FL Studio 
A vocal feels boxed in, or a bass loses its weight after a high-pass. Before you add another band, decide what you actually want to change. Fruity Parametric EQ 2 gives you seven adjustable filters, a spectrum display and several comparison tools, and the real skill is matching the right control to one problem you can hear.
Start with the EQ on the right Mixer track, choose a filter shape, set its frequency and width, then compare at similar perceived loudness in the song. You don't need a dramatic curve, or an EQ on every instrument. This guide covers the current controls Image-Line documents, including Band Solo, HQ+ and Linear Phase. You won't find a one-size preset here that claims to fix every recording.
Use Fruity Parametric EQ 2 in eight steps
- Pick a useful passage. Loop the part where you can hear the problem, with the instruments that interact with it playing too.
- Load the EQ on the right track. Open a free Mixer effect slot, choose Select and load Fruity Parametric EQ 2. Check that the source you mean is actually feeding this track.
- Save the starting point. Save the project before you replace any settings, and use the EQ's Compare down-arrow to keep a spare bank for comparison.
- Name one job. Decide whether you need less rumble, a smaller resonance, a change in tone or space between two competing parts.
- Choose the shape. Right-click a band token and choose its Type. A peaking band, a shelf and a high-pass solve different problems.
- Set frequency and shape by ear. Drag the token sideways for frequency, and adjust BW or the filter's Order as needed. Only change gain on shapes that have a gain control.
- Make a fair comparison. Use Compare for two settings, or the effect-slot disable switch for processed versus unprocessed sound. Adjust Main Level so the perceived loudness is close.
- Keep only a useful change. Listen in the arrangement, check later processors and the Master, and scale back or remove the move if it weakens the source.
If the plugin isn't in the short list, the effect-slot menu also has More, which opens the plugin selector. To route a source before adding effects, follow the Mixer routing tutorial. Don't overwrite an occupied slot just to load an EQ.
Find frequency, bandwidth and gain
The current EQ2 control reference separates the numbered tokens on the graph from the controls on the right. Drag a token left or right to move its frequency. On a peaking or shelf band, dragging up or down changes gain. The colored vertical faders give you another way to set that same band gain.
The FREQ knobs set frequency and BW sets bandwidth. Hover over a token and roll the mouse wheel to change its width, or use its BW knob. Ctrl-click gives you finer control, and Alt-click resets a band, so save a useful setting before you reset it. Right-click a token for Type and Order; the shapes and dots above the faders are another way to pick type and slope.
Main Level is a separate global gain control, not an eighth EQ band, and it changes the plugin's overall output. A grayed-out gain fader is normal for Low Pass, High Pass, Band Pass and Notch, because those types don't use band gain.
Choose a filter for the problem
| Filter | What it does | When to try it |
|---|---|---|
| Peaking | Boosts or cuts around a center frequency | A broad tonal adjustment or a focused cut |
| Low Shelf | Raises or lowers the low-frequency region | Change weight without a progressively deeper low cut |
| High Shelf | Raises or lowers the high-frequency region | Change overall brightness |
| High Pass | Attenuates below its cutoff | Remove unwanted low-frequency content |
| Low Pass | Attenuates above its cutoff | Darken a layer or reduce unwanted top end |
| Band Pass | Passes a region while attenuating either side | A telephone-like effect or focused filtering |
| Notch / Band stop | Rejects a region around its center | A stable, narrow unwanted tone |
A low shelf and a high-pass don't do the same job. The shelf settles at a lower level in the lows, while the high-pass keeps cutting further as the frequency drops. If taking out rumble also strips the instrument's body, lower the cutoff or try a shelf. Sometimes the right answer is no filter at all.
For a kick and bass, listen to them together before deciding which lows to reduce. The 808 and kick guide deals with that relationship, and an instrument's name alone can't tell you where the cutoff belongs.
Bandwidth is not filter order
Bandwidth describes how much of the spectrum a band affects. Compare a wide and a narrow peaking band at the same center and gain: the wide one changes much more of the surrounding tone. A tighter cut can spare neighboring frequencies, but it can miss a resonance that moves with the note. Don't automatically widen a heavy cut; first make it shallower and check that it's aimed at the right problem.
If another tutorial calls this control Q, look for BW in EQ2. Both describe the band's width, but don't copy numbers straight between plugins: FabFilter's explanation of Q values notes that they can be read differently. Rebuild the shape that sounded useful and listen, instead of assuming matching numbers mean matching filters.
