Publication - Gearphoria

Transcription

INTERVIEW
SUMMER NAMM
Guitarist David Grissom talks
gear, golf and BBQ
L I S T E N
SHOP TOURS
Caroline Guitar Co. and
Jackson Ampworks
A review of some of the
coolest gear at the show
W I T H
Y O U R
ALL ABOUT FUZZ
Zachary Vex and Fuzz Box Girl
offer fuzzy musings
AUTUMN 2012
Vol. 1, Number 1
E Y E S
GEAR REVIEWS
EarthQuaker Devices, Cusack Amps,
Stephen Douglas Design and more!
Q&A
Toadies frontman
Vaden Todd Lewis on the record
ODD AMPS
Adam Grimm takes a look at
odd ball amps of yesterday
Blake Wright
Publisher/Editor-In-Chief
Contributing Editors
Bart Provoost
Peter Hodgson
Jon Bloomer
Special Contributors
Zachary Vex
Adam Grimm
Jane Smith
Creative
Seatonism - Josh Seaton
Cartoonist
Rytis Daukantas
Design consulting
Robert Macli
Contact Gearphoria - [email protected]
Advertising inquiries - [email protected]
Ad specs and rates available upon request.
www.gearphoria.com
Gearphoria is a free digital magazine
published quarterly by WrightSide Media,
Houston, TX.
Mailing Address:
WrightSide Media
ATTN: Gearphoria
PO Box 840035
Houston, TX 77284
ON THE COVER: ‘This Way’
Concept by Blake & Holly Wright
Original inks by Danny Luckert
Color by Ivan Plascencia
GEARPHORIA is the property of WrightSide Media. All rights reserved. Copyright 2012. No content of this digital publication can
be republished without the express consent of WrightSide Media.
Welcome to
HELLO everyone... and welcome to Gearphoria! This is a project that has been - off
and on - about a year in the making. We
fooled around with the idea of evolving
What’s That Dude Play? into a quarterly
digital magazine late last year after I made a
‘dummy copy’ of what I thought the product
would look like and showed it around to
some folks at the LA Amp Show. Ultimately,
the process was delayed for a multitude of
reasons... not the least of which was the everincreasing responsibilities of my day job.
This spring, when we initially made the
decision to shutter WTDP?, the concept
of a digital magazine re-emerged. I took a
look at it again and started to solicit some
friends in the MI community and the guitar
blogosphere to see if there was any interest
in assisting with the endeavor. The response
was humbling. Everyone I asked came
through in some form or fashion. (There is a
long list of ‘Thank Yous’ on the last page of
the magazine.)
So, what is Gearphoria? First and foremost
it is a look into the small shop and boutique
MI world as it pertains to guitars, amps and
effects pedals. We wanted to fan out and
talk to some of these builders about their
philosophies, strategies and origins in the
business. We have two fine examples of this
for the first issue - shop tours and one-onone chats with the top men at both Jackson
Ampworks and Caroline Guitar Company.
We also wanted to explore more ‘long-form’
feature-style pieces on the guitar heroes
of today, yesterday and tomorrow. For this
issue, we sat down and had a plate of BBQ
with guitarist David Grissom (Storyville,
John Mellencamp), and he spoke candidly
about learning his craft and the gear he uses
to practice it.
We also wanted some community contributions to Gearphoria. We didn’t want to
focus on lessons - other mags and You Tube
are great outlets for that - rather, we wanted
to dip into the pool of small shop builder
expertise for both tech and informational
pieces. Zachary Vex of Z.vex Effects and
Adam Grimm of Satellite Amplifiers stepped
up to the plate for us this issue... and
knocked it out of the park.
The web is full of excellent sources of information on guitars, amps and pedals... and
we were very fortunate to talk Bart Provoost
(Effects Database), Jon Bloomer (Guitar
Noize), Peter Hodgson (I Heart Guitar) and
Jane Smith (Fuzz Box Girl) into contributing
to our inaugural issue.
We have gear reviews, but with a focus on
exclusivity. Mission accomplished with the
world premiere review of the new Earthquaker Devices Talons overdrive and a first
look at the Cusack Amps Kingsnake.
We also have a general reviews section for
new albums, DVDs and books. We also
have our Re-Lic’d review, taking a look at
a release from the past that you may have
missed, but deserves some attention.
So... that’s it! That is Gearphoria. I can
assure you that this project will continue
to evolve as we figure out what works best
and what doesn’t. We’ll also be looking at
taking greater advantage of our digital playground... video, audio and user interaction.
Thank you for checking out the magazine.
We really appreciate it.
Blake Wright
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, Gearphoria
GEARPHORIA.COM AUTUMN 2012
4
4
Contents
Way Down Deep
Top session man David Grissom
(Storyville, John Mellencamp) talks
about the changing music business,
his tone and updated Signature
PRS guitar.
Pg. 23
DEPARTMENTS
O
GEAR Q
60-CYCLE HUM
7
POINT-TO-POINT
11
THE WAYBACK MACHINE
13
Cusack Kingsnake
EDQ Talons SSD Scattershot
VEXED w/Zachary Vex
15
GRIMM’S REALITY w/Adam Grimm
17
THE FUZZ BUZZ
21
AXE FORENSICS
34
ALBUM REVIEWS
61
SIXTY-SECOND SOUNDCHECK
Siouxsie Medley of Dead Sara
Eddie Veliz of Kyng
20
50
55
57
59
FEATURES
D
SHOP TOUR: CAROLINE GUITAR CO.
South Carolina pedal maker talks
about how it started
29
SUMMER NAMM REWIND
All the goodies from the annual
Nashville hoe-down
35
SHOP TOUR: JACKSON AMPWORKS
Texas ampsmiths are looking to
the future
39
INTERVIEW: VADEN TODD LEWIS
Toadies frontman talks about the record
business and new album
43
INTERVIEW: STEVE BRAGG
Empress Effects top guru looks
take complicated down a notch
47
INTERVIEW: RANDY JACKSON
Guitarist/frontman talks about three
decades-plus of all things Zebra
51
REWIND: DR. TEETH & THE
ELECTRIC MAYHEM
A reprint of a What’s That Dude
Play? interview with the famous
Muppet band
63
Gone Hollywood
Pedal maker Visual Sound
nets product placement deals
HARDWOOD CLASSICS: Several of the
guitars in the Wichita exhibit
Electric guitar turns 80
Kansas museum celebrates the history of amplified guitar with new exhibit
THE Wichita-Sedgewick County History
Museum is hosting a special exhibit celebrating 80 years of the electric guitar. Running to November 11, the exhibit borrows
nationally from ten collections, showcasing
45 unique instruments, including what
some experts have agreed may well be
the most historically important guitar ever
made... one of the first modern electric guitars – a 1932 electRO-PATent-INstruments
(later changed to the more familiar Rickenbacker) electric Spanish guitar.
The Kansas museum is celebrating the
landmark due - at least in part - to the fact
that the earliest documented performance of
the electric guitar took place in Wichita in
1932 when local band leader and guitarist
Gage Brewer introduced the instrument in a
series of concerts that October.
The exhibit includes the three oldest
known (1932-3) Rickenbacker Spanish
electric guitars, an AudioVox/Bud Electro
Serenader bass guitar introduced in 1936
(which preceded the Fender Precision Bass),
1953-57 Fender test bass guitar owned
by designer Freddy Travares, eight 1930s
Hawaiian electric guitars ‘appropriating’ the
7
Rickenbacker Horseshoe pickup, and the
first solid-body modern electrics.
One highlight of the celebration was
the recent eGuitar@80 Guitar Summit - a
three-day event that featured several public
programs and professional guitar appraisals.
Programming included a presentation examining the life of Gage Brewer by museum
director Eric Cale. Other panels during the
summit included an illustrated survey of the
earliest electric guitars and a Q&A session
covering the origins of the electric guitar.
Matthew Hill, curator of the John C. Hall
collection of musical instruments at Rickenbacker International Corporation, participated in the panel. Musician and luthier
Lynn Wheelwright also took part in the
presentation.
Other classic and rare guitar - and amplifier - brands that are part of the Wichita
exhibit include Danelectro, Kay, Young,
Silvertone, Fender, Stiles, Kustom, Harvey
Thomas, Barron, Epiphone, Hallmark, Mosrite, Holman, Magnatone, Gretsch, Gibson,
Bunker, Harmony and more.
Admission to the museum is $4 for adults
and $2 for children.
THE gear-smiths at Visual Sound
must have stars in their eyes following an early summer announcement
that the company’s products will appear in two television shows later
this year. The Tennessee-based pedal
purveyor will have its wares on display in both ABC’s Nashville and the
new TBS comedy The Wedding Band,
starring Brian Austin Green, Peter
Cambor, and Melora Hardin.
“Seven years ago we began our
love affair with late night television
when I contacted guitarist, arranger,
and now Musical Director for Conan
O’Brien, Jimmy Vivino, about our
pedals,” said Steven Bliss, director
of artist relations for Visual Sound.
“That relationship continues to this
day. Over the years we have expanded into several other TV shows
including American Idol. Over the
last year I became friends with
Danny Rowe who has been involved
with music properties for several
new shows. The result has been our
products being used and strategically placed in two of the hottest new
shows debuting this Fall.”
With Callie Khouri (Thelma & Louise) writing and T-Bone Burnett doing the music, Nashville tells the tale
of a pair of dueling country music divas, Connie Britton (American Horror Story) and Hayden Panettiere
(Heroes), from different generations.
Politics, rivalry, family and romance
are the common threads that weave
the show’s narrative.
Created by Darin Moiselle and
Josh Lobis, The Wedding Band is an
original comedy-drama series that
follows four friends who spend their
spare time performing at weddings.
Visual Sound is no stranger to the
limelight. The company’s pedals
have been featured on various late
night talk shows. The company also
was out again this year with the Vans
Warped tour.
TC in Transition
Latest Guitar Center exclusive is
another Flashback variant
DANISH pedal experts TC Electronic
have teamed up with Guitar Center to
offer another variation of its popular
TonePrint Flashback Delay pedal. The
new Transition Delay will have all of the
features of the Flashback in addition to
four TonePrints exclusively tweaked by
Guitar Center’s Director of Merchandise
Barry Mitchell.
The first TonePrint, named EVO, is a
tribute to the classic TC 2290 delay. It
is a modern take on a classic sound,
providing tone that harkens back to the
sought-after unit.
The second TonePrint is FATY, a superfat sounding analog delay that begs for
guitarists to dig in and do their worst.
TonePrint number three is aptly named
DUCT and gives the player a classic tape
delay sound reminiscent of the revolu-
tionary classic echo units that came out in
the 1960s.
The final TonePrint is MORF - a setting
that recalls a tape delay with additional
modulation for some truly twisted sounds.
The pedal is available at Guitar Center
now and costs $170.
A REAL STUNNER: Coming soon... the
new Sibling Phaser from North Carolina’s Blackout Effectors. It borrows
from the phase-y bits of the company’s
Crystal Dagger circuit.
