Recording - November 2014 - 29

extreme cuts and boosts thanks to its proportional Q, but it is not a surgical EQ.
As expected considering its roots, it's
quite similar to an EQ that you would find
in the channel strip of a classic console.
Its utilitarian yet musical nature is helped
by the fact that it uses classic tried and
true EQ points. While some users may
prefer their EQs with a variable band
selection, from a workflow standpoint I
like having well-chosen preset frequencies that are both musically useful and
quick to recall.
In use
I compared the EQ 500 to two of my
other usual 500 Series suspects, the
Chandler Limited Little Devil EQ and the
Great River Harrison EQ32 (reviewed June
2010 and October 2011 respectively). In
use it falls nicely between the two. It's definitely not as colored or sonically imposing
as the Little Devil. While closer to the
EQ32, the Daking is a touch bolder; small
boost/cut knob adjustments make big
changes much quicker. As the old saying
goes about one's children, I like them all
equally, but in different ways. Of the three,
however, the Daking is the only one I like
on the master bus. That's thanks to both its
recall and its transparency.

This makes the the EQ 500 a workhorse suited to any source. I really liked it
on the drum bus of classic minimal 3- and
4-mic setups, where liberal boosting at
10 kHz, 1.5 kHz, 250 Hz, and 50 Hz
gave the drums a nice gelled girth and
presence that still sounded unhyped and
natural. On voice, especially female, the
12 and 15 kHz bands bring out a nice
smooth openness that helps propel the
voice forward in the mix.
On acoustic guitar, I again found 12
kHz to be completely magical, even in
very large amounts. Boosting a few dB of
80 Hz and one or two of 500 Hz, while
cutting a touch of 1.5 kHz, gave a vintage
Gibson acoustic a nice woody fullness that
I quite liked. On electric guitars, 10 kHz is
brilliant, along with a liberal amount of
150 Hz and mids boosted or cut to taste
for thick indie rock and classic rock tones.
A-Range?
While I could not get my hands on a real
Trident A-Range EQ, I did put the EQ 500
to the test along side both Softube's A-Range
EQ plug-in, in its Native and Universal
Audio UAD variants. While the EQ 500
lacks the extensive low and high pass sections of the plug-in, you can tell that they are
both born out of the same lineage.

The plug-in was slightly darker and
weightier, with a more obvious vintage
saturation; I am sure that's deliberate,
since the plug-in was modeled from vintage gear with transformers. Overall the
two versions can get close to each other
in tone, but as is often the case with hardware vs. software, I must give the EQ
500 the edge in nicer high-end openness
and dimensionality.
Conclusion
The Daking EQ 500 is easy to track
with, mix with, and "ride the bus" with!
I like the fact that it was inspired by classic designs but not bound by them; the
result is just a great musical-sounding
utility EQ for any studio. They were
Daking's most expensive 500 Series
module to date, but a price drop just as
we went to press has now made them an
exceptional value. The main problem
may be that if you get one, you will want
two, then you will want four, and so
on... I know I do!
Price: $699 street
More from: Daking Audio,
www.daking.com; dist. by TransAudio
Group, www.transaudiogroup.com
http://www.daking.com http://www.transaudiogroup.com http://www.trunorthmusicandsound.com http://www.trunorthmusicandsound.com http://www.lewitt-audio.com http://www.lewitt-audio.com
Recording - November 2014

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