n-Track’s 20-band EQ
There's a fully functional 20-band graphical EQ built into n-Track. Each channel and group has one. Here’s a great tutorial that should help you locate and use it (thanks, Elwood!). Note: Unlike a plug-in EQ which can be placed anyplace in a track’s signal chain, the built-in channel EQ is locked into place (prior to all other effects).
Step #1. Find the 20-band EQ.
After you have done all your recordings and are ready for mixing, your Timeline window might look something like this:
There are two ways to open the channel EQ window:
1. From the Pop-up Mixer.
You’ll find it by
clicking on the arrow to the left of the track. 
Can't
find the arrow? Right-click on a track name on the vertical track bar and
click "Select left track bar elements". This following window will
appear. Make sure that "Pop-up Mixer" is highlighted. (You might also
want to save your CPU some work by deselecting VU Meters.)
See the three round knobs in the middle of the Pop-up Mixer? They
represent a typical channel strip EQ: (from left to right: low, mid, & high
frequencies). Double-click on any of them (or, if you have VU Meters
activated, there will be a little EQ symbol next to the knobs) to activate the
EQ window.
2.
From the
Main Mixer. Click the Mixer button on the Toolbar 
or
press F3. You'll see a window like this:
Not sure what are all these faders and buttons are for? Let’s run through a short introduction to the basics. Here's a close up of channel strip 5 which has been labeled with numbers. Each track in your song has a channel strip. Controls are explained below.
#1 – Track Name and Number. This example
happens to be track 5 and has been named "Drums". Click on this
button to open the Track Settings dialog box.
#2 – Volume Fader. The Fader changes the volume output (including channel
effects) of the track. The value of the Fader is displayed directly
beneath it (in dB). This number will decrease as you pull the fader down
and increase as you raise the fader.
#3 – Pan Slider. Depending on the version and any customizations you’ve
made, you may see a round knob or a horizontal slider. The value of the
Pan is displayed directly beneath it and represents the pan position of the
track. Adjusting this slider moves the sound source to the left or right
(the number is negative when panned left and positive when panned right.
#4 – Mute (speaker icon) and Solo (S) Buttons. Muting the track is
similar to setting the Volume Fader to zero. Activating Solo is the same
as setting ALL OTHER TRACK’s Volume Faders to zero.
#5 – EQ Buttons. Can be used as a 3-band EQ. Or, clicking the grey
icon just to the left opens up the 20-band EQ (you can also double-click any of
the three EQ knobs to open the 20-band EQ).
#6 – Channel Insert Effects List. This list shows all plug-ins that have
been added to the channel. Right-click on the area to open the Effects
Selection dialog box. Double-click on an Effect’s name in order to open
its interface. To visualize how insert effects work, let’s compare them
with a hot water heater in your house. In this example, the water heater
is the effect. Cold water comes from the street and arrives at the water
heater where the water is heated and then sent on to the faucet. If the
plug-in with which you’re working has both dry and wet faders, this can be
related to the mixing of hot and cold water.
#7 – AUX Send Faders and Controls. By default, 2 AUX Sends are activated,
but you can add more. Raising a Volume Slider increases the amount of
signal that is sent to the appropriate Auxiliary buss (and therefore, to any
effects added to that buss). The horizontal faders next to each AUX Send
are pan controls (useful on stereo effects). The buttons above the pan
controls allow you to select how the AUX signal is routed (advanced and not
within the scope of this tutorial).
What’s the difference between Channel Inserts and AUX? To get an idea of how effects placed in an AUX differ from effects placed in a Channel Insert, let’s go back to the hot water heater analogy.
- Channel Insert – 100% of a channel’s signal is routed through a Channel Insert effect (ALL the water runs through the heater) and then returned to the channel. The end result is a single, Hot/Wet faucet of fully-affected signal.
-
AUX
Buss – 100% of a channel’s signal is sent un-affected to the Master
Fader. In addition, a portion of a channel’s signal (from 0 – 100%,
depending on the AUX Send) is routed through the AUX and then on to the Master
Fader. The end result is two faucets; a Cold/Dry faucet (Track Fader) and
a Hot/Wet faucet (Aux Send) and up to twice the volume.
Note: Each channel has an Aux Send. These control how much of each
channel is routed through the effects. There’s also a master Aux Return
which controls how much effected signal from ALL channels is added back to the
Master Fader.
After that short excursion, let's open the EQ (click on #5).
Step #2. Identify the components of the EQ.
