My other guitarist likes to put his Mids way up so I tend to keep them a bit lower than him and aim for a bassier/heavier sound to contrast what he's playing.

Usually about...

Bass - 4/5

Mid - 6/7

Treble - 10

we played a gig once when calum, my bro in crime played in clean lol. due to a dodgy lead that failed about 30 secs till we were on on! sound weh tho, one of our best gigs!

^^^^

Opening for Bolt Thrower no less!

He once also played half of a song through an acoustic channel once.

Twat.

i love playing in almost clean, with a guitar tone that everyone thinks is disgusting, but when theres a band behind it it comes together lol, my old setting were getting stupid tho, think game over but cleaner haha

Fiend wrote:The guitar is a mid-frequency instrument, it naturally occupies that 'segment' of the frequency spectrum.

In that case is it really neccasary to boost a frequency range which is naturally prevalent in the instrument? Surely the point of eq is to add (or take away) something that isn't already there, in order to sculp the sound to your needs. Therefore you can see how, if someone perceives their guitar tone to already have a prominent mid-range because if its natural properties, they would want to add in other frequencies that are not naturally that prominent (i.e. bass and treble).

Again it's a matter of preference, and again there are many, many things that can make one guitar sound completely different to the next. A Mahogoney guitar can be much more bassey than one made from alder for example, and a maple fretboard gives a much brighter sound than rosewood. So it's hardly suprising that a lot of different people have completely different settings.

Fiend wrote:Scooped sounding guitars on recordings are never actually scooped at source - the oft-quoted Metallica 'Black' sound is a result of very, very high-quality technology, layers of guitar tracks, post-production/EQing and so forth

But in order to reproduce a similar sound live, on a limited budget, what do you do? I don't think taking a completely different approach and boosting mids is the way to go. As you say, there are layers of rhythm guitars on the Black Album, but it's this absence of mids that allow the bass to cut through. By cutting the mids on the guitar, which is a naturally mid-ey instrument, it creats a sonic hole in the mix. This allow Jason Newsted's bass, with proper tweaking of the mids, to cut through brilliantly, again an often copied sound that is very rarely reproduced. I believe that it's this 'fitting round' of the instruments that is very important.

And I also think that the idea of all these guitar players not being able to hear themselves, or cut through, is a little hard to swallow. When I go to watch bands play live, particularly of this genre, I find the guitar is the most prominent instrument nearly all of the time. It is the bass that is so often neglected and that so needs to 'cut through'. It is usually guitar solos that are difficult to hear, particularly when there are two guitar players in the band, which is why I think is vital that guitar players have a solo boost. And this is the time to boost your mids in order to cut through, an eq pedal is usually the best idea. But if your partner in grime already has his mids boosted way up then this trick is far less likely to work.

Still, this is only my opinion.

I've learn't quite a bit from all of your opinions here.I found that I sound better with more mids and low presence and less treble than I had before,also a bit less bass too. I've boosted the gain though so that I have a more singing response with the leads and less fighting the strings when speed picking.
On the subject of the bass.I find that a big,raw bass sound is essential in thrash for that boom factor like in the old days.

its aaaaaaaalll about the monster mids, but depends what ur doin, cuz live, too much bass and mid kills the sound because its competeing with mid and high end of the bass so it soundsmuddy

recording, i got bass on about 7, mid on 9 and treble on 7, but then once it goes through cubase it all gets sweetspotted anyway at the high mids

live, i got much higher treble, alot less bass and an equal amount of mid to treble.. maybe a lil less mid, and the presence/contour at about 6-7



but either way, mids all the way, it just sounds like its got balls!!!

NOTE: the extremely high mids bass n treble for recording are due to V-amps sounding muddy with anything less! live i use a randall, so its a different kettle of fish really

In a Live situation, My mids are around 7, lows about 4 and highs about 6.

Gain is about 6 tops.

Getting some sexy new tubes for my amp.

Will probably have to mess around to find a nice setting again but it will be worth it.

http://www.eurotubes.com

This man is a legend!

^^^^

More sensible settings.

*thumbs up*