Article on Eq'ing a classical guitar

[TBman]

I've always done a hi-pass and I often like to select an eq setting that removes "muddiness", but I never raised the db of the 1,000+ range. Here's the article:

https://producersociety.com/eq-nylon...itar-tutorial/

I used F6-RTA in Reaper to get fairly close to the article's settings on the tune in my signature.

[Doug Young]

I'm not sure it works to tell people to EQ specific frequencies other than on a specific recording (I notice he did have some disclaimers about that). My goal is always to capture the guitar the way it sounds without any EQ, and with good mics, good room acoustics, and good mic placement, you should be able to do that. Beyond that, it comes down to listening and seeing what a recording needs, which could vary from nothing, to a lot, depending on all those factors and personal taste. Nylon strings do tend to have less high end than steel strings, so adding some presence by boosting the high end, or cutting some low mids might be something you end up doing, or that might just change the recording away from the characteristic sound of the classical guitar. Depends...

Boosting and cutting various frequencies certainly has a place, you just have to listen and experiment. In spite of my goal to not need EQ, I usually do end up doing some. Here's the current EQ (in progress) on a steel string track I am working on:

Screen Shot 2023-03-09 at 11.10.32 PM.jpg

A big high pass filter, dynamic cuts in the low mids, a few more dynamic cuts at 1K and almost 4K, a slight overall cut to highs from around 1K to 20K, and so on. I'm also EQing left and right sides a bit differently, which tweaks the stereo image a tad. But this is just this track, with this guitar, etc. With another guitar, another track, it might end up completely different.

[runamuck]

Originally Posted by TBman

I've always done a hi-pass and I often like to select an eq setting that removes "muddiness", but I never raised the db of the 1,000+ range.

I like the sound of that recording. My taste would have been to let a more low mids come through so I'd probably push the low cut filter back a bit. But the tone is really good, in my opinion.

Regarding the eq suggestions of the article, I think some guitars and recordings are best left alone and some aren't.

[rick-slo]

If equalizing set that to what your ear tells you (hopefully your playback set up is pretty good). Low cut off filter pretty standard however and a safe bet on acoustic guitar.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I'm not sure it works to tell people to EQ specific frequencies other than on a specific recording (I notice he did have some disclaimers about that). My goal is always to capture the guitar the way it sounds without any EQ, and with good mics, good room acoustics, and good mic placement, you should be able to do that. Beyond that, it comes down to listening and seeing what a recording needs, which could vary from nothing, to a lot, depending on all those factors and personal taste. Nylon strings do tend to have less high end than steel strings, so adding some presence by boosting the high end, or cutting some low mids might be something you end up doing, or that might just change the recording away from the characteristic sound of the classical guitar. Depends...

Boosting and cutting various frequencies certainly has a place, you just have to listen and experiment. In spite of my goal to not need EQ, I usually do end up doing some. Here's the current EQ (in progress) on a steel string track I am working on:

Attachment 88765

A big high pass filter, dynamic cuts in the low mids, a few more dynamic cuts at 1K and almost 4K, a slight overall cut to highs from around 1K to 20K, and so on. I'm also EQing left and right sides a bit differently, which tweaks the stereo image a tad. But this is just this track, with this guitar, etc. With another guitar, another track, it might end up completely different.

Good advice.

Originally Posted by runamuck

I like the sound of that recording. My taste would have been to let a more low mids come through so I'd probably push the low cut filter back a bit. But the tone is really good, in my opinion.

Regarding the eq suggestions of the article, I think some guitars and recordings are best left alone and some aren't.

Thanks, I'm happy with the tone also. Getting a good recording goes a long way. I usually manage to shoot myself in the foot often when recording something, but a clean recording is always the goal.

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I'm not sure it works to tell people to EQ specific frequencies other than on a specific recording (I notice he did have some disclaimers about that).

An example from the article...
"To EQ a nylon string guitar, set up a high-pass filter to cut out any unwanted boominess, eliminate some of the low-mids, drop out the range between 400Hz and 600Hz, and boost the higher-range frequencies from 1000kHz onward. However, keep in mind that how you EQ will depend on many factors."

I'd go a tad further than what Doug says. Non-recording specific EQ recommendations can easily send people down the wrong path and make a song a whole lot worse than where it started. I agree that there are some common enough issues for which someone can make suggestions that include frequency ranges but I always laugh at those who make very specific recommendations having never heard the track. I swear there are people out there who are convinced they can get a mix most of the way there before they even hear the song in question or even know the genre of the song in question (I'm not accusing this article of that because the author threw in enough caveats to warn the reader that the suggestions may or may not be suitable in their particular instance. I'm referring to what I've come across in the wild).

Simply put, guides like that article should always be taken with a grain of salt. There are simply too many variables for anyone to be sure of similar results in dissimilar conditions.

[DupleMeter]

I'm just going to say that things like EQ settings are very specific to the source. And that is very specific to the instrument being recorded, the way it's being played, the mic choice & position. Not to mention the rest of the signal path & the recording space itself.

This is a good general concept article, I agree with a lot of it, except that HPF is way too high for my tastes...it's going to affect phase very audibly. I almost never high pass above 54Hz, usually way down at 27Hz (those are the settings on my favorite preamp). I'm just not a "high pass everything" guy.

We touched on this idea in a Production Expert Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000596517887

In fact, the first example I give is EQing acoustic guitar.