I can't stress how important this is! Learning how to properly use a surgical EQ will help clean up anything from a snare, sample, piano, entire mix etc. I used to just open up a EQ and boost the low end on my kicks or bass and would call it a day, I was wrong lol
By using the surgical method you will remove harsh frequencies or muddiness in tracks and also make a specific tracks/instruments stand out more
For this tutorial we are going to pretend we are eq'ing a sample. This particular sample has a part where there's some harsh frequencies. You've heard this before, you know that one part of a sample where that one note of the piano part is so harsh it hurts your ears?.... we've all heard it.
Pick a band and boost it all the way up
Now adjust that band to create a sharp curve
Now it's time to find the bad frequencies and surgically remove them. Once you have the sharp curve, SOLO the track you're working on so you can hear what you're doing in detail. Turn your volume down because this might hurt your ears.
Start moving the "Hz" slowly left to right and pay attention to what you hear (see image above). Eventually you will run into a part where you will hear a harsh, loud frequency, that's the section you want to cut. Next, leave the frequency there, don't move it but "cut it" all you have to do is just bring it down to around -3 to -5db. Be careful because cutting too much is not good either so find a good middle ground
It should look like this ^^^ where the curve is inverted facing down instead of going up
Now just expand the curve to widen the cut to where it sounds best
Try this on any instrument/drum sound, experiment and practice!
feel free to ask me any questions if you don't understand something
- Rybe