All the EQ Information You’ll Ever Need in One Handy Chart

BY BJÖRGVIN BENEDIKTSSON

Independent Recording has the most useful EQ chart I’ve ever seen. I’ve stumbled upon this EQ chart many times on the internet, but I don’t want any of you to go without it.

Not only does it tell you the frequency ranges of a multitude of instruments, but it’s also interactive. By sweeping over the various instruments you can see where some of their more important frequencies are.

How to Use the EQ Chart

You can see the full chart here below, but check out the interactive part of it here as well for extra information.

As you can see in the chart below all the instruments have a specific place in the frequency spectrum. The orange color represents the fundamental frequencies of each specific instrument while the yellows signify their harmonics. Low fundamentals are the blacks on the left while the black surrounded by yellow represents Air.

EQ References

By looking at the various instruments you can see where their most important frequency information is. Here are a few simple things you can do to make it help you EQ better.

• It’s easy to see how far you can filter a specific instrument.

• You can see what instruments can potentially clash, and where you might need to trim and cut their frequencies.

• All the technical jargon from ‘thump’ to ‘air’ is there for you to learn.

• All the instruments are conveniently grouped into their corresponding ensembles.

• With the handy keyboard layout you can see what frequency range each note represents.

Have you seen this chart before? What did you learn from it?

For even more information on how to use EQ in your mixes, check out Understanding EQ.