EQ Before and After a Circuit?

[BuddytheReow]

I had a shower thought and wanted to bounce it off you guys if it's even worth pursuing. Regardless I'll breadboard something to find out for my own.

Take a one knob fuzz for example (i.e Two Sticks of Derm) and build it stock. Putting a boost in front of it will produce a different sound, right? Take it a step further and change the boost to a switchable treble or bass booster. This makes perfect sense to me.

Now the shower thought: what if I also have a EQ section after the fuzz before output, say, a Baxandall? EQ either before or after a circuit would yield different results, but I'm wondering if combining both is redundant? Thinking this through it sounds like EQ after the circuit will override the input, right?

 

[manfesto]

Nah, not redundant.

They're not multiband EQs, but think about the Timmy - the bass rolloff is pre-gain and so affects both the bass/mids *and* the amount of gain and clipping, the treble rolloff is post-gain and so affects the treble after it's been clipped.

If you boost bass going into a gain stage, intentionally or not, it'll likely change the characteristic of the distortion and clipping, and a post-gain bass control can bring that back in line.

A post-gain EQ can't really add any extra clipping or distortion characteristic (I mean, of course it can drive the *next* stage, but), just adjust the overall EQ. I think EQD's Westwood is a soft-clipper with a post-EQ?

Both are useful for different things.

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

Pre-gain EQ and post-gain EQ will have pretty drastically different results depending on the circuit.
Definitely worth playing around with imo.

An easy place to start could be a simple flat-mids muff tonestack both before and after the circuit (with appropriate recovery stages) two different active BAX tonestacks would be more versatile, but it’s a lot more to breadboard so I’d wait until you try the simpler fork as a proof of concept to see how you like it.

 

[Aentons]

https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/your-best-and-worst-pedal-hot-takes-%F0%9F%94%A5.20752/post-261286

 

[DGWVI]

Akai G-Drive had pre and post distortion graphic eq

 

[Aentons]

Akai G-Drive had pre and post distortion graphic eq
View attachment 72357

Now that's what I'm talking about!

 

[Sturdag Lagernathy]

Wow! I'll bet you can find some HORRIBLE sounds in that..

 

[giovanni]

I thought TPS had a show about this exact topic but I can’t find it. I must have imagined it!

 

[Paradox916]

There is more than one way to skin a cat, you can’t go wrong with post EQ (ie, gain stages >EQ) for my money,

 

[jwin615]

I have an idea for a.circuit, started breadboarding and got frustrated
Using 2x LM1035, which is a stereo 3 band tone control(think old car stereo). May be able to do it with 1 with clever voltage dividing.
It would basically put an EQ on both sides of a circuit, but invert each other.
Ie, if you boost mids going in, it would cut them on the output.
I've toyed around with the idea with 2x graphic eqs and you can really voice a drive circuit in different and new ways with this.
One could do this with say, 2x box and alls, use linear dual gang pots and wire one PCB inverted(lug 1 is 3, lug 3 is 1).