5 Ways To Use EQ Pedals | Too Afraid To Ask [Boss EQ-200]

welcome to CS guitars a science of load today I'm tackling your task as the questions that at the stage you are too afraid to ask of all the questions that get left in the comments of my videos the most frequent pertain to the idea of EQ whether it be queries like what are meds or how can i dial on a good amp tone or simply put explain EQ pedals that seems to be a better confusion around the subject so I've got my hands on new boss EQ 200 graphic equalizer to discuss these concepts I feel the EQ much like compressors often falls victim to people going oh my god that's so essential are you even a guitarist if you don't have one but then they never go on to fully explain why you need one or how you can use one effectively so in this video we're gonna tackle the following questions what is eq do I need one and how can I use EQ with five examples because the algorithm loves numbers and the video title all praise be to the algorithm right off the bat there are two different types of EQ pedal graphic like the boss EQ 200 and polymeric like my own target meds for this video I'm going to focus solely on the graphic EQ as this is what most people will imagine when they think of an EQ pedal with all these sliders for different frequency bands these affect a lot of frequency ranges all at once under the broad brush approach to EQ modification these will provide the most obvious and drastic sonic effect parametric EQs are far more precise allowing you to dial in on a specific frequency range and get Fame control within that area the act more as a scalpel used to make delicate precise changes to specific areas of sonic space and as such are a little more difficult to make a generalized video about they are incredibly application specific and that's probably why this signature pedal didn't really sail and is now out of production thanks for your support unlike parametric EQ which allows you to adjust the frequency centre and the width of frequencies being adjusted it graphic EQ only lets you boost our cut fixed frequency ranges using the sliders producing essentially a graph of your eq modification assuming you are a healthy young person with your full hearing capability and tact we human beings and here scientist frequencies as low as 20 Hertz rates up to 20 kilohertz graphic EQs take this full range and chop it up into segments called frequency bands the EQ 200 splits this range into ten segments starting at 30 hairs going right up to 12 point 8 kilohertz going any higher or lower than these extremes would be largely redundant as the frequencies would go beyond the range the guitar speaker can reproduce and most likely beyond the range of your tinnitus damaged hearing for convenience sake we group ranges of these frequency bands together and give them names of which the following is a simplified list from 20 Hertz up to around 300 Hertz we call bass frequencies this is the low end of your signal continuing on from 300 hairs right the way up to around 4 kilohertz we have med range frequencies or meds for short this is an incredibly important frequency range for guitars as this is where the majority of your signal lives we often subdivide this into lower and upper mid-range as the effect of each can have drastically different implications for your sound anything above 4 kilohertz is most commonly referred to as high end frequencies or more colloquially treble sound engineers will often break this up into further subcategories which really helps them in their job and the nodes are already in the comments arguing about the numbers that I've used to define the frequency ranges mentioned previously let the geeks have their complain what you need to know as a guitarist is that the wards bass meds and treble are simply referring to loose groups of frequencies using a graphic EQ pedal I can demonstrate just how much of the 3 main frequency bands base meds and treble are present within a guitar signal you'll hear a guitar signal with a flat EQ and then I will take how all frequencies except the bass meds and treble frequency's and turn [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] being able to identify specific frequency ranges within a fuel sound is vital to using an EQ pedal effectively by knowing what the lower mid-range sounds like in the context of a fill sound for example can inform you of which frequencies need reduced and which you need more of on that subject is incredibly important to know the EQ pedals don't magically add frequencies into your signal by boosting a frequency the pedal isn't creating more of it it's simply amplifying that range of the original signal you can't amplify what wasn't already there so if your signal is significantly lacking in a frequency an EQ pedal would add it back in amplification can increase the noise and your signal so excessive boosting of frequencies can have a detrimental effect to the cleanliness of your tone it's for this reason but cutting frequencies is often the far more effective solution when using an EQ by taking away frequencies you don't need you can improve your tone to a far greater degree and trying to amplify to add more if you need your sound to be brighter try removing some bass and low mids before you start boosting the high frequencies you may just find that this arrives you at your perfect tone a lot quicker also remember this boost weighed and cuts narrow when boosting frequencies you want to do so over a wide frequency range but when you're removing them you want to do so over as narrow a frequency range as possible here's the dilemma of this question EQ pedals are incredibly useful tools and it certainly doesn't hurt to have a good one in your collection ever since receiving this I've barely had it off EQ pedals allow you to fine tune your tone or create drastic EQ changes to add interest and variety to song segments they are a tool of additional refinement for specific applications but you have a good reason to use one and a sort understanding of how they work so while they are a beneficial luxury you technically shouldn't need an EQ pedal most of the time you should be able to get a good tone out of whichever amplifier you are using with only the control on the front panel app designers spend a lot of time perfecting the tone of their amplifier and add only enough EQ controls to the amp to tweak it for best performance with the rest of your equipment if you just can't get good sound out of your amp alone then you probably have the wrong amp or speakers for your application and adding an EQ pedal on top of that isn't going to fix anything I mean if you can't dial in a good tone using three simple controls on a torn stack that's already tailored to sound its best then adding 10 bands of powerful EQ on top of that is only going to magnify the problem EQ pedals are not and should not be a band-aid for bad tone they're not an abrasive compound for polishing turds they are tools for refraining an already good tone to make it better not a crutch to make a bad one passable if there is one message to take away from this video let it be this one if you're torn sucks you don't need an EQ pedal what you need is to look again at your existing rig and work out why it's not performing the way you expect have you set it up and correctly do you need to spend more time understanding and tweaking the existing