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Do you EQ before or after compressor? On vocals, instruments, whole mix...
Do you have a standard preference for EQing pre- or post-compressor? Does it depend on the instrument or vocal? How about on the whole mix? What makes any difference to you? Interested to hear your thoughts...
Comments
In short: corrective eq before compressor.
Say you are cutting out lows or low mids like 400hz. Those frequencies will affect how the compressor is working and make it work too hard when you don’t want those frequencies anyway.
Sometimes you need to boost highs or lows with eq after the compressor if needed
I always hit the Eq on each track before anything else. (Ok maybe a Noisegate if needed first). And compress to smooth attacks and levels out. I usually do another Eq for the whole mix and a Limiter to spank it up to a decent level, usually shooting for Spotify type loudness. Works for me.
I never considered putting it before the compressor before, but @maxwellhouser explained it perfectly.
I'm going to give "before the compressor" a shot to see how it affects my mixes.
Usually you would want the audio in good shape before the compression stage as it's likely to make problems more obvious. Corrective EQ, noise reduction, de-essing etc etc.
Always EQ before compression..... In fact, don’t use use compression if you help it (maybe a slight use of MB compression on instruments?).. at all, only use compression slightly on vocals, but only a small amount... EQ only on Master chain.. The Fabfilter Q3 has changed my ways big time... I use this on every Channel.. Plus, the less is compression is used, you can go to town on the Mastering better.. As that is the final stage of everything that has Compression & Limiters.. But most importantly of all, your Mix has to be right.. I found that if you leave -1 on the Master, but bring your mix up around -6, it leaves good head room.. Just an opinion mind... Infeel it makes the track breathe better this way..
Personally I always approach it by what I hear, i.e. what's the first thing that jumps out at me that would even make me consider EQ or compression in the first place. If my first thought is "this is a bit light on the bass" then I'm going to EQ first. Fix the main issue since that's the biggest fault if you will. Or maybe my drums are just jumping out as being way too dynamic and thin sounding the first time I listen to the mix after a few days away. Then I'll grab the compressor first, and fix that issue.
I think it's a mistake to think of it in terms of which comes first, for me it's always about what's problematic that tells me what to adjust. If you find yourself in a situation where you're using both types of processing, it's easy enough to bounce back and forth to adjust one if you think it might be negatively impacting the other. I rarely find myself doing that in use though.
👍Great answers people! The more details and sharing of the thinking process the better.
I had been just putting the EQ before the compressor without much thought until seeing some some videos of producers doing things differently. But of course, the rule is “whatever sounds good, baby!” (All the Fabfilter talk is making me think. Lotsa smoke coming out the ears.)
Exactly my thinking and practice.
More likely to use a paralleled filter or saturation after the compression for eq pocketing. Do that where I want it more subtle so as not to overdrive while still spreading out or restricting the frequency range. That is, I think, aligned with the above. That is less corrective at that point, more enhancement.
Good discussion.
One exception is if you just want to smash the drum bus. Then I would stick put the compressor before the EQ.
@Tarekith I agree 100%. Most of my live recording needs some low end reduced and I do it first precisely because that’s what I notice first.
Glad others have mentioned that compression while useful is most definitely optional.
Funny how Joni Mitchell tracks sound huge compared to many recent insert nonsensical genre stuff thanks to streaming services new algorithms
.> @gusgranite said:
Yes. Then another compressor on top. Then a limiter. Or two.
Smash that drum bus!
(jk 😄)
All good points, but eq is not only a corrective, it’s also an effect. As such it can be placed anywhere it sound good to you.
I eq before compression.
That’s why I said corrective eq before compressor. Yes enhancing eq can be done anywhere. If it sounds good, it is good.
Good discussion. We need more like this. I also EQ before compression, but I often add EQ at the very end of an effects chain, too, i.e. I always put EQ first, and, if necessary, I'll boost it after other processing units have done their stuff, too. It's on an 'as needed' basis with me. I'm no expert, though, so I do enjoy reading about how others work, too.
