A guide to EQing, please?

[ZMech]

Don't think there's any advice on here, so could anyone give some tips to setting up my EQ? it's a 7 band digital eq (ashdown superfly), and I have no idea what to do about setting it up. I've played around with various setting, such as midscoops and have managed to get some good sounds in my room. However, when I was jamming with a mate the other day, my sound didn't fit in well with his.

So I was hoping someone would be able to give me some tips about how your meant to know when to cut or boost the bottom/mids/treble?

[Buzz]

Gig situations. Made a SAD face from a graphic EQ. NOT a smiley one.

You need to boost the mids, cut the very lows a little bit, and you can tame the highs as well if you need/want to.

Edited July 4, 2009 by Buzz

[Happy Jack]

Don't forget that (1) speaker placement is crucial, (2) every room is different, and (3) a room sounds completely different with 100 punters in it than it did when you soundchecked to the barmaid and a guy trying to fix the pumps.

Enjoy.

[ZMech]

well I did a load of googling, and have found what seems like good advice, which I'll summarise here incase anyone has the same issue in the future.

Buzz's advice was repeated several times. As I found, although a 'smile' sounds good in your bedroom, it gets lost when other instruments are present. So a frown is indeed the way to go as a rule of thumb, else you will only be felt not heard.

The most interesting bit I found was a guide to learning how to tweak the EQ. Essentially, level off both your amp and bass controls. Then go through each band of your eq, and take it to both extremes whilst playing. This means you learn the effect each frequency band has on your sound, and what too much and too little will do. For example, at 50Hz I discovered that too much just makes a thud sound, but too little just makes the sound weak and pathetic. At the other end of the spectrum, 5kHz if too much will make the sound too tinny, but too little will lose the 'sparkle'.

So to set up the EQm for actual playing, the best thing to do is start with the eq flat, then listen to what your sound has too much/little of and adjust the right slider accordingly. Of course, as happy jack says, this needs to be redone whenever you switch amp/location/bass. Had a go at doing this this morning, and have ended up with a hump at the low mids, with just a slight boost to the 5k and a cut at 50. One other point is that the dynamics of the amp/cab will change at louder volume, so if you're playing a gig there's no point EQing at a low volume whilst people are setting up then cranking up the volume after.

One thing I might also do when I next play a gig is get someone I trust (not a guitarist ) to stand there plucking the strings whilst I stand in the middle of the room.

Of course, most of you will probably know this, but hopefully someone will find this useful.

Edit: also, just realised this thread should probably be in amps/cabs. any mods want to move it?

Edited July 5, 2009 by Zach

[Count Bassy]

If you're going to use effects set up the basic sound/eq with the all the effects off, then set up your effects to work with that.

[chris_b]

I may be wrong, but I would think that a frown is equally as bad as a smile because you've boosted and cut to a visual pattern and not what is sonically required. I would start with everything flat and boost what I needed to boost and cut what I needed to cut depending on the room.

[simon1964]

[quote name='chris_b' post='532978' date='Jul 5 2009, 01:32 PM']I may be wrong, but I would think that a frown is equally as bad as a smile because you've boosted and cut to a visual pattern and not what is sonically required. I would start with everything flat and boost what I needed to boost and cut what I needed to cut depending on the room.[/quote]

Agreed - I'd start flat then boost or cut until you get the sound you're after. What you require will depend on your bass. With my Stingray I tend to boost the low mids, otherwise I get a scooped sound which sounds fine practising on my own, but gets lost in a live mix. With the Thumb, completely the opposite is true - its all mids and needs taming some of the time.

[ZMech]

chris, if you read the whole thing, I say that the frown is a rule of thumb, and go on to say what you just did with starting flat and adding/cutting from that.

[SteveO]

I read somewhere that the 'frown' eq is the most useful for live work to fit in with the rest of the band. If I remember correctly the thinking was that high frequencies were being covered by guitarists so cutting these will seperate the bass from guitars to stop them both becoming muddy, and cutting the low freqs was to stop the same hapening with the Bass drum. IMO it's just a generalisation and as such will be ok if you don't have much time, but it's not as good as EQing to the venue. My only tip is to EQ with everyone else playing i.e. at soundcheck and talk to the rest of the band. You don't want to boost to fill a gap in the bands sound to find that the guitarist has also boosted to fill the same gap. Wireless systems make it easy as you can go FOH and hear what you sound like. Of course if you're at a decent sized gig then the sound guy will sort out all that and you just have to worry about the stage sound.

[WinterMute]

A couple of tips:

1-2Khz is where the "presence" of the electric bass usually sits, if you want to accentuate the sound of the strings boost here.

Unless you're going for an exceptionally bright snappy sound, there is nothing above about 10Khz that will help in an ensemble.

The frequencies around 120-140Hz will make basses (and kick drums) sound "boxy", for a cleaner LF, cut here, but for Motown/60's thud boost here.


The Smile or Frown settings are almost useless in many situations, but remember, you have 2 or 3 EQ stages in your signal chain, one on your bass, one (maybe more or less) in your pedals and effects and one in your amp, all will effect the shape of your sound.

It is as useful to cut frequencies as it is to boost them.

