Sorry this wasn't for you. I wasn't aware that Alan's EQ style was that extraordinary but this series is nonetheless about what 'Alan' thinks and has done in his career, not what everyone else does or he thinks he's done.

Also, as Alan actually says in the section, EQ is one of the most personal and individual aspects of the recording process. If everyone had the same taste in sound music would get very dull - and I'm not just talking about tone.

We also make no apologies for trying to make the section understandable. There's tons and tons and tons of very complex material out in the world that experts, maybe like yourself, can dig into but that most people simply do not understand.

In this program we wanted to cut through the jargon and present problems and solutions in ways and words that make sense so that people can develop or improve their skills based upon a solid understanding of the subject and an appreciation of how someone at the top of the pyramid actually goes about his work. That can throw up some surprises, for sure.

Julian / Keyfax NewMedia.

For Sekret
I feel you need to look at AP's information as a guide to obtaining or refreshing your own style not as a solution that would cure all.
You have to understand that your recording room or area would have a completely different characteristic to that used in the studios that AP has worked in and in this, the way his unique style will be used comes from experience and the original training he had when he started.
As a recording engineer, I have looked at these videos as providing information or improving my knowledge of the art and consider AP as one of the masters of this art.

Unfortunately you cannot beat a course at an audio school to get a solid background in this field

I have seen the EQ section and I think it's for beginners and still it's not complete.
hope the other section will be better.

I have watched 5 of the videos now and some were very interesting and more advanced, the EQ video was indeed very basic nonetheless I always appreciate different views and approaches on this subject.

I want to point out however a bug in the video:
When Alan is taking about the different frequencies there's a sheet placed onto the screen that goes from 30 KHZ to 500KHZ... this should say 30 HZ to 500 HZ not KHZ it's about 5 minutes into the video, might be too late to fix now, but hopefully not.

Thought I point this one out since it's a bit embarrasing i would think

Near the end, the viewer is directed to a URL at this site: .../files. Right now there's nothing there. Will that material be made availble soon, or...?

thanks

I am in agreement with Chris. I have taken a number of courses in recording at BerkleeMusic, Berklee College of Music's online extension. It was my experience that there were generally accepted views to the whole recording process however, each professor had their own views on how to EQ a guitar, vocal, etc. All versions achieved different sounds. There were no right or wrong ways, just different ways. You kinda pick the one that works for you in a giving recording situation or incorporate a little of each.
There are many great recording engineers/producers in music. I purchased AP's DVD set because I want to learn his approach to the engineering/producing process. I also consider him one of the masters of this art and I am grateful that this series has been made available to learn his approach to the recording process.

While some of the videos might seem basic, why don't share what you've learned?

I watched the eq video and thought the production of it was slick. I am not an engineer by trade but have mixed thousands of minutes of music for TV and movies besides some album cuts that made it to radio, being a composer who has to mix (this usually a function of time necessity not choice). For me who does not have an engineering education I found some of the material educational (I was aware of much of it already) and I can use this information to embellish what my ears instinctively do well.

What a shame that the very first post had to be negative. I enjoyed all six of the first 6 pack videos very much and liked this EQ video especially. This is a great series for someone like me, who works alone in a home studio, and could use some expert company once in while. To have Alan Parsons talking to me...personally...about even basic studio tricks, to see him push some buttons and turn some knobs, to look at the kind of equipment he is using, and talk about how he got certain sounds on certain albums, is inspiring. When could I ever get that kind of visit to, and discussion in, my studio, from a respected producer? Never. I am inspired by this and I always do what it takes to get and stay positive. Thank you Alan for coming into my studio and showing me whatever tips and tricks you care to show me. All of it is valuable.

Richie Miller
Joshua Tree, CA
USA

What else to expect? It is all about the basics. This DVD is not a Bible... Even the Bible should not be taken as THE BILBLE. And AP is not God, of course.

