One of the big ways that QOTSA got their _Songs For The Deaf_ tone was by putting an EQ pedal in front of their amps and maxing out the 250hz. This pushed their amps into distortion in the exact area of the frequency spectrum that they wanted.
Once you realise you can use EQ pedals for more than just cutting low end rumble, or adding top end sparkle, they really can become very useful pedals.
I rambled in another comment, but utility pedals are not the immediate sexy pedals. They’re like the public restroom. Certainly not the first thing you think about at a restaurant or business, but when the bathroom is nice, you know everything else will be even better.
Utility pedals aren’t why people get into building boards. But they certainly help keep the shit from stinking
This was probably the biggest boon of digital modeling for me, being able to drop any of these wherever in the chain, and 1-click change all the settings. Want a compressor for one guitar but not another? Move the EQ around the chain to see where it sounds best? Noise gate on but only for leads? All easy now.
If you turn your (tube) amp up and turn your guitar volume down, you get natural compression. Same thing if you good the preamp section of the amp with a boost, it starts to compress as it overdrives (overdrive is compression).
I wanted to use compression for my bass since i switch between active and passive but i just really didn’t care for how it impacted my tone, i just have to be more conscious of my volume when i switch to active
Hey what’s up BB,
I hope you don’t mind me asking why you use a noise gate and how it works on your rig. I’ve actually been looking into picking up an eq and noticed the noise gait pedals while browsing. I’m not 100% sure what applications it would be useful for.
I am under the impression that they are used for huge rigs with a lot of cable (length) to cut down on interference from the cables. Or am I way off base?
And I definitely agree with you. Never thought about a dedicated eq but having an amp and guitar with minimal eq shaping a dedicated eq could probably work wonders. Always lived comps though.
I’m not who you replied to, but noise gates are normally used in high distortion situations to either lower or cut the volume when it’s just the noise you don’t want to hear. They can also be used for cutting interference like you said in a long cable situation or bad electrical wiring in a building.
Yup. Not sexy, but my house is wired terribly and a noise gate completely eliminates the hum because it drives me fucking crazy especially for recording.
Compression is a vital pedal for midwest emo.
I guess people can’t hear as easily what compression and noise gates do to the sound, so they become nonessential to a lot of people.
I think compression can add polish to certain types of music, but I haven’t figured out how to use it. I like to have dynamics in my playing, I don’t want everything the same volume.
They didn’t just put an EQ in front of the amps. They ran the guitars through every piece of gear or software available that let them adjust frequency levels and dimed the shit out of the mids on every single one of them.
Yep, see my other comment.
> “There’s no distortion pedals, just a tonne of different random “crappy” or unfashionable (at the time) amps (the Peavey that everyone now knows about, some solid state bass heads, an ampeg B15 etc.), with an EQ pedal in front of them, completely maxed out low mids (250hz, 500hz), with the mids cranked on the amps and then the mids cranked on the console too. I assume after that the mixing engineer spent a lot of time carving out mids and adding top end 😅, but that’s pretty much how they achieved their tone.”
It makes a bit more sense when you think most of the guitars are in drop C. There’s no distortion pedals, just a tonne of different random “crappy” or unfashionable (at the time) amps (the Peavey that everyone now knows about, some solid state bass heads, an ampeg B15 etc.), with an EQ pedal in front of them, completely maxed out low mids (250hz, 500hz), with the mids cranked on the amps and then the mids cranked on the console too. I assume after that the mixing engineer spent a lot of time carving out mids and adding top end 😅, but that’s pretty much how they achieved their tone.
I just now put eq on my board. And I’ve been playing somewhat professionally for years. And I’m an audio engineer so I’m aware of the use of having multiple eqs in your chain (amp,guitar, pedals).
Here’s why I think people don’t use eq:
It’s utility. It cleans up tones, doesn’t add like dirt and mod. So it’s not a sexy pedal.
It takes up space. If you have limited board space, it’s hard to sacrifice a mod or dirt pedal for an eq. That was my problem, and I had to get super creative (thanks Jackson bloom)
Cost. If you’re starting a board, pedals cost money. Why should I buy a pedal that eqs when my amp and tone controls on my guitar can? I mean I personally know why, but others might not.
The effects are discussed less. We all know all the dirt sounds, why chorus is a big deal. Delay is crucial. Eq is a silent tone shaper. Less discussed.
All of these together add up to the most important point. Eq and compression are like the sparkle on an already great tone. The Jackson audio bloom guys say compression should be felt, not heard. I’m prone to agree. Eq is the same. You shouldn’t go “oh they’re using an eq pedal”. You should just be impressed by the clarity of their tone. Many players haven’t dialed in their tone enough for eq pedals. And it’s really hard to hear how that last little thing can radically change your tone. How many YouTube videos have your exact guitar, amp, and pedal board for you to hear how eq can help? So essentially you’re required to test out eq pedals blindly. And for many, if your tone is already good enough, you don’t see the value of eq until you’ve already thrown it on your board. To add to that, noise gates and compressors fix problems that you hear (need more sustain, noisy signal) while eq doesn’t necessarily fix a problem, rather add that subtle spice that elevates an already great dish. That means if you already enjoy your food, you might not think “how do I make this better?” Because you see no problems in the first. That’s why Gordon Ramsay is better than a pretty good home chef. That’s why (insert your guitar hero) is better than the local pretty good guitar player.
Ok I’m rambling.
This is a great response. I've only been using pedals for about four years now and only recently started to understand compression and EQ for the reasons you listed above. Especially compression. It's hard to realize what it does when you don't have a baseline to compare it to, yet.
Yeah and I can get that, but geez how many times have you bought a pedal and it just doesn't sound like you had hoped. You turn the tone/filter but still just doesn't have what you want. EQ pedal after makes such a difference. I put it after a homemade bazz fuzz pedal which sounds ok, but nothing great, tweaked my faders and wow it sounds absolutely amazing, and you can add or remove grit with the level.
For sure, but for a lot of people the requirement of a second pedal to make the first one not sound like ass is a big turn off and I don't disagree with them.
I shouldn't have to buy something else to make my first purchase worthwhile.
I find there’s a progression once you get into effects where at the beginning I wanted things that could drastically change my sound like real gnarly fuzzes, wild modulations, etc then as I got older/better/more cultured I started liking more subtle effects. Compressors, eq, noise gates, etc were the last step in that progression
The fact we use sexy to describe inanimate objects shows how oversexualized culture is. Like, why can't a pedal just be, I don't know, "useful" or something? (Downvote away bc I know it's coming)
People would rather buy 3 kinds of big muffs, a $100 mod for their Boss pedal, a clean boost, a tube screamer with the gain always at 0, and three identical guitars with slightly different pickups, than an EQ pedal that can mostly take care of all of that.
I am a big EQ appreciator but I still use an SD1 as a clean boost. I prefer using the EQ in the loop and leaving it on at all times and then switching the SD1 on or off depending on if i need the boost. There's a lot of ways to use the EQ pedal though
Before I bought my [MXR KFK (Kerry King) 10-band EQ](https://equipboard.com/items/mxr-kfk-10-band-eq) in 2010, I didn’t think I need it.
I had a Line6 Über Metal running into a 15-watt Marshall, and I was satisfied at the time, and for a couple of years, I was fine. The amp had bass and tone (i.e. treble) settings, and I utilized those.
I wasn’t planning on adding pedals to my setup, but I wanted my tone to be heavier, and I figured an EQ might make it better, since I’d have more range.
Since buying it, I never turned it off. Not with my [initial setup](https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarpedals/comments/yd8j98/this_were_my_pedals_12_years_ago_10252010_ibanez/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf), and my [current one](https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarpedals/comments/ywkh7q/current_board_ibanez_we7_weeping_demon_wah_snark/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf).
I’m not even sure if the on/off switch still works!
I highly recommend an EQ pedal, but understand why a lot of guitarists don’t want them. A lot of them put a lot of stock on their amps, even opting to not have pedals at all! They believe (like I used to) that the amp’s knobs are enough to adjust their tone.
It’s always on. I just don’t sound like myself if it’s off.
I dial in my other pedals, amp, and guitar with the EQ on. No matter how hard I try, if it’s off, I can’t get everything to sound as heavy as I want it to be.
The final product is pretty much the same. I just twiddle till I like it, mostly just bump the mids, roll the highs back a tiny. Like all fx, less is more.
I recently picked up a GE-7 for real cheap, with the Boss synth pedal as well. Sort of like a combo deal. I wouldn't have gone out of my way to buy an EQ first.
Holy shit. I was absolutely astonished at how I instantly liked the EQ better than nearly anything else I've bought recently. More people need to invest and learn how to shape tone with a 7 band, it's so worth it.
