My 10 Favourite Ways to Use an EQ Pedal
It took me way too long to get around to buying an eq pedal and now I use them for loads of stuff. I first got one to help me get a wider range of tones when I was doing function band and session work but I was an idiot for not getting one sooner. Here are 10 ways that I like to use an eq pedal in my setup.
1. Re-voice Your Main Overdrive Sound
One of the most practical ways to use an EQ is to tweak your main overdrive sound. I really like the vintage overdrive sound on the Boss OD-3 but occasionally I might want a more modern tone particularly for the high gain settings. So I’ll cut the mids a bit, boost the lows and the highs a little, basically apply a mid scoop for a more contemporary sound. If you’re using amp overdrive, put the EQ pedal in the effects loop for this.
2. Overdrive Pedal Emulation
You can set an EQ pedal so that it makes one overdrive pedal emulate the sound of others, I did a whole video where I tried emulating a ton of classic overdrive pedals using an EQ pedal, it was pretty interesting. Make sure you put the EQ after the overdrive pedal in the signal chain for this.
One of the easiest pedals to emulate this way is the mid hump that the Ibanez Tubescreamer is famous for. Just create a hump on the EQ pedal with the peak being around 800Hz.
3. Re-voice Fuzz & Distortion Pedals
You can re-voice your fuzz and distortion pedals too. This seems to be particularly popular with vintage style fuzz pedals because they tend to have a big mid scoop that makes them fall victim to sometimes getting a bit lost in the mix. You can make a typically mid scooped Big Muff sound a little more direct and mid focused by cutting the highs and lows while boosting the mids a little.
Now’s probably a good time to mention that when you’re manipulating EQ like this, it’s a good idea to try cutting frequencies you don’t want rather than boosting frequencies that aren’t there in the first place. Notice how I said cut the highs and lows on the Big Muff rather than simply trying to only push the mid frequencies up. The Big Muff doesn’t have a lot of mids to start with so it’s a little futile just to boost only the mids.
4. Choose Which Frequencies to Distort
So far I’ve been putting the EQ after all the drive pedals. Of course you can put the EQ in front as well and what happens is pretty cool. You can now control which frequencies in the drive pedal are being saturated the most. You get to choose which frequencies you want to distort the most.
A popular choice is to distort the mid frequencies more. It’s sort of like a completely clean tube screamer, no secondary distortion is added, it’s just saturating the mids in your existing overdrive or distortion sound.
5. Pickup Emulation
You can use an EQ pedal to sound almost like a completely different guitar. I’ve done a whole video on this but one of my favourites is to make the bridge pickup on a strat sound more like a beefy humbucker on a Les Paul by boosting low mids at around 400Hz and gradually rolling off a lot of the high end. I like this for hard rock where the bridge pickup on the strat can sound a bit thin and shrill.
6. Jaguar 'Strangle' Switch In a Pedal
I have a Fender Jaguar that has a strangle switch and it’s a basically a low cut switch, I sometimes find it useful if I’m playing in a busy mix and I want to thin out my sound or if I just want some super thin and funky cleans. So wouldn’t it be cool if you could get that effect in a pedal to use on any guitar?
Just gradually shelve off the low frequencies starting at around 400Hz.
7. Master Volume, Tone & Attenuator
You can use your EQ pedal as a master volume and tone control for your entire setup. You would definitely run the EQ in the effects loop for this or as the last pedal in the chain if you’re using your amp as a clean pedal platform.
You can do some neat tricks with controlling the volume, you could boost the volume of your clean sounds or lightly driven sounds which are normally quieter, but if you boost them you’ve now got some new sounds for solos without having to always resort to more distorted sounds. Similarly you could also pad your more distorted sounds which are normally louder so that you can have a very distorted rhythm part that sits back in the mix and gives the vocals space to be heard.
If you’re using the effects loop on your amp you can reduce the volume so much that you actually create a kind of attenuator for your amp, it lets you drive up the volume a bit more on your amps preamp whilst still having control of the overall volume.
In terms of EQ I’ve heard of people actually tuning their amp to the room at each gig. For example if you’ve got a weird bass trap happening in the corner of a room at a gig then you could tune that frequency out with the EQ pedal.
8. Cocked Wah & Radio Speaker
You can use an EQ pedal for that cocked wah type sound where players set their wah pedal in a fixed position at a sort of sweet spot somewhere in the middle so that it sounds very nasally and synth like or a bit like an old radio speaker. In short, boost the mids quite drastically. As you boost more drastically with less curves either side of the mid boost, the more it will go from a fixed wah sound to a harsh radio speaker type sound.
9. Get More From Your Modulation Pedals
I first found this useful when I was trying to make my Boss Tremolo pedal sound like the tube bias tremolo on my Fender Pro Reverb amp.
I found adding just a little bit of volume and a little bit of bass made them almost indistinguishable. But you could use the EQ pedal for all sorts of things, you could adjust the volume of a modulation pedal that’s too loud (Boss BF-2 I’m looking at you!), or you could boost the mids of a chorus pedal so that it sounds a bit more like an old vintage chorus.
10. Self Oscillating Pitch Generator
One of my favourite pedals to send into self oscillation is EQ pedals. Bringing up different frequencies and combining them gives you all sorts of different pitches. It is pretty weird, if you want to know more about this I’ve got a whole video on it here.