EQ Cheat Sheets

Online there exist these images of supposed EQ cheat sheets. There's charts for vocals, and other charts for multiple instruments. I've seen it a bunch of times in a couple different ways, and every time it meant all of nothing. It's like 10 years ago somebody bs'ed this chart for a school project, and it's been copied and mutilated since. I'd honestly love for someone who has posted one of these to explain exactly how they use it with their production. These charts are filled with a bunch of buzzwords and nonsense to describe the frequencies that make up a track. It makes sense in theory, but the truth is it all falls down to personal interpretation. For example, I've described how the kick drum sits with my interpretation of a kick drum thudding or punching. That doesn't mean I'm gonna sit here and tell you the kick can slap, boom, rumble, or pop. These EQ cheat sheets used to confuse the fuck out of me, I've also written about what I've learned with the danger of harsh EQ'ing. Instrument frequency charts all have a spot where they say a track is muddy, which makes no sense. They say roll off here, boost this, if you use EQ to mold sounds it's never going to follow a formula like that. EQ isn't some magic "make music better" tool. If you mathematically fill the frequency spectrum by following an EQ cheat sheet, nothing will sound right. These kind of things are targeted towards beginners, and cause more harm than they should. An instrument frequency chart would be more useful on real songs, to show how each track sits. Hypothetical are meaningless and do nothing but cause confusion. Cheat sheets are meant for theory, not production.

Thank you for reading.