EQ tips

socalguitar

Inspired
One of my weaknesses is EQing my amps. I've had my old 5150 for 15yrs and it took me a long time to dial it in. And, that had only 5 EQ knobs and a couple of buttons. The Fractal has a lot of different ways to change the sound. Its a little overwhelming. I just read the Fletcher-Munson curve and that makes so much sense to me. I can get great great low volume tones. but, as soon as i turn it up and the band starts, I'm not liking what i hear. I don't know why it is so hard for me to dial stuff in at full volume, than it is at low volume, but it is. I was wondering how people EQ there Fractal. Do you do it in the amp EQ or the EQ page or Mix, Advanced, or Global settings? ugh...i,m getting dizzy just thinking of this stuff. haha...
anyway i'm using Mesa 2/90 and 2 4/12 Mesa cabs. i have the power amp on...cabs off in my global settings. My band is a metal band, kinda Machine Head-ish. I'm trying to get the 5150 block to be my main rhythm. I appreciate any tips to try. thanks
 
I was wondering how people EQ there Fractal. Do you do it in the amp EQ or the EQ page or Mix, Advanced, or Global settings?

Some of this will depend on your rig - traditional guitar cabs, or FRFR setup. Other parts will depend on the room.

I start with the AMP block's Basic settings - the traditional amp controls like Bass, Mid, Treb, Pres, etc. Then, I go to the Tone page for things like Hi Cut, Lo Cut or Bright Cap values. Only after these will I then look at EQ, whether it be within the AMP block or with an external PEQ or GEQ block. Since 9.0, and especially with 10.0, it's almost been unnecessary to add extra EQ boosts or cuts.

Oh, and always do your tweaking at performance volumes, precisely because of the equal-loudness contours effect. :)
 
For me I like to tailor my sound to fit my band's live mix, which means tweaking the frequencies so we all fit in the mix and don't step on each other. This takes a bit of work in a 2 guitar player classic metal / hard rock band where it's 90% high gain.

We tried the "tweaking while jamming" approach but it never really worked out well, so I started doing multi-track recordings of our jams and then analyzing the stems in a DAW. It's very amazing how much easier it is to make EQ choices when you can see where everything sits visually in unison.

Another thing that really surprised me is how shitty a single guitar sounds alone as opposed to how it sounds when it's in the mix and EQ'd to fit in a certain way with everything else, and because of this I have separate EQ patches for in the mix, and for solo stuff like intro's or preludes or any other parts where it's just guitar.

I guess it really depends on the style of music you are playing, but for my band, when our singer is on, the guitars are backed off and EQ'd differently as to give her as much spectrum as possible.
 
Yes, it's always a good idea to adjust your tone at gig levels, or else you will end up with shrill fuckin high end.
 
anyway i'm using Mesa 2/90 and 2 4/12 Mesa cabs. i have the power amp on...cabs off in my global settings. My band is a metal band, kinda Machine Head-ish. I'm trying to get the 5150 block to be my main rhythm. I appreciate any tips to try. thanks

I used to have a 2/90 and I can tell you that it colors your tone A LOT! More than most power amps. That's not a bad thing necessarily, if that's the tone you're going for. I found that with the 2/90 most of my presets sounded very similar due to the coloring of the 2/90. I'm basically just saying that you're probably going to have a difficult time dialing in a 5150 tone using that power amp. The 5150 flavor is different than the Mesa flavor.
 
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