At the first minutes he says: "there are two things you can do when EQing - cutting and boosting".

And that's it my friend, 80% of the lesson. Don't expect him to teach you how to have talent or character using this tool, this is your part.

I am no expert, and yet, I am humble enough to know that when people like AP decide to say something, to share the "little" he got all those years, you sit down, shut up and take a listen to what he says. Even when you totally don't agree with him, you learn from it, you learn from yourself, of course, if you are smart enough.

I am very please to hear him saying, and most of all, to see him with other people sharing thoughts, even sometimes talking about what I already know.

So, I really hope this DVD will help people to develope not only sensibility for music, but also, bring back the sense of simplicity, magic and moment, and how to be there to capture that.

Simple as that.

The rest, as I said, is up to us.

PS - English is not my native tongue, so, forgive me for any gross mistakes.

I thought the video was great. I am not an expert, and if I was an expert I probably wouldn't have bought this video anyway. I bought the video because I felt I needed help, and this video gave me the help I was hoping to get. not only that, but the help came from a very credible source who I previously could never have imagined would be sharing his techniques.

I am axiously awaiting the rest of the videos...

There is an error in the quiz Q5. It reads: "To get rid of him we can use...". After seeing the answer, it should read "To get rid of hum we can use...". I assumed "hiss" and got the answer wrong.

I am enjoying the series so far. Thanks Alan!

Me too, i think that this section is verry poor
No significative exemples
error in the numbering...
i hope we'll have later a bonus second EQ section

No need to be to complex in teaching! A.P.= Dark Side of the Moon need I say more?. I will keep my ears opened to anything this man says. If a pro like A.P. is going to break it down for all us non geeks, I'm ready for a audio education! You can keep all the tech head stuff. I'm going to go with what sounds good to my ears and listen to the masters of the craft.

W. Ryan

I have been recording for many years and have grown both in experience and gear. Firstly I think he was bang on on anything he pointed out and secondly where does one start? This is a course of understanding the tools and the studio. I don't expect Alan to start with the frequency range + or - db of a 4001 Rickenbacker through an Ampeg SVT..... in fact why would you need this. The idea is if this set up shows up in your studio, your ears and your experience learning frequency and bandwidth, should know how to deal with it in your studio. He also mentioned that there are charts on the internet available to have in print and on hand until one becomes more fluent in his decision process. By learning the rudiments like these you can tackle most anything. It is intended to be generic.
He also set up quite an array on the choir and selected a solution in a real environment, not a "this is what to do" scenario.... and admitted to mic assignments being reversed or backward, and the like..things to watch for. The drums video was very defined with all drums and cymbal being adressed.

Not sure what else one would expect.
Thanks for your taking the time to make the video. ..Coincidently just purchased the new Dark Side of Then Moon SACD/CD.... listening in my car.. It was a masterpiece. The clocks are really cool and the music is captured in such a way that it was ahead of it's time. I knew when I was a late teen there was a reason I wore the album out.
Cheers.

First and foremost: Alan, thanks for this project. What a huge undertaking! Julian, bravo for your continued efforts to equip the project studio musicians of the world with the tools and resources they need to make quality music on a budget. Much appreciated.

I streamed the EQ video tonight. I'm impressed with the professionalism and polish. It's a very nice production. Overall I think it will serve as a great EQ primer for those who are new to production. If it's not already in the works, I would suggest a Part II (Advanced) version. Here are a few topic suggestions...

1. Hands on EQ sessions. Examples:
(1) TAPE TRANSFERS.... a lot of us old guys are transferring 4 and 8 track to our computers now -- smile -- would be nice to see how Alan would deal with all the headaches that come with cleaning up old analog tape tracks)
(2) MIX FIRST AID....cleaning up songs that have already been mixed down to 2 tracks
(3) CHANNEL STRIP EQ..... it would be awesome to see Alan take one of the average Joe's multi track Cubase recordings (where tracks are recorded from different sources such as a mic, a Motif, an FSR, a guitar, a Micron, etc) and use EQ on each track to get them all sounding nice together prior to compression, etc. I would also like to hear Alan's opinion on Cubase's shell EQ vs. Waves, Redline, etc. I.e. Is Cubase's shell EQ 'pro' enough?

