Tone Question: Why Cut the Mids?

[Chris Grigsby]

Curious as to why so many players drastically cut the midrange of the instrument with their amp's eq...

Is it to move the steel far back in a mix so it serves as more of a background pad? Is it so the steel doesn't have to compete with electric guitar? Or are there just many guitars that have a poor sounding midrange "honk" that needs to be tamed?

It seems like no matter what amp or guitar I play, I tend to just run the tone controls straight up. For some reason I just can't get used to the sound of heavily scooped midrange but clearly I'm in the minority since most steel amplifiers have a sweepable mid-cut built in to the circuit.

[Dom Franco]

Cutting the mids is essentially the same as boosting the highs and lows... if you increase the gain to make up for the loss of volume.

This is the equivalent of the basic smiley face pattern on a graphic equalizer.

It sounds good to a lot of people... better than flat EQ.

[Len Amaral]

Finding the right mid range in the amp is what I try to dial in. Over the years, I have turned the bass down and adjusted the highs and mids. I play a U-12 so it’s a bit more delicate to get a balance with low strings.

[Travis Toy]

Curious as to why so many players drastically cut the midrange of the instrument with their amp's eq...

Is it to move the steel far back in a mix so it serves as more of a background pad? Is it so the steel doesn't have to compete with electric guitar? Or are there just many guitars that have a poor sounding midrange "honk" that needs to be tamed?

It seems like no matter what amp or guitar I play, I tend to just run the tone controls straight up. For some reason I just can't get used to the sound of heavily scooped midrange but clearly I'm in the minority since most steel amplifiers have a sweepable mid-cut built in to the circuit.

For a lot of people that I have observed, it’s a bad habit that they’ll do before even listening to the amp, etc. It’s quite ironic to drastically cut the mids in an instrument that is almost entirely made up of mid range frequencies. I don’t recommend it.

-t

[Dave Mudgett]

A lot of this is a matter of personal tonal taste. But I think a lot of players, especially those coming from a guitar background, are pretty accustomed to the blackface/silverface Fender sound. Those particular amps have an automatic, built-in, and heavily-scooped-midrange frequency response with the tone controls set in the middle of their ranges (5/10 for a Fender). And then many pedal steel amps - think Peavey Session/Nashville series and others - have a much flatter response with the tone controls set flat.

Too much midrange can make an amp sound overly nasal. There are also big distinction on which part of the midrange one is talking about. To me, it's important to have enough of the higher midrange sound to get the vocal response I prefer and also cut through a band mix. Speakers and room acoustics can also affect all of this. So what I try to do is to start as flat as possible and then move from there. With a blackface/silverface Fender, this usually means I increase the midrange some. With a Peavey or the Evans I have, I may increase or decrease the midrange, but not a ton. But I always try to start pretty flat and make as little adjustment as possible, tweaking treble, bass, and midrange as needed, carefully selecting the midrange frequency center if that control is available. I find the old trick of sweeping the midrange frequencies with the midrange elevated and listening for the annoying frequencies to be useful.

Have you ever noticed that a lot of sound people autonomically put a big smiley-face pattern to their graphic EQs, even before listening to a single note of the vocalists. So many times, I see sound people take their rig out, and the midrange frequencies are essentially completely squashed - they just leave it where it was last time. Sometimes, the entire graphic EQ pattern is squashed - a lot of good that does! If I have anything to do with it, I just ask them to flatten everything out and start over. The less EQ adjustment, the better as far as I'm concerned. Let the ears evaluate the specific situation. Sometimes more or less midrange cut or emphasis is required. In fact, I'd argue that same line for any band of frequencies.

[Ian Rae]

What Dave says. The mid range is the interesting part of the instrument. By all means adjust the treble and bass to suit the venue.

[Craig A Davidson]

Every Peavey amp for steel had to have the mids cut. It's become a habit. Buddy once stated "Take a hammer and break off the mid knob". I guess if you are playing a 66 Push Pull and have Buddy's touch maybe that works. We are all hero worshipers and if Buddy made a statement it must be the way to go. I did it for years. The last few I have been adjusting according to the guitar and how it sounds. I have much better luck.

[Bob Hoffnar]

On old Fender amps I generally turn the mid range most all the way up. Roll off a little bass and treble to taste. It brings the amp closer to flat.

[Greg Cutshaw]

The human ear's response is not flat. It peaks in the mid range. Setting an amp's output to have a flat frequency response would not sound flat to the human ear. Different foot volume types, cables, guitars, pickups, environments can require different EQ settings. It's always nice to have lots of EQ options and shaping the mid-range dramatically alters and often improves the sound at least in the near field where the player is sitting.

