Love the videos...but please in the future when doing A/B, don't stop the audio, just to say "eq on" or whatnot. Just leave the audio going and have maybe a graphic on screen that says on or off. Too difficult to hear differences with long pauses between.
@@markhamblin8194Man... Are you telling to everyone you disagree with that they're suffering of OCD? They just gave useful advices... And they're totally right! It's much more difficult to hear and learn when someone talks between two piece of audio while there are some subtle changes. The same applies to photography, and other stuff... I think the Dr. will lose audience if doesn't take this insight in consideration. I don't want that for him 'cause the content was nice!
I'm no producer or anything, just a bedroom guitarist who spends way too much time tinkering with tones inside my DAW, and this trick practically solved all my issues with higher gain tones killing my ears sometimes. Thank you sir.
100% this video is the truth. I've been doing this for years. I really hate overly harsh guitar tones because you can't crank the song without fatigue. Another trick I do is to put a de-esser on the guitar buss set to the 2-3k freqs. Set it so that it only engages on louder guitar parts like solos and other prominent parts. The quieter parts still get their snarl, but the louder parts dont hurt.
The upper mid “pain point” peak you dialed out is essentially the place where the common Vintage 30 speaker naturally peaks. Coincidentally, the eq curve you added pushing lower mids and cutting the harsh is where the old Greenback speakers lived. No wonder why they were so popular for decades on recordings.
@@kevinm.n.5158honestly I found the stock sheffield quite nice, and still use one to this day. Your EQ is key, and you can get some amazing sounds with the stock 6505+ combo. Those ones tend to *need* a boost of some sort, and I love using the Boss SD-1 (cheap! sturdy! less nasal than the TS-9!) and use it with the gain at 10 O’clock, the Level at 1 O’clock, and tone to taste The 5150/6505 series & its derivatives are all *super* midrange heavy, and so too much on the dial on the amp can loosen the sound, especially at higher volumes. You can scoop the mids some, or even a good bit, on this amp & be plenty heard, especially if you tighten it up with a drive of some sort. If you rly want some extra juice, use a higher mid setting on the amp, and pull some 750 hz with an EQ in the effects loop - less is more with cutting that frequency, but it gives you that “surgical” precision that really tightens up riffing
The best dirty clean guitars I ever heard: Back in black. You can crank it up and still have that big smile on your face. No headaches, no pain. Just pure old school rock guitars. Malcolm and Angus, together with Mutt and Platt did the best sounding rock guitar album ever. Period. Great video and keep going, please.
I learned this secret from a microbrew pub I visit occasionally. In the later evening, they play music a whole lot louder than during standard dinner periods, but they scoop out the frequencies in the exact range here. It makes it possible to still carry a conversation even with loud music. The side effect is that it gives you an almost karaoke version since it it literally the vocal frequencies being lowered. I've recorded my background instruments that very same way ever since I noticed it there.
@@TheLydian23 I think they subscribe to a music feed. [edit: actually they have videos playing for all the songs, too, so I'm pretty sure it's a feed.] But whoever set up their sound system did this, yea. It's clearly intentional because the vocal frequencies are so low you can barely understand (or hear for that matter) any of the words. The side effect is you can't hear the usual restaurant noise because the music is so loud, but you don't have to shout over it, because your voice is in that pocket. If you go between noon and dinner, the music is quieter and you *can* hear the lyrics, so this is likely a preset.
I went and tied it out and it makes the metal rhythm guitars sound balanced and pleasant. The distorted bass however still didn’t blend well with the rhythm guitars and sticked out the top like a sore thumb. I then applied the same EQ frequencies to my distorted bass just a bit less aggressively. The bass instantly started to blend with the rhythm guitars creating one big monolithic thick sound. This video has bean very helpful.
This is my second fave mix trick. The best is highpassing everything below the foot of the kick (around 50Hz) Viciously dumping the frequencies that don't help you is a godsend, opening up tons of headroom where you can really make it count. It's counterintuitive AF, but it actually produces a tighter, more powerful low end; suddenly, your bass and kick are punching like Mike Tyson on crack.
This is actually amazing to me since I make death metal and I've been plagued with the frequencies that hurt the ears so I always had to boost the low end in the overall mix to mask them. I buffed the 570 range and scooped some near 2900 and it sounds a lot warmer and more energetic. This is honestly the best piece of advice I've been given in terms of guitar mixing to date.
