[Rwp] EQ Chart for Different Instruments

[Liu Kai]

this is true, one only gains through p    ractice, and though these plugins may be able to go to extremes one must be subtle when applying them to music.

life is good

From: Chris Smart via RWP 
Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2015 12:00 PM
To: Reapers Without Peepers 
Cc: Chris Smart 
Subject: Re: [Rwp] EQ Chart for Different Instruments

Matej,
You don't need a chart beyond something like this:
http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html
to get started, and whatever you can find on wikipedia and elsewhere. try searching for "instrument ranges". Look up the note values on the chart linked to above.

Start with a pitch whose sound you know well, middle C, 4th octave A, etc. and start mapping things out for yourself by doubling the frequency for an octave up, and halving the frequency (dividing by 2) for an octave down.

Do this with other sounds you hear all the time, such as electrical hum, 1KHZ test tones, etc. basically, any common sound you have available. If you have a good musical ear for pitch, you just need to attach frequency labels to many of the sounds with which you are already familiar.
If you have a keyboard or piano handy, use it! Wikipedia should give you the common ranges for just about any instrument. it's up to you to take those pitches and look up their frequency values, then work at learning to recognize the sounds of those note ranges. You're building a map in your head. 

The rest of this post is not directed at you specifically, but for anybody else who is asking "how do I learn to use an equalizer?" That comes up a lot on these mailing lists and folks, all the information you could ever want to know about equalizers is out there on the web, in Youtube videos, in any book on mixing, in the documentation for many EQ plug-ins etc. 

To get started: If your stereo, mp3 player, whatever, has bass and treble knobs, you already know what those broad frequency ranges sound like.  So start breaking those larger areas into smaller bands - deep or sub bass, mid-bass, low-midrange, high-midrange, etc. Gradually, you'll learn to focus in on narrower and narrower frequency bands.
Experiment. A lot. Practice practice practice.

Find the fundamental but also learn to find the stronger harmonics in various instruments. What makes a trumpet sound brassy? Where's the warmth in a saxophone, or the buzz of the reed? Where's the sibilance in a vocal, where's the chesty or nasal quality?  Where's the fundamental of a kick drum or bass guitar, now where's the click of that kick drum and the attack of that bass guitar?  
  
As for the common filter types in most equalizers, google is your friend.  High-pass can also be thought of as low-cut. They're the same thing, just with different names. Low-pass can also be thought of as high-cut. Look up the term "q factor" and how it is calculated. Look up terms like "parametric", "corner frequency" etc. Boost a frequency a lot. Change the parameters you have available to you - filter type, Q, shelf steepness etc.) and listen to the results change.

Sorry for going on a mini-rant there.

Chris

At 10:48 AM 10/31/2015, you wrote:

  Hi again,
  sorry for the somewhat off-topic topic, but does anyone have a blind
  friendly EQ chart for different instruments - for example as a PDF? It
  doesn't have to be very detailed - I'm mainly interested in instrument
  ranges. I have found a couple of them, but unfortunately they are
  quite hard to read. Primary instrument ranges would be enough, but I
  wouldn't mind if extra information was included.
  Sorry again for the spam.
  Thanks a lot.
  Matej
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