me am Bobbo's Quick Tips for High-Gain Tones

    Hey MeamBobbo, was a huge fan of your Pod HD guide over at ss.org and it helped me to no end in getting a better tone, the things you had to do in that thing were unreal haha. Looking forward to what you can add over here, your first post already answered a few of my questions. Can see CK appreciating your work immensely.

    If you guys enjoy my work, than I am sure CK appreciates it too. I've never seen anyone so involved with his customers to improve his product.


    of course, AFAIK there is NO ONE at Line 6 listening to their customers and attempting to improve their product, lol. and there is no interaction with company employees and customers on the forums.

    Someone had PM'ed me about specific frequencies to EQ and how exactly to improve one's tone. I ended up typing a bit more than I thought I would. The answer is that it really depends on context, but here's my full response. Hopefully it will help others...



    To be clear, pre-EQ and post-EQ affect the distortion tone and the frequency balance, respectively.


    For Pre-EQ, usually there's no need to make narrow cuts/boosts - they tend to sound bad. I like larger cuts/boosts. The first thing I'll adjust is bass. If the distortion is a bit too rough and has a muddy, low-end breakup, I like to reduce bass. I like to use the Studio EQ and set the low shelf to about -2 db and start with frequency around 300 HZ. This should mildly clean up the low end. Then I reduce the gain to about -6 db and try to notice when the bass gets totally clear and tight. You don't want to cut too much or you lose tone. Then I start to reduce the frequency, trying to see where I get the most punch without losing tightness. Usually this is around 150 HZ, but it depends.


    You can do the same thing for the highs but in reverse. Do a high shelf +4 db boost and slowly move the frequency downwards from 5 kHZ to around 1 kHZ. You should find a sweet spot that adds extra harmonic richness to the tone but isn't too sharp and harsh.


    You can also use the mid-bands on the Studio EQ. Some suggestions are to cut around 500-800 HZ - this should make the distortion a little rougher. Or boost around 1 kHZ to 1.5 kHZ. This gives the tone a Tube Screamer-like effect, getting a bit more djent to the tone, but can sound a bit like a cocked wah pedal if overdone.


    I don't have a preference of Studio EQ vs. Graphic EQ here. Usually you can make settings on either one for the exact same effect, because I'm not doing any narrow or extreme boosts/cuts. I just find it generally easier to find the sweet spots using the Studio EQ - trying to adjust the Graphic means turning more knobs, but it does have the advantage that you can visually see how you're impacting the signal. One of my EQ presets is a Graphic EQ with all the bands set on almost a perfect diagonal line, so I'm cutting bass and boosting treble progressively up the frequency range.


    Again, you can get similar effects from a Distortion effect with Drive set to 0 or a Treble Booster. I just prefer EQ because Distortion units tend to add some color/compression and EQ allows a bit more control than a booster.


    Now for post-EQ...


    There's no real right/wrong answer here. Your profile is already going to sound like your amp/cab/mic, which includes how you EQ your amp and your mic positioning. So that's your starting point, and in some cases; you don't need any additional EQ.


    When you make your own profile, there's two kind of philosophies you can take. One is to try to capture a profile of a tone you've already tweaked to fit in your mix. So the profile includes all your boost pedals, maybe a mic pre-amp, and some DAW EQ adjustments. It's going for a very specific snapshot of the amp, and once you have it, you'd only make mild tweaks to sweeten the tone as you are mastering your tracks.


    The other philosophy is to try to profile the amp at rather "neutral" settings, so that the profile can later be tweaked to make a wider variety of tones.


    My guide was really targeted for those who (like me) aren't profiling their own gear, but are downloading other people's profiles; but it would also apply to the "neutral" amp profile mentioned above.


    The best thing you can do to figure out what EQ tweaks can improve the tone are to record a DI and set it to loop in your DAW and send that into your Kemper. (Or just use a looper if you have one). When you aren't playing you definitely hear things better. Get some drums and bass going. If you absolutely can't get your own drums and bass or even find a suitable backing track, you can import a track from ___ band you like the sound of - in this case, pan that track 50% L and pan your guitar sound 50% R to get some separation. Now you can tweak EQ and really hear how it affects the sound in a mix.


