4k / 6k / 8k EQ types

[amillar]

Hi,

I've just posted this as a reply in another thread, but since it's a common source of confusion I thought I'd give it its own thread where people might be able to find it!

In case it helps, here's a full list of 4000/6000/8000 EQs:

• 02 - Colin Sanders' original and main E series EQ, what you got if you didn't ask for anything else.
• 132 - John East's "Pultec" EQ, designed to work like, surprisingly enough, a Pultec: "constant Q" as you turn the gain up and down, very few desks were made with these.
• 242 - Trevor Stride's "tweak" to the 02 EQ, very subtly different, introduced in about 1984 so only just before the G. Although only supplied as a special it was very popular, so a lot of late E series and G series got fitted with this.
• 292 - the G series EQ, as I say we designed to sound similar to a Focusright, very powerful, too much so in some cases - very hard to get fractions of a dB boost! Interesting shape to LF and HF: where all the others had 'bell' and 'shelf' shapes the 292 is sort of inbetween, basically a shelf but (if you're boosting for example) with a bit of extra boost before it starts rolling off and an extra bit of cut after the roll off. Nice on bass guitar, IMHO! (Paul Frindle designed the mid bands on this one and I designed the HF and LF.)

If someone could add the knob colours to this list that would be brilliant! I can't remember them.

I think my 'ideal' SSL EQ would be G series (292) HF and LF and E series (02) midrange - but switchable to G series when you need it. You can sort of tell this in the way I designed the 9000J series EQ section, although for some reason (I can't remember why) I didn't make the E/G switching quite as flexible as I would have liked - I expect it was explained to me that not everyone is as much of an EQ nerd as I am!

Cheers,
Andy Millar

4000/6000 analogue design "caretaker" 1985-1993
G series project manager and analogue co-designer 1987-88
ARC (what?!) analogue project manager 1988-1992
9000 channel strip designer 1992-1993

[walrus]

02 - Brown
132 - Orange
242 - Black
292 - Pink

[amillar]

Hi, thanks for that, I didn't remember 292 being pink (it certainly wasn't originally but maybe we changed it), it was all a very long time ago now...

[walrus]

Another thing to bear in mind when swapping EQ cards, is that one of the "benefits" of the later E/G channels fitted with the 242 EQ is that the Filter pots had a switch so that when off, the filter circuitry was completely bypassed.
Putting the 242 into an original 02 brown E channel won't have these switches, so you won't get a proper 242 experience!   

[Clip6]

Glad to see you here Andy.

Feel free to share any stories about your time at SSL.

We'ed love to hear more from you.

 

[amillar]

Another thing to bear in mind when swapping EQ cards, is that one of the "benefits" of the later E/G channels fitted with the 242 EQ is that the Filter pots had a switch so that when off, the filter circuitry was completely bypassed.
Putting the 242 into an original 02 brown E channel won't have these switches, so you won't get a proper 242 experience!   

So they did! Gosh, I am getting old and forgetful Also the 02 LF filter was (IIRC) 12db / 8ve whereas all the others were 18dB / 8ve, I think again if you put these into an 02 channel strip with two gang pots on the LF you'd just find you get a 12dB / 8ve LF. 

 
 

Glad to see you here Andy.
Feel free to share any stories about your time at SSL.
We'ed love to hear more from you.
 

Careful what you wish for...you have no idea how long I can go about this stuff! Actually, I've just realised that this year is the 30th anniversary of us starting work on the G series (Monday 16th February 1987 to be precise *), perhaps that is an excuse to write the story...

Cheers, Andy

(* and if you're wondering how I can remember that, it could be something to do with the fact that on Friday 20th Feb 1987 I first went out with the girl I went on to marry - it was rather an eventful week!)

[amillar]

Hi Kevin,

For extra bonus points, do you know what the /3 switch on the LMF band on the G series EQ does? Yup, it shifts the frequency by a factor of 4! I love to be able to say there's a sonic reason for this (and oddly enough it does seem to 'feel' right), but actually I messed up the - very, very simple - calculation of the capacitor values and we didn't notice until it was in production! I'd love to know if the software emulations perpetuate my foul-up...

Cheers,

Andy

[walrus]

No, i didn't know that! Thats a classic that is. 

[Clip6]

  Love it. Yea /3 on 292 gets you your LF bell on the 242.

[Clip6]

Andy so I have 292's and one 242 in my console. What Q setting on blue
green eq sections of 292 equals the bell Q on the 242? Still waiting on the Dire Straits story. Thanks

Could you also talk about what things you wanted to change from the 242 when you designed the 292.

How hard would it be to have my fast attack comp setting be 1ms versus 3ms when I choose fast attack setting?

[amillar]

Hi,

242 bell on 292 is a tricky one - I don't know for sure what the bell Q on the 242 is (I probably knew in 1985!), I would start with the Q on the 292 as low as possible and see what it sounds like. I think it should be possible to get reasonably close, our idea was that you could use the mid bands as bell.

When designing the 292 we didn't look at the 242 at all, the idea at the start was that customers could choose either. Rest of the story will follow, honest, I'll need a break from writing Christmas cards soon

Try soldering a 100R resistor across R19 on the '10 card - I can't guarantee how much it will speed up the attack but it should be a bit faster. I wouldn't go any lower than that as you'll probably stress the op-amp.

Cheers,

Andy

[Clip6]

Thanks Andy.

[Waterstudio]

Has anybody used Maselec 9001 eq? My SSL 4000E has 8 of those. What do you think about them? Maybe they are quite rare? Well, I personally like them.

[Clip6]

I think Funky Junk has alot of Masalec eq cards for some reason.

[Clip6]

Good article from Studio Sound 1991.