really distorted guitars: which eq to get...

[NoisyNarrowBand]

guys,
I'd like to hear your take on eq units for tweaking heavy guitars. and please bring forward both high-end and lofi options.

heres what I use now: MXR 2238 31 band eq. a blue-faced lof-fi wonder! simply wonderful furthermore a DBX 1531x. pretty lofi too I guess;)

I regularly use my focusrite eq-plugs and actually never run the sony oxford eq I bought for a shitload of money back then.

I am lusting for a shiny new hardware eq, probably tubes, cause they glow so nice. and yeah - primary use would be eq'ing heavy guitars, the really heavy flavor of heavy guitars.

budget is 1.5k

;)

[NoisyNarrowBand]

bumpsky

[Kiwiburger]

How about no eq, and change your amp settings, cab, mic or preamp? Or try two mics, and experiment with different mic placements - radical extremes of eq and texture are possible that way.

Seriously - you might be stunned at the difference removing 31 bands of hiss can make.

[NoisyNarrowBand]

kiwiburger - been there did that and love it. regularly tweaking with every aspect of recording guitars: rooms (I have two), mics (sm57/58, at4050, 37r, rodes...), their placement, recording chain (dda board, spl, tla and focusrite pres) and what not.

but when it come to make distorted guitars sit in the mix you sometimes need to cut very surgically. and, believe it or not, the mxr does something special to guitars that clients and I like!

[el cochino]

Michael Wagener mentioned that he likes the Urei 535 on guitars and a friend of mine loves the Api 560 for this application.

[Greystoke]

Neve Blackface 1058's (superunknown), GML if you wanna get surgical and another vote for api 550a's or b's , on the high end

Any Realy Old Huge Stereo Graphic EQ parted out from joe scmoe's high end stereophonic setup circa the 1970's

http://gearslutz.com/board/images/smilies/thumb.gif

[knightsy]

http://marsh.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/287/

Not really a "which EQ" thread, more of a "method" thread.

[Jim Williams]

I also have the blue MXR graphics. A wonderful design, not constant Q like all the newer graphics designed for SR tuning.

These older graphics extrapolate the curve selected into a musical smooth curve. A "smile" will trace on the Audio Precision analyzer as a smooth curve, any change in EQ settings will smooth out between bands. In a constant Q graphic design, bumps at the band centers are visible with the AP frequency VS amplitude sweeps. They look like a picket fence with bumps at every band center. Bad for phase response and the bumps will drive you crazy.

My MXR's are dead quiet, with 200k to DC bandwidth and very low .0008% THD. All the filters were changed to Wima polypropylene film caps and all the opamps are very fast and quiet, unlike the stock 4558 opamps. I installed a large PSU as the original one will not supply 22 opamps with enough current, the power transformer is tiny. I made the outputs balanced and biased the whole thing class A.

Tom Sholze (?) in Boston used the similar Altec graphic to get all his Boston guitar sounds in the 70's. The joy of these graphics is that they are capable of very complex EQ curves, no single parametric can do these curves.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[u b k]

Originally Posted by NoisyNarrowBand

and, believe it or not, the mxr does something special to guitars that clients and I like!

then what do you need that you don't currently have?


gregoire
del
ubk
.

[cococontofu]

If it doesn't sound good with nothing but LP + HP, I'd rather check amp settings and recording chain.

[TanTan]

the ITI is also great for that

[thejook]

Originally Posted by TanTan

the ITI is also great for that

Good luck finding one.

Hahahaha!!

[octatonic]

Summit EQF-100 rocks

[Nutmeg II.]

The GR eq shines in that application!
But I have to agree with the others, if there is something realy wrong you need to check for different mics, amps, cabs, pickups, ......
OR! And it wasn't mentioned before eq the guitar befor it hits the amp!

[dasoundjunkie]

On the crazy high side I've not tryied anything that works better than tha Massive Passive. Onward to a little lower anything API works incredibly well and I always get good results with my SPL QURE eqs, they have a tube based exiter that sounds really good on just about anything(the QURE circuit , the EQ itself is solid d state) and the eq itself reminds me a little of API stuff. Further down the line the Speck stuff always sounds good.
Hope this helps

[TheSweetener]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

How about no eq, and change your amp settings, cab, mic or preamp?

Exactly! I think that eqing distorted guitars is very difficult, it mostly takes from the sound what it gives to it. You should really try to avoid radical eqing!
The only thing sometimes works for me is a Pultec. But as you know that's not a surgical or flexible eq.

[Musiclab]

I have a Nightpro eq3d for sale that will work

[Methlab]

Originally Posted by cococontofu

If it doesn't sound good with nothing but LP + HP, I'd rather check amp settings and recording chain.

Exactly.

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by Methlab

Exactly.

YUP!

... and back the gain off.
What works live does not work in a recording.

Plus guitarists are notorious bandwidth hogs, usually creeping into bass guitar territory- high-pass the f**kers.