Thursday, March 19, 2026

32 thoughts on “Why guitarists often get EQ wrong #ytshorts

  • This is stuff us church players need more knowledge on… usually all volunteers playing and on the mixer too front of house

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  • Everytime i have played live, my drummer used to take that eq pedal and bump up the upper mids. It sounds shrill and nasally when playing alone but in the mix, its amazing.

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  • Or make sure the players don't drown you out, as well as have not only one helluva sound system but phenomenal sound engineers. A perfect example of this is the Meshuggah concert I saw just the other day at the Kia forum

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  • That’s why Deep Purple’s Machine Head album sounds so fantastically clear and open. Blackmore’s guitar sounds quite jangly and tinny on its own, but between the B3, the drums, the bass and the vocals, it just fits. It cuts through like a knife. And with the Hammond panned to the left and Blackmore to the right, you get this mix where all the instrument are loud and clear, even in the louder cacaphonic passages. Great stuff.

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  • This calculus was a large part of my final decision when I was buying an acoustic guitar a few years ago. Joe explains it far more eloquently, but in short I figured that when I played in a group jam with my friends, they all have dreadnoughts, so why would I want to play on another dreadnought? I bought a Martin GPC instead so that my guitar would stand out in that “mix”.

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  • “Bedroom tone” – when you crank the lows & highs and roll off all the mids, and it sounds amazing while jamming by yourself. Well that tone sounds terrible when playing with other musicians via live or recorded

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  • That’s why mesa boogie amplifiers sound great in the store by themselves but on a bandstand not so much…

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  • I leave this to the mixing board. Because in my opinion, the gain structure of the amp sounds different depending how the tone stack is set so I set my amp so I like the sound and feel and then the frequency content can be further carved in the recording process or by the front of house.

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  • Funny that he's saying this while holding a Les Paul, because what he's talking about is everything Fenders are good for, and Gibson's are bad for.

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  • To get around some of that I fit into my space and not somebody else's. I don't play loud rhythm guitar and I play intermittent chords to highlight just the chord changes during the keyboard players solos. Dynamics is #1 with me and trying to get the band to come down as quiet as I want them when we drop the bottom out of it I'm still working on but were getting there.

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  • A lot of good and great musicians who play with other musicians understand this pretty well I think. But Joe takes it that extra Full Queen Nerd step and starts spewing megahertz ranges. Yes, man, yes!

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  • No way man. Stack overdrives into a modern high gain amp. Make sure everything's dimed at all times. That's where real men live. Ceramic or active ceramic humbuckers only. Chugga chugga. Don't touch them 4 potentiometers the guitar is equipped with either. Have your tech wire a direct out curcuit.
    You could be like Eddie then.
    Peace.

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  • This is so true, and if your band runs digital rigs- so easy to fix. Just go into each player's IR and there's a low and hi pass filter- set them both- one caps the bottom, the other the top- and it puts you into the frequency band you've selected. It also helps if the drummer is using an electronic trap set- that allows him to set the frequency band each drum will live in. It allows all of you to do this and not step on one another- and when you get it setup perfectly- you sound so good live it's unreal. If you then learn to side chain some compression in, some ducking, etc.- you can sound so good live ppl will swear it's recorded.

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  • Then proceeds to play a Les Paul, the most hamburger toned guitar around, drowned out by drums, bass, keyboards, and the kitchen sink. ????????????????????

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