EarthQuaker Devices and high-end guitar amp specialist Dr Z have put their heads together on a tube-driven preamp pedal that might be the missing ingredient in your electric guitar tone, the analogue hifi quality that makes it more dynamic, touch-sensitive, more expensive sounding – and yes, just bigger.
“You’ll notice when you play it,” says Mike Zaite, aka the eponymous good Dr Z. “You hit this pedal on and your amp just becomes huge… It’s just this big, big sound,”.
The pedal, incidentally, is called the ZEQD-Pre, and although it was designed with guitar players in mind (EarthQuaker Devices supremo Jamie Stillman worries that many of today’s players have never experienced the joys of a tube amp) it will similarly add warm and colour to bass guitar, synthesizers, digital pianos, keyboards and microphones.
But it’s definitely something you might want to consider for your pedalboard, especially if you’ve got a digital rig. Stillman’s love for analogue gear is what inspired this, and while he is no digital naysayer he nonetheless is a passionate advocate for the old-school approach.
“It’s starting to bother me that there is a whole generation of kids that have never plugged a guitar into a tube amplifier in their life because they're expensive and they have a free one on their laptop,” says Stillman. “And I hope a pedal like this could be a turning point for players and make them realize that there is something special about analog technology that they’ve been missing. It just thickens up the signal in a way that just feels a little more organic to the player and familiar to the listener.”
This is not a pedal that should send you scampering for the manual. Stillman says the beauty in the design is its simplicity. The controls are much like a guitar amp. There is a passive 3-band EQ, with oversized Boost and Level dials, a footswitch to turn the pedal on and off, another to engage the boost. When you engage the boost, the 3-band EQ drops out of the signal and you have a full-range boost with its own level control.
On the side of the pedal you will find a 1/4” headphones output, a balanced XLR direct output, with ground lift. The ZEQD-Pre has an onboard cab simulator that you can turn off at the touch of a button, too, allowing players to send the signal straight through an IR of their choice, integrating it within a hybrid rig.
While it might be designed for sitting on the end of your signal chain, adding that tube flavour into your rig – and features an EF86 pentode, just like many Dr Z amps – that flavour can sauce up digital amp modeller’s tone just as it can your regular hardware guitar amp.
It won't be like some preamps, which are often deployed as overdrive pedals. Stillman says it isn't a tube amp in a pedal. It's all about flavour. Think of it like adding a Parmesan rind to your ragu or minestrone.
"Part of what makes the ZEQD-Pre interesting is its simplicity," says Stillman. “People shouldn’t get it thinking they’re going to be able to do all the stuff they can do when using a tube amp. They won’t be able to make it break up into a crunchy overdrive like a classic British tube amp for example, but they should get it knowing that it’s a really good HiFi clean platform to run pedals into.”
Check out how it sounds below.
“The digital modellers do a pretty good approximation of emulating an amp, but they always lack a certain depth and warmth,” continues Stillman. “So I was quick to embrace the idea of developing a product with Dr. Z that would reintroduce some tube-like sound into a signal chain–even when used in front of a modeling amplifier.”
As per all EQD pedals, the ZEQD-Pre is built by hand in Akron, OH. It is covered by a lifetime warranty, is true bypass, and it’s got that pentode in it so it’s a power-hungry sucker, too, requiring 9V DC and 500mA from a pedalboard power supply.
Priced £/$399, the ZEQD-Pre is available now. See EarthQuaker Devices for more details.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.