Pultec EQP-1
This 1950s EQ is still one of the most in-demand processors around, so much so that you can find many (many) hardware and software emulations. But just why is the Pultec EQP-1 such a revered EQ? As it turns out, it’s all about not reading the manual…
The legendary passive EQ, Pultec EQP-1, is one of the most sought-after pieces of vintage hardware. Original units can easily fetch well into five figures – on the rare occasions that they come up for sale – and even many newer hardware versions can cost up to £5000. Fortunately, as we shall see, there are plenty of both hardware and software alternatives.
The EQP-1’s beauty lies in a combination of simple operation, its broad sweeps of frequency cutting and boosting, an ability to impart an almost indefinable presence on whatever signal you put through it, and the extraordinary character you get when you broadly disobey what you’re told by the manual!
The original EQP-1 was a ‘program’ EQ, so designed more for wide bandwidth mix EQ-ing, but it works as well on individual tracks. The sonic character comes from the unit’s original passive design – or indeed an upgrade to it. The original passive structure meant a loss in signal as the attenuation or boosting took place, so the later EQP-1A added a 16dB tube gain stage to make it lossless, and it’s this tube colour that gives the 1A a distinct sound, whether you use it as an EQ or not.
However, the EQP-1’s EQ character is something else too. On the face of it, the unit is a simple EQ, with low and high-frequency shelving EQs, frequency bands to select within each range, and dials to boost or attenuate these bands. While the unit has a bandwidth, or Q dial, however you boost or cut, you get a smooth, characterful result.
The most famous EQP-1A use, however, is ‘the Pultec low-end trick’ which we’ll detail later, where you go against advice in the manual and boost and cut the signal at the same frequency. Rather than these dual operations canceling one another out, a characterful sound emerges, great for any low-end sounds.