How to EQ Your Dialogue from Start to Finish: Editing Step 4

So you have your voice recording, maybe for a podcast, that's been nicely sculpted with EQ after recording it.

In addition, you even used a reference recording as your guide for the EQing - you're doing great!

Now we enter the editing phase to learn how to further improve your dialogue audio recording.

How do we use EQs in editing to correct and enhance our voice recordings?

Grasping at Concepts

To be clear, EQ is just one of several corrective measures I'm using during the editing process.

There are others like removing background noise, removing mouth sounds, and removing random clicks and pops that we won't cover in this series.

What I hope to help you with is to provide an EQing framework by seeing and explaining what I did with my voice-over project, so you can get a good grasp of the tool.

This understanding of the EQ will enable you to adapt the EQing principles for your own needs with your dialogue recordings, whatever they are!

In this series of articles, you'll learn how to remove problem resonances, tame sibilance with EQ, and broad correcting and sweetening moves with an EQ.

In fact, you could easily do all three of those "EQ editing steps" above in one go.

This would be especially applicable when using a versatile EQ like the FabFilter Pro Q3, but I'll break the steps down into separate, bite-sized articles to hopefully simplify the process.

Less is More

When talking about removing resonances in our voice recordings, we need to lay a bit of groundwork.

Resonances are areas of unpleasant sounding frequency buildup in a mix or a recording of a single sound (like a voice recording).

Keep in mind that reducing resonances in a mix of multiple instruments/voices is different than reducing them in a voice recording.

In your voice recording, you don't have the problem of different instruments clashing against each other and causing massive frequency buildups.

Nevertheless, there are still unpleasant or harsh frequency buildups in voice recordings throughout the frequency spectrum that can be reduced to clear up and improve your overall sound.

See my voice-over recording below where I've located roughly seven areas of unpleasant sounding frequency buildup using the FabFilter Pro Q3 EQ (mentioned above):

Reducing resonances in a mix needs to be done with care, but even more so for voice recordings.

If there's too many cuts of the various resonances in a voice recording, it can easily end up taking the soul and character out of the sound of the dialogue audio.

Of course, we don't want that. Instead we want to preserve the character of the sound of the voice that makes each person's voice distinct.

Accordingly, in voice recordings, aim to reduce the most glaring frequency buildups only while leaving other resonances alone.

What's the Point?

Finally, why do we need to reduce frequency buildups or resonances in our spoken word recordings?

In a nutshell, it's important for the balancing of the frequencies of your voice recording.

You don't want ear-piercing higher frequency buildups or bone-rattling rumble and hum in lower frequency buildups to overpower the other frequencies.

A big part of clear and pleasant sounding dialogue audio is balance in the frequency spectrum.

When you cut resonances, you're basically clearing out small, but potent problem spots and letting the good stuff shine through!

Consequently, finding the most problematic resonances and reducing them will subtly improve and clarify the sound of your voice recording.

Resonates With Me

When you first start cutting frequency buildups in your podcast, have a look at this introductory article again to guide your work.

Remember that we're laying out some EQ guidelines during editing to help you get a good grasp of the EQ as a tool.

Next, strive to preserve the overall character of the sound of your voice recording by cutting only the worst frequency buildups.

Finally, know that the process of removing resonances, while tedious, is worth it as you subtly clean up and beautify the sound of your voice.

We'll start exploring how to remove resonances in more depth in the next article: How to EQ Your Voice Recording from Start to Finish: Editing Step 5.

Are YOU understanding these concepts and how they apply to your dialogue recordings?

Are they making sense to help you try some EQing moves on your voice recording?

Would love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Cheers, Bryan
Your Dialogue Editing Mentor