Upper Mids and Highs have to be dealt with so delicately. 2-4k is always where the feedback is in a live sound mix. “Energy” is there, but so is the ice pick.
I find that whole 500 to 800 range to gives a guitar the most presence and clarity. Especially when amps are already mid scooped to hell and back. Was mixing a Skynyrd tribute band and had the TD tell me that was the first time he could ever distinctly hear all 3 guitar parts and asked what I did. All I did was bump them up at 800, 700 and 600 with no mid scoop.
Keeping above 750 tamed well and not whistly, and then making the 300-750 range full and enveloping is super underrated. Still need excitement in the upper mids, and definitely enough highs to get the guitars to sit well, but that can still be done
I recently dipped the 2k range on my master bus before sending to mastering engineer and the whole mix came back smoother than anything I've recorded to date. You can really crank it without fatigue. It was probably a bit of lazy brute force to do it on the master, but the problem frequencies came from the guitar in that range so I was more or less doing what you've demonstrated here. Now boosting a little lower is not something I would have thought of. Thanks!
One of the hardest things to get right is the Rhthm guitar EQ. this is a solid example of one way to get them loud in your mix without the harshness of some modern tones that eventually cause ear fatigue. I would suggest that part of EVH's sound came from the room the cab was in.I think the 500 to 600 Hz area really reminds me of bleed on a cab when tracking live especially if one of the mics are off axis or more than 2 inches off the caab grill. Great video Bobby!
Another huge part of Van Halen's sound is ONE guitar panned right or left, with subtle reverb and delay in the opposite. The space puts your attention squarely on Eddie's amazing rhythmic talent. Not to mention leaving room for DLR, Anthony and Alex. Ted Templeman could have made the easy mistake of doubling or tripling Eddie's rhythm guitar. But he did not, and that is near genius.
I'm just a bedroom guitarist but noticed that boosting around 550-630 added a lot of punch without hurting your ears in the 2k range or sounding overly boxy and midrangey. Good stuff!
If I remember right Tom Scholz did a lot in that 500-900 range. I think back before he built out his Rockman stuff he would use an MXR EQ pedal and dime the 800 to get to that Boston sound. There was more to it than the MXR, but that was definitely a key to the early Boston sound.
Counterintuitive to what most people think, myself i cluded. Cant wait to try it. Tried the synth trick for angrier guitars that you explained. Worked like a charm!
Very useful. I have bean attenuating 2600 Hz on my rhythm guitars as I found the resonance to be piercing on the ears. It was always challenging to have a sound that does not hurt without being dull. I like how you compensate at 570 Hz to prevent dullness. I will definitely experiment with that frequency range.
Love when the Doctors In, You always Deliver Bobby ! A Huge Thank You for sharing. I like the way you show how to " Sweep" the EQ. Great Tool to ' hear ' the effect of the Q. I think this is why Parametric EQ pedals were so popular for guitar in circles.
Nice. This is a trick that slash has used since AFD. If you see early shots of his rig he has 10 band MXR EQ that always had black tape over it. It set with 500db +3dB, 1.2-3 is a huge +6-12db and 2-4kH upward are -6db. Its also used took some hiss away caused by his wireless onstage but it’s what his tone was shaped by when he used Jubilees. It allows Axls vocals to cut through around 6-8kH. His custom AFD Marshall heads were shaped around this.
Very cool! For years I'd reach for the 2-2.5k range to get some more out of the guitars. Recently, I realised that 500-700 is where its really at. I'll try cutting the higher end now, and see if I can turn them up louder than usual.
Years ago someone on gearslutz mentioned the idea of boosting low mid frequencies to give instruments weight or help them cut through in a non abrasive way. I recently starting doing this more with distorted guitars around that 600hz range and it's surprising how good it sounds most of the time. I usually boost non bassy instruments between 1.5 - 5kz almost by default but that is another trap that's easy to fall into that doesn't always sound so hot.
I could have used this a week ago before I submitted my final mix for a school project nooo...but I actually figured part of this at the last second to make the guitar solo sit better. The tone was too harsh boosting the high mids, and it sounded better somehow when boosting the lower mids. I'll remember to dip the harsh upper mids in the future.
Also increasing there in the lower mids gives it some meat without the hiss in the higher mids. I’ve learned that with my own mixes when the higher range kept fatiguing my ears.
