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EQ on set/location


Mark LeBlanc

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If I'm on a mixer that has EQ I'll use it if I think I can make an improvement, within reason.  In all types of recording one has to guard against a tendency to use EQ to correct the effects of bad mic placement.  In dialog recording EQ is for small tweaks--if you really don't like the sound then you have the wrong mic up or the mic in the wrong position.

Philip Perkins

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Hey ranger 14, some where in the forum there is a long thread about using eq when mixing. In a re cap, leave it to post most of the time. A little goes a long way. Signal to noise is more important than eq, but sometimes you need a little to make that happen...

CrewC

Tell us 'who U R today'  if you feel comfortable doing so. I always get a kick out of the variety of sound people at jwsound.net

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Posted to who R U thread. I use the 788t and looking to get the new CL-8 and whatever there "FADER" based expansion will be in the future. My current mixer the the Yamaha Digital 01V96 which is an AC only mixer. Great unit, very flexible with great fx/eq. The CL8/788t has no ability to EQ the signal, just compress/limit which works fine. Trying to make my rig more battery based, but can justify dropping 20 large on a sonosax just for the luxury of battery. I rip DVD's into their 5.1 streams just to listen to the middle channel and play guess the mic. Next great debate, Scheops vs Senn vs AKG (My current hyper CK63)..

Mark L

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The only time I never use EQ is on a boom with a Neumann 81/82 on the end. They need no tweaking whatsoever. I use EQ almost all the time when using wires with either Sanken or Trim mics because the placement/voice combination is rarely pleasing right of the bat. Our lead actress has a very sibilant voice and requires a significant amount of 5k/10k rolloff (all I have in the upper end) to sweeten her tracks. Our lead actor on the other hand has a mid range that can overload a Lectro, so some parametric searching is in order to find the sweet spot that makes his voice on a wire palatable. Sankens in tie knots always sound better IMO if you crank the high end to compensate for the mic being upside down facing the floor.

There's a thread buried here somewhere in the forum about wetting down the sound of dry wires so that they resemble overheads which is something I do indoors all the time.

Laurence Fishburne has just joined our cast and has a sound mixer's dream voice, for want of a better phrase. No EQ there so far.

Regards

Mick

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Mick,

Thanks for you reply, if I may ask what mixer do you use? Is the KMR-81 your primary mic for interiors?  I just did an episode for Sundance channel's Big ideas. It was a a bio-fuel ethanol plant, besides the smell I don't think any EQ would have helped. Tag team Tram TR50's with Sanken CS3.

Thanks,

Mark L

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Hey Mark, just read your 'Who I am'. Very interesting back story. It should serve you well in production recording. I like the Yamaha mixer for studio work n music,, but for production work I feel being battery based is a plus. Sonosax is a great unit, but very expensive as you note. A used Cooper is a better $$$$ deal IMO. As for which mic, I am a big fan of the Schoeps. Boom ops tend to love them as well. Great for indoor work. Some use them for indoor n outdoor work. Welcome to jwsound.net

CrewC

BTW, I can't wait to get my protool v8 upgrade.

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Laurence Fishburne has just joined our cast and has a sound mixer's dream voice, for want of a better phrase. No EQ there so far.

Regards

Mick

You are so right about that. Laurence worked on Mission Impossible III and it was terrific anytime he was in a scene. His voice always "finds the mic" also...  a treat to record.

-  Jeff Wexler

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Mark I use a Cooper 208 and 81/82 mics exclusively. I have a Schoeps with an mk41 cap but it rarely sees the light of day. Personal prefs.

Jeff I'm enjoying recording LF. He's also a nice chap as well as a great sounding actor and seems to be very accomodating to the sound crew.

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I tend to play very little with EQ on set, and almost never when on the boom mic.  If I do, I typically increase mid range on my COS11 - less so with my MKE2.  I was taught differently early on by two people I respect.  One person said he almost never uses the EQ, and said it's better to add than take away, since post cannot add something back in that you have already taken out.  The other person said that he uses EQ a fair amount, because he feels that his job as the production mixer is to make the production track sound as good as possible, and it shouldn't be left up to the post mixer to "fix" his tracks.

These days I play a little of both.  On jobs that are "mine" I will try to produce the best mix track possible, to my personal taste, knowing that I also record ISO tracks that are pre-EQ.  But since wires sound so different on different actors in different locations and with different mics and wardrobe, you can drive yourself nuts trying to make it sound "better" in the heat of the moment.  The post guys usually have a bit more time to tweak.  On jobs that are not "mine", I don't like to guess what the preferences are of the primary mixer, so I prefer to keep things pretty neutral, and hope that the post guys will match me up with what the primary mixer usually turns in.

