Let's wrap up this three-part series with some tips on toms, overheads and bus EQ.

Toms are simple to EQ. You want to reduce boxiness, increase thump and add attack.

Here's what you do:

Cut the Mids - Wide boosts work really well when you just want to completely get rid of that boxy sound. Just make sure you leave some left so that it doesn't sound hollow.

Add the Lows - Since every tom has a different diameter, their fullness frequencies differ. Floor toms sound full when boosted at lower frequencies, at 80 - 100 Hz for instance, while smaller toms need boosting at closer to 250 Hz. Sweep around until you find the sweet spot to boost.

Sprinkle with Highs - Similarly, add the attack by boosting from between 5 kHz and 7 kHz, depending on the size of the tom.

Overheads

I like taking a master EQ approach when it comes to overheads. Bus both of your overheads together so that you only need one stereo EQ.

Then you can approach it one of two ways:

Master EQ - Do slight cuts and boost to create the best sounding overall EQ. This means adding slight low-end boost to bring out the kick drum, reducing some of the overall boxiness and adding presence and air in the upper-mids and high frequencies.

This will give the overheads a great overall drum sound. With this method you can start your drum mix with the overhead sound. Then you can add the other drums to the overheads to enhance an already great sound from the drum-kit.

Cymbals only - If you only want to use the overheads for the sound from the cymbals, use a high-pass filter to cut out everything up to about 500 Hz.

Sounds drastic, but if the other microphones sound great and you can't get a good overall overhead sound going, this method can be a great alternative.

Overall EQ with bussing

Finally, you can do the same overall EQ as I explained with the overheads, but this time with all of the drums. Simply buss them all together to one stereo group and add a stereo EQ. Then use that to sculpt a perfect master EQ for your drums.

Use this guide the next time you're EQ'ing your drums. I guarantee that these frequency areas will help you solve many of your drum EQ problems.

The Ultimate Guide to EQ

This short drum EQ series was based off one of the chapters inside EQ Strategies - The Ultimate Guide to EQ.

I wanted to show you a little bit of what you can expect when you get the full tutorial, complete with video training.

• 15 concrete chapters on solving your EQ problems
• Video tutorials, including a one hour EQ walkthrough of an entire mix
• A rundown of the complete frequency spectrum, showing you the characteristics of each frequency range
• Dedicated guides to drums, bass, guitar and vocals
• EQ insights from Grammy award winning engineers
• When to use EQ and when to use compression