The Simple Way To EQ A Microphone or Instrument (For Digital & Analog Consoles)

Hey everybody. So this past week has been a pretty busy week and I didn't have the time that I wanted to, to record a full video. So instead, I'm gonna show you a video that I recorded about 6 months ago for another organization that I'm a part of. And this video is all about EQ, how to EQ a microphone or an instrument. EQ is really not that complicated when you understand a few basic things. Here's the big takeaway for EQ.

It's called sweep and destroy.

Just watch this video and you will find out what I'm talking about. I hope you will like this video, subscribe to this channel, and I would love to connect with you over at worshipresources.church where we help you discover and learn how to use quality resources to make your church better. My name is Joshua and if I can serve you in any way, send me an email at joshua@worshipresources.church.

Okay, here's how to EQ.

I hope you enjoy.

Yes, so today we're going to talk about EQ. I'm going to walk you through how you can EQ a microphone or an instrument, and it may seem overwhelming, seems like there's no way you can learn it, but it's really not that complicated if you know just a few little tips. So I'm here in front of a digital console, and most digital consoles have an option where you can control it with an iPad or a device. So that's what I have here. And where this is helpful is digital consoles will give you a graphic EQ, which basically means you can see on the spectrum the range of notes and frequencies. So I'm just going to make this EQ flat first of all. And a flat EQ means that you're not adjusting, taking out, or adding any frequencies. It's just whatever's coming through the microphone, that's what is going to be heard in the speakers. So on a graphic EQ like this, the right side are the high frequencies, and this one goes up to 20k. And the left side are the low frequencies, so this goes down to 20 Hz. And you can see I actually— I'm going to take that off. So now I have a totally flat EQ right here. Now if you have a microphone, a vocalist, and often a lot of instrumentalists, one of the very first things you need to do is to add a high-pass filter. And what a high-pass filter is will cut out the lows from the channel. So it's sometimes called a low-cut, sometimes it's called a high-pass. So it's allowing the highs to pass through. That's why it's called a high-pass. So I added— so you can see the green here is taking out this range. So I took— I added the high-pass filter and I'm taking out that from the sound. This will help tremendously with vocal mics because most vocals do not go anywhere near the 200 Hz or 20 Hz level. You just can't sing that low, and so there's no reason for that to even pass through. What it does is cleans up the audio. So the first thing is to add that high-pass filter. And the second thing, and this is the tip that everybody needs to know, and it's called It's an EQ technique called sweep and destroy. Sweep and destroy. So if you're listening to someone singing or an instrument playing, you can take one of the bands of EQ— this one has 4 bands of EQ— and you can just raise it up, and then as they're singing and playing, you can swipe through or sweep through the frequency spectrum. And while they're singing, you're listening for what sounds bad. And when you hear something that's annoying or it's harsh or it hurts your ears, then take and just cut that portion out. So, and you can do that. This one has 4 bands, so I can do it multiple times. So I found, and so maybe it was 2K and I took that 2K out. Then you can do it again. You can sweep through the spectrum and find the sound that is bad, and then just cut it out until it sounds good. That's really all it takes. It's really that simple. It sounds complicated, and you see all this, but it's really that simple. So again, I'm going to start again flat, and again, this is on a digital console. I'm going to show in a minute on the analog side how it works. So this 4, the 4-band, is designed for this, the high frequencies. So if you're hearing a high pitch or a high squeal, and I'm talking like really high, like piercing, ear-piercing, if you have feedback like that, oftentimes it's going to be in the 5kHz to 20kHz range. So you can boost it just temporarily while the instrument's playing or while the person's singing and then listen for it and then just cut it out. Okay? The 1kHz to 5kHz range, that's where the clarity of your vocal is going to come from. And so if you have mud, if it's muddy and you— and it's hard to understand or it feels kind of boxy, that usually is in the 200Hz to 500Hz range. So you can, again, you can just boost it and sweep through until it sounds bad, and then, and then just take it out of the frequency. Now with digital EQs, they have what's called a Q, and a Q just allows you to open the Q or close the Q so that more surrounding frequencies will be affected. So if I open the Q, you can tell that more of the frequencies are being taken out If I close the Q, then that's zeroing in on a very specific range of frequencies. Okay, so you can do that, say, 2 or 3 times and just do it till it sounds good. If it sounds good to you, then do it and move on. Now, a couple of things about EQ. Most of the time you're going to cut EQ, cut from the sound. You're not going to add to. So very rarely, in fact never, should you see an EQ like that because you're— what you're doing is you're adding to the frequency and it just gets really messy and can get really loud and a potential for feedback. Instead, you want to cut the sound out of the frequencies that are not sounding good to you. Another tip is that every vocalist and every instrument will be a different EQ. Now you can get started with the same basic EQ, but everybody's going to sound differently depending on the timbre of their voice, depending on if they're a male or female, depending on if they're playing acoustic guitar or bass guitar or piano. It's— everything's going to sound differently and they need their own specific EQ. And so you should go through each channel separately, individually, one at a time. Ask them to play or sing, and then just go through, use the sweep and destroy method, and that will help you clean up your sound tremendously. Okay, so I'm going to show you the same process but on an analog console. So this is an analog console, it's not digital. Analog consoles have EQs through these little knobs. And depending on your console, it might have 3 bands of EQ, or it could have 6, and it could also have what's called a sweeper. So on this console, the blue are my EQ bands. So I have 4 EQ bands, and the top one is the highs, whereas on the Graphic EQ, the right side is the highs. On this one, the top is the highs and the bottom one is the low, and then you have low mid and high mid. And the green on this one are the frequency sweepers. So basically, I can choose which frequency within that range is added or taken away. Okay, so what I recommend is start flat like we did on the graphic EQ. Just start with them all straight up at 12 o'clock, and that's flat, and then have the person sing or the instrument play, and then you're gonna listen for what sounds bad. You're gonna listen. Does it hurt your ears? Is it squealy or squeechy? Is it too boomy or is it too low end? And then you're just gonna cut the portions that sound bad. So start with the highs and you can boost the highs a little bit. And the high on this one, the high is just by itself, so you can either turn it up or turn it down. You can't select which frequency, and it will tell you the frequency range usually. So this one looks like the frequency range is at 3K. So if I'm turning it up, I'm turning up 3K or turning down 3K. The second section of EQ, you can see, I hope you can see it, but they're actually grouped together. So this green knob is grouped with the blue knob. So the green knob is the sweeper. So remember the sweep and destroy method? So what you can do is you can boost the gain on the EQ and then start with it at the, on the far left, and you're gonna sweep through the frequency spectrum. So right now I'm starting at 500 Hz and I'm gonna sweep through and I'm listening for when it sounds bad. I'm just listening while they're singing, while they're playing, and when I find the place that it sounds bad, then I'm just gonna turn that frequency down. I'll do the same thing with the low-mid. So the low-mid frequency is 35 Hz up to 1 kHz. That's what this frequency spectrum is going to adjust. So I'm going to turn the gain up first on the frequency. I'm going to start on the left and sweep through. I'm just going to slowly sweep through and listen until it sounds bad. Listen, listen. And sometimes with, with an audio console, you have to pick and choose. Like, you might find two places that sound bad. Just choose the worst one. Find the worst one and then turn it down. And then you can take your low— if you need more low end, if you want it to be a little more boomy, you can boost the low. Or if you need to take the low end out, you can take the low end out. So that's how you do this EQ on an analog console.

Hey, thanks everybody for watching this video. I hope this was really helpful to you. And if you have any questions about EQ or sound or lighting or video, anything production related, for worship ministry, let me know.

You can put it in the comments or send me an email.

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