Robert

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It's an interesting and valuable exercise to bring recorded tracks home and play them through your hifi speakers. This is much easier now that we're all working with file based recorders that have the day's work still on the hard drive. It's remarkable how different (usually better) the sound is through speakers rather than in headphones. This knowledge considerably restrains any urge I have to play with EQ dials on the set. A touch here and there maybe, but I stay away from anything really corrective.

On the other hand, there is a legitimate purpose for having a good panel of EQ switches on location. I can set maximum cut with a high or low filter and then do a sweep with the frequency selection knob. This lets me determine with reasonable accuracy what frequency an objectionable noise is and whether it is concentrated in single part of the spectrum or spread over a wide range. Information like that helps me advise a director whether the audio is likely to be a problem or can probably be successfully cleaned up in post. Of course, I make the actual recording with the EQ settings returned to flat (or nearly so); I use the sweeps only to gather information. Identifying that a particular light sing occurs around 6 or 7 kHz is useful because I know there is no primary voice activity at that frequency.

David Waelder

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Great suggestion David. We had a conversation earlier about newer mixers using speakers to learn what the signal to noise really is and what they can get away with. With a mixer at home you could easily learn what eq is about in a clean n quite environment. Good idea.

Thanks for the support, Crew, but that's not exactly what I had in mind. Of course, getting familiar with the action of EQ in a no pressure or haste environment and listening through speakers is always worthwhile. But I meant that, on location, one could use the EQ capabilities of a field mixer to ascertain where in the audio spectrum a noise was coming from and how successfully it might be removed with aggressive use of filters, etc. One does this just as a process of evaluation and then returns the EQ controls to flat (or nearly flat) for the actual recording.

David

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Hey David, I understood your point and how you use EQ to evaluate the situation on location and then record flat or close to it. A good idea as well. I was just thinking that using a mixer in the home re listening of the days work would be an additional education opportunity. That is what I was responding to in my post. It is a slow day on the set doin a Mickey D spot and I may be posting out of boredom more than than having a lot to say. Oh well..... better to post that wipe out craft service.

CrewC

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I was taught that EQ was like a hill or a depression in a desert landscape--a depression, a cut, is much less noticeable than a peak.  My point of view is that I can cut somewhat on location on headphones, but adding while monitoring that way is probably a bad idea.  With analog equalizers I disagree that adding in location EQ is post-neutral--the situation is not as clear cut as that, and there is also the issue that you run a  greater risk of clipping in that band, in which case the EQ is not reverseable at all.  In practice a few db of boost or cut is easily changed in post, but if you find yourself needing to do 6 db of a boost to anything and any sort of steep cut in the midrange I would say you should change mics or position--you really don't have the monitoring environment to be making those choices, and you are probably making the job of matching dialog across cuts harder.

Philip Perkins

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This is good advice, Philip.  Thanks.

It's comforting to know that my boost, never more than 6 db, at the higher end of the mid range, and the very slight cuts haven't technically been mistakes.  And I do like the way it makes my lavs sound in the mix (albeit on headphones), especially when they are on a man placed up high.  But I will be even more cautious of their use from now on.

It is really great to have people with such great post experience contributing.

Robert

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When I first started out I NEVER used my EQ, but now I use it sometimes but never more than 1030 on a roll off and 1 to 130 on adding.  I usually add a little top end for lavs and sometimes I will play a little with the booms depending on the environment we are in.

I used to use the Neumann 81's and 82 but for the last couple of years I have been using the Schoeps MK41 and Schoeps Shotgun.  I rarely if ever use a long shotgun anymore (82, or MKH 70).  Mick I have worked with your lead actress and I was amazed at how much  sibilance she had, Great Job!!

Steve

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I use EQ mostly on radio mics, never on an overhead boom ('cept for hi-pass).  Plant mics and mic'ing from under usually require a bit of tweak'uing, depending on the plant surface and/or mic position.

Generally, I don't EQ to the voice.  Instead, I listen to the ambience behind the actors' voices, EQ'ing to neutralize the effects of various differences in wardrobe and mic placement between actors, and to make fader transitions transparent.  The ISO's go out pre-EQ from the Sonosax, so the flexibility is there for the post team to EQ themselves.

One advantage to EQ'ing on set is that if you nail the mix for a scene, it could be that the post team can just use your mix track, without having to break all the ISO's out and EQ them separately.

