EQD Westwood Settings Guide
The EarthQuaker Devices Westwood is a translucent, low-to-medium gain overdrive with Bass, Treble, and Gain controls, designed to push an amp's natural character rather than impose its own colour. JFET clipping produces soft, asymmetrical saturation that closely mimics the character of a tube amp being pushed naturally. Popular with players who want a transparent tone with the amp's core sound intact.
The best EQD Westwood settings start with: Volume at 5/10, Gain at 4/10, Bass at 5/10, Treble at 5/10. Adjust from there based on your amp, guitar, and room volume. For Blues: Volume 6/10, Gain 4/10, Bass 5/10, Treble 5/10.
⚡ Start Here — Recommended Settings
| Control | Starting Position | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Volume | 5/10 | Silent → Loud |
| Gain | 4/10 | Clean → Drive |
| Bass | 5/10 | Thin → Full |
| Treble | 5/10 | Dark → Bright |
These are universal starting points. Adjust based on your amp, guitar, and room. Scroll down for genre-specific settings and artist-documented positions.
What Each Control Does
Recommended Starting Settings
Safe starting positions for any style. Adjust from here based on your amp and room.
All values on a 0–10 scale. These are starting points — fine-tune by ear.
Settings by Genre
Gain 4, balanced EQ — the Westwood's natural blues voice. The JFET clipping produces soft, pick-responsive saturation. Treble 5 avoids harshness. The Westwood at these settings sounds like the amp is slightly overdriven, not like a pedal is doing the work.
Gain 6 produces the Westwood's moderate overdrive zone — clearly saturated but transparent in character. Treble 6 adds cut for single-coil guitars. Useful as an always-on preamp boost for indie rock rhythm work.
Low Gain, high Volume — clean boost mode. Bass 4 tightens the low end for Telecaster chicken-picking. This pedal as a transparent clean boost is one of its most effective uses, adding level and presence without coloring the clean voice of the amp.
Near-maximum Gain still stays within a soft, JFET-clipped saturation rather than crossing into hard distortion, useful for rock rhythm playing that wants amp-like touch response at a higher output level.
Low Gain with Treble pulled back preserves the natural resonance of a semi-hollow guitar, adding only a light touch of harmonic warmth without fighting the instrument existing character.
Tips & Common Mistakes
- This pedal is most accurately described as a transparent preamp rather than a traditional overdrive — it is intended to sound like the amp is working harder rather than a pedal being inserted. Use it as a first drive in a chain, before other overdrives, or as an always-on preamp enhancement.
- Because the JFET clipping is soft and asymmetrical, this pedal responds to guitar volume-knob cleanup unusually smoothly compared to diode-clipping overdrives — a genuine advantage for players who rely on the guitar volume knob as a primary dynamic control.
- Bass and Treble are broad, musical shelving controls rather than surgical EQ — small adjustments go a long way, and extreme settings can push the pedal away from its intended transparent character.
- Stacking this pedal before a higher-gain distortion pedal pushes the input harder without adding a second, competing distortion character, consistent with its role as a preamp-style gain stage rather than a tone-shaping distortion.
- For direct recording, the transparent, amp-like character of this pedal makes it a reasonable substitute for a real amp preamp stage when paired with a quality cabinet-simulation plugin.
FAQ
EQD Westwood — Common Questions
Best starting settings for EQD Westwood: Volume at 5/10, Gain at 4/10, Bass at 5/10, Treble at 5/10. Adjust from there based on your guitar, room, and playing style.
For Blues: Volume 6/10, Gain 4/10, Bass 5/10, Treble 5/10. Gain 4, balanced EQ — the Westwood's natural blues voice. The JFET clipping produces soft, pick-responsive saturation. Treble 5 avoids harshness. The Westwood at these settings sounds like the amp is slightly overdriven, not like a pedal is doing the work.
For Indie / Rock: Volume 5/10, Gain 6/10, Bass 5/10, Treble 6/10. Gain 6 produces the Westwood's moderate overdrive zone — clearly saturated but transparent in character. Treble 6 adds cut for single-coil guitars. Useful as an always-on preamp boost for indie rock rhythm work.
Volume: Output level. (Silent to Loud). Gain: JFET gain stage drive. Above 6 produces obvious overdrive saturation. (Clean to Drive). Bass: Low-frequency content — cut to tighten rhythm; boost for lead warmth. (Thin to Full). Treble: High-frequency presence and sparkle. (Dark to Bright)
This pedal is most accurately described as a transparent preamp rather than a traditional overdrive — it is intended to sound like the amp is working harder rather than a pedal being inserted. Use it as a first drive in a chain, before other overdrives, or as an always-on preamp enhancement. Because the JFET clipping is soft and asymmetrical, this pedal responds to guitar volume-knob cleanup unusually smoothly compared to diode-clipping overdrives — a genuine advantage for players who rely on the guitar volume knob as a primary dynamic control. Bass and Treble are broad, musical shelving controls rather than surgical EQ — small adjustments go a long way, and extreme settings can push the pedal away from its intended transparent character. Stacking this pedal before a higher-gain distortion pedal pushes the input harder without adding a second, competing distortion character, consistent with its role as a preamp-style gain stage rather than a tone-shaping distortion. For direct recording, the transparent, amp-like character of this pedal makes it a reasonable substitute for a real amp preamp stage when paired with a quality cabinet-simulation plugin.
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