The Industry

     What a day! For the first time in several days I have actually had a life?! I know it scared me a little too. So eventful day = later post. I apologize for that, but it doesn’t mean that todays post is half-assed. I realized today that the majority of my tips/tricks were for on-air… and on-air is such a small part of a radio station, so we are going to switch gears for the next couple days and today we are entering my other love… PRODUCTION! Because as you know, there is NO station without a production team. From music and splitters to station promo’s and commercials a station could not operate without producers. One of the top tricks that I have learned to make my production the best it can be is EQ!

I am not claiming that I am a production God (more like demi-god… I’m getting there haha) but I do really enjoy it. However the one area that my time at BCIT barely covered proves to be the one area that stations spend a lot of time on… EQ, or Equalization. 

It is the art of fiddling with the frequencies of your audio/music track to make sure that one isn’t drowning out the other. It can also be used to reduce the harsh sounds of ‘S’s that producers hate so much! EQ is also handy for effects, like making it sound like someone is on the phone or muffled, lower/higher pitch etc. An incredibly useful tool in the production tool belt, but like I said at school we didn’t spend a lot of time on it. Fortunately when I did my internship at Rogers Vancouver in production, they helped me out. Now for the most part it is an ear thing. You just have to play around with it. 

This is what a 30-Band EQ looks like in Adobe Audition. Basically each slider you see represents a frequency. If you have a 10-Band EQ it will mean you will only have 10 sliders so each one will have more frequencies attached to it (when you play around with it you will hear the changes).  So for example to make it sound like your track is coming from a phone you would drop the top frequencies (the right hand side) and some of the lower frequencies as well (left side). Again this is all about fiddling around with it until it sounds like what you want.

Now to make it so your vocal track cuts through a certain music bed you can play around with the EQ again. Usually you can boost the higher frequencies slightly and drop the lower frequencies a smidge as well. However the trick I picked up that really affects the human voice is the mid frequencies (left of middle). According to the magic google, The human voice covers a range of 80Hz to a high of 1-3kHz, so depending on how many bands you have on your EQ you want to adjust in between these regions. By boosting and tinkering in this range you can drastically change the power of the voice so it cuts through without making it sound like a robot. Confused? I was too. Practice, practice, practice… and when you get it you sound really legit when you pull out the “okay, I’ll just adjust the voice track frequencies. Hmm, boost the 1kHz lower…” trust me haha. 

EQ is almost impossible to explain in words, its a do it/hear it thing. However I wanted to remind you of its importance. Do not neglect your EQ. It is the difference between a decent commercial and a great commercial. It’s also important to remember that producers have the “producers ear”. It’s our instrument and it needs to be trained. Seasoned professionals have this ear and will hear the difference even if the average listener can’t.

For more tips and tricks on EQ and for a better understanding of what EQ is take a look at this awesome article that I got while at Rogers. Seriously READ IT NOW (it’s in bold you have to!) It is written by Dave Foxx and is excellent!

Let me know what you think! Also if there is a topic you want me to cover let me know in the comments or on my twitter (@mitchhawes). 

-M

P.S. For the record this was posted before midnight so it still counts as day eleven… WOO!