I am going to be posting a series of these, beginning today with EQing a bass drum.  I’d love your feedback so I can help you become better mixers.  If you have anything that you’d like some focus on, please comment below or message me. 

This EQ technique can be applied to any track. What you are essentially doing is boosting a frequency and sweeping around looking for things that sound bad and need to be attenuated (lowered), or you can be listening for areas that sound good and benefit from boosting.  As you become more experienced, you will learn better starting points that work for you.  Props to my man Andy Cardenas for teaching me this 10 years ago.

In my example, I EQ’d a solo kick drum track.  When working on a multitrack song, remember to unsolo the sound and see how it works with the rest of the parts.  Specifically, things in the same frequency range.  So, while working on the bass drum, make sure your EQ and compression settings do not get in the way of the bassline and vice versa.  Speakers have a hard time producing lots of the same low end frequencies, so things can get muddy down there if you are not careful. 

***More tips for cleaning up the low end:***
1. If you boost something in the kick that sounds good, remove a little bit of that same frequency from the bassline and vice versa.  This will help them make room for each other.

2. Although it is common practice to keep low end instruments dead center, try panning the bass slightly to one side.  10% or even less can make a big difference for clarity while not throwing your mix balance out of whack.

$$$3. Probably my most recommended practice of all when it comes to cleaning up the low end is rolling off the lows from any instrument that is not the bassline or kick.  Put a high pass filter on every track that is not supposed to have bass in it.  You’d be amazed by how much clarity that you will get out of this.  Even hi hat samples sometimes have low end stuff going on that you may barely hear.  Noise from cables, vinyl, or gear can sneak into the sample at some point in its creation.  Same thing goes for synths.  As a starting point, I recommend that you roll 150Hz off everything but the kick, bass, and low synths/guitars/samples, and then work your way up as you get to the higher instruments.  Most hi hats have no business having 400Hz or lower in there, so get rid of it and watch your mixes clean up like Palmolive after Thanksgiving dinner.

Stay in touch.  Peace.