Yamaha EMX212S Owner's Manual - Page 16
To EQ or Not to EQ, Some Frequency Facts - guitar center
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BASIC Making the Most of Your Mixer If so you might want to build the mix around the vocals. This means bringing the vocal channel up to nominal first (if your level setup procedure has been done properly this will be a good starting point), and then adding the other instruments. What you add next will depend on the type of material you are working with and your approach to it. If the vocals are backed by a piano trio and the song is a ballad, for example, you might want to bring in the piano next and get the vocal/piano relationship just right, then bring in the bass and drums to support the overall sound. Example2: Funky R&B Groove The approach will be totally different if you're mixing a funky R&B number that centers on the groove. In this case most engineers will start with the drums, and then add the bass. The relationship between the drums and bass is extremely important to achieve the "drive" or groove the music rides on. Pay particular attention to how the bass works with the kick (bass drum). They should almost sound like a single instrument- with the kick supplying the punch and the bass supplying the pitch. Once again, there are no rules, but these are concepts that have been proven to work well. The fundamental and harmonic frequency ranges of some musical instruments. Cymbal Piano Bass Drum Snare Drum Bass Guitar Trombone Trumpet 20 50 100 200 500 1 k 2 k 5 k 10 k 20 k (Hz) Fundamental: The frequency that determines the basic musical pitch. Harmonics: Multiples of the fundamental frequency that play a role in determining the timbre of the instrument. Some Frequency Facts The lowest and highest frequencies than can be heard by the human ear are generally considered to be around 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, respectively. Average conversation occurs in the range from about 300 Hz to about 3,000 Hz. The frequency of a standard pitchfork used to tune guitars and other instruments is 440 Hz (this corresponds to the "A3" key on a piano tuned to concert pitch). Double this frequency to 880 Hz and you have a pitch one octave higher (i.e. "A4" on the piano keyboard). In the same way you can halve the frequency to 220 Hz to produce "A2" an octave lower. The frequencies controlled by the LOW, MID, and HIGH bands on this mixer have been specifically selected to provide the most "musical" range of adjustment with the widest possible range of instruments (100Hz, 2,500 Hz, and 10,000 Hz, respectively). To EQ or Not to EQ In general: less is better. There are many situations in which you'll need to cut certain frequency ranges, but use boost sparingly, and with caution. Proper use of EQ can eliminate interference between instruments in a mix and give the overall sound better definition. Bad EQ-and most commonly bad boost-just sounds terrible. Cut for a Cleaner Mix For example: cymbals have a lot of energy in the mid and low frequency ranges that you don't really perceive as musical sound, but which can interfere with the clarity of other instruments in these ranges. You can basically turn the low EQ on cymbal channels all the way down without changing the way they sound in the mix. You'll hear the difference, however, in the way the mix sounds more "spacious," and instruments in the lower ranges will have better definition. Surprisingly enough, piano also 16 EMX512SC/EMX312SC/EMX212S