bass/treble/mids

bluesfloyd

bluesfloyd

New member
hi guys,
i read through a lot of posts on this forum etc, and hear the term scopping the mids, or doing things with the mids, it seem that your hears work in a certain way and the mids on your guitar gear needs to be set correct, i stress i am new to this guitar stuff, so could you guys please explain because this mids thing is not clear to me,

all the best, bluesfloyd,
 
Re: bass/treble/mids

It's not just our ears, it's everyone's. Midrange frequencies (about 200Hz to 7000Hz) are the ones we need to identify intelligibility. As you grow older, by dint of age or abuse, everyone loses the ability to hear the frequency extremes. I know my own hearing taps out at around 17k, which is good considering my mileage. :)

Altering the midrange content of your guitar tone drastically changes how it sounds and fits in a mix.

'Scooped MUDs' refers to a guitar tone w very little middle midrange info (500Hz - 2.5kHz).

Best thing to do is experiment and see for yourself. Spoken word and iTunes EQ can be a great test bed for playing with midrange frequencies.
 
Re: bass/treble/mids

Your guitar and singer are in the same range
Scooping the mids makes an auditory hole for the singer to fit into

That's why those metal bands do it
Cough Metalica Cough

Your guitar tone suffers but the bands mix is less muddy

*(Sent from my durned phone!)*
 
Re: bass/treble/mids

None of this is rocket science and there aren't any rules.

Turn the knobs to hear what they do. Adjust them until the guitar sounds good.
 
Re: bass/treble/mids

Don't be afraid to twist turn your knobs to their extremes from 10 to 0 and play for a bit and see how they sound and react with each other. Also just a little FYI the louder the volume the EQ changes a bit as well as what we hear.

It also gets more confusing when we start trying to describe certain frequencies. One persons "Ice pick" may be another persons "shimmery highs".

Me i'm a person who likes brightness and clarity in my tone so i'm not scared to ramp up the treble knob a bit.
 
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Re: bass/treble/mids

Rockstar216 said:
It also gets more confusing when we start trying to describe certain frequencies. One persons "Ice pick" may be another persons "shimmery highs".
Click to expand...

Subjectivity aside, I think there is a difference between what most people think of as "ice pick" versus "shimmering highs". I think "ice pick" describes an EQ profile that peaks at a higher frequency with a lot of amplitude, and then drops off sharply (mountain shaped curve), where as "shimmering highs" would be an EQ curve that increases in amplitude at high frequencies, but remains higher in amplitude as the frequency continues to increase, like a gradual up hill ascent.

If you mess around with a 10 band EQ on an audio system, you can hear this first hand. Pushing all of the treble bands up results in added presence and clarity, but if you just push one particular frequency up, it's very "ice pick".

A lot of people say Texas Specials have an ice pick sound, and I noticed it did have a lower peak resonance with a higher amplitude than other Strat pickups, so that made perfect sense.
 
Re: bass/treble/mids

hi guys,
thanks for the above posts, on my amp i only have a treble and bass control, so i guess thats why guitar players have a EQ pedal in there chain for that added control over there sound,
all the best, bluesfloyd
 
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Re: bass/treble/mids

My 69 bassman only has treble & bass... My micro terror only has a tone knob. Both of them sound as good or better than lots of amps with mids knobs.
 
Re: bass/treble/mids

Doh! I stand corrected. But every amp has to have some feature, whether it be a tone knob or whatever else, that brings in some type of mid frequency.
 
Re: bass/treble/mids

My amp only has bass and treble as well. I always looked at it as the amp mids were permanently set at 10.
 
Re: bass/treble/mids

ehdwuld said:
Probably 12 noon

*(Sent from my durned phone!)*
Click to expand...

For my own knowledge why would it be as if it was set to noon? The amp has passive controls so the pots will only cut. There is a fixed resistor in place of a mid knob which is all the mids you are going to get. Similar to a pot being set at 10.

Am I missing something?
 
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Re: bass/treble/mids

if your bassman did have a mids knob, it would just be a potentiometer replacing the mids resistor. Most older fender amps like that, you can safely assume that the mids are set at 5 out of 10 (or 6 out of 12 in the case of fender amps). You could increase or decrease the amount of mids by decreasing or increasing the value of the resistor. However there is a much easier (better) and non invasive way to control your treb/mid/bass mix:

Turn your bass and treble knobs down to zero. Turn up your volume until you are happy with the throaty, thick sound and its attendant volume. There is your mids level done. The way fender tone stacks work, the sound you have will actually be a flat frequency response across the whole spectrum.

Then add bass and treble to taste. In the case of your amp, your bass and treble knobs only ADD to whatever you have set your flat volume at, so you will find that you wont need much of bass or treble to get a significant change in sound - even setting the bass at one or two will give you a pretty fat sound.
 
Re: bass/treble/mids

^^ Of course, if you have an amp with an active tone stack like my Carvin, this will work differently. Then the eq is flat with all the tone knobs at 5. Raising or lowering them actively boosts or cuts the frequency selected.
 
Re: bass/treble/mids

ericmeyer4 said:
Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

This

gibson175 said:
if your bassman did have a mids knob, it would just be a potentiometer replacing the mids resistor. Most older fender amps like that, you can safely assume that the mids are set at 5 out of 10 (or 6 out of 12 in the case of fender amps). You could increase or decrease the amount of mids by decreasing or increasing the value of the resistor. However there is a much easier (better) and non invasive way to control your treb/mid/bass mix:

Turn your bass and treble knobs down to zero. Turn up your volume until you are happy with the throaty, thick sound and its attendant volume. There is your mids level done. The way fender tone stacks work, the sound you have will actually be a flat frequency response across the whole spectrum.

Then add bass and treble to taste. In the case of your amp, your bass and treble knobs only ADD to whatever you have set your flat volume at, so you will find that you wont need much of bass or treble to get a significant change in sound - even setting the bass at one or two will give you a pretty fat sound.
Click to expand...

Demanic said:
^^ Of course, if you have an amp with an active tone stack like my Carvin, this will work differently. Then the eq is flat with all the tone knobs at 5. Raising or lowering them actively boosts or cuts the frequency selected.
Click to expand...



*(Sent from my durned phone!)*
 
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