Parametric EQ tip - 'Contouring your sound'

shredi knight said:
Well I did, but it was under my breath and I don't see how raz could have heard me. :)

Yeah, well, being a moron, my other senses have kicked in stronger to compensate. So I hear really, really well. ;-)

Scott, I know you didn't call anyone a moron, and my post wasn't directed at anyone in particular, least of all you. Most of the folks here - you included - have been very patient with my own lack of experience, and even patient the couple of times I've tickled my tonsils with my toes, so to speak. But I do try to do my bit to protect the open learning environment.

Peace, and I'm sorry if I sounded defensive. Didn't mean to.
 
The thing is that these tools have been there a long time, we've talked about them a long time and Radley was 100% cool to bring this up now. We haven't talked this topic on this forum. On the old forum it was a very active and important tool that we talked about a lot. It just surprised me that so many guys never have considered this before. That's nothing but honest surprise on a personal level.

Radley's approach is great; and I hope folks follow it. He did a better job than I or anyone else did of breaking it down.

The key to the best tones - no matter the rig - are in the end how they mix in the band 'soup'. And what Radley, and others in the past, have done is to try to show guitarists that normally leave the EQ to engineers and mixers that this is perhaps the penultimate tool for crafting tone.

Here's the big secret (not really, but...) with my focus on custom mixed IR's and such - you can apply EQ to them. In exactly the way Radley shows here. Or you can do it simply with any quality IR (stock or otherwise) and then drop a PEQ after the cab block. And use the guides that Radley did, and read up on some of the links tha tI posted (pay special attention to "The EQ Primer" link, that's a VERY good one).

All the sudden, assuming you do the work trying this and trying to understand it, you'll find that you can make things better than you can with almost any given rig. You can craft your tones in very natural and organic ways (assuming you are cutting more than you are boosting) that fit into mixes like Cinderella's foot into the glass slipper. You'll find that each amp/cab/mic combo is it's own animal. Once you start to grasp it, and hear it, you'll find it very simple to do what seemed impossible in the past if you have never investigated what parametric EQ like the one offered in the Axe-FX can give you.

But on the other hand, if you use a traditional rig and record it; these tools in the DAW are the key to a good mix.

Cliff was very clever when he devised the PEQ; adding blocking to shelving and peak was brilliant.

IMHO, it combined with a quality IR, offer you the golden ticket to the promised land of perfect tones. :D (That's hyperbole, but it's the truth).

You can also do that combining EQ and custom mixed IR's in a DAW and save the results, but you are then 'fixed' at that EQ with that IR. It is simpler to do it by dropping a PEQ in after the cab.

Follow Radley's guide and if you are so inclined to learn more, then check out some of the links above. I guarantee that you will gain far more than you can know if you have not explored this in the past. The stock IR's work GREAT with proper PEQ.
 
I don't want to sound like a nit picker or anything like that, but why do we need to add in EQ to fix the sound. I'm using the word fix as opposed to modify because it doesn't seem right somehow to setup all your amp blocks etc, and then need to add an EQ at the end of the chain to make it sound better. But I guess beauty is all in the ear of the beholder, and that's why I posted earlier if this was a method used mainly for those with FRFR, and bearing in mind that I'm not a sound or electrical engineer. :)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking anyone for doing this, and I'll definitely give it a go myself when I get some spare time, just thinking out loud, that's all... :)


Peace and all that stuff.
 
Ochanomizu said:
I don't want to sound like a nit picker or anything like that, but why do we need to add in EQ to fix the sound. I'm using the word fix as opposed to modify because it doesn't seem right somehow to setup all your amp blocks etc, and then need to add an EQ at the end of the chain to make it sound better. But I guess beauty is all in the ear of the beholder, and that's why I posted earlier if this was a method used mainly for those with FRFR, and bearing in mind that I'm not a sound or electrical engineer. :)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking anyone for doing this, and I'll definitely give it a go myself when I get some spare time, just thinking out loud, that's all... :)


Peace and all that stuff.
It's a good question, I think. I've used the PEQ since I first had the AxeFx, and with major improvements (v7, v9 and for me, the Red Wirez cabs) I find I need it less: tone correction is less radical than it used to be. For most patches, I'm just blocking some extreme highs that I find objectionable thru my FRFR. For a couple of patches, I've boosted mids slightly with a really low Q for a bit more warmth. Also use it to dial out bass-boominess at high volume settings.