8
SPOTLIGHT u
Buffers
In the buff: The Truth about Buffers
Confusion abounds about just what these tone tools do
BUFFERED versus true bypass. It’s one of
those eternal guitar player argument topics
like germanium versus silicon, humbuckers
versus single coils, or Satch versus Vai. There
are a lot of misconceptions out there about
what a buffer is and what it does. RJM Music Technology’s Ron Menelli knows a thing
or two about buffers: he’s been working
with them as part of his professional switching systems for years, and his company has
just released the Tone Saver, a self-contained
buffer for use with pedal boards, effects
loops, or pretty much any situation where
your guitar signal might require a little bit of
a kick to make it to the amplifier.
“The technical explanation is it lowers
the impedance of the guitar signal,” Menelli
explains. “What that means in a non-technical sense is it makes the signal stronger.
And I don’t mean louder, but basically the
signal coming out of the guitar’s pickups
is not only a low level, but it’s kind of like
a weak little trickle out of a garden hose:
it doesn’t have the ability to supply much
current. It’s easier for it to get lost along the
way down a long guitar cable or into an
input that requires a stronger signal than this
little trickle can provide. It’s easy to lose it.
What a buffer does is, on the input it’s high
impedance, which means it doesn’t require
much of a signal to drive it. It doesn’t place
any demands on the guitar pickup, and it
barely needs a trickle of a signal to operate.
And on the other end, it’s a low impedance
output... so instead of a little trickle out of a
garden hose, it’s a gushing torrent of signal!
It’s a hard thing to characterize. It’s still not
9
the same as loudness. There’s no good analogy for this, unfortunately. It’s like a radio
signal or something, where if you have a
really weak signal to begin with you need a
really good receiver on the other end to pick
it up. If you’re sending your signal down a
long guitar cable or a low-quality one, it’s
getting lost as it goes further. And the quality
of the receiver on the other end will determine how much of a signal you’ll pick up.
With a buffer it’s first and foremost a very
good receiver, so even for a long cable it’ll
pick it up just fine. And on the other end it’s
an excellent transmitter, so it’s very tolerant
of bad cables or long cable runs.”
There are plenty of misconceptions out
there about what a buffer does, or what can
be used in place of one. Menelli says many
people confuse them with a boost, and the
two can be very similar, but there are key
differences too.
“Whereas a clean boost is specifically
designed to increase the volume level and
to actually have gain in the circuit, a buffer
is really more to preserve the signal and
keep it from getting lost: to not gain any
signal but to not lose it either. It’s a subtle
difference, but an important one. People
get confused about it. Instead of something
you’d use actively for a solo boost, a buffer
is something you can leave in place all the
time to make sure your signal is as pristine
as possible.”
RJM’s new Tone Saver buffer traces its
ancestry back to the company’s first buffer
in their RG-16. Dave Friedman of Rack
Systems got his hands on one of the proto-
types and he made some suggestions on
how to make it better, and the result is the
buffer RJM has been using ever since in any
gear that requires it: the Rack Gizmo, Effect
Gizmo and Y-Not A/B/Y switch. The Tone
Saver takes this circuit - which is important
in a switching system - and places it in a
pedalboard-friendly unit. It has a single
input and two outputs (one being a transformer isolated output for splitting the signal
to a second amp or to a tuner), an gain
adjustment control and a power LED. It runs
on 9 volts, but it internally converts this up
to 18 volts for increased audio performance
and more headroom. And a TRS (Tip/Ring/
Sleeve) cable turns the isolated output into
a balanced output. There’s also an internal
Ground Lift switch for the Iso Output jack,
should you need it.
“Fairly early on people started asking if
we were ever going to put our buffer in a
stand-alone box,” Menelli says. “Either they
needed more of them than the one in our
systems, or if they were using a standard
pedalboard and didn’t want a switching
system. Once we’d decided to do it, it was a
fairly simple thing to extract that circuit, put
it in a simple enclosure and make it simple
to use.”
Peter Hodgson is the owner and curator of I
Heart Guitar, a top internet destination for all
things guitar. He also writes for various music
magazines in Australia and several outlets on
the web. Check out his website at www.iheartguitarblog.com.
KICKSTARTED
Sioux Guitars SCPD pedal
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1601193137/the-new-sioux-guitars-scpd-pedal
BRANDS ON THE RISE
Echopark Guitars
Los Angeles, California
Recent Aerosmith coup landing new guitars with
both Joe Perry and Brad Whitford. Guitars used in the
current live show as well as on the new album ‘Music
From Another Dimension’ due in November
Reasonant Electronic Small Hadron Collider pedal
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/resonantelectronic/the-small-hadron-collider
Guitar Playing Expanded
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/545355231/guitar-playback-expanded
PandorAmp
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nielltronix/pandoramp-the-first-open-sourcestereo-vacuum-tube
Strumschool
http://www.indiegogo.com/strumschool
Verellen Amplifiers
Seattle, Washington
Recently completed fan-financed effort to create tube
pedal versions of two popular amp models. Asked for
$15,000... received almost $33k
J Backlund Designs Retronix guitars (UNSUCCESSFUL)
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/430854338/retronix-r-800-r-800b-by-j-backlund-guitar-project
Dwarfcraft Pitchgrinder pedal (FUNDED)
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1933690225/pitchgrinder-an-8-step-sequencedpitch-shifter
Red Witch Analog Pedals
Paekakariki, New Zealand
Winner of the What’s That Dude Play? Builder of
the Year award in 2011, the company continues its
winning ways by netting New Zealand Marketing
Magazine’s export marketing award
NEW PEDALS
WEEK 34 of 2012
Mojo Hand FX
Kirbyville, TX
A flood of new pedals (Recoil, One Ton Bee, Bluebonnet) with more on deck (Zephyr, Crosstown, etc...)
BC Audio
San Francisco, California
Amp maker prototyping a series of add-on ‘modules’
that helps the user cop the legendary ‘Brown’ sound,
protect that pricey vintage amp, and give any amp a
footswitchable volume boost
Mooer Audio
Shenzhen, China
Joining the mini craze with a complete range of board
friendly stomps
Mr. Black
Portland, Oregon
New pedal brand from Jack Deville Electronics
Black Arts Toneworks Oath
Blue Fire Fuzzenstein
DLS Effects TR-1 Tremolo
Dort Pendulator - Tremolo
Dort Velocipede - Distortion/Fuzz
Electronic Sounds UFO Sustain
Flickinger Caged Crow
Funky Munk Delica Octave
Funky Munk Munk Vibe
Goran Custom Guitars Fat Boy Drive
IdiotBox Energizer!
JMK Pedals Custom Drive
JMK Pedals Repeater Tap Tempo
Lightning Boy Audio Soul Drive
Mojo Hand Crosstown - Fuzz
Pro Tone Pedals Civil War Big Muff
SolidGoldFX Apollo
Stigtronics Rodent
SubDecay Quantum Series Quasar - Phase Shifter
Weehbo JTM Drive
Xotic SP Compressor
SOURCE: www.effectsdatabase.com
10
Clinging to relevance
As Summer NAMM shrinks, does its impact follow?
THE Summer NAMM show is fast approaching a critical crossroads in its existence. The
show has lost both exhibitors and attendees
over the past several years, and in just the
past five years, the exhibitor footprint has
been reduced from having booths lining the
second and third level hallways as overflow
from the main show floor to almost no show
vendors in the halls.
This year, the shrinkage hit the main hall
with the show contracting most of the far
right aisle. The economy has played its role
in keeping some exhibitors away. A quick
poll of former exhibitors yields a similar
song – the show is too expensive for the
value that is extracted from it.
The big boys have all but abandoned the
Nashville show, even those with headquarters in the Music City.
So what can the National Association of
Music Merchants do to the keep the sum11
mer gathering relevant? One thing that is
very noticeable from the exhibitor profile is
that many of the companies willing to invest
in show space are smaller, boutique shops.
Many of these are either start-ups betting the
show is a worthwhile investment or older,
but still growing shops looking to take the
next step in their commercial evolution.
NAMM themselves said there were 75
first-time exhibitors at the July show – that’s
a fifth of the show floor, according to the
organizers. Standing on the floor, it seemed
like more than that.
NAMM should go out of its way to cater
to these smaller companies. Create satellite
‘loud rooms’ where would-be buyers can go
in and actually ‘hear’ the gear. Let exhibitors
showcase their wares unrestricted and without fear of citation by the ‘sound police’.
The success of regional ‘amp’ shows - like
the one that has popped up in Nashville
over the past few years - has been the ability
for hands-on, volume-up demonstration.
Music is loud. Let it be loud.
Encourage the boutiques to get involved
with the show program, either via the Idea
Center or through a new set of specialized
programming specifically aimed at small
manufacturer concerns and needs.
A lot of these first-time exhibitors are still
new to the MI business and probably feel a
bit like an outsider looking in. Change that.
Lower the threshold to entry. Yes… that
means the cost. The notion might seem
contrarian given the fact that the show is
moving into a brand-spankin’ new, state-ofthe-art facility next year (and that’s as good
a reason as any to jack the price), but it is
the one, best option to win back some of
the exhibitors that have been lost and attract
new ones on the fence about the investment. Offering the new venue imenities at a
new, lower price point would likely attract
more smaller shops to the show. It may even
bring a few manufacturers that have given
up on the gathering back into the fold.
According to NAMM, a good part of the
growth has been in guitars and accessories
despite the influx of software-based products into the market in recent years.
Twenty of the 75 new exhibitors represented strings, including acoustic and electric
guitars as well as basses and violins, and the
accessories that go with them.
Many of the newcomers were pedal builders including Celestial Effects, Big Joe’s
Stompboxes, Empress Effects and VFE
Effects. There were smaller guitar shops
like Ergotar, Peterson and others, and amp
houses like CEC, Zuercher and Renovo
Ampworks.
There was no Fender. No Gibson. There
was, at best, ‘micro-representation’ of a few
of the big boys.
Summer NAMM’s future, whether the
organizers like it or not, is in the expanding small builder/boutique manufacturer
market. Right now, that market is vibrant...
full of innovative products and fertile minds.
Take advantage.
EXHIBITS DOWN? YES.: The number of exhibitors
at Summer NAMM has fallen in recent years.
Inspired by the legendary fuzz pedal heard on many classic
surf, garage, rock and early punk recordings, the One Ton
Bee is no mere clone. We’ve tweaked the circuit and added
our own mojo while staying true to the spirit of the highly
revered original. The One Ton Bee will please players looking
for that gnarly, nasty fuzz of yore, yet need something a bit
more musical. Featuring modern upgrades like true bypass
switching, this Bee brings vintage fuzz screaming into the now.
mojohandfx.com
facebook.com/mojohandfx
twitter.com/mojohandfx
12
with BART PROVOOST
A Look Back at the Marshall SupaFuzz
Gary Hurst, Sola Sound and a
decade-plus of fuzz-tastic mojo
brand. The pedal was successful, but the
local shop could only reach a relatively
small market. The solution was to make
deals with bigger companies and offer
them rebranded versions of the fuzz. The
best known example of this is the Vox
Tone Bender Professional Mk II (Not to
be confuse with the black or grey, twotransistor Vox Tone Benders made in Italy,
which you see on eBay all the time), but
they also made prototypes for Rotosound
(Fuzz Box), Dallas (Rangemaster Fuzzbug)
and Marshall.
