The Boss GE-7 graphic equalizer.
Ever think of adding EQ to your signal chain? Here’s a brief but definitive guide on how to get started.
Equalization is a powerful sonic-sculpting tool. Almost immediately after we figured out how to convert the music we hear into electronic waveforms, electronic engineers devised circuits to manipulate those signals by attenuating and accentuating different frequency bands. In recording studios, equalization can subtract bass from a boomy kick drum or add sibilance to a breathy vocal. In sound reinforcement, we can equalize the response of a PA in a room with less than ideal resonances.
These resonances add or subtract energy from the PA output and present an uneven response to the audience. Equalization adjusts the PA’s frequency response to account for those room dynamics and makes the response even, or equal, across all bands.
Human hearing is usually understood to extend from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The frequency range of the guitar is much more limited, typically ranging from around 80 Hz to 6 kHz. Interestingly, the human voice shares a great deal of the same bandwidth, meaning the same ears and audio-processing centers that are fine-tuned for distinguishing the differences in voices can readily adapt to distinguish the differences in guitar tones. Accordingly, small adjustments in frequency equalization can have big effects in the ears of the listener, making a world of difference in a guitar’s fundamental sound. No amount of EQ will turn a red-knob Fender Twin into a Marshall plexi, but a little EQ might be all that stands between the sound in your head and the gear that you already own.
There are a host of EQ guitar pedal options on the market, from the venerable Boss GE-7 graphic equalizer (which contains preset frequency centers and bandwidths) to the new-fangled Empress ParaEq (which contains fully adjustable frequency centers and bandwidths). If you’re an EQ neophyte, stick with a graphic EQ. The sliders will be spaced evenly, and you can train your ear to hear the difference between frequencies before graduating to the laissez-faire frequency selection of a parametric EQ. As you’re learning what each frequency does for your sound, pull the fader all the way down and listen carefully, then push it all the way up and do the same. Listening to the EQ at these extremes may help you key in on the change at a more tasteful setting. Make a habit of turning the effect on and off to sample what it is doing relative to your unaffected signal.
It may be helpful to think of EQ as a flavoring agent. Like a little salt enhances a dish’s existing flavors, EQ can make for some tasty tones. If you have an overdrive that you’d like to make a little more “screamer,” add a bit of 800 Hz. If your sound has got a little too much of that green pedal honk, cut 800 Hz just a hair. If your chunky rhythm sound lacks clarity, cut from 200–250 Hz. This is where the low-midrange mud lives.
“If the unobtanium overdrive du jour is a Ferrari, then an EQ is like a Honda Accord.”
Almost every move has a practical reciprocal. You can add clarity by cutting low mids or boosting high mids by a commensurate amount. I normally recommend cutting first as a rule of thumb, as excessive boost can make things squirrelly, due to increased overall gain. That said, boosting around 500 Hz can add midrange body; around 2 kHz can help a neck pickup cut through the mix; and around 5 kHz can add airy click to your sound.
As you tweak, remember the upper-frequency bands will have more of an effect when placed after overdrive and distortion in your signal chain, as those processes generate harmonics that add energy to higher frequencies. But, there are no hard and fast rules. Adjust with listening ears! Your sound is like a ball of clay, and EQ can help you shape it just how you’d like.
Experiment with EQ placement as well. Apply EQ after dirt in order to carve your signal like the channel strip on a mixing console. Apply EQ before overdrives to cause them to saturate sooner at specific frequencies. This can greatly affect a pedal’s feel as well as sound.
If the unobtanium overdrive du jour is a Ferrari, then an EQ is like a Honda Accord. It’s practical, modest, and functional, but most people don’t dream about owning one. However, with the ability to subtly sculpt and cut or boost in the extreme, EQ can get you where you want to go.
The CopperSound Foxcatcher Overdrive pedal gives you the choice of supplying it with 9 or 18 volts.
In the realm of gain, why not equip more stomps with the option of higher voltage?
Let’s talk a little bit about voltage as it pertains to pedals. We live in a 9-volt world, a place where that rectangular battery has been, and still kind of is, king. You know … the one that you can test the life of by touching the terminals to your tongue? You don’t? Yeah, me neither! That’s weird. So, whenever I’m not testing 9-volts with my tongue, I like to think about voltage and how it relates to powering these musical devices we’ve grown so fond of.
A stompbox is almost synonymous with 9 volts, to the point where you could grab a basic pedal with no graphics or writing near the power jack and probably be fine plugging in a center-negative 9-volt supply. Similarly, you likely would know that the input is on the right-hand side, and the output is on the left-hand side. It’s become convention—something we know instinctively.
We’re living in the golden era of effect pedals, which extends to power supplies.
Pedals that can run at higher voltage—most commonly 18 volts—are becoming more popular. Most often, this feature is found in modern gain pedals, which could be partially due to the fact that dirt pedals are the most manufactured type of pedal. I would reckon it’s also because the components in these circuits are prime candidates to receive this voltage. More so, higher voltage tends to have a strong and desirable effect on these boxes we’ve grown to know and love. When manufacturers and players talk about the effect of higher voltage on gain pedals, they’re talking about headroom. This can mean increased clarity and dynamics in an already sweet saturation device.
