Thoughts on EQ in a loop

rottingcorpse said:
Darrell and Vince grew up in a recording studio.
His first amp was a Yamaha studio 100 combo that he banged the mids in the front with the blue MXR.
You get way more from tweaking the tone with the rack furman peq in the loop than you do up front.
Now...having grown up in a studio,do you really think he would use 2 different types of eqs up front?
Banging the mids on the guitars signal then cutting them right afterwards before the signal even hit the amp?
That's why I'm always surprised when people think he used 2 different kinds of eqs up front.
You bang the mids up front to boost the guitar signal and tighten the amp.
Then tweak and refine them (read as scoop and sizzle) after the tone stack before it hits the power section.
Then stomp on the crybaby when going for the Dimebag trademark whammy bar squeelies. (another not so secret sauce)
There will be others that INSIST otherwise. Maybe I'm blowing smoke up your butt.
Maybe I never met anyone in Pantera ever in my life. Who knows? Who cares? Why bother?
But if you just think about it scientifically....
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I always figured the Furman in front was more for the +20db gain boost preamp it has. I dont think a MXR EQ into a RG100ES would produce that much gain on its own.
 
I've been having a lot of fun with the Master Effects PMEQ in the loop. It doesn't have a ton of tonal range since it's designed to do a thing, but I feel it's really doing the thing well. It's adding a volume boost, making the tone just bigger/wider, and adding some clarity. My Empress PEQ had way more range, but this has WAY better tone.

I started off trying the PEQ instead of the GEQ (on a Mark). Sounded like this. Kind of hollow.


From there I worked on using the PEQ as primary, and filling in some things that were missing with the GEQ- primarily upper mids. That was better, but not perfect.

Then, after talking to some guys I flipped it around to use the GEQ as primary, and then fill in the missing spots with the PEQ. NOW we're talking!
 
I love EQ pedals. One of the best things you can get to dial in your tone. Actually, the piece of gear I have had the longest of everything I have ever owned is an old Boss GE-7 I bought used in like 1995 with high school lunch money.

I think that is one reason I love the Axe-FX. I always end up with a more polished tone than when I use my amps because I EQ everything much more dramatically.
 
I dont really use overdrives to boost. Have always used boss ge7 or fish n chips in front with mids pushed up and level a lil past neutral. Works great! When I had a furman pq 4 I used it in the loop cause it didnt seem to do much in front but I probably didnt know what I was doing with it.
 
NoAridTone said:
Did you ever find the tone you wanted from the Grace? I’ve got his warm machine and black flag amps and love them. I’m actually hoping to buy a Grace myself.
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I thought the Grace was a bit lean in the low end, and I couldn't get the mids just right. I reamped it through my VHT 2150 and got things sounding pretty nasty with an EQ in between. I think it's priced pretty fairly for a boutique, hand built amp but it needs an effects loop dearly.
 
My ears are trained to a Modest Mike modded GE-7 in the loop. That and a G-String have been in the chain the longest of all my pedals.
 
Source Audio EQ2 has been in my amp loop for awhile now. Once plugged into a cpu, you can dial it in like a parametric eq. Amazing difference, I feel like I can make my amps sound like anything.

No eq in front as I I select my pickups and use a clean OD for essentially the same purpose....though this EQ2 could be used as 2 discreet EQs if needed
 
Shask said:
I always figured the Furman in front was more for the +20db gain boost preamp it has. I dont think a MXR EQ into a RG100ES would produce that much gain on its own.
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I don't think the MXR added gain. It just boosted the mids to tighten the amp. Gary Holt does that too. He used to use a Presonus unit before getting his own line of pedals.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I really only talked gear with Darrell from Metal Magic thru Power metal. His first real regular tech was Kenny King(pre Grady)and he was using the RG100 heads and eventually the RG rack unit. There was at some point a rack with a couple of Fuhrman peq units and the MXR flanger/doubler unit that split the signal. He had two stacks at first,then got a third that was blank cabs that folded up. The speakers were painted on the front baffle. At one point a flanger/doubler was at the mixing desk that Ambrose (their long time live mix guy) would crank up the effects bus/channel during Darrells solos. Fun fact,during the bar/club days Darrell would wave his pick hand above his head before the solos to cue Ambrose for the effects and volume jump. Edit...forgot to mention the Roland Space Echo tape unit that was ALWAYS being used for something at the console. I saw Vince change the tape out of that thing more times than I can remember.

By the time CFH came out I was in the Navy and only saw him when he came thru a city I was based at. He also had Grady by then,probaby much earlier as i dont rememer when Kenny stopped being his tech. We didn't talk gear,we just drank and talked about people from back home. I remember him telling me Mike Scaccia had left Rigor Mortis and was with Ministry,and that started a whole flashback of stories about the Pantera/Rigor Mortis local wars. Don't remember much after that since they got my buddy from the squadron I brought to the show with me so drunk he barfed outside the bus. Had to take his ass home after that.

