How to EQ (Almost) Anything

Without a doubt, equalizing (EQing for short) the live mix is one of the most stressful parts of running sound in a worship setting. Prep as you may, come Sunday morning, anything can happen, and as the congregation trickles in, that mix you painstakingly crafted during soundcheck may fall flat. This is when inexperienced engineers panic and the congregation is treated to a jarring jumble of sound that’s much less than inspiring. Lucky for you, there are some simple guidelines that can make rescuing your mix simple and painless. But before we go into the specifics, there are a few things you’ll want to consider.
Why Bother EQing?
You’re probably thinking that the answer to this is simple: you EQ to make the mix sound better — obviously. But the real question may be, “How does EQ work?” There are two main ways that EQing will help your live mix.
First, equalization lets you correct problems and imbalances in individual channels. A bit of critical listening to any input is likely to reveal a major flaw or two in the sound. Perhaps that acoustic guitar sounds a bit brittle, or that kick drum sounds like it’s made of cardboard. Whatever the problem may be, applying a modest amount of equalization will usually help correct the imbalance.
Second, EQ lets you put each input source into its own pocket, reducing the chance of one instrument masking another or causing a buildup around a specific frequency range. That kind of buildup leads to muddy mixes at best and nightmarish feedback at worst. Instead, by isolating the most important frequency ranges of each track, the whole mix can come together like the pieces of a mosaic, creating a beautiful picture from a series of discrete yet complementary parts.

Pro Tip: Low-end bass buildup is one of the biggest issues in live sound mixing, but it’s an easy problem to solve. If your mixing board includes highpass filters on each input, then you’ll want to use them on most inputs. With the exception of kick drum, almost no sources benefit from that extreme low end, and rolling it off right from the start is one of the easiest ways to start your mixing on the right foot.

General EQ Tips
Here are a few general tips to keep in mind before you reach for the EQ.
1. Cut before boosting
There are two great reasons to cut unwanted frequencies rather than to boost the range you want to keep. First, each EQ band is, essentially, a small gain stage. Each time you amplify signal (increase the gain), you introduce some noise. The more you raise the gain by boosting EQ bands, the more noise you add to the mix. It’s not much, but it does add up, especially across larger mixes.
Second, by cutting out unwanted frequencies, you end up gaining more control over what’s left, cutting some ranges more than others, while leaving the desirable range intact. Sure, you can get the same effect by boosting multiple bands in proportion, but the process is slower and introduces more noise than simply carving away the unwanted frequencies.

Pro Tip: To find the frequency range you want to keep, start by boosting and then sweeping an EQ band to find the frequencies where the source pops out. Just be sure to bring that band down to unity gain (0dB) and then cut other frequencies around it when you’re done.

2. Focus on one frequency range per channel
Many modern digital mixing boards give you the same detailed parametric EQ options you’ll find in plug-in processors, opening up endless tone tweaking possibilities. That’s great if you have time to set everything up in advance, and we’ll go into details about how to use those EQs to their best effect in the section on EQing specific sources. However, digging into these elaborate EQs in real time is slow and time consuming.
Considering the acoustic environment of many churches, the finer adjustments these EQs offer may be downright ineffective. Whether you use detailed parametric EQs or the in-line knobs on your analog board, your best bet is to isolate just the main frequencies of your source and let everything else take a back seat. You’ll get effective results quickly that way, freeing up your attention for other critical mixing tasks.

Pro Tip: If you do have access to more powerful EQ options, you may want to take a look at any available presets. These allow you to use the full potential of your mixer, without wasting time. And you can always zero in on select frequencies if you need to make quick adjustments on the fly.

3. Go slow and fine tune
There’s no substitute for making small incremental changes when making critical mixing decisions. This serves two purposes. First, sudden shifts in tone can be jarring to your audience, calling attention to problem tracks and throwing off the mix, sometimes making it worse than it was before you grabbed that EQ knob. Second, small adjustments are often all you need. A mere adjustment of 1dB or 2dB can have a potent effect on balancing your sound. Pulling out a dB or two on a husky vocalist and then sweeping around to find the best frequency to notch can be very beneficial to the sound, and your tweaking is often imperceptible to the audience.

Pro Tip: Don’t solo. It may be tempting to pick up those headphones and solo the channels you want to tweak in isolation. Don’t do it! The point of tweaking your channel EQs is to get a better mix, a more appropriate sound to sit correctly in the blend, and you simply can’t do that if you aren’t listening to the mix itself. Small changes might not sound like much, but if you take your time and really listen, you can pull your mix together quickly enough.

