Although less well known today than the Pultec EQP‑1A, the versatility of LANG’s valve‑less PEQ‑2 won it plenty of admirers.
After making their name with a range of high‑quality Neve‑inspired products, the last few years have seen Madrid‑based Heritage Audio introduce more unusual vintage recreations, offering engineers the chance to get their hands on legendary recording tools at less than ‘collector’ prices. I reviewed a pair of their Motorcity inductor‑based EQs last year, for example, and I now use those on an almost daily basis in my studio for recording and mixing. I didn’t need too much encouragement, then, to take a look at their new LANG PEQ‑2.
Heritage Audio have acquired the full rights to the LANG Electronics name and designs, and the PEQ‑2 reviewed here is certainly the most well‑known LANG product (though I’ll be interested to see what, if anything, Heritage choose to bring back to life next!). LANG Electronics were based in New York in the 1950s and ’60s and were a popular producer of after‑market audio components for the broadcast and recording industries. In particular, they were known for supplying cost‑effective parts for Ampex tape machines, which were expensive to maintain and repair. LANG soon began to produce their own products too, such as small broadcast‑style mixers and equalisers, including the PEQ‑2 ‘program equaliser’. Broadly speaking, the original PEQ‑2 can be thought of as a non‑valve, more cost‑effective alternative to the more widely known Pultec EQP‑1A inductor‑based EQ. Both units were based around the same Western Electric design for a passive, inductor‑based EQ, so its resemblance to the Pultec EQP‑1A is perhaps unsurprising. As well as being significantly less expensive than the Pultec, the PEQ‑2 offered greater flexibility, with more frequency options available, and many engineers came to value it.
Features
Despite obviously being brand spanking new, the new PEQ‑2 does gives off the air of an authentic vintage unit. On the front, it looks superficially the same as the original with the exception of the omission of the rack handles on the front of the vintage units. Heritage explained to me that they stayed faithful to the original circuity with the exception that they used their own custom input and output transformers and a small, external power supply. These modern, practical changes explain why this recreation doesn’t feature the huge, heavily insulated external input, output and power transformers that protrude from the rear of the vintage units. Designer Peter Rodriguez explained that they learned from their work recreating the Motown EQ units, for which they had to solve the issue of power transformers radiating noise into the passive components of vintage‑style EQs. Implementing these adaptations allowed Heritage both to stay faithful to the sonic character of the original design and to offer their PEQ‑2 for a relatively affordable price. The only other change from the original is the very welcome addition of ‘soft step’ controls.
As mentioned above, the PEQ‑2 borrowed from the same Western Electric inductor‑based EQ design as the Pultec EQP‑1A, and in many respects they’re similar tools. Controls‑wise, the EQP‑2 is a simple creature, featuring four EQ knobs that allow you to ‘boost’ or ‘droop’ low or high frequencies. There’s also a bandwidth control that allows you to make the high‑frequency boost more ‘sharp’ or more ‘broad’. Many engineers will be familiar, whether in hardware or plug‑in form, with this simple but effective style of EQ, with which the somewhat counter‑intuitive technique of simultaneously cutting and boosting at similar frequencies can deliver surprisingly good results.
Compared with a hardware Pultec, however, the LANG has nearly double the amount of fixed frequency points to choose from (26 compared with 14), and so allows considerably greater flexibility in shaping the low end, as well as adding a 20kHz option for the high‑frequency boost.
In Use
After patching in the pair of PEQ‑2s that arrived at my studio for evaluation, their first outing was during a two‑day tracking session that mostly involved recording a selection of acoustic and electric guitars. We all know you should endeavour to get the tone right at source when recording guitars, but having access to an EQ that can naturally change the shape and feel of what’s coming through the speakers is still very handy when tracking. I found adding a little 5kHz combined with a little ‘droop’ at 2.5kHz seemed to work wonders on overdriven, picked guitar parts and, generally, I found that playing with options on the PEQ‑2 was satisfyingly quick and creative when searching for the finer details in a guitar sound.
