Frequently Given Feedback #5 - Chill on the EQ!

Hey Everyone, back with another FGF--this time on EQ! I frequently find myself recommending less EQ...a majority of the time it's just to low cutting less and with a more gradual slope. In the video, I cover a few other recommendations and the reasons behind them.

NOTE: Don't freak out if you don't have an EQ that does Linear Phase--you're probably fine. I'm just explaining some of these points in the video for those that may have run into an issue and not understood what was going on. Phase issues don't occur every single time you use EQ and parallel process--in fact, engineers were using EQs for decades before linear phase EQ was even invented, so you can imagine they were getting by just fine. The phase shifting that occurs the majority of the time is minor, and may not be perceptible, and that's if you even used an EQ on your parallel channel. As for regular processing, it's not necessarily the phase shift that is the problem--rather, it's artifacts from that phase shift that are causing unintended boosts/dips on frequencies around the target frequency--at the end of the day, just trust your ears.

The real takeaways here are that less is more when it comes to EQ, whether that means gradual curves, using lower/higher cutoffs for high/low pass filters, or just using less EQ overall and instead finding better starting sounds. The video just didn't cover that as in depth because it's pretty straightforward.

Here are some other resources if you're interested in learning more about phase and linear phase EQs. Dan Worrall generally is one of the best educators I know of on YouTube--he does all of FabFilter's videos and makes his own very well explained examples and walkthroughs on so many topics.

What Type Of EQ Should I Use? - Dan Worrall 

Linear Phase vs. Minimum Phase EQ - Dan Worrall 

Should You Be Using Linear Phase EQ? - Adam Kagan 

F**k Tha Phase Police: Use Parallel EQ - Dan Worrall