Recording without EQ

If you have an analogue mixing desk in your studio (under £25,000), the best way of recording audio is by not adding any EQ.

Adding EQ adds additional preamps to the signal path and secondly and most importantly adding EQ to an instrument channel immediately limits your creativity at mix time. Some people would disagree with me here (see my thought at the bottom of the page)

However this way your signal only has to go through one preamp before leaving and entering your recording device. You can use phantom power if need be and even use the hi pass or low pass filters but that’s it (even the filters add additional preamps to the signal path), but it makes the signal path as simple as possible.

The reason I believe it is important to keep your captured signal as flat as possible (no EQ) is as follows: –


  • You may be capturing the sound and intending to mix the album, but there is always the possibility that someone else will end up mixing the album, either now or in a remix.
  • If you capture the sound as flat as possible, it will give the person how has to mix the album the most flexibility.
  • If the captured sound is raw and un-tampered with it could become a generic sound file that is use for other recordings.

Now some engineers record and mix the whole track all by them self’s, it can be quicker to record it the way that you want it to sound.

However if your record company disagrees with the way the engineer has recorded and mixed the track, then it could be even more costly. Because instead of just remixing the track, you may have to rerecord so the track, which would eat into your recording budget.