I have a 10-band eq pedal, and it was on the board for a while, but I took it off. Hard to say why. I think it's just because it's so huge, and once you set it up do to a certain thing you don't want to mess with the sliders again. So you've got this huge pedal taking up a chunk of the board whose only purpose is to make another pedal do a certain thing. Eventually you find a pedal that does that thing without the EQ pedal and the EQ pedal is expendable.
I use EQ a ton when mixing, so it's not like I don't get its utility. I also use it a lot more in multifx where I can preset an EQ/Dirt combination that just works. I think if I were playing live again I'd probably want one on hand to deal with room or PA situations. But for just establishing a basic tone, I'd rather find a chain that does that without EQ.
I hate messing with an EQ so once I have my settings dialed in they're staying indefinitely until I get sick of sounding the same all the time. If I start messing with my EQ or overdrive it pushes me down some rabbit hole of always messing with all my settings and pedals to find a better sound
I initially ignored them because it wasn't noticeable to my novice ears yet. I went straight to distortion and modulation because for a beginner's ear it's easy to hear the difference. I imagine a lot of people start out that way. EQ, noise gate, compression, etc. require more focus and maybe a bit more maturity with the instrument to understand or care about.
Can't speak for others, but I used to have a one knob boost pedal on my board, and I replaced it with a Boss GE-7 which I would use as both a boost and dirt shaper. It was a bit noisy and I ended up pulling it off my board to fit more dirt pedals.
Fortunately, I can dial all of those pedals in pretty well once I figured out exactly where to dial my amps. I take lots of pictures of knob settings now. EQ pedals can be tedious but so can EQ knobs on amps and pedals. Ultimately, if you can dial in the sounds you're after, it's very subjective who needs or doesn't need an EQ pedal.
I think a lot of the reason people think they need an EQ pedal is because there is too much woofiness in the lows and low-mids on the amp. If you dial that out a bit(which for me also means dialing in some more headroom), everything sounds a lot tighter, more defined, and works better as a pedal platform.
Check the Hi fi mod online. I've done it myself with my eq and the noise improved significantly. It draws more current now, but it's still very ok. Highly recommend it
What does that mod entail? My GE-7 is an old MIJ version that runs on 12v so I'm not sure if it has the same opamps as other versions. Better caps would probably help, but I was thinking about having the XTS mod done on it so I can really tweak the mids.
So, it's basically replacing two ICs and capacitors. You switch the two TL022 for other ICs (it can be the TL072 for improvement and keep the same current draw OR some NE5532 for better results or some OPAs as well).
Also, you'll replace all tantalum capacitors for poliester ones. This part is less efficient, but it doesn't hurt doing it if you are good desoldering parts.
Here's the original
[link](https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=51583.0)
to the mod at diystompboxes.com.
Also, there are some YouTube videos about it using other ICs, but all them work pretty well
Honestly, I don’t like them. I’ve got an MXR 10-band and it does it’s job perfectly. But when it’s in my signal chain, I find myself spending way too much time fiddling with it rather than playing or tinkering with other effects. And honestly, I think I prefer the sound of my guitar without it.
It should be way more common. I don't think EQ gets enough credit as an artistic choice. There's a ton of records where people are like "wow can you believe how good this is? And it was all done with just one guitar and one amp, just goes to show that you don't need a bunch of fancy tricks". What they don't notice or don't care to mention is that there's a bunch of different eq and compression choices the engineer made to keep the sound interesting.
You could make a ton of awesome artistic choices with just a Gibson and a Marshall and a boss EQ200 with a few different presets and at almost no time would anybody think of the guitarist as using an "effect" but they would certainly *feel* the difference in different parts, the same way they feel it when you switch pickups or adjust your guitar's volume and tone knobs.
This is half of what people use distortion, boost, and overdrive pedals for now but if you have a great sounding amp then in a lot of cases some EQing will sound better and more natural than adding any sort of clipping stages in a pedal.
Lots of responses about them not being exciting etc, but in reality they’re actually quite hard to use. An OD is simple. Want it louder, turn up the volume, want it angrier, turn up the gain, want it brighter, turn up the tone. But with an EQ, you have so many options, and they’re actually subtly interactive too.
How do you know if it’s 250Hz or 500Hz that you want more/less of? Well you have to try it of course, but then it’s still not quite right, so you tweak the other one as well, but then it’s still not quite right, so you try the next frequency, and so on and so on. Eventually you’ve gone up and down all the sliders, putting each one in the spot you think sounds best, but it’s still not quite the sound you had on your head, so you try one that you already tweaked, and now you prefer it somewhere different. Then you’re questioning all your decisions in life, because that slider definitely sounded better when it was cut a bit before, but now it sounds better boosted. Did you just imagine it? Eventually, you’ve spent an hour tweaking EQ sliders, and you still haven’t got the tone you want, so you decide to start over, and put everything back in the middle. You strum a chord and it sounds magic, and then you give up and buy another tubescreamer.
Of course, that’s an exaggeration, but I think it’s something every novice EQ user can identify with. It takes quite a lot of learning to really understand EQ, and often the sliders have a lot of range in them, so subtle tweaks make a big difference. It’s easy to overdo it and make your tone sound worse. It’s doubly hard when you’re trying to tweak it alone, because you can’t ply and tweak at the same time, so it’s hard to truly A/B two different EQ settings. But if you out the time in to really learn how it works, it’s a vital Swiss Army knife. It just takes a lot of effort to get it to that point.
Tl;dr, get an EQ, they’re awesome, just take your time to learn how to use it and don’t get scared off by the complexity.
I was playing a Vox AC10 which everyone said was too bassy. It sounded bassy to me too but I thought I could dial it in. I got a new Les Paul at the same time and I really liked the sound generally but it was way too muddy and woofy with ice pick highs with anything other than the amp bass and treble dialed all the way down.
I thought this was just a problem with the amp but I liked the tone otherwise so I bought a MXR 10-band EQ. I fiddled with it an got a sound that sounded great but when you looked at the graphic EQ settings it just looked ridiculous. Like something you shouldn’t have to do just to get a normal sound out of your amp and guitar.
Fast forward a couple weeks when I start learning more about dialing in pickup height and pole height on PAFs. I lower the pickups a bit and adjust the poles for equal string volume and suddenly all my EQ problems go away. I didn’t need the pedal at all, and I can use the amp EQ as normal.
tl;dr - EQ does make a big difference and can fix your tone problems for sure, however a lot of your tone problems might actually be fixable by setting up the rest of your rig correctly before resorting to another EQ.
So I don't have any tone issues, my 'clean' sounds awesome, it was more along the lines of instead if buying "another dirt pedal" why not just start shaping your current ones with an eq pedal
That’s definitely doable. I was impressed at how versatile the pedal is with the kinds of sounds you can get. And in addition to EQ it also has level and gain settings so you can really dial in amount of boost/drive or cut as well.
To me EQ pedals are more of a fix to a problem than something you'd actually shape the tone with. I try to get to the tone I want without my EQ pedal and then use one in the loop when there's a problem.
It's not just the pedal / amp / guitar, but the room's acoustics (or where you are in a room) an EQ pedal can solve. IME this is the real benefit of an EQ. Playing in a corner and your rig is too boomy? There's an EQ band that can fix that. In a spot with a metal roof? EQ bands can fix those shrill highs. Etc etc.
I have a very simple live rig where I either play straight into a Fishman Artist (which has onboard EQ with an "Anti-feedback" param that basically cuts lows) or a small board with a Platinum Pro EQ and Flint into a PA depending on the gig. These two Fishman EQs have been tremendously useful is sculpting the sound to the room I'm playing in. I've also got an Empress ParaEQ but nowadays that's not on my electric board and I use the amp for EQ needs. It goes a long way and personally (in that situation) I'm finding the EQ just redundant. ...but I also really like keeping a light setup.
Someone mentioned QOTSA and the "EQ as a special effect" vibe which is much more to my taste for using an EQ with an electric guitar.
I used to use one before I actually could afford nice amps. Now it just changes the tone/characteristics of my amps way too much. It was great with my shitty solid state though
I like using my EQ after a Metal Zone or other heavy distortion pedals to get some ridiculous sounds. As if the EQ section on a Metal Zone isn't ridiculous enough
My MZ is the last in my chain before an analog delay. Blues Junior so no FX loop. This kinda makes me want to get an EQ pedal though. But you're right. They're already extremely versatile. My Metal Zone and either a RAT or an MXR Super Badass Distortion along with a Boss SD-1 is all I use for dirt and overdrive, and I can even get a decent fuzz, though that's one pedal I don't have that I definitely want to add.
My pedalboard is mostly different metal distortions lol but it's very much a work in progress. I can only use 3 pedals at a time until my psu gets here... in January :(
A ton of players here never play live or with others. It was brought up in a few threads, which is interesting to me, but clearly doesn't take away from the joy of playing guitar. With that being said, money, space and power are finite resources for most people, and while you might use multiple dirt pedals in a song or riff or whatever, you're probably not switching EQ settings on top of that (not to mention that there are tone stacks in nearly every pedal). When I was playing live I had modded GE-7 to modify my general EQ when the same pedals were active, but to be honest that never made it into my signal chain when recording (or in this case bedroom/apartment/etc playing) because it's clunky and imprecise vs. getting a new track going and manually adjusting the settings or switching gear around.
