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Global EQ? A lil help here?


jasonk931
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Hey guys, Im new to the Global EQ? Ive done the firmware update, and I am beginning to build my tones, but where is the Global EQ? What is the Global EQ, and When will my Globe...EQ? lol! 

 

I had a pod hd500 a few years back and I went back to my tube amps, but now, necessity demands I go direct to house. Can someone help me understand the global EQ in the guise of a simpleton? 

 

Greatly appreciated. I play a style akin to Andy Timmons, and also very lincoln brewsterish in church. Cheers. 

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Hey guys, Im new to the Global EQ? Ive done the firmware update, and I am beginning to build my tones, but where is the Global EQ? What is the Global EQ, and When will my Globe...EQ? lol! 

 

I had a pod hd500 a few years back and I went back to my tube amps, but now, necessity demands I go direct to house. Can someone help me understand the global EQ in the guise of a simpleton? 

 

Greatly appreciated. I play a style akin to Andy Timmons, and also very lincoln brewsterish in church. Cheers. 

 

Took me a little while to grasp the concept too but spending some time with it and understanding how the "Q" works to narrow or widen the particular range it's set at gave me a good idea of how to use it on the fly.

 

Check it out it's at the end of the settings in your pod.

 

As Pianoguyy stated you may not use it that  much so if you change the settings make sure you take note of the default settings.

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Took me a little while to grasp the concept too but spending some time with it and understanding how the "Q" works to narrow or widen the particular range it's set at gave me a good idea of how to use it on the fly.

 

Check it out it's at the end of the settings in your pod.

 

As Pianoguy stated you may not use it that  much so if you change the settings make sure you take note of the default settings.

There is my moment of....duhhhhh! Ive seen it sitting at the end of chain and never gave it a thought! Wow! Any chance you could share one of your favorite eq settings that I might try out to start tone shaping? Thanks again, and have a great day!

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There is my moment of....duhhhhh! Ive seen it sitting at the end of chain and never gave it a thought! Wow! Any chance you could share one of your favorite eq settings that I might try out to start tone shaping? Thanks again, and have a great day!

 

Here's a link to a page that Arislaf shared not long ago. It helped me a lot to understand EQ'ing better.

http://www.audio-issues.com/music-mixing/guitar-frequency-fixes/

 

I took notes from that page a while ago. These aren't my words, I just used them to help me understand what to focus on when I'm trying out settings.

http://www.audio-issues.com/music-mixing/guitar-frequency-fixes/

EQ tip for guitar and voice.

 

Yucky Low-End:

Cut low end below 100Hz

 

Guitar Thickness:

Add thickness to the guitar in the 150-200Hz area. Be careful not to pile on the low-mids.

 

The Fundamental Guitar Frequency:

Boosts in the 500Hz area can compete with a snare drum so make sure they aren't clashing with each other.

 

Honk & Presence:

If the guitar starts sounding tinny or honky a nice cut in the 1-2KHz range can round out the sound. However if you feel that your guitar lacks presence you can pull it to the front of the mix by boosting in the 3 KHz area.

 

High Frequency Hiss:

Highly distorted guitars can add substantial amount of hiss and noise to a mix. Be careful when your boosting high-mids since you might introduce more hiss than guitar.

 

Vocal Cut-Through Trick:

If you feel like the guitar is getting in the way of the vocal a simple trick is a wide cut around 3-5KHz. This can clear the area in order for the vocal to shine through a busy mix.

 

Brilliance:

After giving the vocal some space you might need to compensate for the now dull guitar sound. Add some slight boosts in the 8KHz area for some brilliance. This works especially well for acoustic guitar and clean electrics. Now the vocal can shine through in its own area as well as giving the guitar some additional grace.

 

Sweep Around:

You might need r sweep around the frequency area to find the exact frequencies where the guitar jumps out and comes alive. Every guitar is different  and each one will react differently to a specific guitar frequency.

 

Use these simple guidelines for a faster EQ workflow. Don't sweep around the spectrum when your looking to add some fullness to your guitar. If you already know where you can find it you don't have to waste time.

Edited by Brazzy
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Where is it ---- in the control panel. Page 11 and 12?  

Not found in a patch. It is hidden up where you have the other global settings. 

 

 

Now, the reason I said it should be turned off the majority of the time: 

It is GLOBAL. I like to call it a MASTER EQ, sort of like Master Volume. People seem to understand that a little easier. 

