a dense band mix, it's probably better to get it out of the way

200 to 400 Hz - Thickness/Wood: Core"body" of most acoustic tones. Too many cuts here, and you're going to lose the life.

2,000 Hz - Definition/Harshness: This double-edged sword band will give the definition to the acoustic tone to hear intricacies in chords and picking, but too much will make it harsh and aggressive

7,000 Hz - Air/Sparkle: A touch, and I mean a touch, of a shelf boost here can help open up an acoustic sound acoustic pickups (piezo) are a wild card. Huge cuts are completely normal. Season to taste.

Electric
Be Gentle that tone is often carefully chosen

80 to 90 Hz and below - Mud: High pass it.  Nothing useful down there.

150 to 200 Hz - Thickness: "guts" of a guitar normally come from, but can quickly cloud a mix. Use sparingly, perhaps automate to beef up a solo and tuck it away when everything else comes in.

300 to 1,000 Hz - Life: I call this the "life" of the electric, as many of the things that make an electric sound like an electric live in this range. So attenuating needs to be taken into consideration carefully. Too much though, and you start fighting with your snare and things like that, so take note.

1,000 to 2,000 Hz - Honk: This is where honky and harsh characteristics can usually be smoothed out with a wide cut centered somewhere in this range.

3,000 to 8,000 Hz - Brilliance and Presence: shimmer and mix cut through when boosted. It can be cut to keep a guitar from conflicting with a vocal overtones. Boosts in this range may cause noise from distortion/effects pedals.

Piano
Mic technique is everything: Strings (low, high) hammers,  resonator, close, distant... because it covers almost the entire range of perceivable sound you might need to dip it in places to make room for other things. Particularly human voice.

100 to 200 Hz - Boom: This can be a great place to add a little warmth to a solo piano in a studio environment, but more often than not will be the first place to cut some of the girth in a piano in a mix or help reduce feedback potential in a live situation

3,000 Hz and above - Presence: Adding a little "air" here can be great to brighten up a dark piano tone, depending on mic placement. Be careful not to bring out the noise of dampers on strings (particularly in the

3,000 to 5,000 Hz range), as this can quickly become distracting and jarring
If we're dealing with a real electric piano over a sample, things can be very situational as amp, mic'ing, and condition of the instrument itself can play such a huge role

100 to 200 Hz - Boom: As with its acoustic counterpart, the low end can go from lush to overgrown Jurassic underbrush quickly. Particularly with the rich, dense harmonics of something like a Rhodes, cutting "mud" is usually your first order of business
800 to 1,000 Hz - Bark: Managing the "bark" and damper noise can sometimes be an issue, but if things are cutting through too much, odds are it's somewhere in this range

Organ (B3)
good mic placement and drawbar settings.  EQ should be applied only as a corrective measure. Look for clashing with the bass (80 to 180 Hz), if it's feeling a "chubby" in the middle or fit with other mid-heavy instruments or guitars, make cuts somewhere between 300 to 500 Hz.

Synths
This tone was a choice… Little more to do but make it fit in the mix.

400 to 600 Hz - Thickness: Many synth sounds can get kind of muddy in this range and mess with the clarity of the sound itself, especially when you start layering multiple synths. Searching somewhere in this range is a good place to start.

1,000 to 2,000 Hz - Cut/Bite: This is where you can usually find the attributes of a synth patch that are going to help it poke through the mix. Cut here to help tuck something back and out of the way, from guitars to vocals.

3,000 to 4,000 Hz - Presence/Clarity: Also like voice and guitar, this range helps add excitement to a sound. possible pain point.

Horns
Saxes
300 to 400 Hz - Honk/Woof: This somewhat depends on what type of sax we're dealing with, soprano to baritone. As we go lower, this point is also going to move lower.

1,000 to 2,000 Hz - Squawk: Again, the type of sax itself may cause this point to float a little more, but you can cut the "parrot on a 'roid-rage bender" tendency of some instruments here.

