The last part of the MPEQ-1 deep dive is about the bottom of the spectrum: hearing it, seeing it, and shaping it without guessing.
The kick: a 40 Hz move you adjust by how the room feels
Eric wanted the kick on the demo track to be "softer, but really extend way down there. Make this thing feel super deep, really heavy, but kind of soft at the same time." Blending mics alone got close. The finish was a parallel trick: the whole drum bus, gated so it only opens on the kick, then EQ'd to emphasize one range.
"So this is peaking at 40 Hz, and I could use the shape control to figure out how much additional sub information do I want to include in this move. It really allows you to just adjust this kind of by how it feels in the room."
Shape at around 0.2 kept the peak but let a little more sub through. "That gave the kick drum a presence in a range that actually starts to sit below the bass a little bit and fill in way down there."
The analyzer: a different universe below 100 Hz
Eric used FabFilter Pro-Q's analyzer for years. He put it side by side with the MPEQ-1's at maximum resolution on the bass track.
"Here is the fundamental of that octave E-flat, here's the first harmonic, second harmonic. And here it's all kind of mushed together. Pro-Q still does fine up here, no problem. But in the low end this is just a whole other universe of information that I could never get out of this. It was a big deal for me."
"This spectrum analyzer unquestionably has become my absolute go-to for checking this stuff out."
The bass: reading the analyzer to rebalance an amp
The bass was a Fender Jazz, DI plus a little Peavey Decade amp on a Coles 4038. Eric recorded the amp two ways: upright and lying on its back, speaker facing the ceiling. The upright version had the bigger low end but a range of overtones poking up above the natural tilt the on-its-back version showed.
With no distortion, just tone shaping, one band tucked that range in.
"All I did was just tuck these in just a tiny bit. That's without it, and you just get that clarity and balance in the sound. I got this cool big low end going on; the low end just felt fuller and more forceful this way."
Then, with the DI blended in (and its low-mids phase-corrected, see the phase post), the analyzer showed the goal: fundamental, octave, then overtones "tapering off in a really natural, balanced way."
Try it
- Put the MPEQ-1 on your bass bus and open the analyzer. Look for one harmonic sitting above the natural downward tilt and tuck it, no drive.
- On a parallel kick or drum bus, a low band at 35 to 45 Hz. Use the shape control, not the gain, to decide how much sub comes along. Listen on something that reaches 20 Hz, or trust the analyzer.