hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2082.txt

Episode: 2082
Title: HPR2082: Basic Audio Production - Equalization
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2082/hpr2082.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 14:03:57

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This is HPR episode 2.82 entitled Basic Audio Production Equalization.
It is hosted by ACHO.D and in about 19 minutes long.
The summary is the basics of one of the most fundamental audio production techniques.
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Hello everyone, this is Natudervi, broadcasting one more time game for Hagar Public Radio.
They show four gigs and other indoors creatures like myself.
And this time I'm going to discuss the second installment of my serious
on basic audio production techniques that are available for anybody with decent computer
and some kind of digital audio workstation, also known as Dole.
It's been a while since my previous show, things have been a little shaky lately,
but everything is so with a further ado I'd like to say that maybe it was a mistake
taking this series or maybe taking it in this broadcast because I think it's a good skill
to have for anybody in the 21st century and something that can avoid that you get taken
advantage of. Audio production is not really my thing at all and mostly I'm growing the
aware of it. A musician who is forced to do audio production works, it's something that I will
gladly pass the battle to someone else when I have the occasion. And frankly I found it
most of the time the audio production stuff I found it very yellow in
like it's a bit like the difference between in my view, between a writer and someone who
practices calligraphy. I want to, I feel more like a defile with a writer, a creative writer
is not interested in the shape of the teas or the how long are the legs of the letters that some
other people are happy taking that stuff. In fact it's very common is that that's just an opinion
of mine but I think there's too much emphasis on technique. Maybe you don't know the
technology in the latest say 10 or 25 years. Everybody is like dazzled with technique but a lot of
people forget something that Peter Drucker said that there's nothing as stupid as a computer
in the end. We could be general, that's what you turn to. So the user is not a cultivated person
and speaking of full music, I'm thinking about now. The person who holds the technology is not
an educated person and no matter, it doesn't matter that you paint through the dinosaurs,
the result is not going to be very meaningful to another human being.
Anyways, besides this lateral rant, today's podcast, I want to discuss my partial annoyed and
gorilla knowledge of the production technique known as equalization.
Maybe I think that this reluctance of mine is being forced to learn the other production
ropes can appeal to some losers because you might be in my case too. So some of the things that
I say maybe can't connect with you, hopefully. I don't know. In any way, what's the
equalization? Equalization is some modification that you want to record as sounds
by changing how much, let's say, the proportion of the vibrations that compose each sound.
So in other words, a sound vibrates in a certain frequency. In other words, the frequency is
the number of times per second that you get a complete wave. The wave takes long to make the
picture, you know, like the peak for a body, then you have a low frequency note, like a bass
guitar. And if the frequency is faster, then in the same period of time, you're going to have
more peaks and bodies, and that kind of sounds like a high pitch, for example,
as a brown singer, or a whistle. The thing is a bit more complex than that because every sound,
excuse me, every sound is composed of several vibrations at the same time.
It's the alcohol harmonics. If you only have a sound that only has one vibration, it's pretty
healthy, pretty rough on the end of the year. For example, typical examples are a siren,
apple is siren, or a doorbell that kind of sound is the typical sound of some way that it's
pure. It doesn't have the harmonics generally, and instruments, the human voice or anything in nature.
I had some simultaneously a several vibrations at the same time. There's one that's detonating one,
and the others, like a provide the instruments. It's flavor, let's say. So for example,
you can play the same note at the same pitch in a piano and in a guitar, and the sound will be
different among other factors, I guess, but the sound will feel different because of those harmonics,
those secondary vibrations. So with each thing you record, it's instrument, each track, it's like a
salad of plenty of vibrations going on at the same time. And the sound is produced in space,
and there's having to the space where you want to fit the whole sound. If that sound is crammed
in a badly way, it's going to sound messy, and nobody is going to like it, it's going to be
pleasant to the year. So that's where equalization comes in, and the role of equalization mostly
is distributed in frequencies of the different instruments, so that they don't collide with each other.
For example, a magical case, a magical problem you find in equalization I've been told
is very common that the kick drum shares a lot of frequencies with the bass guitar, so you have
to make some kind of trade-off there. In there you make certain musical genres, for example,
that's metal. There's a typical kick drum that's very dry, it's like a hitting a box of cookies.
