Keep the goals and priorities at the forefront of your mind when choosing what to EQ and which EQs will actually help you. If that means you use no EQ on the piano, a basic 1-band EQ plug-in on the bass, and a 4-band dynamic EQ on the vocal, you do it. My Beatport lets you follow your favorite DJs and labels so you can find out when they release new tracks. Free Your Mind Original Mix.
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Stav’s Pulsed Pink Noise Generator
One technique revealed in the book involves patching some Pink Noise in such a way that it pulses in time with the music to turn your ears up to all the changes you’re making to reverbs. It’s been my secret weapon for years. Now you can do this with my first VST plugin.
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Just in case you thought I look like I’m having way too much fun, here is a more intimidating picture (but I’m still smiling on the inside).
” The Secret Croak “
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Stav's Word column in April issue of Australia's AudioTechnology magazine talks about a special sound that Stav gets singers to produce to help fine-tune the EQ of their voice. To give you an idea what this sounds like here is an mp3 of a friend producing this strange, 'Secret Croak'.
The Secret Croak When it comes to EQing vocals I don’t think so much about treble and bass. Instead, I’m more interested in the harmonic structure of the voice that is unique to the individual. Each face has its own unique architecture, in the same way that each concert hall has unique acoustics. We can equalise a hall by sending pink noise into it and adjusting an equaliser to balance this reference signal. Similarly, before wasting the energy and talent of the vocalist on the song, it’s wise to have them produce some reference noises to align your equipment and to allow you to beam-in to their unique architecture.
The ‘reference tone’ I use in the case of a vocalist is something a bit out of the ordinary. I ask the vocalist to produce quiet sounds that do not stress the vocal chords. I ask them to produce a series of gentle ‘ahs’, a ‘Bo Ba Lou’, then get them to count to 20, grunt, hiss, produce long croaks and little buzzing noises.
Of all the strange sounds I get my singers to produce, the most useful of all is the oddest one to make. It is the sound of vocal chords slowly clicking together without air or water or pitch.
While they do this peculiar exercise I sweep (that’s right, usually a ‘no no’ but, in this case, sweep) narrow bands of EQ searching for the unique resonant cavities in their face and throat and chest.
So, when sweeping a singer like Jeremy you might listen out for the frequencies that bring you closer to the back of his throat or to the cavities behind his eyes, to the flesh of his lips or other characteristic attributes. These same frequencies will also bring out the expression in the song he is about to sing. So why go for the strange reference tone sounds instead of the melody?
If you have the vocalist sing the melody (or any note for that matter) the note(s) sung will naturally be much louder than their unique harmonics. Because you’re not actually using a note, per se, your equaliser can now bring out all the different cavities in the voice. If you use a sharp EQ curve with significant boost you’ll hear those unique qualities coming in and out in sharp relief,
at times creating a caricature of the singer’s vocal ‘personality’. Try it .
Hopefully this will prompt you to have a play with these ideas. Remember, the key to this stuff is giving it a go – don’t just take my word for it.
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can't get a bad mix out of here - way too much fun!
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