EQ pedal to "fix" yer dirt pedal's tone issue??

[frigid midget]

Srry, don't know if the title makes any sense, it's the best I knew how to discribe the topic

Anyway, I've never actually owned an eq pedal, so I was wondering...

Instead of replacing a couple dirt pedals every time I buy another amp or guitar (which happens more than I can justify), I was thinking of maybe getting an eq to tune my dirt pedals according to the rest of my gear instead

I've never seriously considered it cause it's just a lot more fun to spend the money and board space on an actual effect.
But I've been complaining all over this board about my hotcake overdrive. I love it. Right untill the gain control passes 10 'oclock. Than it just starts rolling of treble like a mother. Turning up my amp's treble makes up for a lot, but ofcourse when I switch off the hotcake everything sounds piercing and overly trebly

An eq pedal for the hotcake (before or after?) would take a bit of tap dancing or a bypass looper (at which point I'll have to move all my shit to a bigger board), but it should help cleaning up the hotcake's muddy dark low end...Right??

Or, since I don't plan another amp/gtr change any time soon, would you guys opt for a different od/dist instead?
And if I were to try an eq...Is the MXR sixband a safe bet? Small, cheap, should be reliable enough...

[rustywire]

Fromel Shape EQ
Empress Para EQ
MXR 10-band

FWIW Hot Cake is a dark drive; bonding best with AC15/30 and assorted bright amps.
You might do better goosing [it] with a treble booster, Rangemaster being the go-to.
An EQ can help but I think you're better off buying pedals for an amp than jumping through hoops to make pedals work well with an amp...having EQ pedals as a backup option...otherwise it's kind of like putting cart before horse.
I had to sell off several awesome dirt pedals when I switched from 100w clean American to 50w dirty British amps.
Too middy, too boomy, not enough such and such. Sometimes circuits just clash.

[Iommic Pope]

A while back I had a peavey valveking, which has the worst tube amp distortion possibly ever.
Anyway, a mate lent me a simple boss graphic eq and whilst I didn't walk away with 5150 tones, fuck it helped A LOT.
So yeah, eqs and shapers are great.
Play around with pre and post dirt for preference.
The GE7 used to live in the vk's fx loop, for reference.

Rusty is right when he says sometimes circuits just clash, though.
But a cheap eq can make or break a thing.

[goroth]

Hot cake was one of the first pedals I bought. Got it to go with a Laney VC (voxalike). And it was still way too dark past 10. It's just a fantastic light od and a shit distortion.

I goose mine with an ibanez ts-7 and it sounds godlike, so if you want roughly the same tonality but more gain pickup a ts.

[frigid midget]

Thanks.

I actually used to have an AC30, and an AC15C2 after that. I dialed out the piercing high end, which made the hotcake still way way way too muddy at higher gain settings. I'm not even a 'transparant blooz od' kinda guy chasing pristine note definition in a cork sniffy way, I really mean muddy as in annoyingly dark and messy and unrefined even to the ears of a noob

I just closed a deal for a stupid cheap MXR sixband eq. I'll flip it in favor of the ten band version if I have to, but I'm put off by the extra size and monies. I read here and there that the GE-7 can be noisy, and I'm definitelly not goingbooteek with this one...

[frigid midget]

Hot cake was one of the first pedals I bought. Got it to go with a Laney VC (voxalike). And it was still way too dark past 10. It's just a fantastic light od and a shit distortion.

I goose mine with an ibanez ts-7 and it sounds godlike, so if you want roughly the same tonality but more gain pickup a ts.

Hmmm...Maybe not a bad idea. I've got a byoc ts808 laying around somewhere, worth a shot

Still though, wether it's an eq pedal or a tubescreamer, unless I'm blown away with the results, I'd see this is a temporay fix.
With the bazilions of available dirt pedals out there it just doesn't make a lot of sense to desperately keep my board as small and efficient as possible, but have one utility pedal on there to basically make one other pedal useable

[coldbrightsunlight]

I'm a huge fan of the Stone Deaf PDF-1 for making those little tweaks to other dirt pedals. I totally agree with what you say at the end there about having a pedal to make other things work vs just buying stuff that works. I don't have the PDF-1 on my board all the time but I keep it around because sometimes it's just what I need for a particular sound. Can double as a pretty good overdrive too so less wasteful of space

