MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I built this one a few months ago and I was sitting on the fence about posting a build report because it was so ugly.
But, I decided to show my true self, warts and all. hahaha.
This is another board I bought years ago during a shopping spree. Must have been a sale or something...
Honestly, dedicated EQ pedals are really not my thing and I sat on this for the longest time.
Couple months back I was looking through my parts for something and came across a couple of inductors that I had no idea why I bought. (Should have posted in the "Why did I buy this" thread haha.
So I took a pic and sent it to @Robert and asked him "Why did I buy these?" heh and he said "Oh it's probably for the Equilix..."
In the baggie with the inductors were a couple of SMD ic's that I did not label. I had no idea what they were but made the assumption that they were the LND150 mosfets, so I used it in the Q2 position. I also had all the 2P4T rotary switches already, so at SOME point I ordered all the bits and bobs for this build and just forgot about it.
To be honest, at the time built it, I was just looking for a project to get a solder fume fix and was not thinking much of actually using it.
I used a reclaimed enclosure which was a rattle can finish and the drilled holes matched what I needed for the NINE knob Equilux. I just needed to drill a few more holes. It's also hard to line up the drilling holes on an enclosure thats already been drilled. So there's some crooked knobs.
Long story short, I fired up this pedal with all the knobs at noon and fell out of my chair (metaphorically speaking). I was gobsmacked at how good it sounded.
The wide range of eq tweaking this pedal allows is great but I expected it to be. What I did NOT expect was the certain oomph with a sprinkling of sumpin sumpin that makes this pedal sound SO good.
Allegedly this pedal is based on the Pultec studio eq. Which in an of itself is not all that interesting to me as I'm not a big fan of studio effects on a guitar pedal board.
But man, there's something in this pedal that adds a bit of magic to my clean tone that's hard to describe, you'd have to play it and hear it for yourself.
I seriously doubt it can be captured in a video demo, which is why I didn't hear it on the demo's I watched.
I have it currently as the last pedal in the chain before my amp. In this slot I had previously been using primarily the Clandestine Preamp or the RC Booster (AionFX Malacandra Boost). But I don't think I've turned the Equilux off since I built it.
I've been considering re-housing it in a nicer enclosure but I'd still need to jot down to labels, (yes, 9 knobs is too much for me to remember hahaha).
I'm also considering building the full size version and maybe have one of my smart friends do up a faceplate.
I don't have a real Pultec but I DO have 3 different versions of them as software plugins from UAD. I spent some time going back and forth between the pedal and the plugin versions and it's really close, shockingly close how Spaceman designed this.
I would go as far as to say that this or the full size one is a MUST BUILD. Doesn't matter if you're using it for guitar, or bass, keys, synth, drums, or vocals. This is a VERY handy pedal to have on hand.
Apologies for the overall fugliness of this build. But it SOUNDS killer.
But, I decided to show my true self, warts and all. hahaha.
This is another board I bought years ago during a shopping spree. Must have been a sale or something...
Honestly, dedicated EQ pedals are really not my thing and I sat on this for the longest time.
Couple months back I was looking through my parts for something and came across a couple of inductors that I had no idea why I bought. (Should have posted in the "Why did I buy this" thread haha.
So I took a pic and sent it to @Robert and asked him "Why did I buy these?" heh and he said "Oh it's probably for the Equilix..."
In the baggie with the inductors were a couple of SMD ic's that I did not label. I had no idea what they were but made the assumption that they were the LND150 mosfets, so I used it in the Q2 position. I also had all the 2P4T rotary switches already, so at SOME point I ordered all the bits and bobs for this build and just forgot about it.
To be honest, at the time built it, I was just looking for a project to get a solder fume fix and was not thinking much of actually using it.
I used a reclaimed enclosure which was a rattle can finish and the drilled holes matched what I needed for the NINE knob Equilux. I just needed to drill a few more holes. It's also hard to line up the drilling holes on an enclosure thats already been drilled. So there's some crooked knobs.
Long story short, I fired up this pedal with all the knobs at noon and fell out of my chair (metaphorically speaking). I was gobsmacked at how good it sounded.
The wide range of eq tweaking this pedal allows is great but I expected it to be. What I did NOT expect was the certain oomph with a sprinkling of sumpin sumpin that makes this pedal sound SO good.
Allegedly this pedal is based on the Pultec studio eq. Which in an of itself is not all that interesting to me as I'm not a big fan of studio effects on a guitar pedal board.
But man, there's something in this pedal that adds a bit of magic to my clean tone that's hard to describe, you'd have to play it and hear it for yourself.
I seriously doubt it can be captured in a video demo, which is why I didn't hear it on the demo's I watched.
I have it currently as the last pedal in the chain before my amp. In this slot I had previously been using primarily the Clandestine Preamp or the RC Booster (AionFX Malacandra Boost). But I don't think I've turned the Equilux off since I built it.
I've been considering re-housing it in a nicer enclosure but I'd still need to jot down to labels, (yes, 9 knobs is too much for me to remember hahaha).
I'm also considering building the full size version and maybe have one of my smart friends do up a faceplate.
I don't have a real Pultec but I DO have 3 different versions of them as software plugins from UAD. I spent some time going back and forth between the pedal and the plugin versions and it's really close, shockingly close how Spaceman designed this.
I would go as far as to say that this or the full size one is a MUST BUILD. Doesn't matter if you're using it for guitar, or bass, keys, synth, drums, or vocals. This is a VERY handy pedal to have on hand.
Apologies for the overall fugliness of this build. But it SOUNDS killer.
