Welcome to Tone Tuesday, a new feature here at MinorLeagueRocker.com! Every Tuesday, I’m going to offer some advice or just get on my soapbox about what I consider good guitar tone. Today, I’m going to talk about how to EQ your amp.
These days, metal guitarists want to sound HEAVY. That means they usually crank the gain and the bass knob, and turn the mids way down. In your bedroom, this will sound cool. It will sound like thousands of Tony Iommis churning out molten riffs in the caldera of an active volcano.
Onstage, with a bassist and possibly another guitarist, this will sound like honey-roasted poop chute. Sorry, old bean, but there it is.
I love gain. Distortion makes me swoon. Heaviness … I live for it. But there’s a better way to do it. Ease off the gain just a touch, and you’ll hear greater definition come back into your playing. If you use triads, you’ll hear each individual note come through better.
Now, let’s talk about that Bass control. Don’t crank that up. If you do that, your tone will blend in with the bassist. Your frequencies will blend together and produce a spongey mess. Ease back on that Bass knob, and look for the one labeled “Mid.” Those Mid frequencies will help you cut through the mix, and will separate your tone from the bassist’s. I know a lot of guitarists think lots of bass + scooped mids = HEAVY. But the low end is your bassist’s job. I promise your band will sound better if you use these frequencies wisely.
Now let’s say you have two guitars in your band … you guys need to work together. Consider the type of wood in your guitars, the distortion character of your amps, the output of your pickups. Do your best to occupy difference frequencies in the spectrum. In Hung Dynasty, Todd uses a mahogany guitar through a dark-sounding Mesa F-100 (a wonderful amp, by the way). I use a swamp ash guitar through a brighter-sounding Fryette Deliverance 60. He sets his guitar up to have a little less middle-end, where I boost mine quite a bit. Neither of us pile on the low frequencies, because that’s where Chris the Bassist lives. I also dial in a touch more top end.
The result? We sound like three distinct instrument with their own characters. My leads punch through the mix nicely. The bass and the rhythm guitar synch perfectly. And when we all play the same riff in unison? Oh, it’s a pants-shrinking eargasm. I can’t wait to record with our current gear. It’s gonna sound beautiful!
So, to some up: Don’t scoop your mids. Be smart with the bass frequency. And you might, just might, have a tiny bit too much gain. This might sound weird, but you should aim to make your guitar and amp sound good with the band, rather than good by itself.
