Monday, November 4, 2013

Can an eq pedal be hooked up with a distortion pedal to clean up the distortion?

guitar distortion pedal
 on boss super overdrive sd 1 pedal effect warm smooth distortion unique ...
guitar distortion pedal image



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So the set up will be guitar to distortion pedal to eq pedal to amp. I am a beginner guitarist and don't really know equipment. and i am just curious about this.


Answer
Absolutely!

Putting an EQ pedal after a distortion pedal is one of the most significant (and significant underrated!) ways to fine tune your distorted sound and bring out new textures. Post-distortion EQ may be referred to as "voicing".

While of course it depends on your style and pedal (and amp!) if you want to "clean up" the sound of the pedal, the best thing you can do is keep the volume knob of your guitar full up and lower the gain of your pedal.... having your gain too high adds noise, lowers clarity, and adds lots of extra harmonics - this may be what you want to have "cleaned up".

Another option is to put your EQ in front of your pedal.... as pre-distortion EQ. I refer to this as "saturation" EQ, but that's more my term than anyone elses, I think. Pre-dist EQ changes how the pedal reacts to your guitars' tone.... for instance, if you have a lot of bass coming into a distortion pedal or amp, you will have a fuzzier, muddier tone. Cut your bass frequencies a little, and often you will end up with more clarity and better mid and treble response.

Boosting mids *before* distortion is a great way to increase your crunch factor - you can always cut your mids a little after distortion (ie on your amp) to clean it up a little (or scoop it to get more of a modern or metal sound). This is something that Dimebag Darrell did as part of his distorted tone, and part of why he got the crunch that he did.

Something you might want to consider is lowering the bass side of your guitar's pickups a little... this is the side under your thick strings. This lowers your guitar's bass output, but increases your overall clarity and "bite". I think of it as making my top strings "pop" a little, good especially for leads, having recognizable notes, and for a little extra sparkle when playing clean.

Lessee.... between 400 and 800 hz is the "mud zone", and is a good place to cut if you want to clean up your tone a little. There's also a lot of fuzz in the 5khz region oft-times, so cutting a little there isn't a bad idea either. Conversely, if your tone is too thin or dull, boosting in those areas isn't a bad idea either.

Hope this helped a little!


Saul



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