There's possibly some laziness here as well: When I find a cab mix I like, I know it's in the ball park, so it's just easy to use the PEQ to get the tone balance right.
 
Ochanomizu said:
I don't want to sound like a nit picker or anything like that, but why do we need to add in EQ to fix the sound. I'm using the word fix as opposed to modify because it doesn't seem right somehow to setup all your amp blocks etc, and then need to add an EQ at the end of the chain to make it sound better.
We're mostly discussing FRFR sound here. Our references are either FOH or recorded sound. Not the amp on stage/in the room. Almost any recorded guitar tone will have post processing done to it. If not in the track it will be in the mastering. Same goes for FOH sound, I need to add that usually FOH sound isn't really that impressive. So, seen like that this is justified.

Whether you 'need' that going into an amp and guitar cab? Probably not. But it could be useful anyway and then you'd be in good company, many guitarists use these EQ and other tools to finetune their amp sound. Does BBE-processing ring a bell?
 
Ochanomizu said:
I don't want to sound like a nit picker or anything like that, but why do we need to add in EQ to fix the sound. I'm using the word fix as opposed to modify because it doesn't seem right somehow to setup all your amp blocks etc, and then need to add an EQ at the end of the chain to make it sound better. But I guess beauty is all in the ear of the beholder, and that's why I posted earlier if this was a method used mainly for those with FRFR, and bearing in mind that I'm not a sound or electrical engineer. :)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking anyone for doing this, and I'll definitely give it a go myself when I get some spare time, just thinking out loud, that's all... :)


Peace and all that stuff.

As posted above you. What you are saying is, "why use a chisel when I have a hammer?" Answer: because a chisel is the right tool for the job.

Here's a thought: every engineer takes your killer rig and then EQ's it. Recording, live gigs, whatever. They HAVE to EQ it to make it fit in the mix. With the Axe-FX, assuming you are running FRFR, you are creating the entire tone from the guitar through the mics, through the mixer. The 'amp in a can' mindset that lower end processors have created is the issue; it's a mindset thing. You are not 'fixing' anything broken. If you don't EQ after your cab, you are essentially just making EQ needed after your signal hits the board anyway. Don't dismiss it before you try it.

Read the link I posted above from slipperman: http://www.badmuckingfastard.com/sound/slipperman.html (and directly: http://www.badmuckingfastard.com/sound/ ... an.html#EQ )

And ask yourself if, using FRFR, you are indeed hearing it as they say 'in the room'. No you are not. You are hearing it mic'd up through any assorment of mic's or at least the Earthworks reference mic, but you are STILL hearing it mic'd. There's NO way around that fact. If you mic it, you're gonna need to EQ it. To ignore that or dismiss it is to lead yourself down a path where you will NEVER get the killer tones you seek; you will get close but you'll know in your heart you could do better. And when you record or on the gig, they will be EQ'ing your signal to compensate.

If you use a PEQ correctly, you'll either negate any need to do any EQ'ing at the board or greatly lessen it.
 
Ochanomizu said:
I don't want to sound like a nit picker or anything like that, but why do we need to add in EQ to fix the sound. I'm using the word fix as opposed to modify because it doesn't seem right somehow to setup all your amp blocks etc, and then need to add an EQ at the end of the chain to make it sound better.
Peace and all that stuff.

It's not about "fix." It's about getting what you want. A lot of folks get turned off because they set up a preset using, for example, a Mesa amp model and then can't get it to sound like the real Mesa they had. When EQ gets suggested, they often exclaim that it should be enough to use the virtual knobs to get it to sound right. And that ain't necessarily so. The knobs don't represent the sum total of EQ that's happening in an amplifier, ESPECIALLY in a Mesa. Ignoring for a moment what happens on the input jacks of a Mesa, and ignoring the effect of speakers and cabinetry, there are components in the circuitry that "EQ" the signal, and those components and values changed such that earlier manufacturing examples have different componentry than later examples. The only way, then, to tune the model to get to the sound you want is to add EQ. In the case of many of the Mesa Mark series amps that came with graphic EQ's, you MUST add an EQ block to even begin to get those right, even if you only ever left them set flat in "your" Mark - and by "your" I'm speaking generically.

The point is that there is more EQ going on in any amplifier than people often stop to think about, and if one isn't managing to get the results he expects, EQ is a good place to go next. Also, there is more "EQ" going on in the Axe than we often stop to think about, because many of the advanced amp settings in the Axe are really implementations of EQ.