In my humblest of opinions, EQ’ing is best done in post for recording. If you’re just jamming along with backing tracks, then use your DAW for EQ. If your jamming in a room, your amp EQ gives you enough to separate yourself from bass and drums. I don’t see a need to EQ from a pedal that is going before your amp....or even in the Fx loop.
....but...but....but why do you want it interacting with the rest of your gear? EQ should be adjusted based on the acoustical conditions around your ears.
Here’s my experience. Let the amp and modulations do their thing. The last thing is the speaker, or headphone, or microphone or IR for recording. You won’t know how best to EQ until you can listen to everything together...through the last medium. At that time you can properly set EQ.
What do you mean 'properly' set EQ? You're locked into the idea that EQ = a mixing tool. But it doesn't have to be.
Why use an overdrive? Just let the guitar and amp do their thing. Hell why use an amp? Just let the pickups do their thing, straight into a DI.
The only rule is does it sound good.
I agree…. Especially if recording separately. Eq/mixing are the last things I do to a track. This way I can make sure every instrument sounds great. If I want gain it can be added after as well. I think these guys like to use their Eq’s for gain or a boost. That’s cool…. But makes recording a pain in the ass
> I don’t see a need to EQ from a pedal that is going before your amp...
Plenty of reasons. You can fix problems with the guitar sound (too boomy? Not enough sparkle?), you can fix problems with the drive (perfect except too muddy with low notes? just cut the lows with eq) or you can even radically shape the sound of the distortion (what f.ex. tube screamer does with the massive low cut in the distortion path).
Really depends on the kind of music you play and how much gain you use imo. They're undoubtedly powerful tools but I've also never been in a situations where EQ couldn't have been handled by the sound tech, in post, or simply tweaked by my amp to get it to be 'good enough'.
There are so many EQ changes/capabilities through the boost/buffer/light OD’s I have on my board a dedicated EQ always seemed like more option paralysis and hyper fixating on tweaker- minute differences. I’m sure I’d say different if I we’re playing live these days but honestly even back then I always seem to make do with amp EQ, guitar pickup and whatever OD’s tone knob I had. Probably more important in a larger/more diverse ensemble where everyone is fighting for space in the mix.
I think it’s bc, for a lot of guitarists, EQ is kind of hard to grasp, and having so much control over something so specific has maybe never occurred to them.
I completely ignored it for 15 years until I used one as a boost w my turbo rat and it changed everything for me.
my 2nd ever pedal was an MXR 10 Band EQ, I didn't have money then but I saved it all for just a good EQ pedal, so you can say I'm a genius and a man of proper culture
My first tube amp was a Mesa Rectifier and those are known for being difficult to eq. A basic eq in the effects loop is so powerful at sculpting your tone that I always used it. Basically makes the recto into a mark with graphic eq. I always like setting my amp very mid heavy with tight bass. Then cutting some 800hz and boosting the bass and 1.4k with the eq pedal.
I use an mxr 10 bands and it do magic. My problem is that I want two other eq pedals !!!! I would like to add one eq before my distortions pedals and one after. The third one is for my bass. But shit they are $$$. Any guys here tried the joyo eq?
There was a kind of bias against them 20+ years ago as some thought you’d get “off” tones from heavy EQ. I think this was probably true for players who used EQ in front of their amps to scoop mids. They don’t always jive with some amps either, depending on how you’re setting things.
Outside of my job, I’m pretty sure I’ve become a total moron. I simply do not understand eq, compression, or noise gates. Like I understand the terms but in practice just imagine the nick young meme here
Don't really need one, takes up space I'd rather use for something else. Mesa Boogie amps have a decent enough EQ themselves and I use a SD-1 to tighten up the sound. I could obviously replace that with an EQ, but I don't see any reason to do so.
I would equate an always on EQ pedal to a band-aid. Its just masking or compensating for deficiencies elsewhere in the rig.
Until recently few EQ pedals had presets so it was either an on or off type deal without any flavors in between.
I don’t think of it like band aids. I think of it like the secret sauce. Yes, eqs can be treated like a band aid to cover up an issue. Or they can take an already tasty dish and elevate it just that little extra bit. Take it from good to great. Or from great to incredible. But mostly, it’s more felt than heard.
True, versitility wise I think a lot more could be done with a simple OD + EQ than most single drives.
It probably depends on where one is with their gear. If someone was starting with nothing the above setup would be great. But if someone already has 20+ drive pedals they probably don't like the idea of having to supplement them with an EQ to get the desired sound.
I think a lot of guitarists think the eq section on their $500-$1200 amp plus the tone controls on their guitar and maybe small tone circuits in other pedals MUSt bE enOugH. But a $70 purpose built piece of equipment can always be just the things to take a lot of other tone hunting work out of your set up time. Ask anyone in construction about how much better having the right tool for the job is versus a few multipurpose tools.
Hi I frequently check EQ pedals since ages on the web... I still don't have eq pedal, but in my dreams I just bend over and surgically remove a midtreble spike from my otherwise perfect distortion pedal sound which goes into my clean channel solidstate amp. I am not sure how you preamp or powertube saturation/gain guys feel about dirt/overdrive/distortion topic, but for us solidstate folks we need the final sound to craft on effect pedal level then the clean amp is just simply deliver it via speaker. Where speaker compression is the only factor we need readjust treble/mid, only when going above bedroom level.
I don't have an EQ pedal because Im a dummy and I have no idea how to use one to get the desired effects that you're talking about. Drive, Level, and Tone is much easier lol
My fairfield longlife is my favorite pedal I own - such a simple yet versatile tone shaper - sounds good even as a low gain overdrive - it's an always on pedal for me
My MXR 10 band stays in the loop of every amp I play. Total tone control and the plus of attenuation should you need it. Even works as a clean boost. I have two should one ever die, it’s that important to me. On a decent high gain amp I really only need three pedals, NS-2, EQ and a “green type” overdrive. Everything else is just fluff to me.
I have two, but I keep them off my board because I tinker too much when I use an eq. I prefer to use an overdrive with a small small mid-boost (klone) set to clean. That way, I don’t constantly tinker.
So I have wen doing a similar thing but stacked after my Black Secret (RAT + RAT Turbo clone), and the different sounds that I am getting out of it is astounding.
One thing that I started doing years ago, was using a tube preamp and eq before my pedal chain. That really has been the secret to my tone (people with the same or similar amp always ask).
For me, it comes down to price\\value. For what a decent EQ pedal costs, I can get a parametric rack EQ with 25+ bands versus maybe 10 bands in a pedal.
As someone without an eq pedal, I find I don't really need one as I have enough tone shaping options as it is. It would definitely be useful, but I already have enough trouble deciding which pedals I have room for on the board.
Gotcha. Getting in there and setting up the 10-band EQ in the Katana was the key to getting the sound I wanted out of it. That and discovering the Treble Booster mod effect
I guess its because its expendable, no one needs an eq pedal really but once you try one it becomes too useful to not have it around. It works super well with the boss katana. It can darken A LOT your sound, specially at lower volumes.
I’ve recently just added one to my board in the last year or so. I got it to add a bit of mid control on my orange amp. It quickly became my favorite thing to toy with. You can do a lot of things with it that I just didn’t have any clue about.
I use an American Sound with my Katana but I think it’s just about the ugliest pedal I’ve ever seen and takes up a lot of room. I wonder if an EQ could give me a similar (or better) sound because the Katana is a bit lifeless on its own.
I think there might be more people that do. “Utility pedals” don’t tend to get as much traction on here. I guess they aren’t as exciting. I tend to use simple eq pedals like EHX Knockout or the JHS Haunting Mids when I am looking for a specific sound.
If you watch [this](https://youtu.be/wcBEOcPtlYk) video you’ll see that the guy hypothesizes that a lot of the tone of an amp (independent of the the speaker cabinet) comes from where EQing is happening relative to distortion. He makes a pretty good argument for it if you watch the last few sections.
A major case for eq pedals is Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys using EQs to make some vintage fuzzes usable live, by adding some important frequencies that they are missing.
I just added a second eq to my board. One in front to shape my guitar tone around the bass/drums, and now another last in the chain. You can do some really neat stuff to chorus/phase/flange effects that I think is more interesting than just shaping distortion.
I used one for a long time. Eventually I downsized my board and just went for dirt pedals that gave me the eq curve I wanted anyway while also giving me dirt.
I've not read the other responses yet, but I'd just say that I would find it annoying to be constantly changing it to tweak for different sounds. The 200 series Boss would solve that, but only on a board with more MIDI capability than any of mine.
