The Boss GE-7 and other EQ pedals explained
EQ pedals are some of the most powerful – and most confounding – tools you can add to your board. Capable of completely transforming amps and overdrive pedals, EQ pedals can make your setup infinitely more versatile. But they’re also a little intimidating, with their banks of sliders and numbers. And, let’s be honest, unboxing a new EQ isn’t quite as exciting as unboxing a new overdrive or reverb.
READ MORE: The best single-cut electric guitars to buy, from Les Pauls to Telecasters
But hey, if anyone can get excited about boosting specific frequencies, it’s us guitarists. I’ve got myself a Boss GE-7, so let’s dive into some of the basic principles of using EQ pedals and explore how they can transform your setup.
[products ids=”4eKtGnLcDcDzl79HJ4dgkw”]
What does an EQ pedal do?
In the most basic terms, equalisation involves either cutting or boosting different frequencies by different amounts. Even as an absolute beginner you’ll have encountered it – your guitar’s tone knob is a basic filter, and the bass/mid/treble knobs on your amplifier are effectively a three-band EQ.
A guitar’s sound is fairly broad across the frequency spectrum. Say you play your A string – that’s tuned to 110Hz. However, the raw signal will contain overtones and harmonics, which are greatly accentuated by any kind of compression and distortion. Other parts of the signal, things like hand noise on strings, pick attack and so on, all have their own component frequencies present in the sound, and all combine to make a signal that broadly ranges from 80Hz to about 7kHz. Most guitar speakers do some filtering of the highest high-end, too.
Guitar EQ pedals will generally not cover as broad a range as mixing EQs do. Human hearing caps out at around 20 kHz, but when it comes to the sort of signals going through a pedalboard, you really only need to worry about that sub-7kHz range.
It’s also good to keep in mind that basically all steps in your signal chain impart some sort of EQ character. You’ll get a different EQ curve from different pickups, pedals and amplifiers – and most traditional uses of an EQ pedal are really just trying to to predict and control this fact.
On live and recorded guitar sounds, there will be equalisation applied after the microphones – however dedicated EQ pedals give you control over the sound that’s going into your amplifier, which has a different result to applying EQ afterwards. This leads us onto the first big question – where does your EQ pedal go in your signal chain?
Where should EQ pedals go in your signal chain, and can you put them in the effects loop?
Aaron Dessner of The National’s board
As with basically all pedal signal chain order questions, the answer to this depends on what you want to do with the pedal. EQ pedals are especially versatile in that they have a lot of use-cases at basically every stage of your signal path – let’s explore the effects of moving something like the Boss GE-7 around in a chain.
Before everything
Putting the Boss GE-7 first in the chain allows you to do several things. It’s effectively shaping the sound coming straight out of the pickups – so if you have punchy, loud and mid-forward humbuckers, you can cut some bass and midrange to get them a little closer to single-coils, and vice-versa.
If you’re using overdrive or distortion, placing an EQ first in the chain allows you to adjust which frequencies get distorted most. For example, if you’re using any kind of overdrive pedal, cutting 100 and 200Hz on the GE-7 while boosting 800Hz and keeps the low-end cleaner, while overdriving the midrange harder – great for retaining clarity while keeping an aggressive sound, as you don’t overwhelm the signal with distorted bass.
However, shaping things before the fact before overdrive is just one application. Some pedals will always introduce some bassy rumble or some high-end fizz, no matter what their input. In that case, it’s best to move the EQ pedal…
After overdrive/distortion/fuzz
If you have a distortion or fuzz that kicks out a lot of low-end mud or harsh fizz, an EQ pedal placed after it in the chain will give you a lot of control over the sound, and let you filter out these unwanted elements. You can also use one to add back in any midrange that’s been scooped out. The benefit of this placement is that, provided your amp has the headroom, you won’t be changing the amount that each frequency is being distorted – the EQ will have a ‘cleaner’ effect on things.
Take, for example, the Boss HM-2 – a pedal with a rather ridiculous EQ curve famed for its incredible aggression when everything’s on max. The ‘chainsaw’ sound is a result of the resonant peaks from its active EQ stage. But achieving this sound also introduces a lot of fizz that can be unpleasant, beyond the obviously intended unpleasantness. You can’t turn down the treble on the HM-2 itself, as you need it maxed out to achieve that signature sound. Here an EQ acts as a true ‘problem solver’ – thanks to the granular nature of the adjustments you’re making, you’re given a degree of control that very few dirt pedals allows for.
Image: Boss
Additionally, while this placement can be used to fix troublesome frequency problems, it’s also great at re-voicing drive pedals entirely. Say you have something like a Klon (or, let’s be realistic, a Klon clone), but the song you’re playing is calling for a more Tube Screamer-style sound. The Klon has a mostly flat EQ response – an EQ set to slightly cut the bass and boost the 800Hz band will be incredibly transformative. Or what if you have a broad-spectrum overdrive pedal like the Boss OD-3? Great for vintage sounds, but if you fancy some modern chugging, you can introduce more of a V-shaped, mid-scooped response with an EQ.
Another benefit, particularly with the GE-7, is that you’ve moved the pedal after any impedance-sensitive fuzzes. As with basically all Boss compact pedals, the GE-7 applies a buffer to the signal even in bypass. Some fuzzes will work best when connected directly to your guitar’s pickups, with no buffer in between. If you do want a true-bypass EQ pedal, you can look at the latest MXR 6- and 10-band EQ pedals – the modern versions of which allow for true-bypass switching.