Thanks for the insights. I appreciate it. My question: 2.7k is exactly where the pick attack lives. How do you go about when you want both 1) power and 2) pick attack for those single note lines?
Hey Doc, you always come on time with what i'm in need haha. Thats great, and i didn't know abou the BX shredspread though i have this beauty instaled. Thanx so much once again, now i made my day!
Actually, the "Brown Sound" isn't Ed's guitar tone. It's Alex's snare drum. “That’s funny, because people took that whole ‘brown sound’ thing totally out of context,” he said. “I was never talking about my guitar tone. I was talking about Alex’s snare drum. I’ve always thought Alex’s snare drum sounds like he’s beating on a log. It’s very organic. So it wasn’t my brown sound. It was Alex’s.” Klosterman then asked how the confusion originally occurred. “It happened years ago. People would ask me about his drumming, and the only way I could explain it was that it had a very brown sound,” Van Halen noted. “I’m glad you brought this up, actually, so people can finally understand what I was talking about.”
I think that you have the right side of issue here... I do something similar. But I'm hearing some swooshy phase issue (on the guitar) , that I dont think is intended.
Imo this eq removed the mid scoop which emphasized those fizzy highs. So be careful, don't just boost those mids without judging what your guitar sound needs
Love the video. It is particularly interesting to me at the moment cause, unfortunately, I suffer from a little bit of high-end tinnitus in my left ear (commercial electricity nail gun accident). I've actively been looking for ways to practice guitar at home without upsetting my left ear. 😆 (Marshall half stacks are not helping). I know practice at home is not the same as guitar editing, but it gives me some ideas. I really dislike harsh guitar sounds anyway. This technique makes a huge difference. It sounds awesome! 👌
I recently heard about the eric clapton strat mod that boosts 500khz on his guitar by 25db, I thought that couldn't possibly be pleasing to the ears lol. I guess there's a magic place in that 500 zone for guitars!
The sound of an amp is really the sound of guitar cabinet speakers which are cheap crap and beautiful...like amps that distort...it's all technically "wrong" the ultimate tone. I think its why learning this and ussing FET or digitalt amp sims, you need to do this, I just learned this via an English Mixer as well...the eq the Q ratio the boost.
But even before EQ tweaks you gotta get breakup before it turns into hornets in a beer can. I remember reading a comment from a QOTSA guitarist, not Josh, who was saying "you gotta realize we're playing really clean." It's an elusive thing but it exists. I've been over Van Halen for over 30 years but EVH got the most amazing rhythm tones like Unchained. ACDC Play Ball is unbelievably tasty (and how many others?) Paul Kossoff was getting those sounds over 50 years ago...Peter Frampton, Peter Green, Pete Townsend, Jimmy Page. Warm buttered toast for the ears.
And yeah hate me for self promoting but I think this is some turn as loud as you want and it will only sound good guitar: th-cam.com/video/n1M8fO7VKV4/w-d-xo.html
absolute newbie just enjoying your channel here. in the 90s Dan Huff (guitar god) had a band called Giant. While I love his riffs, I could NOT LISTEN to the album more than a few minutes without getting angry at the ear fatigue. I never knew what it was. Maybe it was this.
Don't rely on your guitar player to make mixing decisions lol Very few musicians know how to mix their instruments, which is fair because it isn't their job Almost every award winning mix has very prominent low mids. The internets obsession with "cutting mud" is making everything sound thin and plastic-y
Good stuff, doc! I love 500 - 700hz on guitars. So does Joe Barresi and his guitar sounds are also epic. Btw, nice Dr Bob shoutout from David Bendeth in his Puremix video on producing The Warning. 🤘🏻
Thanks man! David is a great friend, fishing buddy, and super talent. I worked on The Warning record with him and it was a pleasure! Check out Dan Korneffs mixes too. Another fav of mine!
There’s also a hiss frequency in the higher part of that 2-6k spectrum in most heavy guitar signals, the area that goes berserk when they recorded the guitar with just way too much gain, do you have a video for dealing with that without taking any shine away?
