Fig 1: Scooped mids (artist’s conception).
“Don’t scoop your mids!”
It’s probably the most frequently dispensed pearl of tone wisdom on guitar forums—and one of the most vague. Midrange is a broad topic, literally and conceptually, and those words can signify many things. So let’s unpack the meanings of midrange in search of deeper understanding of how amp midrange settings affect your recorded tones.
Don’t Touch That Dial! No, Do Touch It! No, Wait—Don’t!
Naturally, the players who post those words usually refer to turning down the midrange knob on your amp. This is probably in reaction to sort of mid-scooped rock guitar tones that predominated in the ’80s and into the ’90s. Some engineers refer to this tone profile as a “smile curve,” because if you call it up on a graphic EQ with multiple sliders, the result looks like a grin. (I prefer a less common—but funnier—moniker: “stoner vee.”)
That ’80s sound—strong lows, hyped highs, and super-scooped mids—provides a certain cheap thrill, much like cocaine, the era’s studio drug of choice (or so I’ve been told). The sound can certainly grab your attention, though it isn’t a faithful depiction of a guitar’s innate sonic proportions (see artist’s conception in Fig. 1).
You can modify mids before the guitar signal hits the recording input, or after. We’ll look at precision DAW-based midrange sculpting in a future column. For now, let’s focus on upstream adjustments, especially amp knob settings. But first, a quick-and-dirty review of the relevant EQ lingo.
Frets and Frequencies
The hearing range of a healthy young person is 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The A = 440 Hz we tune to corresponds to the A at the 1st string’s 5th fret. Double or halve the frequency to shift by an octave: 220 Hz corresponds to the A at the 3rd string’s 2nd fret.
Amp tone controls are machetes, not scalpels.
The fundamental of the open 5th string is 110 Hz. The A string on a bass sounds at 55 Hz, as does the lowest note of a 7-string guitar dropped to A. Moving in the opposite direction, the 1st string at the 17th fret rings at 880 Hz. Meanwhile, the lowest frequency emitted by a standard-tuned guitar is E = 82.41 Hz.
Note that the scale isn’t linear: 110 Hz and 220 Hz are only 110 Hz apart, while there’s a 10,000 Hz difference between 10 kHz and 20 kHz. But both 110/220 Hz and 10/20 kHz are exactly one octave apart.
And remember, there’s more to EQ than target frequencies. Equally important is the bandwidth of the slice. Removing a narrow sliver at 500 Hz is a far cry from a broad swath that’s centered at 500 Hz, but which extends by multiple octaves in either direction.
One more thing: Electric guitar amps put out little signal above 4 or 5 kHz, as opposed to, say, pianos or cymbals, whose overtones extend to the top of our hearing range. Boosting or cutting highs above that point does nothing—unless the bandwidth is wide enough to affect frequencies below 4.5 kHz or so.
So what sorts of cuts and boosts do you get when you adjust a typical amp’s mid knob?
Midrange According to Jim and Leo
Let’s turn to a cool bit of free software: Duncan Tone Stack Calculator. (No relation to Seymour D.) It’s for PC only, but Mac users can run it via a Windows shell program such as the $59 Crossover from Codeweavers. It provides visualizations of such common tone controls as those on Fender and Marshall amps, plus that mother of all stoner vee curves, the original Big Muff.
Fig. 2: The tone profile of a typical Marshall amp, with the midrange at 5, 0, and 10.
Fig. 2 shows the frequency curve of a typical Marshall amp with its mid control an noon, fully scooped, and cranked to the max. Lookit! There’s a big-ass scoop at around 800 Hz even when it’s “flat.” Hell, there’s even a scoop when it’s dimed! And when you lower the mids all the way, the distorted discus thrower in Fig. 1 starts to look like an understatement. It’s a wide scoop, too, affecting frequencies from about 100 Hz to 4 kHz — practically the guitar’s entire range.
Fig. 3: The mid cut on a typical blackface-style Fender amp is even more extreme than on a Marshall.