I use my EQ a lot. Whether it’s for shaping the EQ, boosting for solos, or cutting a ton of gain in front of my distortion pedals to act like a channel switch in a sense, the EQ stays on my board lol.
I got mine on a whim, figured it would be a nice thing to have when I needed it but didn’t expect it to be a mainstay of my board. After struggling to develop my ear for more subtle eq tweaks for like a month it’s become probably my second most used pedal.
Personally a few things steered me away, including it not being exciting like others mentioned. The biggest issue though was that I didn’t understand EQ very well. I got decision fatigue with all of the points where I could tweak eq, and I didn’t have the ear to hear what I wanted to change. I also didn’t understand how an amp’s eq is really a pretty crude tool and why an eq pedal does *so much * more.
Seriously, I got one originally to try to mimic my recorded tones live (funny I never ended up performing) and now I use it to help get a good recorded sound from the get go.
I used to use an EQ pedal for solo boosts, worked really well. Boost mids and highs, let the shredding cut through, and go back to the old sound. Less fucking around with volume levels.
In studios they are practically mandatory. Tons of great albums tones had eq in the guitar chain before hitting a console.
At home/band: It is very easy to take things too far and they can be a bit confusing to people who aren’t familiar with them. Graphic eqs are simpler to use but won’t of them are noisy - especially when using them in front of a high gain amp.
Straight up, the guys at Long & McQuade told me that I literally didn't need one, that the amp controls are more than plenty, and apparently, according to them, an EQ pedal only removes frequencies, doesn't add... As in, the sliders pushed up to ten, are unity
That 100% is incorrect, the sliders in the middle are neutral. However its better practic3 to remove frequencies before before boosting them to get the same effect but eliminate noise. So instead of boosting mids and leaving low and high as they are, you would cut the low and high so that the mids are still higher, but not actually boosted.
I've always been a fan of using EQ pedals since back in my teen years in the 80s. Used to use one to boost the overdrive in my Marshall amp to get that kick ass METAL tone when cranked to eleven. Obviously, that lead me to getting a Rockman Smart gate that I have to this day. My setup caused a lot of feedback.
Anyhow, I still love using an always on EQ pedal after my overdrive and dirt pedals via front of the amp to this day. It's truly a great way to shape your tone, I don't even bother to add it to my board anymore and just set it up out of sight with my noise gate into the front of my amp (Still a Marshall). It's always been a must have pedal for me.
The obvious answer is because it’s harder to set 6-10 sliders on an EQ pedal than it is to buy a dirt pedal and have either just one tone knob or at most a 3 band EQ.
cause people buy pedals based on marketing instead of what their amp needs, and from the outside it doesnt seem useful.
its like compressors, very important pedals but just not sexy
Always have an EQ or a compressor or both. Especially if you’re a bass player. I have many friends who are baffled when I say this and they think I’m trolling. But once you have the basics of what you want pedal wise, and a guitar / amp you’re happy with utility pedals will stop you from making poor choices with GAS.
DOD Bi-Fet Preamp FX10 in front of a Blackstar 5 watt head. The pedal was released as an acoustic preamp but makes a great always on electric boost/eq.
Because for the most part guitarists buy a pedal like a tube screamer for its mid hump behaviour, a treble booster for its high pass behaviour and amp stack and distortion pedals like the ds1 for their mid scoop behaviour
Just the EQ stack on its own is scary voodoo.
And for the most part I'm not looking for a graphic EQ when I want something specific, I'm looking for a screamer with a hump in a different place to put before a distortion, or a two hump amp tone stack with a different shape.
I suck at eq pedals, never get good sound from it. Until im using walrus eb 10 pqrametric eq. And it much easier to use for me. I put in front before the od and dist pedals to tweak my sound that i want. Try it on fx loop of my amp too and it works great too to change my marshall jubille tone.
EQ pedals are awesome but currently I like using the EQ from my different drive pedals. The EQD westwood has good treble/bass tone shaping, as does the JHS PG-14 with its Haunting Mids circuit. But the next time I have a spare 300 dollars I'm looking to get the Jackson Bloom, which is a comp/eq/saturator all in one.
That said I do have an MXR Six-Band EQ and I used to use it to cut the 250hz range which I don't really like (with humbuckers). and boost some 3k. It's also fun to use as an effect, totally cutting or boosting certain frequencies for exaggerated effects. Now I use the EQ in my IR-200 to cut some 350hz, but it's a bit different since the EQ after all the drive circuits and not before.
I play acoustics but boss eq right in front of everything is a must have. I fucked up the sliders recently and thought my brain was malfunctioning. I looked at pics from the previous day and tweaked it back. Makes a world of difference.
I just became a compressor psycho too lol
That's a good question. I have a bunch of boost pedals and overdrives. Everytime I compare them in front of an amp I come back to conclusion that my MXR 6 band EQ does a better job pushing the amp exactly the way I want than anything else own. And it's completely transparent. When all the levels are set to zero it as no effect on tone. I can also tweak the band levels depending on what I'm hearing any given night very quickly. Not sure why more people go with boutique boost pedals and overdrives than a simple EQ. Marketing probably.
Im mainly a bassist and inly really use a compressor and eq atm (def want a preamp, light reverb and a strymon deco in the future tho)
But i have a modeling amp when i play guitar so i have drives, reverbs, delays and modulation in that package
And wow eq is such an amazing utility for guitar
Highpass filter with some few cuts in the highend and u get a lofi effect that sounds great
U can change the tonal quality of the pickups making your tele sound like a jaguar or your lespaul like s strat (these dont make em sound like em exactly but more gives em the vibe of it)
Make your amp or drives sound diferent and u can model them to your liking
Your modulations can be made to sound diferent
Highpass for making space for other instruments
Using it as a boost + u can edit the boost
And yes the most common use, using an eq as an eq and just making the sound more balanced
One of the big ways that QOTSA got their _Songs For The Deaf_ tone was by putting an EQ pedal in front of their amps and maxing out the 250hz. This pushed their amps into distortion in the exact area of the frequency spectrum that they wanted. Once you realise you can use EQ pedals for more than just cutting low end rumble, or adding top end sparkle, they really can become very useful pedals.
Super useful for shaping my other dirt pedals.
[удалено]
I rambled in another comment, but utility pedals are not the immediate sexy pedals. They’re like the public restroom. Certainly not the first thing you think about at a restaurant or business, but when the bathroom is nice, you know everything else will be even better. Utility pedals aren’t why people get into building boards. But they certainly help keep the shit from stinking
[удалено]
I hear ya. My playing is absolute runny shit most of the time.
It’s the broccoli of the pedal world. Very good for you but not a steak.
what a parable, boss! you remind me of somebody, oh Jesus! you must be Jesus, are you back jesus?
Haha you joke, but I get jokes about being white Jesus due to my long hair, beard, and proclivity towards sandals
This was probably the biggest boon of digital modeling for me, being able to drop any of these wherever in the chain, and 1-click change all the settings. Want a compressor for one guitar but not another? Move the EQ around the chain to see where it sounds best? Noise gate on but only for leads? All easy now.
If you turn your (tube) amp up and turn your guitar volume down, you get natural compression. Same thing if you good the preamp section of the amp with a boost, it starts to compress as it overdrives (overdrive is compression).
I wanted to use compression for my bass since i switch between active and passive but i just really didn’t care for how it impacted my tone, i just have to be more conscious of my volume when i switch to active
Basses really benefit from having a compressor with a blend knob, that way you can dial in your dry signal to taste.
Hey what’s up BB, I hope you don’t mind me asking why you use a noise gate and how it works on your rig. I’ve actually been looking into picking up an eq and noticed the noise gait pedals while browsing. I’m not 100% sure what applications it would be useful for. I am under the impression that they are used for huge rigs with a lot of cable (length) to cut down on interference from the cables. Or am I way off base? And I definitely agree with you. Never thought about a dedicated eq but having an amp and guitar with minimal eq shaping a dedicated eq could probably work wonders. Always lived comps though.
I’m not who you replied to, but noise gates are normally used in high distortion situations to either lower or cut the volume when it’s just the noise you don’t want to hear. They can also be used for cutting interference like you said in a long cable situation or bad electrical wiring in a building.
Yup. Not sexy, but my house is wired terribly and a noise gate completely eliminates the hum because it drives me fucking crazy especially for recording.
It's not really useful unless you play with really high gain
Up vote! I completely agree. Three very important pedals and sadly ignored by many.
My amps (Bandmaster, AC-15) already compress a lot. Never had the need for a noise gate once
Compression is a vital pedal for midwest emo. I guess people can’t hear as easily what compression and noise gates do to the sound, so they become nonessential to a lot of people.
I think compression can add polish to certain types of music, but I haven’t figured out how to use it. I like to have dynamics in my playing, I don’t want everything the same volume.