The first Marshall SupaFuzz pedals were
made by Gary Hurst at Sola Sound using
sand-cast enclosures from the same series
as the enclosures Olivetti used for some of
their Summa calculating machines.
These also are easy to recognize by the
knobs, which are close to each other. The
label was screen printed with ‘SupaFuzz’
in bold and ‘Marshall’ in thin, italicized
letters (or in a few cases without ‘Marshall’
at all, as seen in a few ads from the time).
Some of these were made with the brutal
Tonebender MkI circuit, with the fuzz at
maximum and a Tone Filter control (instead
of the Fuzz control). There is some discussion as to whether these were prototype or
production pedals as there are currently
only a few of these known to exist.
More common are the pedals with a very
early, thicker-sounding Tonebender MkII
circuit, where the Filter control actually
controlled the attack. (FIG 1: far left pedal)
The second version, made from late 1966
to late 1967/early 1968, used the same
enclosure, though it was die-cast now and
the knobs were spaced further apart. Early
pedals of this version still had the labels for
the knobs closer to the middle.
Only MkII circuits were used (they were
probably more successful). This version
exists with different transistors: 3x Mullard
OC75, 3x Mullard OC81D or 3x Impex S31T. (FIG 1: 2nd from left)
The third version used a rounder enclosure and went from a circuit built on strip-
FIG 1: A look at the various iternations of the multi-generational
Marshall Supa-Fuzz.
PHOTOS BY GRAHAM
WELCOME to the Wayback Machine,
where we’ll take a break from today’s boutique gear craze to go back in time and talk
about specific vintage pedals, old brands,
trends and evolutions.
For this first installment, I’ll take a peek
into the history of one of the very earliest
fuzz pedals: the Marshall SupaFuzz.
The Marshall SupaFuzz was used by guitarists like Pete Townshend (The Who), Jeff
Beck and Ron Asheton (The Stooges) and
was in production longer than most other
pedals of that time - more than 10 years.
During that time, the pedal underwent
some small, but noticeable changes. As
you can tell from scanning completed gear
auctions online, it can be quite valuable
these days, but note the word “can”.
As far as valuations go, one SupaFuzz is
clearly not the other and prices can range
from a few hundred dollars for the later
versions to well over a thousand dollars for
the earliest models.
In 1966, Sola Sound, one of the many
music stores in London’s Denmark Street,
sold the Tonebender fuzz box designed
and built by Gary Hurst - first under his
own name, and later under the Sola Sound
13
even early 80’s) is easy to recognize by
the labels which are now die-cast with the
enclosure instead of screenprinted.
The circuit stayed the same, though in the
end the circuit was soldered to the pots
(instead of using a metal frame) and instead
of a brown PCB later versions used a green
or translucent board. (FIG 1: 1st and 2nd
from right).
This last version was completely built
in-house by Marshall, but in the 1970’s
Sola Sound would also make fuzz and wah
pedals for Marshall’s Park brand, with later
versions of the Tonebender circuit.
FIG 2: Gut shots of the various SupaFuzzes.
board (probably still built by Sola Sound
or their subcontractors and assembled by
Marshall) to PCB construction (built by
Marshall), all with OC75 transistors.
These pedals are more common than the
previous versions. The labels were still
screenprinted, but now ‘Marshall’ was in
bold and ‘SupaFuzz’ in thin, italic letters. There was an ad from around 1967
announcing SupaFuzz pedals in different
colors, but very few of those survived.
(FIG 1: 3rd-5th from left)
The fourth and most common version,
made from 1969 to the late 70’s (maybe
Screamin’ FX currently has
four pedal offerings - two
fuzzes - one silicon and
one germanium, a boost and
a buffer. The company was
started just a short time
ago by an electrical engineer who also studied classical guitar for four years.
Not interested in digital offerings, Screamin’
plays strictly in the analog
sandbox... coaxing classic
sounds from its range of
multi-functional pedals.
The Screamin’ FX ‘coming
out’ party was this year’s
South-By-Southwest festival
in Austin, where the company
set up a booth at the show’s
‘Gear Alley’.
According to Seth, attendee
response to the pedals was
very favorable.
The Texas builder could be
one to watch in the not-toodistant future.
Bart Provoost is the curator and owner of
Effects Database (FXDB), the single, biggest
source for information regarding pedal effects
both old and new on the internet. Visit the site
at www.effectsdatabase.com.
Subject: Screamin’ FX
Headquarters: Austin, TX
Owner: Seth Wilk
Modus Operandi: A one-man operation
using quality parts to hand build topshelf analog effects pedals.
14
TECH TALK u
VEXED
with Zachary Vex
Regarding impedance
At times misunderstood, other
times ignored... output impedance
can seriously affect your effect
ALTHOUGH it may be a bit technical, the
issue of output impedance is rarely addressed by pedal designers, although it
seriously affects the relationship between
pedals, especially fuzzes. A guitar’s output impedance is quite high
when the volume control is turned up all
the way. Its DC (0 Hz) resistance can be
measured with a multimeter as somewhat
below 20K ohms, but the AC (audio) resistance which impedance refers to is quite a
bit higher.
It is common to observe that fuzz pedals
will sound best when a guitar is plugged
directly into them, while they sound worse
when placed later in the chain, especially
after non-true-bypass pedals.
The special relationship that traditional
fuzzes have with guitars (when plugged
directly in) is evidenced by their change in
tone as the guitar’s volume control is turned
down... you can hear them shift from a fat,
fuzzy sound to a thin, spanky, clean sound
just as the guitar’s volume control is nearly
off. This is because the input impedance of
a traditional fuzz is quite low, and it loads
down the guitar when the guitar’s volume
is high, killing the high frequencies, whose
impedance is much too high to survive the
heavy load, resulting in a fuzz tone mainly
driven by low frequencies, and the output
high frequencies are a result of the new
waveshape. When the guitar’s volume is turned down,
however, the output impedance of the guitar
is controlled completely by the potentiometer, and it is easily able to match the low
input impedance of the fuzz. This results in
a full-frequency response, hence the clean
15
FROM THE WORKBENCH: Zack sketches out the relationship between a guitar’s pick-up and a fuzz pedal.
ABOVE: Zack shows more about the relationship and suggests an
alternative resistance model. RIGHT: A pair of Zvex most popular
fuzzes - the Fuzz Factory and Fuzz Probe.
bright tone. It is clean because there’s so
little signal amplitude that the fuzz can’t
distort. It is bright because the impedance
is matched and the pick-up’s high frequencies are protected by the high value of the
potentiometer.
Imagine it this way... the fuzz is a blind
man with a heavy hand. The guitar’s pickup
is a slender ballet dancer. With the heavy
hand of the fuzz on the shoulder of the
dancer, trying to follow her delicate movements, her subtle moves are lost because
she’s weighed down. If a long feather is placed in that heavy
hand and it rests on her shoulder instead,
she’s free to dance and her subtlety returns
(the high frequencies which are so delicate and easily lost are now readily passed
through the feather). The heavy hand receives much less signal
through the feather, but it’s far more detailed. In this case, the potentiometer’s car-
bon track between the wiper and the connection to the pickup serves as the feather
that protects the pickup’s signal from the
heavy hand of the fuzz, allowing the signal
to become clean and bright (clean because
the amplitude is low, bright because the
impedance is low and matches the fuzz).
If you want to see evidence of the heavy
hand of a fuzz, put an oscilloscope on the
input (not output!) of a fuzz when it is connected directly to a guitar. Compare that to the guitar’s output when
it is not connected to anything. The guitar’s
signal is being mangled right at the input of
the fuzz.
If you return to the first sentence of this
essay, you will see I was speaking of output
impedance, not input impedance. Yes, the
feather can be put in the heavy hand of the
fuzz, but that won’t let it do its special thing
with a guitar. Instead, pedal designers should pay close
attention to output impedance, and remember to put in that feather on the output
instead, in the form of a series resistor at the
output of the circuit. Far too often the output impedance of buffers and other circuits is far too low. I would
suggest a series output resistor between 22k
and 100k ohms as a start point, but don’t be
afraid to experiment.
Try this with any pedals you are designing, and place fuzzes after your pedals as a
test. A/B the result with and without series
resistance present at the output of the pedal
driving the fuzz.
You’ll find that adding resistance to a
circuit’s output will make that circuit behave
just a bit more like a guitar pickup with the
guitar’s volume turned up, and fuzzes following that circuit will be happier with the
high-amplitude, high-impedance signal.
Zachary Vex is the top man at Z.Vex Ef-
fects. Based in Minnesota, Z.Vex is one of the
world’s premier boutique effects builders. The
company’s pedal range includes such classics
as the the Fuzz Factory, Box of Rock and Super
Hard-On. The complete range can be viewed by
going to www.zvex.com/
16
AMP TALK u
GRIMM’S
REALITY
with Adam Grimm
Looking backward, moving forward
Odd amps of the past can be just
the ticket to refresh your tired tone
IN MY own personal quest for tone, I have
continuously come across that notion
that there are a few quintessential guitar
amplifiers that were the tone standards that
everything had to try to match - the JTM
45, the Tweed Deluxe, the Bassman, the
Dumble, the Trainwreck as well as a few
select others. It’s a short list, but a list of
what is collectively thought of as the best
amps ever made.
I find myself pushing away from those
amps more and more. Not that they aren’t
great, but I find myself wanting something
different. The glut of clones has oversaturated the market to the point where the
thought of another 18-watt Marshall copy
makes my stomach tie up in knots.
There are so many tonal alternatives to be
searched out - unique voices from the same
time periods, usually made by some of the
same people. The lines of history tend to
blur as companies hired and fired from the
same shallow pool of tonesmiths making
musical instruments. A lot of times, lesser known products can
be found for relatively small investments
compared to some of their more famous
cousins. I’ve had the pleasure of running
into a number of them that have been quite
memorable. The Gene Leis Model 910T was an amplifier I stumbled upon at a vintage guitar
show about ten years ago. I had never heard
of Gene Leis before, but it had a vintage
Jensen alnico speaker, a small tube compliment, and was very inexpensive. I bought it,
got it home and popped it open to see what
was inside. The circuit was very similar to a
tweed Princeton, with a tremolo circuit and
a 10-inch speaker. The transformers were
17
MEAN GENE: This Gene Leis 910T has everything Fenders of the time had... for less money.
of similar manufacture as the ones Fender
was using in the late 1950s. Tube layout is a
single 6V6 power tube, one 12AX7 preamp/
driver tube, one 12AX7 for the tremolo, and
a 6AX5 rectifier. The 6AX5 tube might not
be that familiar to most people, but it is very
similar to a 5Y3, but can run on a 6.3v fila-
ment instead of the normal 5v filament. Turning it on brought forth all the sounds
I would normally associate with a small
vintage tweed style amplifier. Why wouldn’t
it? It was extremely similar. As I explored
the amp further, I found that there were
more differences than I had initially heard.
AMP TALK u
Turning the volume down on the amplifier
showed off where the Gene Leis excelled
over its tweed counterparts. There is much
more fidelity and headroom to this amp
than the others. Notes bloomed, but didn’t
over-compress. They stayed together without
fizzling. A great find, indeed.
