One of the most important instruments for producing rock, pop and country music are guitars. In fact, a band alone can be formed by just having guitars, drums and bass (for example it can become “legendary” like Led Zeppelin). Because of this importance, it has been used frequently to produce songs; however some difficulties are encountered during the mixing process.
This tutorial will illustrate how you can implement EQ on guitar to get the best sound for rock, country and pop music. Examples of a common EQ problem with guitar are conflicting frequencies with vocals and bass guitar.
Guitars have pretty wide frequency spectrum characteristics. Acoustic guitars particularly the nylon guitars have significant bass response, while steel string and electric guitars have significant middle to high frequency content. See sample frequency spectrum below for acoustic guitar:
Guitar frequency spectrum
It is because of this wide frequency spectrum characteristic that guitars are often the cause of mixing clarity issues.
For example looking at the above screenshot, the guitar does have significant middle frequencies (500Hz to 3000Hz). Since vocals also have a lot of middle frequency content, they tend to clash together in the mix resulting to clarity issues. Implementing proper EQ settings on the guitar can solve this problem.
Bad guitar recording can add more problems in the mix
Before you will learn how to EQ guitar; the most important requirement before you can mix guitars is that it should be properly recorded, clean (no noise) and of course “in tune”.
It is one of the important rules in audio mixing that you cannot fix recording related issues. If the issue is recording related, you should do a re-recording instead of fixing the problems in the mix. It is highly important that you understand how to record your guitars properly. You can refer to the following recommended tutorials:
DI method for clean sound– illustrate an important technique on how to get a clean guitar sound using DI technique (connecting your guitars directly to the audio interface) or using a guitar amplifier.
Amplifier technique for capturing distorted guitars – useful if you are recording overdriven with a guitar amplifier.
EQ Guide for Guitars
Mixing guitar frequencies for rock music, pop and country:
In the following EQ settings, you will be using a parametric equalizer. Personally, I am using Waves Paragraphic EQ (3-bands), such as shown below:
Waves paragraphic EQ
You can use any parametric EQ, but it is recommended you would be using a precise, accurate and industry accepted EQ.
High pass filter or a low shelving filter with cut off frequency at 200 Hz (for all applicable genres)– this will roll off guitar low frequencies (the bass) which can conflict with bass guitar sound.
However this is a one-fit-all solution; some guitars don’t sound good with low shelf cut at 200Hz. So you need to use your ears when doing the adjustment. Sometimes you might want to start cutting starting 150Hz or even 100Hz, it depends.
Cut -9dB at 3Khz, Q = 1.4 (for pop and country) — by cutting 9 dB at 3000Hz, you are making a hole in guitar middle frequencies which vocals can sit in. -9dB is a strong cut off which is recommended for pop and country music.
Some guitars sound fine at -6dB while -9dB cutting is too much for some application, remember to use your ear in judging the sound. Too much cutting will tend to loss most of the guitar sound main character which can be bad for music production.
But rock music is more popular with drowning vocals. So instead, you can cut conservatively at -3dB to -6dB only. You can start with those settings.
Boost 3dB at 400 Hz (Q =1.0) for rock music only. If you are producing rock guitars (with distortion or overdrive); boosting 3dB can make the guitar sound heavier than it seems. This works best when the bass guitar has been cut off at 400Hz also (or not boosted at this frequency range); if not then it may sound less effective.
Cut -6dB at 800Hz at Q=1.4 for all applicable genres. This will make the guitar sound clean and sound more professional. If this is not done, the “cheap” sound of the guitar will appear prominent which can be distracting to the ears. This will remove the annoying mid-frequency content of the guitar common in low-end guitars.
Boost 2dB at 6000Hz at Q=1 for pop and country genres. This is particularly important if you have a lot of acoustic guitar arrangements and it will tend to “shine” prominently with crisp at these frequencies. Also, this can be helpful to add more life and sparkle to guitar solos whether acoustic or overdriven guitars.
These are the only settings I care when I EQ a guitar, the rest of the frequency ranges I leave it as it is.
Implementing those EQ settings above is not enough to get the clarity you need in the mix. You still need to work on other instruments in the mix. For other instruments, it is recommended you will checkout this awesome tutorial.
Content last updated on October 23, 2012