EQ'ing Guitar Tips?

[Humidfume]

Hey guys what's up?

I have a somewhat, "busy" request, but I think that it will benefit everyone on the forum at the same time.

I've been really struggling to get the guitars to just sit in the mix ya know? So I was wondering / hoping that anyone capable of creating decent mixes would be able to record or even break apart a song they currently have.

It's one thing getting a sound when you know what your after, but when you don't even know what you're looking for...well that's when it gets slightly more complex and difficult.

So to summarise:

5 Recordings,

Raw recording (No EQ, no pan)
EQ'ed version (no effects)
EQ and Effects version (EQ, Compressor, Reverb if any etc)
Final version with (1, 2 or 4 etc) guitars Panned L and R (EQ, Effects and Pan)
In the mix version (finished and how it sounds in the mix with everything)


I would really really owe you guys big time if you could hook both myself and the community up with this.


Many, many thanks in advance!


Joe

(I'll post my results too)

 

[greyskull]

annoying answer, but it depends on the source and the style of music.
That said; in the heat of the moment it's very easy to track guitars a little dark, so i often find im dipping a little low mid between 250-500, and maybe cutting a nasty spike at 2-3k and possibly boosting 4-7 k with a smoother eq to help cut through the mix. all depends really.

 

[Line Level Recordings]

 

[Humidfume]

annoying answer, but it depends on the source and the style of music.
That said; in the heat of the moment it's very easy to track guitars a little dark, so i often find im dipping a little low mid between 250-500, and maybe cutting a nasty spike at 2-3k and possibly boosting 4-7 k with a smoother eq to help cut through the mix. all depends really.

Alright man, we play progressive groove metal I guess... so there's not much in the likes of constant double bass, I think that's why we're able to get away with an acoustic drum setup as opposed to triggers.

Would you recommend side chaining the kick and bass or just one EQ that cuts the place where the kick needs to be?

 

[Harry Hughes]

Hang on, you play groove metal but there is not much double kick drum going on? I'm sure I just read something wrong here, because that whole genre revolves partly around the furious-ness of double kick drums. Never heard a single groove metal band in my life without that

But if you're wanting tips, typically to get a guitar sitting in the mix, you may end up cutting a bit around 750-900Hz, and sometimes a bit above 1Khz too.
Bass guitar takes up some of that frequency range too, so sometimes it's handy to cut a bit from there to provide a little room for the bass.
6.5-7Khz is good for providing a bit of air to the guitar tone, but that can rather QUICKLY turn into horrible, ear piercing fizz. Too little and the tone sounds muffled and lacks air, so be very careful.
If you're having to boost those frequencies I'd say chances are you were tracking too dark in the first place.
A lot of the guitar tone brightness is centered around 4-4.5Khz I find (in modern, good productions anyway, not in the ancient Metallica records that were full of horrible higher frequency than that fizz ), so sometimes you can safely boost that area, but too much and it gets a bit harsh, but certainly not as badly as the 6.5-7Khz zone.
There is also a bunch of pick attack frequencies, somewhere above 2Khz, which you can play with, depending on what you want. Sometimes it needs to be cut, other times not, other times boosted, just whatever you're looking for

Around 200-400Hz is a pain in the ass, because too much and you start getting that cloudy build up effect which rather quickly muddies up the entire mix, which can result in masking some of the higher frequencies in the process.
Be careful with it, because it has to balance well with the bass guitar.

You're probably already aware but most of the stuff below 100Hz in garbage and useless for the typical stuff a Sneap forumite is going for (and indeed a lot of rock anyway really), and just let the bass guitar cover that sub bass.
Just above that is mid bass, which you can have a little bit of in the guitar, but you MOSTLY want the bass guitar to cover that.

I'd post up clips now, but I really cannot be bothered at the moment because it's getting late and I'm tired, but might do so later.

 

[Humidfume]

Hang on, you play groove metal but there is not much double kick drum going on? I'm sure I just read something wrong here, because that whole genre revolves partly around the furious-ness of double kick drums. Never heard a single groove metal band in my life without that

through to

I'd post up clips now, but I really cannot be bothered at the moment because it's getting late and I'm tired, but might do so later.

1, Pantera man, Rage Against The Machine, Haji's Kitchen etc, I'm not saying we DON'T full stop ever use double bass (I'm referring to domination by Pantera etc..constant kicks) of course we do, like you said it's a part of the sound in general...

But we're not a typical run of the mill groove metal band in my opinion.. think more like White Zombie crossed with Pantera and Opeth.. it's more about that build up to a jumpy riff rather than say Nile where every song is almost 100 percent dadadadadadadada on the kicks.

It's just more varied than a typical riff here constant double bass... Pantera never did that, or Rage.. they both have loads of different styles / variety in there.. Cowboys has like one riff I think right at the end with constant double bass.. there arn't THAT many which are typical left-right-left-right on the feet.

2, Thanks for the tips man, I'll try it out now and also I'd really appreciate those clips bro!

So once agian thanks alot for taking time out of your life to help me (and others) with this, I understand that it's something not everyone has either the will or time to do.


Joe