Have you ever wondered which tool is going to help you unlock your music and get the consistently great mixes you’re looking to produce?
Is it your EQ? Is your compressor? Or is it both?
And in what order should you use that EQ and compressor? What’s going to get you bigger and better results? EQ first or compressor first?
All is about to be revealed.
But first… let me first take you back to a time when I was completely clueless about both EQ and compression!
I had been studying and playing music for well over ten years before I had the opportunity to study music technology at university. The only thing I really knew about EQ at that stage was how it loosely related to guitar tone and that the graphic EQ on our home stereo looked pretty cool.
I’ve always been easily entertained.
While the next 4 years of formal education helped to improve my knowledge of EQ, I was still pretty lost when it came to the effective use of compression.
It wasn’t until I was employed as an audio engineer and started working with EQ and compression on a daily basis that things started to change. There was a constant stream of work coming in that needed my attention and if I didn’t figure it out, that work could go elsewhere.
Sink or swim time!
While I had good engineers around me who could share some settings and tips, the “one size fits all” approach never works with audio engineering or music production of any kind.
You can use some shared settings as a baseline (which I’ll give you later) but each song or project that comes your way will have unique challenges.
I’ve always had a good ear, so achieving a decent balance of overall levels in the mix wasn’t too tricky for me. But I knew I was going to need to get really good at using both EQ and compression to take my skills to the next level and start churning out consistently great mixes.
I also knew that getting to grips with EQ first would provide a much greater pay off. Figuring out how to balance the entire frequency spectrum of any given project was always going to be a big win.
Achieving that balance would help to cover up any gaps in my compression knowledge in the short term.
And that’s exactly what happened.
I got good at using EQ, so that meant I could then start playing around with compression. I also started to experiment with inserting EQ before and after compressors to see what was more effective.
That allowed me to figure out what sort of impact playing with the threshold, ratio, attack and release of my compressors would have on my EQ decisions – both before and after compression.
There was a lot of A/B testing; putting plugins in bypass mode and toggling them in and out – but I eventually trained my ears and got to grips with the audible impact of the various subtle changes I was making.
These days, I’m confident that my compression decisions positively influence the projects I’m involved with. But it took time, persistence and yes… some pain!
So, if you’re trying to figure out whether you should reach for your EQ or compressor, or you’re just looking to get that great level of consistency with your mixes, I’m now going to share the things that helped me and will help you.
Psychology and “Why?” first
You have to start with the psychology behind using each tool. Why are you using them?
EQ is going to help you manipulate the frequency content of an entire mix or mix elements within your music. It’s used to shape your sounds, add separation, create definition, clarity and much more.
Understanding frequencies and how to manipulate them is one of the biggest challenges there is in mixing.
But when you understand why you’re using EQ, your mixes will improve astronomically in a really short space of time.
Compressors were originally created as a tool to help radio engineers control gain levels. Before their widespread use, an engineer would constantly have to ride the faders and rely on their intuition to get results.
We now use compression to balance levels, contain levels, control transients (that short duration sound at the beginning of a waveform!), manipulate depth of field, make sounds bigger and fatter… and much more!
It is not a tool that should be used to squeeze the life out of everything and create fat sausage waveforms.
Compression is a musical tool and used to manipulate dynamics – not kill them!
What your EQ does
By adding an EQ to a track, you can boost or cut frequencies in a mix. Some EQ plugins will have one band.
Or multiple bands…
The curve created with each boost or cut looks like a bell.
Most plugins allow you to adjust the centre frequency of each band and you can then adjust the ‘Q’ (Quality Factor) setting.
The higher the Q the more narrow the shape of the bell (bandwidth).
Now, you might be wondering what all the numbers mean…
If you’ve ever been part of an orchestra, you might already know that A4 equates to 440Hz. Remember that every frequency number represents a musical note.
Let that sink in, as it explains so much about EQ. Think about how certain EQ boosts or cuts might impact your song.
If you’re cutting the root note of the key on a bass guitar, how would that impact the message and meaning of your song?
Some food for thought there…
What your Compressor does
Compression is a dynamic tool. The dynamic range is the difference between the softest and loudest sounds a system can accommodate.
Compressing the dynamic range makes loud levels quieter. That’s called downward compression. You can use upward compression to make soft levels louder but let’s focus on the more commonly used downward compression for now.
It’s rare that a song has the exact same dynamics all the way through. There are louder and softer sections. There are also louder and softer individual parts.
If the dynamics are set right, then a piece of music sounds alive and brilliant. If they’re wild and out of control, it sounds chaotic. And if there’s no variation in dynamics and no excitement, then it’s just dull and boring.
