EQing electric guitar tracks

Need a helping hand to make sure you do it right, first time? Got some good advice to pass on, so no-one makes the same mistakes you did? This is your forum.
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Armistice
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EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by Armistice »

So I was listening to a tune I was halfway through finishing but hadn't looked at in a while, and it has, as usual, lots of guitars on it - probably 4 going at a minimum at any one time - a pair of doubles and two other melody tracks, and I was thinking, "Hey, not bad rough mix there - obviously I've gone in and done some EQing"...

Except I hadn't. So it seems I'm finally learning to judge correct enough EQ on the way in for some of these "guitar heavy" songs.

Now it still needed a bit of thinning out in the 300-500 Hz area, but it wasn't at all bad and what was required was quite minimal.

Seems I'm finally getting the hang of it after all these years. :lollers:
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JD01
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by JD01 »

I never EQ and guitars in the DAW. Would barely know where to start anyway. With all the help I've had on here mixing I seem to have my guitars and now my bass close to where I want them so they seem to play fairly nicely as they are.

I EQ my vocal, but that's just guesswork, making a narrow cut and moving it around until I find the annoying clash.
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Bubba
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by Bubba »

JD01 wrote: Mon May 15, 2017 3:37 am I never EQ and guitars in the DAW. Would barely know where to start anyway. With all the help I've had on here mixing I seem to have my guitars and now my bass close to where I want them so they seem to play fairly nicely as they are.

I EQ my vocal, but that's just guesswork, making a narrow cut and moving it around until I find the annoying clash.
Even when I get my raw track very close to what I want I ALWAYS EQ them. I tend to low shelf them a bit so they don't muddy up with the bass guitar and they often get a fairly wide but shallow hump in the hi mids centred around 3k. It just helps with bringing out the texture and detail. It never adds fizz, unless there was some there to begin with, which there never is with my rig.
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JD01
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by JD01 »

It's probably something I'll look at on some of my better mixes. Once I've installed the Mutt P'up. Fizz isn't normally something I have to worry about either. It's just mud!
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Greg_L
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by Greg_L »

Armistice wrote: Mon May 15, 2017 3:16 am So I was listening to a tune I was halfway through finishing but hadn't looked at in a while, and it has, as usual, lots of guitars on it - probably 4 going at a minimum at any one time - a pair of doubles and two other melody tracks, and I was thinking, "Hey, not bad rough mix there - obviously I've gone in and done some EQing"...

Except I hadn't. So it seems I'm finally learning to judge correct enough EQ on the way in for some of these "guitar heavy" songs.

Now it still needed a bit of thinning out in the 300-500 Hz area, but it wasn't at all bad and what was required was quite minimal.

Seems I'm finally getting the hang of it after all these years. :lollers:
That's good. Obviously the ideal scenario is to record any track of anything and have it not need any EQ. But there's nothing wrong with a little massage to get it better if need be. The problem is when people track something thinking "well I'm gonna EQ it anyway" or they have some silly blanket EQ rule they do to every track every time.
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JD01
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by JD01 »

A lot of the time when I have a mix that I think is good/finished like some of more recent ones, I just haven't thought that I might be able to make them sound better with a bit of EQ. I suppose I should try really just to see what happens even though I'm not looking for anything in particular.
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Bubba
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by Bubba »

Greg_L wrote: Mon May 15, 2017 7:42 am
Armistice wrote: Mon May 15, 2017 3:16 am So I was listening to a tune I was halfway through finishing but hadn't looked at in a while, and it has, as usual, lots of guitars on it - probably 4 going at a minimum at any one time - a pair of doubles and two other melody tracks, and I was thinking, "Hey, not bad rough mix there - obviously I've gone in and done some EQing"...

Except I hadn't. So it seems I'm finally learning to judge correct enough EQ on the way in for some of these "guitar heavy" songs.

Now it still needed a bit of thinning out in the 300-500 Hz area, but it wasn't at all bad and what was required was quite minimal.

