Saturday, April 5, 2025
GuitarGuitar Effects

Is EQ confusing to you? This may help


Describing EQ for guitar purposes:

00:00 All About EQ
2:08 80 hz: thump/rumble
3:09 125hz-150hz: bass (guitar)
3:56 300-400hz: fullness (also, mud)
4:36 650-800hz: lower mids
5:27 1000-1200hz: higher mids
5:59 2.2k – 2.8khz: lower treble
6:43 5k-6khz: higher treble
7:32 8khz: presence/clarity/sizzle
8:23 10khz: “air”
9:13 Using a DeEsser or multi-band compression instead of EQ

#confusing

Originally posted by UCdVrg4Wl3vjIxonABn6RfWw at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azkCmRGWjuo

45 thoughts on “Is EQ confusing to you? This may help

  • This is a phenomenal explanation that very clearly demonstrates the effects different bands have. Thank you so much for making this video

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  • Well I didn’t see your previous video on the subject that you say you didn’t do a very good job with but this made up for whatever was lacking. Well done! Even I can understand this one! Thank you sir ????????

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  • I have a 10 band near the front of my chain, after vibe, fuzz, and compression. My idea is to alter the tone of the guitar prior to going through the signal chain. It can simulate pickups with a different EQ structure and output, which is great when you're working with a limited arsenal.

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  • Thanks a lot been fighting a lot of unwanted highs so finally brook down and bought a eq pedal dropped the 3.2 and 6.4 down a little and sounds a lot better to me anyway

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  • Please make one! I'd love to see a high-quality, multi-band MINI pedal… a design challenge I'm sure. But I've been searching for one… of quality… You da man. Rock on!

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  • This is only a year later, but I just wanted to add, dont buy an MXR 10 band eq pedal. I had one. It works wonderfully, but it has these 12 blue LED's that are so bright they stain your soul blue. Holy crap i hated those lights. I went down to the crossroads and traded that pedal back to Slick, but he was keeping the blue parts of my soul. I only have a little left, and he didnt give me any of those Robert Johnson skills, so I am just not very good at the art of the deal or guitar, but at least I don't have those blue spotlights on my board burning me anymore.

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  • A little late to the party here, but. I use one of my Boss EQ-7s first in line as a pickup output compensator. I use several od/dist pedals, sometimes individually, sometimes stacked. I go into a clean amp or amp IR into my DAW interface. It’s a lot of work for me getting the various gains and levels on the pedals where I’m happy with how they all play together. When I switch to a different guitar with different pickups (hb/ sc) it interacts differently with all my various painstakingly set pedal gains and levels, and the amp tone and volume. Presently I have set everything to work with PAF type pickups as my bench-mark. So when I switch to a Strat/Tele I raise the EQ level (and adjust bands accordingly) to match the PAF output until I am hearing the same gain and level volumes. Or if I switch to a guitar with hotter pickups I lower the EQ level to match. It’s very easy for me to adjust one EQ pedal than adjust several of/dist pedals. I hope this is helpful to someone!

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  • and now I know how to use a DeEsser. great video. I love the use of the daw tools as well. More of these videos are most welcome

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  • I have the mxr 10 band and I love it. (secret weapon really). your video gave me so much info. I could see and hear what your doing as I sat w the pedal in front of me. FYI if you diddnt know? the mxr 10 band ranges from 31.25 all the way to 16k! After watching this video i feel that this eq is huge! thank you!

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  • I was kinda hopping you were doing this to preview your new Wampler D'ESER Pedal! 😀 Very informative video sir! Thank you!

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  • Hi Brian… I know this was posted a year ago but I just wanted to say Thank You!!
    Reminded me why I needed to put my EQ pedal back on my board ????????
    Still not sure where it would be best placed in the chain?
    Like you demonstrated, and if I was mixing, it would be at the end, before Delay & Reverb.
    Any words of wisdom??
    Thanks,
    John

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  • Thank you very much for this video. It is going to be my foundation to understand and search for my tone. Your former video was really good in order of the uses of an EQ pedal.

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  • The TC Electronic multi band compressor pedal can be used in the way Brian uses the De-Esser. You have to play around with custom tone prints to do it. I’ve had it on my board for 2 years to soften telecaster ice pick transients. It’s brilliant.

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  • Really good video. Just laying down facts there. Why is this at 55k when toan myth videos reach 6 digit views. Guitar players are some of the most stupid people on this planet believing myths over science.

    Yes you should make one!

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  • I read somewhere that those little cables that connect 2 stomp boxes are bad. I use them sometimes, but was curious how true that is

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  • Whenever you reach for that EQ control to add anything above 7 to 8K…Please remember, the average guitar speaker doesn"t reproduce anything above 7K very well. Look at a frequency chart of the speaker you are using… Also, most microphones that are used in live situations, SM57, Beyer M160, Royer ribbon, Have a pronounced rolloff starting at about 8K…On the Low side of your EQ, get rid of most of that stuff below 80 Hz…the lowest string on a conventionally tuned guitar is about 82 Hz. Boosting these low frequencies will make your amp work harder to reproduce those low tones, and you will make your guitar speaker speaker work to produce tones it was never designed to reproduce, not to mention redice the useful life of your guitar amp speaker…

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