[products ids=”7jMKxQiHkWyK2vxiiN8fV”]
But what if it’s not your pedals that you want to refine, it’s your amplifier? If you want even more control over the amp’s sound, you might want to consider putting an EQ pedal…
In the effects loop
The HT-20RH MK III effects loop
The same principle applies when putting an EQ in the effects loop as putting the EQ after your other dirt pedals – just think of the preamp as another overdrive unit, with its own distortion character and its own EQ curves. Your amp’s EQ controls may be before or after it starts distorting your signal – but, if you place your EQ pedal in the effects loop, it’s guaranteed to be after any preamp distortion.
Here, if your amp has a bit too much fizz or low-end thunk, you can easily use the EQ pedal to reduce that. Additionally, if you want to be heard during your solos, you can set your EQ pedal to be a bit louder and boost the midrange, making sure you’ll push through a band mix when needed.
The GE-7, like and basically all EQ pedals, features a level control – while this lets you use them like a boost as above, this is also important if you want to keep your signal the same volume while changing effects.
Double EQ with the EQ2
Image: Source Audio
What if you can’t choose between some of these placement options? What if you want exacting control of the sound going into and out of your dirt pedals? Do you need to buy two EQ pedals? Well, you definitely could. Alternatively, Source Audio’s extremely powerful EQ2 has two distinct signal paths – while this has potential stereo applications, you can put pedals – or even an amp’s preamp – between the two chains, effectively allowing you to control the EQ going into and out of a set of pedals with just the one unit.
[products ids=”22XCgcCnDg8BSfZ6zHsojU”]
Using EQ as a character effect
OK, so we’ve talked about using EQ as a rather prosaic utility – one that helps you slice off a little bass here, boost some mids there – but can EQ pedals be fun? Well, sort of. It’s not exactly a Chase Bliss oddity, but you can indeed get a bit weird with the GE-7, mainly with the most extreme settings you can think of. Boosting just one band – and cutting everything else – is a great way to do this. For the lower bands, you get a wooly, sub-bass sound that’s basically unusable in most musical situations, but great if you need an abstract rumble for whatever reason. For the midrange and even the highest bands, isolating them gives you a sort of lo-fi, “coming through a telephone” effect – great for intros or breaks, before turning the pedal off again to return with a bang to your full signal.
Additionally, keeping things mostly flat except for the midrange, and then applying a big level boost, while the GE-7 is before an overdrive or a fuzz, you get a sort of pseudo-Dallas Rangemaster effect. While you don’t get as much of the grit of the famed boost pedal – favoured by players like Tony Iommi and Brian May – it’s still relatively close to that sound if you need a vintage-style honk to your tone.
Graphic EQs vs Parametric EQs
The Stone Deaf PDF 1X features a Parametric EQ as part of its overdrive circuit’s tone stack.
The Boss GE-7 is a graphic EQ – other examples include MXR’s 6 and 10-band EQ pedal, the Maxon Graphic EQ and the Boss EQ-200, as well as Source Audio’s programmable EQ pedals (although these are on the borderline thanks to their incredible amount of control). These are so named as they are graphically representing the EQ curve with their banks of sliders.
[products ids=”22XCgcCnDg8BSfZ6zHsojU,7jMKxQiHkWyK2vxiiN8fV”]
Parametric EQ pedals are a little different – these allow for you to target specific frequencies with one control, and boost/cut that frequency with another. The sharpness of the applied curve (called ‘Q’) is also sometimes adjustable on more complex units. Parametric EQs vary in how many bands they can adjust – the midrange also gets a lot of attention from Parametric EQs, and is sometimes the only adjustable frequency band. Where in the midrange of the EQ curve you boost or cut is a very important factor in shaping a guitar sound, as it’s the midrange where most of the guitar’s fundamentals and the most pleasing harmonics are. These include the Empress ParaEQ MkII, the Wampler EQuator, the Ibanez Pentatone and the JHS Haunting Mids. The Stone Deaf PDF 1X is also one of the most notable overdrive pedals to feature a parametric EQ control as part of its main tone stack.
[products ids=”3GeHlUZa7GciPJB5F0Uuu2″]
Do I need an EQ pedal?
“Need” is always a bit of a fuzzy term when it comes to guitar gear. But with a utility effect like an EQ pedal, it’s a bit more relevant. EQ pedals are great at both practical problem solving – adding back in lost mids and reducing fizz and the like – but they’re also capable of making a rig extremely versatile. If you’re gigging a lot of different genres, or just like to explore a lot of different sounds, EQ pedals can really open your pedalboard up to all sorts of options. Obviously, by themselves they’re not that juicy – but in some ways the same goes for overdrive pedals that need the ‘right’ amp and so on – it’s all about context, both in terms of your signal chain and what you want to do with it.
[products ids=”4eKtGnLcDcDzl79HJ4dgkw”]
Luckily the cost of entry isn’t that high. Yes, things like Source Audio’s powerful EQ workstations or the Empress ParaEQ are very pricey, but these are specialised solutions – undeniably great at what they do, but for those just dipping a toe into EQ, perhaps overkill. The Boss GE-7 that I’ve been doing my testing with is £99 – and does all of the tricks you could ask of a graphic EQ.
The post The Boss GE-7 and other EQ pedals explained appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
