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Rocktek BER-01 Bass Equalizer |
Rocktek BER-01 Bass Equalizer
Rocktek BER-01 Bass Equalizer Review
Features:
Six bands of EQ control, at 80, 160, 320, 640, 1.3K, and 2.6K Hz, giving you +/- 10 db boost or cut each.
One output level control, +/- 10 db
¼” input & output jacks
Standard 9V power jack, or internal battery clip with easy access for battery change
Operation:
Very simple and straightforward graphic EQ with slider-pots; quite intuitive and easy.
Sound:
Very quiet and unobtrusive, no ‘tone suckage’ when bypassed. Very effective control over the timbre of your instrument.
Build Quality:
Plastic housing, but seemingly robust nonetheless. Metal base plate with anti-skid rubber bottom. Not for doing ‘riverdance’ routines on, but it looks like it would hold up under use, if one is careful not to abuse it.
Price:
MSRP $44.95. I think that’s a little high, considering that other manufacturers make good pedals with metal housings in that same price range. But I see these for sale online at much lower prices than the MSRP.
Rocktek BER-01 Bass Equalizer Impressions
The GOOD:
This device provides effective control over the timbre of your instrument, with very simple, intuitive operation. You want bottom-heavy, mid-scooped ‘thud’? You got it! If you want a tight, ‘spanky’ funk bass tone? It’s in there. If you simply need to make up for a deficiency in the tone of your amp or speakers or the room acoustics, you can do that as well, either very subtly or very dramatically.
The BAD:
The only thing I can see as a possible minus is the plastic housing
General Impressions and Possible Applications:
I’d like to have two or three of these Rocktek BER-01 Bass Equalizers on a pedalboard in my bass rig, especially if I were playing in a band that does lots of different musical styles. One could be dialed in for a heavy-bottomed Metal tone, one for a punchier Funk tone, or you could simply punch them both out of the loop for a more generic/normal tone that you’d have set up on the amp itself. Being primarily a fretless player, I tend (like most other fretless players) to like that punchy bridge-pickup tone on my fretless. So, I’d have one set up to fatten up the bottom just a bit to compensate for the bridge pickup’s slight lack in the low end. That way, I’d get the attack I like, and not sacrifice the down-low ‘grunt’ to get it.
One of my basses is just a bit too ‘midrangey’ for my taste (gotta swap out that pickup one of these days!), and this device lets me fix that by putting a little ‘dip’ in the middle frequencies and a little boost at top & bottom.
I’d like to see the lowest frequency band on the unit to be centered lower than 80 Hz, though, since even a four-string bass goes down to 40 Hz. I might suggest that the bands be spread out just a bit, maybe from 50 Hz up to about 4 KHz. But that might be too much of a spread for only six bands. Still, it’s quite effective as it is, and does a good job in either a mode of compensating for tonal deficiencies, or of deliberately accentuating certain frequencies for a particular sound. In general I like the Rocktek BER-01 Bass Equalizer.
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