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Message: [QUOTE="Queen, post: 90548, member: 27"] SSL's 242 black knob EQ arrived in 1983, offering 18 dB of boost or cut, three more than the brown knob module it replaced. It also brought a steeper high-pass filter at 18 dB per octave, which is why so much eighties drum recording sounds tight rather than woolly. The 4000 G that followed did not tweak that circuit. It replaced it with the 292, a fresh design with a different idea about how an equalizer should behave when you turn it. Modern SSL channels put both behaviors in one four-band section with a switch. Most people flip it, decide one sounds nicer, and never work out what moved. What moved is [B]the way bandwidth tracks the gain knob[/B], and that single difference explains almost everything else you hear. [HEADING=2]Constant Q keeps the same shape at every setting[/HEADING] The 242 uses a constant Q design. Boost 2 dB or boost 12, and the width of the curve stays where you set it. The band only gets taller or deeper. That predictability is why the E character suits problem solving. You find the offending frequency, you take out what you need, and the surrounding material stays roughly untouched. A narrow cut stays narrow at any depth, so a small correction really is small. It also explains why E boosts feel more forward. A tight boost at four or five kilohertz lifts a specific slice rather than a whole region, and it reads as presence, detail, edge. Push it, and it becomes harsh in a hurry, which is a fair trade for control. [HEADING=2]Variable Q makes gentle moves broad and hard moves surgical[/HEADING] The 292 works the other way. Its Q is proportional, so a small boost or cut produces a wide, soft curve, and the more you push, the narrower that curve becomes. In practice, this means the G character flatters broad tonal work. Two decibels of lift on a vocal touches a whole region instead of a slice, which is why engineers reach for it when a source needs to sound bigger rather than fixed. You are painting with a wide brush, and the circuit widens the brush for you. Push the same band to ten or twelve decibels, and the curve tightens on its own. So the G design is not simply the gentle option. It is gentle at gentle settings and aggressive at aggressive ones, which is a more forgiving behavior for people who set by ear rather than by eye. [HEADING=2]The switch carries more than the mid bands[/HEADING] The E and G difference also covers shelving. On the E design, the high and low bands can be switched from shelf to bell, turning your outer bands into two more parametric bands. That is the setting most people forget exists, and it is often a better answer than reaching for a plugin. The G console added HMF x3 and LMF divided by three, extending the mid bands out toward the edges of the spectrum, which lets a mid band do work you would normally assign to a shelf. Different tool, same knob. Current desks build on the 242 as the foundation and add the G behavior as a switchable characteristic, which is how [B][URL='https://goldmidi.com/community/threads/ssl-crowned-odyssey-its-flagship-analog-console.75866/']the channel strip on SSL's newest console[/URL][/B] offers both without asking you to choose at purchase. Filters became assignable too, so a high-pass can be routed into the dynamics sidechain rather than the signal, which stops a kick drum from triggering the vocal gate. There is a quirk worth knowing before you start A and B testing. The two designs are furthest apart at small settings, because that is where proportional Q is at its widest while constant Q stays put. Push both hard and they converge, since a heavily boosted G band narrows toward the shape the E band had all along. So if you flip the switch on a 2 dB move and hear an obvious difference, that is real. Flip it on a 12 dB move and hear almost nothing; that is real too. [/QUOTE]

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