Wampler EQuator review

The 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.