MXR M-125 Thirty-One Band Graphic Equaliser (Refurbished & Recapped) #1

In prep now…

MXR has long been overlooked in favour of better-known brands like UREI, Klark-Teknik and TC Electronics, but the Rochester, New York-based manufacturer turned out a wide range of high-quality studio outboard and effects pedals

MXR made the MXR Pitch Transposer – an early Eventide Harmonizer competitor – a delay line, chorus, stereo flanger, the rare stereo compressor and a range of graphic equalisers

The graphics were probably the most often-seen items of MXR rack gear, partly because they are very eye-catching with white caps on the EQ controls

MXR rackmount gear all came in the same 2U case with cast rack ears, pressed steel top & bottom panels and a front panel sandwiched between the two. Front panels were either bright blue or black

The 31-band equaliser is a 1/3-rd octave eq. These were traditionally used as room eqs but are equally useful as general equalisers, particularly as the narrow filter bandwidth can target narrow frequency bands

Used with care, a graphic EQ can be a surgical tool or a very subtle tone shaper – particularly when used to pull out frequencies to leave space in a mix

It definitely sounds crunchier and more focussed than plugin EQs and can be as subtle or as lairy as you like, depending how far you push it