What Does Guitar Amp EQ Do? 2 Rules to Help You Sound Better NOW! 

Question of the Day: What else would you like to know about EQ?

as a newbie, I've struggled with EQing, so appreciate the lesson!!

Wow probably the best Guitar EQ video that I have come across. Straight forward and easy to understand :) Well Done.

Thank you for posting 👍🏻

This is great advice. Thanks.

Good job, keep it up. I will be be working with the EQ that came with GT 8

Great stuff! Thank you, sir.

Thanks Derik Love the videos!

Great tips! Thank you

actually the best tutorial for EQ....thank you

I get sick of hearing these so-called teachers and people in forums saying use your ears to people that are just starting out. They don't know what to listen for they don't know what sounds good yet. A better thing to say is train your ears to know what sounds good then use your ears so basically use your trained ears.

really good video bro.. very good thx

Thanks a lot, its very helpful info!!

brilliant explanation. So simple and easy to understand. Thanks for making the video.

Great video mate! I make music for a living and have always gone off the "if it sounds good, it is good" rule. I always struggled to understand EQing as a musician but this video definitely demystified this perpetual "random knobs situation" for me and helped me view this from a much clearer perspective. Also, (Cut before Boost) Brilliant method! and makes total sense! I'm learning new stuff about music everyday and I love it! Keep up the great work. -Robbie Aaron

This is great information for me. I bought a Fender Player HSS strat about a year ago, and while the clean single coil sound is covered endlessly on RU-vid the humbucker not so much. I have been struggling to get what I think is a good sound from the humbucker and will give this a try. Thank you!

Great vid mate

Thank u. Finally understand cut and boost

thank you - i hsve an Crush 12 and i thought i made a mistake buying it - the jury is still out but your tips give me encouragement - maybe this orange box and i will get along down the road when i figure it out - PS - I work with horses for a living - an old Cowboy told me a long time ago - " Sometimes - most of the time - less is more - " this has helped me with a young horse more times than i could ever count - and even more with one that has a little age - Have a Geat Day 🐴⚡🎸

Great advice!

Helpful! This is stuff that a lot of folks don't even realize they're missing.

You couldn't have explained it better!! Thx a lot

Your presentation is clear and logical. The best explanation of practical EQ practices I have yet learned. Explaining EQ in terms of amplifier headroom has made it all click for me. Thanks

Thanks, Derek! Just good common sense advice I would never have thought-of. God bless you. Fr. Dave

Thanks, that was clear and to the point.

great video man!

Thank you.

Thnks for info, cut before boost. I'll remember that for sure

Great video!

Well done! I agree: I cut everything and then start adding. Once I reach an unpleasant tone or frequency, I stop and cut back. My Orange Crush 20 is very bassy for some reason. I had to use an external eq to get it to behave.

Underated channel Good job!

Nigel solved that mix challenge long ago, mate. I can still hear the sustain.

Great video! First time I see your channel. I would add that you shouldn't be afraid to go to seemingly extreme settings. Some amps are really bassy and others very bright and you often need to compensate for that. Also, if you have a multi-effects or an additional EQ in the amp's FX loop, a good high pass bass cut around 100Hz or even higher really cuts the woolly muddy bass. And another low pass high cut at around 10K of lower helps with some fizz and harshness for gainier tones.

As someone who is currently searching for 'my sound' on an orange crush 20 this is extremely helpful. Thanks! The whole cut before boost thing while simple, never crossed my mind. Gonna mess around with it now. And good spinal tap reference! Haha. In a perfect world they would all go up to 11! Lol

The frequency adjustment hand gestures made this video for me.

This is a damn good point on EQ -i think it might also matter if your eq is passive or active cut/boost.. i have also found through my own experiments that small minor negative adjustments are a good place to start on an eq pedal

Good lesson. Also, I learned this from another youtube video and this is really helpful: if you start with a specific frequency turned all the way down, and then you start turning it up as you're playing (I usually just strum some chords), you'll hear that frequency set (i.e. lows, mids, highs) sort of start to come online at a certain point. Stopping there (i.e. not turning PAST that point) is great because it gives you those frequencies without over-saturating your sound. And then from there, you can always make adjustments if you want, of course. It's a good starting place though.

I have an orange crush 20. This just proves I need to learn my amp

Thats a cool tip....

For your typical gigging situations, here the cardinal rules for great guitar tone: 1. Forget stacks! Use a combo amp. 12" speakers sound the best. 2. Don't aim it at your ass! You hear forward, not backward. Put it on the floor in front of you aimed up like a vocal monitor. Put a mic on it. You will _hear_ your tone even at lower wattage. 3. Don't dime out the guitar! Those volume/tone controls go up AND down. Learn to use them. 4. Corollary to #3: Turn your amp all the way up. That's right. Master volume all the way, but input volume at half (probably). Also all tone controls at half (definitely).

I do the same on my Vox PF15R except the fact that it just has 2-band EQ (Vox-style). Thanks man, a good advice!

Cut before boost, cool advice.

I have had most basic small practice amps, Fender, Marshal, Orange. Now I have a Blackstar. The Blackstar single knob eq works ok but as with other amps I tend to use on bridge pickup for the extra treble but it's characteristics not always best for what I am playing. So I have just ordered a basic 7 band EQ pedal so I can get the tone I want out of each pickup.

Hi, great video, whats the difference between mids and prescence??

This is just what I need. thank you! I played a gig yesterday and it didn't sound just like what I wanted. I tried to adjust every knob and it got harsh, ran out of time before the show started, a little bit dissapointed with the tone I created myself.

