Low end in guitar sound

My band has no concept of this even through repeated explanations, articles, forum posts etc. The bass player and drummer share singing duties and during sound check they always want more bass on their vocals. So I give it to them during sound check then take it away. Similarly my bass player thinks he's a guitarist and has all these mids and highs cranked from his bass, no concept of tone in general but not even his own instrument. His wife asked me which pedal to get him for xmas, a compressor or an EQ? I never talked up a compressor so much in my life. lol.
 
A a general statement cutting lows I agree 100%. Cutting in the mix is obviously about the mid frequencies for guitar. I do find it depends on the amp, guitar, cab, etc. Some setups can still have great cut in the mids and highs but don't need the low end cut out too much. Depends on the low end. There's allot of variation in the lows. Tight, thinner, thicker, woofy, looser, etc,. For me the lows play a good part in the feel of the strings. I do like tighter lows in regard to how the rig feels under my fingers.
 
Ever notice for the main riff in VH's Pretty Wpmen, the bass plays along with the guitar until the last note? It makes the riff sound extremely heavy but then allows for the last sustained note to be on its' own for clarity. It's a great idea and quite effective. I also wonder in some songs with a guitar intro that the mix will give it more bottom end because it's on its' own but then cut the lows once the bass and drums kick in.
 
rcm78":iz3y2l6v said:
It's very common to low pass guitars but keep in mind a 6 string tuned to A=440 has a low E at 82hz. So you really dont want to filter out anything higher then 80hz...
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You can experiment to see what works. The fundamental is at 82 hz, but there's a lot of content in the harmonics, and there's some thought that our brain will fill in a missing fundamental.

You can read all about the debate if you Google discussion of what cabs to use with a 5-string bass. I think the low B fundamental is down around 30 hz, but most sealed cabinets don't have a whole lot of frequency response that low. But of course you still hear the low B note. Some would call it "weak" while others would say it's just "tight and clear." And the flip side is using a modern tuned cab that extends waaay down to the low B fundamental. Some love that, while to others it's just too boomy. I prefer using a giant sealed 8x10 that starts rolling off around 50 hz, I think. I had a ported 410 that extended into the 20s, but there was just so much rumbling coming off the cab, it made it a bit "blurry."
 
Low end in guitar tone is often an illusion as discussed. Embrace the mids that's where the grind, harmonics and all the juicy stuff is.
 
I use less and less each year it seems. My death metal project is tuned to dropB flat, and my bass knob on the Vht is just at 9:00. On my old Rhodes modded recto with a resonance knob, I kept the bass knob off and resonance full on. Gave it depth but kept the bass tight. Everyone that looks at my settings thinks I'm crazy, but then remark how heavy it sounds. I usually dial in an amp mids first then enough treble to open it up but not sizzle, then bring bass from zero til it sounds full.
 
I learned a while back the hard way when I was jamming with friends with a rectoverb 50 and another guitarist had a JCM900. I had my amp set like I did with home use. I got buried and went home with my tail between my legs
 
cardinal":q84x43ou said:
You can experiment to see what works. The fundamental is at 82 hz, but there's a lot of content in the harmonics, and there's some thought that our brain will fill in a missing fundamental.
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Exactly.

The brain's working overtime, all the time, when it comes to musical perception, and it loves it - adding, subtracting and I think even multiplying and dividing the individual harmonics and fundamentals of all the instruments in the mix with each other... in real time. It's processing power / bandwidth is phenomenal, many orders of magnitude beyond the capabilities of any CPU hardware ever built, so is it any wonder that it relishes the exercise?

The point here 'though is that it constructs "phantom" fundamentals where they're absent or very-low-in-level.

I recommend automating the HPFs on guitars, keys and vocals so that you allow some of the bottom end through during exposed passages, such as riff "break-downs" where the drums and bass aren't playing. The second the rest of the band comes in, you re-engage the filters. It's uncanny the way the parts don't suddenly seem thin once everything's playing again and they're HPF'd.

If you listen to the individual, processed-guitar tracks, for example, of a lot of the best '80s cock rock, you'll be amazed at how-thin and often-scratchy they sound, and yet, in the mix, they're perfect.

Enter stage-left: The brain.

Extra strings on the guitar, if you'll forgive the pun, only serve to muddy the water, IMHO.
 
I don't think anyone suggested removing mid-range ?

Kimock has talked extensively about how there is harmonics below the fundamental. 80 Hertz is not the lowest frequency coming from a guitar in standard tuning.
 
scottosan":11moyol9 said:
I learned a while back the hard way when I was jamming with friends with a rectoverb 50 and another guitarist had a JCM900. I had my amp set like I did with home use. I got buried and went home with my tail between my legs
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Absolutely, what sounds good jamming by yourself at home will almost always sound bad in a band mix, and sometimes vice versa.

I've played in bands so long, for the most part I can dial up a good tone that will work for me at home, and in a band.
 
I think things can sound great both alone and with the band. You can make a thin/screechy sound work with a band, but I don't think it needs to be screechy just to sit right in the mix.
 
I think a lot of people mistake low end for low-mid or just chunk. I play detuned heavy modern metal and I'm all about a deep chunky tone but have found that more in the mids low-mids. Too much low becomes muddy. While I like chunk, I also like it to be tight.
 
Easy answer is for rock/metal, just run distorted guitars through a Marshall boosted with a Boss pedal and bass through an SVT and 8x10 and everything will work out just fine.
 
I think most refer to that big bottom end in their amp to the amp in the room sound. That cab pushing air behind you. It generally gets carved out in a live setting and in the studio to sit in the band mix.
 
I remember John Suhr once saying something like the people playing at home always go for the huge sounds with lots of low end but the professionals/more experienced players have a thinner sounds to cut better through the mix.

NOTE: These were NOT his exact words (it did not sound offensive at all) but the idea was something like that...
 
---do what you've always done--- ---get what you've always gotten---

---its art, and in it's purest form,.. an extension of the soul-
 
---do what you've always done--- ---get what you've always gotten---

---its art, and in it's purest form,.. an extension of the soul-
 
I use a lot of Drop tunings and record constantly, my bassist and I have figured out long ago that we both can not play the same lines when in the studio, we'll suck all the bottom out of or muddy up the mix. This forced us to always come up with contrasting bass lines for all our rhythms. We very rarely play the same notes on guitar lines. It's done wonders for our writing skills and creativity not to mention our recordings.
 
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