The Inimitable Manley Massive Passive Equalizer

by Mason Hicks
The Manley brand has been synonymous with no-compromise, outboard recording equipment since its
beginnings in the late 80s in the old Vacuum Tube Logic of America building. In 1993, Manley
Laboratories Inc. became a separate entity apart from VTL and took up residence in its own, new factory
located in Chino, CAjust 35 miles east of Los Angeles. Manley Laboratories Inc. has continued to
expand and thrive in recent years under the leadership of owner, EveAnna Manley, and through the
success of their full-line of revered analog equipment, such as the Vari-Mu Limiter Compressor, the
VOXBOX, and the subject of this months Analog Obsession, the Massive Passive EQ.

The front and rear panels of the Manley Massive Passive EQ

Massive Passive Mission

Making its debut in 1998 and racking up awards and accolades soon after and ever-since, the Massive
Passive (nicknamed Massivo by some of its assemblers) was designed to meet some very specific goals.
To begin with, Manley wanted to focus on features that many studios and engineers were asking for in a
new EQ design: Click-switch frequencies, and character over clinical. Manley also strived to create a
passive EQ that relied only on capacitors, inductors, and resistors for shaping the tone. This was in
keeping with the design aspects of Pultecs and other of their favorite vintage EQs, and something that had
been absent in the majority of modern EQs that had begun to use integrated circuits in place of inductors.
Most importantly, Manleys mission was to create an EQ that sounded amazing and included features that
werent available anywhere else. The results speak for themselves with this two-channel, four-band,
passive EQ with additional high- and low-pass filters. Utilizing design strengths from choice console,
graphic, parametric and Pultec EQs, Manley has successfully delivered a fundamentally different EQ thats
beyond compare.
Massive Passive in Action

In its mere dozen years of existence, the Massive Passive has amassed a long list of adjectives to
describe the sound that its parallel topology, passive tone shaping, and tube-driven boost circuitry afford. It
has been often referred to as natural, organic, smooth, and sweet -sounding, to mention just a few.
These characteristics have attracted many from a different list connected to the Massive Passive: Famous,
professional users. Artists and engineers frequently cite the Massivos role in both mixing and mastering
audio duties in film and music. In an interview with Sound On Sound, mastering engineer Jon Astley
shared how he used a mastering version of the Massive Passive EQ when working on Tori Amos A Piano:
The Collection. When renowned brazilian drum-n-bass artist Amon Tobin set out to mix Foley Room an
album composed from entirely found sound and original samples he relied heavily on the Massivos
natural sound to blend all the samples together. Engineer Jim ORourke had this to say to Mix, The
Massive Passive shapes things the way you want it. It's very accurate, but it's musical. It doesn't sound
surgical to me. while describing how he and guitarist/songwriter Jeff Tweedy from Wilco used the Massive
Passive during the mixing process for the bands critically acclaimed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Esteemed
mastering engineer Bob Ludwig from Gateway Mastering is another well-documented fan of the Massive
Passive EQ. The Massivo has even made its way onto the big screen at the hands of top Hollywood score
mixer Alan Myerson. Myerson has collaborated on over 30 films with legendary, award-winning score
composer Hans Zimmer, and offered this in an interview with Mix, [W]hen I mix, I always have my Manley
Massive Passives across the orchestra If you listen before and after, it makes this tremendous
difference. Besides the EQ itself, I think it's that little bit of the saturation that happens in the tubes.
At First Glance
The front panel of the Massive Passive is symmetrically laid-out for its two channels and consists of 31
rotary knobs and 16 toggle switches. The odd rotary switch, found dead center, functions as the On/Off
switch for the unit. Upon turning this switch to power-up the unit, the 16 toggle switches will immediately
report back when switched between Boost/Cut with backlit panel labels. Showcasing their attention to
detail, Manley has included a built-in Warm-Up circuitry that forces the unit into Bypass for 20 seconds
to prevent harmful signals being sent to your speakers. Once this warm-up cycle ends, you are greeted by
the warm, cerulean stare of the twin EQ In buttons located on each side of the power switch.
The rear panel of the Massive Passive features an I.E.C. power connector, a chassis-grounding terminal
strip and the actual power transformer most likely for sonic reasons. Each channel provides phone
and XLR input and output jacks. The phone inputs accept balanced or unbalanced connections and are
factory set-up for +4dBu pro levels with internal DIP switches that allow for -10dBv semi-pro or hi-fi levels.
The phone outputs are unbalanced only but can also be changed via internal DIP switch between
+4dBu and -10dBv. The XLR inputs accept balanced or unbalanced connections but only support +4dBu
pro levels. The XLR outputs are Transformer Balanced and Floating and set for +4dBu pro levels. The DIP
switches have no effect on the XLR input or output jacks.