Now, when we start trying to recreate tones for recording, it gets REALLY whacky because it doesn't matter that, picking an arbitrary example here, you've got that picture from Guitar Player of Stevie Ray Vaughan's rig during the recording of "In Step." The fact that you can see all the amps and all the mics is still only a small part of the story. Even if you happen to know what speakers were in those cabinets, and how the amps were modified, you still can't replicate the room in which they were recorded, the barometric pressure and relative humidity of the room, the age of the diaphragms in the mics, and we won't even go into what console those mics were plugged into. So on, so forth, ad nauseum.

So it's not about "fixing," it's about getting the results you want to get, and also about getting them under conditions that don't necessarily represent the real amp experience - such as running output direct-injected to a PA system. No matter how good the amp models, cabinet IR's, and the mic models may be, they aren't perfect and they represent particular amps and mics of a particular age and level of use under a given set of environmental circumstances with some forgiveness programmed in. But your particular experience with particular mics and amps and PAs are very unlikely to match all of that. And this is where the challenge often lies in debates over modeling.

The equalizer, of course, is the equalizer. If one is happy with what one gets with just an amp block and a cab block - and I very often am satisfied with that because I don't have any real strong need to recreate the experience of particular amps I used to own - then carry on and don't worry about EQ. But when you're trying to get to a particular tone in your memory or your imagination, you're going to need EQ.

My opinions, etc...your mileage may vary.

Paz, Raz
 
raz said:
Now, when we start trying to recreate tones for recording, it gets REALLY whacky because it doesn't matter that, picking an arbitrary example here, you've got that picture from Guitar Player of Stevie Ray Vaughan's rig during the recording of "In Step." The fact that you can see all the amps and all the mics is still only a small part of the story. Even if you happen to know what speakers were in those cabinets, and how the amps were modified, you still can't replicate the room in which they were recorded, the barometric pressure and relative humidity of the room, the age of the diaphragms in the mics, and we won't even go into what console those mics were plugged into. So on, so forth, ad nauseum.

So it's not about "fixing," it's about getting the results you want to get, and also about getting them under conditions that don't necessarily represent the real amp experience - such as running output direct-injected to a PA system. No matter how good the amp models, cabinet IR's, and the mic models may be, they aren't perfect and they represent particular amps and mics of a particular age and level of use under a given set of environmental circumstances with some forgiveness programmed in. But your particular experience with particular mics and amps and PAs are very unlikely to match all of that. And this is where the challenge often lies in debates over modeling.

The equalizer, of course, is the equalizer. If one is happy with what one gets with just an amp block and a cab block - and I very often am satisfied with that because I don't have any real strong need to recreate the experience of particular amps I used to own - then carry on and don't worry about EQ. But when you're trying to get to a particular tone in your memory or your imagination, you're going to need EQ.

My opinions, etc...your mileage may vary.

Paz, Raz
Very good and true points ! I remember Dweezil Zappa talking about how different Eric Johnson's sound is on recordings compared to before it's mixed and purely on tape or in the room. IIRC, his 'original' sound is a lot darker compared to the final result people are used to from recordings and that's purely down to the producer/engineer, adding more air here, a little mids there and so on.

Very often what people 'think' is a good representation of a certain amp, is in reality a complicated chain of 'events' if you want. Everything colors the tone and therefor the original amp. Mic-pres put their own EQ on and even tiny things like guitar picks in a way alter the EQ. It's not about fixing, but refining.
 
Radley

Between the good advice offered here and the reverb how to thread, I started working on a new fender clean tone, and amd really pleased with how it's going. I just wanted to give a quick thanks for sharing your insight, as it has inspired me to try some of these ideas and the results thus far are very good.

So... Thanks!

Bix

BTW, I absolutely love the tips on using reverb, like the reverb much more now!!!!
 
Bix said:
Radley

Between the good advice offered here and the reverb how to thread, I started working on a new fender clean tone, and amd really pleased with how it's going. I just wanted to give a quick thanks for sharing your insight, as it has inspired me to try some of these ideas and the results thus far are very good.

So... Thanks!

Bix

BTW, I absolutely love the tips on using reverb, like the reverb much more now!!!!
Bix,

Glad you are finding the tips helpful. :p I too love a great Fender clean sound, and one thing I have found helpful to re-create that elusive Fender 'glassy-ness' is to use one of the unused para bands with a rather high Q (narrow band peaking) and boost anywhere between 3.5 & 8k. In lower frequency bands this would not sound very good, but when we go beyond 3.5k, the effect is more like a controllable high frequency 'resonator', and it can add a missing HF dimension to pure clean tones.

