Wampler EQuator

120
GUITARIST AUGUST 2018
T
he thought of adding an equaliser pedal to
your board might not get the pulse racing
like, say, a Germanium fuzz pedal or the
latest multi-faceted delay, but a well-sorted EQ can
work wonders on your tone and give you plenty of
options whether you want to enhance the sound
of your pickups, alter the tonal range of your amp/
speaker set up or add an extra voice to a favourite
drive pedal. The EQuator gives you active four-
band EQ with Bass and Treble boosts/cuts at a
fixed frequency and two semi-parametric mid
bands, all passing through a volume knob allowing
you to deliver the EQ louder or softer.
Wampler has voiced this pedal with just the right
frequency adjustments for guitar – immediately
apparent with the Bass knob that offers 19dB of
cut or boost at 130Hz, a frequency that typifies
the low end thump of a 4x12 cab. If your amp has
smaller speakers and you want some of the flavour
of a bigger cabinet you can dial in a boost but, by
contrast, if you want to tighten up your cabinet’s
response a cut will get you there.
The Treble knob is similarly practical. Operating
at 7kHz, it’s at the upper limit of what you’d be
getting out of a speaker cab and is there to enhance
that glassiness or chime or reduce it for a
mellower top end.
The two semi-parametric mid bands have
loads of power for effective tonal shaping over
a wide frequency range and complement each
other well. One has a narrower bandwidth (Q),
and the potential for more dramatic amounts of
cut/boosts, than the other, which offers broader
and shallower contours. With easy midrange
tweaks you can emulate a cocked wah, scoop out
frequencies for a Fender Blackface vibe or deliver
a Tubescreamer’s signature hump (easily found
by the 723Hz marker on the pedal). With a low
setting of the volume knob, some mids taken out
and the other knobs set to taste, you can even kick
the pedal in to clean up a driven amp.
VERDICT
Utilitarian it may be, but there aren’t many more
versatile pedals if you have the ’board space.
E Quator
Named after the mid-point of the planet, this EQ
could be the high-point of your pedalboard!
Words Trevor Curwen Photography Olly Curtis
Tech Spec
ORIGIN: USA
TYPE: Parametric EQ
pedal
FEATURES: True bypass,
+/-19dB at 130Hz,
+/-19dB at 7kHz,
+/-15dB at 238hz-5kHz,
+/-25dB at
480Hz-4.8kHz,
CONTROLS: Bass, Mids
1 Level, Mids 2 Level,
Treble, Volume, Mids 1
Frequency, Mids 2
Frequency, bypass
footswitch
CONNECTIONS:
Standard input, standard
output
POWER: 9V battery or
9V-18V DC adaptor
(not supplied)
DIMENSIONS: 63 (w) x
114 (d) x 38mm (h)
9
MANUFACTURER
WAMPLER
MODEL
EQUATOR
CONTACT
WWW.WAMPLERPEDALS.COM / 01626 853019
PRICE
£195
PEDALBOARD
PROS: Well-chosen parameters for the EQ bands,
volume knob to set appropriate output levels
CONS: No detents or markings on the pedal surface
to help line up the knobs for zero cut/boost
WAMPLER
GIT435.peds_wampler.indd 120 14/06/2018 18:29