MotorCity EQ replicates the legendary and exceedingly now rare 7-band passive equalizers used exclusively by Motown staff engineers during the heady days of Motown Records.

In 1965, Motown artists were already recording to Motown's custom eight-track tape decks years before the Beatles and Beach Boys who were still using four track machines. A big reason for the unique "Motown Sound" was that Motown's engineers preferred to record "flat" or without EQ and then in the mixdown process, run each track through a separate equalizer. Motown engineers designed the Motown equalizer for this purpose and just enough were produced to equip each eight-track studio until 1968 when 32 additional Motown EQs were built--16 for each of the new, state-of-the-art 16-track studios. The original units were the first equalizers to use Proportional Q where the Q or "quality" of the equalizer filter changes proportionately with the amount of boost or cut. A small boost/cut of any frequency produces a subtle, broad effect while greater boost/cuts, because they have a higher Q, produce a much more dramatic effect.

The Vintage Cinema Equalizer recreates the very rare 6-band passive equalizers used in professional cinema audio work. The original vintage hardware units from the 1930's are the first equalizers ever made with six bands--80Hz, 200Hz, 500Hz, 1.25kHz, 3.2kHz and 8kHz. URS added a necessary seventh-band at 16kHz--good idea! You can build an EQ with fourteen overlapping bands by using both the Vintage Cinema EQ and the MotorCity EQ together in your DAW.