BOSS EQ-200 Routing Modes Explained | Deep Dive
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- Опубліковано 7 лип 2024
- The Boss EQ-200 isn't just your average graphic EQ pedal. Learn how to take full advantage of its routing modes in this deep dive.
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// Timestamps //
0:00 Intro
0:32 Factory settings
1:38 After the PreAmp: Parallel Structure, Link ON
2:40 After the PreAmp: Parallel Structure, Link OFF
5:08 Before the PreAmp: Series Structure, Link OFF
6:33 Separate Channel A/B Control
10:13 4 cable Method: Parallel Structure, Link OFF
Thank you for watching, and as always, if you have any questions, drop them in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer them in an upcoming video.
Gear and signal path used in this video:
Vintage V100THB w/ Seymour Duncan '59s
TC Electronic PolyTune 3 Mini
Boss EQ-200
Atomic AmpliFirebox w/ Celestion IRs
TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2 (reverbs)
Zoom H6
All audio recorded straight to the Zoom H6, using the amp + cab simulation of the Atomic AmpliFirebox.
#boss #eq200 #equalizer #pedal #Atomic #atomicamps #amplifirebox #guitarfx #guitarpedals #knowyourtone #vintageguitars #vintagetone #seymourduncan
![5 Ways To Use EQ Pedals | Too Afraid To Ask [Boss EQ-200]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rA17mta5kq4/mqdefault.jpg)
![5 Ways To Use EQ Pedals | Too Afraid To Ask [Boss EQ-200]](/img/tr.png)
Get yours from Thomann (Europe) or Guitar Center (USA): thmn.to/thoprod/468043?offid=1&affid=1010 (affiliate link)
That was a the best eq 200 demo ive ever seen. Your tone at the end was incredible
Thank you Enrique 🙏🏻
Agreed. I took note of the time code not knowing the vid was at the end just to prepare to share it. 13:45 or so and Giddyup I say.
Agreed, it sounded amazing at the end with he “4 cable” style setup
What a beautiful piece of technology. Gonna get me one soon. Out of all vids, I'll be using this one for reference
This is one of the best tutorials I've ever seen. Not just pedals, or music-related even, generally. You win UA-cam. Well done and thank you!
Thank you! 🙏🏻
Because of you I decided to take one for me. This pedal is amazing and I am always reviewing this video.
Excellent video - very useful information that I haven't seen in other videos of this pedal.
You're very welcome, and thank you for the kind comments!
BRAVISSIMO -best video on this gear - so far ... ;-) !
Thank you! 😁
That was VERY informative and clear 👌 thanks so much for making this!
Thank you for the kind words!
Best UA-cam tutorial on this pedal! Please make a follow up for this. More deep dives on the other menu options please!
Thank you 🙏🏻 I will put that on the list :)
Super helpful. Excellent demonstration sir.
Excellent, glad it was helpful, and thank you for the kind comments! If you haven't watched them yet, I have another two videos on the EQ-200 that you might find useful too, going over the menus and memory storage: ua-cam.com/play/PL5BNZiHiqkGKLamErdvAEENLgo4Iy6e_Z.html.
Fantastic tutorial video. I bought the pedal after watching this and subscribed immediately
Awesome, thank you and I hope you have fun with it! And in case you missed them, I have another 2 tutorials on the control sets :)
Excellent demo / Tutorial. Thanks.
Thank you! 🙏🏻
Very nice ...Got this beast today, and you helped a lot in the understanding of this crazy thing. Thank you ;)
Awesome, great to know that! 🙏🏻
teaching with examples, not just words, you leet the food on the table for us , thanks.
You're very welcome! 🙏🏻
very informative detailed and straightforward. I like the video and thank you for sharing.
Thank you! 🙏🏻
Fantastic. I have the Boss EQ 7, but this pedal has been on my radar. I’m quite a noob in terms of dialing in tone, and I was really impressed with this demo
Thank you, glad you liked it!
Ordered one from Japan, the 5th of this month it arrived less than 5 days later! Had a FS-7 a week later. Your videos and The Scottish Terror at CS Guitars, has help greatly, immensely, in getting to know this piece of equipment.. Thanks!