Less work for them.  You get good karma.

Brian

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I use EQ mostly on radio mics, never on an overhead boom ('cept for hi-pass).  Plant mics and mic'ing from under usually require a bit of tweak'uing, depending on the plant surface and/or mic position.

Generally, I don't EQ to the voice.  Instead, I listen to the ambience behind the actors' voices, EQ'ing to neutralize the effects of various differences in wardrobe and mic placement between actors, and to make fader transitions transparent.  The ISO's go out pre-EQ from the Sonosax, so the flexibility is there for the post team to EQ themselves.

One advantage to EQ'ing on set is that if you nail the mix for a scene, it could be that the post team can just use your mix track, without having to break all the ISO's out and EQ them separately.

Less work for them.  You get good karma.

Brian

Having the isos non-eq'ed is a good thing, but I would still caution you to be careful about how "unique" you make your EQ for a scene as recorded to your mix tracks.  The posties WOULD like to use your mix if they can, but I've found that often EQ that seems to help set up "A" doesn't work so well in set up "B" of a scene, now that the mics and actors have all moved and have different spatial relationships to the set and each other.  Now you have a matching issue, often exacerbated by additional EQ, especially boosts.  As a location recordist on a busy set, you probably won't have time to go back and compare/match what you did in an earlier setup of the same scene, so you really won't hear the problems I'm talking about.  I guess I'm lobbying for being VERY conservative about EQ of all kinds on location--I find myself doing less and less as I've become more experienced.  If you are working on a serial TV show then by all means discuss this matter with your posties, it seems like a good MO could be worked out that might save some time.  But for those of us who end up sending our tracks off into some unknown post situation, I still say LESS is WAY MORE.

Philip Perkins

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That's a good thought, Philip.  Certainly the amount of time that we get to spend listening critically to EQ pales in comparison to post.  Probably the wiser to stay on the conservative side when in doubt.

I should say that I usually use a boom mic (with flat EQ) in the same area as the "control" for the EQing.  In other words, before we roll, I compare the quality of the ambience for each of the additional mics to the boom on the pole (DPA 4017 or Schoeps 41).  I'm not trying to change the ambience, just equalize the acoustic differences of a mic mounted under Jack's sweater vs. Jill's scarf.

Also, I'm talking about pretty minute touches of EQ; ie, if a sweater is too thick to let enough high frequencies through, I should probably be re-thinking the placement of the lav mic instead...

Brian

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That's a good thought, Philip.  Certainly the amount of time that we get to spend listening critically to EQ pales in comparison to post.  Probably the wiser to stay on the conservative side when in doubt.

I should say that I usually use a boom mic (with flat EQ) in the same area as the "control" for the EQing.  In other words, before we roll, I compare the quality of the ambience for each of the additional mics to the boom on the pole (DPA 4017 or Schoeps 41).  I'm not trying to change the ambience, just equalize the acoustic differences of a mic mounted under Jack's sweater vs. Jill's scarf.

Also, I'm talking about pretty minute touches of EQ; ie, if a sweater is too thick to let enough high frequencies through, I should probably be re-thinking the placement of the lav mic instead...

Brian

With a situation like the sweater, we all do what we can when we can--I rarely have time to try things out and 2nd guess myself on location anymore, so I guess that's made me very conservative.

Philip Perkins

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Dudes!.....

I'm amazed that so many are afraid to use the EQ knobs, but even more-so now that we have the ability to record prefader (and preEQ) isolation tracks.

I often hear that we shouldn't be trusted to make judgements in the field with headphones. Bull. If that were the case, then we should be equally afraid to use the faders. Much of what we perceive as loudness has to do with frequency, so why would it be OK to adjust microphone levels based on what we hear with headphones, but not OK to adjust EQ with headphones?

It is also more and more a trend to use multiple lav microphones. If any mic is going to need the help of EQ to sound more natural, it is a lav mic. But, if a lav mic is particularly dull or bright sounding (because of any number of factors), and this mic is mixed in mono with other mics that do not need to be altered, then there is very little that anyone in post can do to improve it without harming the rest of the mix. In this case you should not be afraid to EQ the hell out of it, to taste, with your best judgement, with whichever available knobs seem to work, based on what you hear in your headphones.

Sure, someone wearing headphones can perceive sounds differently than someone listening to control room monitors. But as production mixers, lot of our job is about being aware of the difference and understanding it, and allowing our brains to compensate (which does happen with a little experience) so that we can use our ears.

