Automate the upper midrange

Here’s a good trick for helping sculpt the energy in a master: automate some EQ in the upper midrange!

I was working on a master last night. The song I was working on has a stretch where it dips down into a medium-energy part, and then picks back up into a double-length energetic part. The issue I was having was that the energy level felt exactly the same all the way through the double-length part. Which was fine, but, also, it seemed like there was an opportunity to help it build over that stretch.

So what I did was to add an instance of the cleanest EQ I have, and automate the upper midrange down a little bit for that first half of the energetic section!

The key when you’re doing something like this is to use a super wide Q. If you do a normal Q of 1.5 or something, it will sound like EQ, which is not what you want in a situation like this. You want it to be invisible.

So I used a bell-shaped curve, centered at 2300 Hz or so, with a Q of 0.7. When the Q is that wide, you can’t hear the knees of the curve — it’s more like you’re bringing a general area forward or back.

I dipped it -0.6 dB, and automated it to be in just for that first half of the energetic section. Not a big change! The song still sounded like the song. But when that second half hits, the energy picks up just a little extra bit, provides an inflection point, and helps the narrative continue to unfold. Killer trick.

Being manipulative — jamie