Studio Tips

ALEX LYNHAM.

EQ might not be the sexiest subject when it comes to the universe of things like pedals and tone-shaping for guitarists – but it’s probably the most overlooked. We know what you’re thinking – you’re looking at the EQ controls on your amp and wondering what we’re on about. Okay – most guitarists have a pretty good idea of how to set up their amp, but how does that translate to what the audience hear? Guitar amp EQ tends to be quite a blunt instrument, with EQ filters that are either shelving or with a wide Q – that is, affected range of frequencies.

Ever wondered what the sound engineer is tutting about at your gigs? Or why that studio engineer is making so many EQ adjustments to your already perfect-sounding guitar tone? Well, it’s a subject that could involve many years of study, but we’re going to break it down into some practical advice for knowing which frequency ranges – roughly – do what to your tone.

You’re probably, like we were, a little confused at what ‘Q’ is if you’ve not heard the term before, so we’ll explain before continuing. In technical terms, Q is the ratio of centre frequency to bandwidth.

However, an easier way of thinking about it is simply narrow or wide – where wide affects more frequencies and narrow is more focused.

EQ TERMINOLOGY

We’ve all heard people refer to low mids, sub bass and growl, so here’s a quick glossary. A lot of these are a little subjective – this is our opinion, but we’ve also checked online to make sure our versions are not way wide of the mark. Take them as rules of thumb, and you’ll be able to use them when talking to engineers or mixers with more confidence and precision.

Sub-bass: anything under 60Hz.

Bass: 60-150Hz. Some consider this to go up into the low mids, and would go as high as 200250Hz.

Low-mids: 150-800Hz. We’ve seen people argue for 120Hz as low mids, or say it should instead start at 250-300Hz.

Mids: centred around 1kHz. Note that this is a little guitar-centric; some engineers would argue it’s more around 1.6kHz

High mids: anything from around 800-3kHz, depending on who you ask. We tend to think of it as above 1.6kHz.

‘rumble’ to ‘growl’ and ‘bloom’.

150Hz: one of the most valuable mixing tips we’ve ever been told is that this is the rough area that gives a bass guitar ‘beef’. By carefully changing the EQ of bass and guitars around this point, you can alter the balance of the two instruments so that they gel together better in a mix.

200500Hz: a lot of the ‘weight’ of a mix can be found here; guitars with plenty in this band sound warmer, but if you overdo it, they might sound overly ‘woody’.

5001kHz: this is where the ‘body’ of the sound comes from. Some snares will have their overtones in this area, and it can overwhelm their ‘snap’, which generally sits somewhere in the ‘bite’ frequencies.

2kHz: ‘bite’ for guitar and vocals sits here.

3kHz: in this area you quite often get guitars ‘building up’ in a mix, and also see the ‘cymbals eat guitars’ phenomenon, especially with washy cymbals or open hats – and yes, the collision of guitar and cymbal frequencies is where the band got their name from. Male vocals in a rock context also often need some extra bite adding in this band, meaning it’s very busy in some mixes.

510kHz: clarity and openness; when trying to get a really ‘soaring’ lead sound, it can be good to roll treble off of rhythm guitars and free up this band for the lead guitar to cut through more. Overdoing it can lead to a fatiguing, or piercing sound; this is the area you’ll often find unpleasant ‘ice-pick’ resonances. When mixing distorted pitch-shift effects like the DigiTech Whammy, you’ll often have issues between 3-6kHz. Surgical EQ with a narrow Q or careful use of multi-band compression is usually able to tame problem frequencies, however.

1012kHz: