I like to scoop the lower mids, about 250-500 Hz depending on the tone and boost the middle mids because i also dont like scooped mids but cutting low mids really cleans up your tone
The guitars already sound scooped to begin with. If I'm using amps like a Marshall JCM or an Orange Thunderverb, a little bit of scooping is needed in most cases.
Good instruction. Yeah scooping the EQ when jamming solo is what gets you that chug even without any other guitars or bass, but when recording for a track that will cause major issues. It's all about pocketing the frequency spectrum, guys! The only time you would want to scoop the mids for the guitars in a band mix is if you really want the palm-muting to overaccentuate the open chords, but then you will need to make the bass and kick drum thinner as well, so they get that popping sound; this will give you that clinical, technical metal sort of vibe. However if you want everything to be FAT in the mix, then the guitars belong to the mids, the bass / kick to the lows, and the rest to the higher frequencies.
I've only recently started boosting on rhythm guitars. Always used to spend way too long searching for the super harsh or super muddy frequencies to notch out lol
Been working on some stuff and every time I exported and listened in my car I would always get this scratchy mess to it, this video helped solve a lot of that, so I thank you, I re eqed my guitars and will listen again
That’s why I work with two Distortion pedals (I’m a Keyboard player) to balance the EQs (Mids - Vox Cooperhead Drive Bass / Highs - VOX Cutting Edge) and let them cooperate all together
Yeah man I have figured this out after many years of just "believing" I was doing the right thing by cutting the middle. And the source absolutely matters. Thanks for the videos buddy. Cheers!
I love mids! You have the most helpful videos. I went back to watch your guitar eqing and now I have a tone heavier than the earth. Quad tracked Uberschall is really doing it for me.
Clearly cool and natural tips! Showing simple and efficient way! Will you be down to show how you go with guitars and bass? How you choose tone and mix it both together? Thanks! 🔥🙏
Thanks for the advice bud. I don't scoop the mids much, but will play around with the concept of boosting like that. Looking forward to the new album 🤘🏻
I actually tried cutting there with a mid side eq only in the mid channel, because the guitars are hard panned , and the bass and guitar glued like a jelly
Eh, depends on the context and on the bass tone. I'm into brutal death metal and grindcore, and it's a common practice to scoop the mids on guitars around 500-1000Hz area, while simultaneously cranking them on bass for that Steve DiGiorgio or even distorted Dan Lilker style tone. Sits in the mix quite well. And with so much gain on guitars (turning it down is just not fitting in these genres, fucks up all the transients in the slow chuggy parts, makes those short pinch harmonics in the fast riffs not saturated enough, makes tremolo picking just TOO clean) every instrument is fighting for the space in midrange, as those get most saturated and compressed. On the side note, amps that sound the best scooped usually have a mid control that affects a very narrow bandwidth (Q value of 2 or even higher), but has a very wide dB range. So if you're going for a HEAVILY scooped tone, I suggest you do a deep narrow cut.
Some good points! However for death metal overall I think mid boosting around 1.1 kHz helps and scoop a bit around 300-400 hz. Also the gain depends if it’s quad tracked or dual tracked. Dual tracked I’d turn down the gain a bit more. All indeed depends on context.
Very educational! I love it! As far as the idea of scooping mids on an amp, it's a very amp by amp basis. If I walere to rock my Peavey 3120 head, I boost that shit because that amp rings a ton of clarity but needs that extra beef. However when I use my Mesa Roadster, that is a low/mid based amp that I got to dial the mids back.
Hey, thx for the video. I usually cut more than I boost since there's no need to be sticking up to 0. But in that same sense I usually cut around & fader if I can make it work. Most of the times it's a really healthy way to make a move staying away from clipping & usually you can still fit the instrument. Stay cool!
good for any instrumental tune...would be interesting to see whether this works while fiting the vocal into... (I do understand, that Mendel does not use vocals...)
