When using EQ it’s often said that changing anything changes everything. We show you how tilt EQ can do more than you think.

EQ has moved on a long way since the simple 2 band high and low shaping of early consoles, and with modern parametric equalisers giving us tools to sculpt or correct sounds in every imaginable way it’s hard to think of any scenario that isn’t at least improvable. Most of us will be familiar with cut, peaking, and shelving filters, but far fewer engineers use the Tilt filter shape.

Corrective vs Aesthetic EQ

Nine times out of ten, problem frequencies needing corrective EQ tweaks can easily be dealt with using an (often narrow) peaking ‘notch’ to cut them out, but when it comes to sculpting sounds for aesthetic reasons things become slightly more complicated. All individual sounds’ component frequencies together define their basic character. As soon as we cut or boost any of these, we mess with this relationship, and many of us will have experienced the EQ ‘rabbit hole’ where brightening things can make them too thin, or lifting the low end can make them sound dull. Vocal tweaks made in the middle can be especially problematic.

Tilt EQ

Luckily, we have tilt EQ. This filter shape is akin to very wide high and low shelving filters at frequencies that give us a straight line ‘see-saw’ curve. This curve can be used to simultaneously boost one end of the spectrum while cutting at the other. Why is this good? Because we can brighten or darken sounds while at the same time maintaining the basic spectral balance that makes them recognisable to us. After all, the hope is that everything in the middle is as it should be in the first place, as determined by the choice of factors upstream of any EQ.

There are a few options out there for EQ with tilt filters, including TB Audio’s free sTilt V2 and Softube’s Tonelux Tilt, but in the video we show you the effect of tilt EQ using FabFilter’s modern classic Pro Q 3 plugin.

You can also watch these quick tips for using tilt EQ here

Final Thoughts

With consideration at the tracking stage, EQ can be primarily to solve any problems and provide some moderate shaping to ease sounds in around each other. They say that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you want to keep things sounding natural, tilt EQ is your friend.