Artec Parametric EQ

I have been trying to set up my looper to play backing tracks through a Mackie SRM 350 pa speaker to get enough volume to practice my sax. The volume is fine but the speaker is ridiculously bass heavy and unusable at home.

I have tried taming the bass with a small Behringer mixer which helps a bit, but it's not hitting the right frequencies and it's a cumbersome solution. I had thought about a graphic eq pedal but had doubts that it would be effective because of my experiences with the Behringer. Then I discovered the Artec Parametric EQ and decided to take a risk with it because of its potential ability to target the frequencies I want to control.

It works! It does exactly what I need and is very effective. It's very simple to operate - you can set a boost or cut and then turn the frequency knob until you hit the offending frequency. Then you can alter the Q setting to adjust the range of frequencies you want to modify.

The build quality is good, at least for what I need. I do agree with other reviewers that having tiny frequency and q control knobs with an even tinier black on black centre point marker is a very poor design. It was ok at home where I could hold it up to a bright light to see, but using it live to adjust the tone would be a challenge to say the least.

The sound quality is good and I didn't detect any noise or impairment of the signal going to the speaker. It works well with the supplied battery it is a much tidier solution than a mixer with an external power supply. I don't know what the battery life is yet.

So, in summary, for my very specific requirement it is an excellent solution and the Artec is a fraction of the price of other parametric eq pedals.

As a single band parametric EQ, it does the job perfectly in order to adjust your guitar tone before the preamp or tweak a bit your preamp sound if you place it in the effects loop. You know, remove muddiness, tweak brightness, add mids, adjust tone when changing from dual to single coil...

But I've ended up using it as a booster as it really nails it. Because of the 4 controls (level, frequency, freq. curve and gain), you can use it as a plain booster (just volume) or a custom booster that can add extra brightness, mid-boost or even a lower frequencies push when soloing without increasing the overall volume too much.

I bought this pedal with the intention of getting more out of my single channel Hayden Mofo 30 amp. I've started gigging more and found it fiddly rolling off the pickup volume on the fly. I was looking for something that had a gain & level control, but was also able to shape a different sound. This pedal works perfectly as it does all those things whilst being transparent. Now instead of rolling off the volume pot, I am able to drop the input gain to the amp, getting a clean sound, but also maintaining the volume. The build quality and packaging are top notch. Couldn't rate highly enough!

If you are here you'll probabily know what we are talking about. This is one little precious piece of equipment, a parametric equalizer in pedal form is definitely not that common these days, and definitely not at this price! Parametric equalizers let you sculpt your tone in a much more musical way than graphic equalizers, which boost or cut specific bands with a very narrow spectrum for each, so that your tone will be typically affected with strange noises. Try and you'll see/hear, especially in recordings. This parametric example, instead, lets you choose very precisely the one frequency you want to cut or boost, with a useful width little knob: this one lets you set how many frequencies around that one that you chose as the central one, you want to be boosted or cut, too