There are countless situations where an EQ pedal can bring your tone to life, and the best way to find out how one can work for you is to grab one and get experimenting. Similarly, cutting everything except one band can lead to an interesting nasal, filtered sound. They don’t have to be used as pure problem-solvers, either – the satisfying stoner-rock crunch of Queens Of The Stone Age’s Songs For The Deaf was achieved in part by slamming the maxed-out midrange of an EQ pedal into the front of an amp. Bass frequencies from your amp interfering with your bandmates’ sound? Use one to cut down on rumble. Got a fuzz pedal that sounds great, but can’t cut through a mix? Use an EQ to reintroduce some midrange into the situation. Using an EQĪn EQ pedal can find its place in your rig in many different ways. This offers an advantage over graphic EQs, which most of the time have a fixed frequency and Q for each slider. Parametric EQs similarly break things up into bands, but the precise location of where the bands fall across the spectrum can then be controlled, as can the width and shape of each band – referred to as ‘Q’. Non-parametric equalisers that utilise knobs instead of sliders operate in the same way, however these are less common as it’s easier to pack more bands side by side on a stompbox.
The first is, unsurprisingly, the easier to visualise of the two – your signal’s frequency spectrum (or part of it) is broken up into a certain number of bands, each of which can then be boosted or cut with the corresponding slider.
Parametric vs graphic EQĮQ pedals can be broken down into two broad categories: graphic and parametric. Even the most ‘transparent’ effect will have an impact on the frequencies present in your sound.īut the rabbit hole of EQ control goes far deeper than that – from broad-strokes six-band EQs to programmable parametric behemoths, these units can act as helpful ‘always-on’ units, cut your solos through a band mix or work as their own distinct effect. Most pedals you buy come with some sort of EQ management – anything from a simple tone knob to a set of bass, mid and treble controls.
0 kommentar(er)
