“When in doubt, don’t.” It’s a pearl of wisdom that offends risk takers and guides more than a few tortoises to the finish line ahead of the rabbits. But in the tone-chasing world this dictum carries extra weight, because depending on your aims, anything you situate between guitar and amplifier can subtract as much as it adds. Indeed, a little restraint can go a long way toward sweetening a sound.
And restraint is one of the things that makes the ZEQD-Pre, a preamp co-designed by EarthQuaker and Mike Zaite (aka Dr. Z), such an elegant piece of kit. The things they didn’t add make it easier to use. The streamlined design also makes the ZEQD-Pre feel truly additive. It can lend body and excitement to big tube amps that sound flat at low volume. And as an analog addition to digital signal chains, it adds real life and a tactile dimension to flat, drab, or spiky DAW and modeler tones.
Feel Free With The Help Of A Pre
Though the ZEQD-Pre is a beautifully integrated whole, it’s effectively made up of two sections. There’s a passive EQ that can do a lot on its own to recast or fine tune the sound of a tube amp or modeler. It also features a boost. Switching on the boost disengages the EQ. But both sections use the level control as an output volume control.
In my first experiments with the ZEQD-Pre, I situated it in front of a 50-watt Fender Bassman and 2x12 cabinet. And though I suspect more potential customers will be interested in the EarthQuaker’s potential in digital environments, it can transform conventional tube amplifiers. I rarely get to turn my Bassman up much past 2 in my house. But the ZEQD-Pre’s EQ section made those modest volumes sound much fuller. The boost is not a high-gain affair, but it adds weight and excites overtones that might otherwise lay dormant at low volume. At higher amp volumes it can add a just-right nudge into the dirty zone that almost always sounds silky rather than harsh.
EarthQuaker Devices ZEQD-Pre Preamp Demo
“It is zingy, responsive, and does much to take away the uncanny valley sense of lifelessness you can feel when interacting with a modeler.”
Use of the EF86 in a preamp is not common—at least relative to the ubiquitous 12AX7. But Dr. Z’s choice of the EF86 for the boost is an inspired one. It is zingy, responsive, and does much to take away the uncanny valley sense of lifelessness you can feel when interacting with a modeler. Those that know the EF86 by its too-hot-to-tame reputation needn’t fear that it will be a handful though. The ZEQD-Pre boost voice is balanced and lively in all the right ways, and these attributes are especially apparent when the pedal is paired with a digital end destination.
When testing the ZEQD-Pre in this capacity—by running a cable from the headphone output straight into the Hi-Z input of my Universal Apollo Twin—I did not make it easy on the EarthQuaker. My main instruments are Jaguars and Jazzmasters, and the relatively thin and trebly output from both of them rarely flatters modeled and DI sounds. But I really liked the tones that I tracked with just the ZEQD-Pre and the DAW—especially without a modeled amp in the mix. The EQ adds body and tone-shaping versatility, and the boost lends real character and color, inhabiting a sweet space that is neither Fender Princeton nor Vox AC15, but which possess some of the smooth richness of the former and the sparkle of the latter. I enjoyed the sound of the ZEQD-Pre direct into the Apollo so much that it ceased to feel like a compromise between amp and modeler. Instead, it felt like something unique—an amp with its own very appealing flavor that I would use for its sonic virtues as much as its convenience.
The Verdict
Though I’ll opt for a tube amp in almost any situation where there is a choice, I’ve warmed to some of our faux-amp friends in the digital domain. That said, I think I would choose the ZEQD-Pre and my pedals over almost any modeler. In direct-to-DAW situations, the ZEQD-Pre is warm, alive, and sounds, well, a lot like a real amp. It also feels like it was designed by people that know how a tube amp should feel under the fingers and in a room.
The ZEQD-Pre makes distortion and fuzz units sound like their real selves. And even without a simulated power amp, the cab sim makes rigs sound great through flat response monitors. The ZEQD is nearly $400, and for most of us, that’s a hefty enough sum to give pause. But the U.S.-made ZEQD-Pre is designed by gifted builders that have poked around the innards of amps and stompboxes for years and built classics in their respective fields. So, you can rest assured that the bars this pedal needed to clear in sonic and quality terms are high ones. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed—to the point where $399 seemed a very reasonable price to pay. And if you’re a tube amp loyalist navigating the worlds of backline-free gigging and digital recording, you may end up similarly smitten.
