When I often play ‘dirt’ pedals, I get excited when I see a mid knob. I love mids, especially, if you’re trying to cut through on leads, etc. Also, the mids can be your best friend when in a band with 2 guitar players, fighting for your piece of the guitar frequency pie. Typically, dirt pedals have Treble and Bass. You can dial in a okay mid bump by dropping Treble and Bass both down, pushing the mid frequencies up, but I love it when there is a Mid control in conjunction with Treble and Bass. That little level of control can help dial that tone in.
I recently came across this video by one of my favorites – Jay Leonard J. The title of the video is “Cutting Mids Is GOOD For Guitars”. Cutting mids??? Now, I have to agree, to much mids – sounds horrible. And certain midrange frequencies are harsh. So I really wanted to see what he was talking about.
Cutting Mids Is GOOD For Guitars via Jay Leonard J
I loved that he defined the range of mids – 200Hz – 4kHz, but also defined the low mid (200Hz-400Hz) as thump. That’s exactly how I would describe it, and the high mid as 2kHz range, this is the strong present lead range. Anything in between.. is mud and harshness. I thought it was also interesting that he showed the typical tone-stacks having a cut in the 500Hz-2kHz range by design.
In that video I also like how Jay talks about working with those frequencies in the band. Bands that can understand frequencies and their place, usually have a very great live sound. It’s tough to dial it in, but when it’s figured out, great things can happen!
