Question on EQ settings

[MadWerewolfBoy]

i've heard of 2 popular EQ settings:

the scooped mid (low mid, high trebles and high bass)

and the err... dunno what name (high mid, low bass and low trebles)

any 1 know what these 2 are for? one's morepopular for solo while the other rythme?

 

[ShredCow]

The scooped mids tone... is nice for strummy cleans. Its also the typical heavy metal tone of the 80s and 90s. Gives very nice crunch and good clarity...

However... its very limited in that it sounds really thin and has no body... and some players (Esp noobs) will scoop mids till there's no more mids which results in well... listen to Death's Sound of Perseverence album.

Its wiser to have some mids for the sake of getting a thicker and more enjoyable tone IMO.

The opposite is generally the solo tone. But too much and you get less clarity.

 

[guitarman78]

yup ... i agree with Shredcow ... cutting the Mids will give your tone less body.

In fact ... if you want clarity on your guit ... you shoudl try to cut freq instead of boosting it .... and every Amplifier has different sounding and hence you can't memorise one setting and apply it to every differnet amps.

Example ... Marshalls have relatively higher mids and treble. Depend on which model. I have a 5150 combo .... it sounds naturally bassie .... hence i keep my bass really low.

Whenever you plug into an amp ... try this. Set all the EQ to neutral tone. Like BASS, MID and TREBLE to 5 (middle pos).

Then play a chord .... try to listen for a bass tone or bright tone. If you can hear a distint Bass tone .... then there is no point boosting it ... try to cut down.

If you want a fat sound .... boost the MID. Sometimes if you want a bright sound .... it's better to CUT the bass than to boost the treble.

That's my 5 cents worth.

 

[MadWerewolfBoy]

ah i see! thx! :wink:

 

[Indigo_blues]

yes, the reason is that boosting eq tends to make the sound unnatural whereas cutting eq sound will stay natural. So only use eq boosts as a last resort. Try cutting eqs first to get the sound you want. This applies to guitars, vocals, keyboards, blah blah. everything.

 

[Mobius]

And i always thought that boosting the mids is a good way of cutting through the mix for solos. Am i wrong?

 

[thor666]

i think it depends whether we're talking about lower mids/upper mids.

from what i read from time to time, sound engineers are even more specific... going down to a specific range of frequency just to get the mix correct.

 

[detroit_red]

Scooped mids will make your tone as bad as paul gilbert's in early racer X albums.

 

[guitarman78]

yes ... the Mid and Treble freq will enable you to cut through the mix ... too much treble make you sound sharp as a needle .. very irritating. Too much mid can drown to bass as well .... just moderate la .... depends on the amp. And depends on what kind of music you listen to.

Some Jazz Fusion guitarists like fat sound ... they achieve this by cutting the treble ... boosting the Mid with just enough Bass. Some guitarists like to use pitch shift tuned to the same octave to get a very fat sound. It works the same for reverb .... with very small interval like 10ms. But only works for certain genres ...

 

[MadWerewolfBoy]

so the general rule of thumb for EQ is to set the bass the same as treble and the mid different from them?

like the 2 examples i gave above?

 

[ShredCow]

No general rule of thumb... just dial in something you like.

Heed the above advise... you dont' need to boost all the time, need more treble? try dropping your bass first.