Equalizing distortion guitar?

[Sniperdot]

Hi there fellas, first of all i wanna thank you for all the help you given me! Im up and running my home studio with a brand new mac and protools LE 7.1.1 and its all working perfectly, thanks to you guys!
Well when it comes to mixing im not so bad, ive got some great equalizing presets for drums, both bright and shiny, or dark and heavy drums.
My problem is i wish i was as good on guitar as i am on drums. I dont have any great equalizing presets for clean and distortion guitar.
Anyone have any presets they wanna share?
Or perhaps share some light on what Hz and DB to use on the 7 band equalizer?

Thanks

[albee1952]

That would be like coloring by numbers and maybe not very effective. Start with this more generic approach that you can apply to any instrument. Insert a 3 band EQ and start with the middle band. Set it to +9 and moderate to very narrow Q (bandwidth) and sweep the frequency up and down while you play the track(I like to loop-play a few measures). When you hear "ugly" jump out at you, place a cut at that frequency. Do the same for high and low. Once you cut the ugly frequencies, your track should sound a lot better. After you get rid of what you don't want, then you may find you want to use gentle boosting here and there to really round out the tone. Also, remember that much of the guitar frequency range is sharing sonic space with your vocals, so getting the "perfect" guitar tone may sound great but may also fight with the vocal so make your final adjustments with everything in the mix. If you use the same guitar setup a lot, it won't take long for you to make your own basic EQ templates. Don't forget that you are at the mercy of your monitors here, so if they suck, God help you.

[jre3132]

each sound/song is a little different and presets don't really adjust to it. I use some presets for compression, reverb, and other misc effects, but use the method albee named for EQ. I never want to apply a generic EQ effect.

[Majorek]

Yep I agree with jre3132, its quite difficult to say on a forum use this frequency or that EQ for your sound, when you can't hear it. EQ'ing after all, is an entire art. There's unfortunatly not magic preset or recipe for EQ'ing a sound, the only true way is pretty much doing it, trying, experimenting and listening. But especially when using distortion (not only with guitar but any instruments and synths), I would say watch out the mids when EQ'ing. Really. It's quite easy to bust the mids when distortioning any instruments and it can be harsh for the ears when played loud outside a home studio or a house.

[Stiff]

Try to listen to other mixes that has the guitar sound you want. Try to hear if they're bright or dark and so on. You can even import a track with it into the session to compare with while EQing the guitars. Keep in mind though, that does guitars were made for that particular track, not yours, so there will be some fine tuning for you to do. Anyway, could be a good starting point.

(I've never done this myself so don't shoot me if it doesn't work well for you )

[Majorek]

Try to listen to other mixes that has the guitar sound you want. Try to hear if they're bright or dark and so on. You can even import a track with it into the session to compare with while EQing the guitars. Keep in mind though, that does guitars were made for that particular track, not yours, so there will be some fine tuning for you to do. Anyway, could be a good starting point.

Stiff's wise advise is pretty usefull for EQ'ing any instruments or mixes in fact. It's indeed a pretty good idea to always listen to the top tracks/songs that sound like a bomb as a reference in the type of music you are. Can't hurt!!

[propofol]

Try and get the best guitar sound you can first. I think that is the MOST important thing (apart from the playing..)
I'm a guitar player and try to attain an almost EQ-free guitar tone before I ever add EQ (if I EVER add EQ!!)
Try and aim for a good guitar tone, good playing and you should find you won't really need at add extra EQ at all..
See how this goes. I'm sure you'll see what I mean..
Tim..

[narcoboy]

Try and get the best guitar sound you can first. I think that is the MOST important thing (apart from the playing..)
I'm a guitar player and try to attain an almost EQ-free guitar tone before I ever add EQ (if I EVER add EQ!!)
Try and aim for a good guitar tone, good playing and you should find you won't really need at add extra EQ at all..
See how this goes. I'm sure you'll see what I mean..
Tim..

I agree - generally is the last call - get the sound right first. EQ should be used as an effect for tonal sculpting, only use it as a repair tool if you absolutely have to - every repair job you do makes your final mix more "smudgy"....

[jre3132]

attain an almost EQ-free guitar tone before I ever add EQ (if I EVER add EQ!!)
Try and aim for a good guitar tone, good playing and you should find you won't really need at add extra EQ at all..

thrid vote for this method. I rarely add EQ to EG...after they've been recorded. All on the front end.