You're most welcome! Yeah, Colin's videos are awesome to see what the EQ-200 can do. I mostly cover the "how-to" parts. 🤣
Very informative. I think I may finally upgrade from the Boss GE-7 I've been lovin for the last 20 years.
The GE-7 is still a great pedal - this one "just" adds 3 more bands, another channel, and a bucketload of flexibility 😄
Thanks mate. Very helpful.
You're very welcome, I'm glad it was helpful! 🙏🏻
Dammit. I thought I had enough gear already! Thanks for another great demo. 👍
I don't understand the concept of "enough gear already"?... 🤔 🤣 Thank you for your kind words 🙏🏻😄
very clear !
Brilliant. That last mode would allow you to have a boost pre drive pedals to boost their drive, and post drive as a volume boost for solos, each with tuneable EQ. Could add a hump around 1k or whatever sounds good with your drive pedals pre, and take some high end and bass off post boost to avoid slicing the audience’s heads off when you hit it.
Yep. Lots of possibilities there, and all midi controlled if desired. Oh, and I didn't even mention it has an expression pedal input for volume control, either independent or global... 😁
@@PedalPlatform Are you able to save/load from the presets into separately to the A and B? Or would you need to set them every time for this setup?
Both channels A and B are always saved as one preset, so yeah you always need to set both channels for every preset you want to create, even if you want to keep one of the channels the same.
@@PedalPlatform amazing!! As long as I can still save/load separate EQ for the A/B still very nice
It would be cool if the preemphasis and corresponding proportional deemphasis of each band were afforded by an optional "inverse link" mode.
Really realky hepful, you saved me👌👌👌👌
I love this thing, it works so well with my wet dry wet set up. I am running this on the stereo channels and the eq from Hell parametric eq on the dry channel.
Thanks for this video, the best I've found on eq-200. This really opens many doors :-)
Thank you for the kind comments, I'm really happy you found it useful!
Thank you so much. I was trying to figure out how to use this before and in the amp fx loop. It didnt let me change the on/off and Memory switches to Channels A and B respectively in Parallel mode. It needed to be in series mode first to make the changes then switch to parallel mode and it works. Cheers!
Glad it helped! 🙏🏻
Can you use two different frequency settings (the EQ200 has 3 different ranges) on the A and B channels and use the series, unlinked setting? Then can you have A+B on at the same time ("in series") effectively having 20 bands of eq?
Great demo! Question.. can you save presets for pre amp and post at the same time? Like can I go from preset 1 and have it do something to both channels a and b and then switch to preset 3 and it will also have saved eq settings for both?
Thank you 🙏🏻 And yes, presets will save both channels at the same time, and a couple of other settings related to the switching modes (for more on that: ua-cam.com/video/auh3bULvhBg/v-deo.html).
Great overview. One thing I can't seem to figure out is whether you can have a stereo unlinked input (Input A & Input B), but have them come out mono (Output A). Do you know if this is possible? It would effectively be the reverse of the mono-in stereo-out functionality that you mention.
Wonderful tutorial. I'll probably be watching again. Been really thinking about an EQ pedal. I've grown annoyed with some of the harsh brittle ice pick tones on my vox ac10. When using bridge pickup, my tone knob is about as low as I can go (3) without sounding completely muddy and still things are too harsh. I'm hoping an EQ pedal would help.
Separate channel A/B control.
Does channel A go into channel B?
I want eq on one button going into (pre) clean boost without eq.
Is channel A pre Channel B?
Awesome video, man.
I have a question.
When using channels A and B independently (parallel, link off), can I set the pedal to call up presets in which ChanA has a fixed eq setting while ChanB is always manual mode?
I'm seeking to use Channel A as an EQ for specific gain pedals and Channel B as an end-of-chain general EQ which I'll tweek at every gig (and be able to change during a gig, with the faders).
That would be a really good idea, but unfortunately it's not possible with the current implementation, as both channels are always saved to / loaded from memory simultaneously. And yet it would make so much sense... the code base is probably already there, as you can save some other parameters per memory or make them global, so this would just be icing on an already great cake.