I thought my gear was faulty until totally different guitars & amps kept leading to the same nasty ear-piercing sound right around 2.5 kHz for distorted guitars, so I'd cut it with EQ post-amp. It's wild to find that cutting specific mid frequencies is not only common but a rule of thumb for professional audio production. Nowadays I always have at least one parametric EQ in the fx loop just to get rid of this annoying resonant frequency before sending sound anywhere. Might as well cut it out at the source rather than in post-production. I took the time to do some detailed investigation and sound that no matter how much of this frequency is cut from the guitar signal itself, it's added back in with a vengeance by the amplifier itself, so it looks like many amplifiers are over-producing a harmonic somewhere in the 2-3 kHz. I'd like an amplifier that's tuned so that this resonance is avoided, but alas.
Fundamentals in this case would be lower, also he's doing wide boost affecting multiple overtones. Also fundamental/overtones is not really way to think when EQing distorted guitars XD
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EQ is _EVERYTHING_ .
Can make cheaper solid state amps and modellers sound perfectly as good as really expensive boutique amps.
Love the videos...but please in the future when doing A/B, don't stop the audio, just to say "eq on" or whatnot. Just leave the audio going and have maybe a graphic on screen that says on or off. Too difficult to hear differences with long pauses between.
True. Just loop a section and then give a thumbs up and things down when on or off
Can you like, shut up?
This is my least favorite thing music TH-camrs do. Turns what could be a great video to frustratingly unsatisfying one
Do you guys OCD about everything in life or just guitar videos on TH-cam?? I think he did a great job.
@@markhamblin8194Man... Are you telling to everyone you disagree with that they're suffering of OCD? They just gave useful advices... And they're totally right!
It's much more difficult to hear and learn when someone talks between two piece of audio while there are some subtle changes.
The same applies to photography, and other stuff... I think the Dr. will lose audience if doesn't take this insight in consideration. I don't want that for him 'cause the content was nice!
I'm no producer or anything, just a bedroom guitarist who spends way too much time tinkering with tones inside my DAW, and this trick practically solved all my issues with higher gain tones killing my ears sometimes. Thank you sir.
Fantastic!!
Mids that's the secret.
That's me totally too!!
100% this video is the truth. I've been doing this for years. I really hate overly harsh guitar tones because you can't crank the song without fatigue. Another trick I do is to put a de-esser on the guitar buss set to the 2-3k freqs. Set it so that it only engages on louder guitar parts like solos and other prominent parts. The quieter parts still get their snarl, but the louder parts dont hurt.
100% I’ve been using de-essers on live gigs on guitars for years.
The upper mid “pain point” peak you dialed out is essentially the place where the common Vintage 30 speaker naturally peaks. Coincidentally, the eq curve you added pushing lower mids and cutting the harsh is where the old Greenback speakers lived. No wonder why they were so popular for decades on recordings.
Can I put 87 ‘likes’ on this, please?
I’d like to put 87 ‘likes’ on this.
🤷♂️
Speakers are king for guitar tone
The older "marshall vintage" version of those, from the 80's sound warmer AND clearer
Honest question, I have 6505+ 112 people say the vintage 30 is good to clean up the muddiness would you say it's good for this instance?
@@kevinm.n.5158honestly I found the stock sheffield quite nice, and still use one to this day. Your EQ is key, and you can get some amazing sounds with the stock 6505+ combo. Those ones tend to *need* a boost of some sort, and I love using the Boss SD-1 (cheap! sturdy! less nasal than the TS-9!) and use it with the gain at 10 O’clock, the Level at 1 O’clock, and tone to taste
The 5150/6505 series & its derivatives are all *super* midrange heavy, and so too much on the dial on the amp can loosen the sound, especially at higher volumes. You can scoop the mids some, or even a good bit, on this amp & be plenty heard, especially if you tighten it up with a drive of some sort. If you rly want some extra juice, use a higher mid setting on the amp, and pull some 750 hz with an EQ in the effects loop - less is more with cutting that frequency, but it gives you that “surgical” precision that really tightens up riffing
This is a great vid, thanks. As a live sound guy, I run and cry in the corner when a band shows up with telecasters and fender combos.
The best dirty clean guitars I ever heard: Back in black. You can crank it up and still have that big smile on your face. No headaches, no pain. Just pure old school rock guitars. Malcolm and Angus, together with Mutt and Platt did the best sounding rock guitar album ever. Period.
Great video and keep going, please.
Totally agree Peter!
Thanks Bobby.. so do you not also high and/or low pass aswell on these guitars and if so what frequency?