2. Discussion about EQ'g electronic drum sounds. I don't think many of us are worried about mic placement these days. Most of us are using sampled drums. Hence it would be cool to see Alan EQ a, e.g., 808 drum kit recorded in Cubase so all of it's sounds (sub bass, snares, claps, hats, toms, etc) cut through a mix. Would be nice to see how he deals with stacked drum hits too.

3. More producer input. For example, the engineer towards the end said the "mid range" is so important to him because it speaks to the heart. Though I had never heard it put like that before, I really related to that advice, and it really caused me to reflect on the big picture of production. In fact, that scene alone was worth the .99 I paid for this video. I honestly had never thought about it like that. For me, insight such as this is priceless. After all, music is something we "feel," so it's awesome to hear engineers tell us how they feel about their passion.. which is also our passion.

4. Discussion about EQ curves and presets you see in, e.g., Cubase and Sound Forge. There are all kinds of EQ presets intended for very specific tasks, and most of us have no idea how they should be applied. Some will create a series of notches across the whole EQ range. Others will apply a curvy shape of some sort. These have very specific purposes but a lot of people don't know what they are for and when they should be used.

5. Filters versus EQ? When? How? Also, what about make-up gain? What is too much? If we practice deductive EQ as a lot of engineers seem to suggest, then we lose volume. We then have to apply make up gain. Some EQ's offer the ability to do that. Some don't. In any event, how should we make up for the volume that was lost by way of deductive EQ? With a compressor? Limiter? Make up gain in the EQ?

6. There are a whole bunch of "rules of thumb" about EQ. It would be nice to see them all consolidated. Would also be nice to hear from Alan any books he would recommend, or ear training exercises that would help.

Just food for thought

Congrats on this series, I am really looking forward to the mixing and mastering stuff :D

Peace and love,

Mark
www.motifcity.com

Hi
This is interesting reading, but as an experienced but not up to the level of AP, engineer; I do find some of the comments in the forum as nit picking.
With all recordings, you need to listen to the artists live to judge what you do when you are equalising the recording - many do not, it is also important to understand why you need to apply EQ and I think AP covered this without any questions on my part.

When you are recording 'yourself', it is very difficult to judge what is best and guidance from pre-recorded material can provide a better guide but asking AP to provide all the answers is impossible to do, as only you know the environment the recording was made in and what sounds good in your studio may be completely different if you recorded in another room - sometimes it is better to leave this job to someone who can hear both sides of the performance (live and recorded) and be independent from the artist.

As a personal preference, I normally listen at any recording completely differently to the artists who have played the song, separating the important areas that require immediate attention and where possible try to apply only the smallest of EQ.
Once the problem areas are removed or compensated for, the real job is to deal with the overall mix and the final amount of EQ to be applied together with compression, reverb etc, sometimes you only hear the real problems after you have EQ'd the rest of the mix.

As to a rule of thumb, there is no real guide here, all artists and music genre is different, you certainly would not be applying the same EQ to rock music than you would a jazz recording, this is where your ears come in to tell you what is right or wrong.

One final aspect of these videos is restricted by the quality of the record / replay format used for the video itself and if this has been reduced in performance to preserve space then any comparisions with real time compensation would be meaningless.

Please remember when listening to finished (mastered) material, that recordings go through two sets ears, the recording engineer and the mastering engineer (sometimes these are one of the same), trust me when I tell you that a master tape can be completely different from the final result.

