Cognate Pultrick

The EQ1-P has been a studio secret weapon for decades — loved for its warm valve character, its musical low end, and a quirk its designers never intended. Boost and cut the same low frequency simultaneously and something unexpected happens: a complex, interactive response that tightens and fattens at the same time, in a way no conventional EQ can replicate. Engineers have been exploiting this ever since.

Cognate Pultrick models that behaviour faithfully. Not just the EQ curve — the full circuit, with component interactions, valve saturation, and the signature iron transformer that gives the real thing its low-end grip and top-end air. Running two EQs in series doesn't get you here. The Pultec sound comes from the interplay of the hardware itself, and that's what we've captured.

Controls follow the classic EQ1-P layout: a selectable low-frequency band with independent boost and cut, a high-frequency band with selectable frequency and attenuation, and output level. The magic is in how the low band's boost and cut interact when you push both — that's the trick, and it's all here. High-frequency sweetening brings out attack and presence without harshness, and the low band does what it's always done in the right hands: makes bass sound like bass.

Warm. Tight. Musical. The trick, modelled.