EQ'ing DI-ed Guitar

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SamuelJmusic

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Hi guys,

I'm having some issues - since today when I picked up an audio interface I've been running my guitar through a mixing board to give the guitar more treble and lessen the low end. Now I'm just going straight into the audio interface it seems like I'm having to excessively boost the guitar high end EQ (in logic) in order to get some clarity..

Is it normal to have more mids/lows in a DI'ed guitar and therefore excessively boosted high ends or am I doing something wrong..? (also fyi the control for guitar tone on the guitar is completely allowing more high end than low)

Thank you!
 
Assume electric guitar? Amps, their speakers add highs, then there's a whole bunch of variations on the tone controls, add some liveliness of the sound of an amp in the room bouncing around.. the straight signal in general is pretty plain in comparison.
If they're humbuckers keeping the guitar volume all the way up helps keep them brighter at least. Although I haven't done a bunch of straight in' I'd think single coils might be at least give an interesting go.
 
SamuelJmusic said:
Hi guys,

I'm having some issues - since today when I picked up an audio interface I've been running my guitar through a mixing board to give the guitar more treble and lessen the low end. Now I'm just going straight into the audio interface it seems like I'm having to excessively boost the guitar high end EQ (in logic) in order to get some clarity..

Is it normal to have more mids/lows in a DI'ed guitar and therefore excessively boosted high ends or am I doing something wrong..? (also fyi the control for guitar tone on the guitar is completely allowing more high end than low)

Thank you!
Click to expand...

This runs contrary to the usual treatment needed for DI'ed guitar.
If the high Z input is flat it is usual to contrive a rising bass response, ~+6dB ref 1kH at 100Hz and a steadily falling HF response to -20dB at 10kHz. This is to counteract the "middlyness" of guitar pickups and to simulate to some degree the HF filtering effect of the average guitar speaker. This would be your typical "emulated" output response on an amp.

It may well be that DI (AI?) already has some emulation or voicing in it and it is a bit too much for your particular guitar/pup setup? Try running a flat music signal thru the DI, a pod say.

Dave.
 
mixsit said:
Assume electric guitar? Amps, their speakers add highs, then there's a whole bunch of variations on the tone controls, add some liveliness of the sound of an amp in the room bouncing around.. the straight signal in general is pretty plain in comparison.
If they're humbuckers keeping the guitar volume all the way up helps keep them brighter at least. Although I haven't done a bunch of straight in' I'd think single coils might be at least give an interesting go.
Click to expand...

It's a single coil telecaster and so you'd presume it'd have that twangy high end sound but it generally doesn't. I tried running it through an amp which sounds okay, but generally I like to run my guitar through an AI or directly in, and then double track it with a live mic'ed track to get the best of both sounds.
 
It might be useful to ask whether DI & AI are effectively the same thing? When I add in compression, EQ, reverb and amp designer in logic it doesn't sound too bad, however it doesn't feel like there's a lot of attack to the sound (could be something to do with the reverb attack time but I don't think so).

Really concerned that it is contrary to what is normal... this is the EQ that makes it sound bareable:

Screen Shot 2013-06-23 at 10.10.22.webp

literally the most ridiculous looking EQ i've ever produced

I'd post sound snippets if I could of the guitar with no FX straight into the DI then the EQ and reverbs added etc
 
I've run into this before when using Logic's Amp Designer. I'm usually forced to max out the treble and presence in the Amp Designer and then sometimes add on some extra high end in an EQ afterwards. When I use Amplitube it's not quite as much an issue.

I wonder, what interface/DI are you using?
 
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Lol. Yeah, strings. Also, something as simple as pickup height can have a drastic effect on the raw unamplified signal.

I personally see no use for a true raw DI track unless you plan to reamp later. I think you'd just be better off with a good sim program or mic an amp.
 
Greg_L said:
I personally see no use for a true raw DI track unless you plan to reamp later. I think you'd just be better off with a good sim program or mic an amp.
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^^^^^^ this ^^^^^^

Get it right at the amp/cab/mic combination (or sim, if you really must use one)...and then if you want to CYA with a DI track just for possible reamping, just take the DI tone as-is, with a split off the guitar output, or if you want to drop some more cash, get one of the Radial JDX boxes that let you DI off the amp/cab combination, or a Radial J48 DI box (or some other kind).
Either one of those Radial DI boxes is a good compliment to the Radial X-Amp and Reamp boxes.

I have both the JDX and X-AMP...but to tell the truth, have yet to bother actually using them when recording. :o :D
I always just end up going with a mic on the cab, and the tone I get there, rather reamping for tone...but they're a good thing to have if you want to use the "save the decisions for later" approach.
 
Personally if I were having problems with not enough high end I would try and get the tone without the EQ first. Turn the bass knob down on the amp sim, turn the treble up etc. I notice I usually do a HPF anywhere from 90-130hz. Ive even gotten up to 180 before. And then a LPF anywhere from 7khz up to 12khz. It also depends exactly on what style you're going for. I tend to cut around 4100khz to get rid of that fuzzy noise from amp sims. If you still aren't getting enough high end then I would just do a low shelf and take it down a few db's and see if that helps any.
 
Thanks for the help guys, it seems like most of you recommend dumping DI'ing guitar and micing up an amp instead.. I rarely have access to equipment to do this (i'm only 16 and money is pretty tight). For the guy that asked i'm using an Akai EIE pro USB interface, and also I haven't changed my strings in a month or two to be fair.

I suppose it doesn't help either that I don't yet have monitors to EQ on apart from the crappy ones at my college - for now I'm just trying to keep the bass on my speakers at home a lot lower than normal to get a flatter sound when attempting to mix with them.. (sob sob donations welcome haha)

Managed to fix the treble issue now after lots of playing around with amp designer, compression, and using fabfilter pro EQ plugin.

Still struggling to get the most realistic sound I can through DI'ing.. the guitar just doesn't seem to have a lot of body to it, even boosting some of the mids doesn't help a lot.. hmm.. spose it's just a trial and error process
 
i use a palmer pdi-09, and find i can basically leave it flat.

the curve of the speaker filter has already been applied in the device, and it's damn close to the same sound i get with my 57, once i spend 2 hours finding the exact spot on the cone that matches the Palmer.


i rarely need any low end rolloff, and the high end is pretty flat after EQ for mix, i might dip at 1.5k, or 2.5k, if i'm tucking guitars in to make room for vocal clarity.

it's the fastest way to get to work that i've come up with yet.
 
oh yea.

i run the palmer signal DRY..... with no effects, thru a clean preamp.

plain dirt simple.

and it works every time.

if i want to throw a mic in there and add it to the mix, that's dirt easy as well, it's so easy to blend.
 
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