Don't be afraid of the faders, the AUX knobs, the EQ knobs, or any other controls on your gear, from full left to full right, full up to full down (that much range is there for a reason). Learn to understand, interpret, and trust your headphones, then EQ what goes into your mix, to taste, based on what you hear in them.

If it happens that a post mixer decides that something was EQ'd in a way that it shouldn't have been (a rare ocurance, I'll bet) and re-EQing is, for some reason, not a good option, then the prefader tracks are available for a fresh start.

When in doubt, don't wuss out.

Glen Trew

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Dudes!.....

I'm amazed that so many are afraid to use the EQ knobs, but even more-so now that we have the ability to record prefader (and preEQ) isolation tracks.

I often hear that we shouldn't be trusted to make judgements in the field with headphones. Bull. If that were the case, then we should be equally afraid to use the faders. Much of what we perceive as loudness has to do with frequency, so why would it be OK to adjust microphone levels based on what we hear with headphones, but not OK to adjust EQ with headphones?

It is also more and more a trend to use multiple lav microphones. If any mic is going to need the help of EQ to sound more natural, it is a lav mic. But, if a lav mic is particularly dull or bright sounding (because of any number of factors), and this mic is mixed in mono with other mics that do not need to be altered, then there is very little that anyone in post can do to improve it without harming the rest of the mix. In this case you should not be afraid to EQ the hell out of it, to taste, with your best judgement, with whichever available knobs seem to work, based on what you hear in your headphones.

Sure, someone wearing headphones can perceive sounds differently than someone listening to control room monitors. But as production mixers, lot of our job is about being aware of the difference and understanding it, and allowing our brains to compensate (which does happen with a little experience) so that we can use our ears.

Don't be afraid of the faders, the AUX knobs, the EQ knobs, or any other controls on your gear, from full left to full right, full up to full down (that much range is there for a reason). Learn to understand, interpret, and trust your headphones, then EQ what goes into your mix, to taste, based on what you hear in them.

If it happens that a post mixer decides that something was EQ'd in a way that it shouldn't have been (a rare ocurance, I'll bet) and re-EQing is, for some reason, not a good option, then the prefader tracks are available for a fresh start.

When in doubt, don't wuss out.

Glen Trew

Wuss out, huh?  It's important to remember that as a production sound person you are part of a team, and not the captain of the team either.  I think the attitude that you can do whatever you want with your tracks, esp. vis EQ is presumptuous and in danger of limiting options and making more work down the line.  I've come by this position from having to try to undo a lot of poorly judged on-set EQ (done on headphones) while trying to match audio across cuts and keep characters sounding the same scene to scene in post.  So I think I'll continue to wuss out, as you call it, and think for the whole process, as I see it.  Prefader tracks are not a panacea for bad choices in a mix track--they are a lot more work to get to and put into a mix, esp if we've already been using the mix track previously.  I'm not telling you to never EQ, but I am asking that you be very circumspect about how much you do, and that once you start please try to be very consistent with it, or consider doing less, if any.  Matching is a serious, time consuming issue in post.

Philip Perkins

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Wuss out, huh?  It's important to remember that as a production sound person you are part of a team, and not the captain of the team either.  I think the attitude that you can do whatever you want with your tracks, esp. vis EQ is presumptuous and in danger of limiting options and making more work down the line.  I've come by this position from having to try to undo a lot of poorly judged on-set EQ (done on headphones) while trying to match audio across cuts and keep characters sounding the same scene to scene in post.  So I think I'll continue to wuss out, as you call it, and think for the whole process, as I see it.  Prefader tracks are not a panacea for bad choices in a mix track--they are a lot more work to get to and put into a mix, esp if we've already been using the mix track previously.  I'm not telling you to never EQ, but I am asking that you be very circumspect about how much you do, and that once you start please try to be very consistent with it, or consider doing less, if any.  Matching is a serious, time consuming issue in post.

Philip Perkins

Yes, don't wuss out. Warnings to a production mixer about the perils of using EQ should include also warning them about the perils of not using EQ. Both choices involve matching, and a poor choice of either is still a poor choice.

Of course production mixers, like everyone else on a crew, should think of the whole process. And one of those thoughts (among many) should be realizing that post will be very limited in matching single lavs in a crowded 5-lav mono mix that was left too bright or too dull or with too much rumble by someone afraid to use their mixer. Production mixers should not be afraid to use the knobs on their equipment any more than they should be afraid to leave them alone.

Glen Trew

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