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4. Six ways to customise distortion with EQ

1 Boost high frequencies with a highshelf EQ boost before distortion, then cut the same frequencies again with a high-shelf cut afterwards. Saturating just the high frequencies can make them sound softer, silkier or smoother, assuming you’re using a good quality saturator with oversampling.

2 Do the same as in step 1, but with a pre-drive low-shelf boost and postdrive low-shelf cut instead. Concentrating the saturation or distortion on the lower frequencies allows you to add more harmonics to that region, which can make the bass seem richer, thicker or brighter, and can help to make low frequencies more audible on small speakers.

3 Try cutting the bass and boosting the treble before the distortion. Or do both at once with a ‘tilt shelf’ EQ. We’re using FabFilter Pro-Q 2 here. This allows you to profoundly change the character of the distortion by just balancing the gains for two pre- and post-tilt EQ bands.

4 Crank up your distortion until something sounds bad. Then hunt down the bad sounding frequencies with a bell shaped pre EQ band, cut them hard before the distortion, and then restore them again with a post-distortion boost. This is a great way to add maximum extra harmonics to a part, with minimum obvious distortion.

5 Set up a relatively modest amount of saturation, but then use narrow pre-EQ boosts to push certain parts of the sound up into audible distortion. This can be a great way to add extra character to guitars, synths or Rhodes pianos – anything that can sound good run through a guitar amp, basically.

6 Try these settings on bass parts: boost the sub bass region around 50Hz pre-distortion to saturate that region and add extra harmonics. Then cut around 100-150Hz to avoid ‘farty’ distortion over the meat of the sound. Then boost again in the low-mids between about 250-500Hz – whatever sounds good. Then do the opposite after the distortion.