Amps and frequencies

[newpedals]

Suppose a pedal takes out certain frequencies from the sound (e.g. lows). If such a pedal is plugged into an amp on which the bass/ lows knob is dimed, will it really add such (Bass) frequencies back to the sound?

I am asking because I saw a video of Radiohead's guitarist playing live and it is rumoured that he uses a tubescreamer or similar pedal. To my ears, his sound appearently still had quite some bass on his solos. I am guessing his pedal was modified to retain bass.

Just curious.

 

[laxu]

When most guitar EQs are passive, it's more like the bass knob dimed won't substract any more bass from the sound than what came in. And that's assuming the bass knob is not tied to where the treble and mid knobs are set like it's on most guitar amp tone stacks.

With active EQ, yes you could increase the bass frequencies.

With distortion you generally want to reduce the bass frequencies as those can easily overload things where it just starts sounding boomy or farty.

 

[newpedals]

Thank you for clarifying.

 

[AFKAEjay(retired)]

Depends on the EQ method.
A “low shelf” EQ reduces lows, but it’s all still there but attenuated. So you can bring that back by boosting it actively…or reduce highs and mids, so relatively the bass comes back.

When you use a low cut, or high pass filter, it is actually completely removed, so no way to get it back.

 

[GreatGreen]

It's a question of degrees and balance. Remove too much bass and your sound will be anemic (and you can't add back what isn't there) but send too much low end into the preamp and your sound will mush out.

If you want a full bandwidth type of high gain that is also tight, usually the way to do that is to dial your lows going into the amp so they're just loud enough to make it through the preamp gain staging and into the poweramp, but quiet enough that they pass through the preamp undistorted. That way you can boost the lows after the preamp distortion and they will be relatively clean and clear, mixed with crunchy and distorted mids and highs.