Happy New Year to all!

~Rad~
 
Radley said:
Bix,

Glad you are finding the tips helpful. :p I too love a great Fender clean sound, and one thing I have found helpful to re-create that elusive Fender 'glassy-ness' is to use one of the unused para bands with a rather high Q (narrow band peaking) and boost anywhere between 3.5 & 8k. In lower frequency bands this would not sound very good, but when we go beyond 3.5k, the effect is more like a controllable high frequency 'resonator', and it can add a missing HF dimension to pure clean tones.

Happy New Year to all!

~Rad~

Radley,

Speaking of Fender, have you ever succeeded in making your Axe Fx sound like the following two videos? I'm playing around with the PEQ block at the end of my chain like you wrote about in your first post to try to nail the Fender sound. In my opinion, the Fender models on the Axe-Fx are definitely the hardest to nail on the satisfaction meter.

Check around the 2 minutes mark for the BF DR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ktLWOq_x4c

And this whole video for Tweeds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4xbAcNx-WI
 
What do you think of the parametric eq layout in the new version of Axe-Edit that was released on New Year's Day?

Bands 1 and 5, the adjustable types, can be accessed from a single screen, with 2,3 and 4 on a 2nd.

Let me know...
 
Matman said:
What do you think of the parametric eq layout in the new version of Axe-Edit that was released on New Year's Day?

Bands 1 and 5, the adjustable types, can be accessed from a single screen, with 2,3 and 4 on a 2nd.

Let me know...

Matman,

I am not aware of a New Year's Day update - where can I find it & what is it called?

~Rad~
 
Matman said:
What do you think of the parametric eq layout in the new version of Axe-Edit that was released on New Year's Day?

Bands 1 and 5, the adjustable types, can be accessed from a single screen, with 2,3 and 4 on a 2nd.

Let me know...
I like this new layout myself. You grouped the bands in a rather useful way.

Just need it to work correctly now with the save/restore effects feature.
 
Matman said:
What do you think of the parametric eq layout in the new version of Axe-Edit that was released on New Year's Day?

Bands 1 and 5, the adjustable types, can be accessed from a single screen, with 2,3 and 4 on a 2nd.

Let me know...
That was a great idea ! Definitely 'easier' to work with. Really like it.
 
Matman said:
What do you think of the parametric eq layout in the new version of Axe-Edit that was released on New Year's Day?

Bands 1 and 5, the adjustable types, can be accessed from a single screen, with 2,3 and 4 on a 2nd.

Let me know...

I freaking love it. Totally adds efficiency and practicality to my workflow and how I like to do it anyway.
 
Radley said:
Matman said:
What do you think of the parametric eq layout in the new version of Axe-Edit that was released on New Year's Day?

Bands 1 and 5, the adjustable types, can be accessed from a single screen, with 2,3 and 4 on a 2nd.

Let me know...

Matman,

I am not aware of a New Year's Day update - where can I find it & what is it called?

~Rad~

Radley - I think you'll like this: http://www.fractalaudio.com/products-axe-edit.html

axe-edit-full-v09x.jpg
 
Matman said:
What do you think of the parametric eq layout in the new version of Axe-Edit that was released on New Year's Day?

Bands 1 and 5, the adjustable types, can be accessed from a single screen, with 2,3 and 4 on a 2nd.

Let me know...
Awesome, dude!
Set up the tips in this thread on 1st tab and ran to the 2nd tab for a notch at 125Hz. Done!

Tickled pink! I was thinking how great this lay-out was.
 
Hey Rad, as promised I said I'd let you know how this worked out with the band. We finally played yesterday. I needed to tweak a couple of my patches (not by much) but overall, my tones cut through way better now that I'm not competing with the cymbals. Also, I originally thought that these tones sounded a little dull when recorded, but I used them anyway on this recording http://www.fractalaudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=12657 and discovered that they mixed and EQ'd much easier.

This thread has literally changed the way I go about dialing in tones now. I used to be very selfish (for lack of a better term) in dialing in what sounds killer when I'm standing there playing alone. Now I'm very aware of what's going to work in a live/recorded mix etc. Only took me 27 years of playing to get there :lol:
 
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