You should be able to hear it a little bit if you’re on monitors or headphones. The first area we’re going to focus on is sub-bass.Įverything below 60Hz is sub-bass, so generally you need a subwoofer or a good pair of headphones (open-back headphones, for example) to hear that. In between these two extremes, we’ve got the human range of hearing.įor me, this breaks down into five very distinct sections. You can feel 20 hertz if you’re on a really large sound system – but not necessarily hear it. When you’re first born you can, but as you get older, your hearing lowly degrades.īut you will still hear the impact of 20 kilohertz – so don’t ignore it.īass is on the low end (left). Now, none of us will actually be able to hear 20 kilohertz. Then on the right we’ve got 20,000 hertz, or 20 kilohertz. We go from left to right, and we start with 20 hertz. You could use an EQ chart for this, but let’s just take a look at an EQ plugin instead… How to Use an Equalizer by Learning the Frequency Spectrumīefore you can truly learn how to use EQ, you need to understand the frequency spectrum. In the recording phase, you decide what tone you want, and then you use EQ to scope that and make small changes to take it further towards your end goal. All you can do is work with what’s already there. Now, it’s important to bear in mind that you can’t completely change the sound of an instrument with EQ alone.

That’s what gives an instrument its tone or its character, its timbre, and that’s why a bass guitar, for example, sounds different to an organ.īy adjusting these frequencies, by cutting certain frequencies or boosting others, we can adjust that tone and change the timbre of the instrument.

As well as that fundamental note, it has overtones. Rather than a volume fader, which would allow us to adjust the overall volume, an equalizer allows us to just turn up or turn down individual frequencies and individual elements of that sound.Įvery instrument has a fundamental note. So, what is EQing? An equalizer is simply a tool that lets you adjust the volume of the individual frequencies within an audio source.

Eq audacity