Seems I'm finally getting the hang of it after all these years. :lollers:
The problem is when people track something thinking "well I'm gonna EQ it anyway" or they have some silly blanket EQ rule they do to every track every time.
Ha ha, yes. I remember mjbphotos once saying he always hi-passed his guitars, every time. And you were like "WTF? You don't even listen to them first?" And sticking a compressor on everything as a matter of course. Who does that? I compress the bass, sure. I compress the vocals, natch. Drums benefit from it used in the right way but guitars? Hardly ever.

Retarded.
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Greg_L
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by Greg_L »

Bubba wrote: Mon May 15, 2017 7:50 am

Ha ha, yes. I remember mjbphotos once saying he always hi-passed his guitars, every time. And you were like "WTF? You don't even listen to them first?" And sticking a compressor on everything as a matter of course. Who does that? I compress the bass, sure. I compress the vocals, natch. Drums benefit from it used in the right way but guitars? Hardly ever.

Retarded.
Right. Compression and EQ. The most overused and abused processes in home recording.
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by vomitHatSteve »

Bubba wrote: Mon May 15, 2017 7:50 am
Greg_L wrote: Mon May 15, 2017 7:42 am

The problem is when people track something thinking "well I'm gonna EQ it anyway" or they have some silly blanket EQ rule they do to every track every time.
Ha ha, yes. I remember mjbphotos once saying he always hi-passed his guitars, every time. And you were like "WTF? You don't even listen to them first?" And sticking a compressor on everything as a matter of course. Who does that? I compress the bass, sure. I compress the vocals, natch. Drums benefit from it used in the right way but guitars? Hardly ever.

Retarded.
I use a ton of compression on my guitars! My favorite compressor is the high gain channel on my amp. :D

I usually end up EQing almost everything. If not the individual instruments, at least the main bus for all the guitars or whatever.
Farview
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by Farview »

Most of the time the only eq I need on guitars is adding some high shelf. This assumes I recorded the guitars. I purposely record dark sounding guitar tones.

When other people send me stuff, I do what is necessary.
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Greg_L
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by Greg_L »

Farview wrote: Mon May 15, 2017 12:31 pm Most of the time the only eq I need on guitars is adding some high shelf. This assumes I recorded the guitars. I purposely record dark sounding guitar tones.
I think that's a pretty good approach with high gain tones.
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Tadpui
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by Tadpui »

I've been thinking about this lately too. My guitar tracks always tend to come out really dark sounding. And since guitar is my primary instrument, I tend to have a lot of guitars in my mixes. A lot of dark guitar tracks in a guitar-heavy mix means a dark sounding mix. My Torpedo seems to make this problem even worse...it's got a definite hi-frequency tone suck going on. I've been discouraged lately so I haven't been playing with it much.
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miroslav
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by miroslav »

I use to record guitars pretty dark...but kinda adjusted that over the years.
Depends on how many guitar tracks, too.
Most recent mix has 4 rhythm guitar tracks. So when I recorded them, I kept that in mind, and recorded two darker, two brighter, to with less crunch, two with more...etc.
During the mixing...I just touch up the low-mids and the upper end, but nothing heavy.
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by Minerman »

I used to high/low pass all my guitars, but I was using ampsims at the time...I'd do this trying to kill the fizz ampsims usually have with a lot of gain & trying to give the bass it's own space...

After a couple/few years of trial/error, I've finally learned how to get close to where I wanna be with mic placement & the amp's eq...For the longest time, my amp'd tracks were bright/brittle/harsh, until I finally figured out the treble/presence knobs turn down too :biggrin: ...

I always seem to need a little notch around 300hz though, seems all my guitars have a low-mid hump I have to eq, no matter what guitar, amp, speaker/cab or mic I use, it's always there...
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Farview
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by Farview »

I found that setting the amp up bright will make the speakers break up differently. It tends to make them more harsh sounding. If you break the speakers up with lows and lower mids, the breakup is smoother and you can add a ton of high shelf without getting any harsh or fizzy stuff.

My mixes do tend more towards the slick side of things, so ymmv.
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liv_rong
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Re: EQing electric guitar tracks

Post by liv_rong »

I know nothing about any of this, just stumble around.
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