The typical Fender midrange profile in Fig. 3 is centered lower, around 500 Hz. Check out the middle image with its -35 dB cut, which also splashes across the guitar’s entire frequency range. It’s the Marianas Trench of midrange cuts! In fact, if you want to fake an amp sound using a direct-recorded guitar signal, your first needed adjustment is probably a similarly deep and wide EQ cut centered between 500 Hz and 1 kHz, even if you’re aiming for a fat-sounding tone.
Are Scoops for Poops?
So should you avoid scooping mids on your amp? Not necessarily. It depends on the context—duh! Judge with your ears, not the Duncan Tone Stack Calculator. But be mindful that if you nix major mids, it’s not just a bit of EQ nip-and-tuck—you’re disemboweling your tone like it’s a corpse on an autopsy table. Except amp tone controls are machetes, not scalpels.
Fig. 4: Even a humble EQ pedal provides more precise midrange sculpting than most amp EQ knobs.
There’s another way to sculpt midrange upstream from the recording input: using an EQ pedal or similar device. Some of these provide parametric EQ (which means you can specify the bandwidth of the boost or cut). Even a humble Boss GE-7 Graphic Equalizer is surgical compared to amp controls. Here the fixed bandwidth spans about an octave, as opposed to the four octaves or more affected by typical amp midrange pots. (See Fig. 4, with the resulting EQ curve approximated in Logic Pro’s EQ plug-in). Even a maximum -15 dB cut at 800 Hz (roughly the Marshall midrange frequency) is far, far subtler than zeroing an amp’s mid control.
The real precision midrange sculpting is likelier to happen within your DAW—and we’ll explore those techniques in an upcoming column. Till then—it depends on the context!
[Updated 1/13/22]
On her new record with her trio, Molly Miller executes a live-feeling work of structural harmony that mirrors her busy life.
Miller has a lot on her plate. In addition to gigs leading the Molly Miller Trio, she also plays guitar in Jason Mraz’s band, and teaches at her alma mater, the University of Southern California (USC), where, after a nine-year stint, she earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate in music. In 2022, she became a professor of studio guitar at USC. Prior to that, she was the chair of the guitar department at the Los Angeles College of Music.
Molly Miller's Gear
Miller plays a fair bit of jazz, but considers herself simply a guitarist first: “Why do I love the guitar? Because I discovered Jimi Hendrix.”
Photo by Anna Azarov
Guitars
- 1978 Gibson ES-335
- Fender 1952 Telecaster reissue with a different neck and a bad relic job (purchased from Craigslist)
- Gibson Les Paul goldtop with P-90s
Amps
- Benson Nathan Junior
- Benson Monarch
- Fender Princeton Reverb Reissue (modified to “widen sound”)
Effects
- Chase Bliss Audio Dark World
- Chase Bliss Audio Warped Vinyl
- EarthQuaker Devices Dispatch Master
- EarthQuaker Devices Dunes
- EarthQuaker Devices Special Cranker
- JAM Pedals Wahcko
- JAM Pedals Ripply Fall
- Strymon Flint
- Fulltone Clyde Wah
- Line 6 Helix (for touring)
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball .011s for ES-335 and Les Paul
- Ernie Ball .0105s for Telecaster
- Fender Celluloid Confetti 351 Heavy Picks
To get things done, Miller has had to rely on a laser-focused approach to time management. “I’ve always kind of been juggling different aspects of my career. I was in grad school, getting a doctorate, TA-ing full time—so, teaching probably 20 hours a week, and then also doing probably four or five gigs a week, and getting a degree,” explains Miller. “I had to figure out how to create habits of, ‘I really want to play a lot of guitar, and gig a lot, but I also need to finish my degree and make extra money teaching, and I also want to practice.’ There’s a certain level of organization and thinking ahead that I always feel like I have to be doing.”
“The concept of the Molly Miller Trio—and also a part of my playing—is we are playing songs, we are bringing back the instrumental, we are thinking about the arrangement.”
