Equalizing an amplifier

[Egon]

Recently I've been learning the My arms, your hearse album from beginning to end, however its not the riffs that confuse me. I suck at EQing Amps when I shred. Sometimes I get a crisp metal distortion and sometimes I get an extremely over-saturated crunch. What are the universal settings on most amps to give me that oh-so-sweet power metal sound? A good example of the distortion I'm shooting for is whenever there is harmonization on the my arms... album. Thanks.

 

[[KOTNO]Narrot]

much gain, much treble (3 o'clock), not much middles (9 oclock) much bass (3 oclock). start from these settings and try around. and, powertab amen corner if you got too much time on your hands....)

 

[Ermz]

There are no universal settings. Unless you have the same amps as Opeth used on that album, your EQ is basically gonna do totally different things to the EQ on their amps.

Your basic Bass - Mid - Treble controls choose a frequency to notch up, and they do a wide sweep (low rating of Q) to boost all frequencies around it. So what you get is one dominant frequency that's boosted and others near it that go up with it. You have no knowledge of what this frequency band that's affected is... so effectively you can't gauge the differences between how your amp would do it and how Opeth's would.

With the harmonization on the album, it depends whether you're talking about the lead parts of rhythm parts, because in a recording sense these are done quite differently. The leads would most likely be single dubs where the guys would pump the mids, lower the bass and notch the treble around the middle area somewhere. If you're talking about rhythm... well... on MAYH they overdub every individual part a few times.

 

[synergy]

Your basic Bass - Mid - Treble controls choose a frequency to notch up, and they do a wide sweep (low rating of Q) to boost all frequencies around it. So what you get is one dominant frequency that's boosted and others near it that go up with it. You have no knowledge of what this frequency band that's affected is... so effectively you can't gauge the differences between how your amp would do it and how Opeth's would.

 

[FrontTowardsEnemy]

Also, keep in mind that on any album, you are hearing the recording sound. The mic used to record it was probably a lot closer to the speaker than you are when you play.

Before recording/practicing, I always listen to my guitar sound through my DAW, to make sure that sound the amp's mic is picking up is the sound I want. And, obviously, when recording, you can tweak things with your mixer/software/etc..

When I play live it's a different story though, but tone isn't as important to me in that situation.

 

[Ermz]

^ This man speaks truly.

 

[Egon]

i see, what kind of amps do you guys like?

 

[FUBAR]

^ Ones that go up to 11

 

[Ermz]

Big ones that can't fit in my room.

 

[The Invoking]

You know he asked a valid question... Anyway, I play out of a meager Fender Roc Pro 1000. All I can say is that you just really have to play with what you got and if you plan on getting something better, you need to go to a guitar shop or something and really just play them and see what they are like. Getting your own sound is nothing more than just tweaking and experimenting, and hopefully you'll get a sound you like.

 

[Commence Destruction]

on working with what you have,turn each knob to the max individually with the rest turned down to zero and find the best level for each one of them(bass,mid,treble) then balance the three together for the sound youre going for,this works well for isolating a certain frequency youre trying to nail when you dont know where to start.

I hope this is somewhat coherent and helpful.

 

[dorian gray]

hire a sound guy.

 

[coolsnow7]

That would only be a little expensive with lot's of practicality...

 

[deliverance]

^ Ones that go up to 11

you said it man!

 

[Evil Ernie]

pump the mids, lower the bass and notch the treble around the middle area somewhere.

That's pretty much it for lead sound. I also like to reduce the gain a bit, but maybe that's because I crank it to 12 on my rythm channel. Usually I'd say I don't like my lead sound when I play alone, but it's a hell of a lot better when I play with a band. The thing is that when you turn up the mids, you try to pick up the frequencies that aren't covered by the bass, the drums and the rythm guitar, so your sound shines out of the mix. This is even more revelant when recording.

 

[Ermz]

Yes. Jamming individually is a world apart from jamming with a band or recording a song. You need to notch up every individual instrument's dominant frequency and try to reduce the rest. For instance let the Bass Drum cover the lows... bass cover the mid-lows, overheads cover the mid-highs to highs etc. Your guitar should dominate the mids however. In a live situation or recording a guitar is most audible there.

 

[AnTz0r]

too many metal guitarists are dominant in the midlows already so the bassist haveto go low unaudible or trebly sound, bah

 

[Egon]

still playing around with all different amp models at guitar center, I just got a new Gibson les paul standard and now comes the amp phase. I appreciate the input from all of you (very useful board).

 

[Ermz]

I've found playing around at guitar stores has never given me any valuable insight. Normally you're ushered out of there way before you've had any time, or chance to crank the amp or play around with it. There's hours of work in finding that perfect sound, but you hardly even get a few minutes normally.

As well as playing at the guitar stores, it's usually good to look for online opinions like harmony-central or look for some sound clips... Randall are good for this because they have essentially all the soundclips on their official site.

 

[dorian gray]

Normally you're ushered out of there way before you've had any time, or chance to crank the amp or play around with it.

what *are* you doing in those stores moonlapse?