What's the "scoop"?

[Michael Martin]

OK, I finally have to ask because I'm dense. In EQ-speak what the hell are "scooped" mids? Does that mean you scooped them out, dumped them down the disposal and now are left with only highs and lows? Or did you scoop them out and now you have a nice fresh scoop of mids to play with, or eat, or lick, or whatever, and you left the highs and lows down in the bottom of the ice cream box and put it back in the freezer...?

 

This has bugged me forever. Everybody seems to understand this except me. "Scoop", indeed, Hmmmph.

[Dan Hall]

Imagine if you will a frequency response curve for a speaker or microphone. The holy grail for speakers is a flat line from 20cps to 20,000cps. This means that the amplitude (gain, or perceived loudness) doesn't vary along that line. If you put in 50db at 20cps, that's what the response. And so on up the line. No variation. Very tough to measure let alone get in any transducer or microphone. Now, if we say the midrange starts at 800cps and goes to 2500cps (just a guess folks I have no idea what frequencies the engine ears call midrange) and our response curve takes a noticeable dip in the reagion of those frequencies we would describe the response as scooped. Like somebody leveling the line took a big scoop with his shovel right at that portion of the line representing those frequencies.

 

Clear as Mud? But it cover the ground. And the confusion make me brain go 'round. So I went to Germany to ask a friend of mine, known to the world as Albert Einstein. He say, (I can't remember from there, Help me out) (Harry Belefonte '50is ish)

[Cldplytkmn]

its just referring to having the mids setup lower than the lows and highs... the classic "smiley face" graphic EQ curve.

[Michael Martin]

Thanks! I wasn't thinking of graphs. Now the verb makes sense.