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Tag: EQ pedal

  • Want a Better Guitar Sound? Try This Pedal

    Want a Better Guitar Sound? Try This Pedal

    I know a compliment when I see one

    And that text, my friends, is why you need an EQ pedal.

    Let’s rewind.

    My live tone problem

    The last show I played with my band, my guitar sounded way too muddy for my liking.

    Weirdly, I had dialed in what I thought was a good sound during our practice sessions. But when I got to the venue? No dice.

    Every room, building, and venue will have its own distinct acoustics that will change your sound in idiosyncratic ways.

    Something about the place was accentuating bass frequencies — whether it was the placement of my amp, the stage’s resonance, the house mix, or the room itself, I couldn’t say. But even with the bass dial on my Marshall turned all the way down, it still sounded woofy.

    Fun venue, not-so-fun room acoustics.

    As it turns out, this is normal — every room, building, and venue will have its own distinct acoustics that will change your sound in idiosyncratic ways.

    In this case, I simply wasn’t able to eliminate low frequencies with my amp’s control panel. So now what? How was I supposed to turn the bass down past zero?

    And that’s when it hit me: I needed an EQ pedal. But as I found out, an EQ pedal can do so much more.

    What is an EQ pedal, exactly?

    An EQ pedal is essentially a filter allowing you to independently boost or cut a wide range of frequencies in your guitar signal — to a much greater degree than your amp.

    Every brand will be slightly different, but in general, most EQ pedals have between six and 10 frequency bands. These bands are usually controlled by sliders that allow you to quickly isolate and adjust a specific frequency. You can cut each out entirely, send it through the ceiling, or do anything in between.

    Different EQ pedals allow you to control different frequencies, as well, but most are going to have sliders for a selection between 100 and 5K Hertz (Hz).

    An EQ pedal is essentially a filter allowing you to independently boost or cut a wide range of frequencies in your guitar signal — to a much greater degree than your amp.

    The lowest frequencies (below 250 Hz) provide depth and warmth to your guitar’s sound but can also cause muddiness (my stage problem).

    Mid frequencies (250–4K Hz) are where the main portion of your guitar’s sound sits, which should be no surprise since the guitar is a mid-range instrument. But overdoing things here can give you a boxy sound.

    High frequencies (above 4K Hz) enhance clarity and brightness, but too much emphasis on these frequencies results in a sharp, piercing tone.

    Some EQ pedals will also come with a volume slider. This is because—for scientific reasons that I don’t understand—when you adjust frequencies up or down, the volume level also changes. If you cut a few troublesome frequencies, for example, you’ll notice your guitar is no longer quite as loud.

    How to dial in an EQ pedal

    The short answer is “use your ears.”

    Seriously, I watched a ton of tutorial videos and did a lot of research, and there is no “right” answer. It 100 percent depends on what you’re looking to achieve with it.

    For example, if you have a guitar with humbuckers and want to make it sound closer to single-coil pickups, you can set up your EQ pedal to do that (tutorial here).

    If you like your distorted signal but it sounds a bit too harsh, you can dial back the frequencies between 1K and 3K Hz.

    If you want your guitar to have a lo-fi radio sound, you can boost the middle sliders and lower the rest.

    Generally speaking, cutting 400 Hz and boosting 800 Hz will both positively affect your sound.

    The possibilities really are endless, but there are some general rules that can help.

    Placement matters. If you want to change your tone, consider placing it at the beginning of your signal chain. If you want to keep your tone but just sculpt or shape it, add it at the end of your FX loop.

    Don’t be afraid to experiment. Take each slider down to 0 and up to 100. Crank the lows and cut the highs, or vice versa. See how a 25% cut compares to an equal boost. Mix and match. The best way to learn how any pedal works is to try things and listen.

    Cut first, then boost. If you don’t like your sound, try reducing certain frequencies before boosting anything. Sometimes the solution is as simple as removing a few unwanted frequencies.

    Use the 400–800 rule. Generally speaking, cutting 400 Hz and boosting 800 Hz will both positively affect your sound.

    Let YouTube be your guide. Seriously, there are so many quality tutorial videos that will get you started (I like this one and this one).

    The small yet significant result

    Using what I’d learned, I started messing around with the new EQ pedal I’d just bought (this one, if you’re curious). I decided to make it the last pedal in my FX loop because I wanted to shape the overall sound coming out of the amp, not fundamentally alter it.

    First, I tried about every setting I could think of just to see what each sounded like. What if I cut all the lows? What if I raised the mids? What if I made a smiley face? A frowny face?

    The result was slight yet significant. It was the same tone, just better. Tighter. More “professional” sounding.

    But each of these trials affected the sound too much. I wanted a light touch.

    I found that for my setup, it was as simple as boosting 800 Hz to about 75 percent and cutting 400 Hz to about 40 percent. I slightly cut the remaining low and high frequencies.

    The result was slight yet significant. It was the same tone, just better. Tighter. More “professional” sounding to my ears.

