EQ (Equalization)

EQ (Equalization)
Equalization, or EQ as it is commonly known, is adjusting the tonal quality of audio by turning up or down certain frequencies. Audio engineers use the terms boost for turning up and cut for turning down. Many of you are probably familiar with EQ via the bass and treble controls on your home or car stereos. In fact, you may have already fiddled with these knobs to adjust the sound; congratulations, you're an audio engineer. Using your ears as a guide, you adjusted the EQ until it sounded right to you. That's exactly what EQing is.

EQ is used for a number of reasons. Sometimes you may need to enhance the tone of your audio by boosting frequencies that make your audio sound more pleasant. You may need to boost these frequencies to make up for a deficiency in your mic or because your voice sounded different one day due to a cold or a late night. On the other hand, you may want to cut frequencies that aren't helping the sound of your audio. This can also be due to a deficiency in your signal chain or to get rid of something unpleasant, like an excessively nasal sound or too much bottom end.

How to use EQ
At the end of the day, it's all about making your audio sound better. You want your podcasts to sound bright and full, not dull and thin. You may notice that the terms used to describe the effects of EQ are very subjective. Audio engineers regularly use terms like "presence," "sparkle," "warmth," and "air." Believe it or not, these terms aren't that subjective; they're actually ways of referring to certain parts of the frequency spectrum — where exactly in the spectrum is subject to debate, but in the next section we provide you with a table of frequency ranges, along with common terms used to describe the frequencies in each range. The first thing to do, however, is to listen to your audio critically and ask yourself a few questions. The following questions start at the bottom of the frequency range, and work up from there, but you can think about them in any order you like:

- Is it "warm" enough? Is there enough low frequency information? Be careful here, because even good studio monitors have a hard time reproducing the lowest audible frequencies.

- What about the midrange? Are the voices clear and understandable? Or is the sound too harsh?

- How about the high frequencies? Does the audio sound dull? Or do you have the opposite problem — too much high frequency information?

If you're unsure about the answer to any of these questions, do what other audio engineers do — use something else as a reference. For example, you could listen to a radio program that is similar to yours, and do what we call an A/B comparison. Listen to the radio program for ten seconds, listening in particular to the low frequencies. Then flip back your podcast, and compare. Does yours have less? More? Flip back and listen to the middle frequencies, and compare. Finally, listen to the high frequencies. This should give you an indication of whether your podcast is up to scratch, and if it isn't, what you may need to add (or cut) to make your podcast sound better. The trick is to find the right frequencies.