I would rather move the mic and tune the drum until I get the sound I like than do much or any EQ for that matter.

As long as you use your ears and like what you get, any approach is worth a try.

Steve

LuK3_C wrote: Hi,
I realised that most of recorded kicks have a little peak between 50 Hz and 100Hz, I allways check any sound with spectral analyser. So....I tryed to notch it to get flat bass range on my analyser , and it sounds good, the sound is more complex in the bass range. Overall lo end boost is sometimes needed after this notching. And of course it has to sound good to my ears, the analyser is just checking tool. What do you think about it? I think that peak destroing is really good on any instrument.

Lukas

Why do you think a kick sound is supposed to be flat? That little peak you are taking out is the fundamental of the drum. It is there by design. Destroying that peak " on any instrument" sounds like a bad idea to me.

The best piece of equipment for mixing are your ears. In the 10+ years that I have been in the industry I have never had a producer, client, or an engineer ask to have a spectrum analyzer in the room at any given time. The only time I have seen a spectrum analyzer in a control room is when they are physically attached to an SSL console, and they were hardly used. The only time I have seem them in use is when the mains in the room is being tuned.

So what if an instrument peaks at a certain frequency, unless of course it is really obnoxious!!

I think that sound of my kick is good, placement of mics is ok. I know that the peak is fundamental of the kick but it sounds really better with 4-8 dB reduction. The sound is more complex and seems to me more interesting. And you can hear more of the kick in tme mix. But anyway your opinions are really interesting, I'm no so expirienced. I did many experiments with peak destroing and it doesn't work on snare so much, but I made really crappy bassguitar to sound quite good using this technique, I reduced resonat frequenci of the bassguitar and it really helped.

Trust nothing else that yours ears and forget your spectral analyser. Remember that the best way to eq a track is to close yours eyes.

Then again, you might be on to something. I find sometimes, that by doing what you're doing, you're actually notching out a room resonance. Be careful though, because you really don't want to take out the targets fundamental. I've done what you're talking about with drums that were tracked in a god-awful room and it did the trick...

julien_a wrote: Trust nothing else that yours ears and forget your spectral analyser. Remember that the best way to eq a track is to close yours eyes.

Here's how i put it.
You are at a bar having a drink and Cindy Crawford walks up to you and says, "hi there, wanna come back to my place", the first thing that would probably pop into our minds is, " hold a minute, this is too easy, this cant be right, whats goin' on here, somethin' is wrong", a moment of confusion and contemplation, in other words, you dont always have to work for 15 hours on one kick drum sound, you may find that at times after tracking drums you dont have to touch it much cause your ears are saying, " hey that sound great the way it is!", but our mind is saying, " nah, hold on a minute.....that was too easy, i gotta tweek something for a while! Let me turn another dial God damn it!!"

Cheers,

sammyg

..of course if the above scenario did happen we all know what each of us would do.....thats right......show her your latest pre amp!!!! hahaha