Anyway,I'm not sure how he ran the C-200 rig from Vulgar on. By that point he had a splitter to send the signal to a bunch(I believe 4-6) heads but still had 2 furman peq in that road case with the heads. I can only surmise that some of the heads were only used for power(bringing the signal from the splitter to the effects return). He was also using the Hush rack gate by then too. But if he always had the two Furman peq rack units,it would make sense that they would be after the MXR flanger/doubler and be the last thing before the effects return to provide the most tweakability to the tone before the power section. Pretty sure if the signal was goosed before the MXR flanger/doubler,it would/could overload the unit and make everything sound like shit. But that's just my opinion since I never did the gear dive with him once he was King Dime.
 
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Meeotch said:
My guitar room aka "studio" is fairly large, and I've found positioning my cabs in different spots drastically changes the tone and low end response. An EQ in the loop helps me fine tune to the room, as well as to where I am positioned in relation to the cabinet.

Over the years it has become an essential tool for me, not just for the above tweaks but for getting the most out of any amp. I don't doubt that many players have found the tone they are looking for without one, but after dropping $3500 on a Carstens Grace and realizing I just couldn't get it sounding right with only B/M/T/P (it has no effects loop), I was pretty disappointed and vowed to never buy an amp without an effects loop again. That includes Larry amps (as mentioned above, parallel loops don't work properly with an EQ OR a noise gate).
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On my very first amp design, introduced already back in 1992, the meanwhile popular DINO 939 (Users: Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth, Squarehead of RigTalk and others) you'd have a FX send, a FX parallel return and a FX serial return, so you could use an EQ in the FX loop 😉
On my later designs (British Purist, Rock Wizard, Pure Metal Machine & DINO 962) I've skipped the option of a serial FX return by convinction.

Reason 1: Cutting off a very dynamic and well balanced amp's dry signal, to force it through countless semiconductors doesn't contribute to the amp's sound and usually is choking the dynamics and livelyness sometimes extremely.

Reason 2: Usual FX devices are time related and work flawlessly, if the signal is fed into it and then mixed to the 'untouched' dynamic and lively amp's dry signal.

Reason 3: If an amp requires an EQ to finally sound 'right', then something inside the amp's circuit design must have went wrong 🤷‍♂️
A throughout from bottom to top well balanced amp's signal only can be worsen by using an EQ in the signal line. To avoid this I've decided to skip the serial option of the FX loop - and all my customers are fine with this solution until today, just with one exception :cool:
 
novosibir said:
On my very first amp design, introduced already back in 1992, the meanwhile popular DINO 939 (Users: Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth, Squarehead of RigTalk and others) you'd have a FX send, a FX parallel return and a FX serial return, so you could use an EQ in the FX loop 😉
On my later designs (British Purist, Rock Wizard, Pure Metal Machine & DINO 962) I've skipped the option of a serial FX return by convinction.

Reason 1: Cutting off a very dynamic and well balanced amp's dry signal, to force it through countless semiconductors doesn't contribute to the amp's sound and usually is choking the dynamics and livelyness sometimes extremely.

Reason 2: Usual FX devices are time related and work flawlessly, if the signal is fed into it and then mixed to the 'untouched' dynamic and lively amp's dry signal.

Reason 3: If an amp requires an EQ to finally sound 'right', then something inside the amp's circuit design must have went wrong 🤷‍♂️
A throughout from bottom to top well balanced amp's signal only can be worsen by using an EQ in the signal line. To avoid this I've decided to skip the serial option of the FX loop - and all my customers are fine with this solution until today, just with one exception :cool:
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I totally understand an artist like you having a purist mentality when designing such a gorgeous piece of kit like your amps. But obviously not everyone can afford the money or wait time it takes to acquire a Larry. And some like to gate their amps thru the loop to remove all the noise from a high gain preamp and have no feedback at high SPLs and tight stop/starts. Believe me when I say a Larry is a dream amp for me. But until I can acquire one, I guess I will just have to be happy with the amps I have. Please consider providing your insanely badass hand built amps to the masses for $500 and a wait time of 3 days. Thanks for your consideration. Very respectfully, The Corpse.

(Hey,you never know. Maybe all I had to do was ask...)
 
I like the friedman be deluxe but cant afford it, €4000. So i have a runt 20. To get it to sound how i want i need to run a eq in the loop. When im rich i will buy my dream amp and throw the eq pedal in the bin
 
novosibir said:
On my very first amp design, introduced already back in 1992, the meanwhile popular DINO 939 (Users: Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth, Squarehead of RigTalk and others) you'd have a FX send, a FX parallel return and a FX serial return, so you could use an EQ in the FX loop 😉
On my later designs (British Purist, Rock Wizard, Pure Metal Machine & DINO 962) I've skipped the option of a serial FX return by convinction.

Reason 1: Cutting off a very dynamic and well balanced amp's dry signal, to force it through countless semiconductors doesn't contribute to the amp's sound and usually is choking the dynamics and livelyness sometimes extremely.

Reason 2: Usual FX devices are time related and work flawlessly, if the signal is fed into it and then mixed to the 'untouched' dynamic and lively amp's dry signal.