Angus puts his gain on 3
@@hadleymanmusic - there’s no gain knob on a plexi though
Without a whole lot of gain either. Just some nice mid range goodness and well supported by the bass.
I learned this secret from a microbrew pub I visit occasionally. In the later evening, they play music a whole lot louder than during standard dinner periods, but they scoop out the frequencies in the exact range here. It makes it possible to still carry a conversation even with loud music. The side effect is that it gives you an almost karaoke version since it it literally the vocal frequencies being lowered. I've recorded my background instruments that very same way ever since I noticed it there.
So is a D.J. doing this ?
@@TheLydian23 I think they subscribe to a music feed. [edit: actually they have videos playing for all the songs, too, so I'm pretty sure it's a feed.] But whoever set up their sound system did this, yea. It's clearly intentional because the vocal frequencies are so low you can barely understand (or hear for that matter) any of the words. The side effect is you can't hear the usual restaurant noise because the music is so loud, but you don't have to shout over it, because your voice is in that pocket.
If you go between noon and dinner, the music is quieter and you *can* hear the lyrics, so this is likely a preset.
@@KarstenJohansson Ooh, music without annoying singers, that's paradise!
Great, now do something about those annoying keyboards that I guess are needed because the guitars are so boring...
I went and tied it out and it makes the metal rhythm guitars sound balanced and pleasant. The distorted bass however still didn’t blend well with the rhythm guitars and sticked out the top like a sore thumb. I then applied the same EQ frequencies to my distorted bass just a bit less aggressively. The bass instantly started to blend with the rhythm guitars creating one big monolithic thick sound.
This video has bean very helpful.
This is my second fave mix trick. The best is highpassing everything below the foot of the kick (around 50Hz) Viciously dumping the frequencies that don't help you is a godsend, opening up tons of headroom where you can really make it count. It's counterintuitive AF, but it actually produces a tighter, more powerful low end; suddenly, your bass and kick are punching like Mike Tyson on crack.
you mean cutting below 50 on kick and bass?
@@albusking2966nah the guitar, that way the guitar low frequenciea don't interfere with the bass and kick
@@jrdoughty13 oh yeah for sure
Brian May has also used this to create his tone but boosted around 800
This is actually amazing to me since I make death metal and I've been plagued with the frequencies that hurt the ears so I always had to boost the low end in the overall mix to mask them. I buffed the 570 range and scooped some near 2900 and it sounds a lot warmer and more energetic. This is honestly the best piece of advice I've been given in terms of guitar mixing to date.
Upper Mids and Highs have to be dealt with so delicately. 2-4k is always where the feedback is in a live sound mix. “Energy” is there, but so is the ice pick.
It's fkn nuts dude, the time I've spent agonizing over that lil range in a bunch of different contexts is ridiculous
I find that whole 500 to 800 range to gives a guitar the most presence and clarity. Especially when amps are already mid scooped to hell and back. Was mixing a Skynyrd tribute band and had the TD tell me that was the first time he could ever distinctly hear all 3 guitar parts and asked what I did. All I did was bump them up at 800, 700 and 600 with no mid scoop.
that’s exactly where the tubescreamer boosts
Wow, what a difference, I never would have EQ'd there, and in solo you can barely here it. Number one trick dude!! Thank You.
Keeping above 750 tamed well and not whistly, and then making the 300-750 range full and enveloping is super underrated. Still need excitement in the upper mids, and definitely enough highs to get the guitars to sit well, but that can still be done
This is what I needed! Thank you, my guitars sounded weak and now I tested following your advices in and worked great. Thanks again!
I recently dipped the 2k range on my master bus before sending to mastering engineer and the whole mix came back smoother than anything I've recorded to date. You can really crank it without fatigue. It was probably a bit of lazy brute force to do it on the master, but the problem frequencies came from the guitar in that range so I was more or less doing what you've demonstrated here. Now boosting a little lower is not something I would have thought of. Thanks!
One of the hardest things to get right is the Rhthm guitar EQ. this is a solid example of one way to get them loud in your mix without the harshness of some modern tones that eventually cause ear fatigue. I would suggest that part of EVH's sound came from the room the cab was in.I think the 500 to 600 Hz area really reminds me of bleed on a cab when tracking live especially if one of the mics are off axis or more than 2 inches off the caab grill. Great video Bobby!
Thanks Root!
