Scraping the Mud From Your Recorded Tracks – 5 Days to Better EQing in Logic Pro X Series

 

Today we’re continuing our way through the 5 Days to Better EQing in Logic Pro X over at WLPR.

These are 5 videos focused on providing you with repeatable strategies you can use in your own Logic Projects.

Now that we’ve tamed the low-end noise in our tracks, let’s tend to the mud zone in most recorded tracks.

I’ve found over time that most recorded Projects suffer from too much midrange. Just take a moment to consider:

• Aside from the kick drum and bass sitting in the low end…
• And aside from some cymbals and percussion living in the high end…

Everybody in your mix is talking in that same range of the mids.

We’ve all heard that the mids are where all the important stuff is in a mix. So you don’t want to hurt the midrange.

But there’s a disproportionate amount of midrange activity in most recorded Projects.

So we need to smooth out the flabbiness of midrange content.

And to do that, we’re gonna set our sights on the mud zone between 300 – 600 hz.

Ever hear a track described as:

• Muddy?
• Boxy?
• Cardboardy?

If you have, that’s that 300 – 600 hz range.

Again – we don’t want to scrape that same range from every single track in our sessions with EQ! Then we would have a massive hole in our mixes that lacks warmth, body, and chest.

But if we carve carefully, we can remove much of the offending bits that aren’t helping our mixes breath.

The process of mixing is like making a soup.

You acquire the raw ingredients. Chop them up and throw them in the pot (that’s our Logic Project).

And then it’s dashes of spices here, sprinkles of herbs there.

But instead of spices or herbs, we’re working with EQ and Compression.

Remember – it’s important to be thoughtful and judicious with our processing. Small doses add up to big changes over the course of a mix.