Equalizer Cutting & Boosting Theory & Audio Spectum analysis.

Eq-ing has been a mystery to me for a long time, for a long time I was just tuning my EQ setting without really understanding what I was doing. Of course I used my ears and it was all good in the end but since I understood what I am describing in this post my mixes sound so much better than before.

Every piece of music has it's own tone and every tone has its own frequency.

A song-key can be in in any of the 12 tones an octave represents.

The equalizer represents the audio spectrum from 20Hz to 20Khz. Al the musical notes can be found in the audiospectrum, this means they can also be found in the equalizer.

For instance;

C1 = 65.406 hz

D5 = 1174.7 hz

etc.

All the musical notes have their own frequency. How can this help?

Let's say in this example you have a song in the key of F minor and you want to cut or boost a frequency. The F minor chord = F + G# + C.

So cutting or boosting the frequency that belongs to F, G# or C would make sense to me.

So how to find these frequency per musical note?

You can find them on the internet but you can also find them in Logic itself, just in 2 easy steps.

Step 1:

Open a Test Oscillator plugin, disable the output (or else you will hear a constant Sine Wave)

Step 2:

Press a note on the keyboard and look at the Test Oscillator Plugin. It will show you the exact frequency.

There is also a funny thing you can experiment with.

Let's say you have a track/loop/piece of 4 sounds.

Sound 1 = 60 to 250 hz

Sound 2 = 250 to 500 hz

Sound 3 = 500 - 2000 hz

Sound 4 - 2000 - 4000 hz

When you put an EQ on you master output you can solo an play with each instrument seperately if you recall the above frequencies. For instance: When you recall (high and low cut) 60 to 250 hz at the master EQ you will only hear sound 1.

There are 7 main EQ Ranges in the Audio Spectrum that I like best.

20 - 60 HZ = Sub Bass

60 - 250 hz = Bass

250 - 500 hz = Lower Midrange

500 - 2000 hz = Midrange

2000 -4000 hz = Higher/Upper Midrange

4000 -6000 hz = Presence

6000 -20000 hz = Brilliance

Just like there are many ways to Rome there are many ways to EQ.

Just wanted to share this with you guys, Because this helped me a lot in my mixing process.

Hope this helps you too!

Radiussound