IF I scoop, I do it with the amp(like a Mesa Mark with the V Curve) and never more than a few db...for THAT tone...I try to go with even peaks when I see the source curve...I don't try to add more unless the amp can't get there...but always HP/LP and cut a small dip out of the VERY low mids...if its between 400hz & 4khz, I don't touch it until I hear artifacts...cheers! \m/
Very nice video man. Could make a video on how to preservse rhythm guitar tone in the mix while vocals and lead play together at the same time? How you solve conflicting frequences?
personally I'm interested in the low-mid to bass relationship. With an amp, I like to start by getting some good punch 'detail', whilst removing unwanted muddiness in-response with the Gain. correspondingly I like to get the maximum out of the high mids & treble; dial in accordingly to my understanding of what kind of detail and character I want. The biggest challenge I find though is when in a 'Live Sound' situation, I'm pretty much at the mercy of the engineer; where my rig (pedals) will go through the provided stage setup (amp/ mic/ mixing console). Although I successfully dial in my tone on stage and get the response I want, I find it significantly harder to get the engineer to narrow my tone down as I have in mind and have adjusted on my equipment beforehand. Many times, my tone through the PA system comes out tight but too harsh - piercy (frequency-vise). I'm going for a high gain metal tone, with a Drop A tuned guitar (6 string) What high mid - treble frequencies are best advised to 'roll off-of' via the mixing console; using parametric/ surgical EQ?
Love these vids! Great tutorial, as always. Looking at the guitar tracks it seems like there is a lot of editing going on. Do you usually record only very few bars and then glue everything together? Or is this just quantizing? Imo that would also be a nice tutorial topic :)
I remember the old times with a crappy Line 6 Spider when you had to scoop the mids to have that heavier-than-shitting-rocks tone. But I agree with you, boosting mids really make the guitars shine in a mix. By the way, what about the bass? I am trying to get a good tone out of my bass, and there I find that I have to actually scoop the mids. Am I weird or does it make sense for bass? My chain is : bass (Ibanez SR675) - Interface (NI Komplete 6) - Fabfilter C - Aurora DSP Mammoth - Fabfilter Q - Fabfilter C. I feel like doing the EQ for bass is much more complicated than for guitar :P
Cut @ 5,5Khz 5-6db with hi q, to get rid of the harshness in thehigh. Work wonder on SM57 for V30. for V30, I also like to cut @3,2-3,3khz to get rid of wistle.
@@Mendelian bof. That's nail the mix mantra. I am more concern about wistle on 3,2k and 5,6k which is characteristic of V30. I found 4k cut works on M421 mic though
@@ctld5266 you’ve got a good ear, that “Mesa whistle” as I call it and learned about from one of mendels biggest idols, is right about 3.2k. It’s always present with a 57 on a mesa v30. Mic’d narrow cut with an eq that doesn’t get all phasey and weird when EQing like that works wonders.
I feel like if I don't scoop some mids my guitars sound honky-tonk and pretty nasal. I'm not sure if it's the Lundgren m7's or just my choice of tone, but I've tried several types.
Do you prefer to add processing to your tone before it's routed to Cubase or do you like to tone shape in Cubase? I've never used a Kemper so not sure what options are available for processing because I primarily use my AxeFx..suppose I'm just interested in your general perspective. Thanks man!
I just do a high pass and low pass..I do not touch mids..if you recorded a great guitar tone with a good setup from the start there's no reason to touch any of that..sometimes you gotta keep it simple and not overthink..I see a lot of sound engineers looking to keep just very specific frequencies in when it comes to guitars EQ ...and you see these cuts and boosts all over the place ..like why? In all rock music guitar is like a main component to the overall sound of the band ...doing too much to mid range you end up totally changing that overall sound..keep it simple.. I don't even compress guitars..not heavy drive ones especially...cuz the thing about distorted guitars is it keeps a pretty consistent level to begin with so I try not to cage in the sound..just let it flow free ... Cuz even if you palm muted super close to the bridge where you're picking up a lot of bass frequency on the palm mutes where the palm mutes appear louder than the strummed notes..the low pass usually knocks that out for me and evens it out
amazing tone at the end of the day beats everything (which you've got) but i think the logic of scooping mids isn't to kill the tone, but is to bring out the lower and higher aspects of the tone (similar to compressing louder moments is to increase overall perceived loudness). hypothetically you should turn up the guitar track once the mids are scooped (which should only be a max +2db scoop most of the time if even that) and the tone will be much more balanced. it's all subjective of course, just thought i'd speak my defense of a lil 700hz scoop here and there :) btw your "harsh vs warm" comparison was a bit biased, of course a 12db cut will sound worse than a 3db boost, invert to a 3db cut and 12db boost you'll be arguing the opposite!
