Piano is a full-range instrument. Its notes run from about 60Hz to 1kHz and its harmonics carry on up to 12kHz, so it can mask almost everything else in a mix. Nothing here is a preset. These are the places I look first and the moves I usually end up making. The biggest decision comes before any of them: what job is the piano doing in this song?
The cheat sheet
| Move | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| High-pass | 100-200Hz in a band mix | Push it up until the piano thins, then back off. On solo piano, keep the bass notes. |
| Mud / woolly | 200-400Hz | Cut 2-4dB, wide Q. In a band mix, the piano often gives this range up entirely. |
| Sustain pedal build-up | 200-400Hz | Automate the cut: harder on sustained passages, easier on staccato ones. |
| Honky / tinny | 1-3kHz | Sweep a narrow Q, find the worst resonance, cut 2-3dB. |
| Digital harshness | 3-5kHz | On synth pianos, check here for digital harshness. |
| Presence / hammer | 3-6kHz | Wide boost, 2-3dB. Where the piano speaks. Watch the vocal. |
| Brightness | 6-8kHz | Wide bell, rather than a high shelf. A shelf up at 12kHz won’t do much on a piano. |
Two rules sit over all of it. Work out the piano’s role in the song before you EQ it. And check every move with the band playing, not in solo.
Want to see where piano sits against everything else? It’s on the EQ frequency chart, with 23 other instruments.
Rhythm or lead, solo or band
Before I touch the EQ, I ask what the piano is doing. Is it the star or the support? Rhythm or lead? Bass lines or chords? Then I EQ it for that job.
- Solo piano. Keep the weight. The bass notes at 80-200Hz sound beautiful on their own. If it needs brightness, try a wide bell around 6-8kHz.
- Piano in a band. High-pass hard, around 100-200Hz, and cut 200-400Hz. If there’s a bass player, the piano doesn’t need to be down there. It often gives up the low mids entirely to make room for bass and guitars.
- Rhythm piano. The hammer attack at 3-6kHz is where the piano speaks. A wide 2-3dB boost there helps the listener feel each chord change.
- The star. If the piano is the lead, give it back its warmth at 200-500Hz and make the other instruments move instead.
- Under a vocal. The hammer range overlaps the vocal’s presence at 2.5-5kHz. Rather than boosting the vocal, cut 2-4kHz on the piano by 2-3dB with a wide Q. The vocal steps forward without you touching it.
Common piano EQ problems
What each one sounds like, where it lives, and what to do about it.
Muddy or woolly (200-400Hz)
Thick and undefined. Piano covers such a massive range that it gets muddy fast. In a band mix, high-pass hard (try 100-200Hz), then cut 2-4dB around 200-400Hz with a wide Q.
Next time, fix it at the source. A piano against a wall gets extra low end from the wall: pull it a metre into the room. On an upright, open the top and take off the bottom panel, and it sounds less boxy. And don’t stack takes of the same part. It doesn’t sound bigger, it sounds murky.
Sustain pedal build-up (200-400Hz)
Sustain pedal is the enemy here. With the pedal down, every held note keeps adding energy at 200-400Hz, and the piano turns into a mud generator. Cut there. On a piano-heavy arrangement, automate the EQ: cut harder during sustained passages and ease off during staccato sections.
Honky or tinny (1-3kHz)
The upright piano sound. It can be cool in context, but in a mix it often sounds cheap and small. If the piano sounds like an upright when it should sound like a grand, this is the range to tame. Sweep a narrow Q through 1-3kHz, find the worst resonance and cut 2-3dB.
This is also where sample quality shows: cheaper piano libraries sound most obviously fake here. On synth pianos, check 3-5kHz for digital harshness too.
Lost in the mix
It’s there, but you can’t hear what it’s playing. Boost presence at 3-5kHz with a wide Q: that’s where the clarity and definition live. There isn’t much piano up around 10kHz, so boosting there won’t do much.
If it’s fighting guitars and vocals for space, turn the loudest of them down or check the panning before you reach for more EQ. And sometimes it’s the arrangement. Piano in a dense rock mix is a real puzzle.
Thin or weak
Usually self-inflicted. You’ve probably carved too much out of 200-500Hz to make space for everything else. Check it with the band playing: a piano that sounds thin on its own but sits perfectly in the mix is EQ’d correctly. If it’s the star, give it back that warmth and make the others move.
On a multi-mic recording, check the polarity before you EQ anything. Solo two mics at a time and flip the polarity on one. The fuller version, with more low end, is in phase.
Piano, Rhodes and organ
Same ideas, different places. Rhodes and organ both get muddy a little lower than piano, and each has its own character range to protect.
| Piano | Rhodes | Organ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notes live | 60Hz-1kHz | 60Hz-1kHz | 50Hz-1kHz |
| Weight | 80-200Hz bass notes | 100-300Hz warmth, bell tone | 60-150Hz bass drawbars |
| High-pass in a band | 100-200Hz | 60-100Hz | 80-120Hz, or pull the drawbars back |
| Mud | 200-400Hz, cut 2-4dB | 150-350Hz, cut 2-4dB | 150-350Hz, cut 3-5dB |
| Mids | 1-3kHz honky, tinny | 500Hz-1.5kHz bark 1-3kHz clunky | 400Hz-1kHz growl 1-3kHz grinding |
| Cuts through at | 3-6kHz hammer | 3-6kHz tine | 3-7kHz key click |
Electric piano (Rhodes)
The warmth and bell tone at 100-300Hz is what makes people love a Rhodes. Don’t cut too much there or you lose the magic. In a band mix, high-pass at 60-100Hz and cut 2-4dB around 150-350Hz with a wide Q. The sustain pedal is a mud generator here too.
The clunky, honky quality is usually one resonance at 1-3kHz: sweep a narrow Q and cut 2-3dB. On plugins, also check 3-5kHz for digital harshness. Fighting the guitars? Give the Rhodes the tine range at 3-6kHz and let the guitars have 800Hz-1.5kHz.
Organ (Hammond)
Start at the drawbars, not the EQ. Organ and bass sharing 150-350Hz is one of the worst pile-ups in mixing, so pull the lower drawbars back if you can. If you can’t, high-pass at 80-120Hz in a band mix and cut 3-5dB around 150-350Hz with a wide Q.
The growl at 400Hz-1kHz is what makes it sound like a Hammond. The trouble is 1-3kHz, where the Leslie distortion stacks up with distorted guitars. One of them has to give, usually the organ, since the guitars carry the arrangement: cut 2-3dB with a wide Q. If it gets lost, bring up the key click at 3-5kHz. Without it, the organ is a wall of sound with no articulation.