EQ Distorted Guitars:
Mixing Ear Pleasing and Smooth Guitars
Distorted Guitars can easily sound nasty and harsh. Of course, this is not what you want. You want ear pleasing and smooth tones, even though the guitars are heavily distorted. With this EQ technique, you remove all the harshness and nastiness out of your distorted guitars:
The transformation isn’t huge – and it shouldn’t be. The point is to remove the harshness without altering the tone itself. When you use EQ like I showed in the video, the result is ear pleasing and smooth.
Ears get tired very fast if the guitars aren’t cleaned up from the excess harshness. They might sound okay, but if you feel like your ears are getting continuously tired from listening back to your mix, the problem can be with distorted guitars. It can be hard to notice, but when you remove the nasty frequencies, you’ll notice the difference.
Look for the frequencies by boosting with a narrow Q. However, be aware that cutting too much will make distorted guitars sounding weird, like there are some phase issues going on. The guitars can also easily lose their edge and attack due the excess cutting. Start by cutting around 1 – 1,5 dB with a narrow Q.
Hopefully you found this video helpful. If there’s anything you want me to cover in the future videos let me know. Send me an email or leave a comment below. Ask if there’s anything unclear or if I left something out. Cheers!
