Suggestions for EQing acoustic with the DP24's 3-band EQ

Winterwind

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Hey folks,

I'm looking for EQing suggestions for a song I'm working on.

It's just vocals, acoustic, some tambourine accents here and there and an accordion solo (well, a synth's accordion voice).

I've never actually recorded anything with just acoustic as the primary instrument and I'm unsure how to get the best sound with the DP24's 3-band EQ. All the article's I'm finding online are geared towards more than just 3-bands.

Any advice would be appreciated. It's a song for a local charity event and I want to do it right. It's all finger picked, no strumming.

Currently I'm toying around with...

High 11k Hz
Mid 1.1 k Hz
Low 900 Hz

Thanks
 
There are few hard or fast rules about such things.

Some questions:
What is your room like? Acoustically treated or just a bedroom or such?
What kind of guitar? Nylon or steel strings?
Are you doing vocals at the same time as the guitar, or separate?
What kind of voice do you have? Tenor/bari/bass?
What mic or mics are you using?
How many tracks will be in the final mix?

The only generic advice I can give at this point is:
You will likely want to roll off your lows starting at around 80Hz or so and down, to eliminate bass "mush" from bad room acoustics, subsonic noises in your house or building and such.

In many ordinary homes, you will find low-mid resonances around 250Hz, so if that's your situation, a dip there is a good start (160/200/250)

Leave the mids where they are until you know if you need to touch them.

I can't offer more than these generalities since I know nothing about your setup or your space.

Let us know what you're dealing with.

Claus.
 
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Thanks for replying, Cosmic.

I'm working in my home studio. The room is 14'3" x 10'8". It's treated.

Acoustic, steel strings.

Doing vox and acoustic at the same time. Vocals are with a Shure Super 55, the acoustic is mic'd with a Sennheiser E614 about 8" from the guitar and aimed at about the 12th fret.

The final mix will be vox, acoustic, accordion and tambourine. Kind of a Celtic/Acadian feel to the song. Still playing around of course and currently have the low gain at -5 dB since my thumb is basically the bass line, straight quarter notes on the low E or A string depending on the chord and it was pretty over powering.
 
for a start, don't record vox and acoustic at the same time. Main reason being that you will get both of them in both mics which makes mixing each one almost impossible. You'll have vox in the guitar's track and vice versa.
If you need to sing as you play for continuity and / or to help with knowing where you are in the song, what I often do is record vox and guitar as you are playing and singing, and use this as my guide track, then go back and record the guitar again on it's own, then do the singing again, on it's own. Then delete the guide track.
 
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Thanks for the reply, BazzBass. I almost always do vox and guitar at the same time, especially when it's a finger picked soft piece. Always have, always will. It's more a "honest" performance and I like the "bleed through". Adds to the sound. Some artists and producers like doing both at once, some prefer separate and I'm definitely in the former group. :)

I'm asking about EQ'ing, working the board, since I've never attempted any real mixing and mastering before. That was always someone else's job. Now that I'm getting back into music just on my own, I need to figure that out and I'm finding mixing acoustic far trickier than mixing a mic'd amp for electric or bass.
 
If you are working guit/vox together, then I'd suggest doing a quick minute-track or so of just the guitar part and listening to it, with you in position, both mics in position and turned up. At least it will give you an idea of what the guitar sounds like, eq-wise, in that space with both mics active for the performance.

Most likely you'll still want to roll off the 80-and-below somewhat to clean out the bottom of the guitar and the space. Then the vocals become as much a matter of your performance (proximity effect to mic and all) in terms of frequency response. The 250 area is still good to keep in mind if the low-mids of the guitar start clogging up the vocals. A "leaner" guitar works surprisingly well when other things are going on in the mix.

The final rec may want a touch of air on top, 8K and above. Add to taste if needed, without getting sibilants or string noise.

Compress gently and serve...

C.
 
@Winterwind I totally understand, I like to record my bands as live as possible. Only problem is the drummer's kick drum pad on his e-kit bleeds into the vocal mic . so we use that vocal track as a guide and redo it after.
 
The final mix will be vox, acoustic, accordion and tambourine. Kind of a Celtic/Acadian feel to the song. Still playing around of course and currently have the low gain at -5 dB since my thumb is basically the bass line, straight quarter notes on the low E or A string depending on the chord and it was pretty over powering.
Best tip I can give: Get your guitar and vocal recorded both sounding good and well balanced - if possible just by using mic placement. Then only start bothering about EQ on the acoustic when you have ALL ingredients of the mix in place. Especially with accordion, which has a very wide range of frequencies, you'll be redoing everything in the end anyway..
 
Hey folks, thanks for the replies and suggestions. Been a crazy week so just responding now...

RE: some of the suggestions - Having a bit of a time translating those to actions.

With the DP24-SD, the EQ is 7 knobs, High - Mid - Low Gain and High - Mid - Low Frequency and the Q knob so, for example, with the suggestions from @Cosmic as for rolling off this and that... that's really just working with Low Gain and Low Frequency, correct?

Naturally I've searched, watched and read different videos and articles and 99% are all geared to recording software which offers far more bands than the three my board has.

PS - @Arjan P - the "accordion" is actually the easiest as it's not a real one but a Roland synth.

I have to laugh at the irony - EQing and mixing bass, electric, vox, synth, drum machine... easy peasy and it's the acoustic, a simple acoustic, that's throwing me for a loop. :)
 
PS - Arjan P - the "accordion" is actually the easiest as it's not a real one but a Roland synth.
My point was not about EQ-ing the accordion, but about getting your guitar EQ right after the accordion is part of the mix, since they are in each other's frequency range.
 
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as Arjan said, the accordion is in some of the guitars frequency range, so watch for that. Ideally you wanna give each instrument it's own frequency range and keep the others out of it.

this links to a chart showing everything from the voice to each drum's frequency range so you can easily see where two instruments overlap.

Frequency range chart in reference to Various Musical Instruments - Team-BHP
 
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Today we have multiband EQ with a visual overlay and can see the audio waveforms. This tends to create a methodology of working "by the numbers" instead of using our ears and making adjustments based on how it sounds. Out of all those wonderful records done in the 60's through the 80's very few engineers saw those things. We used our ears only.

The OP's statement:

I'm looking for EQing suggestions for a song I'm working on.

doesn't say what the problem is. "EQ" is an abbreviation for "equalization" and the original intent was to adjust for imbalances in the audio spectrum in the chain caused by the limitations of equipment of the day. Today, EQ is used as a sculpting tool and the capability of modern equalizers goes far beyond simply making up for inadequacies such as transformer ringing or room acoustics, etc..

I would like to know what the issue is with the recording and then make suggestions for solving the problem in the best manner, rather than suggesting the application of EQ.

My thoughts are that with a simple production, good mics and mic placement should give good results. Perhaps it could be sweetened up a bit at Mastering.
 
I agree with mjk.

I liken EQing to cooking, specifically,seasoning food.

If you season your food properly when cooking it,you shouldn't need salt or pepper on your table.

Same with recording, if you have your preferred tone going IN, you shouldn't need much, if any, EQing. Use EQ at the source to compensate for the room etc
 
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