Spaceman Effects Releases Limited Run Equinox Overlapping Multi-Band Studio-style EQ

Every Spaceman Launch event is exciting for me - even though the released pedal doesn’t necessarily hit my own specific preferences - it’s always something worthy and innovative though. This time around we get a large format studio-style EQ pedal based to a large degree on the distinctive, pricey and of course highly regarded Pultec Studio EQ.

This is both a Multi-Band EQ with some parametric capabilities - but also with the slight oddity of overlapping frequencies - and where the Lo Cut and Lo Boost knobs apply to the same frequency dial. Also we have just a single Q Bandwidth control - where on Parametric EQ’s we would have a Q control per frequency band / selection.

Controls - Level, Hi-Cut : 1K > 2K > 3K > 4K, Lo-Cut & Lo-Boost : 30 > 60 > 100 > 150. Hi-Boost : 1K5 > 2K5 > 3K5 > 5K, Q Bandwidth.

Essentially the Level and Q are universal, while the Hi-Cut and Hi-Boost each have their own Frequency Selectors, but the Lo-Cut and Lo-Boost share the same Frequency Selector. 

This pedal doesn’t quite fit into my Evolved Tone Enhancer selection as it’s just an EQ really - a very smart EQ indeed, but single function as such. And say not as clever as Eventide’s recent SplitEQ solution - albeit that is a digital plugin and the Equinox is all Analog!

The large format size of this pedal puts it for me into the same niche category really as its similarly sized Mission Control sibling. I think Spaceman recognises this as fairly niche and so this is a limited run edition - of just 222 units of this Comet Blue colourway. It will be distributed to some American dealers for sure - in fact I’ve already seen it on the Coast Sonic newsletter - while I don’t expect to see too many of these on this side of the pond. Perhaps Effekt Boutique will get in a couple - but based on how Andertons didn’t default stock the Redstone - I don’t expect to see this in the UK.

For my preferences it’s just way too large to be practical for most pedalboards. Ideally I would like my smart EQ in compact enclosure - where WMD’s Parametric EQ is my most likely ongoing target. Revival Electric also do a Parametric EQ or at least used to - as did Boss with its smart PQ-4 - which is not too different to Wampler’s EQuator (both semi-parametric). I have a feeling too that Empress Effects will be shrinking down their Parametric ParaEQ eventually - like they recently did for their former BB-size Compressor. Until such a time that Empress have one out - I would very likely go with the WMD version which seems to be in sufficiently regular supply and at the right sort of price point for most!

There are so many Spaceman Effects collectors - that I’ve no doubt that the 222 Comet edition units will sell out relatively fast - albeit a lot of that will end up as shelf-ware. The cost of ownership for the Equinox is $399 - and like I said it’s stocked also by a few US dealers - including Coast Sonic.