EQ pedal question

guitarSQUIRELL

New member
Im probably about to pull the trigger on an EQ pedal for my board and was wondering one thing. Does the EQ go between the Overdrive/Distortions and the time based effects or after the entire chain on the output?
 
Re: EQ pedal question

it depends heavily on what you want to use it for, as the pedal can go anywhere in the chain
 
Re: EQ pedal question

it depends heavily on what you want to use it for, as the pedal can go anywhere in the chain

mainly to pull the ice pickyness of certain overdrive pedals out to a more ear friendly tone.. If I put it behind everything on the output, will it affect the overall sounds of the chorus, delay, and reverb?
 
Re: EQ pedal question

mainly to pull the ice pickyness of certain overdrive pedals out to a more ear friendly tone.. If I put it behind everything on the output, will it affect the overall sounds of the chorus, delay, and reverb?

If that's the case, I would put it after the ODs, but before the other effects.
 
Re: EQ pedal question

set before the problematic drives then, also you could put it in front of the ice picky drives with it cutting some high end and boosting the mids just a couple db to compensate from the high cut without making your drives dull
 
Re: EQ pedal question

set before the problematic drives then, also you could put it in front of the ice picky drives with it cutting some high end and boosting the mids just a couple db to compensate from the high cut without making your drives dull

guess its a trial and error type thing sounds like to me.
 
Re: EQ pedal question

how many bands depends on how much you want to control the sound, for this case i would suggest you a 6 or 7 band eq as you only need to tweak a harshness out, but if you were to add a whole new layer of texture to your sound or just drive some critical freqs harder then a 7 or 10 would be the way to go

guess its a trial and error type thing sounds like to me.

there are many different way to accomplish a same thing with an eq, but i feel that cutting some freq after a drive without balancing from the cutout makes the drive puny and weak, almost castrated, that's the reason i suggest to better drive the front end of a drive with an eq cutting out the undesired freqs and boosting a bit the desired freqs nearest to the undesired ones as this makes out for the lost of the freq you're cutting and keeps the drive-iness of the sound
 
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Re: EQ pedal question

how many bands depends on how much you want to control the sound, for this case i would suggest you a 6 or 7 band eq as you only need to tweak a harshness out, but if you were to add a whole new layer of texture to your sound or just drive some critical freqs harder then a 7 or 10 would be the way to go

the way my setup is right now is pretty basic. I go from my guitar to my board to my micro terror to a speaker in a isolation box that is mic'd with an SM57. From there it goes to the sound guy on the FOH board at the church. I hate to say it, but i don't put much of my trust in them, so i want to make my sound MY sound and then they can control JUST the level of volume they put in the house. If that makes sense.
 
Re: EQ pedal question

makes lot of sense, i would never trust a sound guy i'm not personally sure that knows how i like to sound, how i'm supposed to sound and how i must sound all the way to the last row, let alone a sound guy from a church (in my experience they know nothing about how to eq, i even met one that didn't know what all the knobs except for the volume ones were for....., ymmv)

so yeah for taking a basic control of your sound the 6 band mxr are okay, the boss ge-7 adds more control thanks to the extra band and level control which lets it apply even more boost or cut than the 6 band mxr but suffers from being a bit noisy thanks to the cheap caps, so unless you can get a monte allums modded one or mode one yourself head to mxr, if you're ok with only cutting or boosting up to 18db the 6 band is ok, if you want more cut or boost then head to the 10 bands mxr
 
Re: EQ pedal question

As a starting point, I'll keep my equalizer in the loop, so it falls after disotortion, OD, fuzz, compressor, wah, phaser, & flanger; coming before delay, chorus, reverb, tremolo, & noise suppressor.

You can experiment with EQ before your drive pedals to change the voicing of your distortions, too.
 
Re: EQ pedal question

MXR 10 band. I've had the Kerry King version for years now. It's well built and has served me well when I need it.
+1

The boss ge7 is noisy and adds hiss even when lowering/cutting bands. The 10 band would work for other apps later down the road.

Another cheaper alternative is to mod the OD for less icepicky highs, would eliminate the need for additional eq pedal to just cut highs.
 
Re: EQ pedal question

guitarSQUIRELL,
Hank is correct. I tried both the MXR10 and the Boss GE7, I made a mistake in getting the Boss, but I felt I needed to.
The MXR I tried was beautiful, but could not run on a 9 volt battery. The Boss GE7 does.
When I play a gig ( only on gigs) I must use batteries for my piece of mind. If something goes wrong, which it did one time live where we only had 1 set, I had to check every wire to every pedal (5) to see what the problem was, I had no help, it was the pin on one of the power sources, and I had to take that pedal (MY ECHO !) and lost 5 minutes figuring it out.
What I do now is just put a 9V in each pedal, only for the gig, plug em in 5 minutes before showtime, no extra plug in sources needed, just my amp, when done, pull all "input" cables out when packing up, get home take em out for next time.
And that ends all my pedal troubles.
9 volt batteries have lasted for a year with 3 sets lasting 1 hour each.
BUT, I did not know it was noisy on one of the higher bands that was essential for good mids.
And I mean noisy. Like a fuzz face is on, but not being used at the moment.
So, if you use a power source, a good one you trust, by all means, get that MXR! It is the best in it's class,
Nothing comes close in that price range. Emiss! (my old Jewish girlfriend said it was Yiddish for "all is done, and all you need to know" I think in this case that word might fit.
Hank- wins the gold.
Steve B. (Looking for a cheap Boss GE 7?)
 
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Re: EQ pedal question

If the purpose is to tame a particular nuisance frequency, something parametric would be better than a multi-fixed band EQ.

If a multi fixed-band EQ is a must, then I would first identify the problem frequency you are trying to control and make sure the pedal you are buying actually has the frequency on it.
 
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