How do you get a scooped sound to cut through?

[witeter]

Hey guys-ive wondered this question for a while-how can you get a lowmid agressive sounding metal rhythm tone to cut through the mix in a live situation?
I know the guitar lives in the midrange and thats what we are told to concenatrate on so that we can cut through the mix-and yes it works, thats what i do live ( i boost my mids)
So, my question is that ideally i would want a more agressive/darker sound to cut through-lots of the big hitters seem to have a mid scoop going on in their rigs (i dont mean mids down to 0, but say 9 oclock,etc); ive seen videos/photos of Petrucci, Machinehead, Metallica, Tremonti and neither boost their mids or even put them at 12 oclock-how do they cut though live? they basically get their 'bedroom' tone to sound great while playing live.
I appreciate that there is more to it than those settings but i am curious-can you counterbalance the 'scoop' by using another eq either in front of the amp and/or the loop?
thanks in advance

[tekbow]

I guess what you have to remember with those guys is there's any amount of post processing going on after the amp for any number of reasons. Maybe no amp gives them exactly the sound they like, so the low and high end are perfect, but the mid characteristics of the amp aren't to their liking (not transparent enough, wrong voicing) so they dial in a midrange using some already available rackmount eq, which will be a cheaper option than having custom amps designed and built i.e. using high quality, but readily available and easily replaceable equipment which they may well be getting at artist discount or for free anyway.

This maybe doesn't help so much but the point i'm making is those sounds aren't as mid free as you think, especially MachineHead. remember they have sound engineers eq'ing everything also, every sound signal coming from the stage is being played with so the frequency ranges don't intersect quite as much or volume matching is happening so a guitar can stand out against the other instruments.

I say crank your mids a little more and you might be pleasantly suprised. remember that your ear doesn't pick out the same frequencies as effectively at lower volumes (low volume for the same settings will always sound less "high endy" than at a higher volume). you might find that at a higher level the mid range won't characterise the sound as much as you think but still allow you to cut thru better

another option is to use something like an MXR 10 band eq to accent the frequencies that will make your sound stand out.

[Roobubba]

The MXR10-band eq is a great suggestion - I do just this to boost the mods even further (I already boost them on my 5150-II).

What sounds great when you're playing out of band context (ie mid scooped, lots of bass PHWOAR...) simply doesn't work in the band mix. I get so annoyed at gigs when I see a guitarist doing this. They get lost in the mix, the whole thing sounds messy and/or scratchy and thin, and generally the guitarist ends up looking like total tit as a result. I firmly believe that mid boosted sounds in a band mix sound FAR more aggressive than mid scooped sounds do.

That's not to say that you should dial out all the lows and highs and go for a 'humped' sound, but part of why V30 speakers are so widely used and loved by metal guitarists is that they do have quite a 'mid spike.' That really helps to counteract the stupid folly of bedroom guitarists who don't understand how to put all the frequencies in a band mix together properly, so that they don't overlap and get lost.

Boost the mids. Job done. :)

[JacksonRR]

Boost the mids. Job done. :)

/thread  :lol:

[BigB]

Hey guys-ive wondered this question for a while-how can you get a lowmid agressive sounding metal rhythm tone to cut through the mix in a live situation?

It all depends on how the other instruments are EQ'd - this is the very very first thing you learn when mixing a band: a single instruments EQ doesn't mean anything, you have to work each EQ relatively to the whole thing.

IOW : if you want a lowmid-EQ'd rythm guitar to not get drowned, you have to make sure no one else is trying to work in this part of the bandwidth. 


Also, note that the way you set your EQ really depends on the whole chain. If you have a mid-heavy guitar with mid-heavy pups going to a mid-heavy amp thu a mid-heavy OD and plugged into a mid-heavy cab, you may end up "scooping" the mids on your amp EQ without ending with a "mid-scooped" tone ;)

I appreciate that there is more to it than those settings but i am curious-can you counterbalance the 'scoop' by using another eq either in front of the amp and/or the loop?

Yes but that's just silly (and bad - you end up with phase and comb-filter problems). The less you EQ (at any stage), the better the tone, and using one EQ to "counterbalance" another one is just a waste - better to get the first EQ right and get rid of the second one.

[gwEm]

as others have said, use some sort of EQ pedal and adjust the sound so that it cuts, and stays aggressive.

[Madsakre]

Do like we do. Fire the bassist, add more cabs

[monkey8911]

I´m totally with BigB here.
As a semi-professional sound engineer I can say, that a good guitar sound is based on a solid Bass sound.
Just make sure, that every amp in your band is set up to work well with the other. As a guitarist for example you won´t need anything under 150-200 Hz, so cut those. This way the bass and the kick have some space to play with.
It also works to cut the highs on the guitars, so that the rest is more focused. This way you add more 'presence' or focus to the lover mids, without touching them. On recordings I set a low pass filter around 6-7 K, and a hpf around 200-250, if theres nothing else but those guitars.
On the other side, a bass don´t need frequencies above 1-2 K, so you can cut those as well.
Vocals: get rid of everything below 250-350 (depending on the singer) and add some presence with a high shelving eq around 5-6 k. You see, how everything works together right?

[MDV]

Cut your guitars at 200-250 (edit, or 150-200 either) if you want to totally lose the fundamental and all the meat in the sound. 80 hpf is more realistic, maybe somewhere in the 100s if youre being extreme about it.