The frequencies below 40Hz are going to be very difficult to amplify cleanly unless you have some very serious backline or a pro PA, rolling off the bass at 35hz (or filtering if you have a filter) is a good way to clean up your bass sound and allow the other frequencies room to breath, you will not notice these frequencies missing in a band, but may hear them solo.

Do not boost below 35Hz with a "shelving" EQ, if you have the option use a "bell" shape.


Every bass sound is different, learn to listen to your bass in the context it finds itself in, unless you are world famous for your tone, one sound will not work in all situations.

Edited July 5, 2009 by WinterMute

[steve-soar]

This holy grail of tone is an on going search, which is why I think, preamp manufacturer Avalon named their company in such a way.

Good tone is a multi million pound business, we as musicians are always striving for the best but it really doesn't exist.

I've been in arenas, where the bassist has had an Ampeg SVT and it has sounded divine, others have sounded like rubbish.

I've been in pubs where the bassist has had a Peavey TKO and it was the most gourgeous, in your face and stomach bass sound I have ever heared.
I've heared others with state of the art amps sound like somebody clicking a pen in a cellar and others, sound like the earth is splitting with the total magnitude of bass excellence.

Best advice I can give is, when your singer and guitars, other instruments, are swaying from side to side and bobbing their heads up and down, then you have a good bass sound put it close to your ear and make sure it makes your pants move.

[Waldo]

[quote name='steve-soar' post='533407' date='Jul 5 2009, 10:54 PM']This holy grail of tone is an on going search, which is why I think, preamp manufacturer Avalon named their company in such a way.

Good tone is a multi million pound business, we as musicians are always striving for the best but it really doesn't exist.

I've been in arenas, where the bassist has had an Ampeg SVT and it has sounded divine, others have sounded like rubbish.

I've been in pubs where the bassist has had a Peavey TKO and it was the most gourgeous, in your face and stomach bass sound I have ever heared.
I've heared others with state of the art amps sound like somebody clicking a pen in a cellar and others, sound like the earth is splitting with the total magnitude of bass excellence.

Best advice I can give is, when your singer and guitars, other instruments, are swaying from side to side and bobbing their heads up and down, then you have a good bass sound put it close to your ear and make sure it makes your pants move. [/quote]

You raise an interesting point.

I've had the same experience both as a listener and during my own gigs. There have been so many times when I've thought, 'why am I even bothering with an amp?' because as soon as I'm on stage the volume is so loud that it doesn't even seem to matter whether I'm using my amp or just going through the PA.

Same goes for times when I've been in the audience. Every large gig I've been to the bassist could have just been playing through any old amp.

And yet I still find myself buying nice expensive amps. Maybe it's a sort of placebo effect?

[davidmpires]

Great advice above, when mentioned that you should start flat, and take into consideration the bass and the speaker placement.

I'd also add that what you ear in stage is nothing like the sound you will get in the crowd.

As for the smiley/frown faces, work with what's best for you, you have to do lots of experiments. With my T-Bass and Spector inside a pub I play flat and use the onboard preamps, when playing outdoors I sometimes give it a bit on the mids for t-bass and the smiley face on the Spector.

Ultimately I beleive that if you have a need to adjust your amp too much, maybe you are using the wrong amp, one should enjoy the sound of his amp without having the need to colour it.

[51m0n]

[list=1]
[*] Your ears are the only reference
[*]Start flat at gig volume - get your gain stage set right too! Your amp/cab will sound different with the same eq at different volumes, you are only concerned with gigging volumes here. You may be very surprised at how good you rig sounds flat with the whole band playing at a gigging volume
[*]Mids are your friend - playing flat at gig volumes with the whole band will allow you to hear what you've been missing up until now
[*]Cut what you dont want/need before you boost what you do want - various reasons, boosting adds noise, and can overload inputs of the next stage (usually poweramp) - sometimes only a boost will give the desired effect though
[*]Cut where you want other instruments to sit (ie the 140Hz area if cut can allow sccoped guitars to have a lot of bottom) - this is called frequency mixing, if everyone in the band understood it live sound would be a doddle!!
[*]EVERY room is different EVERY time you play it, different number of bodies, different ambient temp, but the room structure is usually the same, try and get close as poss to the back wall, or at least 10 ft away (IIRC) or you will get phase cancellation in important frequencies
[*]Every bass is different, often almost every time you play it (unless the strings are a squazillion years old round wounds) so you may find the treble end changes quite often too
[*]Understand that loud deep bass requires massive power and or big cabs, so unless you have the rig to do it, dont go there, something will be working too hard, and give up the ghost sooner
[/list]

[Happy Jack]

And sometimes your only option is to say "Sod it!" and just play the gig.

My next gig is at a venue I've played before so I know exactly where my bass rig will be ... standing on a tiled hearth directly in front of a large fireplace. Did I mention that cab positioning is important?

For a variety of reasons, I'll be using different basses in each set. The first set will be with a 5-string Lightwave Sabre active with optical pickups and roundwound strings; the second will be with a vintage 4-string Fender Precision passive with magnetic pickups and flatwound strings.

Nothing to worry about there, then.

Sod it!

If it doesn't sound right I'll just whack the volume up.

:brow:

Edited July 6, 2009 by Happy Jack

[Lfalex v1.1]

And if you have a Trace head with the good 'ol EQ balance knob, bypass the graphic and use that.
Subtle but effective, especially with light use of the on-board compressor.