PE 8.5.3 How can I eq at input stage? Recording distorted guitars.

   I have been doing a ton of reading up on the endless techniques of all phases of audio engineering.  I have read in a couple of places that one school of thought on recording distorted guitars is to ignore the "record it all and eq later" technique and make some eq cuts to trim the fat you won't use anyway, then compression at the input stage thus having a better level & more saturation of the meat you really want from the source. 
   I am runnng an m audio fastrack pro and don't have much external gear....  is this possible in the box?     if I put an eq & then a compressor in the fx bin as I track the guitar is that the same thing?  ( I don't think so that's why I wanted to ask...)  At this point I am guessing it is time for some outboard toys & some $$ to be spent to achieve this technique.  you tell me?
   I have my yamaha mx16 fx board I use for live sound, rehersal etc....I suppose I could put that in the signal chain before the m audio to do the eq....

Thanks Cactus Music,
   That's what I figured.  I'd need to buy a fairly expensive outboard channel strip (mic pre, EQ, Comp) to get this done.  I have been experimenting quite a bit with shaping the amps EQ and mic placement to get better sounds at the source, and playing with dual mic's on the cab.  ie... a 57 up close and a large condensor back a bit then blending the together.

the idea of pre-eq or pre comp is that you don't have to be so heavy-handed later in eq and comp use.  Of course, that depends on knowing what you don't want in the sound.  A little compression going in helps, well, compress the sound, between the loudest and softest volumes.  That helps later with sitting a guitar (or any other sound) at an average volume when mixing.

With EQ, I mostly use the hardware going in to take out stuff I don't want.  Unless it is bass or kick (maybe toms) it is easy to slice off some of the bottom rumble and noise going in.  Everything but the exceptions mentioned above don't have much going on down below 80 hz or so.  Just like the low cut switch on a mic, you can get rid of that stuff going in.  For vocals, you can reduce silibence a bit, which makes taming it during mixing easier.  There is lot you can do w/ hardware coming in, the main thing to remember is NOT TOO MUCH.  You can reduce spikes and filter out some problem frequencies - don't try to rid the world of them.  You can do that during mixing, but if you do some of that during recording you (and your comps/eq) don't have to work so hard or drastically.  Of course, the better the hardware, the easier this will be.  It makes no sense to use your live desk's eq or a fifty dollar compressor going in - your software will be better 99% of the time.
 
@

What you do is tell him your not recording the first pass, just getting levels. Hide the red light.

The Fast Track Pro features an effect insert loop. Why not pick up an inexpensive EQ to patch in? Or you could get a general-purpose channel strip that might also include other useful features such as compression, distortion (sorry, "character"), higher gain for a ribbon mic, variable input impedance, and a proper VU meter.