Next was a trip to Orange County, California where I scored one of my favorite
solid state amplifiers of all time. (Yes, I said
solid state). Years prior to the trip, I had
the pleasure of seeing Willie Nelson play
live. Watching him play, and being a gear
head, I couldn’t help but marvel at his tone.
Nothing on his stage looked familiar, or at
least nothing that would sound like he was
sounding. A bit of research told a story of
how he got his guitar pickup and amplifier
from Baldwin. With that kind of sound, I
knew that I would have to at least play one
at some point in my life. A few years later,
I happened upon a Baldwin Professional
Deluxe amplifier... and bought it without
even turning it on.
I took the amplifier home with me, and
quickly broke a few cardinal rules regarding
vintage amplifiers. I plugged it straight into
the wall, plugged in a Les Paul and turned
the amp up. Man, what a glorious sound.
It didn’t turn me into Willie Nelson by any
stretch, but it was such an honest amplifier. It was one of the first times I had ever
played something so truthful. It made me
very aware of what I was doing, but melded
into my playing so effortlessly. I could
understand why it has become such an essential part of his sound.
One of the standout features of the late
1960s Baldwin amplifiers is what they
referred to as a SuperSound circuit. This
is a five-button switch that sits off to the
side of the amp. It only affects one of the
two channels. The SuperSound circuit is a
tone-shaping circuit in push-button form.
It consists of Treble, Mix, Mid 1, Mid 2 and
Bass. These buttons each give the amplifier
a unique voice. A secondary switch allows
the SuperSound circuit to be used by itself,
or in addition to the normal tone controls of
the amplifier.
Later, after I had started Satellite Amplifiers - I was both making amplifiers and
running a part-time repair service - I had
a customer come in with an odd prototype Carvin amplifier that he couldn’t find
anyone willing to touch. It was a circuit
board amp that had caught fire. I was never
one to shy away from a challenge, so I said
I would be willing to work on it. It took a
while, but I managed to bring it back to life.
A few weeks after the customer received his
repair, he called me up, saying he had a gift
for me. I explained that there was no need,
but he insisted. A few hours later he came
through the front door and handed me a
1955 Silvertone 1336 amplifier. He said it
was a thrift store find that didn’t work, but
he knew its home was with me. I thanked
him profusely.
SOLID: The Baldwin Professional (left) is a solid state amp with
different voicing options. The Silvertone 1336 (right) is a Fenderish classic with a tremolo that is tough to beat.
18
AMP TALK u
The Silvertone was missing a rectifier tube.
I assumed it had been stolen or fallen out
at the the thrift store. So I popped a new
one in and let the amp come to life - fifty
screaming watts into a pair of 12-inch
Alnico Utah speakers breathing fire. I
played that amp for hours that day. It had
all the nastiness of a tweed, with the punch
of a blackface. Then I noticed the tremolo
switch. I pulled it out, and stomped on it.
Everything I love about tremolo was right
there, but in an even more dramatic fashion.
Thick. Choppy. Perfect. It was almost like
someone was inside the amplifier turning
it off and on in rhythm. To this day, it is the
tremolo that I judge all others by.
The Silvertone 1336 itself is somewhat
unique. It is actually a mono preamp driving a stereo power amplifier. There are
four 6L6GC’s driving two separate output
transformers that are hidden underneath the
chassis. These are each wired individually
to each Utah speaker. Quite an interesting
way to get more wattage to each speaker, as
opposed to the normal way of just running
a single output transformer to two separate
speakers. The two independent channels are
both running fairly standard 12AX7-based
circuits. The tremolo is a familiar bias-based
tremolo. Very similar to the ones used in
early Fender amps.
The last of my odd amp tales revolves
around a tiny little amplifier simply known
as Mindy. A while back, my shop partner
and I were on a bit of a trading bender
through the joys of Craigslist. We ended up
about three miles from the Mexican border
in a small mobile home park. The gentleman we were dealing with was showing us
his 8-track quadraphonic room when my
partner noticed a small purse-like object
hanging from a hook and asked about it.
The owner said it was an amp and offered
to throw it in to the deal we were working
out. I didn’t examine it too closely at the
time. My eyes were on a 1965 AC30. But
when we got back to our shop, I took a
closer look at the little purse amplifier. It is
absolutely adorable. Mindy was made by the Teisco Corporation... probably in the mid 1960s. It’s an alltube mini amp. The power tube is a 35C5,
DAINTY DARLING: The Teisco Mindy has a few tricks up its
sleeve for something marketed as a student amp. It’s perky,
punchy and has headroom to spare.
19
pushing about a watt and a half. It uses a
pair of 6AV6s for the preamp circuit. The
speaker is a little 5-inch oval speaker. While
not quite in the same sonic spectrum of the
others I have discussed here, it definitely has
a personality of its own. It boasts a wider
frequency spectrum than I expected. For
what seems to have been either a travel amp
or a student amplifier, it is capable of covering a lot of different ground. When pushed
it does get angry, but its highlights are much
more in the headroom. Just writing about these amplifiers makes
me want to go play them again. After all,
isn’t that the most important thing about
gear and our quest for it? Adam Grimm is the owner and founder of
Satellite Amplifiers. The Southern Californiabased amp shop specializes in high-quality,
no-nonsense tone machines. Grimm also is an
avid amplifier collector with over 100 amps of
various shapes and sizes to his name. Check out
Satellite’s range here... www.satelliteamps.com.
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SO
Siouxsie Medley
OF
WITH...
Dead Sara exploded onto the scene in 2011 with
their self-titled debut album and the lead single
‘Weatherman’ - an infectious rocker built on the
crunch of guitarist Siouxsie Medley’s deft chords
and raw riffage. We reached out to her to find out
more about her tone toolkit.
What is your #1 guitar?
My 1973 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe. I recorded
the album with that guitar. It's very sentimental. I've cracked the neck on it three
times so I don't play it live anymore.
What is your latest guitar?
I actually lost a 1974 Univox in a recent
house fire. That was the latest guitar I had
bought... and now lost.
What is your ‘go to’ amp these
days? Is it the 65 Amps Rocket 88?
Definitely the 65! That amp is my baby. It's
huge-sounding and the tone is perfect for
Dead Sara. We have many different sounding songs on the record. They vary from
ballads like ‘Sorry For It All’ where I finger
pick most of the song, to loud, heavy songs
like ‘Weatherman’ and the 65 gives me that
range of tone. I actually use the amp for
tone more then I use pedals both live and
on the record.
What pedals are on your pedal
board currently?
I don't have a whole lot of pedals on my
board as I use the amp for most of my tone.
But I do use a MXR Delay, Swollen Pickle,
True Grit, Boss volume pedal, Boss tuner,
DigiTech Whammy and a Boss Fender
Deluxe Reverb Amp pedal. But my very
favorite pedals are by Death By Audio. I
have many of their pedals and love them all
as they are made to sound fucked up... crack
and break and make weird sounds. I use the
Supersonic Fuzz Gun a lot.
You’ve got one wish from the gear
genie. Money and accessibility
are no object. What guitar, amp or
pedal would you wish for?
1959 Les Paul Goldtop! That guitar is why I
wanna play. It sounds so beautiful. I’d stick
with my 65 amp. And if Death By Audio
could just send me every pedal they’ve
made, and will ever make, I’d be real happy.
If you could only play one Dead
Sara song to win over a prospective fan, which would you play and
why?
‘Weatherman’ because it is full of energy
and I feel that really communicates to fans.
I feel like that song shows the whole band’s
abilities and I’ve personally seen people
respond to that song the most.
Tell us one thing about Dead Sara
that your fans might not know.
Emily, Sean and I are all self taught musicians. Chris is the only one with any kind of
musical training. Emily taught herself how
to sing and play guitar as did Sean and myself. I started teaching myself to play guitar
when I was about 11. My nanny played
guitar and I’d watch her and other friends
play and picked up how to start playing.
From there I started writing my own songs
and when I listened to other music I could
start to hear what they were playing, which
helped me progress.
What does the rest of 2012 hold for
Dead Sara?
This month we’ll be going on tour with The
Offspring and Neon Trees. In November,
we’ll be playing the Vans Warped Tour in
London. And many more tours to come
after that I’m sure.
TOP: Siouxsie rocks the 65. MIDDLE:
Siouxsie’s pedal board includes a Zinky True
Grit and Way Huge Swollen Pickle. BOTTOM:
(L to R) Sean, Siouxsie, Emily and Chris.
20
PEDAL TALK u
with
Six fuzz boxes you need to know about
Some creamy, some dreamy... here are a few fuzzes
that should be on your radar screen
THE WORLD of boutique fuzz pedals is an
overwhelming smorgasbord of temptation
for the avid fuzz fan. Being Fuzz Box Girl,
I have the opportunity to sample a wider
variety of fuzz pedals from the buffet than
the average gear head. With so many options, it can be difficult to separate the true
gems from regular, run-of-the-mill fuzz pedals. Below are some fuzzes that I recently
stumbled upon that I found to be particularly tasty for any fuzz lover.
In no particular order, here are six pedals
that should be on your radar:
with some very welcome additions. The
Compadre features a Scoop control, which
makes the filter adjustable for much more
sound flexibility and to help your sound
cut through the mix. Now, if you’ve played
an original, you know that the Companion
doesn’t have a lot of output volume on tap.
The Compadre has an added boost stage
at the end of the circuit that will give you
plenty of extra volume. Both the Scoop and
Boost can be bypassed using a toggle switch
to give you just the stock FY-2 circuit.
Mark Smith is the guy behind Smitty
Pedals and he has developed a bit of an underground following via both eBay auctions
and the Smitty Pedals Facebook page. However, I’m figuring once word gets out that
Dan Auerbach may be using one of these,
he won’t be underground much longer.
This is another clone that takes advantage
of some hindsight that vintage pedal builders weren’t lucky enough to have. With the
Siamese Scream, you have an Op-Amp pregain stage that now pushes the pedal into
the realm of fuzz. El Musico Loco has also
updated the tone stack to give you a wider
range of control from the circuit as well as
updated the noisy op-amp chips used in the
original to much lower noise chips.
Now, I have had the pleasure of playing
the El Musico Loco Wee Beaver, which was
a more modern take on a fuzz face circuit,
and for a box about the size of a 9-volt
battery, that thing can blow your hair back.
Chris Bradford, the man behind El Musico
Loco, is an American living abroad and
building a brand that is synonymous with
quality. The Siamese Scream does exactly
what you think it would… Scream! And just
look at how much work went into the box
design. Beautiful! Stop by the website and
check out the pic of Mudhoney’s Mark Arm
loving up on one.
Compadre
Smitty Pedals
Firstly, yes, this is a clone of the vintage
FY-2 Companion Fuzz from Shin-ei, but perhaps you don’t have the $650 or so bucks
for a vintage unit. The Compadre is honestly
the next best thing and if you don’t want to
take my word for it, perhaps the fact that the
guitar tech for The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach just bought one of these for Dan to use
live may say a little something extra about
the Compadre.
While the Compadre uses the same C536
transistors as the original, this clone comes
21
Siamese Scream
El Musico Loco
Alright, alright, you got me…. I’m writing
about another clone, but believe me, you’ll
love this one as well. As you may be able to
tell just from the name, the Siamese Scream
is based on the drool-worthy Op-Amp Big
Muff tone made famous by Billy Corgan on
the Smashing Pumpkins landmark Siamese
Dream album. True Pumpkins fan unite!
