EQ frequencies

[Bop Head]

A Peter Bernstein or a Kenny Burrell have an idea of what they want to sound like. The mind informs the touch of the hands. It has less to do with expensive gear.

[jorgemg1984]

LOL I'm not vastly wealthy. I'm not any kind of wealthy.

The tone journey takes a lifetime; you don't buy EVERY guitar and EVERY amp at once and decide what works. You buy things over time, learn them, live with them, decide if you want to keep them or move on.

And your last sentence I agree with, but I would add: "and learn how to use their hands. Touch is a huge part of the tone equation."

Ever notice how Kenny Burrell sounds like KB no mater what guitar and amp he's using? That's knowing how to play your gear.

(and before somebody says "yeah but"... I'm not talking about a tele bridge pickup into an AC30 sounding like the neck pickup of an ES-175 into a Polytone, let's stick to comparing apples to apples LOL)

I agree: no eq pedal will save you if you don't have the tone in your fingers. Or any peace of gear, for that matter. And sure, it's important to try to have a voice and ideally that comes trough no matter the rig - but that's a status hard to achieve... That's why KB was KB.

An eq pedal is a tool that can solve problems even if you have excellent "finger tones". It's great for small adjustments on tone imperfections and a lot of pros use them, there's no need to be conservative and not use the many tools we have at our disposal today

[omphalopsychos]

Honestly with a parametric EQ I can get my strat to sound really close to my L5. It doesn't feel the same to play at all. And the note duration and sustain are different. I can use a compressor to the the strat attack envelope to compress more like the L5, and I can use my left hand to kill the sustain.


But that's not how I use my EQ. I don't use an EQ at home. At home I just have a few good amps and they complement my guitars perfectly.

I use an EQ when I play out and play an amp with an unfamiliar tone stack and want to be able to control the sound instantly. I also use it if I feel like taking a lightweight tube amp (which usually only has a tone knob) and want to control the bass and mids more directly.


Lastly, gonna make a quick plug for this pedal too.


This is the reissue of the Diamond Compressor. Diamond is another Canadian (like Empress) company that made extremely high quality analog processors/effects. They recently had to shut down production but then they were acquired by SolidGoldFX (also Canada). I don't know what mods if any they made the the compression circuit but they added a Mid Knob, centered at 800 Hz with a pretty wide band (i.e. making it more subtle compared to a narrow band). It also has a Tilt EQ (i.e. turning it counter clockwise both increases bass and reduces treble, turning clockwise does the opposite). This EQ stack is dead simple and extremely useful.

I know a lot of jazz players hate compressors, so I'll leave my thoughts on that for another thread (tldr useful for solidbodies and solid state amps; less so for archtops/tubes), but just wanted to share that it is a game changing dead simple pedal that I can use to get a great sound out of just about any amp.

[omphalopsychos]

On the "tone is in the fingers" argument: LOL. You can't use your fingers to scoop out mids or add bass. Yeah, there's such as thing as a player having good or bad inherent tone (that they take with them to any rig), but you're confusing concepts here. Jorge's response is spot on.

[jorgemg1984]

A Peter Bernstein or a Kenny Burrell have an idea of what they want to sound like. The mind informs the touch of the hands. It has less to do with expensive gear.

Yeah, but a Zeidler and a Blackface Vibrolux is not exactly "cheap gear"...

[ruger9]

On the "tone is in the fingers" argument: LOL. You can't use your fingers to scoop out mids or add bass. Yeah, there's such as thing as a player having good or bad inherent tone (that they take with them to any rig), but you're confusing concepts here. Jorge's response is spot on.

To contrast, you can't separate gear and hands: your hands are the FIRST STEP in your gear. Your hands and your ear. Just as your hands can't "scoop mids", an amp can't control your touch, which absolutely does contribute to the tone coming out of the amplifier. It all "counts".

But we are getting too far astray here. I don't like EQ in guitar signal chains (except those on the guitar and amp), I'd rather have a guitar and amp combination that gives me what I want. It's silly to buy a Deluxe Reverb and an EQ pedal and try to turn the DR into a GA-50, for example. Just get the amp that does what you are looking for. I want an ES-125/150 and an EH-150; no amount of EQ is going to make my tele and Swart sound like that.

Ditto with trying to EQ strat pickups to sound like P90s. Just get a guitar with P90s and be done with it, if that's what you're looking for.

I never said EQ isn't useful: it is especially useful in studios for mixing. I said my $0.02 was I don't believe in them in guitar signal chains, because that means your guitar and amp aren't giving you what you want.

[Bop Head]

Yeah, but a Zeidler and a Blackface Vibrolux is not exactly "cheap gear"...

Where did I claim that? I did say that PB and KB play with an auditory "vision" in their minds that informs their fingers.

[st.bede]

Yes, there is a lot of tone shaping the hands can do. However, I bet that most people also adjust the amp and guitar settings. No matter what amp I am using, I always dial it in to get as close to possible the sound I want given the environment I am in. It ends being a relationship between my hands and the gear… very Heidegger-ish.

[bluejaybill]

On the "tone is in the fingers" argument: LOL. You can't use your fingers to scoop out mids or add bass. Yeah, there's such as thing as a player having good or bad inherent tone (that they take with them to any rig), but you're confusing concepts here. Jorge's response is spot on.

Agreed, my hands are just fine thanks- but I still want to sound like Peter Bernstein and Kenny Burrell!

I can give two examples of ways that I use an EQ for jazz.

I have a beautiful handmade arch top with a floating pickup, it sounds very good out of the box, but has a tiny bit too much bass, and is a bit lacking in the low mids. And is a bit bright. Three simple EQ tweaks, and just a touch of each: slight decrease in the bass shelf, slight boost around 400K with a broad curve, slight decrease in the high shelf.
My other arch top id very full, similar to a 175. But it has a slight bit too much bass and a tiny bit of ice pick in the upper midrange. Again, slight low shelf, dial back the offending midrange, and done.

Neither of these would be 100% possible on a typical Fender/Marshall tone stack.

And I'm not even getting into making a telecaster neck pickups more suitable for jazz, or an LP, or getting a better fusion sound. Very useful tool.

[sgosnell]

Some people seem to think that everyone is, or should be, exactly like them, and everyone should have the same preferences. That is not reasonable.

[rpjazzguitar]

Given a choice between revamping my technique and buying an eq box, I'm going to pick the eq.

[ruger9]

Some people seem to think that everyone is, or should be, exactly like them, and everyone should have the same preferences. That is not reasonable.

You've discovered the #1 problem in the world!! LOL

That's why I said "my $0.02"

I'm all for "whatever works". I just try to keep it simple rather than complicated. I figure if Jim Campilongo and Duke Levine can get amazing tones with just a tele, amp, and cord... so can I.