Mixing - clean "balanced" signal from guitar

[shawnco999]

Related to my "clean" guitar signal direct into my pedal board before adding effects, should I target the appropriate signal levels for each string to be balanced, or at the same level, across all strings? I understand I may want to tweak and add more Highs/Mids/Lows after that in the signal chain, but would an ideally clean guitar signal be even on my equalizer across each string? If it is not, why not and is this a function of the pickup? If I need it to be the same across each string, is a pedal equalizer the best way to accomplish this?

[Charlie Bernstein]

If I understand your question, you're wondering how to EQ your pickup. Unless it's a magnetic pickup with adjustable poles, I don't know of any way to control individual strings. So I must EQ around with my highs, mids, and lows to find a sound that fits the situation.

What kind of pickup do you have? If it's a piezo and is placed right, it should already be balanced across all your strings. That's how they're designed, though I suppose some are better than others. But whether it's a well-balanced pickup or not, EQing them to sound good works the same way.

EQing should be done after the rest of your board is set up and tested, since some pedals have volume and tone controls. (What's on that board of yours, anyhow?)

[Chriscom]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

If I understand your question, you're wondering how to EQ your pickup. Unless it's a magnetic pickup with adjustable poles, I don't know of any way to control individual strings.

Same here.

[shawnco999]

Thanks for the responses. My pickup is the LR-Baggs Element (in my Emerald X30 guitar), and my pedalboard includes the Boss VE-500 Harmony pedal (pass thru for guitar to set key/notes), StroboStomp Tuner, then Boss OC-5 Octave, LR Baggs Session and finally Singular Sound Aeros Looper.