Where to put my 31-band Graphic Equalizer in the Signal Path

ALAN STEPHENSON

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A friend of mine asked me a good question recently: I have my 31-band graphic equalizer unit currently in the DP24's monitor out signal path, between the output and the studio monitors, controlling the overall sound quality with individual adjustments per channel using the onboard graphic equalizers. The question posed to me was, would it be better to put the unit in the effect send path and feed it back into the DP24, and have a direct output signal to the external monitors. Thoughts?
 
would it be better to put the unit in the effect send path and feed it back into the DP24, and have a direct output signal to the external monitors.

Welcome to the forum.

The answer to your question depends on why you're using the graphic equalizer.

Do you want to tune your listening position, or color your 2-channel stereo master file?
 
For right now it is purely for fine tuning the overall output to the monitors. At some point I will be recording our performances, but don't intend to include the graphic equalizer in that process, regardless of where it is in the signal path. Bottom line is, it is purely to affect the output sound in the monitors.
 
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Using an outboard EQ for optimizing the monitoring is a good idea and is standard practice. If you are monitoring accurately, then all of your adjustments to the tracks will be correct. What you hear is what you get.

Now, making sure that your monitoring is accurate is another story altogether. You could be adjusting the EQ to make it sound "good" in the control room, but what you are tracking is way off (please don't ask me how I know, lol). Spend considerable time listening to your mixes in various environments and even consider using a calibration mic and software to help you adjust the monitors.
 
That is a good point, and we typically get the sound as we want it with bypass set on the equalizer, then turn it on to fine tune it.
 
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by putting it after your recorder you will never know what is really on the recording.It is tainted by the equaliser.Any EQ after the recorder is pointless. Say you cut all the bass, your recordings will be too bassy in another environment because you boosted bass to make up for the cut.
 
@BazzBass I think you're missing the point of using EQ to calibrate the monitoring position or room. If you know your room is bad and exaggerates boomy bass frequencies, it is common practice to apply EQ to your monitoring chain to correct that. That is definitely something you don't want to do to the recording, because it's only an issue in your room.
 
Agree with Arjan. It's a common practice to address room acoustics at the mix position first with physical treatment, followed by electronic fine tuning.

If your room acoustics are still poor at the mixing position, near-field monitors placed properly will be your best bet to minimize the impact on your mix of the room's acoustic anomalies.

Another possibility is supplementing your reference speakers with a professional grade open-back reference (not monitor) headphone by SONY, AKG, or Beyerdynamic. (More on that in the stickies.)
 
ahh yes I confused myself I think, not hard to do hehe
apologies if I muddied things up
 
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