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Posted by: The Uncreator Aug 15 2012, 01:33 AM

Video will explain all, something I think a lot of home recording guitarists seem to overlook to much. As someone once told me, mixing guitars its best to think of them as your enemy. They interfere with everything, and are always loud (in reference to metal). You have to EQ.

Goes by quick, I hope you get something useful from it!

Posted by: Ben Higgins Aug 15 2012, 08:52 AM

Yep, EQ is very important, especially before it even gets recorded too. A lot of guitarists put too much bass on their tone for one..

And always keep in mind the golden 'rule'.. it's better to take away frequencies than to add.

Posted by: tonymiro Aug 15 2012, 10:01 AM

Yes getting the tone you want before you start recording is better than trying to correct it in the mix. However, having said all of that what really matters is how the guitar track/s sit in the mix so that it is balanced correctly and that implies that you get the levels, gainstage and the panning sorted properly before you EQ etc. When you do EQ distorted guitars occupy a lot of the audible spectrum due to the overtones produced by the distortion and so can mask a lot. EQing them often involves dealing with those overtones but you EQ wrt the mix and not just to get a great guitar tone.

Posted by: PosterBoy Aug 15 2012, 10:26 AM

A lot of us set up our guitar tones to sound great by themselves, it always surprises me to hear solo'd guitar tracks from famous songs/artists and they sound horribly trebley by themselves but great within the context of the mix

Posted by: Max Sokolov Aug 15 2012, 02:22 PM

It's true!
That's why I try not to cut guitar mids and highs when I do recordings.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Aug 15 2012, 04:23 PM

Very cool vid and great points! As was mentioned, we guitarists sometimes over focus on the soloed sound of the guitar track and can sometimes loose site of how it's sitting in the mix. As tony mentioned, the overtones created can munge with a very wide audio spectrum and any EQ boost can make it worse so always something to consider. As ben mentioned, the Golden Rule of EQ tends to be cut not boost as boost adds noise as well, but sometimes you just don't have a choice when you need to bump up frequencies that didn't quite get captured during recording.

My buddy Matt who does loads of live band recordings will often use eq to try to give each instrument a range to live in and roll off the very top and very bottom. When he solo's the guitar track I often think it's way to thin. But then in the mix it seems to sit perfect. When I think the guitar sounds great, in the mix the bass guitar starts sounding a bit thin perhaps due to cancellation. So record the best tone you can event it mens just a dab of eq during tracking. And always try to consider the mix overall above the guitar tone by itself. (Speaking generally here, not about the bit in the vid)

A really fine explanation of eq for guitar recordists, well done!

Posted by: The Uncreator Aug 15 2012, 10:50 PM

This was my main point, or at least its intended purpose. To get your guitar tone as close to possible before EQ'ing it, then fine tuning to sit in the mix. Has helped me tremendously.

Also, a really good tip I can give to anyone else. This is something I started doing recently, its mixing with my eyes closed. I dont look at the meters, or the signal in the EQ, I just listen with my eyes closed for 1-2 minutes, and then make changes accordingly, and repeat.

I think sitting there and staring at the screen and focusing on the meter (which isn't always that accurate from a DAW) or how your EQ or effects are acting affect how people could perceive the sound.

Posted by: tonymiro Aug 16 2012, 09:13 AM

Thought that was your point just saying more as a heads up for others as the internet is full of sites where people give mixing 'tips' which focus on individual instruments rather than the mix.

Totally agree. I keep trying to tell people that you mix wit your ears and not your eyes although very few people seem to listen. In the first studio I worked in many years ago the senior engineer put gaffa tape over the meters to make all of us learn that. One of the early lessons I put trainees through here is listening to tracks at -6, -3, 0, +3, +6 around our usual set point so that they get used to hearing how things change with level. Another one we do is to get the trainee to try to replicate changes made so they have to listen and work out what I'e done to a mix. Helps a lot though to have a calibrated monitoring chain.

We also keep the pc screen and other stuff to the side and we face the speakers. It's more to ensure that there's nothing between us and the speakers but it also helps by reducing visual distractions.

One other issue is that people get obsessed with replicating the exact settings of an EQ, comp or whatever that they see someone else using. What most of them don't realise is that those settings won't translate 100% between different processors because of differences in filter design, compression types and so on. What they need to do is learn to listen to what is being done rather than look at settings...

Posted by: Ben Higgins Aug 16 2012, 10:34 AM

That's very good, I should try that !

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Aug 16 2012, 11:35 PM

That's a great video mate! I wish I would have found a video like this one when I was doing my first mixes!