    I tested out my newfound pedal and setting at church a few weeks back. The text message from the beginning of this article? That was from my worship director after the service. She had no idea I’d used an EQ pedal — a perfect blind test.

    And now I can’t wait to go back to the “bassy” venue with my band and see how well it fixes my low-end problem.

    Going from 99% to 100%

    In my last article, I said that upgrading to a Gibson SG and Marshall tube amp took my tone from 95 percent of where I wanted it to be to 100 percent.

    I lied.

    I now realize it only took my tone to 99 percent. Adding an EQ pedal to the end of my FX loop added that last percent. I’ve now got a tighter, cleaner sound — and people can tell something is different.

    So does that mean you should run out and buy an EQ pedal? I have played for decades without one and lived to tell the tale, so no, I don’t believe they are necessary.

    But if, like me, you’re looking to gain an edge and get yourself closer to a desired tone, I’d absolutely invest in one. It might just surprise you how much it helps.

  • A Primer on How to Understand Signal Chains

    A Primer on How to Understand Signal Chains

    I don’t like jargon.

    For instance, I have a master’s degree in biblical studies. But whenever I teach or preach, I rarely — if ever — use big theological words. Yes, I know what “hypostatic union” and “weltanschauung” mean, but odds are my audience doesn’t. And my interests don’t lie in showing everyone how educated I am; I’m much more concerned with actual communication, which means my hearers have to understand what I’m saying.

    Hence my disdain for jargon. But jargon exists in every area of interest. And as shorthand for talking with other people “in the know,” it’s fine as far as it goes. But it has the unintended consequence of potentially shutting newcomers out of the conversation.

    For me, “signal chain” is one of those terms in the guitar realm.

    When I started playing guitar a very long time ago, I had a cheap electric guitar and a cheap amplifier. No pedals, no noise suppressors, no nothing. I had never heard of a signal chain and would have had no insight into what it might be.

    Only many years later, when I started to really learn about guitar, did I start to figure out terms like “signal chain.” So today, I’d like to provide a basic overview of a signal chain to help anyone out there who, like “past me,” hears such terms and needs an explanation.

    What is a signal chain?

    Thankfully, a signal chain is a pretty straightforward idea. The “signal” being referred to is simply the signal that runs from your guitar to the amplifier via the cable. Your guitar’s pickups are basically electromagnets that translate the vibrations of your strings into an electrical signal. This signal is then transmitted to the amplifier by your instrument cable, where the speaker converts it into sound waves.

    With a basic setup like I had when I started, your “chain” is literally just the 10-foot cable connecting your guitar to the amp. But as you progress, most guitarists start wanting to add to or change their guitar’s sound. For most of us, I would guess, a distortion pedal is the first thing we buy to achieve this.

    Once you add something like a distortion pedal, you have what could truly be called a “chain” — a signal path with multiple links. In our example case, you now have a guitar signal that is interrupted and modified by your distortion pedal before being sent on to the amplifier.

    Of course, most of us soon realize that if one pedal is good, more must be better! So we save up and buy all kinds of effects pedals: phasers, delays, fuzz, chorus, octave, wah… If you want an effect, there’s probably a pedal designed to do just that.

    So as we slowly build up our pedalboard, we extend our signal chain. In fact, you could almost consider the terms “pedalboard” and “signal chain” to be synonymous.

    How do I set up a signal chain?

    One thing you’ll notice about guitarists is how many of us have so many pedals. I’ve seen players with at least a dozen pedals stuffed onto a board, and it seems like you need a master’s degree in electrical engineering just to understand all of the buttons and knobs.

    But it doesn’t have to be that complex — you can use as many or as few pedals and effects in your signal chain as you want.

    And even for the most convoluted pedalboards out there, most players are following the same basic order of effects — and here it is:

    • The first effects in your signal chain are typically compressors, EQs, and wah pedals. These are called “dynamics” or “filter effects.”
    • Next come overdrive and distortion pedals, sometimes called “gain effects.”
    • Time-based effects like delays, chorus, and flangers come next in line.
    • Reverb effects often come last.

    I’m not a tech guy, so rather than explain why this order works, it’s much easier to say, “This is the order a whole bunch of guitarists over the decades have come to agree is best,” and get on with your day.

    But that statement, while true, doesn’t mean it’s the order you have to put your pedals in. When you are playing your guitar into your amp with your own pedals, you have the freedom to try any signal chain you want. And who knows — you might come across a combination you love and that comes to define your sound.

    The more you know

    At its core, a signal chain really is that simple. It’s just a way to refer to the pedals and effects that sit in between your guitar and the amplifier.

    Like anything, you can dive into signal chains as deep as you want. I’m perfectly happy having a pedalboard with just a few basic pedals, but other people want to go all in and spend thousands of dollars on a massive board. I’m also perfectly fine not understanding all of the theory and intricacies behind how the electronics work, but you may be a person who enjoys such things. In either case, it’s totally fine. You do you.

    Hopefully this has been a helpful, albeit basic, primer on signal chains. So I encourage you to go out with your newfound knowledge with confidence!