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EQ Quick Tip: One EQ Filter for Better Drums

One EQ Filter for Better Drums

Kade Young
Kade Young
Chief Audio Guru
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Bonus: Drum EQ Cheat Sheet

Does it sound like your drummer is hitting a cardboard box?

Or, are the drums sounding a bit muddy?

Depending on your room and the drums, this is most likely coming from the 400-700 Hz range.

Fortunately it’s pretty easy to clear things up. Here's how you do it:

Step-by-Step

  1. ​Apply a parametric EQ filter with a Q of 3 and boost 6-9dB
  2. Sweep around in the 400-700 Hz range until you hear the nastiness
  3. Cut around -6dB to get rid of the nasty
  4. Repeat steps 1-3 for each individual drum channel

You may find that different drums sound better with a cut around 350 Hz, others around 630 Hz, or others at 700 Hz.

Some may even have the same exact frequency placement. It all depends on your room and drums.

✅​​ Make drums sound better

Yep, it really is that simple. You killed it!

Looking for more drum EQ tips?

You'll find them here: Mixing Live Drums: EQ, Compression & Gating

Bonus: Drum EQ Cheat Sheet

2 Comments

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2 comments on “One EQ Filter for Better Drums”

  1. do we need hi frequency in kick drum and bass? and do we send the signals to mid speakers or sub woofers
    kindly help...

    1. A little bit of high frequency (or high mids) for the kick and bass can be good - especially if you want to capture the smack of the kick or the upper harmonics of the bass guitar. Ideally, your sound system crossover (or DSP) will handle the content sent to the individual loudspeakers. Any frequencies below a certain amount, say 150 Hz, would be sent to the subs, anything above that would be sent to your mids and highs depending on how your crossover is set up. Check out this post for a tip on bass guitar EQ.

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