A lot of the body of a vocal sound is in the 250-350 range as well. Cut that if youre making a stylistic decision to have thin vocals or if everything else is so massive there that the mix just cant tolerate it.

As ever, there are no absolute rules, but those HPFs are extreme and inadvisable most of the time IMO.

On topic; the thing that people forget is the fletcher munson effect. The louder a sound is, the more scooped it will seem to be anyway. Using lots of low end will chew up headroom anyway, as LF requires more energy to drive, and 2-5k is loudest to the human ear until things are very loud. That presence and definition area needs to be brought out while keeping your middle mids from about 500 to 1.5k max down and keeping low end under control and well supported by the bass. You are liable to make an icepick sound like this, but its doable with care.

Keep gain low, as power amps, speakers and shear volume all add saturation and distortion that kill definition anyway, and as roo says, an EQ in the loop is extremely beneficial. Also, a boost helps lots, in addition to rolling back the gain on the amp even more when using it.

[monkey8911]

Well, I´ve never had bad experience with a 1st order hpf set higher. When you listen to modern music, theres not much going on in the lower mids of vocals and guitars.
Check the latest Sum41 record, for an extreme example. Metallica as well. Its the Bass doing the work.
As mentioned, the instruments should compliment each other and not fight for the space.
Just to mention it, a tubescreamers circuit starts with a hpf around 450Hz, and its still a staple among guitarists.

[JacksonRR]

 But it's at a 6db per octave drop, not an instant drop/total removal like what most people do inside the DAW for mixing.

[MDV]

I dont know any sum 41, but metallicas guitars have strong content right down to fundamentals and cab thump, below 100Hz. A staple of their rhythm guitar sound is a lot of content in it from 80-150, in fact.

Interaction in bass and low mid frequencies between the kick, bass and guitars is extremely important, and judicious HPFs are part of that, but what youre saying about modern recordings is simply not true.

I know this because my ears tell me so, but I figured proof would be nice, so with the caveat that fourier transforms dont listen to music, picked a couple of songs with guitar only and spectrally analysed them. Not something I've done before, but hey, every days a school day, right?

You said metallica, and you said moder: off the top of my head nothing came to mind that has a lone guitar in their recent years so I picked battery, as I know that does.



Quite probably not even high passed at all. Lots of 80-200hz.

Soilwork, stalemate has a bit of solo guitar



HPF no higher than 100hz, of which there is lots.

Nile, sacrifice unto sebek.



Quite possibly not even HPFd at all, if so then gently and very low.

Nevermore, ambivalent.



HPF ~100hz max. Also, a beautiful textbook illustration of how a HPF really works (they have gradients)

And slipknot have been kind enough to write a song where the main riff starts with guitars first, then introduces the bass, then the kick, then the full band. Didnt bother with the last one. You can see the low end build up and deepen as the bass and kick are added.





Moral of the story: common HPF is a shade higher than I thought in more cases than I expected, guitars have lots of content in 100-300hz, in fact in shear dBFS its the loudest range by far, and I couldnt be bothered trying to track down solo vocals to do the same thing, but I guarantee they arent hpfd at 300hz in anything that doesnt sound  like its being sung through a telephone. Dip or cut round there, sure, depending on the singer and mix; I probably do that in every mix, and its probably normal for most mixes in general. But that is not to make that region comparatively weak, its more that it is too comparatively strong in raws to begin with. HPF? Very rarely, more like 150.

Edit: the slipknot track is heretic anthem, btw.

[MDV]

I should add the disclaimers; that blend with the bass and drums is vital is absolutely true, lows within the regions in which guitars are present should also be supported by bass, low mids in vocals do need very careful control, I spell carefull wrong first time every time, and all the above is totally useless for live: completely different animal.

Also, vocals wont really sound like they're sung through a phone if HPd at 300Hz. I was being facetious, in case anyone takes me too seriously. They will sound thin though.

[Kiichi]

This is getting very interresting. I always like to hear about different ways to EQ things (or apply effects too and all that stuff). I generally always love to read about recording and mixing.
I try not to take anything for law though, noticed that is a bad idea, but keeping things, like what MDV nicely laid out (monkey had interresting ideas too), in mind and testing them with ones own ears.
Searching for starting points from which I try in all directions to get my own style from.^^


Keep it going! Seattle Guys, I am listening!

[MDV]

I try not to take anything for law though, noticed that is a bad idea..testing them with ones own ears.
Searching for starting points from which I try in all directions to get my own style from.^^

You do right. Its with some reluctance that I put up power spectra of guitars, or talk about where to boost, cut, HP etc etc because it should all be adapted case by case, setup by setup, song by song, player by player, style by style, one sonic/mix/tonal objective at a time. There might be guidelines, but there arent rules.

And there is FAR more too it than fourier analysis can show you, but to just make the point "Yeah, they do have frequency content there, look" it works. If you find yourself using tools like that in mixes then please do not mix by them; use them to home in on things that you can already hear, you just need to know exactly where they are. Not 'I must match the EQ curve of my guitars with The Black Album', but maybe 'I can hear some low end, maybe 100-150hz spiking out on chugs, I dont want that, where is it....ah, right, its centred on 117hz, I'll pull that in then'.