Troubleshooting
It sounds bad
It works, but it sounds wrong — muddy, harsh, boxy, thin. This is almost always EQ. Name the problem, find the frequency, turn it down.
Name it, then cut it
Match what you're hearing and cut that range on the offending channel. Start around 3–4 dB.
| It sounds… | Cut around |
|---|---|
| Muddy, thick, blurry | 200–400 Hz |
| Boxy, like cardboard | 300–600 Hz |
| Honky, nasal | 500 Hz–1 kHz |
| Harsh, brittle, fatiguing | 2–4 kHz |
| Spitty, sharp "ess" sounds | 5–8 kHz (narrow) |
| Thin, no body | don't boost yet — see below |
| Dull, closed-in | gentle lift 3–6 kHz, or air shelf 10 kHz+ |
Cut before you boost. If it's muddy, cut the mud — don't boost the highs to compensate. The result is cleaner and you're not just making everything louder. Why, and how to sweep for it →
Which channel is it?
Solo channels one at a time to find the culprit. The usual suspects:
- Muddy overall mix → often the pads or too many channels with low-mid buildup. Pull the pads down first; check the low-cuts → are doing their job.
- Harsh vocal → narrow cut 2–4 kHz. If it's just the "s", that's sibilance — narrow cut 5–8 kHz.
- Boxy acoustic guitar → 150–300 Hz, especially with piezo pickups.
- Honky, quacky anything → sweep 500 Hz–1 kHz and cut.
The "fix it once" idea
If every channel has the same problem, it's the room — not the channels.
A room that's boomy or harsh makes everything boomy or harsh. Don't cut 300 Hz on thirty channels one at a time. Fix it once on the main output, and leave the individual channels alone. Thirty small cuts is thirty chances to make it worse; one cut on the main is one decision.
Same logic if it started suddenly across the board — check what changed globally (the main EQ, a graphic EQ on the output) before touching channels.
Before you reach for EQ at all
If a single source sounds badly wrong, the fastest fix often isn't EQ:
- Move the mic. Six inches of mic position beats any amount of EQ.
- Check the gain. Distorted-sounding? It may be clipping. Set the gain →
- Check what's on the stage. If it sounds bad in the room but the channel looks fine, stage volume may be washing into the mics.