You can add some serious low‑end weight with a good inductor‑based EQ and the PEQ‑2 didn’t disappoint in this respect at all.
The EQ’s next outing was on drums, and I was keen to see what the units had to offer on close‑miked kick and snare, which is what I often use my Motorcity EQs for. You can add some serious low‑end weight with a good inductor‑based EQ and the PEQ‑2 didn’t disappoint. On my kick drum, I found boosting at 60 or 80 Hz, combined with a similar sized ‘droop’ at 100Hz, added an impressive sense of weight, and boosting around 120Hz while cutting at 200Hz on my ‘top snare’ mic added just the right amount of extra body.
Replacing the vintage power supply with a more reliable modern one enabled Heritage to fit all the components inside the 2U chassis — leaving very little of interest on the rear panel!All bass parts seemed to benefit from going through the PEQ‑2, which is no surprise, but I was surprised with how often I found myself boosting more subsonic frequencies (around 30‑40 Hz) combined with a ‘droop’ around 100Hz. This is often what people love so much about this style of EQ: you can get pretty heavy handed with bass boosts whilst still keeping your bass instrument or kick drum sounding tight and controlled.
In the more sedate mix setting, I found that I wanted to use the PEQ‑2s in more subtle ways. I liked adding clarity with the 5kHz boost but often found that the settings lower down, for example 3.75 and 2.5 kHz, could be a bit intrusive if used more than subtly. Further up the spectrum, the 20Hz setting does a very nice ‘air lift’ thing, and I often found myself cranking the dial as far as it would go before it sounded too much — a great effect on a female vocal, and also for adding a percussive sheen to a strummed acoustic guitar.
I took being sent a pair of EQs for review as a hint that I should try them on the mix bus, so I mixed two projects through the LANGs during the review period. It was on the low end that I really appreciated them. Starting a mix with a low‑end boost at 60Hz (regular readers will know I often use a ‘top‑down EQ’ approach to mixing), I found myself needing to do less to individual sources in the mix. Introducing a ‘droop’ in the 100‑200 Hz area as the mix became more developed allowed me to fine‑tune where the low‑end energy was focused.
At the other end of the spectrum, adding a high‑end boost upwards of 10kHz worked well for an overall ‘smiley face’ mix‑bus EQ. For the projects I was working on at the time, I often found that I had to be very careful when applying much high‑end boost with the PEQ‑2s so as not to pick up too much unpleasantness from cymbals and vocal sibilance. But given my success with manipulating individual sources, I suspect that with a little more time to experiment, I’d probably find a pair of these EQs to be more flexible in use across whole mixes.
Summing Up
I enjoyed my time with the LANG PEQ‑2’s a great deal. I’ve never been overly excited about using Pultec‑style EQs because I often find them to be a bit of a one‑trick pony (albeit a very good trick!), and what I liked most about the PEQ‑2s was that their greater versatility encouraged me to use EQ in a more creative way. The LANGs don’t quite have the same silky, effortless feel that a Pultec can have when boosting the top end, but I far preferred the PEQ‑2 on the low end — it allows you to add often dramatic amount of weight in a very focused way. These EQs worked superbly for me as a studio ‘all rounder’ and sit in that nice place of being a creative, simple‑to‑use vintage‑style EQ, whilst offering enough versatility to be useful on anything coming through your monitors. The price is also attractive — this is a full‑fat, standalone EQ but it’s priced comparably to many 500‑series modules. The LANG PEQ‑2 is well worth further investigation.
Pros
- Offers greater flexibility and focus than similar vintage EQs.
- Superb at adding weight to low‑end sources.
- Overlapping ‘boost’ and ‘droop’ options can be very creative.
- Good value.
Cons
- None!
Summary
A great‑sounding and surprisingly flexible vintage‑style inductor EQ, for an attractive price.
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