Release Year: 2012
Producer: Dance Music Production
Website: www.dancemusicproduction.com/?news=sessions-06-eq
Author: Charles Boner
Duration: 03:30:00
Type of Material Handout: Video Lesson
Language: English
Description: In this 3-hour lesson, we’ll cover all aspects of equalization. We’ll begin with a review of the science of sound, the fundamentals and generation of harmonics, and examine how our perception changes with changes in loudness and frequency, and how this relates to equalization. We’ll examine the bandwidth factor Q and why octaves are important.
We’ll explore octave frequency ranges, the exponential nature of octaves, and what this means for equalization applications. We’ll also examine IIR and FIR (minimum phase and linear phase) and how they are created. We’ll also look at musical curve response and surgical EQ, shelving filters, overshoot, and the Nyquist theorem.
But most importantly, we’ll see how all this information can be combined to complete an EQ look and how it’s used to create a mix with clarity and depth, rather than something muddy and inconsistent.
For Sessions 06 and due to popular request, we’ll discuss and examine EQ in the detail you’ve come to expect from DMP.
With a focus on its use in dance music production, we’ll lift the lid on one of the most popular yet most mix-destroying processors ever conceived…
EQ is one of the fundamental tools in music production and the main ingredient for producing a great final mix. However, it also happens to be one of the most misunderstood, misused, overused, underused, and abused processors available.
On the surface EQ is little more than a tone control and at its simplest level it offers you the ability to either boost or cut a specific range of frequencies. However, while it doesn’t take an awful lot of research to learn what each parameter does and the effects it will impart on audio, this is very different from being able to use it with any real skill.
In this 3 hour tutorial we examine all the aspects of EQ. Starting with with an examination of the science of sound, fundamentals and harmonic generation we examine how our perception changes with volume and frequency and how this applies to EQ. We look at the bandwidth Q factor and why octaves are important.
We study the octave frequency range, the exponential nature of octaves and what this means for the application of EQ. We examine both IIR and FIR (minimal phase and linear phase) and how they are created. We also take a look at the response curves of musical and surgical EQ, shelving filters, overshoot, the Nyquist theorem and the problems of frequency cramping
But most important of all, we look at how all of this information can be combined to complete the image of EQ and how that’s used to create a mix with clarity and depth rather than creating something that’s muddy and incoherent.
Content :
Intro: 02 minutes
Session 01: EQ History: 18 minutes.
In this first session, we discuss the history of EQ, how it was developed and the father of EQ – Dr. Charles Boner
Session 02: Acoustic Science: 23 minutes.
Here we examine the theory of acoustics, introducing the viewer to the fundamental and harmonic series, exponential octaves, frequencies and the loudness control curve
Session 03: EQ Parameters: 27 Minutes.
For this session we take a look at the parameters on a typical EQ, including Q and why we refer to Q in values rather than frequencies.
Session 04: IIR, FIR and Phase: 19 minutes
Here we discuss FIR and IIR filters, which is best for a given situation and also discuss the phase and pre-echo (ringing) ‘problems’ introduced by EQ.
Session 05: Musical Vs Surgical: 31 Minutes
Any discussion about EQ leads to the subject of musical and surgical EQ’s along with cutting and boosting. Here we examine the differences between EQ considered to have a musical EQ to a surgical EQ – how we determine musicality of EQ and the problems with frequency cramping.
Session 06: The Octave Range: 17 Minutes
We take a look at the octave range of frequencies and the most commonly used frequencies in those octaves when working with EQ.
Session 07: Practical Use: 49 Minutes
We now apply the theory to more practical uses. Here we discuss some techniques and tactics you can apply when using EQ to create a coherent spacious mix. This includes topics such as focus, complimentary EQ, bracketing and the age old question of EQ or compression first.
Session 08: Creative EQ: 17 Minutes
In the final session, we take a quick look at a couple of the more creative applications of EQ
Example files: not provided
Video format: MOV
Video: AVC, 1280×720, 16:9, ~27.747 fps, 2,589 Kbps
Audio: AAC, 44.1 KHz, 128 Kbps, 2 channels
