Anyone into 'Extreme' EQ'ing their guitars/amp ?

[Rockstar216]

Re: Anyone into 'Extreme' EQ'ing their guitars/amp ?

That picture made me feel completely and totally inadequate. I'll admit openly that when I gig with my fender amps, I usually just EQ flat, and set the pedals to where I want the tone to be for different drive sounds, and then I just mess with the tone know on the guitar.

I guess I'm a few years back on this newfangled trend.

I use to EQ my amp flat till I sat down in front of the speaker one day and it sounded awful like a blanket over my speaker. Now when I EQ I go for clarity from all pups with lil gain to max gain. Now when I roll back on my vol it cleans up even better now now that I have my EQ dialed in and still sounds good and cuts when the gain is real high.

 

[phil_104]

Re: Anyone into 'Extreme' EQ'ing their guitars/amp ?

I use to EQ my amp flat till I sat down in front of the speaker one day and it sounded awful like a blanket over my speaker. Now when I EQ I go for clarity from all pups with lil gain to max gain. Now when I roll back on my vol it cleans up even better now now that I have my EQ dialed in and still sounds good and cuts when the gain is real high.

I use to do that with my amps when I had my Mesa rigs. I'd get a good 20-30 patch and play in front of the amp, and then I'd tweak, and tweak, and tweak. I just don't see the use with my current rig, but I am very happy with what's coming out of that speaker. I found that I spent more time doing EQ work when I played for myself, and that in the band setting, just sitting at that mid-range with clear highs space works for me.

 

[Grindspine]

Re: Anyone into 'Extreme' EQ'ing their guitars/amp ?

Didn't Dimebag Darrel do something similar to that effect with his rig?

If memory serves, he used wah pedals and flangers in front of a rack containing a Furman PQ-4 parametric EQ. He would use the wah as wah, but he did use the Furman parametric EQ to help shape the distortion characteristics.

Is that what you're meaning?

 

[Rockstar216]

Re: Anyone into 'Extreme' EQ'ing their guitars/amp ?

If memory serves, he used wah pedals and flangers in front of a rack containing a Furman PQ-4 parametric EQ. He would use the wah as wah, but he did use the Furman parametric EQ to help shape the distortion characteristics.

Is that what you're meaning?

That might be it I just remember either reading or hearing somewhere he used a EQ in front and and in the back to some effect but I don't really recall. I just know it takes more then a Randall and Bill lawrence to get his tone. His tone was great in the early days but towards the end I think it started to suffer and sound really thin and shrill on the top end.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Anyone into 'Extreme' EQ'ing their guitars/amp ?

I already do use something similar in my guitar rack, actually. It's a Digitech TSR-12 that I run my ADA MP-1 into. Since the MP-1 has a pretty limited EQ, and to help with tone-shaping, the TSR-12's 15-band graphic EQ comes in mighty handy for dialing in tones that are closer to the various CDs I might play along to, from CCR to Sabbath to Metallica. I use it basically for an over-achieving speaker simulator.

A unit like the one pictured would be better suited for a fixed installation, like a church or other in-house system that you would do one main adjustment on to control feedback and otherwise "room tuning" for the p.a.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Anyone into 'Extreme' EQ'ing their guitars/amp ?

Guys, can something like that EQ unit be used in the amp's FX loop ?

Yes, since in most amps the Send comes out after the preamp section (Gain, Vol, EQ), and the Return comes in straight to the poweramp (where the built-in EQ would have no effect).

You would have the option of either flatlining the amp's EQ and relying solely on the external unit for EQ, or you could use them together.

However, in a band situation, I'm going to call that much EQ overkill, because you'll either step on someone else's toes or be buried.

If it's a stereo/dual-mono unit (left input feeds to left output, right input to right output), then either 2 guitars or 1 guitar/ 1 bass could use each half of it, just to make it easier to fit them in a mix together, but the ideal use for it is as a main EQ for a p.a. system.