looking for some EQ; FAQ or Q & A

[AFRO]

OK ladies/gentz.

I have an; ESP ltd B-305 FM, 5'er Bass.

I have a Carvin -red line- R600 Stereo Bass Amp (older school) that I stack on a 15" (Carvin).

My goal is to better understand what the knobs and sliders do, and also why it affects my tone.

I have been doing some searchin' for EQ know how and what nots... trying to figure out some ways to tweak my sound a little.

got some new insight with a little searching, but felt I needed more "My Gear" related Q & A. so that is what I am working with.

for the questions...

There are Input, Pre Shape, EQ, (and the sliders)
if anyone can enlighten me on the Hz..

my sliders (have -12, -8, -4, 0, 4, 8, 12 vertically,) and 50, 80. 125, 250, 500, 800, 1.3K, 2.6K, 5K. -8 band- horizontally. can someone elaborate? like I read if I want to "boost the lows" I could just cut the mids and/or highs to make sure things are equalized..(new to me)

I guess my first question, is how do these sliders help me shape the sound? (like the bass gets heavier when I slide the 50,80, or 125s up.. these are low freq.. the 1.3 etc are high..)

the labled EQ has 4 knobs. a Low knob, 2-mid sweeps; Gain and Freq, and High. I'm good on the low and high, but how does Gain and Freq affect my tone? Also there's a couple Input knobs with a 'gain' and 'norm-to-tube'. how is this gain different then the mid sweep gain? if any difference?

and my last question for the day...

There are Pre Shape buttons. Low boost, Mid Shift and High boost. the little icon on the Low boost, kinda looks like half the descending arc of a bell curve..the high is like the other half of that curve only ascending..and the mid sweep looks like a descending bell curve. anything intresting about how do these boosters work?

well at any rate (this is getting lengthy) so if someone can answer at these questions..or offer other opinions, advice/links for how you eq your bass.. how yall marry low/high/mid frequencies.
or post why you turn the knobs or shift the sliders..to get the tone you like outta your amps.

Thank ye

[BurningSkies]

Take a look here:

frequency tables

The second table will give you an idea of what the frequency points you have affect, and what that means for your instrument. The third chart may also be interesting but not as useful as the fundamentals don't necessarily mean what you may think they do.

[Sundogue]

Originally Posted by AFRO

There are Input, Pre Shape, EQ, (and the sliders)
if anyone can enlighten me on the Hz..

my sliders (have -12, -8, -4, 0, 4, 8, 12 vertically,) and 50, 80. 125, 250, 500, 800, 1.3K, 2.6K, 5K. -8 band- horizontally. can someone elaborate? like I read if I want to "boost the lows" I could just cut the mids and/or highs to make sure things are equalized..(new to me)

I guess my first question, is how do these sliders help me shape the sound? (like the bass gets heavier when I slide the 50,80, or 125s up.. these are low freq.. the 1.3 etc are high..)

Just think of the graphic EQ (the sliders) as tone controls being bass, mids and highs going left to right. You can either boost or cut to effect the tone. Usually it's better to cut a little of something than it is to boost. But if you need more bass 50Hz, 80Hz and 125Hz are for that. Low mids/mids are 250, 500, 800 and the highs are the rest.

Think of the Graphic EQ's sliders as being tied together. When you boost one slider it will also raise the frequencies surrounding it. So if you boost the 80Hz slider, it will also raise 60, 70, 90, 100 along with it (just not as much). It's kind a broad band of frequencies...not just the one that is marked. The label only shows what the center of that band of them is.

Originally Posted by AFRO

the labled EQ has 4 knobs. a Low knob, 2-mid sweeps; Gain and Freq, and High. I'm good on the low and high, but how does Gain and Freq affect my tone? Also there's a couple Input knobs with a 'gain' and 'norm-to-tube'. how is this gain different then the mid sweep gain? if any difference?

This is the Parametric EQ section. A parametric EQ is for fine tuning those frequencies. Whereas a Graphic EQ has a broad band of frequencies tied together, the parametric allows you to isolate a distinct frequency. You first dial in the specific frequency on the mid sweep dial and then the Gain knob matched to it allows you to boost or cut ONLY that narrow band you selected without boosting or cutting the surrounding ones. So if you have your Graphic EQ set, but want a little more of 300Hz (for example), you'd dial in the mid sweep knob to 300Hz and then boost it by turning up the Gain on that single 300Hz frequency.

The input Gain and Norm/Tube allows you to adjust the input of your bass to the amp. If you have an active bass, the signal may be too hot and overdrive the input, so there is where you can cut it. Or if you play a passive bass, you can boost it. Norm/Tube is kind of lame but it's supposedly there to give you more of a tube amp type tone or a solid state amp type tone. Doesn't do much of either IMO.

Originally Posted by AFRO

There are Pre Shape buttons. Low boost, Mid Shift and High boost. the little icon on the Low boost, kinda looks like half the descending arc of a bell curve..the high is like the other half of that curve only ascending..and the mid sweep looks like a descending bell curve. anything intresting about how do these boosters work?

Like their names imply if you engage those buttons they will either boost or cut those WIDE bands of frequencies. Push in the Low one and it's like boosting the entire low band sliders on your Graphic. If you engage the Mid Shift one, it will cut your mids, just like if you made your Graphic EQ look like a "smiley face". Same thing with the High one...that will give you instant brightness as if you boosted the sliders on the high end of the Graphic. Those buttons are there for instant "quick" changes of your tone. For example, if you are playing with a certain tone and then want to play "slap bass" on the next song, you can just engage the mid shift button and "Voila" you get instant smiley face EQ for slapping without having to readjust your Graphic EQ.

Hope this helps. Carvin's Redline series gives you a lot of tonal sculpting possibilities but it can be a bit overwhelming at first. Just play around with it.

Do a "search" for these terms..."Graphic EQ", "Parametric EQ" and read up. It will make sense eventually.

[AFRO]

Thanks for the replies...Very helpful.

My Bass also has three eq knobs too, I assume they "Boost" similar to the Pre shape ones in my amp..
I usually set my amp eq the tweak the knobs on my bass to get tone dialed in just right.

but its nice to have a better sense of what they are doing to the sound..

thanks again
(anyone else?)

Cheers

[wcriley]

Do you have the manual for your amp? It should give a pretty good explanation of what each knob does. If you don't have it, look here: Manual Finder

If your bass has the same preamp as my B206 had, the EQ is cut and boost. There should be a center detent (where the knob sort of "catches"). Clockwise from there is boost, counter-clockwise is cut.

[will33]

Those redlines used to have an optional footswitch that controlled the graphic eq portion. For example you could setup a good fingerstyle sound using the rotary knobs, then adjust the graphic for a good slap sound and use the footswitch to turn the graphic on and off toggling between the 2 sounds on the fly mid song if you wanted.

I'd leave the preshape buttons off for now. They're usually more extreme adjustments and can often hurt more than help.

[AFRO]

Originally Posted by wcriley

Do you have the manual for your amp? It should give a pretty good explanation of what each knob does. If you don't have it, look here: Manual Finder

If your bass has the same preamp as my B206 had, the EQ is cut and boost. There should be a center detent (where the knob sort of "catches"). Clockwise from there is boost, counter-clockwise is cut.

good looking out w/that Manual Finder kid! very nice. will print that out for sure.

...the detents are present, to same effect.

I guess I got some reading to do.

Thank ye, ThankYeVrryMuch.