It’s simply to let the vocals cut thru the mix. Everyone got different voices, parts, techniques etc. And there’s no universal fit-them-all receipt for mixing. And since vocals are most of the time more important than some of the guitars range, there’s simply some sacrifice for vocals sake
Sometimes you have to scoop some freq surgically for that nasaly sound and to get a heavy guitar and a female.singer to fit right. That's the struggle I go through with my band. My guitars just overpower my singer.
What good advice! I will try it for my next mixes. One question, why do you have so many guitar tracks? I realized that you record 2 tracks per side (left and right) but there are some tracks that say "DI" that I don't understand what they are. Greetings!
So DI is the is the direct signal of my guitar plugged straight into my Interface; So when i want i can reamp that with my Kemper later, or use a ampsim plugin on it!
@@Mendelian Appreciate the response! I've been feeling like my guitars have been missing something but I've only double tracked, 1 left 1 right. The 2 center must be what I'm missing!
![[TH] VALORANT Champions Seoul - Lower Bracket Final - LEV vs TH](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/fyYkI80GG4o/mqdefault.jpg)
I like to scoop the lower mids, about 250-500 Hz depending on the tone and boost the middle mids because i also dont like scooped mids but cutting low mids really cleans up your tone
Nailed it. 330hz-509hz is the enemy, not “scooped midZZ”
Do you have any music to prove your point? Not a attitude question, genuinely asking.
The guitars already sound scooped to begin with. If I'm using amps like a Marshall JCM or an Orange Thunderverb, a little bit of scooping is needed in most cases.
Are they plugins?
You can see it in the analysis
Good instruction. Yeah scooping the EQ when jamming solo is what gets you that chug even without any other guitars or bass, but when recording for a track that will cause major issues. It's all about pocketing the frequency spectrum, guys! The only time you would want to scoop the mids for the guitars in a band mix is if you really want the palm-muting to overaccentuate the open chords, but then you will need to make the bass and kick drum thinner as well, so they get that popping sound; this will give you that clinical, technical metal sort of vibe. However if you want everything to be FAT in the mix, then the guitars belong to the mids, the bass / kick to the lows, and the rest to the higher frequencies.
This is my favorite channel for Metal Production. Thank you Mendel!
Seriously, this is the dopest metal sound I heard so far I think! That bass tone is legendary
Thanks!
THAT S WHAT SHE SAID
That Michael Scott reference ✓
Great content and quality as always, looking forward to hear more of your work soon🔥
Michael Scott is my spirit animal.
I've only recently started boosting on rhythm guitars. Always used to spend way too long searching for the super harsh or super muddy frequencies to notch out lol
You got me at "That´s what she said" moment. Suscribed!
Great advice. I cut always a little bit the mids, because i've seen it sometimes by an engineer. I will try the opposit. Thanx
Best thing to do is listen first, i’ve mixed projects where i boosted 5 dan of mids and it brought back all the tone.
Treble boosters used to work together with pup inductance to do some upper-mid-boost. 🎸
It goes back to having a clear tone and a tight playing FIRST. Great job, dude!
Been working on some stuff and every time I exported and listened in my car I would always get this scratchy mess to it, this video helped solve a lot of that, so I thank you, I re eqed my guitars and will listen again
been a big revelation for me recently and all I want is more mids in guitars. You rule Mendel! also stoked for this new record of yours.
That sounded incredible. Thank you for this wicked lesson Mendel!
I'll be coming back for more tips!🤘3:49 should be in the final song like that btw 😂
thats gonna be the dopest breakdown ever
That’s why I work with two Distortion pedals (I’m a Keyboard player) to balance the EQs (Mids - Vox Cooperhead Drive
Bass / Highs - VOX Cutting Edge) and let them cooperate all together
man you solved the only problem I had been facing since a few years
Yeah man I have figured this out after many years of just "believing" I was doing the right thing by cutting the middle. And the source absolutely matters. Thanks for the videos buddy. Cheers!
I love mids! You have the most helpful videos. I went back to watch your guitar eqing and now I have a tone heavier than the earth. Quad tracked Uberschall is really doing it for me.
Glad to be of help! Uberschall is SO sick, love it.
Good luck with your solo album! I hope it goes well for you!
