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Eqing Guitar


MC Nice Andrew

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I've been toying with eqing distorted guitars for a while now; i understand it's all subjective to a mix, though I was wondering if anyone had any pointers to help good mix tone?

I seem to have found a decent sweet spot on the speaker I'm using, though once recorded, I'll scoop bits here and there, and make it sound acceptable, come back to it in a few days and decide it sound utter piss. This maybe down to my indecisiveness, though I've never been truely happy with any tone I've yeilded from amp>speaker>mic>preamp>interface.

Fanx.

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I've been toying with eqing distorted guitars for a while now; i understand it's all subjective to a mix, though I was wondering if anyone had any pointers to help good mix tone?

I seem to have found a decent sweet spot on the speaker I'm using, though once recorded, I'll scoop bits here and there, and make it sound acceptable, come back to it in a few days and decide it sound utter piss. This maybe down to my indecisiveness, though I've never been truely happy with any tone I've yeilded from amp>speaker>mic>preamp>interface.

Fanx.

You can filter off everything below 75 Hz (ish) if its in standard tuning, will generally just be mud and a bit of air. Boxy/boomy frequencies come in to play around 200-400Hz. To give it a bit of bite have a play around 2.8k and to brighten things up try around 5k - watch you dont make it too harsh though.

Also, try different layers of different tones (ie) clean, crunch, overdrive, super overdriven. See if you get a balance between them you like better. Hard panning is also good when using layers for creating a big feeling of width.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Slightly late reply but here is my take.

It all depends on the source but it may be necessary to start cutting above 5-6K in order to allow the vocals to cut through more and also to eliminate some hissing. As you use higher gain distortions, you get more treble and this sometimes sounds like 'hissing'. Most guitar speakers and standard mics tend to cut a lot of the higher frequencies off anyway, so it might not be necessary to do this very much, depending on what you are working with.

High pass filter may be used to cut a bit higher up than others have suggested also. I'd typically put one around 150 hz as default and work from there.

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All good points, but I'd also make sure you're not tracking with too much gain to start with. Always back it off a wee bit more than you think there should be.

Also, if you can, try experimenting with dark and light mic combinations. My 'go to' at the moment is a ribbon on the centre of the cone and a dynamic or small diaphragm condenser off-axis, but two dynamics in this scenario can also work well. Also, I don't really like shoving the mic right up on the grill, you get the impression of the speaker pushing air in the room if you pull it back a bit. 6-7 inches works quite well.

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