Looking for a good upgrade for an EQ

[Turumbar82]

Hello all,

I'm currently using a Danelectro Fish and Chips with my ENGL 530 preamp and love what I can do with it but I know there are better eq's out there.

Any suggestions? I know the boss is popular and the Monte Allums mod is popular for it? I'm interested in the idea of the boss eq-20 because of having different eq settings. It would be great to have one graphis eq setting for a heavy chugging sound and then switch to another for a solo.

Are there any other good eq's that would give me the option of going between multiple "patches" of eq?


As always thanks.

P.S. I swear this is the best forum around. I hope the Boogie Board lives forever!

 

[Chris McKinley]

Turumbar82,

I have a Boss EQ-20 and while it's a great unit, there are two considerations with it: 1) it's a bit noisy....certainly much noisier than the Fish n' Chips, which is one of the quietest EQ's around. 2) it's digital, and therefore (sadly) completely unuseable in a Recto's parallel loop as I found out the hard way. It produces a very loud, very shrill sinewave siren noise when run through the parallel loop even with the mix on the maximum of 90%/10% wet/dry.

However, if you're not using a parallel loop, you may have no issues with it whatsoever. I use it regularly when I'm playing through the serial loop of one of my other amps and it's a great tool to have in your kit. There are presets that come with it, or you can edit your own and save them. The one serious convenience issue I have with it is that the settings, whether presets or personal edits, have to be cycled through such that you cannot switch back and forth between two favorite settings, for instance. That's a serious drawback live, and perhaps if Boss ever decides to revive the line, they will add that feature somehow. Anyway, hope this helps.

 

[Laskyman]

I'm currently using a Danelectro Fish and Chips with my ENGL 530 preamp and love what I can do with it but I know there are better eq's out there.

I graduated from a F&C eq to a MXR 10 band. I really like the F&C, but it is a toy compared to the MXR. For the money- the MXR is a great value- you wont be remorseful...


Laskyman

 

[Chris McKinley]

IMO, the MXR 10-band is a quality unit that is well-made and sounds good. My only hangup with it is that it does not have an 800Hz slider, opting for 500Hz instead. This is okay in most situations, but 800Hz is really the most important mid frequency to manipulate for either adding more 'singing' quality to leads or to achieving the classic mid-scoop. Then again, I'm quite a bit more picky than most folks seem to be, so on balance I wouldn't necessarily call it a dealbreaker and certainly wouldn't stop me from recommending the MXR as a great EQ choice.

 

[eeviac]

Hi

Im a big fan of EQ's and currently run a few in various locations in the chain.

I have an EQ-20 and i have not experienced any problems with in it the loop of my mesa and it does have a broad range of good useable sounds available that you can save into 10 patches although as the previous poster stated, you cant easily select more than 2 of them in a live situation. Additionaly it does have some sort of analog to digital convertor in it that to my ears is pretty noticable. Its sort of like a mini noise gate that reveals itself on note decay. Its hard to describe but its there. It is a good well built box if you can live with the digital aspect. When i got the EQ20 i had high hopes it would be good replacement for the GE7, but i eventually decided i prefer the sound of the GE7. It is a noisy unit but it to me sounds better and retains the 'attack' and punch of the notes better which is key for the 'chugging' sound you mentioned.

I also use 2 Rane PE15 parametric EQ's. These are rack units and will require a looper/switcher of some kind if you want to turn them on and off in a live situation. These 5 band units are much more flexible than the graphic's and have better sound quality than the GE7 with lower noise. They are a little less intuitive to use than the graphic as its not immediatley clear how you are affecting the sound, but each channel has a bypass switch so you can compare the effect of each channel against the original tone and you get used to it pretty quickly.

i have not tried the MXR 10 Band but reviews appear to praise the unit. I remember years ago the other guitarist in my old band had a 7 band pedal eq made by 'arion' (or something similar) which was clearly a cheap unit but it sounded superb for some reason. You maybe able to get one on ebay for £notverymuch

Try a parametric if you can for tailoring the frequencies and bandwidth to your liking, but a japanese GE7 is pretty good IMO for 'plug and play' despite its shortcomings.

 

[Chris McKinley]

The Boss GE-7 is probably the most popular graphic EQ out there. It's pretty much identical to the Fish n' Chips in terms of which frequencies you can alter, though the Danelectro is noticeably quieter and less expensive. If I had another GE-7, I wouldn't keep it unless I modded it to clean up the noise and put in better wiring. If you're gonna spend $99 for a simple graphic EQ, it really should have better components than the Boss unit comes with.