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Of course if money and time are no obstacle, get an expensive programmable EQ, a MIDI floorboard, and program all your gear to work off of MIDI switching (may require a MIDI switchable patch bay as well).
== Frequency Range Breakdown ==
If you have any "broken glass" in your tone, you should dial it out. It will be harsh and annoying. If it's just a little; however, you might not even be able to hear it in a mix. Still, it will interfere with the tone of the cymbals and will taint a recording or live performance.
=== Midrange ===
Midrange is the most important frequency range for guitar. Very few guitar tones you hear on records are truly "scooped" with the Midrange control on the amp turned all the way down. More likely, a narrow band within the range of midrange frequencies is simply de-emphasized. Novice players, particularly those who enjoy high-gain distortion, often fall into the trap of scooping the hell out of their tone. It sounds great playing in your bedroom by yourself at lower volumes. But when you try to play in a band context at gig-level volume, it either sounds thin and "buried" in the mix, or extremely harsh and clashes with the cymbals. I speak from experience.
I think this immediacy towards scooping comes from trying to make one's guitar tone sound like a full mix. In a mix, the bass and kick drum fill in the low end, while snare and cymbals fill in the high end. Vocals tend to occupy the upper midrange area. That big gaping whole between the bass and vocals and/or cymbals needs to get filled in by guitar.
With these things in mind, you can still scoop some mids and get a killer tone that still works in a mix. You just have to be a bit conservative on how much mids you cut. Its best to get crafty and use a parametric EQ to cut exactly at the frequency you want to dial back, making the cut as narrow and shallow as possible. You only want to reduce the emphasis of those frequencies, not kill them completely.
Also, if you find you have to really scoop the mids to get some unwanted "honk" out of the tone, you may be able to offset this by boosting the midrange on each side of this cut. For instance, if you are cutting 750 HZ, you can boost at 375 HZ and 1,500 HZ to keep the midrange as a whole in balance with the bass and treble.
== Common EQ Techniques ==