Hi!
I’m being offered a Boss GEB-7 Bass Equalizer Pedal, used and for US $50 which is much less than the regular used price here. Considering I practice at home and don’t play in a band and my amp has EQ adjustments for bass, 2 para-mid and treble.
Is it worth it?
Besides attempting to shape tone perhaps it would be useful to get a closer tone to the amp on my headphones. But I don’t want to fall into the Pedal-GAS pit.
I would appreciate your comments.
Cheers!
I have one on my pedalboard at church. It is one of my few “always on” pedals. I think you would like it just for the added flexibility it gives you in adjusting your tone. The level slider is also handy if you have more than one bass and their output levels are different.
Thank you! I often get a bit frustrated when I change from amp to headphones. The volume has to be raised from 3 to 5 or 6 and the tone adjusted. That level slider would help with the volume differences, too.
Yes! EQs are awesome. If your worries about too much fiddling set it flat and only play with a few. I haven’t really gotten past a 4-band on the B7K (enough for me right now) but they really make a difference and are super fun.
@John_E Thank you! The fact that it has 7 bands is attractive compared to 4 on the amp. I saw a few reviews and it is very tempting!
I was eyeing the Source Audio version that allows you to set each point’s HS across ten bands and also set the Q (width) of the band etc. and save different configs. I decided I could set that for weeks and never be done so said no. My amp has the same ability in 4 bands and don’t touch those settings. Not yet at least.
@John_E I have experimented a little bit with shaping sound on the amp and it is really a lot you can do. It’s fun. We easily oversee those knobs and that is actually the reason for my doubts if it’s worth spending the money. But the pedal has really good reputation and it goes for the same money as a questionable knock-off.
For $50 I say why not, you can most likely get that back if you dont like it.
I am currently testing out the B7K ultra pedal via the available DAW plugin that can be tested for 14 days for free.
And I really like what I can do with just using the 4 eq knobs on the pedal. My little amp only has bass, mid and treble, and I think the difference with the ability to adjust low mids and high mids separately is huge!
If I got a good deal on that Boss EQ pedal, I would absolutely take it! (though if you already have parametric mids, it might not be as huge a difference. But you cannot go wrong here for $50, imo)
Don’t think you will really need it right now since your amp has 4-band EQ but you could buy it anyway, especially for that price. In the future you might play without your amp and having an EQ pedal helps. That boss would be my #1 pick for a graphical EQ pedal. Malygno has a good point. A preamp pedal with solid EQ works as well.
Interesting comment. Sometimes I connect my bass directly to my AI to fool around with GarageBand. Maybe there it could be useful, too.
I’m really not into buying more gear but the general consensus seems that it is a pedal worth having for that amount.
Thank you!
Thanks to everyone for the comments and ideas.
It is clear to me that it not a necessary but a useful pedal at this point, particularly for that price.
As mentioned before, I think it would be useful to shape the sound and level up the volume to my headphones coming from the amp. It is so different compared to the amp.
While you’re using that try out the Vintage Microtubes too as it’s just as good but more generally useful 
I love them both.
I’ve owned a Microtubes X (physical pedal), heard lots of examples of the B7, VMT, A/O (both varieties) and B3 line, and I own the plugin too and honestly the plugin sounds as good or better to me than the real pedals.
@howard Thank you for the tip. I will keep it in mind. This pedal is an offer through a person, not a store and if it wasn’t for the price I wouldn’t even be looking at gear right now.
Not a need but a useful tool. It looks a bit rough around the edges but if it works it’s a good deal.