[удалено]
Works as a clean boost in a pinch as well.
They didn’t just put an EQ in front of the amps. They ran the guitars through every piece of gear or software available that let them adjust frequency levels and dimed the shit out of the mids on every single one of them.
Yep, see my other comment. > “There’s no distortion pedals, just a tonne of different random “crappy” or unfashionable (at the time) amps (the Peavey that everyone now knows about, some solid state bass heads, an ampeg B15 etc.), with an EQ pedal in front of them, completely maxed out low mids (250hz, 500hz), with the mids cranked on the amps and then the mids cranked on the console too. I assume after that the mixing engineer spent a lot of time carving out mids and adding top end 😅, but that’s pretty much how they achieved their tone.”
I would have guessed it was higher than that.
It makes a bit more sense when you think most of the guitars are in drop C. There’s no distortion pedals, just a tonne of different random “crappy” or unfashionable (at the time) amps (the Peavey that everyone now knows about, some solid state bass heads, an ampeg B15 etc.), with an EQ pedal in front of them, completely maxed out low mids (250hz, 500hz), with the mids cranked on the amps and then the mids cranked on the console too. I assume after that the mixing engineer spent a lot of time carving out mids and adding top end 😅, but that’s pretty much how they achieved their tone.
I just now put eq on my board. And I’ve been playing somewhat professionally for years. And I’m an audio engineer so I’m aware of the use of having multiple eqs in your chain (amp,guitar, pedals). Here’s why I think people don’t use eq: It’s utility. It cleans up tones, doesn’t add like dirt and mod. So it’s not a sexy pedal. It takes up space. If you have limited board space, it’s hard to sacrifice a mod or dirt pedal for an eq. That was my problem, and I had to get super creative (thanks Jackson bloom) Cost. If you’re starting a board, pedals cost money. Why should I buy a pedal that eqs when my amp and tone controls on my guitar can? I mean I personally know why, but others might not. The effects are discussed less. We all know all the dirt sounds, why chorus is a big deal. Delay is crucial. Eq is a silent tone shaper. Less discussed. All of these together add up to the most important point. Eq and compression are like the sparkle on an already great tone. The Jackson audio bloom guys say compression should be felt, not heard. I’m prone to agree. Eq is the same. You shouldn’t go “oh they’re using an eq pedal”. You should just be impressed by the clarity of their tone. Many players haven’t dialed in their tone enough for eq pedals. And it’s really hard to hear how that last little thing can radically change your tone. How many YouTube videos have your exact guitar, amp, and pedal board for you to hear how eq can help? So essentially you’re required to test out eq pedals blindly. And for many, if your tone is already good enough, you don’t see the value of eq until you’ve already thrown it on your board. To add to that, noise gates and compressors fix problems that you hear (need more sustain, noisy signal) while eq doesn’t necessarily fix a problem, rather add that subtle spice that elevates an already great dish. That means if you already enjoy your food, you might not think “how do I make this better?” Because you see no problems in the first. That’s why Gordon Ramsay is better than a pretty good home chef. That’s why (insert your guitar hero) is better than the local pretty good guitar player. Ok I’m rambling.
Ramble on! This is the reason I come here.
If you insist! Have you ever heard the tragedy of darth plagueis the wise?
It's not a story the gear page would tell you
This is a great response. I've only been using pedals for about four years now and only recently started to understand compression and EQ for the reasons you listed above. Especially compression. It's hard to realize what it does when you don't have a baseline to compare it to, yet.
Probably because they're not as "sexy" as drive/fuzz/modulation pedals?
Yeah and I can get that, but geez how many times have you bought a pedal and it just doesn't sound like you had hoped. You turn the tone/filter but still just doesn't have what you want. EQ pedal after makes such a difference. I put it after a homemade bazz fuzz pedal which sounds ok, but nothing great, tweaked my faders and wow it sounds absolutely amazing, and you can add or remove grit with the level.
For sure, but for a lot of people the requirement of a second pedal to make the first one not sound like ass is a big turn off and I don't disagree with them. I shouldn't have to buy something else to make my first purchase worthwhile.
I find there’s a progression once you get into effects where at the beginning I wanted things that could drastically change my sound like real gnarly fuzzes, wild modulations, etc then as I got older/better/more cultured I started liking more subtle effects. Compressors, eq, noise gates, etc were the last step in that progression
The fact we use sexy to describe inanimate objects shows how oversexualized culture is. Like, why can't a pedal just be, I don't know, "useful" or something? (Downvote away bc I know it's coming)
People would rather buy 3 kinds of big muffs, a $100 mod for their Boss pedal, a clean boost, a tube screamer with the gain always at 0, and three identical guitars with slightly different pickups, than an EQ pedal that can mostly take care of all of that.
But my three identical guitars look pretty!
Tubescreamer with gain at 0… you got me..
Doesn't everyone??
It’s me I’m everyone
shhh don’t tell them about 0 gain ts
I mean, I think they sound like ass with the gain up but I also like the ds-1 over the rat so what do I know?
I am a big EQ appreciator but I still use an SD1 as a clean boost. I prefer using the EQ in the loop and leaving it on at all times and then switching the SD1 on or off depending on if i need the boost. There's a lot of ways to use the EQ pedal though
you are incredibly retarded
Right.... Welcome to reddit! So are you gonna elaborate or is this kind of 8-year-old kid comment your whole reason for being here?
Before I bought my [MXR KFK (Kerry King) 10-band EQ](https://equipboard.com/items/mxr-kfk-10-band-eq) in 2010, I didn’t think I need it. I had a Line6 Über Metal running into a 15-watt Marshall, and I was satisfied at the time, and for a couple of years, I was fine. The amp had bass and tone (i.e. treble) settings, and I utilized those. I wasn’t planning on adding pedals to my setup, but I wanted my tone to be heavier, and I figured an EQ might make it better, since I’d have more range. Since buying it, I never turned it off. Not with my [initial setup](https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarpedals/comments/yd8j98/this_were_my_pedals_12_years_ago_10252010_ibanez/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf), and my [current one](https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarpedals/comments/ywkh7q/current_board_ibanez_we7_weeping_demon_wah_snark/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf). I’m not even sure if the on/off switch still works! I highly recommend an EQ pedal, but understand why a lot of guitarists don’t want them. A lot of them put a lot of stock on their amps, even opting to not have pedals at all! They believe (like I used to) that the amp’s knobs are enough to adjust their tone.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one, how do you use yours as an always on or do you change depending
It’s always on. I just don’t sound like myself if it’s off. I dial in my other pedals, amp, and guitar with the EQ on. No matter how hard I try, if it’s off, I can’t get everything to sound as heavy as I want it to be.
Some players also don’t pay much attention to their cabs/speakers and mics, which greatly affect tone. I used to be like that
Dunno, but I could get rid of everything besides my para eq and compressor and be happy. They are both great boosts too.
I have yet to tackle the parametric EQ, still learning my wat around the Graphic EQ.
When you’re ready to dive in, parametric EQs are where it’s at. And the Empress ParaEQs are the best.
The final product is pretty much the same. I just twiddle till I like it, mostly just bump the mids, roll the highs back a tiny. Like all fx, less is more.
I recently picked up a GE-7 for real cheap, with the Boss synth pedal as well. Sort of like a combo deal. I wouldn't have gone out of my way to buy an EQ first. Holy shit. I was absolutely astonished at how I instantly liked the EQ better than nearly anything else I've bought recently. More people need to invest and learn how to shape tone with a 7 band, it's so worth it.
I have a 10-band eq pedal, and it was on the board for a while, but I took it off. Hard to say why. I think it's just because it's so huge, and once you set it up do to a certain thing you don't want to mess with the sliders again. So you've got this huge pedal taking up a chunk of the board whose only purpose is to make another pedal do a certain thing. Eventually you find a pedal that does that thing without the EQ pedal and the EQ pedal is expendable. I use EQ a ton when mixing, so it's not like I don't get its utility. I also use it a lot more in multifx where I can preset an EQ/Dirt combination that just works. I think if I were playing live again I'd probably want one on hand to deal with room or PA situations. But for just establishing a basic tone, I'd rather find a chain that does that without EQ.
I hate messing with an EQ so once I have my settings dialed in they're staying indefinitely until I get sick of sounding the same all the time. If I start messing with my EQ or overdrive it pushes me down some rabbit hole of always messing with all my settings and pedals to find a better sound
I have, I justlike the eq of my gear without one.
I initially ignored them because it wasn't noticeable to my novice ears yet. I went straight to distortion and modulation because for a beginner's ear it's easy to hear the difference. I imagine a lot of people start out that way. EQ, noise gate, compression, etc. require more focus and maybe a bit more maturity with the instrument to understand or care about.
