Steve Albini - Kick Drum EQ Technique
While watching Steve Albini mix a song on 'Mix with the Masters' he implemented a very interesting eq technique that I haven't seen done before. When eq-ing a kick drum to get the low end thick and punchy - think 60 hz boost - he used an auxiliary on the channel strip to send a duplicated signal to an outboard eq (I believe it was a Massenburg Parametric). He dialed in a sound he liked on the outboard eq with a low frequency notch boost and then returned the duplicated eq track to another channel on the SSL console. From here, on the duplicated eq channel, he used the same auxiliary to send the newly eq-ed signal back to the outboard eq, thus created a feedback circuit (the eq, eq-ing itself). Steve likes to do this because it focuses the area of the eq tightly. The auxiliary send on the new eq channel can't be too high because then feedback is actually audible...a little goes a long way. He blends this parallel eq’ed kick drum track with the original kick drum to taste.
I use a similar approach when using delay in my mixes...sending the signal to be delayed to an auxiliary channel (adding an eq and 100% wet delay plugin), then creating the amount of feedback I want by sending an aux (make sure it’s pre fader!) to the same auxiliary channel - because it’s being eq-ed every time it’s sent back through the channel, the delay naturally fades the repeats in a musical way (think fading into the distance - rather than repeating pristinely).
Really cool technique that I didn't realize could be done with EQ! Can't wait to implement this into my mixing process. What's next...parallel compression with a feedback loop? ...who knows!