Everybody who has spent any amount of time mixing will be aware of the Pultec EQ. Designed by Ollie Summerland and Gene Shenk  in 1951, the Pultec EQP-1A is the unit most people think of when they refer to a “Pultec”. Its unusual design offers a variable width bell filter treble boost which operates at 7 switchable frequencies, a switchable low pass filter, referred to as “atten” which operates at 5, 10, and 20KHz, and the famous low-frequency cut and boost controls which, while sharing a 4 position frequency switch, have independent cut and boost controls.

The Pultec is a passive design, which many feel sounds better due to the simplicity of the circuit, but passive designs are inherently ‘lossy’ meaning that less signal comes out than went in. This signal loss is compensated for in the Pultec using a valve amplification stage. The passive design and the valve amplification make Pultecs very sweet and at the top end. It is difficult to coax a harsh sound out of them. But it is at the bottom end that the EQP-1A has its hidden weapon. The famous low-end trick has been an open secret among producers and engineers for a long time. See and hear it demonstrated by Fab Dupont in this free extract from How To Listen: Pultec Edition on PureMix.

This legendary EQ is pretty much a ‘must have’. So much so that in our recent article How many EQs Do You Really Need we concluded that you only need two, a workhorse EQ plugin and a Pultec. It’s that useful!

There was more than one equaliser built by Pultec but when someone talks about a ‘Pultec’ they almost always mean the EQP-1A with its high and low bands. Luckily we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to plugin versions of the EQP-1A and from free and stock plugins through to the most premium of offerings you’ll be able to find something which will do that ‘Pultec thing’. Here’s our list of Pultec plugins You might consider.

Stock Pultec EQ Plugins

Firstly we should point out that depending on which DAW you use you might well already have a Pultec style EQ available to you.

For example in Studio One you have the Passive EQ in the Fat Channel XT plugin and Logic Pro has the Vintage Tube EQ plugin, both of these are excellent both in terms of their sound and their feature set, it should be remembered that a great deal of what makes a Pultec a Pultec is the control set. Most Pultec plugins stick to the original controls faithfully, though some deviate. For example the Logic Vintage Tube EQ adds a drive control and fully sweepable frequency controls.

As part of the Complete Plugins bundle which is available to Pro Tools subscribers the Avid Pultec EQP-1A which, while extremely old in plugin terms, still offers the same experience as any other Pultec and is perfectly acceptable in use. If you have a Pultec style EQ available in your DAW try it out before assuming you have to go straight to premium plugins.

If you want to try a third party Pultec there are free options out there. The best of the bunch at the moment has to be Kiive Audio’s recently updated Warmy EQ. This isn’t a plugin version of a Pultec. It’s actually based on Warm Audio’s affordable hardware clone of the Pultec Equaliser. This plugin is unbelievably good for a free plugin. Try it out.

So what about paid for plugins? Here’s our list of the best of the bunch if you want as authentic an experience as possible:

UAD Pultec Passive EQ Collection

If you want the most meticulous model of a Pultec possible there’s no better place to start than with this. The UAD Passive EQ Collection is as Pultec as it gets and now it’s available as part of the UAD Spark collection you can access it without UA hardware. Consisting of the familiar EQP-1A Program Equaliser with its high and low bands it also features the MEQ-5 midrange equaliser and the HLF-3C high and low pass filters. On Offer £114*

Waves PuigTec EQP-1A

This plugin is as old as the hills but it had to make this list because regardless of it’s longevity the Waves PuigTec EQP-1A does exactly what a Pultec should. The VU meter doesn’t feature on the hardware and the meter ballistics remind me of the bad old days of plugin UIs, but the sound is most definitely there. Part of the Jack Joseph Puig Analog Legends bundle, this plugin along with the Puigchild Fairchild plugin have featured on more records than most. On offer $29.99*

IK Multimedia EQP-1A

IK Multimedia are doing great work when it comes to capturing the sound of hardware and the IK Multimedia EQP-1A is no exception. The ‘Vintage Program Equaliser’ adds MS processing to the original control set, genuinely useful for an EQ like this for filling out the bass in the centre only or for adding air and sparkle to the sides with this sweetest of top end EQs. €79.99*

Apogee EQP-1A

Apogee don’t make many plugins but the ones they do make have all impressed me immediately with their sound. Check out my response to Apogee’s Symphony ECS Channel Strip. Their take on the Pultec EQ, the Apogee EQP-1A is officially licensed and endorsed by Pulse Techniques themselves. While this is a DSP plugin which runs on Apogee hardware, like all the FX rack plugins Apogee make this also runs natively allowing a seamless experience when working between DSP and native systems. $199*

Acustica Purple 3.5

Acustica do things a little differently to most plugins companies, with their ‘sampling’ based approach capturing impressive detail of the original hardware. some people love the results, others are put off by the performance hit such an approach involves, with a considerable processor overhead compared to more conventional plugins.

Whether or not you think it’s worth it is of course a personal choice but the sonic results speak for themselves. And Purple 3.5 is a bundle of more than just the EQP-1A or even the trio of the program equaliser, midrange Eq and the high and low pass filters, with seven plugins in the suite. €199*

With a processor as popular as the Pultec it’s inevitable that we’ve omitted some deserving plugins. What do you think should feature in this list? Share your thoughts in the comments.

*Prices correct at the time of publication (August 2022)