There seems to be a small debate about the use of EQ during tracking or at mixing. I don't seem to understand the necessity of applying EQ in the mic signal chain at time of capture as opposed to outboarding it during mixing. Is it just a convenience thing or does the EQ clip in a harmonically pleasing way? Seems to make a lot more sense to adjust it while you're mixing.

I am talking about real hardware, e.g. mic pre, eq strip.

Is it mainly convenience?

no. if you use real hardware, you only have 2 times to use it.

first time on the way in. ie to DAW.

second time off DAW in mix.

so EQ to Track might be used on a Guitar, and same EQ to mix, might be used on a Trumpet. so its gets used twice.

if you dont EQ to recorded track, effectively you need twice the hardware units in mix.

i hope that makes sense to you. Buddha

So my hope is to use something like mix:analog as a home recorder and use no EQ at home, which is why I asked. But I was directly inspired by your post in another thread. I just wasn't sure if there was a penalty for not being chained through impediance, or gain in the signal chain like a hardware unit.

That way I can buy the mic pres, record real analog tone, fiddle with the modelled EQs in plugin till happy, then recreate it using one of the cloud services and take the printed track without investing in all the EQ hardware.

It's also hard to monitor at home because these are 100w heads. So I have an isolation closet, but it's only 10ft away. A crawlspace might work too, regardless, it's no control room.

Thanks for your input

I don't think anyone can give you a generic answer that is 'true' because it's probably dependent on the people involved and situation.

Imagine that you have a limited recording budget and you spend it on a good studio with a really good engineer. It may make sense to talk about the vision and set up all instruments so that they sound close to what you think is ideal, and that could very well include compression and EQ etc. This way you have used those resources - studio, engineer, equipment - as much as you can. Good bang-for-buck. Are you now 'restricted' when you get to mixing? Yes, somewhat. But you also benefited from those resources.

On the other hand you can perhaps imagine that you get hired to produce a track for a commercial. The ad people aren't musicians and they don't communicate with you in musical terms. You want flexibility. You don't want to be stuck with a 'sound' that you can't change on a moments notice because then you'd maybe have to re-track that instrument.

So sometimes it's about practicality/convenience, and sometimes it's about sound. It's possible you have a piece of hardware that sounds a particular way and that emulating that in software isn't possible, or at least it's way to time consuming to do. So in that case too you're 'printing' the effect while recording.