Welcome to the long-awaited third (and final) installment of All Things Being EQ-ual, a series of articles on equalization that started back in April 1998. This final article, a titanic, tussling tête á tête of software EQ programs for the PC, was supposed to appear in the June issue. It didn't. I won't go into the reasons for the delay here; suffice to say that I do sincerely apologize to all the ProRec readers who waited so patiently for this article to be published. I hope it will have been worth the wait! If you're jumping on this train late and missed the first two installments, or would like to review, please follow the links to check out Part One and/or Part Two. Have fun, and don't worry... we'll still be here when you get back. Back already? Okay... let's move on then. We'll be reviewing and comparing software EQ plug-ins from Cakewalk, Power...

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Part Two: Whatchoo Talkin' 'Bout, Lionel? Welcome back! As you will recall, in Part One of this article, I introduced this discussion of EQ on a mainly conceptual level, and gave an example of the most common role of EQ in modern pop recording -- as a tool to separate timbres across the frequency spectrum in a multitrack mix. While I tried to keep it as simple as possible, I did throw out a few technical terms and concepts with which you may not be familiar -- things you've probably heard about, but may never have fully grasped. The concept of audio equalization -- a process by which a specific part or parts of the audible frequency spectrum are either cut or boosted, in order to change a sound -- is very simple. The implementation of that process in the studio, however, is a little more involved. In Part One, we more or less focused on the "whys" of EQ. Here in Part Two, let's delve into the "hows" and "whats" a little more. In...

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Part 1: eQs and As As the competent and conscientious recording engineer that you surely are, you've taken great care to record your (or your client's) latest opus. You've gotten your greasy little fingers on some mics and placed them more or less in the general vicinity of the instruments being played. You've taken care to insure that these instruments were tuned to a scale somewhat resembling those normally heard in modern Western music. You even carefully placed some cool crash cymbals on that dodgy part where the overly-enthusiastic vocalist overloaded your A/D converters. You've soloed every track and listened. The bass sounds fat. The guitar is punchy and open. The kick is round and snappy. The snare is... well, it's very "snarey" sounding. So, how come your mix sounds like oatmeal? I was once asked, "If you could only use a single effect to mix a record, what would it be?" In real life, my first reaction would probably be, "Oh man, that sucks. Does this job pay scale, and where's the...

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