From the course: Audio Mastering Techniques

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Balancing frequencies

Balancing frequencies

From the course: Audio Mastering Techniques

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Balancing frequencies

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EQing is usually the place that gets engineers who master their own mixes into trouble. There's a tendency to overcompensate with the EQ, adding huge amounts, usually on the bottom end that breaks frequency balance completely. Luckily, there are some rules can be followed to avoid this. The first rule is listen to CDs that you like first before you touch an EQ parameter. Remember, no MP3s, the more CDs you listen to, the better. You need a reference point to compare to, or you will surely overcompensate. Try importing several mastered songs into your mastering session that you can constantly compare to. The second rule is a little EQ goes a long way. If you feel that you need to add more than 2 or 3 db, you're better off to mix the song again. Or in recording you might use large amounts of EQ at a certain frequency. Mastering is almost always in very small increments usually in tenths of a db, to 2 or 3 at the very most in rare cases. What you'll see is a lot of small shots of EQ…

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