Order describes how steep the filter is. EQ2 lists 12, 24, 36 and 48 dB per octave, which match orders 2, 4, 6 and 8. Its Steep and Gentle versions can end at the same slope but behave differently near the cutoff. Listen to that transition instead of assuming the highest order only removes unwanted sound.
Band Solo: enable it before holding Shift
Switch on the headphone control for Band solo on shift, then hold Shift and click a band token. Holding Shift without that option on won't do it. Audition briefly at a comfortable level, release Shift, and judge any cut in the full signal and the arrangement.
Right-click the headphone control to choose how solo behaves. Bandpass uses a steep band-pass around the selected token. Adaptive follows the job of the selected filter: with a high-pass, for example, you hear the lows being removed, and with a peaking band, you hear the region it affects.
Inherit bandwidth can change your EQ. With it on, any bandwidth changes you make during Band Solo are applied to the active band when you release Shift. If you only meant to investigate, check that option first. You can move the mouse up and down to adjust the audition bandwidth during solo, so don't assume those changes always get thrown away.
Read the analyzer without EQing the picture
Monitor can show the plugin's input, its output or no spectrum at all. The histogram shows frequency energy, and the heatmap gives another view of that energy across the display. Use them to find a persistent peak or check that a filter reaches the region you intended, not to make every song draw the same outline.
The default pivot slope is 4.5 dB per octave around 1 kHz. It visually drops the lows and lifts the highs, but it applies no EQ tilt to the audio. Setting it to 0 dB per octave makes white noise look flat, and the manual's 6 dB setting can flatten the displayed harmonic levels of a basic saw wave. Neither is a target curve for every mix.
Mid, Side, Left and Right in Monitor input select the visualization source. They don't turn individual EQ bands into Mid-only or Side-only processors. Separate Mid/Side processing needs a proper split and recombination; Image-Line's Stereo Shaper routing example explains the difference. Use the mono-compatibility check to judge the result, and don't rely on the Side display alone.
Frequency precision in the analyzer changes how detailed and how delayed the display is; the audio latency stays the same. Time smoothing and averaging change how the picture responds. They're separate from the precision setting you reach by right-clicking LIN.
Compare two settings, then level-match
Click Compare's first down-arrow to store the current EQ settings in the spare bank. Use the up/down-arrow control to switch between that bank and the main one. Editing a parameter while you're on the spare bank turns it into the main bank again. Lock spare state stops the stored comparison from being overwritten.
Compare doesn't automatically give you an untreated reference, because both banks can contain EQ. For a true plugin bypass, use that effect slot's disable switch, not the whole track's FX switch, which disables every effect on it. The slot keeps passing audio when its effect is off.
Use Main Level to bring the two versions close in perceived loudness. Turn it down if the processed version is louder, or raise it carefully if cuts made the result quieter, keeping an eye on headroom further down the chain. Matching peak numbers isn't enough, as Image-Line explains in its discussion of peaks and loudness. Then ask whether the vocal reads more clearly, the bass still has weight, or the troublesome tone really is less distracting.
For levels across the whole chain, beyond this one comparison, use the source-to-Master gain-staging guide.
Linear Phase and HQ are different choices
With LIN off, EQ2 uses its Standard IIR filters. Phase rotation that varies with frequency is normal for these filters and doesn't mean the EQ has broken the audio. It can matter when the processed signal combines with a related dry signal or another correlated path.
LIN switches every band to Linear Phase processing, which adds plugin latency and avoids that frequency-dependent rotation. Automatic plugin delay compensation normally lines up the processed output in the Mixer, but the processing itself still takes time. Right-click LIN for its precision setting; higher precision means more latency. Compare the result in your actual routing instead of treating LIN as a must-have mastering switch.
The HQ selector deals with filter quality and compatibility behavior. It isn't a third either-or option next to Standard and LIN. For ordinary new EQ work, HQ+ is a sensible place to start; keep an older project's behavior until you've compared the two on purpose.
| HQ choice | Documented behavior | What to consider |
|---|---|---|
| HQ+ | Decramped, consistent-bandwidth filters without oversampling; some phase distortion remains | A current filter option, not proof that every source needs EQ |
| Legacy | Polyphase downsampling; no added latency from that filter, but extra phase rotation above 15 kHz and potentially higher inter-sample peaks | Compatibility with older settings |
| Enhanced | FIR downsampling, more accurate output peaks and no additional downsampling phase rotation; about 1 ms of latency | The manual highlights mixing processed and dry paths |
“No additional downsampling phase rotation” doesn't mean every EQ band becomes linear phase. In the same way, Legacy's latency description doesn't promise zero total system delay. LIN, other plugins and your audio setup still count.
