Best of Mini, Compact, Medium and Large EQ Pedals

Here you jump up to twice as many frequency bands or 10 overall - 31, 62, 125, 250, 500, 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k Hz and a whole tonne of extra features - including applications for Limiter, Noise Gate, Tuner and Wah. No doubt a superbly useful and well thought out utility pedal - yet you access most of that all courtesy of a single dial. In fact there are just 3 physical controls on the pedal - the master function selector knob, Output knob and Memory Select / Hold and Save Button. It's a very significant improvement over its 7-Band predecessor - both in terms of aesthetics and overall utility. Yet you need to scroll and push/select a lot to update and set every function. A little like using those single dial rotary label-makers to select each individual character of the alphabet. I totally value the utility of this pedal - which does all the usual clever things in terms of being a general EQ, Boost and Volume pedal - but the way you access each of those settings I find somewhat clunky and indirect - compared with just instantly moving a physical slider per the EQ-200 and Graphic-G. Obviously this functionality allows for a much smaller enclosure format - with this being as small as it could conceivable be for a full stereo signal path pedal. It has a fair few more features onboard than the Boss EQ-200 and many will like it for that, but for me the lack of proper and immediate hands-on control is something of a disqualifier. A key reason I have my pedal-chain as is - is that I can easily and immediately impact and affect very significant changes - where I have developed a touch of a phobia against pedals which rely overly on sub-menu functions. I like for everything to be fairly obviously surfaced and fully intuitive and accessible. Having lots of extra hidden features isn't necessarily a benefit to me if it's too tricky to get to them or actually remember they are there. I also question why there isn't a second footswitch here like on the Boss - for easily and instantly stepping through the presets. Both the Boss EQ-200 and Free The Tone PA-10G have the advantage over the EQ2 in being able to effect instant changes via footswitch. The EQ2 has up to 8 onboard presets and up to the usual 128 via MIDI.

And so to my preferred choice here - which to me is the second most-perfectly executed Boss 200 Series box after the superb DD-200. I always thought I wouldn't want to go much larger than a compact enclosure form factor for an EQ pedal (i.e. GE-7). But concede now that the vertical BB-size format is the new bar. This pedal features the recent upgrade to 128 onboard memory presets - which you access by holding down the Memory Button and paging through the presets - Up/Incrementally via the Memory Footswitch and Down/Decrementally via the ON/OFF Footswitch. You have full stereo routing again and the ever-so useful VDU panel which is essential for you to see what your Presets are doing. I guess someone could do an Automatone style exercise on the sliders - but that would surely yield a monstrously sized format. For me this is about as perfect as it gets to-date to accommodate those 11 sliders (10 Bands + Level/Boost) - 30, 60, 120, 200, 400, 800, 1.6k, 3,2k, 6.4k and 12.4k Hz. For stereo setups you can select different values for A and B channels - or you can do some funky 4-cabling stuff where you put your signal twice through the ringer as it were or select different Pre/Post Effects Insert Points. There's no other hidden features here unlike on the EQ2 - no Limiter, Noise Gate or Tuner as such - but this is still the most perfect execution of EQ pedal for me. I find the Presets selection still a little clunky - and how the extended 128 slots have been accommodated. But for a combination of factors - size, accessibly and practicality this is the surefire winner here for my preferences. It's also actually really rather reasonably priced comparatively as well.

I've been peripherally aware of this pedal for a while, but it was my recent Steve Mac Pedalboard piece that brought this more to my attention. Interestingly this is sort of the opposite of the Boss - which you could say was Digital with Analog/Physical controls - while this is Analog with wholly Digital controls. In fact I was a little surprised that Steve had this Mono pedal further down his signal chain - while his stereo Boss EQ-200 sat in the middle of the chain. The 10-Bands here are 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1,500, 2,500, 3,500, 7k and 10k Hz. It has a similar system of presets to the Boss - in terms of being footswitchable. While the controls are a slight improvement over the EQ2 - as you have left and right buttons to go with the rotary encoder. So you have a slightly more elegant way to access each of the Frequency Bands. The VDU screen though is miniscule and puts it at a significant disadvantage of the much clearer display for the EQ2 and the physical sliders of the EQ-200. For me the form factor and overall execution of the PA-10G somewhat detracts from its superior internal analog tone-shaping circuit. The Analog EQ is obviously worth something - but at £365 this is a fairly pricey proposition for this exact execution. As a piece of industrial design it has a number of flaws t my mind which put it at a significant disadvantage vs the EQ2 and EQ-200 despite its superior tone circuit. It's a case of where I really like the idea, but am slightly disappointed with execution. Its presets I believe work fairly similar to the Boss EQ-200 - in that you can footswitch / step between the first 4, but need to utilise manual controls to access the remainder of the overall 99 available presets.