The Problem with Women and Strats

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Women and Strats are awesome. Without Fender Stratocasters we would not have the classic guitar tones of Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn and David Gilmore. Without women…. well, we would not have the human race (or the awesome new Wonder Woman movie!). But as much as we love women and Strats, in a recording situation they can both present a particular problem when they get intense.

When many female singers really belt or rock out, whether it is in rock, blues, pop or R&B, many female singers can start to sound “shrill” or, as I feel it, “piercing.”  This can be really unpleasant and make people turn the music down. We don’t want that. We want people cranking our mixes up!! Many mixers will try and address this problem by cutting the high end off the vocal, but the problem with this is that it can often hurt presence, clarity and the “air” quality that can sound so great on female voices.

This “piercing” trouble frequency is usually around 2.5k (2500 Hz). Many times small cuts can dramatically improve the problem, but sometimes large cuts are needed. The great thing about these cuts on a belting singer is that they reduce the shrill piercing quality while leaving the body and silky presence in a vocal alone.  Sometimes the cuts around 2.5k can actually make it sound like the good qualities in the voice get accentuated. The thing we need to be careful of though is that when that same singer in not belting or singing intensely,  that 2.5k frequency range can be important for bringing nice presence and clarity to a more subdued or lower register performance. So that cut that helps the intense parts, might actually hurt the mellower parts. This is when EQ automation can be critical, i.e. setting the EQ to cut only on the intense parts. One other option if you are working fast is to use something like the bx_dynEQ V2 dynamic EQ from Brainworx, which will only engage the EQ when that specific frequency reaches a certain level of intensity (amplitude).

A Fender Strat (or most guitars with single coil pickups) can have a similar problem as female voices. The bright and articulate high midrange of the single coil pick up is fantastic for giving guitars a clear bell like quality, but when the playing and the level of distortion gets intense, the clear bell like tone can start getting “shrill” and “piercing”……. sound familiar?

Many times the problem is in that exact same frequency range as the female voice. Right around 2.5k. Just like our female voice, a cut around 2.5 can dramatically improve the problem on the really intense parts, but sometimes hurt the sound on the mellower parts.

It is not uncommon to have songs featuring both powerful female vocals and guitars with single coil pick ups. In the final mix we will hear the problem cumulatively. So it is always important to hear how your EQ changes are working in context. You might hear the voice as shrill or piercing, but when you solo the voice it sounds fine. That is because the voice is blending with those same frequencies in other instruments. So sometimes if you “fix” just the voice or just the guitar it might improve the sound of both.

Of course, some male vocalists and other kinds of guitars can have this problem, but female voices and single coil guitars are the most common places I run across this problem. Most importantly though, you need to remember that EQ presets are stupid and should generally be avoided and that 2.5K /2500Hz is just a ball park starting point and every voice and guitar will be different.

-Ronan Chris Murphy