Cancer Wah the Fuzz?
Celestial Effects
If you were one of the ones lucky enough
to go to Summer NAMM this year, you may
PEDAL TALK u
have come across this beauty. About a year
ago, Dom, the mad genius behind Celestial Effects, told me of his desire to create
something along the lines of “Jack Whitein-a-box”, so to speak. In the world of fuzz
lovers, the Jack White tone is by far among
the top five most desired, so it is kind of a
no-brainer for a builder to seek out a way to
try and emulate that sound.
As described by the Celestial Effects site,
the Cancer will consist of four different
effects in one box. Now, I am not usually a
fan of this, but knowing Dom and seeing a
brief video of the pedal from NAMM, this
will be one of the few exceptions to my
multi-effects-in-one-box rule. In order of
signal chain, you will get a fixed Wah section, followed by an Octave Fuzz (and yes,
you can shut the octave portion off and just
use the fuzz), then a heavy fuzz section and
finally it will end with a real tube OD.
Last I heard, the Cancer Wah the Fuzz?
should hit the market in late October, so this
is definitely one to keep your eye on.
rumph!” (I didn’t get a harrumph outta that
guy… you watch your ass!)
Anyway, the awesome thing about this
little gem is that it is extremely versatile, going from overdrive to crazy, random octave
fuzz and still allows you to achieve the famous Trombetta trumpet and trombone type
sounds. C’mon people, it has a WTF switch!
You know there is a beast just waiting to be
unleashed with that.
Ritual
Blackarts Toneworks
Fubar Bliss
Wilson Effects
WTF
J. Rockett Audio Designs
Now, my true fuzz addicts will be very
familiar with the name Paul Trombetta. He
is the mastermind behind the Bone Series
of fuzz pedals, which include the Bone
Machine, the mini Bone Machine and the
UberBoneMachine... all of which are extraordinary fuzz pedals.
If that wasn’t enough for you, he is also
the man behind the Fudge Fuzz line, including the Feederfudge, Fudge and Fudgie
Buddy. In the realm of fuzz, he has become
somewhat of a God to those that have been
lucky enough to get their hands on one of
his exquisitely-crafted pedals.
Recently, Paul joined forces with J. Rockett
Audio Designs to release the WTF Fuzz. The
pedal is being marketed as the “Fuzz for
people that don’t like fuzz.”
I don’t know who in their right mind
wouldn’t love fuzz, but I know there are
those of you that exist out there. But we
fuzz fans say “Harrumph, harrumph, har-
Red Hot Chili Peppers fans may recognize
the Wilson Effects name as being recently
associated with Josh Klinghoffer. A Wilson
Effects Fuzz is part of Josh’s touring rig and
there is a good reason.
If you ask any of my fellow You Tube demoers that have had the chance to test drive
or own any of the Wilson Effects line, they
all always have one word to describe Mr.
Wilson’s work... quality.
Now, the Fubar Bliss is by no means the
newest addition to the Wilson Effects line,
but it is one of my faves. It is just a nasty,
nasty fuzz and every once in a while, you
just need to get nasty with your fuzz.
The Wilson Effects website describes it as
modeled after the classic Burns Buzzaround
circuit, but that is probably where any similarities between the two pedals end.
I’ve played a vintage Buzzaround as well as
a few clones and this one was just so much
dirtier and just had more life to it overall.
It’s made with new, old stock PNP transistors and is positive ground… however, just
like the site says, “Don’t let the positive
ground scare you off as it is also outfitted
with a voltage inverter to make it compatible with all 2.1 center negative power supplies using 9v DC.”
You may not find a lot about this online
besides a video of a fellow female rocker
just having a blast with this pedal.
I’ll also say that the Fubar Bliss may not be
your cup of tea, but Mr. Wilson has a ton
of amazing effects that are worthy of your
attention. Do check them out!
And last, but certainly not least on my list
is a new one from Black Arts Toneworks, the
Ritual Fuzz. Now, many of you should be
familiar with the killer Pharaoh fuzz by
Black Arts... a Ge/Si hybrid that took the
boutique fuzz market by storm when it
came out. This is not to take away from the
Black Arts venture into the Big Muff type
fuzz, the LSTR - another one of my faves,
but the Ritual is something that is perfect
for beginners and experienced fuzz lovers
alike. It is a one-knob fuzz... not much to
fuss around with if you just wanna plug and
play. The Ritual cleans up really, really well
with your guitar’s volume knob, allowing
you to really shape the tone you want on
the fly. You can go from a cutting and sharp
fuzz tone to come through the live mix or
you make her all fat, warm and wooly, just
like many of you love it. The pedal graphics are just perfect for a one knob fuzz and
it seems as though they are selling some
limited edition chrome enclosures, which
look pretty bad ass.
Like I said, this one just came out and
it is just starting to pick up steam. One of
the reasons for this has to be attributed to
the fact that even though Black Arts builds
boutique pedals, they are all at musicianfriendly prices.
So, check this sucker out when you get the
chance. While you’re there, you also may
want to look up the Oath, which isn’t quite
a fuzz, but it will just crank a saturated amp.
I was thinking of writing about that one in
full, but since it’s not quite a fuzz, I couldn’t
bring myself to do it. It’ll definitely find a
niche market, but it’s not for everyone... the
sound it makes is just so damn cool and
unique that I had to say something!
Fuzz Box Girl is the pedal demo sensation
that took You Tube by storm in 2011. Her wit,
sex-appeal and tasty playing has attracted over
430,000 views to her video channel. See more at
www.fuzzboxgirl.com.
22
Goin’
Deep
A Conversation with David Grissom
ROLLING WEST on Highway 71 about fortyfive minutes outside of Austin, Texas, you
might miss the sign directing you to the Hill
Country hamlet of Spicewood. Tucked back
just off the highway to the north, the Burnett County community is just big enough to
support a library, post office and a few other
essentials. What you likely wouldn’t miss is the
town’s main attraction - a roadside beef and
rib ‘destination’ called Opie’s Barbecue. While
only in existence since 1999, Opie’s quickly
outgrew its more modest accommodations
and now resides in a multi-thousand square
foot dining hall configuration that is part West
Texas ranch and part grandma’s front porch
with all of the appointments of the former and
comfort of the latter.
Opie’s was the agreed upon rendezvous
point for a lunch time chat with Texas via
Kentucky guitarist David Grissom (Storyville,
John Mellencamp). Grissom, who lives about
ten minutes up the road from the restaurant,
is a regular - a fact that become apparent not
long after he walks in. Dressed in a purple tshirt and jeans, Grissom is greeted by name by
one of the staff who helps with meat selection
(We decide on beef ribs and sausage). He asks
the staffer how he’s been feeling - an obvious
reference to a prior conversation and visit by
the guitarist. Of course, if you need any more
confirmation, look no further than his 2009
solo album, 10,000 Feet, and the track ‘Butterbean Friday’ - a popular end-of-the-week
special at Opie’s.
Moving through the vegetable area, a cook
from inside the kitchen calls out to Grissom,
who returns the greeting. After loading up
with potato salad, pickles and tater tot casserole, we gather our drinks and utensils and
head for a quiet table in the back of the hall.
Not long after our first bite, Grissom starts to
talk of his drummer past, life as an independent solo artist and his relationship with gear.
FEATURE u
David Grissom
Ringo Vs. John or George.
of those terrible, Mel Bay experiences. I was my career - learning how to read, at least a
“Oh, I was going to be a drummer,”
like ‘I want to play songs.’”
little bit, and basic notation and how to read
confesses Grissom. “Yeah, definitely. I
Much like other young, aspiring guitarists,
a chart. At 17, there was a lot of naivete
wanted to be Ringo (Starr).” He remembers
Grissom recalls learning his way through
left in me, but I kind of felt like this is what
the exact moment where drumming took a
The Animals’ ‘House of the Rising Sun’ and
I wanted to do and I was going to give it a
backseat to his desire to learn guitar - being
other ‘rites of passage’ tunes. Not too long
shot no matter what.”
eight years old back home in Kentucky,
after that, he worked his way into a Fender
After high school, he enrolled in the Universitting behind a drum set that his parent’s
Mustang guitar and Fender Champ amplifisity of Indiana, intrigued by the prospects of
had bought him and listening to The Beatles’ er. ‘House of the Rising Sun’ soon gave way
learning more via the school’s jazz program.
Revolver album.
to ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ and the Rolling
However, he soon found that the program
“It got to that guitar lick in ‘Got To Get
had little room for guitar players. The
You Into My Life’ at the end of the song
move would not be wasted however, as
that kind of mimics the horn line... the
he ended up joining a band with several
bend,” he says. “I heard that... and I was
graduates of the music school.
“There are a lot of things about
sitting behind the drums and I thought ‘I
“The drummer was Kenny Aranoff,
want to do that. I don’t want to do this.’”
who I ended up playing with again
the changing nature of the
“It was just one of those hair-raising,
later with John Mellencamp,” says
magic... you know how music is able to
business that bummed me out for Grissom. “I was in that band for two
transcend?” he asks. “It was the sound...
Then we broke up and I moved
a while. Then I made a decision years.
and the emotion in invoked. Like some
back to Louisville and started working
other place. It just sparked my imaginaat a record store. I also got back with
at some point to just say...
tion in a way to where to this day I am
the teacher who was the jazz player.”
This is how it is. Let’s go, man!
still fascinated and blown away, and kind
During this time, Grissom also hooked
of live for those moments when you hear
up with legendary jazz guitarist Jimmy
Shut up and play your guitar!”
a tone or a lick, a song, melody or whatRainey, who was from Louisville.
ever that just floors you. I think we all
Rainey was in the process of putting tohave one of those receptors in our brain
gether a book, writing solos for certain
that respond to certain things. That was
jazz standards. Grissom was invited to
sort of the moment where I was like ‘I want Stones. The Stones gave way to Hendrix and
Rainey’s house and the pair sat and played
to play guitar. I want to make that sound.’” soon the full spectrum of rock music was
through a bunch of charts.
It wasn’t until two years later that Grissom
open to him for exploration.
“I can’t even explain it,” recalls Grissom.
was able to convince his family to let him
By the time Grissom reached high school,
“I’ve never been a great jazz player and
make the switch. It was the year his mother
he had taken lessons from three separate
I never will be because I don’t have the
passed away.
teachers, each with their own philosophies
discipline or the time that it takes to become
“After she died, guitar was something
and unique styles. There was the rocker, the
truly proficient in that style, but sitting there
I really wanted to do,” he remembers. “I
blues disciple and jazz mentor.
in the room with him... something hapthink my father sensed that. So just like a
“I got my basic knowledge of theory,
pened. I was playing the music. We got
lot of people at the time we went out to the
which was really, really pivotal,” explains
done playing two or three songs. He asked
mall and I took guitar lessons on a rented
Grissom. “If I didn’t have that I think it
me what I was going to do. I told him that
Harmony. I did that for a while. It was one
would have really changed the course of
I was going to give it a shot. I don’t know
24
FEATURE u
David Grissom
if I can do it, but I wanted to give it a shot.
He just said, “Oh, you’re going to make it.
