De-emphasizing a drum beat

[Tony Walton]

Hi People

I have a track which has, in my opinion, an overly emphasized drum beat which I would like to de-emphasize. It also uses a bit of distortion or fuzz with that beat. I am using Audition CS6, yes I know pre-cloud, but thats the way I like it. If any of you have some tips/advice on how I can achieve my goal, I would be most appreciative. P.S. I own this music, and can therefore do what I like with it.

Tony Walton

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

The usual approach to reducing something like that might at first seem a little odd - until you've tried it.

Open the Parametric EQ, and on one of the bands (it doesn't matter which) set the Q to a relatively high value, so that the width of the band is reduced considerably. Then boost the band to a positive value - anything around 15-20dB should do. Now sweep the EQ up and down the frequency range until you hear your drum beat much louder. At this point you will have centred the frequency on the band you need to reduce, so you pull the boost/cut slider down to a negative value, and adjust the Q accordingly; probably to a rather lower value than the one you used for searching. Try and get it as accurate as you can though, otherwise you may end up taking out more than you really need to.

The reason for doing it like this is that if you just attempt to locate the frequency by sweeping the band with a minus value selected, it's much harder to locate, certainly with any accuracy. If it's a kick drum, you should find it around the 200Hz point, but for anything else, you'll have to experiment.