9:43 there's great free plugin for this called TDR Nova. It's an EQ/MultibandCompressor with a parallel mix knob for each frequency and a freq analyser so you can see what you're grabbing and how gets affected.
This was a goldmine of info, learning about the ranges of EQ and their effect on tones, and how that translates to how your tone sits in a band/mix is such an underrated thing I'm bookmarking this to come back later and learn as much as I can from it. Thank you !!!
This is such an insanely well timed video. I was just feeling very 'meh' about my mesa mark V and was about to start looking into dialing it in a bit better via the on board EQ. Thanks, Brian!
There’s a video by Sonic Drive studios about EQing the Mesa. Apprently you really have to crank the middle and treble and drop the bass hard to get those famous mesa tones.
On the rotary knobs: Crank the mid, treble at 12, bass at 10 or so at most if it’s gain On the graphic: boost 80 and 2200, Scoop out 750 and drop 250, raise 6.6k. The mid boost into mid scoop really screams, but it retains thump and clarity. This setup really brings my little 5:25 combo to life.
Excellent info! I've been trying to find a Les Paul bridge pickup that tames the hump (roughly) around 900-1100 hz or so. Whether it's discussion groups or pickup manufacturers everyone seems to just use a generic term "mids" which is so incredibly vague, it's quite frustrating. There's miles of difference between 750 and 1200 (just throwing out numbers). It would be great if guitar players got a little more informed and articulate about frequencies, and you've demonstrated that brilliantly, here, Brian - THANK YOU. Then you could say if a pickup (or speaker etc) had "a hump at 700" vs. "a hump in the mids". "Mids" is way too general to describe these nuances.
This is a fantastic video! Thank you very much!! Listening to those samples really made it clear what the different freqs actually sound like and how the EQ affects everything!
Great video, thanks Brian. The idea of a multiband/parametric compressor pedal would be fantastic. I find with a lot of my favorite gain pedals, especially fuzz there's always some resonant frequency that I can never shake.
Hi Brian… I know this was posted a year ago but I just wanted to say Thank You!! Reminded me why I needed to put my EQ pedal back on my board 👏👏 Still not sure where it would be best placed in the chain? Like you demonstrated, and if I was mixing, it would be at the end, before Delay & Reverb. Any words of wisdom?? Thanks, John
I mean, if there's no de-esser pedal easily available and it sounds good, I see a hole in the market. Just need to find a captivating name for it. Wampler DS? Dark Secret? Dune Skater? Dust Shaker? I'm sure you could come out with a nice name. Could even be two pedal in one. Overdrive+De-esser, or simply EQ + DS.
I got a 10 band MXR eq, the silver one. How should it be set up to the way hugest tones possible for a single coil US made Stratocaster? I got 2 classic Fender amps, 1972 Twin and 1965 Bassman, and a Marshall JCM 2000 dsl 401. I usually use the 401 as my practice amp at home. I want to really maximize the tones and to me, it seems like I have not done that yet. Want to get the way hugest JIMI -SRV type tones, etc..I got some decent OD pedals too.
Fantastic video, I got a little question would like to ask for your help, one of my pedal volume is super low level, could I just replace the output vr from b100k to b50k to make it louder:)
Great video!!! One of the most important things I’ve learned after I started playing in a live band mix was how to stand out in the mix without drowning out every one on stage from excessive volume. There truly is a art to this and EQ is the foundation of getting there. The amount of compression is also very important to cutting through but nothing is as important as EQ. Sometimes your tone may sound awesome by itself but will get completely drowned out in the mix. And sometimes it might sound like crap by itself but sounds amazing in the mix. I had a early 80’s jcm 800 that was super bright and maybe a little harsh by itself but in a live mix it stood out like nobody’s business and would rip your face off. I sold that head in the early 90’s and I’m sooooooo sorry I did. But as a rule I always set my amps very bright and use my guitars volume and tone pots to darken it. This is so important for adding dynamics and getting great tone especially if you’re into playing blues and classic rock.
Whenever you reach for that EQ control to add anything above 7 to 8K...Please remember, the average guitar speaker doesn"t reproduce anything above 7K very well. Look at a frequency chart of the speaker you are using... Also, most microphones that are used in live situations, SM57, Beyer M160, Royer ribbon, Have a pronounced rolloff starting at about 8K...On the Low side of your EQ, get rid of most of that stuff below 80 Hz...the lowest string on a conventionally tuned guitar is about 82 Hz. Boosting these low frequencies will make your amp work harder to reproduce those low tones, and you will make your guitar speaker speaker work to produce tones it was never designed to reproduce, not to mention redice the useful life of your guitar amp speaker...
It's good ear training to have something you can sweep the bands, just to see where everything fits. If you could do a video covering amp settings at home versus live, that would be interesting, as far as eq to fit in the mix when you are moving air.