No doubt.” That was like my ‘Ok, maybe
I can do this.’ From that moment forward
there was never in question in my mind that
this is what I was going to do. You know, I
worked really hard at it, but I did wind up
in the right place at the right time a lot. But
I also made the right decisions... choosing
situations where I would learn and grow,
and not based on the money.”
One head, many hats.
Today, Grissom is an accomplished solo
artist, and has been a highly sought-after
session/tour player and band mate. All three
jobs offer their own special mix of challenges and rewards. Being an independent solo
artist gives him unrivaled musical freedom,
but that is not to say it can’t be burdensome
or that he doesn’t miss being on the road
supporting others.
“I can tell you that is much easier, in so
many ways, to be a side man where all you
have to do is show up,” confesses Grissom.
“Somebody else is taking care of everything
else. But the opportunities to be fulfilled
musically are infinitely greater when I’m doing my own thing. Along with that comes a
lot more responsibility and a lot more work.
I’ve spent my whole life playing on records
for other people, with other people, touring
with other people... backing and supporting other artists. Now, I still love doing that!
After doing three CDs, I wouldn’t mind
jumping on a tour for a couple of months.
It’d be like a vacation compared to what it
is like being a record company, being an
engineer, a producer, accountant... on top
of a musician.”
Changes in the music business, especially
when it comes to album budgets, has also
put a damper on session opportunities in
places like Nashville. The days of being
flown in for a two-day studio session and
then flown home are nearly gone. Over a
period of several years, Grissom was going
to Nashville a couple of times a month to
play on records.
“I miss that, man,” says Grissom. “I miss
working at that level, and playing with
players of that caliber... and the energy
of it. Things are different now. It’s a different world. There are a lot of things about
the changing nature of the business that
bummed me out for a while. Then I made
a decision at some point to just say ‘This is
how it is. Let’s go, man! Shut up and play
your guitar!’”
The lack of session work has been one of
the prime motivators for Grissom to progress
his solo work. He followed 2009’s 10,000
Feet with 2011’s Way Down Deep, his third
record in four years.
25
ABOVE: A pair of PRS amp prototypes dialed in by David and Doug Sewell
ABOVE/BELOW: David’s current pedalboard configurations
FEATURE u
The 35-minute album has six cuts, and
that’s just the way he wanted it.
“You don’t have to do 14 songs on a
record anymore,” says Grissom. “Personally,
I don’t necessarily think I get more for my
money if I buy something with 14 songs on
it and maybe four or five of them shouldn’t
have been on there.
“There are plenty of great, long CDs out
there, but ultimately for me, what it came
down to was I ended up writing 20 to 25
songs between the last record and Way
Down Deep and I wanted it to have an
identity. I wanted all of the songs to go together. At the end of the day, I felt like those
six songs sort of summed up what I wanted
to say and how I wanted to say it. I decided
that it’s 35 minutes long... I’m done. You
know? I didn’t want to put anything on there
that didn’t fit just to fill it up with more
songs.”
To support the release, Grissom has kept
himself busy with solo gigs around Austin,
including a regular mid-week slot at the
famous Saxon Pub. His current band is
made up of bassist Scott Nelson, Stefano
Intelisano on keyboards and Bryan Austin
on drums.
“Those guys are all smokin’ players,” gushes Grissom. “It’s a really, really fun band...
fun to be a part of and fun to play with them.
It’s truly a situation where we don’t play the
songs the same way twice. There is a lot of
stretching out. It is not for the faint of heart
when it comes to soloing. It is definitely an
opportunity for all of us to stretch. Here in
Austin... and especially at the Saxon... people
are really receptive to that. That is what has
always been great about living in Austin. The
audience here will go with you. They want to
hear you stretch.”
An ear for gear.
Grissom has a long-standing affiliation
with guitar maker Paul Reed Smith, having
played one for over 20 years. A few years
ago, PRS issued a David Grissom signature
guitar - the DGT. Earlier this year, the company released the DGT Standard - an all
mahogany version of the signature axe.
While PRS is his go-to guitar, he does still
have his Fiesta Red 1960 Stratocaster that
David Grissom
was his primary axe when he was playing
with Texas singer/songwriter Joe Ely.
“I tried to sell it a couple of times, but my
wife wouldn’t let me,” he confesses.
In addition, his guitar collection includes
a ’52 Telecaster, ’59 Gibson 335 and some
vintage acoustics by Gibson and Martin.
Grissom also is working with ampsmith
Doug Sewell, senior amp designer at PRS, to
develop a pair of new tube amps - one 30watt and one 60-watt. These are his current
amps for live gigs.
“I’ve been working on these with Doug
for about the last three years,” explains Grissom. “We’ve really got them dialed in. They
are not the exact same amp, just one with
two extra tubes. We’re going for a similar
aesthetic sonically, but the circuits are
different. One has four EL84s. One is four
EL34s. Cathode bias, tube rectifiers... different than anything else they’ve got. Since
I’ve got those amps dialed in, that is all I’m
using, but I have no idea what their plans
are for them.”
Collection-wise, he counts a Fender
Vibra-verb and Tweed Deluxe among his
The PRS-Grissom Connection
GRISSOM and Paul Reed Smith have been
near inseparable over the past several year
with the Austin axe slinger boasting a pair
of signature guitars and now playing PRS
amps as well. The latest addition to the
relationship is the DGT Standard (pictured).
Introduced in early 2012, the Standard is an
all-Mahogany version of the original DGT.
“It’s a DGT without the maple cap,”
explains Grissom. “We decided rather than
to change the pickups, do a hollow body,
or something like that we would just take
the basic platform and do an all mahogany
version of it. It really does sit in a different
place in the mix than a maple cap guitar. In
fact, I do a lot of layering guitars, and something as subtle as when you’re doubling
parts - instead of using the exact same guitar
that is going to take up the exact same
space - I take one of the regular ones with
the maple cap and then the Standard.”
The pickups are the same on the Standard
as the original DGT, so you get a similar
sound ‘imprint’, but the Standard has more
of a mid-range focus to it.
“For me, my first PRS was an ’85 Standard,
which was all mahogany,” recalls Grissom.
“There is a definite quality to that... having
that wood in the body. Here we are several
years later coming full circle on that.”
The story of the first DGT can be traced
back to the origin of the PRS McCarty, and
the help of PRS artist relations manager.
“What ended up being the McCarty was
exactly, to the tee, a guitar I special ordered in either ’91 or ’92,” says Grissom.
“I worked really closely with Bonnie Lloyd
who was the artist relations person at PRS
at the time.”
Grissom had been playing PRS over
about a half-dozen years at the time. The
instrument was a differentiator for him in a
city packed with Strat players. He looked
to PRS for a guitar that had a bit more lowend and a more ‘singing’ top end.
“I wanted something that was a little
more ‘Duane at the Fillmore’,” he says.
“Bonnie and I worked really closely on all
the changes. We added an extra 1/8-inch
of mahogany to the back of the guitar. We
put covers on the pickups for the first time.
We put light, vintage tuners on the headstock. To be frank, it took a fair amount of
insistence to get the guitar built. She was
adamant that we were going to do it. I have
to give her a lot of credit for pushing that
guitar through. That exact guitar became
what they call the McCarty model.”
For a long time, Grissom’s main guitar
was a McCarty with a tremolo - a guitar you
could not buy. It had to be special ordered.
After years of playing and making a mental
checklist of possible improvements - bigger frets, two volume controls, reshaped
neck - Grissom and PRS implemented the
changes... and the DGT was born.
26
David Grissom
PHOTO BY PATTI MITCHELL
FEATURE u
THE BEND: Grissom ripping through a set at
the Saxon Pub with his trusty PRS DGT Signature guitar.
prized possessions along with vintage Vox,
Marshall and Hiwatt models.
When it comes to effects, Grissom is
trying to settle in more, but persistence of
builders and friends, and the discovery of
genuine innovation can make that goal a
difficult proposition.
“I’ve gotten to where now, if someone
wants to send me a pedal to try out I have to
insist that they send a call tag to pick it up,”
explains Grissom. “It is hard to explain to
people that you kind of got what you like.
You do get surprised every now and then. I
try and keep an open mind and never close
it off. I actually just came upon a pedal
that I really like - the Psionic Audio Telos.
That pedal is bad ass... all the way around.
Every part of it I like. When they sent me the
thing, I was like ‘Damn. There’s something
going on here.’”
He adds: “The (Strymon) El Capistan is
the best sounding delay I have ever played
through outside of a totally-tweaked,
perfectly-working Echoplex - which won’t
stay sounding like that for long.”
On the floor, Grissom typical runs either
27
one of two pedal boards. The boards’ makeup do change from time to time.
“Right now one has the Telos pedal, EP
Booster, a Fulltone... I’ll either use the
PlimSoul or they have a new pedal called
the Secret Freq - it’s a prototype they sent
me,” he says. “Then it has the Arion Stereo
Chorus and I’ll either use the El Capistan or
the (Line 6) M9, depending on what I need
for the session or the gig.”
Grissom says he’s been through two M9s
so far, but for his smaller studio board it can
replace several pedals.
“The vibrato in there... the Magnatone-y
sound? It is mother-fucking great,” he says.
“It is as good as I’ve heard. They took all of
those models and made them sound good.
Then they’ve got the echoes with the dry
through so you don’t loose the volume, and
they’re global tap tempo.”
For Grissom, the use of effects it isn’t
about over-the-top undulations or ampcrushing gain, but rather the enhancement
of the ‘feel’ of playing - or better, the lack of
interference with that feeling.
“In some ways the more subtle the pedal
does what it does the better... in certain
respects,” he says. “A lot of it for me is ‘How
does it feel? Does it interfere with my ability
to coax what I want with my hands?’ The
way that we designed these (PRS) amps they
are extremely touch sensitive, so to put stuff
‘in the middle’ that gets in the way of that or
takes some of that away, that really bothers
me. That has been an issue I’ve had with
certain true bypass pedals.”
Golfing with Mellencamp.
When he’s not playing guitar, Grissom enjoys time outdoors. That time was exemplified by his attachment to golf while working
with John Mellencamp, touring in support of
1991‘s Whenever We Wanted.
“I played golf when I got in Mellencamp’s
band,” he says. “That lasted for about 10
years. It just takes too much damn time. It’s
an expensive walk in the park... and I got
worse! I got good in a hurry. It was my first
big tour. They’d trade tickets and we played
the nicest places in the country. I got totally
hooked on it. But I can write a song in the
time it takes to play a round of golf.”
FEATURE u
David Grissom
While golf may not be on the menu anymore, the outdoor passion is now satisfied
via hiking. He tries to get out to multiple
locations around the US several times a year
to indulge in trail trekking.
“I love hiking,” he says. “I really do. I just
got back from Yosemite and Sequoia. We
go to Big Bend about once a year. But you
have to go at a certain time of year or you
just bake.”
For a person that makes a living with
his hands, a love of the outdoors can be a
double-edge sword. A hiking fall, or other
injury, could sideline a guitar player for
weeks... and that could put a strain on any
income stream dependent on a steady flow
of gigs. But a few years back, it wasn’t his
hands Grissom was concerned with. At
home here in Texas, he was bitten on the
leg by a Brown Recluse spider. The spider
carries a potentially fatal hemotoxic vemon,
but fortunately for Grissom, the bite was
minor and its location favorable.
