Getting smooth, present treble tones.

Kellan · Post by **Kellan** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 5:36 pm

What the fuck is the trick to this?
How do you get a nice treble tone without having to EQ shit to death and preventing a bunch of noise/ear damaging treble to come out of the mix?
I guess it only really happens when I'm playing by myself, as I recall that I don't really hear it while other instruments are playing.
But god damn, the only good treble tone I can ever get is out of practice volumes.
So what's the deal? Do I need to cut out all frequencies after X khz, too much mid (even though I'm using not that much in the first place), etc?
My bass and mid are great, and the crunch is nice and tight and clear; but the highs are just too fuckin much.
I think I'm doing alright until I walk to a different position in front of the amp where it's projecting directly towards me (even an inch in position makes a difference) and then my ears get annihilated by treble.
What's your guys' fuckin tone guide?
I'm sick of fucking with my EQ until everything just sounds like shit.

Lord of This World · Post by **Lord of This World** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 7:11 pm

my amp has a compressor in it that cuts down on bad treble and noise.

Pfl?yd · Post by **Pfl?yd** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 8:03 pm

A compressor helps, certainly unless you are using distortion (distortion naturally compresses the signal). I've found "smooth" tones come best from the neck pickup soloed with a little bit of dirt on it. A tube amp with a really good clean channel doesn't hurt either.

Pfl?yd · Post by **Pfl?yd** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 8:05 pm

And having a shitload of gain will muddy it up. You really don't need a lot of gain at all, to be honest.

Kellan · Post by **Kellan** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 10:05 pm

Check on the tube amp with awesome clean channel and neck pickup.
Those tones are absolutely pristine, but it's the distortion that's killing me.
I tone it down on the gain, lay off the EQ, cut down on frequencies, etc.
I was going to get the boss compressor a while ago but just never did. I probably will soon though.
The tone is great but there's some supersonic frequencies that are fucking atrocious. Not sure how I get rid of them. I can try cutting out the last slider on my EQ altogether and see what happens but I hope it doesn't mess up the tone too much.

silverback77 · Post by **silverback77** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 12:44 pm

Getting the top end not to hurt your eyes or teeth with lots of gain is not easy. What kind of amp are you using?

I've found one of the best ways to acheive success in this area is to use a parametric eq w/ a high shelf function. If you don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, PM & I'll fill you in. Basically, you're gonna set the highest band on your parametric eq to something in the 15-17 kHz area, shelf mode (or low pass mode), and turn the gain for that frequency band all the fucking way down. You're essentially removing all frequencies above whatever cutoff frequency you choose. Aim high. Start at 17 kHz and move down until you can hear your tone darkening.

Now that you've gotten rid of shit you can't hear and therefore don't need, you'll need to tweak the high end you can actually hear. 12 k is "sparkle"; 8 k is "slice"; 6 k is "shing"; 4 k is "bite"; below that, you're starting to get into what I consider the midrange of your tone. 1-2 k is the octave where there is lot of vocal energy, and modern distorted guitar tones are often scooped here anyway. If you find that your tone lacks body, fuck around with the frequencie between 800 Hz and 2.2 kHz. This area is often ruled by the "clang" of a bass and the vocals.

One great parametric EQ is the Rane PE17. I have the older version, the PE15, and its great, performs beyond its price point and holds its own against some of the boutique eq's I've used in studios. Dimebag used a Furman PQ3 and PQ5. Behrigner also makes a 5-band parametric, although I've never heard it. It's cheap, though.

Used in conjuction with a compressor, a parametric is great tool that will help out your problem.

Kellan · Post by **Kellan** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 3:58 pm

silverback77 wrote:Getting the top end not to hurt your eyes or teeth with lots of gain is not easy. What kind of amp are you using?

I've found one of the best ways to acheive success in this area is to use a parametric eq w/ a high shelf function. If you don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, PM & I'll fill you in. Basically, you're gonna set the highest band on your parametric eq to something in the 15-17 kHz area, shelf mode (or low pass mode), and turn the gain for that frequency band all the fucking way down. You're essentially removing all frequencies above whatever cutoff frequency you choose. Aim high. Start at 17 kHz and move down until you can hear your tone darkening.

Now that you've gotten rid of shit you can't hear and therefore don't need, you'll need to tweak the high end you can actually hear. 12 k is "sparkle"; 8 k is "slice"; 6 k is "shing"; 4 k is "bite"; below that, you're starting to get into what I consider the midrange of your tone. 1-2 k is the octave where there is lot of vocal energy, and modern distorted guitar tones are often scooped here anyway. If you find that your tone lacks body, fuck around with the frequencie between 800 Hz and 2.2 kHz. This area is often ruled by the "clang" of a bass and the vocals.

