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How many of you guys use multi-band EQ pedals? Seems like another one of those things that some people can't live without but the rest of the world does just fine. I'm the same way with my BBE sonic stomp, I can notice JUST enough of a tone change to not take it off my board, but had I never bought it I would definitely never miss it.

I have an old DOD EQ pedal, but I pretty much just use it for making cool noises in a feedback loop.

Danelectro Fish n' Chips

THD Quintet. It's a passive Varitone-ish thing that gives some extra tone shaping options in front of the rig. Plays well with fuzzes. If I hadn't seen the chance to get new for 1/3 price, I probably would never have got it, but it's there for keeps now.

I wish graphic eq pedals would come in proportional q rather than just constant q. Much more useful for adventurous tone shaping.

Oh, man. I'm a freakin' fan.

I mean, who doesn't like sculptin' tones?

In the past I've used some distortion pedals with built-in parametric or semi-parametric EQs. I also liked using my Yamaha Parametric EQ pedal (busted footswitch, needs to be rehoused). I've got a Pearl Thriller (high-pass filter) that I like a lot. I have an old DOD graphic EQ I never used that much though.

Currently I've got a Stone Deaf FX PDF-1. I also utilize the crossover distortion on my Take Flight Pedals The Goose and Fairfield Circuitry Four Eyes Fuzz.

So, yeah, I like EQ/filtering.

snipelfritz wrote:Danelectro Fish n' Chips

For some reason I read you were looking for something particularly cheap. I see that's not necessarily the case. I use one of these on my "secondary" amp, always on (pedal and amp). On my half stack I use a MXR 10-band, but one of the old one's, like this...

(one of two of my pedals that are older than I am.

Not sure how much different it is from newer models(other than a footswitch and level control). I also really don't know how to use it too well. I've been meaning to mess around with it more. Usually I'll scoop the mids, boost treble, on the vox/fishnchips then boost the mids, bass on the Carvin/MXR. That's still something I'm figuring out.

I think one of the beauties of having an EQ pedal right before your amp is the ability to fine tune your tone to fit in/stand out without actually tweaking all of your pedals. That's one of the many reasons I love my English Muff'n. I suppose a really good amp could do this as well, but I find if I set my amp to generally how I want my guitar to sound, the EQ pedal will help me place that within the mix of the band/people I'm playing with.

I used to have a couple EQ/tone-sculptor pedals that I used a lot. But my G&L has the most versatile controls I've ever tried, so that's all I need now. I can completely change my tone up mid-song by just flicking a switch.

PumpkinPieces wrote:I think one of the beauties of having an EQ pedal right before your amp is the ability to fine tune your tone to fit in/stand out without actually tweaking all of your pedals. That's one of the many reasons I love my English Muff'n. I suppose a really good amp could do this as well, but I find if I set my amp to generally how I want my guitar to sound, the EQ pedal will help me place that within the mix of the band/people I'm playing with.

PumpkinPieces makes a pretty good case. EQ pedals are good in that they can go anywhere in your signal chain. They're also fun to mess around with.

I have been through a few EQ pedals
MXR KFK Dano Fish n Chips and an Empress parametric

Best of the bunch was the empress but I found that what I liked to do with it I actually now just use a MI audio boost and Buff for
It was a great EQ though

KFK clipped a bit of Signal which suprised me because of who it is named for
Dano was awesome for the price

They were never leave always on pedals for me though but I like to have that ability to cut through

I now use a boss Me-20 multi effect pedal and use the EQ on that to fix frequencies before going to an amp
Pretty effective for that purpose and the EQ is pretty much always on
also get back end comp and verb plus some volume control from it

Pre-distortion eq, especially a parametric mid-band, is a very powerful tone-shaping tool. Pearce (and I think Lab Series) did this and those are some of the best regarded solid state amps to this day. You can do this with tube gain, too, or in front of stompers. Some tone hounds have been known to keep the Boss Metalzone around just for its mid eq for such purposes. Really cool if you have two good and distinct distortion tones with the eq on and off.

There's also the Boogie approach of old: set your pre-gain eq to get the right distortion tone and dynamic feel and then use a second eq before clean amplification to set and/or correct the spectral balance. For some of the now famous tones of the old Mark amps, it's really hard to get there without the graphic eq because you're really using the tone knobs for gooseing the drive tone.

Oh, yeah, I forgot I briefly owned an Empress parametric. It worked well, but it was too hi-fi sounding for me.

Chankgeez wrote:Oh, yeah, I forgot I briefly owned an Empress parametric. It worked well, but it was too hi-fi sounding for me.

Yeah the empress did some cool things but it didn't fit my setup or concept of what things should sound like
Plus I liked the visual on a graphic better: The empress knobs are a bit hard to read especially in low light situations.

I also didn't like how some of the knobs on mine were recessed, but it looks like Empress has addressed that issue on the newer version.

Hmm very interesting, looking at the pedal board thread I didn't expect so many EQ users haha.