Empirical Labs EL-Q - Manual (Page 7)

Example Settings (Cont’d)
Here in the digital recorder age the front edge of cymbals can be harsh and too “pingy” once the
engineer gets to mixdown. Analog tape used to soft clip and self erase these sometimes annoying
transient pings. The Lil FrEQ’s HF Limiter can be a wonderful tool to soften these edges. Enable
the limiter (the orange LED will be on, as well as the DS Blue LED) and dial in 1 – 6 dB with the
threshold in the DS section. Adjust the frequency for 4 – 10Khz depending on the severity of the
cymbals edge. The limiter should only work on the very front edge of the cymbals. Make sure you
aren’t squashing the clarity and overall air of the cymbals.
Room Mics – A good Neumann room mic often needs little or no EQ... but there are no rules. If
one wants to compress these mics, sometimes the cymbals become messy or harsh when mixed in.
Rolling off a little of the harsh high mid frequencies can help (2 – 6K). Conversely, sometimes
the room mics are toooo boomy and the low end must be rolled off. It is common to re-align room
mics using digital editors and other delay tricks, listening to prevent “phasyness” and resonances.
Keyboards
– Obviously in this sampled age, this covers a lot of sounds. Acoustic Pianos are a
whole subject unto themselves, so lets start there. Their sound begins with a great, well tuned piano
and good mics. Treatment also depends on the final setting, I.E. Solo piano, or as part of a larger
ensemble. Getting a big full sound is usually the goal of solo pianos pieces, whereas with a piano
that is part of an ensemble or rock mix is often brightened and compressed somewhat, and high
passed, especially if there are potential conflicts in the low end between the piano and bass parts. In
the latter case, the Lil FrEQ hi-pass will prove invaluable for removing the mud that can occur from a
left hand/bass conflict. Try 140Hz Hi-Pass setting here. Sometimes bringing up some mids 500 –
800 works on an overly bright piano (start with 600Hz). The spectra of a piano is so thick and
complex that generalizing about EQ and fitting that into a mix is risky at best.
Synthesizers – First, don’t forget to use the direct Instrument input if the level of the synth is low,
although modern synths can usually go right into the rear input jacks and still have plenty of gain.
Great for stage setups as a DI box. Synths often have plucky top ends. One can band limit the top
end up there, or try the HF Lim to control the peaks. Compression can help get rid of the pointy
peaks also, but often more EQ is necessary. The other problem is extreme subs that don’t get rolled
off on digital recorders, or in live sound systems. The High Pass is perfect for cleaning them out but
letting the body of the synth come thru. Sometimes string sounds have a midrange grit to them and
using a PEQ, one can pull out 800 – 4KHz (start at 2KHz) and get a silkier sound that sits in the
back and lets the guitars and vocals have that upper midrange area. Rolling off top end can help get
rid of the buzz of a synth part. Remember it’s how the whole mix fits together, and not an incredible
tone of a single incidental part. Cutting freqs on one track, gives room for them elsewhere.
LIVE SOUND REINFORCEMENT
– The Lil FrEQ is expected to find prolific use in
sound reinforcement systems for many reasons. The unit is built like military gear with no internal
connections, a steel cabinet, sealed components including the pots, making it extremely hardy and
road worthy. There are several outputs for monitoring as well as main house feeds. The transformer
output provides galvanic isolation to prevent hums and buzzes due to voltage drops and ground
loops between stage and the house mixer. The lettering is quite large compared to many mixer eqs
and the knobs are carefully calibrated for repeatable settings. And of course, the extreme versatility
and multitude of tonal processors contained within it, should allow the sound engineers to handle
most any problem he encounters in his day to day life on the road.
Direct box – The high performance preamp in the Lil FrEQ and the isolated output transformer, can
make the Lil FrEQ ideal as a stage preamp. Bass, guitar, synths, and drum machines will all come
out clean and fat, especially if the Class A transformer output section is used.
House EQ – The narrow Q’s that the parametric sections afford can be used to remove feedback
points from PA systems without drastically coloring the sound. We use stable caps and components
that shouldn’t drift as temperature changes. Often large venues have low frequency resonances that
need to be pulled out. The Lil FrEQ has an extremely smooth low frequency parametric band that is
easily tuned to frequencies in the 40 – 120Hz range, allowing the removal of nodal resonances to
clean up the low end of these venues. Also the High pass filter can kill rumble frequencies below 30
and 60 Hz since it is a steep 18 dB/oct filter.
Lead Vocal processor – The extreme flexibility of the EQ as well as the DS section can handle
most any lead vocal problems. The four bands of parametric allow feedback removal as well as
drastic tonal shaping. Stage rumble and mic handling noise can be removed using the Hi-Pass
filters (80Hz is a good frequency to start with). See example Vocal Settings.
