I really dislike the scooped mids sound. However, it's a matter of personal taste. I would suggest determining what is right for each track. I feel like high mids are important on guitars and drums, while low mids are important on voice and anything else that needs to feel warm or present.

The oldest and best advice in the book is to trust your ears.

Don't forget that consumer grade stereos have a totally different coloration than recording gear (which, overall, should have little to none). Doing the smiley face EQ on a mix with decent semi or pro level gear doesn't do the same thing as doing it on a home stereo. That being said, it's always better to look for troubling frequencies on any track and remove them rather than add the ones you want to hear. You'll save yourself tons of headroom. Try to find unique EQ boost settings (after eliminating the crap) in the low mids for the various tracks that have most of their energy there, ie; guitars, drums, piano, vocals. Use narrow bandwidths to keep the mud from accumulating. You'll wind up with the full sound you want and a cleaner sounding mix. BTW, it's just as important that the instruments competing in the same range avoid playing in the same octaves simutaneously. I read an interview with Hugh Padgem (Police, U2, many others) years ago, and he was asked "What makes a great mix"? His answer was "A great arrangement". How true!

jonyoung wrote: Don't forget that consumer grade stereos have a totally different coloration than recording gear (which, overall, should have little to none). Doing the smiley face EQ on a mix with decent semi or pro level gear doesn't do the same thing as doing it on a home stereo. That being said, it's always better to look for troubling frequencies on any track and remove them rather than add the ones you want to hear. You'll save yourself tons of headroom. Try to find unique EQ boost settings (after eliminating the crap) in the low mids for the various tracks that have most of their energy there, ie; guitars, drums, piano, vocals. Use narrow bandwidths to keep the mud from accumulating. You'll wind up with the full sound you want and a cleaner sounding mix. BTW, it's just as important that the instruments competing in the same range avoid playing in the same octaves simutaneously. I read an interview with Hugh Padgem (Police, U2, many others) years ago, and he was asked "What makes a great mix"? His answer was "A great arrangement". How true!

Thats great advice, and I can tell you know what I'm trying to get across. Real quick explain narrow bandwidth a little? Thanks much.

Are you mixing on a board or in a DAW? Either way, bandwidth is a feature found in paramteric EQ and controls the db/octave cut or boost. In more general terms, it determines how many other frequencies you're adjusting besides the one you have selected. On a graph, a tight (or "narrow") bandwidth with a large boost or cut looks like a spike, while a broad bandwidth looks like a rolling hill, lots more frequencies involved. The symbol used for bandwidth is "Q". Hope this helps.

Well I'm doing both. I run through a mackie mixer for the 8 pres and direct out to a 002R's 8 input jacks. Doing that allows me to eq the signal before it get to DAW and also run 8 tracks at a time. BTW it seems it bypasses outboard effects and comp I have though. Any ways I see what you mean by narrow bandwidths. Thanks alot for the replies, very helpful.