An 'audio equalizer', 'EQ', or simply 'equalisation', which ever you call it, it's one of the most important processes during mixing as it lets you Equalize the tones and frequencies within your mix.

EQ will either shave off the chosen frequencies from one instrument to bring out another instrument at a certain frequency level, or it will do the complete opposite; give an instrument an EQ boost to selected frequencies, bringing out these specific frequencies within this instrument, in the song that you are mixing. This process could work to push something back within the mix that will play its part within the song/mix, but will not be the main focus of the listener, or it could be to make the main focus of the listener focus on a specific thing.

I am now going to proceed with the start of my EQ guide.

EQ also has the power to make everything come together and at the same time make everything sound a lot better, if you EQ sound you can bring clarity and clearness to a song that could have been sounding nice, but conflicted.

It is worth mentioning now that no amount of EQ will fix a song, if there is a clash of notes before entering the mixing process, there will be one during and after it.

When you come to mix, everything should be sounding average or good.. or clashing at points for a reason. All EQ exists to do is subtract or add specific frequencies to a song, not to fix what you can hear is wrong. For instance, if you were to record a three piece, bass, guitar, drum band, you would need to use a high pass filter on the bass to remove any bass frequencies that would have slipped by unnoticed (finger scrapes, slides or just higher frequencies) that would cloud over the overall mix with, so cutting here would save the mix while at the same time getting the best out of the bass. Also I would put a low pass filter on the bass to stop it interfering with all the other elements of the song.

You must make sure the bass knows its place!

I would say to put the high pass filter at 40hz and the low pass filter at 300hz. It is always wise to deal with sound frequencies straight away, well, after setting the volume of each track to a comfortable and rough level. The other effects and processes involved in mixing can make hearing frequencies harder.

With just the bass and rhythm guitar playing (if you do not have a rhythm guitar playing, skip this part) put a low pass filter on the guitar track and set it to 12khz, this is based upon a guitar with zero distortion, as I said, I like to add effects after EQing. Sometimes this will not be possible, but if you can record without any effects, do so. I will also fit a high pass filter on the guitar track at around 250hz, so the guitar does not interfere with the bass and so the guitar is not without a little weight.

All the mixing styles that exist out there today are based on the specific song that is being mixing, for instance, the song I am talking about now is a simple power chord and bass driven song where the vocals (yet to be mentioned) would sit on top, just above the guitar level; there are is going to be little or no atmospherics to talk of, it is a straight forward rock/"pop"/"punk" song. The song type as it is dictates the EQ settings and the process of mixing, later, once mixed, people would listen to the song and might then consider a remix if they think other element could be worked into it. This is why remixes are normally more "spacey" and "far out".. Back to the mix now.

Before I would come to mix my song, I would have listened to a few bands that I liked the sound of, bands that excel within their area (the same area the song we are mixing is in) and I would listen to the sound, not the chords, listening out for the specific chords being played is song writing; the sound relationships is what we need to listen to. I am looking for a sound where the bass guitar is strong but not overlapping or crowding the guitar.

Now to EQ guitar, once I have the bass guitar and rhythm guitar playing together on their own I would bring the whole song volume down and put a parametric EQ on the guitar track so we can set the initial parametric EQ guitar settings, set the parametric EQ to +12, close my eyes, and move the frequency slide up from the bass cut off point we set with the high pass filter. Move the slider slowly and find a sweet spot, do not assume you have found one and stop, go backwards and forwards slowly and you will find the same frequencies make the song sound really good. Write down all the frequencies that you think make the song sound stronger. Add the frequencies that you think sound best with the parametric EQ, more than one if they sound alright together. Make sure to set the increased level at +5/6, you can tweak it up or down later. If the increase frequency is shared with any other instrument/track (this will happen later when we add drums and vocals) be sure to reduce the same frequency on any other track by a small amount (-3/4) and tweak later if needed.

Once the bass and guitar are sounding good together after their EQ audio treatment, we can start to bring the drums into the mix. We will start with the bass/kick drum first; add a low pass filter and set it at around 150hz, also put a parametric EQ on the bass drum track and set that to100hz and boost it by 5/6, then do exactly the same thing with parametric EQ and the bass guitar, but, you guessed it! Subtract 5/6 rather than add, maybe a little more or a little less, depending on what YOU think. This will now have the bass/kick drum punching through the mix and have your tracks bass really driving the song.

I would advise anyone now, to try adding the rest of the drums in the similar fashion before I return to write the second part of this guide to EQ.

In, 'Part Two', I will be continuing on and explaining how to add EQ to the rest of the mix along with some final tweaks to enhance the mix with trial and error mixing techniques.

If you need more tips or tips quicker than I can write Part Two, you can find further tips on all sorts of mixing Here or Here and HERE too.

Parametric EQ: With this you can, find specific frequencies and set it to an exact frequency to either cut or boost.

High Pass Filter: "You shall not pass!"This will reduce the frequencies considerably at the level set, all tones above the freqeuncy set will be left as they are and all below will be cut.

Low Pass Filter: This will reduce the frequencies considerably at the level set, all tones below the freqeuncy set will be left as they are and all above will be cut.

Frequency: This is the width or length of all audio tones within a sound, each frequency in a sound plays its part in making the sound sound the way it does. Remove or adding frequencies at specific points in the width will change the sound  Human hearing is believed to be on average between 15hz & 20khz but everyone is different and also some people have exposed their ears to live rock music or loud techno techno techno. Most EQ devices will let you fiddle between 20hz-20khz, some will make more difference than others based on where the tone in this sound is loudest.