There's lots of human ear response charts out there. This one shows up a lot in sound design textbooks:

[Jack Stoner]

I cut mid around 800Hz, slightly (-2), on Peavey amps with the Parametric "Paramid" EQ system.

I have a Fender Tone Master Twin Reverb amp. I had to boost mid control to 10 to get it to sound "right". When I first got the amp I was ready to return it as I couldn't find a tone that I cared for. Another person on the forum mentioned the Mid at 10 and I tried it and that was the tone I was looking for.

[Ian Rae]

I don't play commercial music, so I don't have to sound like anyone else. I take the flat "hi-fi" approach because I want to hear the guitar that Mitsuo Fujii or Bill Rudolph built.

The term "equalisation" seems to have got hijacked to mean tone controls, presumably because it sounds more technical. EQ in the strict sense is what we do to correct for nonlinearity, in this case a defective room acoustic, and is more about the top and bottom than the middle which is a matter of taste.

[Chris Grigsby]

Curious as to why so many players drastically cut the midrange of the instrument with their amp's eq...

Is it to move the steel far back in a mix so it serves as more of a background pad? Is it so the steel doesn't have to compete with electric guitar? Or are there just many guitars that have a poor sounding midrange "honk" that needs to be tamed?

It seems like no matter what amp or guitar I play, I tend to just run the tone controls straight up. For some reason I just can't get used to the sound of heavily scooped midrange but clearly I'm in the minority since most steel amplifiers have a sweepable mid-cut built in to the circuit.

It’s quite ironic to drastically cut the mids in an instrument that is almost entirely made up of mid range frequencies. I don’t recommend it.

-t

I originally wrote this pretty much verbatim but thought it might be too snarky...but this is exactly my point. Why cut -15db out of the core tone of the instrument unless you have a seriously bad sounding amp or guitar?

[Chris Grigsby]

Every Peavey amp for steel had to have the mids cut. It's become a habit. Buddy once stated "Take a hammer and break off the mid knob". I guess if you are playing a 66 Push Pull and have Buddy's touch maybe that works. We are all hero worshipers and if Buddy made a statement it must be the way to go. I did it for years. The last few I have been adjusting according to the guitar and how it sounds. I have much better luck.

I have owned multiple Peavey and wholeheartedly disagree. My Nashville 400 sounds significantly better to my ears with the eq flat with both an Emmons push pull with single coils and my Zumsteel Encore with a humbucker. Makes me wonder why so many are convinced that Peavey amps sound harsh...I’m sure they do if the bass and highs are dimed and the mids scooped!

[Larry Dering]

I have older Fender Twins and Peavey Session 400s. I just look for balance in volume between the strings. The speaker choice makes a difference as well as the guitar and the room. I have never found a set and forget eq. Some amps are more friendly than others with the eq and balance. If you look back at the posted settings from many of the pros at the same venue using a Peavey Nashville 1000 you can see how different the ears are between players, yet they all sounded awesome.

[Travis Toy]

Curious as to why so many players drastically cut the midrange of the instrument with their amp's eq...

Is it to move the steel far back in a mix so it serves as more of a background pad? Is it so the steel doesn't have to compete with electric guitar? Or are there just many guitars that have a poor sounding midrange "honk" that needs to be tamed?

It seems like no matter what amp or guitar I play, I tend to just run the tone controls straight up. For some reason I just can't get used to the sound of heavily scooped midrange but clearly I'm in the minority since most steel amplifiers have a sweepable mid-cut built in to the circuit.

It’s quite ironic to drastically cut the mids in an instrument that is almost entirely made up of mid range frequencies. I don’t recommend it.

-t

I originally wrote this pretty much verbatim but thought it might be too snarky...but this is exactly my point. Why cut -15db out of the core tone of the instrument unless you have a seriously bad sounding amp or guitar?

Haha! I’ll take the heat for you.

-t

[Steve Sycamore]

Don't be fooled! I definitely wouldn't interpret a Peavey or any other guitar amp as producing flat response when the pots are all in the middle position. One reason for that is that almost all guitar amplifiers use passive EQ where the pots cut away the signal. Tone control pots are also almost always logarithmic where the mid position is very far from 50% cut. Your ear is a better gauge of what is flat than the control panel.

Another reason for reducing the mids is that the sustain of each particular harmonic of the signal drops very significantly as frequency increases. So the highs and upper mids need to be higher in volume to hear a consistent tone as the note is held.