Yeah I'd like to really see this settings at home versus in a band, I played in the band and I had no problem setting up stuff getting great tones using EQ but now I don't play in a band any longer and I'm sitting in my living room Ive sold most all my gear but I have a few pedals left and I'll be playing with the stereo and rhythm sounds good and the levels are great but then when it comes time to play a solo , it gets drowned out so I got an EQ pedal but now things are just way too loud and I can't seem to get it adjusted to just make it sound good hear in my living room so a video something like that would be great for me.
DAW can help that. Just sweep the knobs on the stock EQ plugin and listen to changes. I never had to ask for presets or anything, I just copy what I hear. You can get close real easy.
The TC Electronic multi band compressor pedal can be used in the way Brian uses the De-Esser. You have to play around with custom tone prints to do it. I’ve had it on my board for 2 years to soften telecaster ice pick transients. It’s brilliant.
5:27 - I wish you had a little more to say about that frequency area, because I've found that 1-1.5kHz area to be essential to be heard in a mix. The aggression in more heavily overdriven guitar sounds is in that area too.
Super useful video! And thanks for using Logic: even if people don't use that DAW personally, I genuinely think the UI of the channel EQ "analyzer" is one of the best visuals to understand the audible spectrum of sound. I use it with my guitar students aaaaaall the time
I have the mxr 10 band and I love it. (secret weapon really). your video gave me so much info. I could see and hear what your doing as I sat w the pedal in front of me. FYI if you diddnt know? the mxr 10 band ranges from 31.25 all the way to 16k! After watching this video i feel that this eq is huge! thank you!
This is only a year later, but I just wanted to add, dont buy an MXR 10 band eq pedal. I had one. It works wonderfully, but it has these 12 blue LED's that are so bright they stain your soul blue. Holy crap i hated those lights. I went down to the crossroads and traded that pedal back to Slick, but he was keeping the blue parts of my soul. I only have a little left, and he didnt give me any of those Robert Johnson skills, so I am just not very good at the art of the deal or guitar, but at least I don't have those blue spotlights on my board burning me anymore.
EQ bands that are friendly for guitar??? The 30Hz may add thump. And how the addition of "guitar" in the mix effects change to the music. So your precious tone may not be so precious if it doesn't help the song. Know your gear
Great video and subject! About the EQ sweep technique; a word of caution if I may. It's a good trick but ideally; it's best to do it with a conservative amount of gain (something like 6db or so). The real problem is that any set of frequencies will sound kind of annoying if it's pushed 15-20db (or more) upfront relatively to the rest of the frequency range. I've seen people sweeping their eq with a surgical Q and a 30db boost, to end up butchering their audio by cutting out a lot of frequencies unnecessarily. It's less instantly obvious with less boost, but you can train the ears to notice subtler EQ moves, and also to detect / ballpark which problematic frequencies you're hearing, without the sweep at all. On another note I would love a de-esser like pedal. Basically a 1 band dynamic EQ with selectable Q. Or even better, go all-in with a Low and high pass filter + 2-3 bands of parametric dynamic eq. I don't recall seeing anything like that, aside from regular parametric stuff Cheers!
Really good video. Just laying down facts there. Why is this at 55k when toan myth videos reach 6 digit views. Guitar players are some of the most stupid people on this planet believing myths over science. Yes you should make one!
After producing electronic music for like 5 years, I finally understood how important EQ is. The frequencies involved change completely how we percieve sounds, and an EQ can control that to a great extent. In electronic music people often make drum sounds with very basic stuff, like one sine (or triangle or whatever) wave and noise, and depending on how you EQ this sound it will totally pass for like a snare drum or a clap sound or a hihat or what have you, or it will make it sound like total gibberish
i would buy a de-esser off of you..u should do one with a few channels...or make a combo eq and de-esser..or a rack mount unit that has parametric, graphic and the de-esser(s) and a jack to hook it up to ipad for freq spectrum looksee
Honestly EQ is so powerful, you can use it to make your guitar sound like it has different pickup styles. Like the Keystone exchanger, I’m pretty sure it mostly just EQs your guitar.
Excellent video man. I’m with you on EQ. Sometimes the amp and guitar controls just are not able to resolve down to fine details in tone. Great video!!
I know parametric EQ lets you fine tune it more than a graphic EQ, but I can never figure out how to use the knobs on my parametric EQ pedal correctly, which is why I keep going back to my old graphic EQ pedal.
I’ve been wanting a de-esser pedal for years. I think there are a ton of acoustic players like myself who would value being able to tame those wolf notes that can pierce your eardrum when you get the fingerpicking wrong whilst not sacrificing clarity and brilliance by eq: ing it out.
Thank you very much for this video. It is going to be my foundation to understand and search for my tone. Your former video was really good in order of the uses of an EQ pedal.
That was a particularly helpful video for those who use Modelers and are constantly fighting excessive highs, fizz, and sizzle in the quest to make their Presets sound more like a real Amp. It was surprising to hear that guitar Amp speakers are typically rolling off frequencies above 5k Hz. That was much lower than I thought. Thanks
Many are even lower than that - For example, check out the Celestion Greenback response: celestion.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/T1221-G12M-Greenback-copy.jpg
@@wampler_pedals That is a pretty shocking frequency response. I've been switching Mics on my Modeler to tame the highs, but it looks like I might get better results by lowering the High Shelf. Thanks for this really helpful information.