The Molly Miller Trio’s latest release, The Battle of Hotspur, had its origins during the pandemic. Miller and bassist Jennifer Condos started writing the songs in March 2020, sending files back and forth to each other. They finally finished writing the album’s last song, “Head Out,” in December 2021, and four months later, recorded the album in just two days. The 12-song collection is subtle and cool, meandering like a warm, sparkling country river through a backwoods county. The arrangements feel spacious and distinctly Western—Miller’s guitar lines are clean and clear and dripped with just the right level of reverb, trem, and chorus, while Jay Bellerose’s brush-led percussion trots alongside like a trusty steed.
The Battle of Hotspur has a live feel, and that aspect was 100-percent deliberate. Miller says, “That’s the exact intention of our records—we want to create a record that we can play live. Jason Wormer, the recording and mixing engineer that did our record, came to a show of ours and was like, ‘This is incredible.’ He’s recorded so many records and was like, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever recorded a record that sounds the same live.’ And that was our exact intention. Because I feel like [the goal of] the trio itself was to be full. It’s not supposed to be like, ‘Oh, let’s put saxophone and let’s put keys and other guitars on it.’ The concept of the record is a full trio like the way Booker T. & the M.G.’s were. It’s not, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if you added another instrument?’ No, we’re an instrumental trio.”
Musicality is what separates Miller from the rest of the pack. She has prodigious chops but uses them appropriately, when it makes musical sense, and her ability to honor a song’s written melody and bring it to life is one of her strong suits. “That’s a huge part of what we do,” she says. “The concept of the Molly Miller Trio—and also a part of my playing—is we are playing songs, we are bringing back the instrumental, we are thinking about the arrangement. The solo is a vehicle to further the story, to further the song, not just for me to shred. So often, you play a song, and you could be playing the solo over any song. There’s not enough time spent talking about how to play a melody convincingly, and then play a solo that’s connected to the melody.... Whether it’s a pop song, an original, or a standard, how you’re playing it is everything, and not just how you’re shredding over it.”
Miller still gets pigeonholed by expectations in the music industry, including the assumption that she’s a singer-songwriter: “I don’t sing. I’m a fucking guitar player.”
Photo by Anna Azarov
Miller’s strong sense of melody can be traced to her diverse palette of influences. Even though she’s a “jazzer” by definition, she’ll cover pop songs like the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do is Dream” and the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Miller says, “I spent nine years in jazz school. I practice ‘Giant Steps’ still for fun because I think it’s good for my guitar playing. But it was a release to be like, ‘I am not just a jazz guitar player at all!’ Why do I love the guitar? Because I discovered Jimi Hendrix, right? What made me feel things in high school? Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and No Doubt. It’s like, Grant Green’s not why I play the guitar.
“I play jazz guitar, but I’m a guitar player that loves jazz. What do I put on my playlist? It’s not like I just listen to Wes Montgomery. I go from Wes Montgomery to the Beach Boys to freakin’ Big Thief to Bob Dylan to Dave Brubeck. The musicians I love are people who tell stories and have something to say—Brian Wilson, Cat Stevens.... They’re amazing songwriters.”
“Whether it’s a pop song, an original, or a standard, how you’re playing it is everything, and not just how you’re shredding over it.”
Despite a successful career, Miller continually faces sexism in the industry. “I went to a guitar hang two days ago. It was a big company, and they invited me to come and check out guitars. And I’m playing—I clearly know how to play the instrument—and this photographer there is like, ‘Oh, so are you a singer?’ And I’m just like, ‘No, I don’t sing. Fuck you,’” recalls Miller. “It’s such an internal struggle because of the interactions I have with the world. This kind of gets this thing in me where I feel like I need to prove to people, like, I am a guitar player. And at this point, I know I’m established enough. I play the guitar, and I know how to play it. I’m good, whatever. There still is this ego portion that I’m constantly fighting, and it comes from random people walking up to me and asking about me playing acoustic guitar and my singer-songwriter career or whatever. And I’m like, ‘I don’t sing. I’m a fucking guitar player.’”
YouTube It
Molly Miller gets to both tour with and open up for Jason Mraz’s band. Here’s a taste of Miller leading into Mraz’s set with some adeptly and intuitively performed riffs from a show in July 2022.
Bassist Sebastian Steinberg’s credits range from deep-cut avant-jazz to the highest levels of pop stardom.
