Just keep it simple. Ground balancing, as Minelab states with the Equinox in multi frequency doesn't need doing. Besides that, have fun!
This has been understandibly misinterpreted because of ML's somewhat ambiguous guidance, but in fact the manual does not say GB is not needed in multi. Because people have misinterpreted what ML actually stated in the manual, this invariably leads to a lot of confusion and less than ideal advice especially for detecting in soil conditions that return a lot of ground noise.
In a nutshell, under most mild soil conditions (and especially in dry beach sand) you can probably get away with GB set at 0 as a GB setting starting point (but make sure it is truly set at zero because each mode permanently remembers the last GB reading even after the power is shut off), but it only takes a few seconds to do an auto ground grab by pumping so why not just get the GB set optimally for the site conditions where you are swinging - there is no down side other than the few seconds it takes to do the balance and then there is no question or guessing as to the degree of soil mineralization.
On the other hand, on Equinox, if GB is not set properly, the only way you would really notice it is in horseshoe mode (no disc) as it only manifests as ground noise (lots of iron grunts accompanied by continuous bouncy -8 and -9 TIDs). People often mistake this as iron underneath the coil and say it is impossible to find a "target free" patch of ground to do a GB. When the actual problem is that the detector is reacting to ground mineralization and just needs to be ground balanced to the soil they are standing on. Cracks me up.
Also note that each mode (Park 1&2, Field 1&2, single frequency, etc) will react with the ground differently because of the different multifrequency profiles associated with each mode as well as single frequency, so GB has to be set separately for each mode or single frequency setting.
Anyway, don't take my word for it, this is the actual guidance from the Equinox user guide:
"The default Ground Balance setting of 0 is recommended for Park, Field and Beach Modes because these locations typically have less mineralisation than goldfields. However, if the ground is generating many noise signals (and/ or the Sensitivity level is set very low), then using Auto Ground Balance is recommended. If the Auto Ground Balance process does not greatly reduce ground noise (due to highly mineralised ground or high salt levels), then repeat the Auto Ground Balance process by sweeping the coil from side-to-side, rather than the standard up-and-down motion."
Again, this is not that big a deal from a detector performance standpoint unless you really want to make use of horseshoe/no disc mode (often inaccurately referred to as all metal mode). Just wanted to set the record straight on the actual ML GB recommendation.
Other than that you have been given great advice - keep it simple, stick to a good general purpose mode for your detecting environment (Park 1 or Beach 1, as appropriate) and learn the detector's language and avoid deviating too much from the default user settings until you gain more confidence in what the Equinox is telling you regarding the targets under the coil and you better understand how adjusting the settings (especially # of tones, recovery speed and iron bias) affect target signal response.
Suggest getting Andy Sabisch's Equinox handbook and not just because my recommended relic detecting settings are featured in the book (lol), it is a good comprehensive guide to the settings. Clive's guides are great regarding the operational side of things including great guidance on coil control and interpreting the target audio signals.
GL and HH.
