How do YOU eq your amp?

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zRobertez
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How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by zRobertez »

Not necessarily the oclock positions of the knobs but... like whats dat toan you goin fo and how you gettin it? Does anyone have a system to how they turn them knobs?

My thought process usually goes but not restricted to:
  • MIDS. LOTS OF MIDS.
  • Enough bass to feel it but low enough to never be all that bassy/boomy
  • I like a not clean signal. I add gain until you can barely hear any clipping when you play suuuuper soft. But any above that, there is od
  • and then I take out the treble until it sounds lofi enough for me to be :)

I like to think Im getting tones similar to that of Amnesiac. but not quiiiiite as dark and with more gain
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by kosta »

I'm about like you, but with a little bit more clean headroom. Treble rolled off a bit, mids bumped up a bit, bass bumped up a bit more. Presence and reverb usually rolled all the way off (on my Fender Blues Deluxe.)
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by Ghost Hip »

Depends really. I usually keep presence set a little past mid-way. Treble is usually below middle, because I want people to actually hear what I am playing, not how much their ears are bleeding. Bass is set mid way, if I am in a four piece... if I am in a three piece I bump it up a bit. Mids I set depending on who I am playing with, usually around 8/12 though.

Honestly most of my EQ is done through a pre amp pedal like my Sparkle Motion or Mini Overdrive. Thats where the definitive "sound" comes from. The EQ on my amp is to fine tune that sound, and make sure I am not invading the bass frequencies or the other guitarist's space in the mix.... which is difficult because she mainly uses a nyc Big Muff. (she has a TAFM, Ab-synth, and a Devi US... I see the ab synth on her board every now and then.)
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by MannequinRaces »

My amp has one knob, volume. Everything else is controlled by pedals and my guitar's tone knob. I hope to one day get the EQD Tone Job pedal to surgically EQ my sound even further to my liking. Since I normally record my guitar knowing it will be getting mixed with other instruments I normally roll off the bass.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by whiskey_face »

bass max mids max volume max treble ALWAYS less then half.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by sylnau »

Like that:
amp.JPG


Reverb knob is at the back... it's around 10 'O clock.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by Ryan »

I set them as clean as possible with eq at the middle and a nice touch of reverb if they have it.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by coldbrightsunlight »

Depends what I'm doing. Low volume bass is medium, mids HIGH and treble high-ish, pedals make a lot of my tone. Often I play gigs where I just crank my amp to OD territory though, and then it's more like bass 10 o' clock, mids 3, treble 12 o' clock.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by Achtane »

For bass,
Mids all the way unless the control is so powerful that it starts to sound like a 60's car speaker, in which case it's allowed to be turned down. A little.
Lows gotta be emphasized but not booming unless I'm playing with mudbuckers where it's par for the course.
Highs, whatever, noon or slightly above/below noon. Depends on what the dirt is; I don't like it sounding too sizzly.
I set my EQ like I would if I were playing with other instruments 'cause I don't wanna get caught in the trap of scooped mids or disappear when the time comes to record or play with someone else.
Bass has gotta be HUGE but with articulate enough mids and without overpowering the range that the higher-pitched instruments would occupy. In my head, anyway.

For guitar I just lower the bass, pump the mids like always, maybe set the highs a little past noon.

Either way I can't stand zingy-sounding strings unless the intent is to make ugly toanz. Then it's cool.
All of this is subject to change on a whim, I'm not as anal about it as this post looks.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by bigchiefbc »

Bass and guitar are both EQ'd the same for me. Mids are always maxed out, bass about halfway, treble a bit lower, presence a bit higher. My amp is non-master-volume, so I set the volume right at that point where soft notes are cleanish and hard notes are dirty. If I want more dirt I either use a pedal, or crank the volume up to almost max and use a power soak to bring the volume back down to normal.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by toonhollow »

My amp is a bit bright for my tastes so rolling back on the treble is a must, plus mids are a little more than noon and bass a little less than noon. Set slightly dirty, and if I need more push there's an Arc Gamut and/or Pharaoh.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by rustywire »

By ear.

First I find the sweetspot on the toneknob on the instrument I'm using.
My #1 guitar has 2 volume knobs, 1 tone. The Volumes commonly rest around 7-8 but get rolled up to 10 for a boost.
Tone can be anywhere from 1-9, but it typically stays wherever it's set. For a while, anyway.

I have a pretty good stash of pre-amp tubes and change things up every so often.
Anytime this happens, I reset my amp's knobs...luckily there are only 3: Volume, Treble, Bass.
They then get dialed in to where the harmonics ring (to my satisfaction) around the 12th fret area.
That's with the amp just starting to break up. Then breaking up. Then with the preamp hit by a booster.

When the amp begins to breakup without really having to dig in; I give the Volume knob a nudge more.

Then with that base tone/dirt platform, dirt pedals get blended in via similar method.
From there, it's prettymuch set and forget...aside for the tweaker effects (typically modulation and delay time)

Plus now the Infinity looper's MV is great for attenuating gained-out fuzz tones and blending multiple types of dirt; and extra useful for taming any unwanted oscillation and harshness while retaining even reverse-fuzz tone.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by dubkitty »

for guitar, bass all the way up, mids (when present) about 7, treble usually about 5 or 6. on the Kalamazoo, which is titularly a "Bass 30," bass all the way up and treble at 8 or 9. i actually use more treble on bass than guitar. i spent years in my youth playing Fender-style ideas on an ES-335, and as a result developed a very trebly style of picking and fingering which requires me to back off the treble knob. after decades of exposure i've also come to despise the over-toppy "Americana" style exemplified by Robbie Robertson and which too many guitarists of my g-g-g-generation still cling to in part because it makes up for their high-end hearing loss.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by Bon Hoga »

I play a bari into a Laney/Marshall half stack and a Marshall/Trace Elliot full stack. The bass side is slightly scooped while the mids and treble are slightly boosted on the guitar side.
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Re: How do YOU eq your amp?

Post by Greenfuz »

the old school garage 60s way


with an amp with no eq
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