@@musicman4christjesus It's a good idea to look up the frequency response specs for Speaker that's being emulated to be precise, but what you replied should be good for most of them.
this is one of the best practical videos on the use of EQ to sculpt your sound, minimize specific frequency issues, etc i've seen (glad you re-did the vid...and yes- "it can be more important than the guitar you use" (loved the hat)...)...also learned something today- what a "de-esser" does...i've seen these used in recording, but it was a "mystery box" to me...
Fantastic video, thanks so much. While I wasn't confused per se, I know I needed to be taken to school. You nailed it! Would love to see a dedicated video breaking down the BOSS MT-2 parametric EQ section and how to truly use it. Much maligned and often misunderstood.
That was a super useful, clearly explained, great reference, which I can utilize even with caveman-esque playing and my low-budget recordings. The tip about the de-esser is excellent, too. Thank you!
Let's say you have a digital delay that makes electronic noise at 2k Hz. You tried a notch filter to remove it which helps but it's still slightly audible and you've negatively altered the guitar's tone. Is there a post-processing way to remove it or should I just use another delay?
There’s a couple of ways. It’s easier with plugins, like on a DAW, more difficult with pedals. If you could isolate the noise you might even be able to use that noise with its phase inverted, possibly.
@@wampler_pedals Thanks for the tips. It's disappointing that I can't use it. It's not the best delay I have but it has a great stereo effect. It would be a shame to toss it in my pedal graveyard box.
Hey Brian, you plugged in an attenuator into a fender combo. I have bassman, but no idea how to attenuate it. can you give me some tech tips please. Btw love your pedals and videos.
for decades my tone was all bass and treble. what i didn't know was that after the bass and drums inhaled all the bass, all that was left was treble. though it sounded good where i was standing. what the audience heard was thin and tinny. nobody told me. so thanks, mr wampler. shout it from the rooftops.
A little late to the party here, but. I use one of my Boss EQ-7s first in line as a pickup output compensator. I use several od/dist pedals, sometimes individually, sometimes stacked. I go into a clean amp or amp IR into my DAW interface. It’s a lot of work for me getting the various gains and levels on the pedals where I’m happy with how they all play together. When I switch to a different guitar with different pickups (hb/ sc) it interacts differently with all my various painstakingly set pedal gains and levels, and the amp tone and volume. Presently I have set everything to work with PAF type pickups as my bench-mark. So when I switch to a Strat/Tele I raise the EQ level (and adjust bands accordingly) to match the PAF output until I am hearing the same gain and level volumes. Or if I switch to a guitar with hotter pickups I lower the EQ level to match. It’s very easy for me to adjust one EQ pedal than adjust several of/dist pedals. I hope this is helpful to someone!
That's one of the reasons I love the Fractal AX8 cause e you're able to save various setups for different guitars and recall instantly via scenes or presets. But for analog pedals it's always harder so the EQ pedal as you said is the best friend!
Thanks! Normally I’m trying to draw upon my brent mason combined with Brad paisley influences. I love Brent’s way of playing the perfect part for the song and brads way of coming out of left field with something cool that I wouldn’t expect 😊
Terrific video! Never did quite get what de-essers are good for, other than taming sibilance and minimizing tape hiss. Never occurred to me to try it with guitar tone and ringing frequencies. This is awesome!
Please make one! I'd love to see a high-quality, multi-band MINI pedal... a design challenge I'm sure. But I've been searching for one... of quality... You da man. Rock on!
Watched the vid. Right before the ending synopsis I was thinking “hmmm I wonder if there are DeEssor pedals out their. Paused the vid,googled and didn’t really find much pedal wise. WAMPLER.MAKE ONE PLEASE. I have your Ego Comp.The Doctor Lo-Fi Delay,Tumnus Deluxe(thanks for adding the EQ) and a Plextortion Pedal. I love all of em. Please make a DeEssor.
Nicely done, Brian. Invaluable for those who get called upon in a pinch to work the house sound board. I guess the next step - which you may well end up doing as the sequel - would be a video demonstrating *combinations* of boost and/or cut in several bands to either "fix" or "revoice" a guitar. Great that you used a standard signal sample, and great that you made the point about the bandwidth of the amp speakers; many exhibit a sharp rolloff above 6khz or so. No point in attempting to EQ what the speaker can't provide. I might note that is true at BOTH ends of the spectrum. Of course you realize this all demands that you do a video of EQ and resonant boost *before* a drive pedal vs after. Do you remember the old Akai G-Drive? It had 6-band EQ before the clipping section *and* after it. One thing I would like to know, and perhaps you mentioned it and I missed it: how much boost and/or cut were you providing in your examples?
Is that a plug in you're using, or part of the DAW? I really like the setup and that the Q is a little more intuitive. I have a bunch of Melda Production plug-ins, but I'm not there yet in terms of complexity.
