How to EQ Rap Vocals Like the Pros

Rap vocals are all about a strong fundamental in the low frequencies as well as strong overtones and presence and clarity in the higher frequencies. Let’s talk how to EQ rap vocals to achieve all of these things and get your vocals sounding like professional mixes.

How to EQ Rap Vocals

Speaking of professional mixes, it’s important as always to use reference tracks in your mix with vocal examples which you want your vocal to sound like. While it’s important to remember there’s a lot of other production on those vocals (see my complete vocal chain), this will help keep your ears trained on the end goal.

Here’s a snapshot of my cheat sheet for how to EQ rap vocals:

how to eq rap vocals

Now let’s take a closer look at each recommended rap vocal EQ move to better explain why we’re doing it and what the effect is.

High Pass at 100Hz

We begin with a high pass at 100Hz. Normally I’d recommend being a bit more aggressive here, particularly on female vocals as I covered in my tutorial on how to EQ female vocals.

high pass rap vocal

With rap vocals, the fundamental is extremely important as I’ll talk next, so we want to be conservative with our filter here.

Still, we want to filter 100Hz and below (with a recommended 24dB/oct slope) as this removes unwanted and unmusical noise to clean up the vocal track. Applied to every vocal and every track in your mix outside of the kick drum, sub bass, and/or bass, this goes a long way in cleaning up the entire mix, as well.

Boost at 150Hz

The fundamental of the vocal is that low end thickness. This range is important in all genres, but in rap where it’s less about notes and more about the words, the fundamental is a kind of anchor which is especially important for lending those words extra weight.

rap vocal fundamental

This is why many rappers get right up on the microphone to take advantage of the proximity effect – the effect where the low end gets boosted the closer you are to the microphone.

A boost may not always be necessary here; it’s more about how they were recorded. If the vocalist was consistently directly in front of the microphone, a boost here may just add an unwanted boominess.

It’s about bringing out depth and power in the 100-200Hz or so range; if it starts to get boomy then back it off.

Cut at 400-600Hz

Subtractive EQ refers to making EQ cuts to certain frequencies in order to enhance the remaining frequencies. It’s essentially addition by subtraction and it’s typically better than boosting which can bring out unwanted artifacts in the audio.

Getting back to how to EQ rap vocals, a cut in the 400-600Hz region benefits virtually every vocal to add clarity by removing what is normally a muddy and unflattering pocket there at 500Hz.

clean rap vocal

Don’t cut too aggressively here; I recommend a cut of 3dB at most.

Going overboard will make the vocal sound thin at best and unnatural at worst.

A dynamic EQ cut can ensure you don’t cut more than you need to; it cuts proportionately more or less as is needed to keep the vocal sounding more natural.

Pay Attention to 1000-2000Hz

The 1-2k region on rap vocals can be influenced to correct a nasal vocal or fill out an empty, hollow feeling vocal.

nasal rap vocal

If your vocal feels a bit too nasally either as a product of how it was recorded, the room, or the vocalist themselves, a small cut here goes a long way in correcting it.

I prefer a dynamic EQ cut in the case of correcting a nasally voice around 1.5k so that it only cuts or does so proportionately when that nasal quality acts up. This keeps from cutting TOO much which will make the vocal sound hollow.

Speaking of which, I get a lot of rap mixes with vocals which do sound hollow as a product of recording in bad rooms with dead spots which the vocalist or engineer didn’t hear at the time of recording.

A small boost here can sort of fill in that hollowness to correct this to a point. Don’t boost too much to try to correct this as too much will actually make an otherwise normal sounding voice sound nasally.

You can also try a little saturation to add in harmonic and frequency information where it didn’t exist before if the boost isn’t enough.

Note that you don’t HAVE to do anything here; your vocal may not need any adjustments here. Still, this range is consequential so it’s important to understand what’s happening here.

High Shelf at 5k

I like a small and gentle high shelf at 5k to add a little presence to a rap vocal which feels a little too warm or dull.

rap vocal clarity

This also helps the transients of the vocal come through which in turn helps to keep it visible and in front in the mix.

Once again, don’t feel that you NEED to add a high shelf here; that cut we made at 500Hz can sometimes be all that we needed. Let your ears (and your reference track) guide you.

Low Pass at 15k

The “air” of the vocal is that crispness which serves as the highest perceivable frequencies occur in the 10-12k range; a kind of sizzle which comes out on some consonants more than others.

low pass rap vocal

Air helps to add to the life of the vocal. Because we don’t want to remove these, we can insert a low pass filter at 15k so that all the inaudible things we can’t hear are removed to add a little headroom (especially when applied to every vocal in the mix).

Now that we’ve EQ’d our rap vocal, check out my guide on how to compress rap vocals to keep them up front in the mix and on top of the instrumental in the right way.

If you have a problem with sibilance, check out my guide on how to de-ess a vocal.

Also check out my guide on dealing with vocal breaths if you’ve got breaths which are taking away the attention from the vocal. That guide cleans up breaths without removing them altogether, keeping your rap vocal sounding natural.

Rap Vocal EQ Reviewed

  • High passing at 100Hz keeps the fundamental intact while cleaning up the inaudible and unmusical noise.
  • A small boost at 150Hz adds to the depth and richness of the vocal, adding power to that anchor OF the anchor of the rap mix.
  • A small cut at 500Hz adds clarity by subtracting typically unflattering, muddy frequencies on the vocal.
  • Dynamic EQ cuts are often preferable in ensuring you don’t cut more than you need to as they proportionately cut more or less as the frequencies in each region call for from second to second in the rap vocal.
  • Pay attention to the 1.5k area in your rap vocal to cut or boost to correct a nasal vocal or hollowness in that vocal, respectively.
  • A small high shelf at 5k adds presence to and weight to the transients of the vocal.
  • If you low pass, do it at 15k to preserve the air of the vocal.

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