One great parametric EQ is the Rane PE17. I have the older version, the PE15, and its great, performs beyond its price point and holds its own against some of the boutique eq's I've used in studios. Dimebag used a Furman PQ3 and PQ5. Behrigner also makes a 5-band parametric, although I've never heard it. It's cheap, though.

Used in conjuction with a compressor, a parametric is great tool that will help out your problem.

Currently my rig consists of a Schecter C-7 Blackjack, going to a Boss EQ-20, to a Rocktron "Zombie" Rectified distortion (distortion geared towards tube amps) into a Fender Hot Rod Deville 4x10 60w all tube combo.
I'm pretty sure my problem lies with the EQ. But it only goes up to 12.8k, apparently.
I use a modified V shape with a little less emphasis on the highs and lows, and some more boost in the mid. Obviously without that shape you sacrafice a true metal tone, but I also like to be able to hear what I'm actually playing, so I make it a little less steep than a traditional V shape.
Everything sounds fantastic except for the fuckin noise.
I guess the biggest bitch is to figure out if I need to cut back on the Boss EQ, the treble on the distortion, treble on the amp, maybe it's too much mid.
I guess I just need to do some fucking around.
Here's the Boss EQ if you're not familiar with it, which you probably are.

SuicideNote · Post by **SuicideNote** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:52 pm

If it sounds shit with the EQ bypassed you need to work on a problem elsewhere. I never had any success using EQ to save a crappy setup.

The other guitar player in my band low passes at about 8k. For some reason his 4x12 is incredibly bright.

silverback77 · Post by **silverback77** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 5:06 pm

a Fender Hot Rod Deville 4x10 60w all tube combo.

Without wishing to be be offensive, I'm gonna have to say the problem is that fucking amp. Those amps are just noisy in general.

If you can't get a new amp, spend some $ on a good gate. If you don't want to fuck around & just want it to work, get a Rocktron Intelligate. If you've got the balls, check out a Drawmer gate: http://www.drawmer.com/ds201.html

That is the BEST fuckin' gate you can buy, period. It's got filters you can set to zone in on the noisiest frequencies while leaving the others alone. This makes the gate much faster-acting and more "transparent".

Also, do some experimenting w/ tubes. I know that's expensive advice, but really, you will find that switching out tube types can DRASTICALLY change the important factors of your tone. Check out Aspen Pittman's The Tube Amp Book for more on what different types of preamp and power amp tubes sound like.

Kellan · Post by **Kellan** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:26 pm

Yeah. I've thought about a different amp to be honest.
I just don't see a reason to part with it though I guess. It's got fantastic (well in my opinion) clean tones.
That and the reason I bought the thing in the first place was because the Mesa and Marshall combos I tried all sounded like fucking shit to me.
The Fender was by far the cleanest amp I played that day.
But alas, getting a good metal tone out of it is a bit of a feat.
I can dial in everything to where it sounds really nice, except for the god damned noise. Like I said, it's supersonic treble. Ridiculously bright tones. I can still hear the "good" 8k-ish treble as well, but damn the brightness is just overwhelming to the point where it hurts.
If I turn off the EQ it sounds completely lacking, like a practice amp; because on the amp I have the bass, mid, and treble relatively at the same settings with their respective dials.
Turn the EQ on and the brightness begins.
I haven't even played on the thing today out of laziness. I'll do a lot of experimenting Wednesday or something. Just start from completely flat on the EQ and see what happens.

Kellan · Post by **Kellan** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:28 pm

Oh and about the gate, I'll definitely look into that.
I'm a god damned sound nazi so filtering out or affecting as many frequencies as possible sounds wonderful to me.

Kellan · Post by **Kellan** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:33 pm

Fuck. I looked at things by Drawmer and that kind of shit is exactly what I want.
The noise gate, the tube EQ, etc; where you can put the crossover at a particular frequency and cut the boost at that frequency accordingly.
Why do things like this have to come at such a steep price tag?

silverback77 · Post by **silverback77** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:44 pm

Kellan wrote:Fuck. I looked at things by Drawmer and that kind of shit is exactly what I want.
The noise gate, the tube EQ, etc; where you can put the crossover at a particular frequency and cut the boost at that frequency accordingly.
Why do things like this have to come at such a steep price tag?

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dl ... noise+gate

A few listings on eBay for used Drawmer gates at reasonable prices. They're the shit, dude. Get one.

Kellan · Post by **Kellan** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:48 pm

Well I basically cut out the 12.8k slider almost completely out last night, made a world of difference. I'd never really given much though to it before.
So that works for now I suppose.

Wrona · Post by **Wrona** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 2:21 am

Kellan wrote:Well I basically cut out the 12.8k slider almost completely out last night, made a world of difference. I'd never really given much though to it before.
So that works for now I suppose.

As i was reading this thread i figured if i told you to cut some high end off of your eq pedal it would help.