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Example Settings (Cont’d)
Plucked Instruments & Acoustic Guitar
– Acoustic instruments are also extremely
sensitive to EQ. Mic selection and placement is again your first resource during tracking.
If attack is needed, aiming a mic at the picking or plucking area will bring it out. Conversely, too
much pluck can be fixed by moving the mic to a position aimed at the body, away from the area
where strings are plucked. Smoothing out the dynamic range with a fast compressor is extremely
common, using a LN1176 or our own Distressor is sometimes all you will need when tracking. In the
analog tape days, often a little zing at maybe 12 – 15Khz was used during tracking since hot tape
levels often self erased these airy frequencies. With the digital age, this isn’t an issue and modern
mics and mic preamps have obviated much of this top boost, and in fact made a brittle top end
become an issue. Pulling 1 – 5Khz with a parametric section can often warm up the midrange
without losing air. It’s very hard to generalize here and often what works for a solo instrument will be
disastrous on an instrument in the mix.
Boominess can be fixed with a gentle bass roll off using the shelve, or with a gentle cut in a
parametric section. Again, while mixing, its best to EQ the instrument “in the mix” to make it fit
tonally. While soloing, there is often a tendency to thicken it up, which will translate to muddiness
when combined with the bass and other instruments. The high pass filter is EXTREMELY useful
during mixdown to open up frequencies below 140Hz for other instruments.
Sometimes you may want to keep the dynamic range of a plucked instrument but need to smooth out
just the hard front edge of the attack. The Lil FrEQ’s HF Limiting is perfect here. Adjust the threshold
until you have a smoother, more natural sound - usually 3 - 10 dB of HF attenuation is enough. In
addition to your normal monitoring levels, listen very softly, and very loudly to the adjusted track to
make sure it isn't too dull, or still in need of "softening". Squeaks from hands sliding on strings can
often be “fixed” using the De-Ess mode judiciously.
Percussion
Drums and percussion are a source that often needs liberal amounts of equalization. No matter how
well the original sounds are recorded, some tonal adjustment is eventually needed.
Kick Drum – Woofy kick drums can often be fixed with lots of 220 – 400Hz pulled out. It is not
uncommon to get a great sound just pulling 6 – 12 dB of 300 – 400 Hz out. Set the lower mid
parametric EQ for –9dB at 400Hz to start with at .5 octave bandwidth (-9 @ 400, .5 Oct). The level
will drop dramatically with this EQ since there’s usually tons of power in this frequency range.
To add attack, add 5Khz – 8Khz with one of the upper two PEQ (parametric EQ) bands. To
add low end thump, try the 40 – 60Hz range but remember not to over do this, and don’t be afraid to
use a quite narrow bandwidth. Check your kick drum on several speakers!
Snare – snares often need some top sizzle. One can try the high shelve first, or quickly go to the
high frequency PEQ section. Try +5 @ 8KHz .8 Oct. Watch out for high hat and cymbal bleed since
this is a common problem. One can also make the top and low end come out by pulling frequencies
between 400 and 2KHz. This often sounds more natural but again, always EQ drums in the mix with
the other drum mics on. Soloing while EQing is dangerous, especially on drums where many mics
can interact with each other. Adding thud and body to the snare is usually done with the Parametric
sections. Try +3dB @ 150Hz (100 – 200), .3 oct and tune from there. High passing the snare at
80Hz can often clean up the low end and help the kick drum due to phase problems.
Again, analog tape was always a big help in getting a fat, punchy, natural snare. If the snare
has a plastic edge to the front end (especially after EQing), the HF limiter can be engaged to fatten it
up, allowing the “snares” to stay present after the initial offending attack… like analog tape.
Toms – these are similar to the kick drum in that they often just need lots of low woofy mids pulled
out. Try –6 @ 400 .5 Oct and tweak from there. Lower toms often need lower mids pulled compared
to smaller, higher toms. Sometimes toms will get clacky and need some upper midrange pulled (1.5
– 4Khz). Watch out for boosting too many low frequencies especially while tracking since adding low
end later is fairly safe and easy to do. Cymbal bleed can be a problem so if you feel a need to boost
high end, listen in the mix to make sure cymbals don’t get harsh and “phasy”.
Overhead cymbals – It is a common practice for some engineers to roll off much of the low end on
the overheads, but it is prudent to leave this for mixdown, after tracking. I’m sure many seasoned
engineers have heard overhead mics sound so good that one could just use them for the entire drum
mix (maybe adding in a little kick drum)! If you do decide to roll off low end, try cutting the low shelve
since it is smooth and very phase coherent. With good condensor mics, adding top is often
unnecessary if just a little bottom is rolled off or some low mids pulled. Also, to quote a friend
“Sometimes pulling out 2 to 4 Khz will make your cymbals sound like sugar.” This frequency range
shows up on cymbals as “CLANG”, to coin a new EQ term.
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