Another huge part of Van Halen's sound is ONE guitar panned right or left, with subtle reverb and delay in the opposite. The space puts your attention squarely on Eddie's amazing rhythmic talent. Not to mention leaving room for DLR, Anthony and Alex. Ted Templeman could have made the easy mistake of doubling or tripling Eddie's rhythm guitar. But he did not, and that is near genius.
@@guitarmon100 100% 👌 Many producers and guitarists are now doing a similar process.
I love the 500-800Hz range for guitars, often with a fairly wide Q! Warm goodness. Thanks for doing these videos.
I'm just a bedroom guitarist but noticed that boosting around 550-630 added a lot of punch without hurting your ears in the 2k range or sounding overly boxy and midrangey. Good stuff!
If I remember right Tom Scholz did a lot in that 500-900 range. I think back before he built out his Rockman stuff he would use an MXR EQ pedal and dime the 800 to get to that Boston sound. There was more to it than the MXR, but that was definitely a key to the early Boston sound.
800hz = TS!
Yeah he was super aggressive with that MXR pedal, but it factored into that early Boston sound in a huge way.
Definitely true, you can hear it so clearly in Boston. I think he needed very defined ranges for each instrument for the big mixes he put together.
@@AJPMUSIC_OFFICIAL I always thought Boston stuff sounded overhyped in a bunch of places.. Sounded good on AM radio though.
Counterintuitive to what most people think, myself i cluded. Cant wait to try it. Tried the synth trick for angrier guitars that you explained. Worked like a charm!
Thanks Pete! Try it!
Brilliant! Tried it on my live rig and now I don't give everyone headaches when I crank up, best tip ever for guitar awesomeness.
Very useful. I have bean attenuating 2600 Hz on my rhythm guitars as I found the resonance to be piercing on the ears. It was always challenging to have a sound that does not hurt without being dull. I like how you compensate at 570 Hz to prevent dullness. I will definitely experiment with that frequency range.
The difference is amazing. Thank you.
QOTSA with Eric Valentine BLASTED right at 600hz. Sounds great. Awesome video, thanks
Love when the Doctors In, You always Deliver Bobby ! A Huge Thank You for sharing. I like the way you show how to " Sweep" the EQ. Great Tool to ' hear ' the effect of the Q. I think this is why Parametric EQ pedals were so popular for guitar in circles.
Thanks Plexidust!
Nice. This is a trick that slash has used since AFD. If you see early shots of his rig he has 10 band MXR EQ that always had black tape over it. It set with 500db +3dB, 1.2-3 is a huge +6-12db and 2-4kH upward are -6db. Its also used took some hiss away caused by his wireless onstage but it’s what his tone was shaped by when he used Jubilees. It allows Axls vocals to cut through around 6-8kH.
His custom AFD Marshall heads were shaped around this.
Very cool! For years I'd reach for the 2-2.5k range to get some more out of the guitars. Recently, I realised that 500-700 is where its really at. I'll try cutting the higher end now, and see if I can turn them up louder than usual.
As a singer/guitarist, I'm going to apply this to my in-ear monitor mix!
That snare drum Misery Business is awesome ..
ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So cool , I had to sub , cheers from New Zealand
Right on, who wants to listen to the fizzy-soda sound coming from distorted guitars, (especially from most distortion gtr plug-ins)!
Fantastic content! Warms up that roar without making them shrill...
Thanks Pickett!
Years ago someone on gearslutz mentioned the idea of boosting low mid frequencies to give instruments weight or help them cut through in a non abrasive way. I recently starting doing this more with distorted guitars around that 600hz range and it's surprising how good it sounds most of the time. I usually boost non bassy instruments between 1.5 - 5kz almost by default but that is another trap that's easy to fall into that doesn't always sound so hot.
Agreed!
Just love your passion and tips / tricks you constantly give out. Really appreciate this channel. Thanks Doc!
Used that trick for years in live sound....creates the space for vocals
Use a compressor to delay the cymbal attack so that they "bloom". Also, if you're able to isolate them enough, turn them down some.
"People" is a great word for, you know, people.
sounds like textbook subtractive EQ techniques: find and bookend the general freq range, find the resonant/peak freqs, reduce them.
I could have used this a week ago before I submitted my final mix for a school project nooo...but I actually figured part of this at the last second to make the guitar solo sit better. The tone was too harsh boosting the high mids, and it sounded better somehow when boosting the lower mids. I'll remember to dip the harsh upper mids in the future.
