Subtractive EQ

Have you ever been mixing for a worship service or band and the more you tweak it, the more it sounds like mud? I sure have.

This week at Yamaha's Audioversity (their new training event), one of the trainers said something that will completely change the way I mix from now on. It's actually quite a simple, yet genius concept.

Think of your mix as a room. As you start adding items (instruments, vocalists, etc.) to your room, they begin to stack on top of each other. Eventualy, your room is so cluttered that you can't hear anything clearly. If you'll move each item a separate space within that room, you'll begin to hear each one individually. So how do you do that? Subtractive EQ.

Listen to each instrument and determine where it belongs dynamically. For instance, a bass guitar naturally lives at the low end of your mix. So, scoop out the high frequencies and that will open up the high end for another instrument. By doing this for each instrument, you'll eventually create a mix in which everything has its own space and you can hear it all clearly.

Try it for yourself. I think you'll be amazed at how removing the right frequencies from an instrument will make it sound so much cleaner.