Lastly, maintenance of a tape machine is more complicated than most people consider and although I think AP worked as a tape operator in Abbey Road Studios (please correct me if I am wrong) he may have not needed to touch a demagnetiser or clean a tape as this was covered by a team of technicians.
However cleaning up poor recordings from badly stored tapes or poorly maintained recorders is something best left to the experts with the expensive gear they have acquired to do a dedicated job, I can vouch that this is not an easy job, having transcribed quite a few master tapes to high-res digital for my own personal library.

I didn't think watching this video was going to make me an instant EQ expert. Especially because it is such a deep topic - as stated in the video. I looked at it as an opportunity to get a refresher on the basics and pick up some tips from Alan Parsons and the other professionals he interviews.

Kinda of like watching two different chefs on Food Network prepare the same recipe. They each cover the basics, but you get a little insight on how they make it there own.

Good stuff IMHO.

Good stuff, Brian

Also, I meant to add, it would be nice to have more on "in the box" recording and EQ.

The EQ Quiz. (With apologies to anyone who has yet to take it).

I'd suggest that the last question in the quiz could be better phrased, or even replaced. Choosing a question about a specific piece of equipment - even if it is one that is mentioned often in the video - seems a little 'product placement'y for my taste, and - compounding this - the answer is not very clear cut (being either (B) 'parametric' or (C) 'neither of the above')

The Pultec EPQ-1A does have selectable 'bandwidth' (Q) on it's 'high' control - so could quite happily be described as Parametric - albeit with selectable, rather than swept frequency selection. I think 'semi-parametric' is a the phrase I might use. This makes a strong argument for answer 'B'. Or 'C'.

Regarding the video itself...

The EQ video had many suggestions for frequencies and amounts of cut/boost throughout - which were all on-screen or mentioned quite quickly if one was trying to note these down. Perhaps the 'files' section could contain a handout of the ones mentioned. (Then it'd be more like being back in school!).

Further to comments made in this thread...

Despite it's beginner's nature I rather enjoyed the EQ video. Whilst some of it is clearly 'opinion' of how EQ could be used, surely that is to be expected. If the video contained no suggestions for EQ use, then it would be nothing more than a description. (Which would amount to little more than "EQ is cutting/boosting frequencies. LPF is... HPF is... Notch is... Parametric EQs have Q which is shape of bell"). Take the advice for what it is: advice. Advice to consider, try, and - if unappealing - reject. But that would be dependent on individuals and specific circumstances.

I found this video really helpful. I'm not a sound engineer, I'm a musician recording and mixing songs of my band. I see those videos as aimed at serious hobbyists like me. I guess professionals have learnt it all already, haven't they?

The frequencies given by AP were a very good starting point to EQ a stereo recording of a complete drumkit (no multitrack).

Notch filtering helped me solve many many problems, and I wasn't aware of how important it was. I used it to prevent the bass from eating all the low frequencies, or drastically improve the sound of a highly distorted guitar sound recorded through the amp by a vocal mic (which required HPF, LPF, a negative curve bell around 1000 Hz and no less than 3 notch filters around 100, 4200 and 5000 Hz to get rid of really harsh resonances).

So from my point of view, this video is more than worth the price I paid (which is different from being worth more than the price I paid... if it makes sense).

I can't wait to have the whole collection!

Well I'm about to purchase this set. Quite amused with this post. We all have to remember, there is NO ONE SETTING for any instrument, be it Guitars, Vocals, Keyboards, Drums...what have you. Every track is different and should be mixed musically not as a cookie cutter rack. My philosophy is to make each and every track sound as natural as possible, hence I add effects mostly to fix bad takes or to add ambiance. Believe it or not Less really is more. I do have my own personal style of mixing, Alan Parsons, Phil Spector and Brian Eno have always been a huge influence on me. I am more interested in their philosophy and maybe picking up a new trick or 2 rather than trying to emulate Alan. I do agree with Alan's approach on Eqing from what I've read so far. Really anticipating on reviewing the DVDs !!!

Gabriel