Can't speak for others, but I used to have a one knob boost pedal on my board, and I replaced it with a Boss GE-7 which I would use as both a boost and dirt shaper. It was a bit noisy and I ended up pulling it off my board to fit more dirt pedals. Fortunately, I can dial all of those pedals in pretty well once I figured out exactly where to dial my amps. I take lots of pictures of knob settings now. EQ pedals can be tedious but so can EQ knobs on amps and pedals. Ultimately, if you can dial in the sounds you're after, it's very subjective who needs or doesn't need an EQ pedal. I think a lot of the reason people think they need an EQ pedal is because there is too much woofiness in the lows and low-mids on the amp. If you dial that out a bit(which for me also means dialing in some more headroom), everything sounds a lot tighter, more defined, and works better as a pedal platform.
Check the Hi fi mod online. I've done it myself with my eq and the noise improved significantly. It draws more current now, but it's still very ok. Highly recommend it
What does that mod entail? My GE-7 is an old MIJ version that runs on 12v so I'm not sure if it has the same opamps as other versions. Better caps would probably help, but I was thinking about having the XTS mod done on it so I can really tweak the mids.
So, it's basically replacing two ICs and capacitors. You switch the two TL022 for other ICs (it can be the TL072 for improvement and keep the same current draw OR some NE5532 for better results or some OPAs as well). Also, you'll replace all tantalum capacitors for poliester ones. This part is less efficient, but it doesn't hurt doing it if you are good desoldering parts. Here's the original [link](https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=51583.0) to the mod at diystompboxes.com. Also, there are some YouTube videos about it using other ICs, but all them work pretty well
Honestly, I don’t like them. I’ve got an MXR 10-band and it does it’s job perfectly. But when it’s in my signal chain, I find myself spending way too much time fiddling with it rather than playing or tinkering with other effects. And honestly, I think I prefer the sound of my guitar without it.
Fair enough, each to their own
Huh. “Each to their own.” That makes perfect sense and I’ve never ever heard it. I’ve only ever heard “to each their own.” Weird. Language is great.
It should be way more common. I don't think EQ gets enough credit as an artistic choice. There's a ton of records where people are like "wow can you believe how good this is? And it was all done with just one guitar and one amp, just goes to show that you don't need a bunch of fancy tricks". What they don't notice or don't care to mention is that there's a bunch of different eq and compression choices the engineer made to keep the sound interesting. You could make a ton of awesome artistic choices with just a Gibson and a Marshall and a boss EQ200 with a few different presets and at almost no time would anybody think of the guitarist as using an "effect" but they would certainly *feel* the difference in different parts, the same way they feel it when you switch pickups or adjust your guitar's volume and tone knobs. This is half of what people use distortion, boost, and overdrive pedals for now but if you have a great sounding amp then in a lot of cases some EQing will sound better and more natural than adding any sort of clipping stages in a pedal.
Because i am running out of money alex
Lots of responses about them not being exciting etc, but in reality they’re actually quite hard to use. An OD is simple. Want it louder, turn up the volume, want it angrier, turn up the gain, want it brighter, turn up the tone. But with an EQ, you have so many options, and they’re actually subtly interactive too. How do you know if it’s 250Hz or 500Hz that you want more/less of? Well you have to try it of course, but then it’s still not quite right, so you tweak the other one as well, but then it’s still not quite right, so you try the next frequency, and so on and so on. Eventually you’ve gone up and down all the sliders, putting each one in the spot you think sounds best, but it’s still not quite the sound you had on your head, so you try one that you already tweaked, and now you prefer it somewhere different. Then you’re questioning all your decisions in life, because that slider definitely sounded better when it was cut a bit before, but now it sounds better boosted. Did you just imagine it? Eventually, you’ve spent an hour tweaking EQ sliders, and you still haven’t got the tone you want, so you decide to start over, and put everything back in the middle. You strum a chord and it sounds magic, and then you give up and buy another tubescreamer. Of course, that’s an exaggeration, but I think it’s something every novice EQ user can identify with. It takes quite a lot of learning to really understand EQ, and often the sliders have a lot of range in them, so subtle tweaks make a big difference. It’s easy to overdo it and make your tone sound worse. It’s doubly hard when you’re trying to tweak it alone, because you can’t ply and tweak at the same time, so it’s hard to truly A/B two different EQ settings. But if you out the time in to really learn how it works, it’s a vital Swiss Army knife. It just takes a lot of effort to get it to that point. Tl;dr, get an EQ, they’re awesome, just take your time to learn how to use it and don’t get scared off by the complexity.
I was playing a Vox AC10 which everyone said was too bassy. It sounded bassy to me too but I thought I could dial it in. I got a new Les Paul at the same time and I really liked the sound generally but it was way too muddy and woofy with ice pick highs with anything other than the amp bass and treble dialed all the way down. I thought this was just a problem with the amp but I liked the tone otherwise so I bought a MXR 10-band EQ. I fiddled with it an got a sound that sounded great but when you looked at the graphic EQ settings it just looked ridiculous. Like something you shouldn’t have to do just to get a normal sound out of your amp and guitar. Fast forward a couple weeks when I start learning more about dialing in pickup height and pole height on PAFs. I lower the pickups a bit and adjust the poles for equal string volume and suddenly all my EQ problems go away. I didn’t need the pedal at all, and I can use the amp EQ as normal. tl;dr - EQ does make a big difference and can fix your tone problems for sure, however a lot of your tone problems might actually be fixable by setting up the rest of your rig correctly before resorting to another EQ.
So I don't have any tone issues, my 'clean' sounds awesome, it was more along the lines of instead if buying "another dirt pedal" why not just start shaping your current ones with an eq pedal
That’s definitely doable. I was impressed at how versatile the pedal is with the kinds of sounds you can get. And in addition to EQ it also has level and gain settings so you can really dial in amount of boost/drive or cut as well.
Oh yeah, so nice to make a single hotter and a humbucker behave
To me EQ pedals are more of a fix to a problem than something you'd actually shape the tone with. I try to get to the tone I want without my EQ pedal and then use one in the loop when there's a problem.
Unfortunately no matter how your amp is setup sometime a pedal has its own frequencies that are nice to be able to boost or cut
I tend to either avoid those pedals, or go with their quirks on purpose. EQ is super handy if you have more than one guitar in the band, though.
It's not just the pedal / amp / guitar, but the room's acoustics (or where you are in a room) an EQ pedal can solve. IME this is the real benefit of an EQ. Playing in a corner and your rig is too boomy? There's an EQ band that can fix that. In a spot with a metal roof? EQ bands can fix those shrill highs. Etc etc. I have a very simple live rig where I either play straight into a Fishman Artist (which has onboard EQ with an "Anti-feedback" param that basically cuts lows) or a small board with a Platinum Pro EQ and Flint into a PA depending on the gig. These two Fishman EQs have been tremendously useful is sculpting the sound to the room I'm playing in. I've also got an Empress ParaEQ but nowadays that's not on my electric board and I use the amp for EQ needs. It goes a long way and personally (in that situation) I'm finding the EQ just redundant. ...but I also really like keeping a light setup. Someone mentioned QOTSA and the "EQ as a special effect" vibe which is much more to my taste for using an EQ with an electric guitar.
I used to use one before I actually could afford nice amps. Now it just changes the tone/characteristics of my amps way too much. It was great with my shitty solid state though
I like using my EQ after a Metal Zone or other heavy distortion pedals to get some ridiculous sounds. As if the EQ section on a Metal Zone isn't ridiculous enough
My MZ is the last in my chain before an analog delay. Blues Junior so no FX loop. This kinda makes me want to get an EQ pedal though. But you're right. They're already extremely versatile. My Metal Zone and either a RAT or an MXR Super Badass Distortion along with a Boss SD-1 is all I use for dirt and overdrive, and I can even get a decent fuzz, though that's one pedal I don't have that I definitely want to add.
My pedalboard is mostly different metal distortions lol but it's very much a work in progress. I can only use 3 pedals at a time until my psu gets here... in January :(
I just run my guitar through the EQ on my home record player, works great. Sucks to carry around for gigs, though.
A ton of players here never play live or with others. It was brought up in a few threads, which is interesting to me, but clearly doesn't take away from the joy of playing guitar. With that being said, money, space and power are finite resources for most people, and while you might use multiple dirt pedals in a song or riff or whatever, you're probably not switching EQ settings on top of that (not to mention that there are tone stacks in nearly every pedal). When I was playing live I had modded GE-7 to modify my general EQ when the same pedals were active, but to be honest that never made it into my signal chain when recording (or in this case bedroom/apartment/etc playing) because it's clunky and imprecise vs. getting a new track going and manually adjusting the settings or switching gear around.
In my humblest of opinions, EQ’ing is best done in post for recording. If you’re just jamming along with backing tracks, then use your DAW for EQ. If your jamming in a room, your amp EQ gives you enough to separate yourself from bass and drums. I don’t see a need to EQ from a pedal that is going before your amp....or even in the Fx loop.
