Using pre and post EQs to fine-tune distortion processes

You know how sometimes you’ll put a saturation or distortion plugin on something, and it sounds generally great, but maybe the low end hits it a bit too hard and the sound collapses a bit?

Or maybe the high end will distort too much, and it’ll get harsh or “fizzy”?

You can control this by using EQs before and after the saturation plugin!

If your low end is causing the saturation to crap out: put a low shelving EQ before and after the saturation. Negative gain before, positive gain after. You are reducing the amount of low end going into the saturation until it behaves in a way that you like, and then you are adding the missing low end back in after the saturation so that the overall sound has the amount of low end that you want.

And it works the same in the high end!

Guitar players do this too, by the way, for the same reasons. A common trick is to use a steep midrange boost on a guitar pedal, to goose the mids going into the amp — focusing the distortion in the midrange — and then do a “V-shaped” EQ on the amp post-gain stage. Same exact idea: focus the distortion in the sweet spot, and then add back in your relatively less-distorted lows and highs to get the overall sound that you want.

By jockeying the input and output EQs carefully, you can arrive at a goldilocks distortion situation where your distortion is optimized, focused precisely where you want it.

Going for that brown sound — jamie