The brain is amazing. You can tell two instruments apart when they are playing the same melody at the same time. In fact, your brain takes all the overtones (harmonics) that make up the sound of one instrument playing one note and you just hear one trumpet or one piano sound. You don't "hear" all the different frequencies in one instrument as your brain uses unconscious inference to group the similar objects together as one. You brain can easily distinguish [keep reading]
EQ For An Acoustic Guitar
September 2, 2008 Mixed by
In a prior article, I mentioned the ways of getting a good acoustic guitar sound through the different types of sound amplification (built-in guitar amp, sound hole pickup, and instrument microphone. In this article, I'll be turning to equalization. Please note that some of this information is targetted to first-time sound operators, such as the HPF usage. My point is to show how simple it can be to EQ a basic guitar sound. First things, first...on each channel on the [keep reading]
EQ The Sound Stage: 13 Easy-to-Follow Steps
July 10, 2008 Mixed by
Mixing a worship team is more than just setting sound levels. Mixing involves bringing out the particular frequencies in each voice and musicial instrument that, when combined together, present a high quality emotional sound. A high quality sound means no low hums, no muddy sound, no high tinny sounds, and to better think of it, listen to a well eq'd classical music cd. In classical music, there are so many unique instruments each with their own ranges and [keep reading]
EQ 101 – High, Mid, Low, and Experimentation
July 8, 2008 Mixed by
Let's start with something familiar...the radio. Your radio has an EQ. Early radios had treble and bass knobs. This enabled you to either increase or decrease the relative frequencies. Boosting bass would involve kick drum sounds, bass guitar sounds, even low bass singers. Decreasing the bass would reduce some of those signals. Increasing treble would increase sounds in the upper register - think flute, upper piano octaves, and the high soprano voices. The common vocal range is [keep reading]
I'm Chris Huff and I've been working behind a mixer for over twenty years. Since 2008, I've been helping other sound techs learn all about the art of church audio through behindthemixer.com.
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