I reduce low mids a little. I don’t “turn them off” & I don’t think I’ve ever owned an amp or preamp on which the low mids could be turned “off”.
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Anyone Else Turn Off Low-Mids?
- Thread starter Pluckoff
- Start date
Cutting out the low mids has been my tone 'secret' for years. Around 300-400hz is the sweet spot I find. I also like to boost the high mids sometimes aggressively which really gives you a snarling tone that cuts through the heaviest of mixes.
For me I found the low mids just make everything too muddy and boomy. I want a deep low end fundamental and clarity in the high mids. It allows lots of sonic space for the low end of guitars to sit and I can cut through in the space before the high end from cymbals and guitars.
It has worked for me for years, playing small rooms, big rooms, in the studio etc. Sound guys have always complimented my tone and the overall band mix. It's all about finding the sweet spots and balancing your cut/boost with the low and high mids.
For me I found the low mids just make everything too muddy and boomy. I want a deep low end fundamental and clarity in the high mids. It allows lots of sonic space for the low end of guitars to sit and I can cut through in the space before the high end from cymbals and guitars.
It has worked for me for years, playing small rooms, big rooms, in the studio etc. Sound guys have always complimented my tone and the overall band mix. It's all about finding the sweet spots and balancing your cut/boost with the low and high mids.
I don't recall if it is the same with the classic 7ender tone stack (it's been a while since owning an amp with such), but I do remember that with all the tone controls fully CCW on the two Alembic F-1X preamps I had, that would silence the preamp.
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You know, you can EQ your way around anything really. No low mids would not fit good in most mixes, but if you make a mix where you specifically have the bass fill a lot of space, and none of the other instruments intrude on that space, then of course you don't need the low mids to cut through. What a lot of amps have at their low end, is really just the inaudible rumbling frequencies (the low lows). The low mids is what really sits in the mix audibly as the bass instrument. High mids are also not unimportant, and in general the mids are probably the most noticable and important frequencies you can have, if you want to have the bass be heard. Of course you can have some low rumble and some zingy top end as accents here and there, if you don't really want the bass to play audible complex melodies.
Whatever floats your boat I guess, but I pretty much always boost (or at least don't cut) the low mids whenever I get to shaping my EQ.
As with most things in music, context really does matter a lot. And dialing in a tone that sounds good solo in your bedroom (no matter how good your headphones/speakers really are), will often not be of much use in a mix and especially not in a live setting.
Whatever floats your boat I guess, but I pretty much always boost (or at least don't cut) the low mids whenever I get to shaping my EQ.
As with most things in music, context really does matter a lot. And dialing in a tone that sounds good solo in your bedroom (no matter how good your headphones/speakers really are), will often not be of much use in a mix and especially not in a live setting.
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I always boost the mids, especially the low mids. works nicely for fretless
I am not into Korn, but from the one or two songs I have heard parts of, this is what I think of Fieldy's tone.
Cutting the low-mids is also known as "dialing yourself out of the mix". The low-mids are what gives your bass presence and definition in the mix. That's because the bass drum usually owns the lowest lows, the guitar and keys own the high-mids and highs, and the bass has room to shine in the low-mids anywhere between about 250Hz and 550Hz. A little boost in that range and folks will be able to hear every note you are playing as opposed to just knowing a bass player is in there somewhere but can only tell when he stops playing as opposed to hearing his bass line.
This is quite different that bedroom practice levels. When playing at low levels, the human ear doesn't hear the bass and treble very well but hears the mids just fine. That's why stereos used to have "loudness" buttons to let you hear the bass and treble better. That button would boost the bass and treble up enough to sound more balanced at low levels. As you raise the volume to gig levels though, the human ear can hear the lows and highs quite easily. So it's normal to use different EQ settings at low levels than you will when playing with a group.
A little boost in the low-mids goes a long way. It doesn't have to be that much. With my passive Jazz Bass I boost the low mids on my Eden amps at 250Hz to 1:30. With my DNA amp the low-mids are at 500Hz and with my Eden WTDI, which is a DI stompbox with built-in Eden WT preamp, the choices are 500Hz (low-mid) or 2KHz (high-mids). So I boost it at 500Hz. If you boost those low-mids too much though, your sound will honk at you. If that happens, just slowly turn the boost down until the honk goes away.
Here's a video of the J. Badders Band performing Somebody to Love by the Jefferson Airplane. I'm playing through my Eden WT500/800 amp into two Eden EX112 cabs. My EQ is set flat except for the boost to ~1:30 at about 250Hz. Notice that you can hear every note I'm playing and even with an iPhone recording, I'm sitting just fine in the mix. My bass has both both presence and definition without needing to blow everybody else away with volume. This was performance was pre-Covid and was only the second time we performed it.
I have a Rumble 100, and the low mids cause it to sound boomy in my bedroom-size home studio when I’m sitting in front of it. I’ve had more luck tuning it out by using more gain and less volume. I’ve found a nice, defined, dense bottom with a compression pedal and finding the right gain/volume balance. You can also use a high pass filter to tame it.
I would think those two would be the same "setting", but....maybe it's just me.
Please define love setting as it relates to the discussion at hand.
Read your post carefully - there’s a typo that changes your intended meaning. I had some fun with that.
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Almost everyone that prefers a jazz bass, or that uses both P’s and J’s does so for that very reason.
Yes, Fender tone stacks typically pass little or no signal when all tone knobs are fully CCW. Close to flat is the bass and treble knobs at 1 or 2 and mid knob (if present) at 10.
