Rode NT4 for solo fingerstyle recording

[Fran Guidry]

Originally Posted by bbrown

OK, I'm a bit slow. I see what you did (and am pretty impressed, with Doug).

What would be the general ratinale for moving the curser up and down? Ie: are you basically just increasing and decreasing the volume or gain on select wavelengths of the sound spectrum to get a better balance?

What would be the things that would affect how you make the changes?

Pretty vague questions, I know. I obviously am clueless about this. But you might save me from pouring over technical manuals for hours by a few basic explanations of how you use this to get better sound. I do not have to understand all the technical details necessarily.

--Bill

Sorry, Bill, I should have provided a bit of commentary. I dropped several links in an earlier post with different people's ideas of EQ approaches, so when you asked about using EQ in Audacity I assumed you were asking about the mechanics of the built-in EQ tool. It's actually a lovely and very sophisticated bit of software so I thought I'd demonstrate how easy it is to use.

I was illustrating some of the common adjustment points mentioned in the links from my earlier post - the cliche places to tweak EQ are 200 hz (the body/mud region), 1 khz (the punch/honk region), and 5K (the sheen/spit region).

As you suggest, the EQ display is showing us the relative gain applied at different frequencies. Clicking makes a node that can be moved. Moving nodes up raises the gain at that frequency, moving down lowers gain. Nodes can be used to limit the range of effect.

The problem is, as Doug mentioned in his very early reply - there just isn't a formula. Here's a pot of stew I just made - how much more salt should I add to it? Clearly, your only answer is - until I like the taste. That's the only answer we can give when you ask about how to use EQ for a better sound.

Fran