“Luckily I got bit on the front part of my
lower leg... so they’re wasn’t a lot of flesh,”
he recalls. “I still had a nice black hole
develop there, but it could have been a lot
worse.”
Check please.
Looking forward, Grissom has a handful
of projects emerging as he starts ‘writing his way’ to a new studio record. He
is in the process of mixing a live record
from a batch of shows recorded with this
solo band at the Saxon. A new instructional DVD also should be nearing release.
Called Recording Guitar, Grissom walks
viewers through all aspects of recording a
trio of songs - ‘Flim Flam’ off the latest record, a country-tinged song that he’s never
placed on a record, and an instrumental he
wrote specifically for the DVD.
“I want to let the new record figure out
what it wants to be,” he says. “I don’t necessarily want to make Way Down Deep Part 2.
I try and make each record a little different.
For the DVD, I go through and show how I
come up with the parts, how I think about
them, what guitars I chose, tunings, capos...
all of those things. I’m excited about it.”
PHOTO BY PATTI MITCHELL
We finish up with lunch and head out to
the parking lot for a couple of photos. After
a few quick snaps and a handshake, we part
ways. As I walked to my car, Grissom pulls
up next to me in his Dodge Magnum eager
to point out a couple more landmarks of
Spicewood. It’s clear he loves his adopted
town. It is also clear, as evidenced by the
reception he received at Opie’s, the feeling
is mutual. G
28
Sweet Caroline
WORDS & PHOTOS BY BLAKE WRIGHT
HOUSED in a tech incubator not far from the University of South Carolina campus in downtown Columbia is
Caroline Guitar Co. - the boutique effects pedal manufacturer led by the enthusiastic and gregarious Philippe
Herndon. Caroline World Headquarters is only three,
smallish rooms, but it is enough to house an office (the
business end of the business), a work room... complete
with bench with dual soldering stations, and a quality
control/think-tank vestibule decorated with a 5-watt
Crate amp and a wall-sized white board covered with
circuital musings. Donning a SC-proud ‘Columbi-Yeah’
t-shirt, Philippe gives GEARPHORIA the nickel tour and
reflects on how it all started.
FEATURE u
It was January 2011 when Caroline
Guitar Co. pitched its business model to the
University of South Carolina. The plan - to
exchange a cooperative partnership with
the college in return for a work space with
reduced rent and utilities.
“I was a graduate of the University of
South Carolina’s MBA program so I was
familiar with what the incubator was,” says
Herndon. “It’s been a really great relationship. A lot of really cool things happen
with state universities and entrepreneurship
across the country. One of those has been
incubator spaces.”
Caroline’s brand of ‘thunk-ware’, its pedals being a physical product, appealed to
the University, whose incubator spaces were
filling up with app developers and other
forms of ‘think-ware’ companies.
The pedal maker hit the ground running.
With most effects companies, there seems to
always be a toil period that exists whether
it is marketing indecision or slow product
acceptance. For Caroline, their first product - the Wave Cannon overdrive/distortion
- was an undisputed success not long after
its introduction. Its unique lay-out, use of
symbols instead of text for control labeling
and a ‘fortunate goof’ set it apart in the overcrowded drive box space. The goof? The
Havoc mode.
“That was a happy mistake,” confesses
Herndon. “Here’s the funny thing about
the Havoc control - I mis-wired something
in there and it started oscillating. It basically was like a connection between the
inputs and outputs with a limiting resistor.
It started doing all of this crazy stuff and we
all started laughing. I left it in one of the
prototypes.”
That prototype was among the pedals
tested in a lead user session put together
by the company to see if the product was
on the right track. About 20 different guitar
players used the Wave Cannon that night
and their opinions polled. Herndon was
not present. He didn’t want his being there
to color anyone’s perception. He wanted
them to speak freely about their likes and
Caroline Guitar Company
ABOVE: Philippe (right) and Caroline builder Paul Czeresko III talk
through the testing of a recently-built Olympia fuzz. BELOW: A look
around Caroline HQ, including the Ampeg G-18 that is used to test
the lion’s share of Caroline newbuilds.
dislikes regarding the pedal. The constant
that emerged from the session - everyone
liked the Havoc mode, but few - two, in fact
- actually thought they would ever use it.
The others didn’t see a need for it.
With that information in tow, it was decided that Wave Cannons would be made
sans the Havoc mode. Herndon had the
thought to use the learnings from Havoc
and put it in its own pedal, like an external
feed-backer or something similar. It was
only after production began did the Wave
Cannon’s journey change course.
“As soon as I finished building them I
would e-mail the person who was buying it
and ask if they wanted the Havoc switch it
there,” says Herndon. “They would say, oh
yeah, definitely! I was completely confused.
I probably would have done the lay out a
little differently if I knew that everybody
wanted the switch. Of the 450 or so Wave
Cannons we’ve done so far, I think we’ve
only made four or five standards... without
the Havoc switch. And of those, we’ve had
a couple come back in for the Havoc switch
mod! People just expected it. Part of the
reason it is not foot-swtichable except on
the Cannonball customs, is that we always
thought of it as Lagniappe... just this little
extra thing.”
He adds: “Also, there are a million reasons
why it might not work. For example, if there
30
FEATURE u
is anything buffered between the guitar and
the Wave Cannon, it (Havoc) won’t work. It
needs to be able to ‘see’ that passive inductor
in your guitar to create the loop. So I think
of it now as a blessing in disguise, because
if everybody had wanted the Havoc switch
then I would have made it with a foot switch.
But then, everyone who would have bought
it and put in on their pedalboards and if
there was any buffer then it wouldn’t have
worked. They would have been mad not
to have this big function of the pedal unavailable to them. With a toggle, there’s
a change implied... a change of how
I’m using the pedal. With a foot switch,
it implies an ‘on demand’ quality.”
The inspiration for Caroline’s most
popular pedal sprung forth from Herndon’s private collection of over 75
overdrives. He could find sounds he
liked by stacking pedals, but never
the desired tone from a single box.
“I love the old Ibanez Sonic Distortion... the SD-9,” recalls Herndon. “It
was kind of the ugly sister of the Tube
Screamer. But the thing that drove me
crazy about the SD-9, and I know some
people might not agree with this, but I experienced it with every SD-9 I had - I think
they were below unity volume. They just
weren’t very loud. I loved ProCo Rats, but I
always thought that the gain control on a Rat
was too sensitive too fast. They’re really cool
and I love the sustain on them, but I remember once looking at one on an oscilloscope
and seeing that pretty much everything past
like 11 (o’clock) was the same to the signal.
I loved DOD-250s, but I wished that had
more sustain. I loved old Japanese Boss
DS-1s, but they always seemed to scoop
out the mids. I still deeply appreciate all of
those op amp drivers that were before what
we made. If I ever get a chance to meet any
of those engineers, they’re not going to be
paying for a drink, you know?”
Carolina followed its successful, if unconventional, launch pedal with a pair of tamer
offerings - a two-knob fuzz and a clean
boost. After establishing something a little
“If people want our stuff I
want it delivered ASAP. I want
musicians to be able to play.
You can’t play a year-long
wait list.”
left-of-center the first time out, fans of the
brand were taken bit off guard by the conventional, simpler follow-ups - the Olympia
fuzz and Icarus boost.
“When we brought out Olympia and
Icarus, we would get some excitement
about the sounds of the pedals, but also a
bit of this ‘hang dog’ because their was no
Havoc,” says Herndon. “I’m not going to put
Havoc in a clean booster. We want to make
fundamentally straight-forward stuff that can
be different and special, but what it comes
down to is me wanting to make stuff that
can live on a player’s pedal board every day.
With the Olympia fuzz, for example, one
big thing that I noticed with a lot of fuzzes
is that they disappear in the mix. They’d
sound unbelievable until you’ve got a bass
player with a refrigerator cabinet and the
drummer’s got a 20” ride. As soon as those
guys lay into their parts, you disappear. The
design directive for Olympia was very different from the one for Wave Cannon.
It’s been interesting to see that most
have responded well, but it has been a
little slower period of adoption then I
had initially intended.”
One thing immediately noticeable
in Caroline’s shop is the pair of small
combo amps.
One is an old Ampeg G-18 solid
state. The other a Crate V5 tube amp.
One would hardly guess that these unassuming, low-watt boxes would be the
proving grounds for all Caroline pedals.
“We mainly use the Ampeg solid
state amp for two reasons,” explains
Herndon.” One, you turn it on and
it’s on. You don’t have to wait for it to
warm up. Second, I know what it sounds
like. It is just this flat, 1970s solid-state
amp. It’s the practice amp that people in my
generation had around the house. Another
thing is... that solid state amp... it is so
unforgiving and so sort of ‘full fidelity’ in a
weird way. You hear things that would get
masked by a good tube amp. A good tube
amp has compression and a nice, highfrequency roll off for a little warmth, big
speakers and a big power transformer. The
whole thing is geared towards creating this
really sweet platform for pedals to arrive
Coming Soon from Caroline ...
CAROLINE is exploring the world of lo-fi
delay with its upcoming Hitmaker - a
pedal that could prove a bit of a return
to the more esoteric ways of the Wave
Cannon. The next pedal on the Caroline
slate, the Hitmaker will attempt to woo
would-be suitors with its digital-ness, by
not trying to hide it.
“It’s digital, but it’s good,” says Herndon.
He also says that, to date, the project
has been extremely challenging and
‘causing his head to hurt’.
Caroline is keeping the full details on
the Hitmaker close to its chest, but if all
goes well delay junkies could have a new
object for their echo affection just in
time for Christmas.
Further down the line, the company
31
also is keen to pursue a high-gain distortion or ‘metal pedal’.
“I have a pretty good idea on something
I want to do that is a little bit different
than the other metal pedals,” reveals
Herndon. “We’re looking at ultra-high
gain... almost cartoonish-ly so. To be honest, it could be really polarizing in some
ways. I can picture some people absolutely loving what we do, and I can see some
thinking it is really awful.”
Herndon said he drew at least some
inspiration for the idea by viewing a You
Tube demo of the Dominator, a brutal
distortion box made by German pedalsmith Okko.
“It was the sonic equivalent of Godzilla
smashing buildings,” recalls Herndon.
“I just loved how decisive it was. You’re
not going to be using the Okko Dominator
to play blues. You’re not going to be playing ‘Sultans of Swing’ through the Okko
Dominator. I can kind of picture myself
with a 7-string and a big frickin’ amp and
absolutely loving it.”
He adds: “Ours won’t be anything like
that, but as a designer I love how clearly
‘take-it-or-leave-it’ that thing was. In some
ways versatility is a really poisonous thing.
In the effects world, people are always saying it’s got to be versatile. No, it doesn’t.”
It is too early in the process to get Philippe
nailed down on any of the particulars for the
pedal, but he did reveal one thing...
“I can assure you it will have a very
amusing name,” he says.
FEATURE u
EVOLUTION: The enclosure of a Caroline Guitar Company
Olympia fuzz is populated, soldered up and readied for testing
to ensure a quality build.
RIGHT: Caroline pedals are tested... and tested again... before
receiving the official ‘Dreamed, Designed and Created’ seal.
