Global EQ Recommendations for Bass

[lorenleonard]

Hoping some of you might be willing to weigh-in with thoughts and possible your own settings when it comes to using Global EQ for bass on a Helix or HX Stomp (like me). Right now I'm using the hi and lo cuts at 5KHZ and 50HZ respectively. What about the lows/mids/highs. Any of you care to share what you have yours dialed into? Thanks! 

[theElevators]

The main purpose for Global EQ is to adjust/correct your existing pre-dialed in sound for various problematic scenarios.  Let me explain:

 

You set up your sound for live use: you have all your effects, amp/cab, and everything sounds great when you play with your band.  During that dialing-in phase, you apply whatever EQ you need inside the signal chain, this would be your 10-band EQ block.  Or you may adjust the amp block to your liking, the possibilities are endless.  Anyway, you've achieved your perfect sound and you call it done -- locked and sealed. 

 

 

Then one day you show up to play a gig and there is a speaker cab that has some unruly parasitic frequency.  Maybe the speaker is torn, who knows.  No matter what you do, you have certain notes resonate, and the whole stage rattles.  This is when you use Global EQ.  GE allows you to keep your presets intact and apply EQ on top of it to notch out certain bad frequencies.  If you're using an FRFR GE will give you the tone controls that FRFR does not have. 

 

In a perfect scenario, GE should be set to not affect the mix that you sent to Front of the House, but only your monitoring situation (wedge monitor, powered speaker, FRFR, amp/cab).  So back to our hypothetical situation, you go and notch out the problematic frequencies, but only for your stage volume because GE applies only to 1/4" out but not XLR out.  Front of the House will receive your perfect sound that you have spent all this time perfecting -- your XLR outs that do not have GE. 

 

Global EQ settings may vary from one venue to another, so there's no such thing as a perfect Global EQ....  In a perfect world, you won't need to use it at all. 

 

 

I'm a guitarist, and I do not touch GE 90% of the time -- it's bypassed.  I use a power amp + 12" speaker; and it sounds good to me.  My power amp does not have any tone controls. 

 

Sometimes the stage is weird, too boomy or something, and then I EQ out the bottom, while leaving everything else as before.  Also sometimes the sound guy I work with complains that my stage volume bleeds into the audience and he doesn't like the sound I have on stage -- Global EQ to the rescue!  If I'm playing a big stage then that is no longer a problem, that's when I tend to set my monitor mix to my liking.  If the stage is deep, nobody really cares what sound it is, as long as I'm happy. 

 

So to answer your question, Global EQ should be off at all times unless the stage/amp/cab you are playing through are giving you a problematic sound and you have no way of fixing it with your on-stage equipment.  You have a power to apply "master EQ" on top of everything for 1) personal monitor mix 2) FOH mix 3) both.   But in reality you should only use it for the personal monitor mix, unless your presets are badly adjusted. 

 

That's the main purpose of Global EQ, but feel free not to listen to me :)

 

[rd2rk]

Global EQ is intended to be used to adjust for the acoustics of specific rooms, not as a cure-all for deficiencies in preset design.

You get to the gig, your presets sound "off" in that room, you use Global EQ as an across-the-board fix.

It's a "last line of defense" sort of thing.

 

Of course, there's no right or wrong in the digital wonderland, so you can use it any way you like, but it applies to EVERY preset and specific configurations cannot be saved.

 

At home I use it to adjust for the Fletcher-Munson effect - at low volumes (<80-90db) I boost the bass and treble sightly, maybe cut the mids a bit.

When I know that the neighbors aren't home and I get to crank the volume I turn OFF the Global EQ.

[rd2rk]

@theElevators- you type faster than me!

[lorenleonard]

Loved this @theElevators -> "unruly parasitic frequency"