Reason 3: If an amp requires an EQ to finally sound 'right', then something inside the amp's circuit design must have went wrong 🤷‍♂️
A throughout from bottom to top well balanced amp's signal only can be worsen by using an EQ in the signal line. To avoid this I've decided to skip the serial option of the FX loop - and all my customers are fine with this solution until today, just with one exception :cool:
Click to expand...
Yes Larry, we have messaged about this and your above points are well thought-out. For a bit I was trying to track down a 939 for the serial FX return but I gave up. But to be fair, people like me that prefer a serial FX loop choose not to buy your amps, hence we are not your customers and don't count towards your customer base :cool:

I can't argue with the idea of avoiding a serial loop to maximize dynamics and general sound quality, but your umbrella statements are missing the point. It's not necessarily the amp that is solely responsible for the needed EQ tweaks. It's a combination of the room acoustics, the speaker/cabinet choice, and the position of the player in the room. I've played some amps with serial loops that sounded absolutely phenomenal, and the ability to throw an EQ in the loop is icing on the cake. This just comes down to personal preference, not saying anyone is right or wrong.
 
rottingcorpse said:
I don't think the MXR added gain. It just boosted the mids to tighten the amp. Gary Holt does that too. He used to use a Presonus unit before getting his own line of pedals.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I really only talked gear with Darrell from Metal Magic thru Power metal. His first real regular tech was Kenny King(pre Grady)and he was using the RG100 heads and eventually the RG rack unit. There was at some point a rack with a couple of Fuhrman peq units and the MXR flanger/doubler unit that split the signal. He had two stacks at first,then got a third that was blank cabs that folded up. The speakers were painted on the front baffle. At one point a flanger/doubler was at the mixing desk that Ambrose (their long time live mix guy) would crank up the effects bus/channel during Darrells solos. Fun fact,during the bar/club days Darrell would wave his pick hand above his head before the solos to cue Ambrose for the effects and volume jump. Edit...forgot to mention the Roland Space Echo tape unit that was ALWAYS being used for something at the console. I saw Vince change the tape out of that thing more times than I can remember.

By the time CFH came out I was in the Navy and only saw him when he came thru a city I was based at. He also had Grady by then,probaby much earlier as i dont rememer when Kenny stopped being his tech. We didn't talk gear,we just drank and talked about people from back home. I remember him telling me Mike Scaccia had left Rigor Mortis and was with Ministry,and that started a whole flashback of stories about the Pantera/Rigor Mortis local wars. Don't remember much after that since they got my buddy from the squadron I brought to the show with me so drunk he barfed outside the bus. Had to take his ass home after that.

Anyway,I'm not sure how he ran the C-200 rig from Vulgar on. By that point he had a splitter to send the signal to a bunch(I believe 4-6) heads but still had 2 furman peq in that road case with the heads. I can only surmise that some of the heads were only used for power(bringing the signal from the splitter to the effects return). He was also using the Hush rack gate by then too. But if he always had the two Furman peq rack units,it would make sense that they would be after the MXR flanger/doubler and be the last thing before the effects return to provide the most tweakability to the tone before the power section. Pretty sure if the signal was goosed before the MXR flanger/doubler,it would/could overload the unit and make everything sound like shit. But that's just my opinion since I never did the gear dive with him once he was King Dime.
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That is very cool that you got to hang with him so much before he got big.

I had a Century 200-II for many years. It has nowhere near the gain of Pantera, so you would have to boost it with something. I think he used the PQ-3 like a Tubescreamer, boosting the front end of the amp for more gain. Just like how J of White Zombie used the TS-9 in front of the Century.
 
heres his pq4's, it looks like he is boosting around 80ish, 900ish, 3kish and 10kish, im guessing with those frequencies the are in the loop but i dont know. what is the black pedal with two knobs on his board??


dimefurman.jpg

dimemxr.jpg
 
novosibir said:
On my very first amp design, introduced already back in 1992, the meanwhile popular DINO 939 (Users: Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth, Squarehead of RigTalk and others) you'd have a FX send, a FX parallel return and a FX serial return, so you could use an EQ in the FX loop 😉
On my later designs (British Purist, Rock Wizard, Pure Metal Machine & DINO 962) I've skipped the option of a serial FX return by convinction.

Reason 1: Cutting off a very dynamic and well balanced amp's dry signal, to force it through countless semiconductors doesn't contribute to the amp's sound and usually is choking the dynamics and livelyness sometimes extremely.

Reason 2: Usual FX devices are time related and work flawlessly, if the signal is fed into it and then mixed to the 'untouched' dynamic and lively amp's dry signal.

Reason 3: If an amp requires an EQ to finally sound 'right', then something inside the amp's circuit design must have went wrong 🤷‍♂️
A throughout from bottom to top well balanced amp's signal only can be worsen by using an EQ in the signal line. To avoid this I've decided to skip the serial option of the FX loop - and all my customers are fine with this solution until today, just with one exception :cool:
Click to expand...
Man I can’t wait for my PMM to be ready . Fuvking pumped .
 
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