Mid Level EQ's

Cowboy had one he just sold in the classifieds. I have the 500 series version. It's nice... got a good deal on a pair. .. knobs are a pain though on the 500. They needed to use smaller diameter knobs for the 500.

What are you looking for in an EQ? I had a BLA and sold it. Didn't like how it sat on the 2 buss. Too colored for my taste. Just inserting it into the chain imparted a lot of color and felt like it made my mix dull. Really "vintage" sounding and just didn't work for me. I did think it sounded cool on guitars and a couple of individual sources, but wasn't what I was looking for in an eq. Much happier with the Summit EQP-200.

If you're looking for inexpensive (at least used, pretty expensive new), flexible, clean, and with filters... realgearonline.com/thread/856/apogee-sound-stereo-dual-mono

I would prefer switch able shelving, but it is pretty musical so I don't really notice the lack. I have mostly used them on buss duties.

Found a great deal on a pair of electra modules but just found that the low shelf is @ 350. W??T???...?

maybe check out the aphex 500 series eq (not heard one yet)

other than that german filtek eq are pretty good on masterbuss. just running signal through them tightens the bottom and adds a little punch. they don't have shelves however you can do a broad Q at 18k or 50hz and then use the variable high and low pass.

another option is the speck eq. I haven't used one but have heard samples and it sounds very nice to me.

for beef and air the purple lilpqr is hard to beat,

maybe you need 2 eq's.

a tc electronic 2240 as a fixer upper then a lilpqr for the beef and air.

The GR Harrison's are really nice eq's. They are not mid range. They are high end like everything GR does.

Have you guys had problems getting what you want from a kick with the Electra considering the low shelf is so high?

I honestly haven't eq'd kick with the low shelf. I like to use the low mid band and then take the output to a compressor. If you want I'd be happy to take a kick track (real drum - no samples) and run it through with various settings. Let me know - won't be today but could do it tomorrow night.

Couple things I forgot to mention about the Electras - they're not good for surgical cuts. The Q is simply not narrow enough although I've found you can "fix" stuff by boosting sometimes with this eq which usually doesn't work for me.

Also, they're $550 a piece so the price is mid-level but sound is high end all the way IMO.

Thanks Jerome. I did and didn't get him. I know he would have answered with more depth.
I hear you about your usage too. Thanks for speaking up. I appreciate it

Hey guys!

Let me first say that I'm continually humbled by all the Electra love. It really means a lot to me that people are having the same kinds of positive experiences with this box that I have when I use it myself. And it never ceases to amaze me that random stangers I've never met are creating art or making their living using something I participated in creating. As Jesse mentioned, I was indeed involved in the design of the Electra--I designed the circuit. I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have (technical, applications, etc.) and/or share my insight into design.

Regarding the low shelf... The initial prototype of the Electra didn't have the low shelf. Instead it had a rotary fader. But as soon as I built the first prototype and started using it I really felt like I was missing a band, especially when doing any low frequency EQ'ing. So I came up with the fixed frequency low shelf idea, figured out how I could make it switchable with the fader, and presented the idea to Greg. That one frequency for the low shelf was probably the area where we did the most tweaking. Greg wanted to add a little resonance to the HPF, so we kept going back and forth tweaking the amount of resonance and the corner frequency of the shelf until they worked together in a really synergistic way. We must have gone back and forth like 3 or 4 times debating the merits of X frequency and Y resonance until we agreed that "a HPF should not make one cross" (haha) and arrived at the combination that you have on the production version. In the end it was a compromise of both our aesthetics, but one which ultimately yielded a lot of versatility and effectiveness. The frequency, however, was something we never quite had concensus on. We definitely agreed on where it was and what the component values should be, but just not what to call it in the spec sheet. I personally wanted to call it a 90 Hz shelf because that's how my ears hear it (I was also extrapolating the curve as if it could do a 15 dB boost instead of just 9 dB), but Greg measured it a bit differently in the end.

So, I wouldn't get too hung up about the low shelf being labelled 350 Hz. What you really need to know is that Greg and I committed ourselves to make it work in lock step with that HPF and low-mid band so that you could carve up the low end in any way imagineable and it would sound bitchin' and yield ear to ear smiles day in, day out. And I think we achieved that.

Does it sound really good on a kick drum? Hell yes! Especially if you use the low mid band, or even the high mid band to pull out some of the wooliness. There's a reason that high-mid band starts at 250 Hz. It's a super easy starting point for taking out the crud of drums of all kind. Often after boosting either the low shelf of the low-mid band I just roll back some of the 250 and I'm good. One of my favorite uses of the low shelf is actually for taking meat out of things that are excessively big. It's so effortless to make vocals or acoustic guitars sit in a mix just dialing back that shelf. Instant awesomeness.

Brad