How to EQ Your Dialogue from Start to Finish: Recording Step 1

So, you've worked hard to capture your voice recording for a podcast or your pastor's sermon or your audio for video.

But, it just doesn't sound as clear or have the impact of other voice recordings you listen to and enjoy...

Enter the humble EQ...one of the most powerful tools to sculpt the sound of your voice recording is the equalizer (EQ).

In this series of posts I'll detail a way to EQ your voice recordings by walking you through the exact settings I used on a voice-over for video project.

Bear in mind that this certainly isn't the only way to EQ, but just a way that I hope will give you a framework or some guidelines to start improving your voice recordings using an EQ today!

Where Do I Start?

How do I even know where to start with EQing my raw voice recording? Is there a secret dialogue recording template that all the pros use?

Or should I use a supposed "one size fits all" voice recording EQ preset that you might see baked in to one of your EQ plug-ins?

Do I just start turning knobs until it sounds good?

None of the above! I'd like to suggest a different way forward - let listening guide your EQ changes.

Start by listening and comparing your raw recording to a good sounding reference recording and this comparison will inform and guide your EQ decisions!

Let me show you how to do this in my video: "Puny to Professional Sounding Voice Recordings | A New Way to Listen".

The method from my video is what led me to the EQ settings you see below from my recording session (which we'll cover in depth in Step 2 and Step 3).

The EQ section is the four sets of knobs in the center of the plug-in from top to bottom - orange, blue, white and black.

The high pass and low pass filters are in the upper left corner in green:

With those EQ settings, I'm molding or sculpting my raw voice recording audio (being aware of its flaws) to get a bit closer to what my reference voice recording sounds like.

We all use different microphones to record our voices (for podcast, sermon or voice-over for video) and they pick up the sound in different ways.

The sound of a large diaphragm condenser mic will be different from a tiny clip-on lavalier mic which will also be different from a dynamic mic.

This leaves us with different sounding voice recordings which is why you can't just plug in a "dialogue sweetener" EQ preset and expect it to work for your specific mic in your specific recording space.

There are just too many variables.

Until you get very familiar with the way your voice and room will be recorded, (with your particular mic) you'll want to dial in EQ settings that are specifically tailored for your voice recording.

Why I Use a Channel Strip

Why would you use a channel strip over just an EQ or compressor plug-in? You definitely don't have to use a channel strip, but there are many benefits of using one!

First, with a channel strip you have multiple plug-ins condensed down to one which can use less CPU processing power than multiple EQ's and compressors separately.

It's also just easier for my work flow having all the tools I need in one plug-in rather than stringing several together.

The tools on the channel I'm using above are:

• a noise gate
• compression and limiting
• a fairly flexible EQ with low pass and high pass filters
• tasteful saturation
• gain
• metering and much more.

The other benefit is nuanced, but quite important for moving your voice recording in the right direction of sounding more pleasing.

The channel strip definitely has a "sound" that subtly improves the overall tone of my voice recording regardless of what mic I'm using.

I've tried it with condenser, dynamic and lavalier mics for dialogue recordings (not to mention the larger mixing projects I've used it on) and it always seems to sculpt recordings in a pleasing way when used with care.

This is a credit to the audio wizards who designed it and the exact model is called the Brainworx bx_console N from Plugin Alliance.

It's well worth a look, although there are many other channel strip plug-ins out there.

Starting EQ Settings

I started EQing my voice recording with the low and high pass (LP and HP) filters - look below at the section of two green knobs on the left:

These are dealing with the extreme low and high ends of the frequency spectrum and I set mine at the following:

• the LP or high cut (green knob on left) is at the end of the dial at 18 kHz removing unneeded extreme high content that can't be heard by most humans
  
  
• the HP or low cut (green knob on right) is set a bit more drastic cutting around 40 Hz since there isn't a lot of useful material in the very low areas in a voice recording (deals with rumble etc.)

These EQ moves are harder to hear since they're at the extreme high and low ends of our voice recording, but they're still important.

HP or low cut filters are especially important in voice recordings and beyond for cutting hum, rumble and plosives that rob your recording of clarity and many mics will have a low cut built in to them to help this problem.

You saw my exact LP and HP settings above, but you can play around with them using your best headphones or speakers to see how tweaking these cuts changes the tone of your voice recording.

I typically don't want to drastically affect the sound with these, but rather use them in a fairly transparent way.

I'll cut in the extreme high and low areas that aren't useful for the listening experience.

In the next several posts, we'll work through the four main EQ sections on the channel strip for improving your voice recordings: the highs, the high-mid range, the low-mid range, and the lows. 

Start Sculpting Your Sound

Welcome to the weird and wonderful journey of molding your recorded audio into something beautiful!

Learning to EQ your audio for video, podcasts or sermons is the start of this trek.  

Remember to listen and compare your voice recording to a good sounding reference recording first. This helps you know where you want to go with your EQ sculpting.

Next, try a channel strip to simplify the sculpting process with its wealth of tools and satisfying sound.

Finally, start by setting your low pass and high pass filters to contain your recording within the most useful frequencies for a clear listening experience while cutting useless audio garbage.

Have YOU used these steps on a recent dialogue recording? How did they help?

I would love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Cheers, Bryan
Your Dialogue Editing Mentor