Over the last couple of years I have tried to steer away from over EQing, unless I am mixing something recorded by someone who DOESN'T apply the 'get it right at source' approach - there are plenty of them out there!
Now it's a known fact amongst my friends and clients that I'm not too much a fan of 'the music technology course', this is due to a number of reasons and based on a string of work experience pupils who have been studying for two years, THINK they know it all and in actual fact have to be re-programmed by me and start again! Now, if you've done one of these courses you'll be taught how to 'fix' things with EQ. For example: "Boost 40hz on the kick for a bit of sub, cut at 400hz to reduce that boxy sound, boost at 4.5khz for a bit of click and then further at 10khz for a bit of snap". Experience has taught me that you can very rarely rely on ONE mic to achieve your sub, weight, click and snap and also brings me onto the main focus of this blog entry: PHASE issues.
EQ tends to introduce distortion and phase shift. So when you EQ something, certain ranges of frequencies become out of time with the rest of the frequency content. Basically certain frequencies will lag behind the others. You can often notice things like this on snare drums - the close mic on the snare could be perfectly in-phase with the overheads and you have a nice weighty snare sound. As soon as you start EQing radically you are in danger of the phase inverting - the snare may sound fine on its own but as soon as you dial in the overheads you're left with a very thin sounding snare! If you have to EQ things, it's often best to keep the Q's narrow and boost a few frequencies a tiny bit as opposed to something like 3k on a steep shelf by 12db to brighten a snare!
So, that's lesson 1. Lesson 2 goes back to the point I was making earlier about mics. Let's suppose you've started by getting a kick drum to sound as good as you possibly can in the room (VERY important, if you haven't done that then don't bother reading on!).
You are better off using a mic to capture the weight and depth your kick drum (I usually use a Heil PR48 for the kind of music I record) and then another mic to capture the snap (an AKG C1000 works out well for this if you want a bit of life too, or a Shure Beta 91 boundary mic - VERY snappy!). Blend the two signals to taste, a bit of SUBTLE EQ on the way in if necessary and you should have a good solid kick drum recording, ready for very little processing in the mix. You've recorded your weight and your click and snap already, so no need to go screwing things up with EQ, and your recording as is natural sounding as can possibly be. But with multiple close mics be aware of PHASE issues again, get it right!
In summary, the lesson is always the same: Do whatever you can in the room before you even look at a mic, then pick the RIGHT mic, or the right combination of mics to capture it! Keep things subtle, and don't give me any "But I don't have a massive mic collection" nonsense - the answer to that is "Learn to use what you DO have to achieve the results above!"...You'll be a better engineer for it.
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