Awesome as always Doc!!... Yet another example of how you were able to make this song HUGE for us!! 🤘
You guys ROCK!
Game changer for me. Thanks!!! I love your take on mixing
Thanks for watching!
could really feel the hurt your ears, even just listening on my iphone speakers. great tip!
Feels beefier too, great space making tip, thanks!
Thanks Baker!
Also increasing there in the lower mids gives it some meat without the hiss in the higher mids. I’ve learned that with my own mixes when the higher range kept fatiguing my ears.
That eq range is also what Tom Scholtz used to create his sound. Love 500 to 600 htz boost.
FINALLY!!! THANK YOU. I've been called crazy for doing this.
I really need to learn the version of CuBase that came with my THR 30ii. Probably have to watch a bunch of videos.
Thanks for the insights. I appreciate it. My question: 2.7k is exactly where the pick attack lives. How do you go about when you want both 1) power and 2) pick attack for those single note lines?
This vdo is very useful, thanks a lot dude 🙏
Brilliant, Doc! Guarantee I'll be trying this technique...many thanks.
Thanks Dave!
Hey Doc, you always come on time with what i'm in need haha. Thats great, and i didn't know abou the BX shredspread though i have this beauty instaled. Thanx so much once again, now i made my day!
Actually, the "Brown Sound" isn't Ed's guitar tone. It's Alex's snare drum.
“That’s funny, because people took that whole ‘brown sound’ thing totally out of context,” he said. “I was never talking about my guitar tone. I was talking about Alex’s snare drum. I’ve always thought Alex’s snare drum sounds like he’s beating on a log. It’s very organic. So it wasn’t my brown sound. It was Alex’s.”
Klosterman then asked how the confusion originally occurred.
“It happened years ago. People would ask me about his drumming, and the only way I could explain it was that it had a very brown sound,” Van Halen noted. “I’m glad you brought this up, actually, so people can finally understand what I was talking about.”
I think that you have the right side of issue here... I do something similar. But I'm hearing some swooshy phase issue (on the guitar) , that I dont think is intended.
Haha! It’s not on the guitar it’s a keyboard affect
Imo this eq removed the mid scoop which emphasized those fizzy highs. So be careful, don't just boost those mids without judging what your guitar sound needs
Love the video. It is particularly interesting to me at the moment cause, unfortunately, I suffer from a little bit of high-end tinnitus in my left ear (commercial electricity nail gun accident). I've actively been looking for ways to practice guitar at home without upsetting my left ear. 😆 (Marshall half stacks are not helping).
I know practice at home is not the same as guitar editing, but it gives me some ideas. I really dislike harsh guitar sounds anyway. This technique makes a huge difference. It sounds awesome! 👌
Great vid! I really wanted to hear the vocals too.
I recently heard about the eric clapton strat mod that boosts 500khz on his guitar by 25db, I thought that couldn't possibly be pleasing to the ears lol. I guess there's a magic place in that 500 zone for guitars!
I didn’t know boosting ~500Hz was a secret though it’s true. 500 also sits well with bass, which tends to be scooped around 500.
The sound of an amp is really the sound of guitar cabinet speakers which are cheap crap and beautiful...like amps that distort...it's all technically "wrong" the ultimate tone.
I think its why learning this and ussing FET or digitalt amp sims, you need to do this, I just learned this via an English Mixer as well...the eq the Q ratio the boost.
Awesome guitar E.Q. tip... thanks :)
Thank you very much!!!!
Great stuff Bob, having EVH, Dan Korneff and Hard Rock Guitars all in the same video, priceless!!
Haha! Thanks Tim!
Finally....some vids I can use!
Great tip! Thanks for sharing.
But even before EQ tweaks you gotta get breakup before it turns into hornets in a beer can. I remember reading a comment from a QOTSA guitarist, not Josh, who was saying "you gotta realize we're playing really clean." It's an elusive thing but it exists. I've been over Van Halen for over 30 years but EVH got the most amazing rhythm tones like Unchained. ACDC Play Ball is unbelievably tasty (and how many others?) Paul Kossoff was getting those sounds over 50 years ago...Peter Frampton, Peter Green, Pete Townsend, Jimmy Page. Warm buttered toast for the ears.