Two great videos on the EQ-200, so nice to see someone go through the deeper stuff. I wish you'd have done one for the OD-200. Two questions: when you have it setup in 4 cable, parallel mode and the footswitches are controlling A & B, how do you change memories then? Something else I was thinking of, I have an EV-5 pedal into the EQ-200 for volume control, what would stop me from splitting the FS jack and running it into the OD-200 too? That way you can use it for two expressions instead of one, thoughts?
Thank you for the kind words, Dave. I do have an OD-200 waiting in the wings for its own video, so hopefully at some point soon I can get to it.
To change memories when the switches are in channel mode, you can either use an external footswitch (which you can't do because of the expression pedal), or via midi control. I love the Hotone Ampero control for this, it's relatively small and extremely versatile and the price isn't too bad.
As for splitting the expression pedal, I'm not sure that work, and there's a chance it might even damage the pedals... in my opinion that's another perfect use for midi control: plug the expression pedal into a midi controller, set it up to control both the EQ-200 and the OD-200, and that's a few problems solved.
... and yes, I have another midi video in production right now, hopefully that'll come out soon.
@@PedalPlatform Thanks for the quick reply. Many make videos showing the obvious, but never going past it like you do. I'm a bedroom player and I've never understood Midi, but that's alright. I'm one of those guys that thinks outside the box so do I think the expression pedal can control both, yes, but I'm not going to risk it. I can see getting the BS-7 controller for the EQ. Anyways, push that OD-200 up on your list! 😁
So, did I understand you correctly? Could you use this to have one preset that goes ONLY out of channel A, and another preset with a signal going ONLY out of channel B?
The reason I ask is I have a two channel amp I love from 1974. Clearly no MIDI back then, but with this, I could select one preset that causes the signal to one channel of my amp and another preset to route the signal to the other channel on the amp, is that correct?
Hi Joe, unfortunately that's not the case... signal always comes out of both channels A and B, but with the possibility of having different EQ curves on each. But if you wanted to use one of these to have different EQ curves for each channel of your amp, you could split the signal before it with an A/B box, then plug output A of the box into Input A of the EQ, and output A of the EQ into channel 1 of the amp, then do the same for output B -> EQ B -> channel 2, and use the AB box to do the channel switching while keeping both EQ channels independent.
Thanks for amazing demo ! Do I understand correctly? Can I control level for each channel independently In parallel mode with link off ?
Yes, correct! 😁 Thank you for the kind words too! 🙏🏻
Does anyone know if I can copy a setting and move it to another location? Ta
You can, by writing it to a different memory slot (you can choose during the write process).
excellent video sir !! i do have 1 question. i use 3 overdrive pedals, in which each is ran through individual loops on my voodoo lab px-8 plus. i currently have my eq 200 after the overdrives, also in a loop. my question pertains to the separate A and B channel control section. i would love to use the 4 cable method, but with the px-8, i dont think i can do the wiring configuration needed. can i run each channel into separate loops on the px-8? one before the overdrives and one after? thanks
Thank you! 🙏🏻 And yes, you can - both channels can operate independently, so you can absolutely do that: channel A in / out into one of the loops, B in/out into another loop, set structure to parallel, link off, and you should be good to go. 😁
@@PedalPlatform thanks alot, genius i tell you 😁🤘🤘
@@PedalPlatform after sending you the first comment, i realized i could do the 4 cable method simply by just taking the eq200 out of the px-8 loop. Is there any difference between 4 cable and using 2 separate loops for A and B? Thanks again
From a practical point of view, it depends on where you want the EQ in the signal chain. If you want channel A to be the first in the chain, you can plug the guitar straight into it, then the output into the PX-8 input, then do the loops from there; likewise, if channel B is to be the last in the chain, it can be placed after the PX-8 output. If you want either or both channels between other pedals, then you'll have to put them in loops.
