The history of the Pultec EQ low end trick

[Music] hi my name is jonas everything in life needs a solid foundation and a music this means bass mixing low end is a bit of an r toe today i'm going to look at the history of one of the classic bass tricks that you really should know about it's called the pull tech low end trick first some history the original pulltech eq p1 program equalizer was built by a company called pulse techniques it was founded by eugene chang and oliver simmerlin it was in 1955 that they came up with the idea of an audio program equalizer that according to them would be superior to anything else available at the time a device like this was called a program equalizer because it was typically used to enhance and correct audio that came from several sources to make it consistent between several tracks before it was being broadcasted or pressed to vinyl it started being used quite a lot at the mgm studios in new york because at that time the demand for higher quality audio was rising so what exactly is this pull tech eqp1 [Music] it is what we call a no-loss passive equalizer of course because it was made in 1955 full of valves or tubes as some people like to say it's being a passive equalizer in this case means that the signal level remains the same no matter if the eq circuit is switched in or not and this is how some audio engineers have been and still are using this unit just running audio through it without eq'ing at all getting the coloration of the sound gotten from the valve amplifier circuit the eq section itself is a shelving eq with 4 selectable bands and there's a separate knob for boosting or attenuating this band and this is where it gets interesting in the manual we can find the following sentence do not attempt to boost and attenuate simultaneously on the low frequencies so of course that's exactly what engineers started doing because although in theory boosting and attenuating at the same time should cancel each other out in practice it actually does not this is apparently because the boost and cut frequencies aren't exactly the same and also the boost is a little bit stronger than the attenuation let's show you how this works using one of the many modern available pull tech clones i'll be using the tubetech for this demonstration so for this first demonstration i'm going to try to really show visually what happens so i'm going to use noise as a signal which should be more or less equal across the spectrum it's going to be like this now let's engage the pull tank i'm going to boost and attenuate at the same time at 30 hertz bypassed again enabling it as you can see there's a nice boost in the low end but there's a dip in the mid low while i'm actually just boosting and attenuating the same frequency so you would expect that everything was cancelled out completely but no as you can see there's a clear effect i'm going to disable it again the curve is more or less straight and enabling it and you clearly see this boost and cut now let's listen what effect it has on a simple 909 kick so this is without the pull tag and enabling it [Music] you should probably listen to this with headphones but then you can clearly hear because i'm going to bypass it again and enabling it [Music] you can clearly hear that there's a nice boost in the low end and a bit of a dip again in the mid low end giving this kick a very nice quality it becomes a little bit rounder and warmer it's not really louder or like too bassy it's a very interesting subtle thing and it really works magic on kicks and basses as you can hear without wit i can make the settings a bit more extreme let's boost it to 10. then without width i think for synthesizer kicks and samples it works very well with a pretty extreme boost in attenuation don't put it on 10 that's maybe a little bit too much but settings around five six or seven are perfectly acceptable for me it doesn't really sound extreme it sounds just very very nice and for the final demonstration let's hear what it can do with a full mix so i have this track here that is not mastered yet and not actually properly mixed yet and as you can hear the low end sounds pretty thin and not that interesting yet let's quickly listen to it now let's boost and attenuate at 30hz again and now let's disable it [Music] enable it again once again a very nice low boost and a bit of a scoop in the mid low which sounds just so nice of course there's more to the pull tag eq than just the bass part you also have the high frequencies so let's boost those a little bit because they are also very nice to give some air to a final mix or to hyatts or basically to anything that really needs a bit of sparkle in a very nice sounding way [Music] so we still have the low end trick enabled here now let's boost the high a little bit i'm going for 10k that's maximum a little bit too much but as you can hear so as you can hear there's actually a lot more to this pool tag eq than just the low end trick you most certainly have listened to countless records that utilize this trick for example the motown engineers used a lot and actually it never went away from professional studios in a modern context it's still very useful and relevant it is one of those techniques used to get that professional great sounding low end in basically any genre of music the original units are very expensive now being sold for 6 000 plus euros but luckily there are many hardware and software clones available of course this eq is not magically going to fix your mix but it is a very nice tool to give it that few extra percent make that kick and bass line a little bit juicier or make that master bust just sound that bit fatter and better and so far the first episode of a new series where i go a little bit more in depth with the history and technique behind classic gear i hope it was interesting to you if you want more like this don't forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel and if you want to be notified as soon as a new video goes online click the bell button see you next time [Music] bye you

Channel: Estuera

Views: 173,293

Keywords: pultec, eqp-1, EQP-1A, Pulse Techniques, Pultec Low end trick, Pultec kick, Pultec bass trick, Pultec history, Tubetech, Music production, Mastering, Mixing bass, How to mix bass, how to mix kick, how to use the pultec trick, what is the pultec trick, professional audio tools

Id: q6dErWsvvMU

Length: 8min 3sec (483 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 22 2021