[QUESTION] What does scooped mids mean?

That's where Nu-Metal stole the idea from I'm sure.

Metallica also does NOT Scoop their mids, at least, not the way the Nu-Metal kids did (I know, I played that scene in it's heyday).

Metallica = has a good bit of mids on Kill Em' All, Ride the Lightning, and took a few frequencies out on Master, and about the most scooped 2 albums are And Justice and the Black album - and those two are the two that got them to mainstream appeal.

Once the hit Load, they turned the mids UP, that's why they were a bit punchier and had a bit of that "bang" effect to their sound, and they gradually upped that till you get to today where it sounds like Metallica has a pretty even EQ. By the time Load came out, they cut their hair and less people followed them for awhile.

The Nu-MEtal version is get a Distortion device or high gain amp, turn the lows all the way up, the highs all the way up, and anything marked "mid" or placed physically between those two knobs DOWN. Resulting in that buzzy, mid-less sound that every 12 year old Pantera fan at Guitar Center would try and imitate.

/r/Guitar Thread Parent