Tips on Reviewing Specific Sources
With these essential EQing strategies in mind, you’re ready to dive into the nuts and bolts of individual kinds of sources and where you’ll get the best results. We cannot stress this enough: there is no right or wrong way to EQ. Equalization is an art, and you’ll need to play around with your EQs to get the best results. Here are some guidelines that should provide a useful place to start.
1. Vocals
Preferences for EQing vocals are as personal as you can get, and every voice is going to need to be tweaked a bit differently to account for the register, timbre, and expression of the singer, and even the song. That said, there are a few specific frequency ranges to consider.
First, anything under 80Hz can go — it’s the range where rumble, handling noise, and proximity-effect boominess live. Similarly, the next range up, ending at about 400Hz, is where you find the hollow-sounding bass that comes from room reflections and where off-axis mic bleed comes in. This range does little except take away from the clarity of your vocals.
The center point of the vocal range is somewhere between 500Hz and 1kHz. Cutting frequencies at and right below 500Hz will tame the boxy sound reminiscent of the “wah wah wah wah” sound of the teacher’s voice in the old Peanuts cartoons. Right above 1kHz is where you enter the honkey, nasal character of your vocals. Unless you like the Billy Corgan/Axl Rose vocal quality, you may want to carve out this range as well. Above 5kHz, you’re getting into the sibilance territory. Watch this carefully because a very ess-y vocal sound will leave the audience thinking more about consonants than the words of the song.
2. Acoustic Guitar
Probably the single most important instrument in worship music is the acoustic guitar. When it’s just the worship leader and an acoustic, EQing isn’t so hard, but getting an acoustic guitar to sit right in a crowded mix of drums, keys, bass, and electric guitar can be a challenge.
Below 60Hz, all you get is boomy bass, and it doesn’t do anything but muddy up the mix. You’ll want to cut that straight away. Be careful though, since the full low end of the instrument lives between 60Hz and 100Hz, and you don’t want to leave your guitar sounding anemic.
While mic placement is the best way to deal with excessive boominess from the soundhole (if you’re using a mic), you can cut down the range from about 100Hz to 300Hz a bit. For guitar pickups, this is very dependent on the guitar and the pickup system that’s installed on it. Be careful cutting too much, because the body of the instrument also lives in this space, usually between 200Hz and 300Hz.
Between 2kHz and 5kHz, you’ll find the presence of the instrument, with the high-end sparkle centered around 15kHz. This leaves a massive gap between 300Hz and 2kHz for the fundamental of your acoustic guitar. So where do you go from there? Well, that’s going to depend on two things.
First, there’s the type of guitar — a rosewood guitar is going to be more brilliant than a warm mahogany instrument, while a maple guitar can boom like a cannon. Second, you’ll want to hear where the guitar sits in the mix with the other instruments. If you’re mixing a full band, you might want to hold off on EQing acoustic guitars until the end.
3. Electric Guitar
At first blush, electric guitar isn’t a whole lot different from acoustic guitar. Again, you can put your board’s highpass filters to work and toss out anything below 80Hz. The range between 100Hz and 400Hz carries the body of the instrument, with the main resonance living between 400Hz and 2kHz.
It gets tricky from there, since there’s a lot of complex information between 2kHz and 3kHz. That’s where you’ll find both the snap of the pick on the strings and the harshness that can overpower not only the sound of the guitar but also the entire mix. If buzz or finger squeaks are an issue, you can pull back between 5kHz and 9kHz and control the complex high-end overtones above 10kHz if you like.
4. Bass
It might seem counterintuitive, but you really don’t want those ultra-low-end frequencies muddying up your bass sound. That means running your bass channel through that same trusty highpass filter and cutting it off below 50Hz is probably a good idea. Just above this useless low-end rumble lies the bottom end of the instrument, with low-end punch following along at 100Hz to 200Hz. There’s a good chance you’re going to want to carve away a bit of frequency range around 300Hz to cut the muddled, chunky, boxy sound. If you want some additional harmonic excitement, you can always rely on the 2kHz to 5kHz range, which is where you’ll find string slap and more percussive sound.
5. Drums
EQing drums is an art all its own, and whole books have been written on the subject. Here’s a quick look at the biggest challenges your kit has to offer.
a. Kick
In many ways, EQing kick drums is one of the biggest challenges for anyone behind the board. You need the kick to be big and punchy, without allowing it to overwhelm the mix. That’s one of the main reasons you’ll want to cut out those deep lows in the rest of your channels — you need to leave room for the deep bass to allow it to cut through the mix, without muddying the balance. But there are plenty of other harmonic subtleties that define your kick drum sound, and knowing what to carve out is also extremely important. Here are some of the defining frequency ranges you need to bear in mind.
To reiterate, those lowest of the low frequencies (60Hz and below) are where the deepest, most booming undertones resound. The actual fundamental tone lives between 100Hz and 200Hz, but the range right above that, from 200Hz to 300Hz, can be a problem. If your sound is a bit muddy, start by cutting there. Another problem frequency is around 500Hz, which is responsible for that thin cardboard sound that can take the spank out of the attack.
The rest of the attack, where the beater hits the batter head, rests right in the midrange frequencies, extending all the way up to about 1.5kHz. That can make mixing tricky, because you also have to leave space in the mids for your kick. Anything above 2kHz is part of the slap of the head, and boosting or cutting that range is entirely a matter of taste.