It is clear that all of the components have been carefully selected. In lieu of a large cluster of transistors
(as with many EQs), the Massive Passive uses only metal-film resistors, film capacitors and hand-wound
at the source inductors for sculpting its sound. Amplification is handled in typical Manley fashion, by way
of a compliment of triode tubes. Each channel features two tube amplifiers. These amplifiers are used only
to make up for the up to 50 dB loss caused by the passive circuitry. Manley took the approach of creating
this EQ through a mixture of a little more art than science. The components used were therefore chosen
to interact musically, rather than to meet numeric ideals in terms of bandwidths or sheer dBs of boost.
The Four EQ Bands
Unlike many traditional EQs, the MPs gain controls are flat in the fully CCW position as opposed to the
expected 12 oclock setting. This serves two purposes: 1) Provides twice the normal gain resolution
compared with center detent pots and, 2) Provides a more accurate flat setting, as pots with a center
detent can still be doing some EQ when set flat.
The Out or Bypass setting on the toggle switch is not a true hard-wired bypass, but does disengage
your filter and tube-driven make-up gain stages while keeping your input amp and output transformer incircuit.
The Massive Passive employs a parallel circuit topology instead of the more traditional series EQ
design. Each of the Massive Passives four EQ bands has a +/-20dB gain range with a 3-position
Cut/Boost/Out switch and a second switch for selecting between Shelf or Bell curve. An 11-position clickswitch rotary knob lets you select your center frequencies, while a continuously variable Bandwidth pot
allows you widen or narrow your curves. The settings overlap and interleave, with a low band range of
22Hz to 1kHz, low-mid of 82Hz to 3.9kHz, high-mid of 220Hz to 10kHz , and high of 560Hz to 27kHz. This
design results in a strong amount of interaction between the bandsparticularly in the Gain and
Bandwidth controls. Because of these interactions, it is unlikely you will be able to gauge the exact number
of dB change as it relates to the Gain control knobs position. As another example, if you set all four bands
to the 1K and apply 20 dB of boost to each, the total boost will only be 20 dB, not the anticipated 80 dB.
Note that the full 20dB cut/boost range is only available in Shelf mode at a wide bandwidth. As you narrow
bandwidth settings, the gain drops to +/-12 dB. Expect the opposite with Bell curve settings, as the +/20dB max can only be achieved at the narrow settings. Ultimately, this allows for unique EQ curves
unattainable with traditional EQs. As is often the case, let your ears be your guides.
Another testament to Manleys attention to detail is the way in which the two lowest and the two highest
frequencies available are voiced differently in shelf mode by the action of their bandwidth controls. This
provides airier high frequency shelves, and tighter low frequency shelves at the extremes.
The Additional Low-Pass and High-Pass Filters Section
The High- and Low- Pass Filters are positioned below the Master Gain Trims. These 6-position knobs each
offer a choice of 5 frequencies and an Off position, which are a sensible range of 22, 39, 68, 120 and
220Hz for High-Pass, and 6, 7.5, 9, 12 and 18kHz for Low-Pass. These filters were made especially steep
36 dB per octave. An extremely steep and very useful 18kHz filter is a modified elliptical filter down
60dB (theoretical) one octave up, but really only drops about 40 dB for "warming up digital". The three
lowest of the Low-Pass filters have a slight boost just below the cut-off frequency to add a little color
instead of dullness.
Massive Passive Mastering Version
There is also a mastering version available of the Massive Passive EQ. While it does share a number of
features with the standard version of the Massivo, there are a few distinctions that make this second
version more practical for mastering engineers:

The parametric frequencies remain the same on both versions of the Massive Passive, but the additional
five High-Pass and five Low-Pass filters have been specifically tuned and custom tailored for the mastering
version by being flatter until the knee and providing lower and higher range than the standard version, with
mastering engineers specifically in mind. The slopes for the mastering version are 18dB per octave.
Mastering Version High Pass Filters: 12, 16, 23, 30, 39Hz, OFF
Mastering Version Low Pass Filters: 15K, 20K, 27K, 40K, 52KHz, OFF
The Mastering Version has replaced the Master Gain Trim control pots of the standard with true 11position 1/2 dB stepped Grayhill switches set up for a range between -2.5 to +2.5 dB. A stepped rotary
switch for the mastering version has also replaced the continuous control Bandwidth pot of the standard
version. This makes for more accurate and confident left and right matching as well as recall-ability for
mastering purposes.