Boss GE-7
A must-have on any pedalboard.
£109 at thomann.de | £99 at guitarguitar.co.uk
The Boss GE-7 is a simple equaliser pedal with seven bands of EQ spanning from 100Hz to 6.4kHz. It allows for precise shaping of your tone, whether you need to boost your lows for a fat and punchy rhythm section, cut the mids for a scooped sound, or add some sparkle to your highs. The pedal's versatility makes it an excellent tool for any guitarist looking to take control of their tone.
One of the great things about any EQ pedal is the ability to cut through a mix without increasing overall volume. You can also lower the volume of certain frequencies to create space for other instruments. This is crucial when playing live, where you can’t equalise each track afterwards. The GE-7 can be used as a boost for solos or to improve the equalisation of other pedals in your signal chain. Placed right after an otherwise excellent overdrive pedal, the GE-7 can fine-tune its sound. Many professional guitarists will utilise multiple EQ pedals on their board for this reason.
If you're someone who plays through different amps, the GE-7 allows you to adjust your sound at the end without having to completely change the rest of your pedal settings. You can also place the GE-7 in the effects loop of an amplifier to give finer control over its tone. This is especially useful for single-tone control amplifiers that do not offer dedicated bass, mid, and treble controls. If you use two different guitars during a set with the same pedal board, you can put the GE-7 at the start to equalise their output levels.
The GE-7 offers up to a 15dB cut/boost per band. However, boosting any frequencies or the overall volume by over 5dB will start producing a significant amount of hum. This is not too big of an issue because boosting a single frequency by even 3dB will produce a very pronounced change in your tone. You generally wouldn't want to go above that threshold anyway. The 10dB of wasted range makes it difficult to fine-tune the already compact pedal. Cutting the frequencies by the maximum 15dB sounds completely fine and can be quite useful if you want to tame a particularly sharp-sounding single-coil pickup. If you want specific frequencies to stand out more without additional noise, consider lowering the less desired bands in addition to slightly boosting the right ones.
In terms of build quality, the GE-7 is sturdy and reliable. The EQ and level controls snap firmly into place when you reach the middle, ensuring that your settings stay where you want them. The pedal could have been designed better though. The higher gain settings are somewhat useless due to the high noise and were not necessary in the first place. It would have been a better product if Boss capped the maximum boost at +10dB or even +5dB to give the knobs a narrower range.
Bottom Line
The Boss GE-7 is well-priced and incredibly versatile. The only downside is that the higher gain settings can be quite noisy, but this is not a significant issue as boosting a single frequency by even 3dB will produce a very pronounced change in tone.