jmp22684 Posted November 7, 2016 Share Posted November 7, 2016 Okay.... I thought I had the Helix dialed in pretty good.... Until.... The group wants to cover Mr Brightside. Easy! Wrong I am having difficulty with the intro. Its very harsh when I play up that high on the neck with this song. For some reason I am having the darndest time trying to EQ these harsh frequencies out of the mix. I have notched out a ton between 1.5k - 3k. Brought it back up... A lot of experimenting, sweeping, etc... As soon as I bump myself up to stage volume I get extremely brutal painful frequencies. I was wondering if any of you would mind having a stab at it and seeing how you do when punching up the volume. This is run through JBL PRX715s using the HPF built into the PRX718xlf subs. So looking for anyone with a similar setup for some sort of consistency. Thanks in advance to anyone that wants to have a stab at it!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnonguitar Posted November 7, 2016 Share Posted November 7, 2016 Which guitar are you using? To be honest the sound is pretty much just a tube screamer into a clean "vintage" style amp with the gain on the Screamer up pretty high. Anything other than a Warloch should be ok guitar wise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HonestOpinion Posted November 7, 2016 Share Posted November 7, 2016 Okay.... I thought I had the Helix dialed in pretty good.... Until.... The group wants to cover Mr Brightside. Easy! Wrong I am having difficulty with the intro. Its very harsh when I play up that high on the neck with this song. For some reason I am having the darndest time trying to EQ these harsh frequencies out of the mix. I have notched out a ton between 1.5k - 3k. Brought it back up... A lot of experimenting, sweeping, etc... As soon as I bump myself up to stage volume I get extremely brutal painful frequencies. I was wondering if any of you would mind having a stab at it and seeing how you do when punching up the volume. This is run through JBL PRX715s using the HPF built into the PRX718xlf subs. So looking for anyone with a similar setup for some sort of consistency. Thanks in advance to anyone that wants to have a stab at it!!! Have you tried a high cut either in the cab or in an EQ block? Don't be afraid to take it down as low as 4khz if necessary although 5khz or thereabouts often does the trick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnonguitar Posted November 7, 2016 Share Posted November 7, 2016 I dunno... if it's really that bad there's probably something more basic going on like the guitar is naturally a bit harsh up there or something Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurston9 Posted November 7, 2016 Share Posted November 7, 2016 Clips? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmp22684 Posted November 8, 2016 Author Share Posted November 8, 2016 Thanks for the replies. I'll try to get some clips up relatively soon, been busy and then with a sick toddler today I had to move all my students to tomorrow... So a pretty packed day. The guitar is a semi hollow, no f-holes, custom build from ESP thats almost 30 years old. No distinguishing marks on the pickups, so I can't help much there. She's a beaut! I was able to tame a little more out today from the intro and just saw these replies, otherwise I would have recorded it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DunedinDragon Posted November 8, 2016 Share Posted November 8, 2016 My first reaction is what amp and cab are you using? Typically a 4x12 works better on things high up on the neck. I'm assuming you're using humbuckers on the semi hollow body. You might want to try the free download of the Mesa IR from Ownhammer and try using the version with the mic placement further away from the cone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deadlocked Posted November 8, 2016 Share Posted November 8, 2016 I am having difficulty with the intro. Its very harsh when I play up that high on the neck with this song. For some reason I am having the darndest time trying to EQ these harsh frequencies out of the mix. I have notched out a ton between 1.5k - 3k. Brought it back up... A lot of experimenting, sweeping, etc... As soon as I bump myself up to stage volume I get extremely brutal painful frequencies. I was wondering if any of you would mind having a stab at it and seeing how you do when punching up the volume. Fletcher-Munson curve issue? When you edit any patches at "less than stage" volume and then try to bump them up to stage volume, the high and low frequency response will not sound the same. This is due to how the ear is made to work (basically, compresses the high and low frequencies differently from the mid frequencies). so whereas the patch itself has not changed in its frequency spectrum, your ears tell you otherwise. So you *need* to adjust the highs and lows to compensate. How much? it depends on how much louder you are playing live and how your particular ears respond to the gig volumes vs the volume that you created your patches at. Your best bet would be to tweak the patches during practice at gig volume levels, and that may include the Bass/Mid/Treble controls on the amp itself, not necessarily just the EQ. I have read comments here that some gigging players have two sets of patches, one at "home" level (so as to not to be thrown amp first into the street by their spouses) and another set at gig levels. With more than enough spare banks to choose from, you can always copy all of the patches from one bank (the "home" bank) to the "gig" bank and make your adjustments there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HonestOpinion Posted November 8, 2016 Share Posted November 8, 2016 I dunno... if it's really that bad there's probably something more basic going on like the guitar is naturally a bit harsh up there or something Although the guitar could be the culprit it could be any of a number of more likely factors including the speakers he is monitoring with, his output levels, global settings, or what amp and effect blocks he has selected in his signal chain or how he has the parameters set. A high gain cut is a good place to start with taming highs since he seemed to indicate that he has not had success yet with more granular EQ. Worth a try anyway and sweeping through the high cut is a good way at the least to find out generally where the offending frequencies are, they may well be above the 1.5-3k range he indicated in his post. I also agree with deadlocked that this could be a 'Fletcher-Munson' issue in that he says the problem occurs "as soon as he bumps himself up to stage volume". Adjusting amp block settings at volumes closer to what he will be playing at as well as employing EQ/high cuts is probably a fine place to start. Using the sweep method with a parametric can also help identify problem areas in the EQ curve. Experimenting with amp/cab/mic/IR choices as DunedinDragon recommended might also provide a more pleasing alternative that requires minimal EQ tweaking. If none of the above works then maybe it is time to try another guitar but with the options available on the Helix he should be able to adjust for almost any guitar that is not either damaged or horrendously mismatched to the song. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jc_anderton Posted November 8, 2016 Share Posted November 8, 2016 I play Mr Brightside in our set and just use my standard cleanish patch which is the engl model with gain on zero into a 4 x12 with v30s it sounds good to me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmp22684 Posted November 9, 2016 Author Share Posted November 9, 2016 Actually just switching over to the engl amp helped a ton. Thanks. I have been using the bogner amps with a screamer for just about everything, gain @ 0.4 for clean. I try and keep consistent with amp choices to make it easier on the sound guys. I would pop up a recording, but as I am still learning the song I don't want to embarrass myself 😉 Stevie Ray Vaughan? Not a problem! Anything and I've got it. Mean streets EVH... Nailed it... Brightside? ... Why you givin me troubles? Lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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