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Anyone scoop mids for rock??

#61
emblymouse said:
Examples of scoopers in Rock would be Entwistle and T. Petersson of Cheap Trick.
Click to expand...

Maybe that's why I could never hear Petersson on most recordings, despite his extensive use of 8 and 12 strings. I always thought his solos in Ain't That a Shame sounded like mush. :hiding: Nielsen's guitar tone, on the other hand, is Godly. For the record, Dimebag's guitar tone was a big part of Pantera's sound, but with all respect to the Dime fan boys, I thought his tone blew chunks. And it wasn't because he was a solid state player - his tone sucked just as bad (or perhaps worse) when he started playing Krank. It sucked to my ears because of the lack of mids.

There's a difference between creating an absence of mids in your sound and scooping your mids if you are playing with intriniscally mid-heavy equipment. I think that's what some people are getting at here. My Dad played a Rickenbacker 4001 through a Sunn in country and oldies bands for years. That combination is like a 100,000,000 db boost of mid compared to most other equipment. He scooped out a lot of mids and had a fat tone that still had plenty of definition in the mix. However, he also wasn't cutting through a wall of high-gain amps or dealing with a kick going through bass bins.

I generally have flat mids or boosted mids. I can't remember anytime in the past 7 or so years where I scooped my mids. Lately, I find myself boosting highs, because, while mids give body to your sound, highs give presence.

Edit: Wow, didn't realize I was replying to a thread over a year old. :D
 
#65
I crank my tone knob and bridge pickup on my Modified Jazz Squier. I turn the neck pickup off and compensate by turning lows way up on the amp. Then I turn the mids on the amp up and turn the treble way down.
Usually gets an awesome sound. I always utilize the midrange.
 
#68
ha!
zombie.gif


anyway, i suppose i'm a mid-scooper too, in that "my tone" is the sansamp BDDI on 100% blend, which has an inherent mid-scoop.

my bass itself is a passive P, and i'm using two compact 15 cabs, all of which might tend to be more mid-heavy though, so i guess it mostly balances out.

i find that for pop/rock stuff, plenty of bottom lets me do my job as a bass player, while a bit of grindy top makes it easier to hear what i'm playing, and the relaxed midrange stays out of the guitar/vocals zone.
 
#69
I usually run the amp eq *fairly* straight, maybe bring down the extreme lows a touch.
Depends on the cabs I'm using.
Sometimes the old straight-wired jobs have a mid hump,
has to be EQed out.

I use the mid control on my instruments (the ones that have 'em)
for most small tonal adjustments.
 
#72
Depends on all kinds of things. A P-bass is an inherently midrangey instrument. If you want a bigger sound for rock you can boost bass and treble, or you can scoop mids.

Sure, scooping can be bad. Boosting can be bad. Sometimes flat isn't what you want, either. Whatever... just go with what works for you and your gear.
 
#73
I NEVER scoop mids anymore. I think one of the things you learn after playing hundreds of gigs is the way your rig sounds standing in front of it or playing in your bedroom is totally different than with a band onstage through a pa. Cutting mids makes it much more difficult to cut through the mix. Not to say people don't do it. Listen to Korn for example. Not much mids in the bass but for them it works ok because the 7 string guitars tend to fill that frequency range anyways. And the bass is just all attack and 30-100hz.
 
#76
I'm not saying they do, objectively, but to my ears, their mixes just don't sound good. Not saying anything about the music or ability of the musicians involved. But to my ears, their mixes sound awful. Not in a "this music sucks" way, but in a "this mix sucks" way. I couldn't really care less how well they've done, monetarily, as knowing that doesn't change how the mix sounds to me. It still sounds like crap to my ears.

Personally, though, I doubt the presence or lack of mids in the bass tone on the albums had much, if anything, to do with Korn's commercial success.
 
#77
pbass2 said:
Ditto. Especially when mixing bass tracks in recorded music, there are certain areas in the "lower" mids (again, dependent on the music, etc. exactly WHICH freqs) that often (if not regularly) need to be cut to clean up the bottom end and marry the bass nicely with the kick drum and make space for other things. Live is a totally different story of course . . .
Click to expand...
I don't think booming up the auditorium live with loads of lower mid (mud) is a good idea either.
The most important thing to scoop with the EQ is the room resonant peak usually at around 120-250 Hz.
There is nothing different between live and recorded, if you are recording microphones and a DI, resonance is still resonance.:bassist:
 
#78
Sartori said:
Personally, though, I doubt the presence or lack of mids in the bass tone on the albums had much, if anything, to do with Korn's commercial success.
Click to expand...

Still, many bassists like his tone. I think it works good, not my cup of tea though. Nothing wrong with using an ultra scooped sound combined with lots of volume if you play with down tuned and broad range guitars. It's basically your only option.
 
#79
I used to cut everything I could at 250Hz. I played in the 70's with a loud hard rock band, with three guitar players. I got out of their way. They used a lot of mids. Through the 80's I played in bands with many acoustic (but amplified) instruments. Between the instruments and the vocals there was a lot of energy in the 250Hz range that would build up and muddy things.

I never had problems being heard. These days I use no mid cut and my cabinets put out plenty of mids (12's with 6" midrange). My tastes and likes have changed over the years.

I was hugely influenced by Paul Goddard's bass tone. He used NO midrange but was very present above and below the guitars and keyboards. It worked for me for around 15 years. It worked well in the high volume playing situations I was in, whether it be in my SVT days (I used an SVT head into folded horn cabinets and used PA type treble horns) or my later biamped adventures.
 
#80
I like to cut mids, but am very specific in which mids I cut. All depends on what kind of sound I'm going for, but rarely do I get there through adjusting treble or bass shelving controls. Need to sound a little tighter but still be present? Cut low mids around 200-250hz. Need to round off your tone while still having some punch? Roll off upper mids usually in the 1.8-2.5k range.
 

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