From the course: Tips and Tricks for Modern Producers

The smile EQ shape

From the course: Tips and Tricks for Modern Producers

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The smile EQ shape

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- [Instructor] And now it is time to smile. So, what I want to talk about now is what I call the smile EQ, and that's a term that I didn't make up, I just like it. What we're talking about here is boosting some of the bottom and some of the top of some of the frequency ranges in order to get a more in your face sound, a louder sound, something that has a little bit more luxury to it. It's nice, you can get more tub out of the bottom, if things are punchy, you feel that low end, but you can also feel the sheen. This is something that's very commonly overused, so we're going to try to go subtle, although I think this particular track will benefit from it. The first thing I'm going to open up is this dangerous plugin called the BAX master. And we can do it, in fact, I'm actually going to switch this over because right now we're looking at the mastering version and I don't even want to go that far, alright? I just want to think about the lows and the highs, okay? So, this is a very simple tool, and you can do this type of technique with just about any stock plug-in EQ. It's just a low shelf and a high shelf. A low cut filter and a high cut filter. So let's say we cut out around 18 Hertz, below 18 Hertz, and then we cut out above 70, and that's not everything above 70 and below 18. It gradually attenuates, so that's what we're talking about here. We're just getting rid of mud, nothing that we really need below or above those frequencies, we can save a little bit of headroom. Bingo bango. Now, let's talk about the shelves. Okay, these are very gentle shelves, and the reason why this is called the BAX EQ is because it's using what are called Baxandall curves. And the Baxandall curves are essentially what you would hear if you have any type of vintage Hi-Fi system or a stereo, if you hit that loudness button, it would boost a low shelf in a high shelf to make the sound a little bit more in your face. Same thing with just like the bass and treble controls. Those were very soft, curved, shelving EQs for the most part that would just give us more lows and more highs to make the sound a little bit more luxurious or in your face or just louder. So, I'm going to choose a shelf at around 116, I don't want to go too low because I just want to get some of the benefit of this in smaller speakers as well, and then let's hunt around for the high shelf. So let's start with the low, and just for the sake of brevity, I'm going to go over the chorus. (bright music) ♪ Come and dance with me ♪ ♪ On the land and in the sea ♪ ♪ Time to let your body free ♪ ♪ Turn around and feel the beat ♪ ♪ Move with the breeze ♪ - [Instructor] Alright, so the low ends kick in a little bit harder. It might be too much, but let's take a listen to it, in and out. ♪ Come and dance with me ♪ ♪ On the land and in the sea ♪ ♪ Time to let your body free ♪ ♪ Turn around ♪ - [Instructor] We can definitely feel the difference. But the bottom end is really getting overwhelming because we do need to get some high end cracking a little bit harder to compensate, so let's listen. ♪ Come and dance with me ♪ ♪ On the land and in the sea ♪ ♪ Time to let your body free ♪ ♪ Turn around and feel the beat ♪ ♪ Move with the breeze ♪ ♪ Let the rhythm set you free ♪ ♪ Life is just a pool party ♪ ♪ Turn around and feel the beat ♪ ♪ Come and dance with me ♪ ♪ On the land and in the sea ♪ ♪ Time to let your body free ♪ ♪ Turn around and feel the beat ♪ ♪ Move with the breeze ♪ ♪ Let the rhythm set you free ♪ ♪ Life is just a pool party ♪ ♪ Turn around and feel the beat ♪ - [Instructor] Okay, so there's a lot of great stuff happening here. Again, these are sort of small moves that are making the track sound so much bigger. It's really making a huge difference. We do not want to go overboard on this. There's a lot that we can do on a more micro scale that might get us part of the way here. I don't like to push more than a DB, a DB and a half. And by the way, these are half DB steps. So these aren't giant pushes that we're doing here. ♪ Come and dance with me ♪ ♪ On the land and in the sea ♪ ♪ Time to let your body ♪ - [Instructor] There's so much that we can do. And so what's nice is that you can do a little push on your mix bus, but don't go totally crazy. I don't ever like to be compensating for something big or adding something really big at the mix bus stage. That to me feels a little bit risky and there are other things that we can do to take our track a little bit further. For example, if I want my drums to smack a little bit harder, maybe I just go down and I grab an EQ that has a nice vibe, and let's just listen and give the drums a little extra push. ♪ Come and dance with me ♪ ♪ On the land and in the sea ♪ ♪ Time to let your body free ♪ ♪ Turn around and feel the beat ♪ ♪ Move with the breeze ♪ ♪ Let the rhythm set you free ♪ ♪ Life is just a pool party ♪ ♪ Move with the breeze ♪ ♪ Let the rhythm set you free ♪ ♪ Life is just a pool party ♪ ♪ Turn around and feel the beat ♪ - [Instructor] So that's an example of using a little bit of a smile EQ on a subgroup. I've got all of my drums going to this one group here before they head to my master fader. And I've simply just added a Pultec EQ on there. And there are so many different ways to go about this and so many different permutations of this. But what I like to do is sort of bend down the branch a little bit on the subgroup, because what I was hearing when we went a little bit overboard with the smile EQ on the mix bus, was that the vocal was getting too harsh. And I was like, "you know, I want a little more crack "from the snare, I want a little more excitement. "I just want the drum kit to push a little bit harder "and dominate a little bit more. "That makes it feel more modern to me, "but I don't want it to affect the vocal that much." So we bent down the branch a little bit. We give the drum a little push here, and then on the mix bus, we just give it a little touch, you know, not going crazy. The vocals' sounding good, let's not ruin it. It's feeling really nice here. So smile EQs are good in a lot of different places, but my main concern is that you use it subtly and you're not overly compensating for something that you could be addressing more directly on its own channel.

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