controls and are there other parts of your reg that are letting you down that should be addressed before adding anything new once you've done that and you have a foundation tone you're happy with then an EQ pedal will yield many possibilities to build upon your sound teaming specific frequencies to further clean up your tone or producing modified EQ curves for different song sections contrary to popular belief an EQ pedal is something to own once you have a good tone not before here's five ways to use EQ why five because the algorithm demands it may has mercy shine upon us and more importantly because EQ 200 has 4 memory slots for storing EQ presets as well as whatever set up on the sliders giving us a total of 5 EQ curves we can cycle between this example has the EQ pedal placed before the amplifier with a curve that kicks up the upper meds and docks the low-end slightly which is to mitigate for the fact of raise the overall volume this will overdrive the NP r--'s pushing the preamp into more gain particularly in the vocal range of the instruments and that small cuts the bass will preserve tightness and the low this is the same logic as using the lakes of a tubescreamer to boost the front end although in the case of the tubescreamer were also adding a touch of grit the eq paddle will get the same tonal character but without the distortion allowing the application of frequencies alone to break up the amplifier [Music] [Music] arguably the most powerful way to use an EQ pedal is to put it in the effects loop and order for it to sheep the gain of the signal after it's gone through the preamp this is my preferred juice of an EQ pedal and will be yours too if you also utilize a lot of preamp Distortion here I'll essence the torn from my amplifier and look for ways that I can further refine it perhaps I've got a really solid rhythm tone draw off the amplifier but I'd like to restructure that for a solo so I can have something that kicks on and has a little bit more present in the mix [Music] this curve has a reduction in the lowest frequencies a little kick to the 120 Hertz region which gives us a nice better girth reduction in the lower meds just to take out some of that muddiness and then our wide bursting across the upper meds and presence frequencies there's also a slight reduction in the highest frequencies to remove any aspect or high-end fez [Music] very small adjustments make a massive impact when used in the effects loop so it doesn't really take much to get the result you're after in fact the plus/minus 15 decibels boost incur is almost a little too powerful for the feint adjustments I want to make the EQ curve looks a lot more complex here and that's because I'm employing some ideas from the next feature on our list it's inevitable that even the best sounding amplifiers can suffer from problem frequencies narrow frequency bands that let down an otherwise excellent tone perhaps are just something in your signal chain that's over emphasizing the low meds and causing a better muddiness to the sound or there's just a bit too much high frequency Fez that you'd like to team perhaps the bass and they're just a bit too Bumi and the problems too narrowband to be dialed out with the amps controls alone being able to identify where and the - and the problem frequencies are and dialing on an EQ pedal to deal with them is vital cutting frequencies is usually the far more effective solution than boosting them you clean up a mess by removing the clutter here I know that I want a tighter more focused metal sound the amplifier is providing a chunky present torn but due to the wider influence of the onboard EQ controls there are some lower meds that I just can't dial out and some of the highest frequencies are a little harsh [Music] an EQ curve that takes small cuts to the problem frequencies reveals the best sound of the amplifier without additively changing its tone using this in conjunction with the previous method can kill two birds with one stone while small and subtle EQ changes have been the desired approach so far EQ is capable of delivering much more drastic effects by removing all of the bass frequencies and taking narrow boosts the meds and high frequencies we can emulate the sounds of old telephone speakers or make it sound like a guitar is coming out of a small radio these are drastic contrast to song sections when playing live and could be useful for your next intro or song break [Music] you might be playing a gig that requires two guitars a single cut with juicy load humbuckers and the strapless vintage output single coils and this scenario changing between guitars will result in drastically different volume and torn and you may wish for the zone between them to be a bit closer together and both level and equalization running an EQ pedal early in your signal chain can help mitigate this by bouncing out the volume differences between your humbucker guitar and your single coil guitar it can also help keep your signal chain as simple as some effects can have a drastically different result depending on what label of signals are being fared with so putting an EQ pedal ahead of your signal chain can help eliminate this issue before it's even become a problem [Music] the boss eq 200 is a supremely powerful graphic EQ pedal it's an frequency bands offer incredible control and being able to visualize the EQ curve on the screen it's helpful in ways the sliders alone can never be being able to store for EQ presets and memory I find to be extremely useful when reamping guitar parts I could dial in the EQ that I wanted beforehand and then simply switch to the ones I needed when recording certain parts and if you ever need to go back and redo a part again you've got that EQ saved in memory and you don't have to try and remember where your sliders were say it the units has stereo ins and outs and an expression panel control so you can ramp up and down the level or chosen frequency if you like it's also MIDI compatible due to these 3.5 milimeter jacks on the side so you can command this along with you other media equipment through a separate foot switch really there's very little extra to see about the specific unit all EQ pedals work on the same principle and only difference between them is how well they do their job the EQ 200 is very easy to dial in and does exactly what it needs to do to shape your sound with the features and functionality that will tackle almost any application this is an absolute winner of a pedal I hope they love it and if you want to check out the price and grab one for yourself then links will be in the description box below now if you liked this video and you want to see more content from me then you can hit that subscribe button which will notify you of all new content as it comes out pitch runs also therefore exclusive secret stuff t-shirts are still available and as other videos you may not have seen but I saw for now guys keep it loud I'll see you later

Channel: CSGuitars

Views: 203,086

Keywords: CSGuitars, Colin, all the gain, guitcon, scotland, victory, pickups, science, will it shred, whats the difference, studio, recording, guitar, amplifier, pedal, scottish, metal, boss, eq, equalisation, equalization, eq-200, eq200, 200, graphic, parametric, roland, mids, how to use, do i need

Id: rA17mta5kq4

Length: 18min 24sec (1104 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 15 2019