From a tonal point of view, it'll depend on how you use it: do you keep channel A always on? If not, do you mind it being in the signal chain, as it's not true bypass (and I believe it's not analog dry-through, i.e. it always converts your signal to digital and back, even in bypass)? There's no right or wrong answer to this last question: the Boss converters are excellent, and latency truly minimal, but if it's something you'd rather not have in the chain unless in use, then in the loop it goes. 😉 Hope this helped!
Helpful walk-through - thanks! But I‘m a bit confused about which mode I‘d want to use for the following job: 2 acoustic guitar signals of approximately the same level (with only one guitar being played at a time) coming into Input A (off of a dual preamp‘s Effect Out jack), each needing individual EQ settings before hitting a common chorus and a common reverb pedal (maybe even a delay pedal in between Chorus and Reverb). So if the Boss has 4 presets, would it be best to just use 2 presets, one for each guitar, with the preamp coming into Input A and going out of Output B and onto the various effects? That would leave me with 2 additional presets, possibly for use with further guitars (in special tunings), or a mandolin or whatever. Or does it make more sense to switch to Serial or Parallel modes as you demonstrated, such that the left and right buttons give me Guitar 1 and Guitar 2, and presumably then only taking up a single preset? If that is the case, then I‘d have 3 presets free for other instruments or even certain songs calling for one-off EQ settings (like a mid boost and high/low cut for a more electric-guitar-like tone). Just trying to get my feeble brain wrapped around the possibilities. My pedal will be arriving in a couple of days, so time enough to get sorted beforehand. :-)
Hi, ScottB - this is 3 years on from your query about using the EQ200 with different acoustic instruments, but this is exactly the scenario I’m working on right now, so I was hoping you might be willing to share how you resolved this.
I’m building a “simple” board as part of an acoustic duet, with me using electro-acoustic 6- & 12- strings, a Weissenborn and a Uke bass running into an EQ200 for more flexible pre-amp duties and subtle tone shaping, then into a Plethora X5 for all effects. I also have a Morley ABY which allows 2-in/1-out & simplifies swapping between two instruments.
So, as I said, I’m really interested in how you developed your solution. Thanks very much!
@@MuseumsBloke Interesting setup you‘re got going, there! Sounds like you‘ve got all the bases covered. As for the EQ200, I bought it back then and immediately returned it. It altered my tone even when switched off, just by its presence in the chain. Not OK, and something I‘ve found a huge array of (mostly digital) pedals do. They tend to flatten the sound of an acoustic, emphasizing more the mids and losing valuable upper and lower harmonics (airiness and woody warmth). My solution at the time was to use 2 (!) MXR 10-band (analogue) EQs, which are excellent. There‘s a nearly identical one made by Joyo, and it‘s quite a bit cheaper and runs on 9V rather than the 18V needed by the MXR. But nowadays I‘m downsizing my acoustic/electric pedalboard by using only a The Drop (occasionally) plus a Katana Go plugged into that for my electric guitar, and various other effects for my acoustic. As such, my EQ pedal is dedicated entirely to the acoustic, so easy to manage. And to make things even easier to dial in, I recently replaced my MXR 10-band with the new Ibanez Pentatone EQ, which gives you 5 (!) parametric bands to work with. This is far more flexible than using fixed bands, as long as you know what you‘re doing and don‘t screw the sound up more than you fix it. ;-) The Pentatone is analogue, and doesn‘t color my sound except in the ways I want it. :-)) For me, I‘ll never try another digital EQ pedal again - at least not for acoustic. I‘ve tried several, and they always disappoint, despite many players praising them like crazy. Those players either have far different (worse?) hearing than I do, or else they never bothered to listen to how their EQ pedals affect their sound on bypass compared with being removed from the chain.
@@scottbecker3485 … thank you so much for your extensive reply to my query. Fascinating to hear about your real world solution and the steps / kit you’ve tried to get you to where you currently are.
I appreciate your comments about the EQ200 and its sonic impact on the tone, even when switched off. Not something I’ve heard mentioned before, let alone in connection with acoustic instruments. Timing being what it is, I’ve literally just bought a used EQ200 - haven’t got around to checking out it yet but I will certainly listen carefully for that tonal change. Thanks again for taking the time to reply, and best wishes for your continuing sonic journey. Cheers!
