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EQ's/tone knobs/etc. How much effect?

1K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  adamcbest 
#1 ·
Lots of things have EQ's and tone controls, guitars, amps, distortion pedals, graphic EQ's, compressors, rack wahs. If you have all of these things in your setup, what do they all do? If you boost your low end in the distortion pedal then cut it in the rack wah, only to then boost the high end in a graphic EQ then finally scoop the mids in your amp, how is that going to affect tone?
 
#2 ·
Hmm... that's a difficult one to call. All pedals have different sounds and can change your tone a lot. While it won't alter the tone of the amp, it will change the tone of the guitar pickups, if you know what I mean. I assume all you're gear is between the guitar and amp?

Just try messing about with the settings. It's the best way to find out. Sorry it isn't very elaborate advice, it's quite a difficult thing to call! Hope this helps you though. Good luck!
 
#3 ·
Well, it's going to make a difference - that's for sure. How? That depends..

The recipe for good tone for me is "bright into dark", or "dark into bright". So, tone knobs on my guitars are turned all the way up, tone on my OD pedal is turned down (that's the way it sound good), that goes into a bright preamp, which goes into a dark sounding power amp/cab.

Another simple rule is to single out pieces of gear, set them the way they sound the best on their own, and then correct everything with the more flexible equipment. That works very well for overdrive/distortion pedals, which tend to sound good only in particular ranges of the tone control.

That said, the more gear I add, the more stuff there is to adjust and it drives me crazy sometimes. There are days when I wish I would just sell the whole thing, and plug in straight into a nice combo.
 
#4 ·
Best thing -- avoid tons of EQing. The best hifi equipment doesn't need EQ (such as my own amplifier, Musical Fidelity X-A2), and neither should guitars. Try and choose the right pickups and amp, then shape it from there. It's good to be able to listen to wood and strings, not just tons of processing, it's nasty on the ear and can't make up for bad playing either. Keep it saimple. The best players can plug into a good amp and make it sing. Anything else should be the cherry on top. The more complex the tone circuitry, the worse it usually sounds (this also goes for hifi amps). It's just putting a load of crap in the way of the true signal which just ends up strangling the tone.
 
#7 ·
Shredder87 said:
In theory, yes, although I would exercise caution with that. Some effects pedals/units can change your tone even with EQ set flat. Some even change the sound even when they're switched off...
exactly.. if you put 3 boss eqs in front of your amp and leave them all set at flat, you're tone will still change noticably at least somewhat just from tonal degradation of the several connections to many pedals. Further more, if you have 2 eqs in a line, set both flat except the first eq has the low all the way up and the second has the low all the way down. It won't sound exactly the same as both completely flat becuase the second is now modifying the tone you made in the first. Best thing i have found is to set your amp to the EQ that you like. If you need some slight tweaking, get a secondary eq and just slightly move it from flat to add that little extra tone modification that you are looking for.
 
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