6,000 Hz - Reed noise: As saxes generate sound from a thin piece of wood vibrating in an air stream, there's a noise that sometimes accompanies this. Right around this point is where to start looking for that vibration.

Brass
100 to 200 Hz - Boom/Mud:  particularly trombone, non- compete clause with bass and rhythm section. Getting it out of the way is usually best, as this range will serve little except to cloud most mixes.

4,000 to 10,000 Hz - Brightness: This top end can brighten up a dark horn section. However, trumpets can nearly take someone's head off in this range with a good blat, so managing this band is key here

Vocal
Male voices, though typically lower than female, have more complex overtone structures, meaning that at least equal attention needs to be paid to the high end of a male vocal as a female.

100 Hz and below - Rumble: For most vocals, all you'll find down here is mic-handling noise, stage/floor vibrations, air conditioners, etc. Get rid of it.

200 Hz - Boom: This frequency is usually where you'll find the "head cold" sound. The female voice may run a little higher, but this is the ballpark. Anyone with allergies or sinus issues knows exactly what I'm talking about.

800 to 1,000 Hz - Word Clarity/Nasality: Not enough and intelligibility of some lyrics may be unintelligible, too much and you get the teacher from Peanuts

3,000 Hz- Presence/Excitement: This is right around the point that tends to add some energy, or some "buzz" to a vocal. Not enough, and the vocal may sound deflated, flat, and dull. Too much, and your listener will feel like he or she is getting poked in the ear canal with a chopstick every time the vocalist opens his or her mouth.

4,000 to 8,000 Hz - Sizzle/Sibilants: Typically this is the range a de-esser is handling. If your vocalist sounds like meat hitting a hot pan at the end of any word ending in "s" or a similar sound, this is where to hunt

10,000 Hz and up - Air: Want to "open up" your vocal a little? Apply a light shelf boost around here and that should do it. This is not always necessary, though, and simply adding "air" for the sake of it can make things harsh, brittle, and introduce noise to the sound

Production Techniques used by The Beatles producer George Martin

Nothing will quite change the trajectory of a band's music, and career,  like a great producer.   This can be seen with Radiohead after teaming up with Nigel Godrich for OK Computer,  and with a slightly less positive but even more tidal shifting collaboration of Mutt Lange and Shania Twain(which ruined country music forever more.)  Then there is Dr. Dre.  and the list especially in Hip Hop, Rap, and R&B goes on and on and on.   However, one relationship stands out above all others: 

The classically trained producer George Martin teaming up with the rock and roll band The Beatles in 1963, producing every Beatles recording from "Love me Do" the first single released to "Abbey Road" - the last album that The Beatles recorded (With the exception of Phil Spector's post production on the Let It Be album).   Martin recorded the first album stereo in eleven hours beginning his legacy as the fifth Beatle.  I would venture to say that without Martin's orchestral arrangements, instrumentation choices and the general use of the medium of recording, The Beatles would have just been a British Band imitating the music of American artists like Buddy Holly.    So where better to look for inspiration than this very fruitful relationship?

What techniques were used to attain the sound ?(miking, mixing, etc.) 

Tips from Geoff Emerick the engineer

Geoff sees audio as color, high treble as blues and silvers, with treble being green,  and bass as browns and golds.  He also chooses to place a small amount of EQ in the recording chain before going down to tape when multi-tracking.

Separation is really important  for the purposes of presence.

Tracking should start with the rhythm track  and he generally won't mike the hi hat unless its a featured part because there will be enough in the snare and overheads.   He also doesn't like taking a direct in from the bass because he sees it as lazy and prefers hearing the interaction between the bass and rhythm guitar.  In the studio he would also record piano stereo and add leads later.  It's best to go for a great performance here than to worry about perfection with the exception of really bad mistakes.

Next overdub a guide vocal to show where to fill in the instrumental overdubs and in the end re-record the final and harmony vocals, double tracked,  if you want orchestral overdubs do that also.