We’re living in the golden era of effect pedals, which extends to power supplies. I’m not talking about those wall warts you’d get from RadioShack that are probably now in a box or drawer somewhere in your house. I’m talking about voltage-switchable, power-ready, heavy-duty power supplies with multiple outputs that nest snugly under pedalboards.
With these modern power supplies (colloquially referred to as “bricks”) comes a variety of onboard features, such as a courtesy receptacle, the ability to string multiple units together for more power, and outputs that feature switchable voltage. It’s pretty common to find a power brick with one or more outputs that can be switched from its standard 9 volts to either 12 or 18 volts. Some power bricks will even have outputs that are only 18 volts. (Therein lies the catalyst of this article.)
I’ve been working on pedalboard setups for a while now for both CopperSound and for local musicians. In doing so, I’ve had the honor of working with the new Truetone power supplies—most notably the CS12. This has become one of my go-to bricks on the market. It’s a great size, with a lot of convenient, modern-day appointments. One feature, or downfall depending on how you look at it, is that the last two output jacks are unswitchable 18-volt-only spots. When I was setting up a demo board for CopperSound, this stubborn output jack posed no real issue—every gain pedal in our current lineup features 9- to 18-volt operation. So, when running power to the pedals, I would simply have one of our gain pedals occupy that 18-volt-only slot.
This flexible voltage feature is something that we’ve offered on our gain-based pedals since the beginning. It also keeps me wondering about gain pedals from other companies and why we haven’t seen it adopted more regularly. One factor may be the voltage ratings on some components when you get into SMD (surface mounted devices) territory. I also understand that some circuits simply can’t accept higher voltages, like the Klon Centaur or KTR. But a lot of ICs and transistors that are commonly used in boost pedals can accept voltages over 30 volts. My question to dirt pedal manufacturers is this: Where’s the 18-volt option!?
My own philosophy is to offer the option simply for convenience, even if the increased voltage makes absolutely zero demonstrable difference.
How our noise-crazy new pedal columnists developed a rad take on recycling with their Telepunk Fuzz.
Meet the Telepunk Fuzz. This is one of Sehat Effectors’ best-selling devices. Let that sink in, because it’s unconventional—to put it lightly—and very cool. Here’s how it happened.
Back in 2017, I met my buddy Keket Soldir. We have the same interests in making disturbing pedals and going to flea markets to hunt for cheap treasures. We have very little money, so we’re looking for things that we can use for pedal enclosures. We’ve found lots of medical tools, military tools, old office tools, and one day, I found a wall intercom phone. I told Keket, “Let’s make a pedal with this!” and he laughed at me. “That’s not going to happen,” he said. “The shape is weird and there is limited space inside. I think we’re not going to make it unless we modify the shape.”
I brought it home anyway, opened it up, cleaned the inside, and put a simple 1-knob overdrive circuit within. It worked! But that was just the beginning.
The phone itself is a ’70s/’80s Japanese wall intercom, which was very popular in many offices in Indonesia back then. Discarded variations are cheap and easy to find. There are many different brands: Aiphone, Matsushita (named after the founder of Panasonic), National, etc. But the Aiphone was the most popular and is still easy to find, probably because it was the cheapest brand back then. There are also different models and shapes, depending on the year of production. The ’70s to early ’80s models usually come with a carbon microphone with a simple germanium preamp and amplifier driver, and the newer models usually come with a more modern electret microphone with an improved preamp circuit in it. Actually, almost all Japanese electronics with audio drivers from that era come with the same boards. Perhaps there was one major factory in Japan which produced and distributed that board for various brands, just like Matsumoku in Japan’s 1960s and early ’70s guitar-building history.
“Let’s make an effect pedal from this phone without losing its identity as a telephone.”
The enclosure itself is made of hard plastic (often called “atom plastic” in Indonesia) with sharp edges and a metal cover plate. We also salvage tons of vintage parts from these phones, such as germanium transistors, Matsushita film caps, and sometimes we pull lots of white- and blue-striped diodes (MA150, MA161, and 1S1588), which were also used in early Tube Screamers and other vintage ’70s/’80s Japan-made effects.
The Telepunk Fuzz idea itself is: “Let’s make an effect pedal from this phone without losing its identity as a telephone.” For the first example, we already had an oscillation fuzz called the Moisture Fuzz, and we just put that circuit into the telephone enclosure. But when we decided to keep making more, we added an Atari punk console for weird modulation. Today, there are three circuits in our Telepunk Fuzz: an oscillation fuzz, the Atari punk console (which is a lo-fi synth circuit), and the microphone preamp. Also, if you unplug the guitar, it’ll work as a standalone noise box, thanks to the oscillator’s and punk console’s ability to generate ridiculous amounts of noise on their own.
The device’s mic and instrument inputs—honestly, you can plug anything into either one—are separate from each other. But the mic input has its own preamp and volume control, which then stacks into the fuzz circuit. The instrument input feeds the punk console and can be mixed into the overall output signal to create a harmonic tremolo texture.
So, that’s the story behind our Telepunk Fuzz, although we think there are many possibilities for more telephone-based effects units in the future. Luckily, there are also still a lot of those telephones available for very little! And who knows what other home we might find for a circuit at a flea market or pawnshop? We’re also thinking about a more pedalboard-friendly version, so the device can enter the larger stompbox universe. Who knows where these noisy Fuzzes from a time long ago in a galaxy far away—the pre-digital zone—will end up on their sonic journey?