Electric guitar sits in the middle of everything. The bass is underneath it, the vocal is on top of it, and there’s usually another guitar next to it. So most EQ for guitar is about deciding what each guitar keeps and what it gives up. Nothing here is a preset. These are the places I look first and the moves I usually end up making. (This page is electric guitar. Acoustic has its own guide: acoustic guitar EQ.)
The cheat sheet
| Move | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| High-pass | at least 80Hz 100-120Hz in a dense mix | Push it up until the guitar thins, then back off. |
| Body / warmth | 100-250Hz | Keep it in a sparse mix. In a dense one, give some of it up to the bass and keys. |
| Mud | 200-400Hz | Cut 2-4dB, wide Q. Two guitars panned L/R? Cut it on both. |
| Boxy | 300-500Hz | Wide, gentle cut, 2-3dB. It’s the cab resonance. |
| Honk / character | 800Hz-1.5kHz | Where each guitar has its identity. Careful boosting here under a vocal. |
| Fizz / harsh | 2-4kHz often 3.5-4kHz | Sweep a narrow Q, find the one ugly frequency, cut 2-3dB. |
| Vocal space | 2-4kHz | Wide cut, 2-3dB, so the vocal steps forward. |
| Presence / bite | 3-6kHz | Wide boost, 2-3dB. Check it with the vocal playing. |
Two rules sit over all of it. Cut first, boost second: roughly three cuts for every boost. And EQ in context, not in solo. A guitar that sounds thin on its own but sits right in the mix is EQ’d correctly.
Want to see where electric guitar sits against the bass, the vocal and everything else? It’s on the EQ frequency chart, with 23 other instruments.
Guitar frequency range, and who it shares it with
The notes of an electric guitar live around 80-600Hz. Its harmonics carry on up to about 8kHz. The body is at 100-250Hz, the honk and character at 800Hz-1.5kHz, the bite at 3-6kHz. So it overlaps three other things: the bass, the vocal, and usually another guitar.
The bass: who keeps the low mids
Bass, kick, guitars, piano, vocals and synths all pile their energy into the low mids. You don’t need to cut that range on everything, but you do need to decide which instruments keep their body there and which ones give it up.
On guitar that decision is the 100-250Hz body. In a sparse mix, you want it. In a dense mix with bass and keys, you might sacrifice some of it. Either way, high-pass up to at least 80Hz, even 100-120Hz when it’s dense. If you have two rhythm guitars panned L/R, cut 200-400Hz on both. The bass will thank you.
The vocal: make room instead of boosting
The vocal presence range sits at roughly 2.5-5kHz, right where guitars have their bite. The fix isn’t boosting the vocal. Cut 2-4kHz on the guitars by 2-3dB with a wide Q and the vocal steps forward without you touching its fader.
Watch the honk zone too. 800Hz-1.5kHz is where electric guitar speaks and where each tone has its identity: a Les Paul sounds different to a Strat right here. The vocal competes in that zone, so be careful boosting it when there’s a singer. The vocal side of this is in the vocal EQ cheat sheet.
The other guitar: double-tracked rhythms
At the very minimum, double your rhythm guitars: the same part played twice, one panned hard left, one hard right. It has to be two performances. Copy one take and pan the copies and you just get a louder image in the centre.
Panning does a lot of the EQ work for you. Two guitars panned hard left and right have far less frequency masking than two sitting in the centre. Check whether panning solves it before you reach for EQ. Panning is free and doesn’t change the tone.
If they’re panned wide and still fighting, give them different curves: one brighter, one warmer. They don’t have to be EQ’d the same. Just don’t strip the bottom off both. Double-tracked guitars should have some low-end width, not just top-end sizzle.
Common guitar EQ problems
What each one sounds like, where it lives, and what to do about it.
Muddy or thick (200-400Hz)
Woolly and undefined, especially with high-gain tones. All that low-mid energy stacks up fast once you’ve got more than one guitar track.
High-pass up to at least 80Hz, even 100-120Hz in a dense mix. Then cut 2-4dB around 200-400Hz with a wide Q and the whole mix opens up. With two rhythm guitars panned L/R, cut it on both.
Also check the amp sim gain. If it’s maxed out, the distortion itself is creating the mud. Back it off to about 2 o’clock and you’ll get more definition. Same when you blend two amps for one tone: let the heavier amp supply the gain and dial it back on the clearer one. Too much gain on both creates mud.
And remember: heavy distortion is compression. Look at the waveform. It’s the same volume the whole time, so a compressor on top often just makes things worse. I don’t compress heavily distorted guitars more than a dB or two, and when I do it’s for colour, not control. Palm-muted sections are the exception, because they can jump in level against the open chords. Clean guitars are different: compress those for attack and sustain. The compressor calculator has starting settings for guitars.
Harsh or fizzy (2-4kHz)
The fizzy, digital-sounding harshness in distorted guitars. It usually comes from amp sims more than real amps. On electric guitar it often sits around 3.5-4kHz.
There’s often one specific ugly frequency causing it. Sweep a narrow band through 2-5kHz to find the worst spot, then cut it 2-3dB. Dip that one frequency and the harshness vanishes without killing the presence. Don’t broad-brush it. Be surgical.
If you want the edge back after that, add it higher up with a character EQ. A Pultec-style boost around 5kHz is smoother than boosting 4kHz. And if it’s still harsh, check what else is stacking up in 2-5kHz. Masking, not one track, is often the culprit.
Boxy (300-500Hz)
Cabinet boxiness. Every cab has a resonant frequency in there somewhere. Close-miked amps are worse, because you’re capturing the speaker cone resonance up close. A wide, gentle cut, 2-3dB with a broad Q, opens it up without thinning the tone.
If you’ve got several mics on one cab, say a 57, a 421 and a 414, don’t EQ them one by one. They combine to make one sound, and changing one changes how the others interact. Route them into a mono submaster and EQ that single track instead.
Lost in the mix
Fine in solo, gone when the band comes in. Usually when I’m mixing guitar, I’m adding top end.
Boost presence around 3-5kHz with a wide Q, 2-3dB. That’s the pick attack, the edge, the bite: where guitars cut through. If it gets harsh, you’ve probably gone too narrow with the Q or boosted too much. Check it in context with the vocal playing. For string definition and shimmer, a gentle wide boost higher up, in the 5-10kHz range, does the job.
Before you boost, though, try cutting whatever is in the way. Cutting one instrument in a crowded range often makes another one sound better without you touching it. And if it’s the other guitar it’s fighting, go back to different curves for each side.
Thin, like angry bees
If your guitars sound like angry bees instead of a wall of sound, you’ve cut too much low-mid. Put some back at 100-250Hz. That’s the body, and without it guitars sound thin and weak.
Check your cab sim too. Some of them roll off the lows too aggressively. And if you’re blending a DI with the amp, don’t blend it raw: a dry DI thins out the amp tone. Only blend it once it’s been through an amp sim, and line it up in time, because the DI arrives a few samples ahead of the mics and that offset thins the combined sound.
Last check: judge it with the band playing. Thin in solo can be exactly right in the mix.