#23

Dynamic EQ is a great tool for achieving level-dependent frequency changes, and can be a true life saver in certain mix situations

Jon Musgrave

Jon is a London-based platinum award winning mixer, producer, composer and club remixer with a diverse CV that spans dance, pop, rock and music for media. He’s also a long term contributor to Computer Music. Jon usually handles final mixdowns, which is why we’ve got him to share some of his pearls of mixing wisdom here

Most of us first encounter frequencyspecific dynamic processing in a de-esser, and this works by combining a compressor with a task-specific EQed side chain. However, there is another way of making thresholdbased frequency changes and it’s called a dynamic EQ.

A dynamic EQ is an EQ processor that includes threshold-dependent parameters to determine whether a particular band is boosted or cut. In practice, this means we can compress or expand specific frequencies, although the mechanism used isn’t the same as a typical compressor, so explaining it in this way can be slightly confusing. The reason this is so handy in a mix is that you only start processing the target frequencies when they reach your chosen level threshold. The rest of the time the signal is unchanged. What’s more, both boosting and cutting is also easily achieved, which can lead to some interesting and less typical applications.