GML Model 8200 Parametric Equalizer
A stereo parametric EQ that working engineers patched across the mix bus for a couple of decibels of "air" and "oomph," and trusted to do nothing else.
Overview
The Model 8200 is a stereo parametric equalizer from GML. Session documentation shows what it was for: sitting on the two-bus and nudging a finished mix by a decibel or two without smearing it. An equalizer that engineers trust with that job has a reputation, and the 8200 earned it in rooms where the mix is the product.
It also turns up in the outboard racks of remote and mobile recording setups. A Recording Engineer piece on Le Mobile's outboard complement lists GML Model 8500 microphone preamps and Model 8200 parametric equalizers alongside API 560 and Pultec equalizers, Roland SDE300 digital processors, a Publison Model 90, dbx compressors and limiters, an AMS RMX-16, an EMT 251, and assorted de-essers and gates. The Pultec and the API 560 are the other two equalizers in that rack. A mobile operation has to choose which EQs it hauls from date to date, and the GML made the short list.
The surviving documentation does not give a clean specification sheet. There is no published frequency-response figure, no stated number of bands, no price, no production run, and no dimensions in the material assembled here. The session accounts are consistent that the 8200 is a parametric EQ, and the "stereo parametric EQ" description appears in the Kramer session write-up. Beyond that, the numbers are not documented in the sources at hand. What is documented is how it was used.
The accounts agree on one pattern: the 8200 is a tool for subtle, surgical, high-quality equalization, not for dramatic tonal reshaping. Kramer's use is the example. He put a decibel and a half of shelf at each end, "very subtle" by his own description. Engineers patch a GML across the mix bus because they want the top to open up and the bottom to firm up without the midrange paying for it. That is a different design brief than a character EQ.
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