Monday, June 29, 2009

A Couple Drum EQ Tips

Hey guys! Long time, no see! I've been dealin with a lot of different things. I signed my first Dubstep song, got an offer to make Dubstep drum loops and put out my first Dubstep EP. I've also been getting offers to play gigs but i need Scratch Live first. If you would help me get it by donating in the top right of the blog through paypal that would be great =D!

Anyways, I'm here to give a couple tips about EQing drums in a mix. Hope this helps.

Snare-

The snare is in my oppinion the most important of all the drums. To me its what keeps the time and makes it a beat. I know you can use a kick, hi hat or even bongo loop to make a beat but the snare is the one that stands out the most, it cuts though the whole kit and makes sure you know whats going on. A few little things I do when I mess with the snare is I cut out all the low's below about 100Hz in the EQ. This makes it sound crisper and stand out more in the mix. I also boost around the 500Hz area for a lil extra punch and crunch.

Sometimes if the snare clashes with the vocals try cutting out between 2.5kHz and 3.5kHz by a dB or 2 to make sure the vocals stand out past the snare int he mix.

After all of that I throw a little bit of reverb on it. Not too much but just a little to fill out some of the dead space in the loop.

Kick-

A lot of the time people will boost all the low's in the kick, but I only boost between about 50Hz and 80Hz because anything lower than 50Hz just becomes mud and rumbley noise to me. I also bring up 500Hz a little bit and some of the higher freq to make the kick's punch stand out in the mix a little more. You might need to cut it also if it's an extra slappy kick to beguin with.

I never usually put reverb on kicks. Sometimes it works but I usually stay away from it.

Hi Hats-

Hats I will cut the lows below about 100Hz to make the sizzle stand out. I might also cut it from about 15kHz and above to get rid of the harsh tones that might come out in the hats.

I will throw a little reverb on the hats, about the same amount as the snare just to fill in the space on the loop. I also might throw a delay on some of the hats to give it a shuffle.

Just a couple tips, enjoy and come back soon!

-Cheebs

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice layout, my friend. thank you.

bg

Stony said...

hey was watching a video on war beats of ski beats makin jayz dead presidents and he said something bout lo passing the sample through a filter to get a bassline from the sample. if you know what im sayin and can explain more that be tight maaan.

Cheebs said...

Basically what you do is cut out all the high freq out of the sample above 250Hz or so and see how it sounds. You might have to EQ a lil more to get just the bass and then you compress it or turn it up to make it louder.

After that you later it under the other sample and it brings out the natural bass in the sample.

Stony said...

cheebs thanks thats wasssup ima give that a try thanks so much for the detailed info