Clearly cool and natural tips! Showing simple and efficient way!
Will you be down to show how you go with guitars and bass? How you choose tone and mix it both together?
Thanks! 🔥🙏
Sure no prob! I’ll put it in the plans.
3:50 ah yes, a man of culture 😄👌🏻
Lol , Or she asked "Have you stuck it in yet?". Keep the metal coming. Im often boosting mids 1-2db. Stay Heavy
I'm no engineer but never cutting the mids when mixing guitars.. thank you for your great input video.. cheers!
I didn’t say never, always best to listen first! But be very careful with cutting :)! It’s all a matter of taste and context.
@@Mendelian exactly! I’m glad to find you.
Lol, this was awesome, I think this is exactly where my mix was going off the rails. Excellent stuff!! :)
Thanks for the advice bud. I don't scoop the mids much, but will play around with the concept of boosting like that. Looking forward to the new album 🤘🏻
“That’s what she said.” Annnd subscribed lol
subscribed..... what i was searching for..... can you please make a video on separating two guitars sound.....
Good mixing content dude these days! Keep it up!
Great video thanks!
Brilliant! Super helpful! 🤘🏻
Awesome video
Im going to try a mid boost tonight, see what happens. Thanks!
I actually tried cutting there with a mid side eq only in the mid channel, because the guitars are hard panned , and the bass and guitar glued like a jelly
As always, great advice and keeping it classy. Gotta keep it thick and warm. 🤣🤣
Eh, depends on the context and on the bass tone. I'm into brutal death metal and grindcore, and it's a common practice to scoop the mids on guitars around 500-1000Hz area, while simultaneously cranking them on bass for that Steve DiGiorgio or even distorted Dan Lilker style tone. Sits in the mix quite well. And with so much gain on guitars (turning it down is just not fitting in these genres, fucks up all the transients in the slow chuggy parts, makes those short pinch harmonics in the fast riffs not saturated enough, makes tremolo picking just TOO clean) every instrument is fighting for the space in midrange, as those get most saturated and compressed. On the side note, amps that sound the best scooped usually have a mid control that affects a very narrow bandwidth (Q value of 2 or even higher), but has a very wide dB range. So if you're going for a HEAVILY scooped tone, I suggest you do a deep narrow cut.
Some good points! However for death metal overall I think mid boosting around 1.1 kHz helps and scoop a bit around 300-400 hz. Also the gain depends if it’s quad tracked or dual tracked. Dual tracked I’d turn down the gain a bit more. All indeed depends on context.
Very good riff! Thanks for the explanation ^^
Very educational! I love it! As far as the idea of scooping mids on an amp, it's a very amp by amp basis. If I walere to rock my Peavey 3120 head, I boost that shit because that amp rings a ton of clarity but needs that extra beef. However when I use my Mesa Roadster, that is a low/mid based amp that I got to dial the mids back.
Hey, thx for the video. I usually cut more than I boost since there's no need to be sticking up to 0. But in that same sense I usually cut around & fader if I can make it work. Most of the times it's a really healthy way to make a move staying away from clipping & usually you can still fit the instrument. Stay cool!
I love this video!! So glad I found you. I’m gonna take this to my mixer tonight.
I've seen Jacob Hansen doing this mid boost quite often for his guitars.
Great!
Good stuff! When are those drum tone tutorials coming??
Soon :)
Damn the bass in your tracks is amazing!!
good for any instrumental tune...would be interesting to see whether this works while fiting the vocal into... (I do understand, that Mendel does not use vocals...)
Another great video 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻
Thanks for the advices and can't wait for the album ;')
Fuck that scoop the fuck out of thr mids it sounds awesome and raw
You don't want to scoop all the mids, but i'd happily notch out 500-800 entirely.
3:50 - genuine lol :D
IF I scoop, I do it with the amp(like a Mesa Mark with the V Curve) and never more than a few db...for THAT tone...I try to go with even peaks when I see the source curve...I don't try to add more unless the amp can't get there...but always HP/LP and cut a small dip out of the VERY low mids...if its between 400hz & 4khz, I don't touch it until I hear artifacts...cheers! \m/
Indeed! Always good to get the tone right with the amp itself first.
Great video
Cool video!