    If you demo a bunch of the most praised metal profiles out there (Lasse Lammert, Ola Englund, and Keith Merrow's rig packs), you'll notice they are all very different sounding. Keith's tones are very upper-midrange focused, Ola's are kind of thin-sounding, and Lasse's are more wide-open but they cover a lot of different ground from one rig to the next. Playing solo guitar on these rigs can definitely sound very off-putting. But if you listen to any of their mixes, the tone is big and powerful and pretty natural-sounding. This just comes back to mixing, which always requires context.


    So for example, if your mix has keyboards, bass, drums, and vocals, you need all the instruments to find their spot in the mix. If you EQ'ed every instrument to sound flat accross all frequencies, the resulting mix would sound awful. Everything would be "on top" of each other, and "fighting for space" in the mix. This is even more the case for heavy metal music, where the playing is fast and technical and leaves little space. But that doesn't mean boost the kick drum at X frequency, the bass at Y frequency, and the guitar at Z frequency. The numbers are arbitrary. One mix might like to emphasize bass around 200 HZ, which means the guitars will likely need to dip around there. The guitars would then have very little punch and sound very thin on their own. Another mix might emphasize bass around 100 HZ. Now there's room for the guitars to have more punch. So it's a real balancing act, and there's a reason there are people paid to professionally mix albums.


    As a learning experience, I'd advise you to do the looping/reamping suggestion I mentioned above, where you can hear your guitar tone in a mix. First tweak the Bass, Mids, Treb, Pres knobs to get the guitars to sound balanced - not too bright and not too dark with the right amount of overall midrange. Now use the Studio EQ and set one of the mid-bands to +6 db. Now sweep the frequency up and down slowly. Every now and then toggle the EQ on/off. See which frequencies help the guitars cut through and sit nicely the mix. When you've found good frequencies, you should be able to reduce the guitar volume and the mix will still be nice and full-sounding, but the guitars will have more clarity. Try the same test but use - 6db; which frequencies removed help make the guitars clearer. This will give you starting points on how to think about EQ'ing. You may find a spot that has the biggest impact on the tone - now you have to figure out how wide/narrow and how large your boost/cut should be. Start with subtle changes.


    Always remember to try toggling your EQ on/off every now and then to see what it's actually doing and how it's contributing. Also, if you are boosting a lot via EQ, try turning the Volume parameter down a bit. Sometimes you THINK you like an EQ setting, but it's only because it's boosting the volume. A good EQ tweak should sound good even when it is reducing the overall volume of the guitars.


    Also, you have to think about multi-tracking. Most metal rhythm guitars are double-tracked and sometimes quad-tracked. This will make a thin-sounding tone sound a bit thicker and dial back some harshness. If a tone seems a bit harsh and cold, try double-tracking it before tweaking.


    Remember that most bedroom tones you dial in outside of a mix tend to have more distortion and less midrange than tones that work well in a mix. Many of the guitar tracks on albums can sound a bit dull and weak on their own. This doesn't mean you should try to make your tone dull and weak; only that it gives you a starting suggestion - if your guitars sound too harsh or lack clarity in a mix, start by trying to reduce distortion and add some midrange.


    I know this is a lot of info and it's a bit abstract, but I am not sure I could be more specific since it all really depends on your subjective preferences as well as what your mix is like, and the style you are playing.

    I intend on making a few guides of this nature. they will all get wiKPA'ed once I've finished transferring the document content to the web version. We may look to reorganize some things, and I don't want to make a mess until the core content is transferred.

    I have nothing myself worth profiling. All I've got right now is a Line 6 Spider Valve 1x12 I'm about to sell and a Pod HD 500. But I do intend to release some before/after tweaked rigs for all the artist tones I did on the Pod HD. So that's like with cab switching, EQ'ing, etc. And I want to post clips too. Give me time on that though. I don't have a lot of free time as is. I want to get the wiKPA transfer done first.


    Gianfranco, cross-referencing will have to be on pass #2! We're getting there, though! :)

    Quote from gui7arhero

    This guide is brilliant!
    There is one thing left that would make it perfect to me :D
    A rig (edited) by me am bobbo, where we can see how he used the eq's/effects in practice!

    That would be awesome, because I somehow can't really figure out how to use the compression... in my case it only makes things worse :D