Think weird samples, colliding harmonies, and half-sung boho poetry, all over some seriously sick grooves, with Steinberg driving the bus to Beelzebub with his thick upright tone and funky feel.
“In the middle of every groove, there’s the stupid part,” he told me then, drawing my attention to, as an example, the steady high-hat part in Sly & the Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” If a groove makes your head nod, he said, “there’s something absolutely idiotic weaving its way down the middle.” As a bass player, he cautioned: “Sometimes you’re it.”
This idea stuck with me over the years, so I thought I’d see what Sebastian was up to. I caught him at a good time. After three well-received albums in the ’90s, Soul Coughing went their separate ways, and Steinberg went on to play both upright and electric with a variety of artists, including several that he describes as “fearlessly original.” That’s him on Fiona Apple’s acclaimed pandemic release, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, as well as singer-songwriter Iron & Wine’s latest album, Light Verse. This summer he’s touring Europe in a trio with drummer Matt Chamberlain and pianist Diana Krall (who didn’t want to play with “jazz guys”), and in the fall, he’s hitting the road with a reunited Soul Coughing.
I asked what it was about his approach that appeals to certain artists. “I like to play songs,” he answered. “But I have a musical curiosity and I can throw in my own ideas. My hands tend to be the smartest part of my body, so I can follow where the music leads.”
Steinberg says Fiona Apple’s 2020 record, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, “surpasses anything I’ve ever been involved in.”
Interestingly, when Sebastian started working at different points with Apple, Iron & Wine, and Krall, all three artists asked him not to listen to their previous albums. They wanted to create something new, current, and genuine, rather than, as Sebastian puts it, “trying to do stuff that’s already happened.”
“I’m not the bass player for everyone, which I’m really delighted to discover,” Steinberg continued. “But I’ve been sort of working out that there is a place for me. I’ve always been drawn to music that tends to ruffle feathers rather than smooth them. I gravitate towards people who are really strong individual thinkers, sometimes very much at the cost of their convenience, comfort, and public opinion. But the music is real. When musicians are real with each other, they’re as real as it gets.”
Sebastian describes the making of Fetch the Bolt Cutters as this kind of very real, exceptional experience. “It surpasses anything I’ve ever been involved in, including Soul Coughing,” he says. “I haven’t made an album so true, where nothing like this music has existed before, since Soul Coughing’s first album,” he said, referring to 1994’s Ruby Vroom. “Both albums were alive, unfettered, and truly unexplored territory.”
Fiona put the band together in 2016, inviting Steinberg, drummer Amy Aileen Wood, and multi-instrumentalist David Garza. “The four of us would go to the house, stomp around, sing in a chant she’d made up, and literally play like children or birds. After a while, songs began appearing. By the time we started going into the studio, we’d developed a level of trust and intimacy with each other, because we’d been playing in this non-specific but very personal way together. It's the most powerful band I’ve ever been in.”
“There are so many ways to approach music that transcend what the instrument was built to do. But you should know what it was built to do, because that’s a great job. It’s the best seat in the house.”
Sebastian notes that you do have to balance this kind of boldness with musical functionality. “Bass is a function, not an instrument,” he says. “There are so many ways to approach music that transcend what the instrument was built to do. But you should know what it was built to do, because that’s a great job. It’s the best seat in the house.”
So how does one go about getting real? “It’s about getting out of the way of whatever niceties musicians tend to inflict on each other,” he says. “You have to overcome fear and let the truth speak. Find the music and play it. Don’t bring your ego into it, but don’t let somebody scare you off from the music. And if you believe in what you’re doing, stick to it.”
A note of clarification
Last month’s column was about playing style, with Funkadelic bassist Billy Bass Nelson as an example. However, the magazine was already off to the printer when I finally connected with Nelson after several attempts. He told me that he did not play with a pick on Fred Wesley’s “Half A Man,” but often used his fingernails to get a similar attack. He also suggested two other songs that exemplify his style: Parlet’s 1978 track “Love Amnesia,” and the Temptations’ 1975 single “Shakey Ground.”