There are patch volumes, and then there is the master volume. Patch volumes control the differences between one patch and the other. While the master volume controls all of them. 

If one patch is too loud, you don't use the Master Volume to turn it down, do you? Of course not, Master Equalizer is the same thing. You don't use it to correct a patch, you use it to correct the overall situation. It is that last bit of overall sound. Much like the Master Volume, the Global EQ is something that you set once per room at the start of the night and then do not touch again until you change rooms. 

 

Turn the GEQ off when you design your patches. That way, your unit is 'flat'.

You want a patch eq to control the differences from one patch to another. The GEQ comes later. 

 

 

As a performing musician, I am sure that you know that your gear sounds different in this room than it does in that room.

The Master EQ can do "room shaping", which means it can adjust for those differences. And it changes the sound of the overall machine. Much like turning the Master Volume up, it is something that can accommodate various needs. 

 

You can imagine setting a GEQ and then building a patch. 

And then, maybe changing the GEQ to build another patch. 

Your first patch will now sound like junk. 

 

The GEQ should be off. Your unit should be flat. And then, after you have everything just the way you need it, you pack your stuff and go to another venue --- that is where the GEQ comes in. Your Church doesn't sound like your house. (although, the equalizer on the mixing board could also do the same thing as your GEQ). 

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I just read your post in another topic saying that you used an amp... 

 

Think of the GEQ as the equalizer on your amp. 

You design your sound with everything at 5 (or 0 if you have a +/- knob). You go to a room and need a bass boost because the room is clustered, so you turn your bass knob to 7. BOOM, you are fixed. 

But, in the next room, 7 gives too much bass because the room is padded. So you turn it back to 5 and raise the treble. 

 

THAT is what Global EQ is. 

It doesn't design sound. It compensates it. 

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How you use Global EQ is up to you.  Whether it's for compensating for the room you're playing in or helping sculpt your tone. 

 

How it works is what's important.  It's Global, meaning that it effects ALL YOUR PRESETS.  For example: If you cut mids in the Global EQ it will cut the mids in ALL YOUR PRESETS.

 

I personally use it to polish off my presets.  Meaning I try to get my presets as good as I can without it.  Then I polish it off with the Global EQ.  Fortunately it works really well for me that way.  But I also don't use very many presets and typically use one.  I never had to re-EQ my guitar for different rooms.  But evidently that's important to some people.

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That's great that you guys (that have had your units for a long time) have found a permanent use for the GEQ. 

But is that what you are going to explain to a 'new' guy who is wanting to use an equalizer? 

Of course not. Or, at least, it shouldn't be. You gotta learn to walk before you go running a marathon. 

And that doesn't even take into consideration that his style of music may not be producing noise. 

 

 

I actually like Joel's first sentence --- it is up to you

That's very reminiscent of something I often say: It is music, there are no rules. It is your machine, do what you wish. 

 

But we could answer most of the posts with that --- it's your machine, I am not going to help you begin, do whatever the F you want to do with it

 

 

I mean, don't you guys remember all of the confusion when GEQ was first announced? The high hopes that people had because they thought it was something else? 

I am going to have a different setting for each patch and I will sound terrific! That's not really GLOBAL, now is it! 

And those guys that thought that a new toy would mean that they could play like Eddie Van Halen over night. 

How about after it was released, and people adjusted the GEQ for one tone and then said "why do all of my tones sound like junk." 

 

Oh, yes, the memories. I remember those days. 

So now, picture all of those thoughts to someone who is new. Whoopie, let's start dialing in the tones. 

Sorry, it is not a tone builder. 

 

 

But, yes, you are correct, there are uses for the GEQ that each individual may find based on their own personal usage and preferences. 

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I would say that the GEQ is great for the times when you're playing on an unfamiliar PA that might have a "harshness" at a particular frequency. I've played gigs where this happens quite frequently. The GEQ is really good for dialling out that harshness.

 

A decent sound engineer should also be able to do this at the mixing desk but as we all know that doesn't always happen.

 

Sometimes it's best to sort it yourself.

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The problem most people will be having is knowing what is the "reference system" that is the flat response where all patches are built?

 

Until I got my L2t (and at the same time some relatively good headphones) I had no reference for "flat", and I had been compensating for deficiencies in my sound system in each patch... and having major problems of course in different rooms and different sound levels.

