Amateur Mistake #731 - Overdoing It When Processing Audio

Amateurs tend to get excited when processing audio and add way too much processing, which usually makes the audio sound worse.

Overdoing EQ will cause boominess or muddiness or sharpness or anything in between. Overdoing a compressor will cause pumping and breathing. Overdoing a De-esser will ruin the audio. Overdoing saturation will cause distortion.

Here’s a method that helps solve that problem:

(We will use EQ as the example but this method applies to all types of signal processing)

First, do what the amateur does – find what frequencies sound good and boost them (or find which frequencies sound bad and subtract them).
Then, back off on the AMOUNT that you added or subtracted. Meaning, if you boosted some low end 6 dB, back it off so you’re only boosting about 4 dB.
Then, stick with that sound for a short time, maybe 2-5 minutes, while you’re working on other tracks or editing, etc.
After hearing for a bit how your +4 dB of low end EQ sounds in the mix, you will more accurately be able to decide whether that still sounds good, or whether you should add more low end (maybe your initial amount of 6 dB WAS correct), or whether you should back it down to adding only 1 or 2 dB.
Obviously you can iterate this process many times within a 10 or 20 minute timeframe and achieve great results with processing your audio just the right amount.

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