[frigid midget]

I'm a huge fan of the Stone Deaf PDF-1 for making those little tweaks to other dirt pedals. I totally agree with what you say at the end there about having a pedal to make other things work vs just buying stuff that works. I don't have the PDF-1 on my board all the time but I keep it around because sometimes it's just what I need for a particular sound. Can double as a pretty good overdrive too so less wasteful of space

Had a PDF-1 for while. Tried to make it work for me, really wanted to like it, but a 'subtle' effect like that doen't really deserve a long term spot on my small lean and mean board

Especially for the money, a not-that-compact pedal that only shines when its stacked and can't do more than low gain dirt...Won't last long on my board

ymmv ofcourse, I know the PDF-1 is pretty popular, and for good reason I'm sure. Just wasn't for me. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever tried to use the PDF-1 to balance out the higher gain settings of the hotcake Still though, like I said, it's overkill to use a pedal like that solely for that purpose imo.

[popvulture]

The Fuzzrocious Feed Me looks pretty excellent, and seems to have metric assloads of tone combinations. Haven't gotten my hands on one yet though, so can't personally vouch.

I have a Boss, and it's pretty great... the one big drawback, however, is that it can get noisy very quickly when you boost any band more than just a little. That said, it can be easily fixed with a mod—I bought mine off of eBay already modded (Monte Allums) and it's dead quiet. Other drawback, though: buffer. So, putting it before certain dirt/fuzz pedals might not yield the best results.

Re: Tube Screamers, I've hated those pedals for the longest time. Of course I discovered that they can be GREAT for tightening up the low end on an amp when used as just a boost, riiiiiight after I sold my Maxon OD9

[jrfox92]

Maybe you'd prefer a parametric EQ over a graphic?
Also, +1 for checking out a Feed Me, it looks super tweakable and I think it's a 1590BB enclosure.

[D Rock]

I love my pdf-2 and highly recommend it. It can do some nasty cocked wah tones or just add the right amount of top end to that dark fuzz. I use mine with a smallsound/bigsound buzzz and it just slays. With a little extra top end boost I get some nasty trebley orange tones and it even sounds great with no dirt for a little more presence or for some wahish tones.

[Tristan]

Maybe check the Moog MF Drive instead?
It has quite a powerful filter and it can even be a pretty awesome stand alone drive.

I also have the EQD Crimson Drive that I could send your way if you'd like to try it, it's quite fuzzy actually.

[coldbrightsunlight]

I'm a huge fan of the Stone Deaf PDF-1 for making those little tweaks to other dirt pedals. I totally agree with what you say at the end there about having a pedal to make other things work vs just buying stuff that works. I don't have the PDF-1 on my board all the time but I keep it around because sometimes it's just what I need for a particular sound. Can double as a pretty good overdrive too so less wasteful of space

Had a PDF-1 for while. Tried to make it work for me, really wanted to like it, but a 'subtle' effect like that doen't really deserve a long term spot on my small lean and mean board

Especially for the money, a not-that-compact pedal that only shines when its stacked and can't do more than low gain dirt...Won't last long on my board

ymmv ofcourse, I know the PDF-1 is pretty popular, and for good reason I'm sure. Just wasn't for me. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever tried to use the PDF-1 to balance out the higher gain settings of the hotcake Still though, like I said, it's overkill to use a pedal like that solely for that purpose imo.

Yeah that's a fair comment, given what you said earlier about wasted space I figured you'd respond like that! I have to say I find it too big to have on my board most of the time given what it does... that would change in the right band for sure but I tend to want more variety

[tremolo3]

Instead of replacing a couple dirt pedals every time I buy another amp or guitar (which happens more than I can justify), I was thinking of maybe getting an eq to tune my dirt pedals according to the rest of my gear instead

YES!

I've been doing that with the Source Audio EQ and it works really great, it's not as cheaper as an MXR or Boss but is not as noisy as these 2, you can have 4 presets and it looks fucking hot.

[frigid midget]

Maybe you'd prefer a parametric EQ over a graphic?
Also, +1 for checking out a Feed Me, it looks super tweakable and I think it's a 1590BB enclosure.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, but at this point (experimenting on an empty wallet), I'm gonna stick to cheap solutions. Which is why I'm gonna give the mxr eq a try, and dig up my byoc tubscreamer as well.