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How much low end do you EQ into your sound?

Harper

Harper

Nov 10, 2001
1,262
2,231
#1
Either on your amp or on the mixing board.

I've always tended to run my rigs and the EQ on the mixing board totally flat Listening back to my band's last few gigs I'm finding we sound anemic. It's just me, a drummer and a guitarist who has a great tone, but is a little bottom shy.

So I'm going to try to fill in the space with bass (yeah, bass guitar filling out the bottom, who woulda thunk?) but I know there is a fine line between filling space and room full of boom.

Thoughts?
 
#2
it all depends on the room. Check out he eq thread in the amps faq sticky if you're not sure what the different frequencies sound like for a start.

What sort of mikes are you using to record with? any chance they are making playback sound artificially anemic?

Next up, what sort of pa spakers are you using? any subs? Before you start bumping the bass it helps to know what you are working with and if they tend to be deficient.

are the kick and bass both thin sounding or is it one or the other?

I usually eq to the room as much as i can. fopr a soundcheck i use about 30 feet of cord to get a bit out there with my bass and make adjustments to the rig if there is no pa support. Running the board is a different animal and i mess with it at soundcheck and then on the first tune or so if needed.
 
#3
Oh, we've got subs all right....and the kicks are loud and proud. I know a bit about frequencies and what not and will check the sticky, but wondered if I had painted myself in a corner of running the EQ flat without really thinking about why.
 
#5
With my Gk head and ampeg 8x10, I have a pretty good amount of bass live (w/ guitar and drums).

I have the low and high mids 1/4 of the way up, the treble at about 9:00, and the bass at about 3:00. I turn the boost up half way for a little growl, and then I blend in my tone knob on my bass depending on the venue. This gives me fat bass tone, while still keeping the highs punchy.
 
#8
Harper said:
Oh, we've got subs all right....and the kicks are loud and proud. I know a bit about frequencies and what not and will check the sticky, but wondered if I had painted myself in a corner of running the EQ flat without really thinking about why.
Click to expand...
You can't always trust recordings, though. Does it sound like that to you when you're playing? If you haven't done so, try a long cable or a wireless and go out into the audience and listen. And if it's oomph you're looking for without being muddy, that would reside in the 125-200 hz range. I see you often use an LMII...tough to boost 125 on them. Maybe you can do it in the PA, though. Also, if you don't already, try DI'ing and micing together. A lot of times just adding some mic signal can make the bass have more oomph.
 
#9
I usually back the bass off 1 or 2 from noon (flat).

+1 to mic and direct. If you don't have a parametric or a graphic EQ with right freq to fix it this would be the next thing to try.


PS You can normally find a Behringer PEQ2200 (5 band parametric EQ) on ebay for 40-60$. Its a life saver when you need to just tweak things a tiny bit for FOH.
 
#10
I generally as a rule run a 50hz HPF and nothing else.

There's still plenty of fat available with boom being a non issue

That works for me FOH, recording or into just about any cabinet but, I'm not really married to a "my tone". I'm much more of a clarity and definition freak.
 
#12
Harper said:
Soundboard recordings; I can hear the bass great but it's lacking "oomph".
Click to expand...

that's quite normal for a direct board recording.
in most rock situations, subs are run pretty hot, so there is boost going on in the low range already. this can get even more exaggerated in smaller or indoor acoustical environments. so there ends up being no need to add lows, especially if you have a loud stage amp....and this gets reflected in the board mix. (perhaps the other player sounded better in the board mix because their amp wasn't pushing as much as yours). i think of direct board mixes in these situations as a "negative" image of the sound in the room...
mic'd acoustic instruments and vox tend to bet hotter in the recordings as well, being mixed to keep up with stage amps. the better the acoustical enviornment, the more even the recording.
maybe try speaking to some peers and get an opinion of the actual sound in the room during the show, or make a recording with a reference mic at the mix position for comparison.
cheers
 
#13
I'd suggest either a multi-band parametric or a 15 band graphic eq for you. That way, no matter where you play you can make your sound fit. Different rooms have different resonant frequencies (where the boom takes place). Often times this boom is sub 100-150 hz, which are also frequencies that cause muddy tones and an overall muddy mix. The kick drum is the only instrument that belongs in the sub 100-150 zone.

150-200 hz is the smooth bass range and 200-275 hz is the growly range IME. Highs above 10k can be cut or passed completely to help the mix. Between 3.6-10k frequencies should be cut, but not completely passed. 1.2-3.6k can be slightly cut to make room for guitar/ keys. 1k can be boosted if you want a little more high end bite. 300-400hz can be boosted slightly and 400-1000hz can be left flat.

Thus is my current beliefs on the eq of a bass guitar to help both the sound of the bass and the overall mix.
 
#14
Harper said:
Soundboard recordings; I can hear the bass great but it's lacking "oomph".
Click to expand...

Remember, what the board mix shows is based on what the board operator does to make it sound good IN THE ROOM. For example, if the guitars are too quite in the board mix, that's because they're so loud the board op doesn't put them into the mix. So if your bass in the board mix recordings lacks oomph, that really doesn't tell you whether it lacks oomph in the room for the audience.

Bottom line for your question. Don't EVER go in with pre-conceived ideas of how to EQ. LISTEN to what it sounds like in THIS room with TODAY. If you've played the same place a few times, then you get a good handle on what that rooms needs, but it'll change depending on number of people, where they're at, etc.

So, I EQ my stage sound so it's right on stage. I like my rig (Eden WT-400, etiher an Eden D410XLT or Euphonic Audio VL-208s) because with the knobs set to flat it generally sounds right to me. As for FOH, I expect the sound op to do the same thing- listen to how it sounds and equalize the rig to the room.

I did work with a guitarist who started off with kicking up the bass and cutting the highs on my channel "because it's bass". Our mixes were muddy until I found out what he was doing- he did the same kind of preconceived idea EQ for other things too. Once we started setting everything on the board flat to start we got decent mixes (and when we got a real sound guy with great ears we got great mixes).

jte
 
#15
I generally cut a little out of my extreme lows, coming up towards flat as I reach 85Hz.

Too much bass in the wrong room can definitely sound muddy, but as was already mentioned, a soundboard recording won't be an accurate representation of how you sound in the actual room.
 

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