 

Ironically now I have Global EQ I don't use it because I have quality sound reinforcement that means I don't need it... but maybe I will have a bad room soon when I am relying on my L2t as backline and it's built in EQ can't cope...[don't mention Global EQ not working over L6Link ;)] 

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All the Boss units and a bunch of others have had a Global or Master EQ going back 20 years or more.

 

It is nothing new just a shortcoming in the HD units L6 finally fixed.

 

Use it to tune your HD unit to the house PA or room.Playing through an amp?

 

Turn it off.

 

Dont use it for radical EQ changes

 

Less is more re: global eq

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  • 1 month later...

I generally use it to cut everything below 100 Hz and everything above 6.5 KHz when sending my POD into a real guitar speaker ( ie - not headphones or PA/FFFR type speaker)

 

Seems to control some of the "flubby" bottom end ( similar to the Low Cut parm in the Cab Edit section) whilst taking away some of the "fizz" in the hi end (saves using an fx block (EQ) to tame the fizz).

 

It also seems to negate the need for Parametric EQs( to target some of "nasty" frequencies ) on all but the higher gain patches.

 

I used to use a Boss GT 10 which had a neat little twist on the Global EQ idea - you could set up 3 separate GEQs / Input gain settings so you could , in theory, make allowances for the "base tone" and output of 3 different guitars and would quickly re -EQ all your patches - great if your main guitar "died" mid set and your back up guitar was brighter/darker/hotter/cooler etc

 

Would be a cool feature to have on the POD.

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I'd love to be able to eliminate the unecessary low and high frequencies that crowd the performance and mix.

I've read that cutting <80hz leaves more room for bass and kick. Cutting >10000hz to remove unmusical sizzle and screechiness.

 

Hence my previous post. I'd like to be sure that the LowCut, and HighCut are both engaged.

 

I can experiment this weekend, but the internet is faster.

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I'd love to be able to eliminate the unecessary low and high frequencies that crowd the performance and mix.

I've read that cutting <80hz leaves more room for bass and kick. Cutting >10000hz to remove unmusical sizzle and screechiness.

 

Hence my previous post. I'd like to be sure that the LowCut, and HighCut are both engaged.

 

I can experiment this weekend, but the internet is faster.

 

The settings are applied globally for all patches (same settings apply to every patch once the EQ is turned on).  I recall seeing a thread that indicated the global EQ occurs at the end of each patch (after all effects) but I could be wrong about that.

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The settings are applied globally for all patches (same settings apply to every patch once the EQ is turned on).  I recall seeing a thread that indicated the global EQ occurs at the end of each patch (after all effects) but I could be wrong about that.

 

Thanks, I get that they are at the end of the chain.

 

So, the parameters are. EQ band (Low Cut, Low, Mid, High, High Cut). and each can be adjusted to taste.

 

But can I apply more than One of the parameters. With the other effects I can set gain, level, tone, & delay etc all within the same effect?

Or is it an either/or situation. ie Low Cut OR High Cut?

 

Since it seems reasonable to me to Low Pass & High Pass globally to save extra work later on in the process.

 

Common sense tells me that I can apply more than one, but I've seen eq plug-ins that do just, One thing. ie Low Pass.

 

I can check it out for myself when I have time, but I just happen to be thinking about it now.

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Thanks, I get that they are at the end of the chain.

 

So, the parameters are. EQ band (Low Cut, Low, Mid, High, High Cut). and each can be adjusted to taste.

 

But can I apply more than One of the parameters. With the other effects I can set gain, level, tone, & delay etc all within the same effect?

Or is it an either/or situation. ie Low Cut OR High Cut?

 

Since it seems reasonable to me to Low Pass & High Pass globally to save extra work later on in the process.

 

Common sense tells me that I can apply more than one, but I've seen eq plug-ins that do just, One thing. ie Low Pass.

 

I can check it out for myself when I have time, but I just happen to be thinking about it now.

 

You can apply as many (or few of these) as you'd like. Each setting applies globally (so you can use the high cut and the low cut and each of the bands, or any combination of them).  The bands themselves are called "low" and "mid" and "high", but each has an adjustable Q and center frequency that is very flexible (so you could crank up the "low' frequency so that it acts more like a "mid" if you wanted.  Once you play around a bit you'll get the hang of it.

 

As others have pointed out, be careful with your GEQ settings since these apply to every one of your patches.  What works for one patch may sound terrible for others.