@@MuseumsBloke The pleasure is all mine, kind soul. Please do share your experience with the EQ200 when you get around to it. Curious to see if you agree with my impression of it or not. At any rate, I hope it does what you need it to do.
Please help: I have a specific issue. I use both electric and acoustic, and hope I can run them both through the unit. Right now, with electric, I go in through A and out through A. Thats great, but I would like to use the same cable with my acoustic, so go in through A but out through B. Guess the question is really if I can split the signal? I amagine that I can use one of the channels for my acoustic, (out through B) but need the out A to be muted. Is that possible? Sorry for my confused question :-)
Hi! I'm actually about to post another video about the EQ-200 that might be interesting to you, but I'm afraid the short answer to your question is no... but you would be able to use an A/B box before it, plug your guitar cable into the A/B box input, then A output to EQ-200 A in, B to B, and whenever you swap out guitar, tap the A/B box to switch lines. Of course this only works if you're also going out to different amps. Hope it helps!
@@PedalPlatform thanks a lot. Dammit 😀 Would have been nice if it worked. Yes, will have to go A/B box…
The manual for this pedal is not good at all. There are a lot of routing options to get into and figure out but one thing that I cant find for sure is accessing the memory. I can save manual presets in the memory bank up to 127 spots I think. But I cant access them. When I click through the MEMORY button I can only access MANUAL,1,2,3,4 then it goes back to MANUAL. How do I access these?
Also, does a preset save the routing, link, channels A and B, and pedal switch functions? Or are those all global? Assume memory 1-4 are standard stereo, can 5 be unlinked, A and B presets? And then will it save the function of the switches?
Hi! I've just done a video about all of this, I'll try to publish asap, but in short:
- to access presets above M-4, go to the menu, find the EXT TO parameter and change from M-4 up to the number you'd like to have scrolling access to. In the same manner, you can limit the lower preset range with the EXT FROM parameter. E.g, FROM M-4 to M-8 will only give you scrolling access to memories M-4 to M-8, then roll around to M-4 again;
- you can program any of the switches to have direct access to any preset, just pick the number from their respective options;
- the switching functions can be saved per memory by activating the MEM option for the respective switch in the SW PREF, MEM PREF, etc. Unfortunately neither the routing options nor the frequency bands are saved per memory, they are always system wide.
Hope this helps, and keep an eye out for the video where I hope I make this a bit clearer! 🙂
@@PedalPlatform Thanks for the response. Simple pedal but you can really dig into some features.
Have you seen the OD-200 manual? Just burn it, pure junk, I would love to see Filipe do an in depth on it. Yeah I'm late to the party but it's still popular as can be.
Very informative video, thank you. The EQ-200 is so versatile... but also oh-so complicated to understand - BOSS needs to employ you to do a series of lessons so that players can get the most from theirs! On my board, I've got mine wired similarly like you had at the end, to give me the choice of EQ before the pre-amp (A) and after (B, going via my amp's FX loop). But I'm not sure if I've set it up correctly because I've tried to set it up this way using the four memories - M1 and M2 giving adjustment in the A channel, and M3 and M4 giving adjustment in the B channel. What's slightly annoying with the unit though - and this showed up in your video - is that the LCD can show one graph when, in fact, you're playing a completely different EQ setting. I also get a bit confused with MAN vs A and B.
Hi Nigel, thank you for the lovely comment. As for your setup questions, I'll try to answer them in more detail in a short video, as it's easier than trying to explain here... in the meantime check this one out, in case there's anything useful for you: ua-cam.com/video/auh3bULvhBg/v-deo.html
@@PedalPlatform Hi... and, yes, I had watched this other video of yours on the EQ-200 (also many times); they are both extremely helpful and by far the most informative resource on YT. What I've never been able to get answered - by BOSS resellers and, even, BOSS technical help! - is in my A/B set-up (where A is in front of pre-amp, and B is after), I don't get what's going on when the 'channel' setting is set to 'manual' (ie neither A or B LEDs are on). I use the FS-7 switch to cycle up/down through the four memories and the 'MAN'. What I also don't get is when 'MAN' is selected (ie not M1 through M4), the LCD display shows whatever is saved in the unit's memory, rather than what the sliders are physically set to. In short, the 'MAN' and 'no channel manual' settings are the source of my confusion!
