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Acme Audio’s MTEQ-1 recreates the custom equalizers built exclusively for Motown’s Hitsville U.S.A. studio by Chief Engineer Mike McLean. This legendary seven-band inductor-based EQ can be heard on countless soul and pop hits throughout the 1960s, but only 48 units were ever made, making it one of the most widely heard but rarest pieces of hardware in music history.
Fortunately, Acme had direct access to the man who designed them. According to the company, “Acme Audio had the honor of spending several weeks with the late Mike McLean reverse engineering an original Motown EQ and had his ongoing guidance to faithfully recreate and reintroduce this classic piece of equipment to the recording world.”
To see for ourselves how Acme’s Motown EQ stacks up to the original, Vintage King asked professional audio engineer Bryan Reilly to use it in a mix and create a set of before and after samples. But first, a little background on the unit.
The Motown EQ is utterly simple yet extremely flexible, offering 8 dB of gain or attenuation at seven fixed frequencies (50, 130, 320, 800, 2,000, 5,000, and 12,500 Hz) specifically chosen for their musicality and usefulness on instruments and vocals of all kinds. Each rotary switch is adjustable in 1 dB increments, providing just the right level of control for fine adjustments with the benefit of perfect recall. After the EQ, an output amplifier provides an additional ± 8 dB to compensate for any level changes.
Simple as the design might be, Acme painstakingly sourced or recreated the original components to achieve the truest sound possible. According to Acme, “Every inductor, capacitor, and transformer was either sourced from original manufacturers or painstakingly recreated to match the performance and sonic quality of the original Motown EQ.” This includes the AMI A24 input transformer, custom Mesanovic output transformer, Mesanovic Moly Permalloy Powder Core inductors, and Opamp Labs 425 output amplifier.
Despite the limited range of the frequency bands, the MTEQ-1 boasts an extended frequency response from 10 Hz to 30 KHz with a variation of only ±1 dB. The noise floor is extremely low thanks to the external power supply, which isolates potential sources of interference from the signal path. And with an all-aluminum 2U rackmount chassis, the Motown EQ is built to last.
Enough technical talk; let’s get to the samples! For this test, Bryan Reilly used a Motown-style soul song to put the MTEQ-1 through its paces, using it to sculpt and enhance every track, just like this workhorse EQ would have been used in its heyday.
On the melodic, fingerstyle electric bass track, the Motown EQ provided some extra low-end contour and a healthy midrange boost to accentuate the plucky attack. An 8 dB cut at 5 kHz and a proportional boost at 12.5 kHz gave the track just the right kind of top-end presence.
Bass Settings
This one-mic drum track sounded nice and fat already, but the snare was a bit overpowering and the cymbals were on the dull side. Applying a simple smiley-face curve with a bass boost, treble boost, and slight low-mid dip brought out the kick and toms and brightened up the cymbals without reinforcing the thud of the snare.
Drum Settings
To help the tambourine track cut through and augment the drums, Bryan boosted by different amounts on all seven bands, sculpting the tone for maximum rhythmic power and minimum harshness. A -3 dB adjustment on the master gain helped compensate for all those boosts.
Tambourine Settings
On the slightly distorted and reverbed main guitar track, Bryan alternated boosts and cuts (with an extra high-end boost at 12.5 kHz) to achieve a tone that cuts through nicely and brings out the shimmer of the spring reverb.
Electric Guitar 1 Settings
The second and third guitar tracks, much drier than the first, each received a steep 50 Hz cut, a broad boost across the midrange for added body, and a generous treble boost to bring out the sharpness in the tone.
Electric Guitar 2 Settings
Electric Guitar 3 Settings
Already sounding great on its own, this vocal track was further enhanced by a 130 Hz boost to add body, a midrange scoop to reduce muddiness, and a top-end lift for an airier, silkier tone.
Female Vocal Settings
Bryan gave the male vocal a similar treatment, dialing in a broader low-mid bump and a larger treble boost to balance it out.
Male vocal Settings
On the programmed string section track, Bryan applied a broad boost across the low-end and midrange for a lush, full sound, rolling off a bit of top-end to keep it sounding smooth and natural.
String Section Settings
The staccato strings in the bridge section required a different treatment: significant low- and high-end reinforcement with an 800 Hz scoop to reduce muddiness and fit into the mix.
Bridge Strings Settings
To fatten up the programmed trombone track, Bryan cranked the low-end from 50 to 800 Hz, adding an extra presence boost on top to highlight the slight buzz of the embouchure.
Trombone Settings
Broad boosts across the low midrange and high-end gave the programmed trumpet section more power and reinforced the sharp overtones for a sound that cuts right through everything else.
Trumpet Section Settings
Finally, Bryan ran the entire mono mix through the MTEQ-1. Gentle boosts at 50 and 130 Hz brought out the heft of the rhythm section, while some light shaping across the midrange provided gentle smoothing. A moderate dose of gain at 5 kHz made the brass, guitars, and tambourine cut through even more, and another at 12.5 kHz brightened up the mix. Only 1 dB of attenuation on the output was necessary to compensate for the change in level.
Mix Bus Settings
The Acme Audio Motown EQ is a tried and true general-purpose equalizer that can enhance pretty much any track. The generous amount of bands and thoughtful choice of frequencies make it easy to sculpt the sound just the way you want it, without much effort. If your rack is missing a truly great analog EQ, you can’t go wrong with the MTEQ-1.
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