 

Obviously, there is no "wrong" way to use the GEQ, but the general consensus is to adjust each patch as close as possible to your desired tone, then do some final crafting using the GEQ (such as a high/low cut and maybe adjusting specific frequencies based on the Venue you are playing).

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Thanks again redmonda. You answered it for me.

I agree with what you're saying about getting the individual patches right first. Finally after 2 years, and almost giving up on the whole POD idea, I have a half dozen patches I really like.

 

As for applying GEQ for specific venues.....

 

I don't have the patience, time, talent, or fortitude to change the GEQ for different venues or performance situations.

Taking it a step further, I should  have different versions of presets for my LP and Strat. However, I don't even that much attention span.

 

I was looking to take advantage of the features in a "quick fix" kind of way. Since I know I NEVER need boomy lows, or modeling fizzy highs I think I'd be happy to within 80-10,000 range for any and all situations.

That should leave enough "meat on the bones" for the sound guy to earn his beer, or the mixologist, if I ever get that good. :)

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You can't do both anyhow. 

If you want to use it as a fizz stopper, you use it as a fizz stopper. 

If you want room shaping, you room shape. 

 

And if you are fizz stopping, there is no reason to turn it off when patch building. 

 

I am a firm believer in not room shaping, because that is what the pa is for. However, I always mention it because others complain that their techs suck; and quite frankly I don't want to get into an argument about why you would continue to keep him on payroll. 

 

 

 

As to having a patch for this guitar and a patch for that guitar.... 

Obviously, some patches will sound better with an LP then it does with a Strat, and vice versa. And there is nothing wrong with having a patch designed for specific guitars. I mean, why have a country twang for a B.C. Rich Warbeast - RIGHT!!

But I try to have the bulk of my patches usable by all(or at least most) of my guitars. Sure, it will sound different, but that is why you use different guitars - they sound different! 

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How you use the GEQ is up to each person.  As long as you know that it effects all your presets, hence the name Global EQ. 

 

Personally I use a guitar amp and cab.  All my presets have a certain low freq muddiness that the GEQ fixes.  Also a small tweak on certain upper frequencies helps all my presets too.  I could apply an EQ in each preset but the GEQ fixes all of them at once.  But I don't use that many different presets either.

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I spent a little time twiddling the GEQ knobs with headphone last night. Yes, I know headphones aren't the best way to do this.

I settled on low cut at 80, and hi cut at 8000.  The on/off difference was very subtle, which is what I was expecting. The tone wasn't harmed in any way, but I'm sure it may have shown up on a spectrum analyzer.

 

I'll play with it some more through the amp when I have a chance to turn it up.

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  • 2 months later...

I hate to revive an old thread like this, but I'm coming into a situation that makes me consider using GEQ full-time in my setups and want to gain some insight from other folks.

 

My gigging rig consists of a Yamaha DXR12 monitor speaker for myself on stage, and my output goes direct to the PA.  I realize GEQ is what it says it is...GLOBAL and it will affect both outputs.  But what I've found in virtually every patch I've created I go through a lot of the same things.  Generally I cut 125Hz and below as well as cut the highs around 9000Hz.  This applies to clean, crunchy, or overdriven tones regardless of the guitar (Les Paul, Strat, Gretsch hollow body).  The reason being is I come from more of a studio background and nothing interesting happens with guitar in those frequencies and very often they can be quite problematic in the blending with the rest of the instruments and leaving space for everyone to play.

 

Here's my take on it.  On the low cut side, I have a low cut I can apply to my monitor and most boards use the high pass filter on guitars anyway.  Even if that don't, I'd prefer they do, so I'm not losing anything if I have it engaged globally.  It may be redundant in some cases, but once it's cut, it's cut and it can't be cut anymore.  And cutting at 125Hz leaves ample room for the bass guitar and kick drum to operate

 

On the high cut side, most people are used to hearing guitars through guitar amps which don't produce anything with any real clarity about 9000hz anyway.  I guess to be safe I could take it up to 10,000 but as I said, I don't see anything useful in that range for guitars anyway.  Even acoustic guitars aren't really useful above 8000 and the higher you get you begin to interfere with creating nice airy-style blended vocals with the singers.

 

None of this would really be a consideration were it not for the efficiency in modern FRFR speakers, or if Line 6 had really built in the typical high end limitations of most guitar speaker cabinets in their modeling.  But they didn't, so it seems to me I might be leaving myself more room to adjust on my individual patches if I weren't having to constantly make these high and low end adjustments.