Tips From George on being a producer.

Diplomacy is your first requirement to be a record producer the second is good judgment.   He believes in a firm rapport  but questions his place in actually shaping the song.  but also feels that every one needs to listen to another voice to question and strengthen the creative process

Its up to the record producer to figure out before hand how the recording will go.  It is good to know:

     The arrangement and if there will be orchestra.

     If you want to get people together and the studio and play heads. 

     How many tracks are going down. 

Martin likes the separate roles of Engineer and Producer. 

You must be able to know how far you can go creating the sound you are looking for with out making it muddy or having your sounds run together.  The most important part is that the voice be heard and the song must have a clear interpretation 

Be careful not to take out to much or mix too mechanically when using multi-tracks and close miking techniques

Multi-tracks are a blessing from god, but coming from a limited background where you are mixing from one four track down to another to get more tracks gives you a great sense of forward thought to not get serious degredation problems.

Sequencing is important also once every thing is recorded. Figure out the best order for the songs to be played in to create interest in the listener.  Allow the whole thing to flow together well to sustain that interest then leave them feeling amazing with a last track.  Be conscious of the silence as well. 

Another important ability of a producer is getting inside of the artists head to understand their desire Mcartney was always very definite in his ideas and came up with most of the creative ideas

Lennon didn't like dealing with detail and bringing his ideas to fruition and he wasn't easy to please.  George referred to working with John as an archeological dig.

Example pieces

Yesterday - 1965 Paul recorded his vocal in two takes to his own guitar accompaniment.  George Martin offered the suggestion to add strings and with that Martin's relationship with the beatles began. 

In my Life -1965 George Martin played a piano solo in the middle of the track and then sped it up to twice the speed, acheiveing a baroque sound.  This was the first time that the beatles used tape manipulation to create a special effect

Strawberry Fields Forever -  used tape speed to make the George Martin string and brass composition be in the same key as  John lennon's original song which were then merged together to create the song starting with johns intro and ending with the orchestrated part.

Tommorow Never Knows -  John Lennon wanted a chorus of a thousand Tibetin monks chanting from a mountain top.  Lennon didn't like the sound of his voice and wanted the words but not him to be heard. Martin rose to this challenge by sending Lennon's voice through a revolving leslie speaker.

All you need is Love -  for the world wide live broadcast entitled "Our world"  the Beatles were chosen to represent Great Britain.  george martin played the basic rhythm track through a four track machine while the fab four  overdubed vocals and instruments live with an orchestra playing martins score which started out with  La Marsellaise, the french national anthem,  and closes hinting at Bach's Greensleeves  and glen miller's  in the mood

I am the Walrus - 1967- parts of Shakespear's  King Lear are being fed in from a live radio broadcast during the mix session

A Day in the LIfe - 1967- Paul suggested that there be a 24 bar section of a orchestra gone wrong.  Martin asked each of the forty members of the orchestra  to start on a predecided note and ascend to the highest note that their instrument could play starting softly and finishing loudly playing seperately from their neighbors.  They recorded it four times onto four tracks of a four track tape.

Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite - 1967- always had the spirit of an appropriation piece.  John took the lyrics almost directly   from a victorian promotion poster printed in 1843 for Pablo Franque's Circus Royal.  John initially wanted a hand opperated steam organ but couldn't find one George Martins fix was to compile a tape of steam organ recordings from  sousa marches and othe circusy sounding tracks.  then he had Geoff Emmerick to cut the tape into about sixty foot long pieces and then toss them into the air and reassemble them at random.  George Martin "any that sounded too much like original were turned around and added backwards until finally I arived at a whole amalgam of carousel noies which we used as a background 'wash' to give the impression of a circus"   for the swooping swirly sound that john wanted organ sounds had john play the organ part on one piano at half speed and an octave lower sow that Martin could play chomatic runs fast enough to get the desired effect when the tape was sped up.