Before you even start EQing, having the right kick drum mic can have a huge impact on the sound. How big? Take a listen to a variety of mics in our Kick Drum Mic Shootout.

b. Snare
While some engineers choose to dial in the snare drum first, you’ll typically want to save this for after you have a satisfactory kick drum sound. There are two reasons for this. First, it’s a lot more difficult to shape the sound of your harmonically complex kick drum around the rest of the mix than it is to balance other elements around it. That’s one of the reasons many engineers prefer to start mixing and EQing with the kick. Second, you need the relatively less demanding snare drum to complement your kick sound. Without first dialing in the kick, getting the snare sound right will take a lot of backtracking.
When it comes to actually EQing a snare drum, you probably won’t be surprised about the first step: cut the lowest of the lows. In this case, you can ditch anything south of 150Hz, which is the bottom end of the snare’s body tone. In fact, the range between about 150Hz and 250Hz is the fundamental tone of the snare drum, and it’s the range you’ll want to isolate the most.
Like the kick drum, the range between 500Hz and 800Hz may be problematic, as it’s where the chunky, boxy sound of the shell lives. You’ll probably want to cut it a bit. Want to punch up the attack? Bring out the range between 1kHz and 4.5kHz. Depending on the tuning of the drum, you can find any ringing resonance by boosting with a narrow Q until the tone becomes very pronounced and then pull that frequency back.

Make sure you start with a great snare drum mic, and it will make getting a great snare sound much easier. Listen to some great snare mic samples in this article about Best Mics for Recording Snare Drums.

c. Toms
Toms are a bit of a tricky subject. The problem is that they can vary greatly from one another. Their fundamentals and harmonics fall into a wide range of frequencies, typically displaying characteristics in common with both snare and kick drums. Like virtually all sources, you’re going to want to cut out those extreme lows (80Hz and below) that capture more room noise than they do the toms themselves.
Around 500Hz or 600Hz, you’ll find the same flat, unflattering cardboard sound, but you can isolate the fundamental frequencies anywhere from 500Hz to 5kHz. After that, you’re in resonance territory, which may or may not be desirable, depending on the mix and the tone you’re going for. The bottom line is that you’re going to have to experiment with your toms to get the sound you’re after. Take your time, and you can surely sort it out.
d. Cymbals
If you need to mic them, know that harsh, brittle, muddy, or simply inaudible cymbals can ruin a good mix. Unfortunately, like toms, cymbals vary so much — from thin and bright hi-hats to dark and heavy rides — that there are no one-size-fits-all guidelines for EQing them. That said, there are some rules worth taking into consideration. Here are a few we follow when we mic cymbals for live sound.
As usual, you’re going to want to cut any low frequencies that don’t contribute to the sound — below 200Hz, in the case of cymbals. Between 200Hz and 400Hz, cymbals project their harmonic undertones, allowing you to bring out or cut back on the more gong-like sound of the instrument. If your cymbals sound muddy or disappear in the mix, then it’s likely that the problem lies in this range.
Toward the top of the range (around 400Hz), you can bring out the washy sound of rides and crash cymbals. It’s also the range that captures the overall ambience of the kit from overhead mics. Depending on the bell size and stick type, you can expect the attack of your cymbals to fall somewhere between 750Hz and 7.5kHz, so you’ll want to be really careful about EQing in this range. Beyond 7.5kHz, you get into the shimmer and brilliance of cymbals, and if you really want to make them shine, try boosting 10kHz with a shelf filter.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this guide to EQing and that it will help you get better results mixing in your house of worship. Remember, EQing is an art, not an exact science, so you’re going to have to play around to find what works for you. If you have questions about processing gear, mixers, or anything else that will help you EQ, don’t hesitate to give your Sweetwater Sales Engineer a call at (800) 222-4700.
You may want to print out our EQ Frequency Cheat Sheet to help you see which frequencies are important to which instruments.
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