The dynamics of a single part, like a snare drum part, can change from note to note or hit to hit. Each note or hit has an attack and a decay – that’s also known as the dynamic envelope.
So with a snare hit, we’d know that there would be a fast attack from the stick hitting the skin and then there would be some decay because of resonance in the drum itself.
Compression allows you to even out the snare hits and, with makeup gain, you can turn up the overall gain of the part so that it sounds more dynamically even and controlled.
Combining EQ and Compression
If you’re using compression to tame transients and fatten sounds with some makeup gain, that will fatten the overall sound.
Using that snare drum example…
You could have your compressor working nicely to fatten the sound but if that snare hasn’t been cleaned up, then your compressor is going to accentuate all the bad in that sound too.
By “cleaned up”, I mean using EQ to remove unwanted content in the sound, clear out the mud and filter out any other crap in there!
It could also mean boosting some frequencies to add body, edge and snap.
The makeup gain control of your compressor is going to boost the sound, as if you’re turning up the gain knob on any piece of studio equipment. So if that sound isn’t cutting it, it’s still not going to cut it when it’s louder!
Yes, I’m trying to get you to think about the order in which you use your EQ and compressor.
Here’s something worth remembering…
“Whatever you “feed” the compressor will be accentuated”
So, if that snare sounds great as recorded (or as a sample), but needs a little compression to tame it and even out the hits, then your compressor is first and no EQ is needed.
If it needs “cleaning up”, like the above example, then your EQ is first.
You can also add some post-compression EQ to accentuate the sound further.
If no compression is needed, then don’t add a compressor. Maybe you just need some EQ or the sound could be good to go “as is”.
Whatever serves the song, wins.
You should now be very well informed as to the order in which you should use EQ and compression to serve the song on a case by case basis.
So, I mentioned I was going to give you some tips and settings and now you’re about to get them.
EQ
- Start by using an EQ on the whole mix on the stereo bus
- Take the same approach with your groups
- Work on the individual elements in the mix
- Use filters
- Describe EQ issues with real terms
What big wins can you get straight away by clearing out the mud or boosting the frequencies that matter? How can you get your mix to sound like your references as quickly as possible? Make those EQ decisions straight away.
Go right through the same process with any groups you’ve created – like vocals, drums, guitars etc.
Do they need EQ or do they sound the way you want them to sound in the mix? If they need EQ, do they need some cleaning or are you just looking to add more of a feel and a vibe to serve the song?
Using high and low pass filters can really help you clear out unnecessary frequencies in a mix. I use filters on vocals, guitar and bass a lot.
Use real, descriptive, emotional terms to describe EQ. Using words like impact, power, nasal, feeble, brittle, colour, warmth, will help you so much. That’s because each of those terms corresponds to a frequency range. So, if I wanted more impact and power, I’d be boosting in and around 100Hz.
Compression
- Which type of compressor
- Ratio
- Threshold
- Attack
- Release
- Makeup gain
If you’re trying to expand your compression knowledge, then I’d recommend using a compressor with a variable attack and release, so that you can train your ears. A FET compressor like the 1176 is a good option here. Then, start experimenting with other types.
I almost always start with a 4:1 ratio then either dial back to 2:1 or up to 8:1. It all depends on what works best to your ears. With a 4:1 ratio, for every 4dB over the threshold, the signal is reduced to 1dB over the threshold.
You need to set the threshold. This dictates the point at which compression kicks in. I usually dial it in so that the compressor is taking off about 2-3dB of the peaks and then tweak my attack and release settings to make it all work.
This is how quickly we want the compressor to act. A longer attack time means we hear more of the instrument’s transients and natural attack.
This is how quickly or how slowly we want the compressor to stop acting on the audio. A short release time will give you more compression because the compressor can kick in again quickly and that increases the perceived loudness.
Once you’ve compressed your audio, you now have the option to boost the overall signal. You can use bypass and toggle the compressor on and off to hear the effect it’s having. If you want to tame the transients, but the rest sounds great, then maybe you don’t need makeup gain. But if you want a bigger, fatter sound overall, then makeup gain is for you.
Now, I promise you that when you start implementing this approach, you’ll look at EQ, compression and combining those tools in a whole new and different way.
When this all clicks and you use these incredibly musical tools to serve the song, the game changes forever.
So, I challenge you to adopt this way of thinking straight away and go get yourself some results.
Pull up a mix you want to work on and start now.
Think about why you’re using EQ and/or compression. Will your decisions serve the song?
The question of which tool is more important or the order in which you should use them should now be gone forever.
You already know the technical, emotional and psychological answers… what serves the song!
Now, I’d love to know…
What results did you get from following the steps in this article?
Leave a comment below!
professional sounding mix every time...
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