Yes, compression especially affects low end (and hi end to an extent) in a negative way and you might need too boost a bit after you have the track dynamics where you want.
If you boost highs before a compressor too much, you might possibly bring up unwanted noise as well. Depends on what the track needs.
Interesting, and a good point. I’ll bear this in mind 👍
I rarely if ever need compression, even on client mixdowns. Depends on the kind of music too, if I was doing more acoustic or real instrument recording and less electronic stuff that might change.
Compressors seem sensitive to bass energy, just because the human ear is more sensitive to high frequencies than low, but electronics react to them in a linear way. That’s why a loud guitar amp is 50 watts, but a loud bass amp is 500 watts, or loud club subwoofers can take thousands of watts.
Trebly sounds won’t hit the compressor’s threshold as easily as bassy sounds, that’s why compression on vocals will accentuate breaths, and S’s, because they won’t trigger the compressor, but the vowels after them will. Same on a drum bus, the compressor tends to react the most to a kick drum, some to the snare, not much to the hats.
For that reason, if I am cutting bass with an eq, i’ll cut it before the compressor, so that the compressor doesn’t react/pump from bass that you are removing, but if I’m adding bass, a lot of times it works better to add it after the compressor, because if you add it before the compressor, you aren’t increasing the volume of the lows, you’re just making the compressor squish the sound more.
The difference between how the human ear perceives balance between high and low frequencies, and how compressors react, makes having a side chain filter very desirable. By being able to eq the sound that the detector is hearing, without EQing the sound being compressed, is a good way to get compressors to react more like the human ear. Like rolling off the lows below 150hz, can sound nice with vocals, to get a more even sounding level between words of different pitches. Same with drums, if you want a compressed sound, but don’t like how the kick is making it pump more than the snare. If a vocalist has a resonance to their voice that makes some higher notes too loud, but those notes aren’t triggering the compressor as much as they hurt your ears, you can eq a boosted peak, with the side chain filter, at that frequency, so that the compressor reacts to that honky frequency and ducks the volume more. You can make a regular compressor, into a de-esser, by rolling off all of the lows, below 7khz or so, so compressor only triggers on loud trebly consonant sounds, ignoring the more midrangey vowel sounds. That can sound more natural than a multiband de-esser, because you are changing the overall volume, like you would with painstaking automation, rather than changing the eq balance, on the loud S’s.
Compressor EQ Limit,
Generally,
But it can depend, as I don’t always need a limiter,
@Processaurus
👍 interesting and helpful info. Thanks!
Would the compressor affecting low and high frequencies differently be a possible reason to use some multiband compression somewhere in the chain? Or not?
About the low frequencies... that’s my favorite part of a live show. Feeling the bass rumble in my belly and bones.
Reductive EQ -> Compression -> Additive EQ
If you do additive EQ before compression your compressor will fight with your adjustments. If you don’t do reductive before compression, then compressor may react to unnecessary frequencies.
>
My take on when to use multi-band compression, is when you have unrelated high and low frequency sounds (and/or mids, or a little problematic range) happening at the same time, that you’d like to compress differently. Like on a mix, where you want to compress it more, but don’t like how the kick makes the other high sounds suck down in volume when it hits, so you split up the bands. Or like a piano, you could compress the bass part differently than the melody (or not compress the melody at all).
For most instruments that don’t have complex, overlapping notes in different frequency ranges, I would use the regular compressor to even out volume, and if some frequency of the sound gets too loud some times, and I just want the sound to get quieter at that point (rather than change tone/change eq), then I’d try for futzing with the compressor’s side chain filter, to get the detector to react.
Multi-band is all about splitting up complex audio into elements of the sound, so you can work on those elements separately. Regular compressor for regulating volume on simple sounds, or regulating volume on complex sounds/grouped sounds, in a simple way.
That would make a cool tattoo... just in case you forget.
@Processaurus
Thanks! Very informative. With a little luck, I should pass the final. Just need a few more tattoed reminders. 😊