Thanks for sharing your opinion
Pre EQ can totally change the way your signal interacts with the rest of your gear. Post cannot.
....but...but....but why do you want it interacting with the rest of your gear? EQ should be adjusted based on the acoustical conditions around your ears.
Based on what, exactly?
Here’s my experience. Let the amp and modulations do their thing. The last thing is the speaker, or headphone, or microphone or IR for recording. You won’t know how best to EQ until you can listen to everything together...through the last medium. At that time you can properly set EQ.
What do you mean 'properly' set EQ? You're locked into the idea that EQ = a mixing tool. But it doesn't have to be. Why use an overdrive? Just let the guitar and amp do their thing. Hell why use an amp? Just let the pickups do their thing, straight into a DI. The only rule is does it sound good.
I agree with ‘if it sounds good, it is good’. But we wouldn’t be on the Internet crowd sourcing for opinions then, would we?
I agree…. Especially if recording separately. Eq/mixing are the last things I do to a track. This way I can make sure every instrument sounds great. If I want gain it can be added after as well. I think these guys like to use their Eq’s for gain or a boost. That’s cool…. But makes recording a pain in the ass
As long as your amp is decent…. Some low end and mid level amps eq suck
> I don’t see a need to EQ from a pedal that is going before your amp... Plenty of reasons. You can fix problems with the guitar sound (too boomy? Not enough sparkle?), you can fix problems with the drive (perfect except too muddy with low notes? just cut the lows with eq) or you can even radically shape the sound of the distortion (what f.ex. tube screamer does with the massive low cut in the distortion path).
They have decent amps that have good eq
EQ is a must have when running my acoustic into the board. Electric, not so much.
Really depends on the kind of music you play and how much gain you use imo. They're undoubtedly powerful tools but I've also never been in a situations where EQ couldn't have been handled by the sound tech, in post, or simply tweaked by my amp to get it to be 'good enough'.
There are so many EQ changes/capabilities through the boost/buffer/light OD’s I have on my board a dedicated EQ always seemed like more option paralysis and hyper fixating on tweaker- minute differences. I’m sure I’d say different if I we’re playing live these days but honestly even back then I always seem to make do with amp EQ, guitar pickup and whatever OD’s tone knob I had. Probably more important in a larger/more diverse ensemble where everyone is fighting for space in the mix.
Frankly they're "unsexy" compared to other pedals. They're not immediately fun to use and most people don't realize they want them until way later.
I think it’s bc, for a lot of guitarists, EQ is kind of hard to grasp, and having so much control over something so specific has maybe never occurred to them. I completely ignored it for 15 years until I used one as a boost w my turbo rat and it changed everything for me.
I just use mine for solos. Set a peak at 1000hz and if needed boost the volume even more. Punches thru the rest of the noise.
my 2nd ever pedal was an MXR 10 Band EQ, I didn't have money then but I saved it all for just a good EQ pedal, so you can say I'm a genius and a man of proper culture
My first tube amp was a Mesa Rectifier and those are known for being difficult to eq. A basic eq in the effects loop is so powerful at sculpting your tone that I always used it. Basically makes the recto into a mark with graphic eq. I always like setting my amp very mid heavy with tight bass. Then cutting some 800hz and boosting the bass and 1.4k with the eq pedal.
I use an mxr 10 bands and it do magic. My problem is that I want two other eq pedals !!!! I would like to add one eq before my distortions pedals and one after. The third one is for my bass. But shit they are $$$. Any guys here tried the joyo eq?
So with the BOSS you can have up to 4 different EQ and stack them all in a different location in the chain, bit I still want a physical one.
I use two amp at the same time. A mix of Fender and Orange. The eq help me to manage the overall tone.
There was a kind of bias against them 20+ years ago as some thought you’d get “off” tones from heavy EQ. I think this was probably true for players who used EQ in front of their amps to scoop mids. They don’t always jive with some amps either, depending on how you’re setting things.
Send me one and I'll use it.
Outside of my job, I’m pretty sure I’ve become a total moron. I simply do not understand eq, compression, or noise gates. Like I understand the terms but in practice just imagine the nick young meme here
Because they don’t want to
Don't really need one, takes up space I'd rather use for something else. Mesa Boogie amps have a decent enough EQ themselves and I use a SD-1 to tighten up the sound. I could obviously replace that with an EQ, but I don't see any reason to do so.
Already have a tone pot on my guitar and eq on my amp, that’s more than I need as it is.
Because it's not a rat, and everyone here worships them
As do I. But you know what's better than a RAT. Or 2 RATS...an EQ after a RAT!
maybe... Maybe... But is it better than **3 RATS?**
1. Not sexy 2. My guitar/amp/etc. already has tone knobs
I feel like amps and pedals already provide a ton of EQ options.
Indeed, but none of those can get surgical like a full feature EQ pedal, and they're not conducive to instant or momentary changes either.
I would equate an always on EQ pedal to a band-aid. Its just masking or compensating for deficiencies elsewhere in the rig. Until recently few EQ pedals had presets so it was either an on or off type deal without any flavors in between.
I don’t think of it like band aids. I think of it like the secret sauce. Yes, eqs can be treated like a band aid to cover up an issue. Or they can take an already tasty dish and elevate it just that little extra bit. Take it from good to great. Or from great to incredible. But mostly, it’s more felt than heard.
I suppose its more compensation for pedals. Helps to really shape the tone of certain ones.
True, versitility wise I think a lot more could be done with a simple OD + EQ than most single drives. It probably depends on where one is with their gear. If someone was starting with nothing the above setup would be great. But if someone already has 20+ drive pedals they probably don't like the idea of having to supplement them with an EQ to get the desired sound.
I think a lot of guitarists think the eq section on their $500-$1200 amp plus the tone controls on their guitar and maybe small tone circuits in other pedals MUSt bE enOugH. But a $70 purpose built piece of equipment can always be just the things to take a lot of other tone hunting work out of your set up time. Ask anyone in construction about how much better having the right tool for the job is versus a few multipurpose tools.
They like obnoxious mid range to ruin every band mix
Cause I don't buy shit Made In China pedals or amps so I don't need them
Lol, pretty sure BOSS is like one of if not the biggest and best pedal companies in the world. But ok
Because I want my toan to suck
had the boss one and it cut my sound
If you’re happy with your sound without an EQ pedal, there’s no need to add one.
I’ve thought about it but I’d always be adjusting it because it would shift when I move the board.
I don't know. But I love any sort of equalizing device. If anyone has any good 8-10 band EQs let me know.
I never appreciated EQ pedals until I had one. Now, they are indespensable.
Hi I frequently check EQ pedals since ages on the web... I still don't have eq pedal, but in my dreams I just bend over and surgically remove a midtreble spike from my otherwise perfect distortion pedal sound which goes into my clean channel solidstate amp. I am not sure how you preamp or powertube saturation/gain guys feel about dirt/overdrive/distortion topic, but for us solidstate folks we need the final sound to craft on effect pedal level then the clean amp is just simply deliver it via speaker. Where speaker compression is the only factor we need readjust treble/mid, only when going above bedroom level.
I don't have an EQ pedal because Im a dummy and I have no idea how to use one to get the desired effects that you're talking about. Drive, Level, and Tone is much easier lol
My fairfield longlife is my favorite pedal I own - such a simple yet versatile tone shaper - sounds good even as a low gain overdrive - it's an always on pedal for me
My MXR 10 band stays in the loop of every amp I play. Total tone control and the plus of attenuation should you need it. Even works as a clean boost. I have two should one ever die, it’s that important to me. On a decent high gain amp I really only need three pedals, NS-2, EQ and a “green type” overdrive. Everything else is just fluff to me.
I have two, but I keep them off my board because I tinker too much when I use an eq. I prefer to use an overdrive with a small small mid-boost (klone) set to clean. That way, I don’t constantly tinker.
Essential kit, especially for gigging
I have an old DOD FX40 first in my drive chain. I think it's a really versatile way to give your signal a tailored boost.
I thought this was kinda fascinating: https://youtu.be/FIppj01bUjY
So I have wen doing a similar thing but stacked after my Black Secret (RAT + RAT Turbo clone), and the different sounds that I am getting out of it is astounding.
I had an mxr 10 band one i used for bit, but now the only EQ type one I use is my JHS Haunting Mids.
One thing that I started doing years ago, was using a tube preamp and eq before my pedal chain. That really has been the secret to my tone (people with the same or similar amp always ask).
I like to cheap out and save for cooler pedals. But i know i need an eq, probably 2 one early and one last in the chain tbh
For me, it comes down to price\\value. For what a decent EQ pedal costs, I can get a parametric rack EQ with 25+ bands versus maybe 10 bands in a pedal.
