Guitar Frequencies

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Kingofpain678

Kingofpain678

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hi everyone! im hoping someone can help me out with this problem that i have.

when tracking guitars i get a big booming sound when i play C, C#, and D notes especially when i palm mute. im using a dean vendetta guitar made of paulownia. im playing the a line 6 head into a marshall 4x12 closed back cab and my signal chain is this:
Amp -> Mic -> Mixing Board -> interface.
i have also tried putting a compressor and 31 band EQ inbetween my mixing board and interface. the compressor didnt limit the booming frequencies like i thought it would. the eq kind of worked but i would rather not have to track guitars that are very heavily EQ'd, i would rather fix this problem at its source. i will post two .wav files later on in the post to show the difference between the unprocessed track and the EQ'd track. also, i will upload a picture showing the dimensions of the room i am monitoring the tracks in.

i have tried putting my speaker cab in many different areas in my monitoring room as well as outside of my room in a big open basement and still the problem persists. also, i have tried MANY different amps. i have also tried using many different microphones and mic placements to no avail. i found this site which shows someone seeming to have a problem similar to mine, which turns out to be due to his guitar.

another member on this site took a listen to the .wav tracks i had mentioned earlier:
Unprocessed
Processed

he said "I loaded it into reaper, then used a parametric EQ to find the booming frequency. I agree that it has a pronounced boominess at about 122 Hz."

the processed file was processed using a 31 band EQ. there is a 10Db cut on 20hz through 125hz and 10khz through 20khz. and a 4db cut on 160hz 800hz and 8khz. the file shows first a riff in C. next it shows C, C#, and D notes. and last it shows some other random notes that have no boominess at all. and youll notice that even the processed track still has quite a bit of boominess in it.

so now that EVERY bit of information is available, here is my question: what could be causing the boominess? is it my guitar or could it possibly be that my untreated room is emphasizing bass frequencies? what are some options for dealing with this problem?

a very special thanks in advance for anyone who can even get through reading this post :D
 
Last edited:
Kingofpain678 said:
could it possibly be that my untreated room is emphasizing bass frequencies?
Click to expand...

I'd gues it's probably that. Look into some room treatment. I'd like to advise on that, but I don't know a lot about it. There's a lot of useful tips in the studio building section.
 
The guitar is the source of the problem and the room needs treatment too. Try using different guage strings and/or another guitar, lowering the volume and sound treatment. The sound treament will help out your overall sound and mask the boomy guitar.
 
i got my hands on another (cheaper, crappier) guitar. i plugged it into my amp and turned my monitors up and while playing the cheaper guitar it seemed that there were even more notes besides C, C#, and D that boomed much more than my dean vendetta.
could it be because these guitars are cheap and made of cheap wood that have low resonant frequencies?

after this test im thinking that while my untreated room may be adding to the resonant frequencies, the guitar IS in the fact the source of the problem.

are there such programs that can monitor frequency response??
 
There's a few frequency analyzers out there.

Here's a list of free ones I just found
http://www.audiomastermind.com/browse-spectrum_analysers-5887008-1.html

What I'd suggest is a multiband compressor like waves C4, (there's probably
cheaper ones out there though). Use a 1 band EQ, set it to a Hi-Q (narrow band)
and sweep through til you find the exact area that the boominess is coming
from, and then set your multiband to compress those frequencies when they
become too loud.

I used to have the same problem when palm muting the low-E, lot of boom
around 100Hz. Set the multiband, sorted :)
 
thanks alot.
i found a free vst multiband compressor that ill use for now but i couldnt find anything about a 1 band eq? i googled it and all that came up was 1/3 octave and 31 band eq.

have any links to the 1 band eq?
 
Kingofpain678 said:
thanks alot.
i found a free vst multiband compressor that ill use for now but i couldnt find anything about a 1 band eq? i googled it and all that came up was 1/3 octave and 31 band eq.

have any links to the 1 band eq?
Click to expand...

What DAW are you using? And what EQ plug-ins do you have already?

If you have any kind of parametric EQ plug-ins, then by just using one of the
bands it's essentially a 1 band eq if ya get me.
 
i mainly use mixcraft but i also have sonar and all the vst's that come with it.

i have compressor vst's and i just downloaded a multiband compressor vst. im not sure if i have a parametric though. ill try to find one. im not really sure how to use one either... i guess ill figure it out.
 
Kingofpain678 said:
i mainly use mixcraft but i also have sonar and all the vst's that come with it.

i have compressor vst's and i just downloaded a multiband compressor vst. im not sure if i have a parametric though. ill try to find one. im not really sure how to use one either... i guess ill figure it out.
Click to expand...

http://www.astralsound.com/parametric_eq.htm - should be all you need :D

And a little friendly advice, I'd highly suggest you learn how to use EQ before
you even get into any compression, especially multiband compression
 
yeah im not to compression happy. i pretty much never use it.
 
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