Very nice video man. Could make a video on how to preservse rhythm guitar tone in the mix while vocals and lead play together at the same time? How you solve conflicting frequences?
We want moreeee pleasse
personally I'm interested in the low-mid to bass relationship. With an amp, I like to start by getting some good punch 'detail', whilst removing unwanted muddiness in-response with the Gain. correspondingly I like to get the maximum out of the high mids & treble; dial in accordingly to my understanding of what kind of detail and character I want.
The biggest challenge I find though is when in a 'Live Sound' situation, I'm pretty much at the mercy of the engineer; where my rig (pedals) will go through the provided stage setup (amp/ mic/ mixing console). Although I successfully dial in my tone on stage and get the response I want, I find it significantly harder to get the engineer to narrow my tone down as I have in mind and have adjusted on my equipment beforehand.
Many times, my tone through the PA system comes out tight but too harsh - piercy (frequency-vise).
I'm going for a high gain metal tone, with a Drop A tuned guitar (6 string)
What high mid - treble frequencies are best advised to 'roll off-of' via the mixing console; using parametric/ surgical EQ?
I subscribed on the terms of the that's what she said joke.
This brings me joy
Love these vids! Great tutorial, as always.
Looking at the guitar tracks it seems like there is a lot of editing going on. Do you usually record only very few bars and then glue everything together? Or is this just quantizing?
Imo that would also be a nice tutorial topic :)
Thanks a lot dude 🙌
Mids on guitars, yes please!! 🤘
this mix sounds sooo epic Oo
I remember the old times with a crappy Line 6 Spider when you had to scoop the mids to have that heavier-than-shitting-rocks tone. But I agree with you, boosting mids really make the guitars shine in a mix.
By the way, what about the bass? I am trying to get a good tone out of my bass, and there I find that I have to actually scoop the mids. Am I weird or does it make sense for bass? My chain is : bass (Ibanez SR675) - Interface (NI Komplete 6) - Fabfilter C - Aurora DSP Mammoth - Fabfilter Q - Fabfilter C. I feel like doing the EQ for bass is much more complicated than for guitar :P
On bass i scoop the shit out of the bass and boost around the clang so it pokes through.
Can we hear it with vocals? I’m afraid you will have to but the mids a bit then...
3:50
HEAVY GUITAR 🎶🎶🎶
Pause*
"That's what she said"
HEAVY GUITAR CONTINUES
PERFECT metal beat breakdown for a joke song
Cool, tell me please what plug-in for drums you use in this video, I’m really like this sound guitar and drums, very nice!!!
what to do to match vocals and guitar without screw both?
Cut @ 5,5Khz 5-6db with hi q, to get rid of the harshness in thehigh. Work wonder on SM57 for V30. for V30, I also like to cut @3,2-3,3khz to get rid of wistle.
Same here, or 4khz: The most horrible of horrible sometimes.
@@Mendelian bof. That's nail the mix mantra. I am more concern about wistle on 3,2k and 5,6k which is characteristic of V30. I found 4k cut works on M421 mic though
True, they sound like fairies 🧚♀️ screaming for help.
@@ctld5266 you’ve got a good ear, that “Mesa whistle” as I call it and learned about from one of mendels biggest idols, is right about 3.2k. It’s always present with a 57 on a mesa v30. Mic’d narrow cut with an eq that doesn’t get all phasey and weird when EQing like that works wonders.
Depends on the sound source i guess. Plugins usualy sounds central mids overloaded.
When is the new album coming, cant wait to long!!!!!
This year, and some stand alone singles.
Did you use Kemper for the guitar tones here? Just curious what you like to use going in?
Jup! EVH 5150 III Profile and My own Mesa Road King II Profile
@@Mendelian awesome! Thanks!!!
@@Mendelian link to the tones you used?
I feel like if I don't scoop some mids my guitars sound honky-tonk and pretty nasal. I'm not sure if it's the Lundgren m7's or just my choice of tone, but I've tried several types.
Do you prefer to add processing to your tone before it's routed to Cubase or do you like to tone shape in Cubase? I've never used a Kemper so not sure what options are available for processing because I primarily use my AxeFx..suppose I'm just interested in your general perspective. Thanks man!
Very good question: I try to dial in my tone as perfect as possible before recording it :)!
No mb compressor for palm mutes?