Automate EQ and diagnose crackles
For a filter sweep, right-click the band's FREQ knob and choose Create automation clip. Image-Line documents this route for native-control automation. Use the Automation Clip workflow to arrange and edit the curve; a low-pass sweep can give you a muffled intro without another EQ plugin.
If fast movements crackle, check the EQ mode and its modulation settings. The manual offers Minimum phase mod speed to smooth fast HQ filter movement, and a separate Linear phase mod speed whose higher settings use more CPU. Higher LIN precision adds latency, and higher analyzer precision delays the picture. That's three separate tradeoffs, not one quality slider.
Try a slower sweep and compare the affected section after export. If it still crackles with the EQ bypassed, follow the broader crackling-audio diagnosis instead of blaming EQ2.
Place EQ where the change is needed
Effects process in order down the Mixer slot stack. An EQ placed before a compressor changes the signal the compressor receives, and can change the compression when the detector follows that signal. With an external sidechain, the detector may follow a different track instead, and the Fruity Limiter sidechain documentation spells that out. The compression guide covers threshold, ratio and detector setup.
EQ after compression reshapes audio that's already compressed. A high-pass before saturation can cut down unwanted low-frequency drive; after saturation it can still reduce those frequencies, but it can't change how hard the earlier stage was driven. Those are reasons to pick a position, and they don't mean every cut belongs before compression and every boost after it.
Four decisions to try in the mix
- Rumble: make sure the low content really is unwanted. Raise a high-pass carefully, then back off if the fundamental or body you want starts to suffer.
- Broad muddiness: compare a wide peaking cut with a low-shelf reduction. Keep whichever makes room without shrinking the part too much.
- A stable whistle: find it quickly with Band Solo. Start with a modest cut and pick a width that tames it without pulling out neighboring tone for no reason.
- Missing brightness: first listen for another instrument masking the source. If the source itself needs a tonal change, compare a high shelf and a broad peak at similar loudness.
For vocals, EQ is just one part of the vocal-mixing chain. Broadband background noise may need a different approach, which the noise-removal guide covers. Don't keep cutting useful tone to chase a noise problem EQ can't cleanly separate.
Before you close the EQ
Check the full arrangement, later processors, shared buses and the Master. If a parallel path turns hollow, compare alignment and phase relationships; if a cut makes notes vanish, pull it back and rethink the target. Save a version before you reset a complicated curve. Nobody hands out prizes for using all seven bands.
Carry on through the Mixing hub for your next production decision. If routing and your first project still need work, go back to Start here. Final loudness and delivery belong to the mastering workflow, and this EQ can't handle them alone.
Fruity Parametric EQ 2 FAQ
What does Fruity Parametric EQ 2 do?
It shapes the frequency balance with seven adjustable bands, each of which can use a different filter type. Peaking and shelf bands have gain controls, while pass and notch types don't use band gain.
Why does Shift not solo my EQ band?
Switch on Band solo on shift with the headphone control, then hold Shift and click a band token. Let go of Shift to leave the audition and check the full signal.
What does Inherit bandwidth do?
When it's on, bandwidth changes you make during Band Solo are applied to the active EQ band once you release Shift. Check the option before auditioning if you don't want that band to change.
Can I EQ only the sides with Monitor input set to Side?
No. That setting changes what the spectrum display shows, not which stereo component the bands process. Mid/Side EQ needs proper signal splitting and recombination.
What is the difference between bandwidth and slope?
Bandwidth controls the affected frequency span. Filter order controls steepness; EQ2 offers 12, 24, 36 and 48 dB-per-octave orders, with Steep and Gentle variants differing near the cutoff.
Does pivot slope change the sound?
No. It tilts the analyzer display around 1 kHz. The default is 4.5 dB per octave, and it doesn't boost treble or cut bass in the audio.
Is Linear Phase always better?
No. It avoids the frequency-dependent phase rotation of Standard IIR filtering, but it adds latency. Compare it when phase relationships matter in your routing, and don't pick it just because it sounds like the higher-quality option.
What is HQ+?
HQ+ uses decramped, consistent-bandwidth filters without oversampling. Legacy and Enhanced preserve other filter behaviors; Enhanced adds about 1 ms for its downsampling filter. HQ selection and LIN are different controls.
Does Compare automatically compare against the dry signal?
No. It swaps the main settings with a saved spare bank, and both can contain EQ. Use the effect-slot disable switch for a real plugin bypass and compare at similar perceived loudness.
Should I high-pass every track?
No. Filter out unwanted low content when it helps the arrangement. Lower the cutoff, try a shelf or drop the filter if the instrument loses weight it needs.
