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Easy EQ Cheat Sheet & Instrument Frequency Chart for Mixing

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You stack up guitars, a bass, some vocals. Separately, they sound fine. You mix them. Now it's mush.

Here's why, and how to fix it fast.

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Instruments Live in Different Frequencies

The lowest note you can play on a guitar is E2 (roughly 82 Hz). The highest is around D6 (about 1.1 kHz). This means, whatever notes/chords you play, you are in that box.

Every instrument occupies a specific space on the frequency spectrum. Every instrument fits a box. That's what the instrument frequency chart shows.

Instrument frequency chart for mixing

Sub-bass rumbles at 20 Hz. Highs pierce at 10 kHz and beyond. Pianos and electronic synths hog almost the entire board. Woodwinds and guitars sit in the mids. Human voice sits between 85 Hz and 1 kHz for its core fundamentals, with its "presence" and air stretching all the way up to 8 kHz. Depends on the singer sure, but it's a good idea to know where it is.

When you mix, the goal is clarity. You don't want frequencies to clash.

But, if nothing overlaps, your mix will sound sterile and thin. You need some overlap to glue a song together; that's where mixing becomes an art. You want to carve out clear pockets for the most important frequencies of each sound.

Here is the reference chart. Keep this chart saved on your desktop or print it out for your wall. It is incredibly handy.

Acoustic Guitar, Drums & Vocals

Take a simple singer-songwriter track: just an acoustic guitar, a kick drum (or cajon), and a vocal.

If you just push all the faders up, it sounds muddy.

  • Vocals rely heavily on the mid-range and upper-mids (around 1kHz to 5kHz) for presence.
  • An acoustic guitar is a selfish, full-spectrum instrument. It has booming lows, thick mids, and bright, sparkly highs. If left alone, it will step all over both your vocals and your kick drum.
  • Your kick drum needs to own the sub-lows (around 60Hz - 80Hz) to give the track a heartbeat.

Look at the chart, you'll notice acoustic guitar messing with lows and mids. You just have to push it higher so it doesn't mess with the lows of kick drums. You put a high-pass filter on the guitar, cutting out everything below 100Hz. Now kick drum hits you in the chest because the guitar is out of its way. Next, you make a small, gentle EQ cut in the guitar right around 2kHz. That makes vocals pop because it is no longer fighting the acoustic for that exact frequency.

Managing kick and bass is tricky

Very commonly, you'll have to balance kick drums and bass guitar. They both pack a ton of heavy energy in the exact same low-end.

Find where they overlap. Many engineers use complimentary EQ here. You might cut the bass slightly at 80Hz and boost the kick in that exact spot. Then, you do the reverse at 120Hz to give the bass its own pocket. I try the same.

Don't do this blindly though. Cutting 80Hz on a bass can gut your fundamental tone. If EQ carving ruins the sound, leave the frequencies alone and try sidechain compression instead.

Arrangement Beats EQ Every Time

You cannot fix a bad arrangement with an EQ plugin. Garbage in -> Garbage out is very true.

If you have two guitars playing the exact same chunky rhythm chords in the first position, they are going to clash. Full stop. Instead of trying to EQ them away from each other, change the arrangement.

Have one guitar play the chords higher up the neck. Voice your piano chords as spread triads to create natural space. If you spread your instruments across different frequency ranges while recording, the mix builds itself.

Sweeps, Cuts, and Filters

When you find a muddy spot in your mix, do sweeps, cuts and filters:

  • EQ Sweep: Take a narrow band on your EQ, boost the gain, and sweep it slowly across the spectrum while the track plays. When a nasty, ringing frequency stabs your ear, stop.
  • Narrow Cuts, Wide Boosts: Now that you found the bad frequency, pull it down. Keep your cuts narrow (around a 3dB bandwidth) so you are only removing the problem. When you want to enhance a sound (like adding brightness to a vocal), use a wider, gentler boost. It sounds much more natural.
  • High-Pass Filters: Use high-pass filters to clean up low-end clutter. Strip the useless low rumble out of hi-hats, vocals, or acoustic guitars. This instantly frees up headroom. Just be careful not to overdo it, or your mix will sound paper-thin.

Final Thoughts

Mixing is about problem-solving. Knowing where a tuba, a snare, or a vocal sits on the frequency spectrum saves you hours of endless tweaking. Keep the EQ cheat sheet handy, arrange your songs smartly, and trust what comes out of your studio monitors.

FAQs

Should I EQ every instrument so they never overlap?

Nope. You actually want some overlap to glue the song together. The goal is to carve out clear "pockets" for the core frequencies of each instrument, not to isolate them into their own soundproof boxes.

When should I use a high-pass filter?

Use high-pass filters to strip out useless low-end rumble from instruments that don't actually need it, like hi-hats, vocals, or acoustic guitars. Chopping the lows off an acoustic guitar instantly frees up massive headroom for your kick drum to punch through.