90s and 00s metal begs to differ
🍻
Great advice. I see you use stylus instead of mouse, do you find it to be better, faster, easier?
Hey dude, all your answers are lie here:
th-cam.com/video/C9GGMLtmv8Y/w-d-xo.html
@@Mendelian Thanks man, exactly what I was looking for.
Quick question. Was the guitar recorded via a plugin or a real amp?
I always cut in the midds because if not the drum don't have space. Maybe the solution is increase the volume of drum???
Perhaps too much cutting on the drums? Sometimes cutting some low mids might helpt: but not 12db mid scoops.
yeaaaaaa
Is that only it?
the mids is where ghosts and all hollow'd cardboard boxes are
never seen anyone using tablet for audio production, is it really convenient?I might give it a try
I love it
Nice but what do you think for guitar compressing in mix is Useful! Or better to use comp when mastering a song at the end?
After 3:44 I hit "subscribe" 😂
What drum samples are these ?
I just do a high pass and low pass..I do not touch mids..if you recorded a great guitar tone with a good setup from the start there's no reason to touch any of that..sometimes you gotta keep it simple and not overthink..I see a lot of sound engineers looking to keep just very specific frequencies in when it comes to guitars EQ ...and you see these cuts and boosts all over the place ..like why? In all rock music guitar is like a main component to the overall sound of the band ...doing too much to mid range you end up totally changing that overall sound..keep it simple.. I don't even compress guitars..not heavy drive ones especially...cuz the thing about distorted guitars is it keeps a pretty consistent level to begin with so I try not to cage in the sound..just let it flow free ... Cuz even if you palm muted super close to the bridge where you're picking up a lot of bass frequency on the palm mutes where the palm mutes appear louder than the strummed notes..the low pass usually knocks that out for me and evens it out
amazing tone at the end of the day beats everything (which you've got) but i think the logic of scooping mids isn't to kill the tone, but is to bring out the lower and higher aspects of the tone (similar to compressing louder moments is to increase overall perceived loudness). hypothetically you should turn up the guitar track once the mids are scooped (which should only be a max +2db scoop most of the time if even that) and the tone will be much more balanced. it's all subjective of course, just thought i'd speak my defense of a lil 700hz scoop here and there :)
btw your "harsh vs warm" comparison was a bit biased, of course a 12db cut will sound worse than a 3db boost, invert to a 3db cut and 12db boost you'll be arguing the opposite!
It’s simply to let the vocals cut thru the mix. Everyone got different voices, parts, techniques etc. And there’s no universal fit-them-all receipt for mixing. And since vocals are most of the time more important than some of the guitars range, there’s simply some sacrifice for vocals sake
Another question why you hi-pass guitar?
Get more clarity
Sometimes you have to scoop some freq surgically for that nasaly sound and to get a heavy guitar and a female.singer to fit right. That's the struggle I go through with my band. My guitars just overpower my singer.
What good advice! I will try it for my next mixes. One question, why do you have so many guitar tracks? I realized that you record 2 tracks per side (left and right) but there are some tracks that say "DI" that I don't understand what they are. Greetings!
So DI is the is the direct signal of my guitar plugged straight into my Interface; So when i want i can reamp that with my Kemper later, or use a ampsim plugin on it!
Is that octuple tracked? 4 center, 2 left, 2 right?
Quad
@@Mendelian Appreciate the response! I've been feeling like my guitars have been missing something but I've only double tracked, 1 left 1 right. The 2 center must be what I'm missing!
personally i prefer scooped tones, like fear factory's tone. not a fan of this one. it's all personal preference man.
That's what she said 😅
whats the pad you are using?
When you click like and it says 69
When the mids are scooped in the amp, you don't need to do that again. It just sounds bad
Scoop the mids all the way, for some Justice
My big question now is, where the hell put the hi pass filter on guitar and bass :S
Depends on the tuning, you don’t want to cut too much. Start around 80hz for guitars and 70hz bass
@@Mendelian thanks for tip, lets try! :D
use your ears
@@dispersemedia wow amazing, you could also have said use your instinct, chase your dreams, reality is in your mind...
@@onizeayanami you could if you want. but since we're dealing with audio, we use our hearing more than any of our senses.
man that tone its scooped as fuk hahaha XD
4 guitar tracks?
I'm doing something wrong