 With all of that John had the swirly circus sound that he  was looking for.

George said of production, (from eleven hour records to three week records to records that take years)"What's most important is that a recording have soul.  It must lift the emotions of the listener and come from the heart."

Martin G.  (1983)Record Production.  G. Martin.  Making Music,  New York,  N.Y.  William Morrow and Company (257 - 265).

Emerick G.  (1983) Recording Techniques.  G. Martin.  Making Music,  New York,  N.Y.  William Morrow and Company (257 - 265).

How Does Radiohead Do it?

Radiohead is a special case in music.   

One day after their album "King of Limbs" came out, It had already taken its place crowning the internet top searches.  Millions of YouTube hits and hundreds of bloggers offered interpretations of lyrics, comparisons to previous albums, reposted and otherwise cashed in on the success it was destined for.  'The Robotanists' even went about making  a cover album of the newborn baby within the day. 

  Fans of Radiohead can't seem to get enough, conservative music listeners (the kind that listen to Top 40 radio) are eager to patiently listen to it and try to understand it, marveling in the evolution of the megagroup and relishing in how they (the listeners) are now "Artful" because of the new sounds they are privy to.  'King of Limbs' feels like something that you know shouldn't be alive but keeps looking at you in the face, very much existing.

Many hail "King of Limbs"as Experimental, yet it has become vastly popular with listeners who seem to have missed that memo decades ago re: The arrival of Experimental music. (Bjork, Sigur Ros, Autechre,  Lexaunculpt,  Hrvatski, Matmos, Venetian Snares, Boards of Canada,  IDM, the list is long). Many are quick to pigeon hole, or expect something else, be it the next level on the Experimental ladder, or a retreat back to the good sing-along Karma Police days.  I see it as a step on a obvious trajectory,  Radiohead has been on this path beyond cult ever since teaming up with producer Nigel Godrich for 'Ok Computer' back after they proved that they could be your everyday true rock band. 

'Ok Computer' opened the door to the change that nobody was expecting. The jazz influence snuck in but carried on its back something far more whimsical: Ambiences, open song stuctures, electronic beats, layers upon layers, found woven through out anything Godrich touches.  'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac' dove deeper in the new electronic direction and everyone flipped out because 'Techno' was no longer the only electronic music. But truth be told the music to this day is very specific to Radiohead, it has always been specifically Radiohead and will continue to be characteristically Radiohead.

So let me get this out of my system once and for all.  If you think this new album "King of Limbs" is experimental go listen to Pierre Shaeffer and see where tape music came from,  if you want great pop music with noise overtones and actual depth Radiohead fits the bill.  I have to give props to them, Radiohead keeps opening the ears of those that are unaware of what is out there. Ok. so is not new, but it is very good and the more times I listen to it the deeper in I go.  In my humble opinion, this one hits the mark right where 'In Rainbows' missed... They have created a thick luscious environment,  hung on to instruments,  chopped up some live drums and put them back together.   My first impression is how old the music seems classic, retro like "Baba O'Riley" by The Who.  The textures though are far more complex,  back masking guitars, delay units, and feeding into that stumbling Art Blakey Jazz drum segments,  Living in poly-rhythms, colliding with this lounge exotica sleek swing thing.   And at the top everything delays like dub music fading into an atmosphere to set the stage for more and more looping offset to pretty much obscure the fact that this is thus far extremely minimal repetitive music in standard 4/4.   "Little by Little" sounds like a throwback to Nirvana back in their "Bleach" days,  however Radiohead is still very much there, amongst the whining and through all frequencies.

Peregrinations into Sound Art

Digital concréte is an adaptation of a classical composition style fathered by Pierre Schaeffer in the 1940s it marks the division between the French and German schools of electronic music. The Germans making sound by electronic means (oscilators, etc) and the french manipulation of found sound(tape, records,etc). I do both, but lean towards Concréte...digitally.