As
you can see, n-Track’s 20-band EQ is divided into several areas. The most
important one is the big black graph with the green line. This is where
you’ll shape the sound of your track. By default, there are three red
dots. Each dot represents a band of the EQ. Take a minute now to
play around with the "Add New Band" and "Delete Band"
buttons in order to understand them (add a band, and move it so it isn’t
covered by the next new band).
Find the "Phase Shift" check boxes. Clicking them shifts the
phase of the track by 180°. If the track is a stereo track you can chose
to reverse Left, Right, or both sides of the track. Use of Phase Shift is
advanced and beyond the scope of this tutorial. The Bypass check boxes
allow you do disable a particular band or the entire EQ. It is helpful to
alternately enable/disable your settings so you can hear what your EQ changes
are doing to the track.
More on EQ Type later…
Next,
locate the boxes labeled ‘Band’ and ‘Track’. Use ‘Band’ to activate a
band before adjusting it. You can adjust the band’s settings by clicking
and dragging the knobs (which moves the dot), or clicking and dragging the dot
(which moves the knobs). Use ‘Track’ to recall and edit EQ settings for
any track in the song.
So far so good, but there’s lots more to learn. Click on the red band in
the middle of the graph, and move it up & down and then left &
right. Watch the knobs and parameters fields while doing so, and you'll
learn several things.
a) The X-axis of the graph is the frequency you’re adjusting
b) The Y-axis of the graph represents the amount of cut or boost being applied
c) You can edit the shape of the line by dragging the bands with the mouse.
d) The ‘Band’ box automatically changes to whichever band you select
As a guide, there are some fixed values printed on the graph. Note that every octave doubles the frequency. For example, 440 is an A, and 880 is an A one octave higher. Let’s start by boosting at 200Hz by 6db thus making it approximately twice as loud (Hint: In practice, it’s generally musically better to cut than boost). There should now be a ‘curve’ centered at 200, and your graph should look something like this:
Be aware that the display of the EQ is logarithmic. If you look at the
above graph closely, you’ll see that the boost starts at approximately 66 Hz
and ends at approximately 600 Hz. So the entire range being boosted is
approx 3 octaves (66 – 200 is 1 ½ octaves, 200 – 600 is 1 ½ octaves).
So what happens if you want to affect a narrower or broader range? This
is where Bandwidth comes into play. Experiment with the Bandwidth knob,
and note how it affects the width of the curve. A value of ‘1’ will
affect one octave. A value of ‘.5’ will affect one-half octave.
Ok, let’s talk about EQ Type:
Select Band 1, and look at the EQ Type list. Click on the arrow to expand the drop-down list, and study the options.
-
- High Shelve: Passes high frequencies unaffected while cutting (or boosting) low frequencies to the extent selected by the user (forms a step or shelf).
- Band Boost/Cut: Boosts or cuts the frequencies included in the bandwidth and centered on the selected frequency.
- Low Shelve: Passes low frequencies unaffected while cutting (or boosting) high frequencies to the extent selected by the user (forms a step or shelf).
-
Select a band, change it to "
Change the band to “High Shelve” and experiment by dragging the band up and down. You’ll see how the frequencies to the right of the band remain unaffected while the frequencies to the left of the band are cut or boosted based on how high or low the band is set. Try “Low Shelve” in the same way. Notice how the shape of the red line forms a shelf.
Lastly, change the band to ‘Band Boost/Cut”, experiment by dragging the band left/right and up/down, and watch the shape of the red line. Remember that the width of the curve’ is determined by the Bandwidth.
Ok, so we’ve covered EQ Types. But there’s more to the EQ; it comes with
a free tuner and spectrum analyzer. Right-click to enable/disable
both. The spectrum analyzer is great for comparing your EQ settings with
known good tracks. Use it to learn about EQ, but ultimately, trust your
ears! The last area to explore is the top-most area of the EQ
window. EQ settings can be saved for future use. Click the disk
icon to start the process. Click the X to erase the current preset.
Step #3. Put it to work.
Here’s a proven method of identifying which frequencies to cut:
- Turn your speakers down.
- Solo the track you wish to EQ.
- Set up a Boost/Cut band with a very narrow Bandwidth (0.1 works well).
- Raise to band to +12 dB or so.
- Play the track.
- SLOWLY sweep the band from left to right and listen for muddy/nasty sounding frequencies.
- When you find a nasty frequency, cut it.
- Add another band and continue sweeping.
For more advice on using EQ, visit www.audiominds.com.
Oh! And like you hear so often on the n-Track Forum; Trust your ears.