My guess is there you're just keeping the frequency that gives you the uff, but you're taking all the
flavor out to give room for the bass guitar to be a rich era. That's part of the art of producing
music. It's not only about getting clarity, but it's also you have a lot of creative decisions
to make, so there's room for subjectivity there too. Some producers like things to be messy,
I just like to that you can feel everything as if you were in a room. It's kind of an instrument,
but from this point of view, the creative point of view, I'd love to learn to do this stuff,
but the problem I find as a musician is that I get too lost in the sound, I lose my reference points
very soon. I guess I don't have with some people called your stamina and very soon all the
starts to sound the same to me. When I've gone through an excerpt like 20 times, I don't know if
it's good or is it wrong, is it better than the pronunciation? I should throw a whole session away,
I don't know. So really I'd rather be doing music. Well, the acquisition in the end is a very
very intuitive audio technique to understand, I think, because if you
if you belong to a certain generation, you have a stereo, stereo equipment in the brain
internet times, or maybe you still have it in your car, and they have a very rudimentary of
three or five channels, equalization, where you can modify if you want to have more low frequency,
or either range or whatever you feel. It's better for a certain sound. Many of the stereo
grievance even have like presets with creative names like concert hall or rock concert.
So it's a pretty straightforward concept to grasp, but practice is another thing.
And there are, when it comes to equalization, there are, and speaking of practice, there are two main
schools. The adding equalization and the subtracting equalization. The names are again very pretty
straightforward, and you can either potentiate the frequencies you like in a in a sound,
and then they will mask the garbage, let's say, or you can do it the other way around, you'll
find what's a frequency you like, you sculpt it the sound around it by lowering the volume of
the other frequencies that are not attractive and are only noise, for example, in a bass, bass guitar,
bass guitar, maybe the thump that you're making with the strings, in certain genres of music,
you like it, but in others maybe you want something to sound smoother and you want to take away that
thump, or I guess before, just because you want to, that space to
move to be used by the, by the drums. So in that case, you take away the frequencies that you
don't like, and the, the new thing of this approach, the subtracting equalization, is that
you take a lot of useless stuff out of the mix, because if you add a half volume to the frequencies
that you like, the others, or they are hidden there, they are still there vibrating, I'm not
occupying sonic space, so you have a bigger risk of the whole thing becoming messy.
That said, the adding equalization perhaps is better for beginners, because it's more
straightforward, it's this year to discover hey, you usually go frequency by frequency and
crank up the volume, and then you can find one and say, and feel here, you're solving it,
is this one makes really the track sing. So in the add in your approach, you would just
keep that volume up, and you're done in the subtracting, maybe you would return that frequency
to the zero position, and then start subtracting the others, but then maybe you start to subtract
too much, and the whole thing sounds like if you were playing through a cell phone or a tunnel,
so it takes longer, but it's very special when you have a mix with a lot of tracks out of instruments,
I guess you need to make more room, and keep it a simple, special one to the core, to the gist
of its instrument. Another way to learn to be trained in equalization, at least something
that worked very well for me, was starting instead of equalization itself, which can be
equalization can be a bit intimidating at first, because you open the plugin, and you face a panel
with 10 to 12 things, parameters you have to deal with, but an easier and being intuitive way
to start is just using the high pass filter and low pass filter as a training,
because there you only have a parameter to manipulate and play with, and only using high pass filter
and low pass filters, and you can get great improvements in your sound. I think I even
heard the story of some producers who don't use equalization, they only use filters.
How does filter work? It's pretty easy to understand, I think, high pass filter,
it's like a line you put in the frequencies, and then saying, only the frequencies higher than
this number are going to come through the rest, they go down, both equal zero.
So, if you start playing a song in an order, let's say, the one that I use,
and you start raising the high pass filter parameter, you're going to take more and more frequencies
out of the sound, and the sound is going to, at first, you will gain clarity because
a lot of the things in the health of staffing the low end, it's only garbage. That's why a high
pass filter can easily improve a track, and low pass filter is the same, but in the contrary,
you take away the acute notes, and only let the work once to go through.
So, that's how I would add a good trick, and that's how it's for your mixing,
even if you only do this, and even if you only do this, let's say, the chip pass start option,
you only do that in your master track, even that, you're going to improve the result
in the quality of your recordings, and then you can proceed to the fine tuning and service
acquisition. So, that's what I have for you today, I hope some of you enjoyed this, or find
some maggot there, or something interesting, of your audio adventures. Thank you very much
for listening, and until next time, bye!
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