Outstanding vid. I am 73 years ancient and this makes so much sense to my generation. Something as simple as head room is so enlightening

A few questions about amp EQ. First, some amps have a presence knob in addition to bass, mid, and high. What is the best way to approach the presence knob? Second, with the four EQ knobs, do they generally affect a specific range of frequencies? If so, what are the frequencies? Does it vary by the specific amp?

Something that many people don't understand about eq'ing, is that you can't boost something that isn't there, which is why your advice about "cut b4 boost" is sound. You can't boost something that may not be there, so (as you said) you cut first.

But if your in a band context. No matter how you set your tone, you have to tweak it so it doesn't conflict with other instrument's freq. That's my problem. I can cut through the mix. As a solo, it's good. But with the band, I sound nowhere. You also consider the room.

5:25 HILARIOUS we love a great sense of humor man haha

Thanks for you tip on cut before boost! Interested in opinion on adjusting tone with gain. I've noticed that for best sound it's not the same. Link me your video if you have it, or if you make it. Most people don't realize there's a tone on you overdrive or distortion pedal and what it's for! God bless!

Can you do a video on what it actually means to put instruments in their ideal frequency range when mixing. I don’t understand it.

Great Video. How much to the tone controls on the guitar play into this? Im always trying to balance that out.

The way I like to look at it is start the settings at zero and slowly increase until you hear that control just start to bloom. Some amps might only need a knob turned to 3 or 4 before they reach that threshold of sounding good without being too much. I find this especially true for bass and gain. You just want that purr and saturation, but not mud and too much compression.

Can you do how to get the guitar tone for 1985 by bowling for soup on the fender champ 20??

Very simplistic but it's true.

What setting is best for reggae?

I want to have smooth distortion sound but my guitar is buzzing on playing any note. Please suggest

A lot of amps have a presence control which you omitted to address.

Is each EQ knob at 0 when it's all the way down, or at the 12 o'clock position? I tend to start at 12 o'clock and adjust, but I'm not sure if that's right.

I thought I understood most bass, mid and treb knobs are passive and only take away not turn up?

This isn't how EQ works in all occasions. It's a good explanation for 75% of the amps out of there but it isn't correct. Old designs like Fender and Marshall have passive EQ that is subtractive so as you say this is correct. The EQ knob is a volume control for that frequency. However for old amps with a presence control it isn't quite true as the presence is in the output section and uses a positive response to boost/cut frequencies. Modern design amp circuits have bandaxall EQ that boosts and cuts the frequency range through power control (boss katana). Therefore the best way to EQ an old amp is to run everything flat out and then reduce frequencies. The best way to EQ a modern design is to put everything in the goldilocks position and manipulate from there. One thing I find very important is to actually shut out most of the frequency range and then apply one of the portions only - so focus on the treble let's say, with the mid and bass and presence completely off. Have a listen to the timbre of the treble range and adjust so there is nothing annoying present. I remember the position of the knob and then apply the same system for the bass control making sure I play low notes a lot. Then I put the treble and bass back in together where I remember they were and I start manipulating mid and presence into the mix. With the mid and the presence I actually feed them in with a thought as to how much mid 'punch' and presence 'air' I need for the job in doing / room or space I'm in. Also, don't forget digital EQ is totally different and quite shit., the output stage of a digital bus equalisers a broad spectrum of the sound and doesnt really attack it at the source like a preamp on a tube amp (fender/marshall) or solid state (Roland jazz/blues or boss katana) does.

Can you do a Jimi Hendrix sound (not voodoo Child) on the Fender Champion 20. Like a stereotypical Jimi Hendrix like a fuzz face Jimi Sound

What if i have a preamp pedal such as a marshall in a box or vox in a box type of pedals, like Joyo British or Joyo ac tone, & I put an eq pedal before or after the pedals. Does this rules still applied ?

If you didn't make that Spinal Tap reference you know someone would... probably me 😅

is a dark sound the same thing as a muddy sound?

Unless it's a baxandall-style tone stack, amp EQ knobs are (most often) NOT volume knobs. They cannot ADD volume to a frequency range; they can only subtract.

wat amp required 15W,30W,40W ? wats the electricity consumption for such Amp/thx

My blackstar core 10 amp doesn't have the bass and mid and treble nubs It just has an eq nub. how can i set something like 3/8/8 eq ? I don't have those three nubs to set this :|

What if the amp has just a Tone knob instead the BMT EQ?

So, turning your bass, mids, and treble up actually increases your overall volume?

5 minute music. Looks at video length. Hey wait a second!

I have trouble describing sounds.

Boost before cut good tip thank you

Guitar amps use subtractive Eq. Which means that with the bass, mid, and treble knobs at 10 the amps Eq is flat.

It doesn't have Chorus or Reverb effects 😢

I have the same guitar you're using there. Just over 10,000 miles away... 😔

Just fyi, the headrush pedalboard and frfrs go to 11… (the company is eleven..😉)

Hi Derik! Do you know if the Fender Champion 20 works well with acoustic-electric guitars?

Mine goes to 11 😂

Have to cut Bass ALWAYS on these modern gainy amps

Tone knobs don't "boost" anything. They only short your signal to ground. Dime your guitar and amp a turn down what frequency is too loud.

Now i now even less...

Essentially not a amp for jazz guitar

This is not the right way to think about tone controls. Turning up a treble control does not turn the treble up. It turns it down less. You are not boosting anything ever. Tone controls are only subtractive.

Thank you.