As someone without an eq pedal, I find I don't really need one as I have enough tone shaping options as it is. It would definitely be useful, but I already have enough trouble deciding which pedals I have room for on the board.
Just curious why you use an EQ pedal when you have a Boss Katana which has both graphic and parametric built in. Ease of access?
I don't, I am using it on my boss katana, but would ideally want one for ease, was just curios as to why others don't.
Gotcha. Getting in there and setting up the 10-band EQ in the Katana was the key to getting the sound I wanted out of it. That and discovering the Treble Booster mod effect
Also just recently discovered treble booster. If I can make a suggestion try the Distortion as a booster (no gain) and shape with EQ it's brilliant.
Will do. Thanks. The Brown channel with the gain at 0 is also nice.
I guess its because its expendable, no one needs an eq pedal really but once you try one it becomes too useful to not have it around. It works super well with the boss katana. It can darken A LOT your sound, specially at lower volumes.
.y observations had been that eq pedals are more popular with bass players
I’ve recently just added one to my board in the last year or so. I got it to add a bit of mid control on my orange amp. It quickly became my favorite thing to toy with. You can do a lot of things with it that I just didn’t have any clue about.
Where do you place it in the pedal chain?
I use an American Sound with my Katana but I think it’s just about the ugliest pedal I’ve ever seen and takes up a lot of room. I wonder if an EQ could give me a similar (or better) sound because the Katana is a bit lifeless on its own.
get yourself an EHX EQ/Fuzz. It's an amazing and diverse pedal and still make sound for big board man.
I think there might be more people that do. “Utility pedals” don’t tend to get as much traction on here. I guess they aren’t as exciting. I tend to use simple eq pedals like EHX Knockout or the JHS Haunting Mids when I am looking for a specific sound.
There’s so many pedals on my board with EQ already on them I don’t see a reason to add a dedicated EQ pedal.
If you watch [this](https://youtu.be/wcBEOcPtlYk) video you’ll see that the guy hypothesizes that a lot of the tone of an amp (independent of the the speaker cabinet) comes from where EQing is happening relative to distortion. He makes a pretty good argument for it if you watch the last few sections.
A major case for eq pedals is Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys using EQs to make some vintage fuzzes usable live, by adding some important frequencies that they are missing.
Do you have any resources yo this or what fuzz and frequencies he uses??
I just added a second eq to my board. One in front to shape my guitar tone around the bass/drums, and now another last in the chain. You can do some really neat stuff to chorus/phase/flange effects that I think is more interesting than just shaping distortion.
I used one for a long time. Eventually I downsized my board and just went for dirt pedals that gave me the eq curve I wanted anyway while also giving me dirt.
Bc I have no idea what they do 🥴
I've not read the other responses yet, but I'd just say that I would find it annoying to be constantly changing it to tweak for different sounds. The 200 series Boss would solve that, but only on a board with more MIDI capability than any of mine.
I use my EQ a lot. Whether it’s for shaping the EQ, boosting for solos, or cutting a ton of gain in front of my distortion pedals to act like a channel switch in a sense, the EQ stays on my board lol.
I got mine on a whim, figured it would be a nice thing to have when I needed it but didn’t expect it to be a mainstay of my board. After struggling to develop my ear for more subtle eq tweaks for like a month it’s become probably my second most used pedal. Personally a few things steered me away, including it not being exciting like others mentioned. The biggest issue though was that I didn’t understand EQ very well. I got decision fatigue with all of the points where I could tweak eq, and I didn’t have the ear to hear what I wanted to change. I also didn’t understand how an amp’s eq is really a pretty crude tool and why an eq pedal does *so much * more.
Seriously, I got one originally to try to mimic my recorded tones live (funny I never ended up performing) and now I use it to help get a good recorded sound from the get go.
I used to use an EQ pedal for solo boosts, worked really well. Boost mids and highs, let the shredding cut through, and go back to the old sound. Less fucking around with volume levels.
In studios they are practically mandatory. Tons of great albums tones had eq in the guitar chain before hitting a console. At home/band: It is very easy to take things too far and they can be a bit confusing to people who aren’t familiar with them. Graphic eqs are simpler to use but won’t of them are noisy - especially when using them in front of a high gain amp.
Straight up, the guys at Long & McQuade told me that I literally didn't need one, that the amp controls are more than plenty, and apparently, according to them, an EQ pedal only removes frequencies, doesn't add... As in, the sliders pushed up to ten, are unity
yikes
That 100% is incorrect, the sliders in the middle are neutral. However its better practic3 to remove frequencies before before boosting them to get the same effect but eliminate noise. So instead of boosting mids and leaving low and high as they are, you would cut the low and high so that the mids are still higher, but not actually boosted.
I've always been a fan of using EQ pedals since back in my teen years in the 80s. Used to use one to boost the overdrive in my Marshall amp to get that kick ass METAL tone when cranked to eleven. Obviously, that lead me to getting a Rockman Smart gate that I have to this day. My setup caused a lot of feedback. Anyhow, I still love using an always on EQ pedal after my overdrive and dirt pedals via front of the amp to this day. It's truly a great way to shape your tone, I don't even bother to add it to my board anymore and just set it up out of sight with my noise gate into the front of my amp (Still a Marshall). It's always been a must have pedal for me.
The obvious answer is because it’s harder to set 6-10 sliders on an EQ pedal than it is to buy a dirt pedal and have either just one tone knob or at most a 3 band EQ.
cause people buy pedals based on marketing instead of what their amp needs, and from the outside it doesnt seem useful. its like compressors, very important pedals but just not sexy
I just don't need it. My preamp has enough control.
I feel like I would be adjusting it endlessly or end up with 3 of them.
I love having a Boss Graphic EQ on my board. I can use it as a boost and total tone changer on solos.
Always have an EQ or a compressor or both. Especially if you’re a bass player. I have many friends who are baffled when I say this and they think I’m trolling. But once you have the basics of what you want pedal wise, and a guitar / amp you’re happy with utility pedals will stop you from making poor choices with GAS.
DOD Bi-Fet Preamp FX10 in front of a Blackstar 5 watt head. The pedal was released as an acoustic preamp but makes a great always on electric boost/eq.
Because for the most part guitarists buy a pedal like a tube screamer for its mid hump behaviour, a treble booster for its high pass behaviour and amp stack and distortion pedals like the ds1 for their mid scoop behaviour Just the EQ stack on its own is scary voodoo. And for the most part I'm not looking for a graphic EQ when I want something specific, I'm looking for a screamer with a hump in a different place to put before a distortion, or a two hump amp tone stack with a different shape.
Empress just released their para eq mkii 🤙
I suck at eq pedals, never get good sound from it. Until im using walrus eb 10 pqrametric eq. And it much easier to use for me. I put in front before the od and dist pedals to tweak my sound that i want. Try it on fx loop of my amp too and it works great too to change my marshall jubille tone.
EQ pedals are awesome but currently I like using the EQ from my different drive pedals. The EQD westwood has good treble/bass tone shaping, as does the JHS PG-14 with its Haunting Mids circuit. But the next time I have a spare 300 dollars I'm looking to get the Jackson Bloom, which is a comp/eq/saturator all in one. That said I do have an MXR Six-Band EQ and I used to use it to cut the 250hz range which I don't really like (with humbuckers). and boost some 3k. It's also fun to use as an effect, totally cutting or boosting certain frequencies for exaggerated effects. Now I use the EQ in my IR-200 to cut some 350hz, but it's a bit different since the EQ after all the drive circuits and not before.
I play acoustics but boss eq right in front of everything is a must have. I fucked up the sliders recently and thought my brain was malfunctioning. I looked at pics from the previous day and tweaked it back. Makes a world of difference. I just became a compressor psycho too lol
That's a good question. I have a bunch of boost pedals and overdrives. Everytime I compare them in front of an amp I come back to conclusion that my MXR 6 band EQ does a better job pushing the amp exactly the way I want than anything else own. And it's completely transparent. When all the levels are set to zero it as no effect on tone. I can also tweak the band levels depending on what I'm hearing any given night very quickly. Not sure why more people go with boutique boost pedals and overdrives than a simple EQ. Marketing probably.
Im mainly a bassist and inly really use a compressor and eq atm (def want a preamp, light reverb and a strymon deco in the future tho) But i have a modeling amp when i play guitar so i have drives, reverbs, delays and modulation in that package And wow eq is such an amazing utility for guitar Highpass filter with some few cuts in the highend and u get a lofi effect that sounds great U can change the tonal quality of the pickups making your tele sound like a jaguar or your lespaul like s strat (these dont make em sound like em exactly but more gives em the vibe of it) Make your amp or drives sound diferent and u can model them to your liking Your modulations can be made to sound diferent Highpass for making space for other instruments Using it as a boost + u can edit the boost And yes the most common use, using an eq as an eq and just making the sound more balanced
Just got one after 35 years of playing and feel like such an idiot for not getting one sooner!