 

What's your take on this?

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I can see that the general use of GEQ is either to adjust to a specific environment or to adjust to typical guitar characteristics: The frequency range of an electric guitar goes from about 60Hz to about 1.2 KHz.  From 1.2 KHz to 6Khz there is the area where the harmonics live. Beyond 6 KHz  there is nothing musical present. Given this it is a good idea to use Global EQ to cut all frequencies below 60 Hz and above 6khz. At least this is what I do for recording.

 

This way unwanted signals will not be recorded and it will reduce hiss and fizz. Do play around with the upper and lower settings, especially with the low end as this can help to reduce muddiness.

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In my case I started with getting the patches as good as I could get them, using amp tone controls, Low Cut, Res, Decay, etc.  I then bought a stereo 31 band EQ and tweaked it until it sounded the way I liked.  Afterwards Line6 came out with the GEQ which replaced my external EQ.  One less thing I have to bring now.

 

If the EQs Line6 originally provided weren't designed by an idiot (oh I'm sorry I mean someone who is 67% an idiot), I would have used them.  However the GEQ works great for me.

 

This is how I usually did it most of my life anyway.  Get the tone as good as you can then use an EQ to polish it off.  Basically dialing out the bad frequencies your rig has.

 

Usually I roll off the bottom end then reduce other high end frequencies that are bothering me.  In some cases I find a certain high frequency that I like or slightly boost.

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If the EQs Line6 originally provided weren't designed by an idiot (oh I'm sorry I mean someone who is 67% an idiot), I would have used them. However the GEQ works great for me.

 

Lmao...

 

If one can hear 42%, do you think they can also smell the number "7"? I'd like to meet that guy. From a distance, or behind glass...thick glass. ;)

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I don't have much to offer the OP in the search for the particular tone he's looking for, sorry.

 

Hahaha Some these posts crack me up, you know who you are. Seriously though, there's a whole bunch of good info here for people who are new to guitars. I've been playing around with modeling off and on for years now and have been coming here to read and get info about the "virtual pedal board" in hopes that I may better understand it. I've never really had good sound systems let alone guitars when I was younger and by the time I started to learn how to play guitar it was a real chore besides just trying to be musical, lol.

 

In light of my aforementioned, lol, I thank everyone who has ever made a post (good or bad) about their experiences with tweaking as it has helped me greatly over the years. Of course I'm still always learning while at the same time trying to maintain interest.

 

I'm still laughing at joel brown's comment about 67 "%" Hahahahaha. IMO the EQ's should've been in actual units of frequency, I feel this would've made the user experience much better.

 

I like the Global EQ but have not used it that much lately since the way I'm set up currently I'm using a computer and I don't reach down to the HD500 at all. That doesn't mean I won't be using it. What I've been doing is I place a studio eq at the end of my patch and this seems to help out greatly with getting good high gain tones usable for me to play around recording with RiffWorks. I also use the "No Equal" EQ and Compressor in RiffWorks to accent (boost) the signal even more. I saved that setting and labled it "BeatBuddy EQ".

 

In my patch I insert an FX Loop in which I have a BeatBuddy placed in both L & R Returns. I set the Mix at 50% and I'm good to go.

 

I should mess with the Global EQ to see if I can get one good setting that fits so I can free up a space in the chain but for now I'm good and having fun, keep in mind this is not a job for me I just have fun......for now, lol.

 

Lastly, I think the most important thing to keep in mind is to know when to quit experimenting with tweaks and play the dang guitar, lol.

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Yeah. The OP did back in August. 

We told him it was on page 11 of the system menu, but we never told him how to get to the point of finding page 11 - which is downloading the latest firmware. 

 

 

Everyone, myself included, was so concerned with giving technical answers that we forgot the basic answer. 

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Yeah. The OP did back in August.

We told him it was on page 11 of the system menu, but we never told him how to get to the point of finding page 11 - which is downloading the latest firmware.

 

 

Everyone, myself included, was so concerned with giving technical answers that we forgot the basic answer.

Lol...fair enough. I was only looking at the newer posts.

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Sure, that would make total sense. Most people would do that. The same as most people are going to read the first post and not assume that they needed to know where to get it. But, technically, it was one possible interpretation of what was asked -- even though it was a totally misguided interpretation.

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