Boosting mid range is probably something you want to do if you have a high gain sound as a rock 6 string player is likely to have.

[Tommy Mc]

It’s quite ironic to drastically cut the mids in an instrument that is almost entirely made up of mid range frequencies. I don’t recommend it.
-t

For years, I struggled to get a good tone out of my Session 400. My approach always started with cutting the mids....simply out of habit. After looking at the fundamental frequencies of the notes in the playable range of an E9 neck, I realized that they all fall squarely in the range covered by my mid control. Why on earth would I want to cut them? Now my setup starts with full mid, and I adjust the other frequencies around that. Finally, the amp sounds like it should. BTW, even with the mid cranked, the Session 400 still has a small mid scoop by design.

[Steve Lipsey]

Tim at Milkman says that the old tubes had a midrange bump, so the amp cut was to compensate for that...and then people just got used to the sound of doing it that way, even on solid state...and on Milkman amps, the amp sounds just as sweet, but different, for any tone setting, and I leave mine pretty much straight up, depending on the instrument I'm playing through it..

[Ken Metcalf]

Because Peaveys have a hefty honk in the midrange.
More mids will give more clean headroom.
The new TM Fender Twin sounds better with the mids up.

[Donny Hinson]

It’s quite ironic to drastically cut the mids in an instrument that is almost entirely made up of mid range frequencies.

And that's precisely why we do it! A steel into a "flat" amp is predominated with highs, and it sounds thin and trebly. Why? Because that's all the instrument's got, due to its construction. (Solid body, heavy metal bridge, and only a bridge pickup.) When's the last time you saw a solid-body guitar with only a bridge pickup? Yes, some steelers (and most all lead players) are obsessed with "cutting through the mix". All that takes is treble, lots of mids and treble. But, there's no real body or quality in that sound.

Given the choice of listening to Jimmy Capps and Leon Rhodes all night, or Don Rich and Roy Nichols...I'd go with Jimmy and Leon. "Tone".

[Sean Borton]

Don't be fooled! I definitely wouldn't interpret a Peavey or any other guitar amp as producing flat response when the pots are all in the middle position.

Peavey SOLO series from the 80's. That includes the Renown, Bandit 65, Special 130, Nashville 400, Session 400 and a few others.

If you scope the "pre-amp out" with the controls at noon, their is no EQ curve to speak of.... it is as close to flat as it gets. When you got one with a mid shift, setting that around 700hz and dialing the mids back took it into Fender territory, dialing back 900hz took it into VOX territory. When dialing the mids back on those amps the low end also transcended from a tight bottom, to more of a "BF Fender type" big bottom!

I love those old Peavey.... they were so versatile if you knew how to dial them in.

The later models changed... Peavey started to add the familiar "mid scoop" to their amps for wider appeal, to me they just sounded "thinner".

Don't get me wrong... I do like "some" mid scoop, but I love having 100% control over how much.

[Greg Lambert]

I set my shift to 300 , bass +9 , and Mids -6. For a live session gives me the sound I want. I always check with another steeler in our crowd to make sure Im not to muddy ,bright or otherwise.

However these setting dont work on a recording session. I always record pretty flat during recording and EQ before the final mix. This gives me the clarity thats needed in a recording.

[Bob Hoffnar]

A big problem to my ear with the dip in the mids type tone that some players use is that it can approximate the twang sound that is associated with classic country but also has too much activity in the upper mids which competes with vocals and a bump around 2k which is really pretty annoying sounding (think banjo). If it isn't perfectly in tune there is a major cringe factor. Then with those beefed up lows which generally serve no musical purpose beyond making the steel player happy on stage you have sonic compatibility problems. Why have an instrument in the band that sucks up all the low end information while competing with the singer and guitarist ? If you listen carefully to classic country recordings you will hear that it is not particularly clean and that it is generally very focused on whatever sonic space that the player is into.

[Jack Stoner]

The Peavey's with the Paramid, e.g. NV400, NV112, etc only cut or boost a specific frequency, not all the mids. Its not like a mid control in some other amps that may control a band of "mid" frequencies.

It also goes with the amp and how its entire EQ system was designed. One amp you may need to boost mids, another leave it at "0", another cut.

It also goes to the individual's choice on how they want to hear their steel.

[Tony Prior]

well I'll add a new twist.

I personally don't like excessive mid range, it sounds nasally to me. All of my PV amps , to me, MY OPINION, sounded too nasally to me so I cut the mids

BUT, I say...( or he said)

I swapped speakers to a "leaning bright" EMMI speaker and now I don't cut the MIDS on my PV N112 anymore !