And yeah hate me for self promoting but I think this is some turn as loud as you want and it will only sound good guitar:
th-cam.com/video/n1M8fO7VKV4/w-d-xo.html
You are AWESOME. I love your videos.
Sounds great, but I reckon I'd pull back the snare a bit or EQ out a frequency or two so the guitars sat a little better with it.
BOOOOOOOOB!!!! Great eq range for guitars. I also like boosting a bit in the 8k range. As always great video, thanks!
JAAAAAAAVV!! Thank u my friend!
Outstanding Bob, Thank you.
Thanks a lot Dr Bob. That was really helpful
absolute newbie just enjoying your channel here. in the 90s Dan Huff (guitar god) had a band called Giant. While I love his riffs, I could NOT LISTEN to the album more than a few minutes without getting angry at the ear fatigue. I never knew what it was. Maybe it was this.
I’m not sure if Dr Bob is likely to comment on his cousin Dann’s guitar tone 😊
@@forthecreator1 heh. you.... are just kidding? 😅
@@doodaddy1454 no not kidding. Bobby Huff and Dann Huff are indeed cousins. Both live in Nashville and both work in the music industry as producers
This is very relevant! Its nice to hear this!Thanks!
Thanks Greg!
When you stop to compare, the sound information leaves quickly. Make the on off saying not and no interruptions
*boosts heavy guitar mids*
*Every guitarist in the world just screamed NO!*
Don't rely on your guitar player to make mixing decisions lol
Very few musicians know how to mix their instruments, which is fair because it isn't their job
Almost every award winning mix has very prominent low mids. The internets obsession with "cutting mud" is making everything sound thin and plastic-y
Excellent one Bobby! Thanks again my friend!
YES! Love this one!
Yep ! sweet spot that makes glue the mix . An order tricks don’t do auto pan on keyboard . Never :) merci docteur
Can you talk about EQ for lead guitars?
Amazing. Absolute 💎💎💎💎💎
Good stuff, doc! I love 500 - 700hz on guitars. So does Joe Barresi and his guitar sounds are also epic.
Btw, nice Dr Bob shoutout from David Bendeth in his Puremix video on producing The Warning. 🤘🏻
Thanks man! David is a great friend, fishing buddy, and super talent. I worked on The Warning record with him and it was a pleasure! Check out Dan Korneffs mixes too. Another fav of mine!
nice one man! love that beef
There’s also a hiss frequency in the higher part of that 2-6k spectrum in most heavy guitar signals, the area that goes berserk when they recorded the guitar with just way too much gain, do you have a video for dealing with that without taking any shine away?
That was a great tip, thanks!
Great as always Bobby!🤘
Thanks Ant!
Nice!!!
You do know "brown sound" means the sound that makes you shit your pants
For me, the keyboard is so prevalent in the foreground I really don't hear the guitar.
Gojira should be analyzed for guitar mix
My kind of tip 🤘🤘
Thanks Nexus!
can you name some commercial records with similar eq technique so I can use those for referencing in my projects?
Misery Business by Paramore
@@BobbyHuff thanks you very much
The upper midrange hertz...hahahaha
Hahahaha
Great example DOC! Are you panning hard L/R?
Yes hard L/R
I thought my gear was faulty until totally different guitars & amps kept leading to the same nasty ear-piercing sound right around 2.5 kHz for distorted guitars, so I'd cut it with EQ post-amp. It's wild to find that cutting specific mid frequencies is not only common but a rule of thumb for professional audio production. Nowadays I always have at least one parametric EQ in the fx loop just to get rid of this annoying resonant frequency before sending sound anywhere. Might as well cut it out at the source rather than in post-production.
I took the time to do some detailed investigation and sound that no matter how much of this frequency is cut from the guitar signal itself, it's added back in with a vengeance by the amplifier itself, so it looks like many amplifiers are over-producing a harmonic somewhere in the 2-3 kHz. I'd like an amplifier that's tuned so that this resonance is avoided, but alas.
So you're boosting the fundamentals and cutting harsh overtones aka harmonics???
Fundamentals in this case would be lower, also he's doing wide boost affecting multiple overtones. Also fundamental/overtones is not really way to think when EQing distorted guitars XD
Good Marshall amps and cabinets do this for you without having to eq anything. Lol
...donn landee 😎
EVH live tone would destroy eardrums 😂
Eddie says 🖕