Cool, I'll try to answer that in video asap! 🙏🏻
@@PedalPlatform Well I'm late to the whole topic but seemingly right on time for that specific question (channel --> no LED on --> "manual") so any info on this is much appreciated! (Also this video is the best explanation I've found regarding the main setups - helped me a lot! cheers!)
Working on it as we speak! 🙏🏻
Band eq 's match with talks microphone 's , from bird sound 's , to many other animals called
I don’t understand why a user would want to use the unlinked in series setting. This gives you two EQs in line, correct? Wouldn’t the net effect be the same as one EQ?
That's the explanation I go to after 7:30, in a sort of rambling way... if you assign both footswitches to control channels A and B independently, you get 2 separate EQs in line, with independent control - so you can use one to cut mids / level for a cleaner sound, or the other one to boost mids / level for a lead sound, etc. If you keep the global control of both channels with one switch then yes, it's a moot point - but if you split the control, you get twice the flexibility 😉
@@PedalPlatform couldn’t you achieve the same thing by assigning one single EQ setting to memory 1 and another EQ setting to memory 2?
Yup, different ways of achieving the same sound. But while with A/B control you can simply switch between them, if you only use the built-in memory switch, depending on how many memories you need to use, you might need to toggle all the way around to go back to the first one. On the other hand, if you use A/B, you need an external switch (or MIDI) to change memories. It's all in how you'd like to use it.
@@PedalPlatform makes sense. One click instead of 4 is a good thing 👍
@@PedalPlatform I now realize I should have dug deeper into the comments before asking my question further up, for you sort of answer (part of) it right here. :-) So re-setting the left and right switches for A and B would give me a convenience factor. Still not clear, though, whether that set-up takes up only one preset, or rather two. My guess is only one, since A and B can otherwise also run together. On the other hand, saving a preset this way kind of gets torpedoed when you have to kneel down and push buttons to access and further presets (for the memory function normally assigned to the right switch would no longer be directly available.) So how much of a pain would it be to have the A + B switch layout and then go to a different preset (i.e. for a 3rd guitar or other instrument)?
how may mA to power this beast?
170 mA. It's not as much as expected, to the point that you can run it on 3x AA batteries 😆
@@PedalPlatform oh! Not that much .... My estimation no accurate, I thought about 225 plus mA , Thank u man
You're welcome!
I like the heaps of talking cause I wanna hear all the details, all the Nitty gritty about how it works
Heaps of talking: that I can do! 😆
User interface worst I have ever experienced; i believe it was designed by a surviving Nazi war criminal. Powerful pedal destroyed by inanne UI. Returned mine.
Oh, I have seen worse 🤣 I decided that the features made up for the learning curve, so I'm keeping mine. Did you swap for another EQ pedal?
@@PedalPlatform I unfortunately seem to be stuck with the Boss as its real sliders give it the edge over the EQ2, but why Boss treats the 200 series like a bastard child (no support online/manual and no editing software). But I agree that its powerful enough to keep trying. I have a host of questions which I believe are confusing not only me, if you'd like I can give you a run down. Or you could create your own user manual PDF, I would buy it !
There is already a manual for the EQ-200: www.boss.info/uk/support/by_product/eq-200/owners_manuals/ 😉 That said, Boss manuals aren't always the easiest to understands, so please, shoot me your questions and I'll do my best to answer!
Why are people praising this a good review? It was scatterbrained garbage!
Maybe because it wasn't a review, it's an explanation on how to use one of the most powerful features in the EQ-200 that the manual glosses over.
Either way, thank you for taking the time to comment, and I can't wait to see your perfectly organized video review!
Lol silly goose, i followed this “review” lol perfectly and also found it very helpful.
I guess I can't please everybody! 🤣 Thank you Ronda! 🙏🏻