EQ Rules of Thumb

When equalizing you must pay attention to some of the most common mistakes that sometimes even the seasoned engineer makes. First of all try always to keep your equalization gain parameter at a reasonable level. As a general rule, avoid cutting or boosting by more than 6 dB unless absolutely necessary. If for some reason you see that some of your EQ settings go over this limit try to question why and see if there is a better solution to the problem. The same can be said for situations where you end up boosting (or cutting) several frequencies at the same time that have the only effect of raising (or lowering) the overall volume of the track without really affecting its sonic content. In this case try to bypass the equalizer and experiment with volume changes instead.

You will be surprised how much a small amount of equalization can change, and hopefully improve your mix. Try to hear the sound in your head that you want to achieve through equalization and avoid playing around with the parameters trying to “find” the perfect sound.