Also kids... it’s called an 8-track. Ask your dad.
32
FEATURE u
T E A M
TREMOLO
Possible JV could yield a new
trem pedal in 2013
IT WAS A weekend in Nashville that
sowed the seed for a possible pedal
joint venture between Caroline and
Wisconsin-based Resonant Electronic
Design. The 2011 Nashville Amp Show
was a great two days of jamming, buying, selling and bonding with fans and
builder brethren. When Herndon met
Resonant’s Wes Kuhnley, the pair struck
up a fast friendship.
That friendship has led to the plans
for a co-branded, jointly-designed
tremolo pedal. According to Herndon,
each company is designing and will
build a prototype of what each consider their dream tremolo. The pedals
will then be exchanged and dissected
- a process that would hopefully end in
an area of common ground.
“We’re still trying to sort out some
of the details, but we’re both kind of
working on this independently and it
is starting to show some real promise,”
says Herndon. “Wes is telling me what
they have on their board is sounding
pretty good. What we have on our
breadboard is starting to sound pretty
good too. I’m pleased about that. I
think this could be really, really cool.”
Resonant’s Kuhnley told Gearphoria
that he hopes he has something to send
to the Caroline team in a matter of
weeks.
“We’re toying with different configurations of audio circuitry... using same
oscillator Philippe had,” he says.
Kuhnley admits that the Caroline idea
was ‘completely different’ from what
Resonant had explored for tremolos in
the past.
“It will definitely have more than two
controls and likely be in a double-sized
case,” he says. “It’s a departure for us,
but it is still months away.”
While the venture pedal is not guaranteed a release, the exercise will end
up with both having produced its own
tremolo pedal that could be released
as a regular run product within their
respective lines. Stay tuned!
33
Caroline Guitar Company builder Paul Czeresko
III wires up another new Olympia fuzz.
on. I sometimes can hear things that are
weird with the Ampeg. Others will tell me
it’s fine, but I know what I’m hearing... like
a strange clock noise from delay pedals... or
a little high frequency ‘rubbing’. I’ll know
that something is wrong... like a mislabeled
resistor or a mis-polarized cap. We’ve had
stuff like that... and I’ve heard it because of
that terrible amp.”
With the Crate, the brightness of the amp
is also a good ‘revealer’ of issues. Herndon
claims the amp is great for testing the Icarus
boost, because if something is mis-wired in
the pedal, there is a point where the Crate
will ‘crap out too early.’
Caroline cranks out about 10 to 15 pedals
a week with its current staffing. The company recently caught up on its backlog and
now is building for inventory.
Herndon never wanted to be a builder
who kept a wait list, and while inventory
can be the enemy of a lean business model,
it can also mean getting your product to the
people that want it when they want it.
“If people want our stuff I want it delivered
ASAP,” he says. “I want musicians to be able
to play. You can’t play a year-long wait list.”
Caroline currently employs three part-time
builders and one additional builder in a
satellite location. Most of the builders are
musicians or techs themselves and come
and go as they have the opportunity.
Beyond building pedals, Herndon sees
Caroline moving into more of a tech-oncall role with musicians coming though
the Columbia area. The plan could extend
the reach of the brand as well as prove a
springboard for getting Caroline pedals in
the hands of more tour musicians.
One of the company’s builders recently
did some pedalboard work in-house for
MewithoutYou guitarist Michael Weiss.
Herndon has put the word out that he
would like to see more of that kind of work
make its way into the Caroline shop.
“We can tell bands we have an actual
workspace and if you need something
repaired we can do it here,” he explains. “A
lot of these guys have pretty ornate boards
and if you’re trying to repair those things
in the back of an Econoline van, it doesn’t
really work so well.” G
AXE FORENSICS
Canadian blues guitarist Philip Sayce calls his
love-worn 1963 Fender Stratocaster ‘Mother’ for
two reasons. One... you always love your mother.
And two... the guitar is a motherfucker.
With a little help from a friend, Sayce bought the
guitar from a collector in 1998.
“I still remember the UPS guy coming to the
door,” says Sayce. “I was excited!”
Over the years, Sayce has kept the Strat ‘as stock
as possible’ with just a few minor tweaks... and
some necessary ones. He will take ‘Mother’ back
into the studio later this year to record a followup to 2012’s Steamroller.
When Sayce purchased Mother
there was not one scratch on her.
All of the battle scars have been
earned, he says.
While jamming Hendrix’s ‘Spanish
Castle Magic’ at a Fender event in
2009, Sayce launched Mother in the
air and let her crash to the stage.
The guitar landed awkwardly on
the corner of his Vox wah pedal and
split down one of the original glue
points from the top of the bridge
to the edge of the guitar. She was
taken that evening by tech John
Cruz and reglued. She was good to
go shortly thereafter. He doesn’t
throw her around much anymore.
The original ‘Fender’ decal is
almost completely worn off.
Refretted many times and always
with the ‘biggest fretwire’ Sayce
could find. He says the fretboard
might have one more refretting in
it before it will need some attention of its own.
Original ‘63 pickups replaced due to a
‘beer’ incident a few years back. Playing
slide with a beer bottle at a gig one
night, some of the contents spilled out
and into the pickups. Removed, cleaned
up and rewound, they never sounded
the same. The irony? Sayce doesn’t even
drink beer. He replaced the pickled pickups with a set from a ‘58 hardtail Strat.
He claims the ‘58s have a more ‘woody’
sound to them.
Rusted shut. Mother’s saddles are
strictly off limits. Sayce replaced
two with Graphtech saddles, but
will not allow the others to be
touched.
“Mother”
Philip Sayce’s 1963 Fender Stratocaster
34
FEATURE u
Summer NAMM
Boutiques invade Nashville
Long abandoned by the big boys, Summer NAMM has
become an outlet for the little guy
THE 2012 edition of the Summer NAMM
show in Nashville felt a lot like the 2011
version, only with rain. The show continued
to show signs of the exhibitor shrinkage that
has plagued it for the past several years, but
show officials claim a 20% increase in the
number of retail buyers year-over-year.
Joe Lamond, president and chief executive
of NAMM applauded the members that invested the time and money to participate in
the show despite the ‘continued economic
challenges.’
“These folks are not sitting on the sidelines
waiting for things to get better, but instead
seizing the opportunity to increase their
competitive advantage as we head into the
fall and holiday selling season,” he said.
The summer show offers a much more colloquial experience than the winter extravaganza in California. It also provides a stage
for smaller companies to gain access to a
cross-section of buyers they might not be
able to attract otherwise... certainly not all
in same place.
According to NAMM’s numbers, the show
attracted 75 new-to-Summer NAMM exhibitors, and another 75 brands returning to the
show after a break. Those numbers have to
be encouraging as the show prepares to pull
stumps and move across the street to the
soon-to-be-completed Music City Center Nashville’s new state-of-the-art convention
complex. What can’t be well-received is the
AROUND THE SHOW: There was no shortage of gutiar-centric
manufacturers at this year’s Summer NAMM show in Nashville.
Builders pictured include ValveTrain Amps, Celestial Effects,
Studio Blue, Reverend, Ergotar, Lava Cable and Zuercher Amps.
35
show’s overall reduced footprint. Where it
has been common place to see booths spilling out of the main hall and lining the hallways of the current venue, the organizers
could not even fill the main show floor this
year, moving to reduce an outside aisle by
several hundred square feet just prior to the
show’s opening to avoid having a sizeable
area to the far right of the main entrance
devoid of vendors. A fleet-footed passerthrough could navigate the show floor in
a little less than an hour and see much of
what there is to see, but it’s the conversation
and the demonstration that is the guts of any
NAMM experience. With the show floor
teeming with boutique brands like Celestial
Effects, Burriss Amps, Tausch Electric Guitars
and the like... there was plenty of new gear
on display. Let’s take a look at some of the
many highlights.
Wampler Pedals
The big news at Wampler Pedals was the
revision of the two channel Hot Wired overdrive. The initial version of the Brett Mason
signature stomp was geared towards all-out
chickin’ pickin’ and beyond. Hot Wired v2
brings a broader range of subtlety in Channel 1. You can still find the chickin’ pickin’
tones, but you can also find a deeper, warmer overdrive section allowing you to play as
smooth as you like. The updated pedal also
has a new Blend control added to fatten up
FEATURE u
the sound without sounding too overdriven.
Channel 2 of the Hot Wired v2 continues to
boast a distinct ‘Plexi’ flavor. The controls
on the new version have also been reconfigured to be more spaced apart to help
prevent any ‘accidental tweaking.’
Wampler also had a prototype of its new
boost - the db+. The new stomp will offer
a healthy bit of clean boost ‘augmentation’
for a little extra oomph when needed. The
db+ is expected to hit the market sometime
before the end of the year.
Brian also told us he will be adding
a tap tempo feature to his popular Tape
Echo stomp. It that wasn’t enough, he also
dropped the news that both new tremolo
and phaser pedals are in the works.
Summer NAMM
Zuercher Amplification
Former DeArmond hand Ken Zuercher
bought his affordable Red Series amps to his
first Summer NAMM show. He had three
different models on display - 45-watter with
6L6s and two 12X7s, another with four
6V6s and a 25-watt model with two 6V6s.
These versatile tone machines were some of
the best amps for jazz at the show, but were
also killer for blues. Ken now is working
on a smaller 1x10 combo amp that runs at
12-watts with a half-power switch (6 watts)
for recording.
Earthquaker Devices
The big news from Jamie and company
was the unveiling of the Talons overdrive
(Reviewed on p57). The Talons is a fullrange overdrive loaded with a three-band,
active EQ. Other controls include knobs for
Level, Presence and Drive. The next genera-
FRESH: Earthquaker showed off the new
version Crimson Drive and Hoof Reaper
as well as the all-new Talons.
tion Crimson Drive is a refresh of one of
EQD’s very first overdrives... and a personal
favorite of Jamie’s. The reissue was made
possible by the discovery of a new cache
Don’t call it retail...
SINCE bursting onto the MI scene in 2011,
Hello Music has proved a polarizing
topic of conversation between musicians,
equipment manufacturers and retailers.
Most musicians are hip to the format of a
membership-driven entity that can provide
services and products at a discount.
Manufacturers are a bit more cautious.
While those suppliers who have taken to
Hello Music, estimated to be around 200,
see the company as an outlet to get their
product into the hands of musicians that
they might not ordinarily have access to,
others see the company as a MAP (manufacturer advertised price) buster even though
Hello Music guards its pricing behind its
membership wall.
Other retailers see the company as a
competitor... or worse, a rule-breaking competitor whose deep discounts make it hard
on everyone to turn a buck in the crowded
online gear space.
For the uninitiated, Hello Music is a
member-based musician’s web portal that
offers discounted deals on gear, usually a
steep discount. The catch is that these deals
are limited to eight in select categories and
the deals only run for 48 hours or until the
units are sold, whichever comes first.
One of the first things Hello Music chief
executive Rick Camino wants everyone to
recognize about the company is this... they
are not a retailer.
“We don’t really fit into a box,” he told
Gearphoria during an exclusive interview at
Summer NAMM. “We’re social commerce
for musicians. What that really means is we
are endeavoring to brave the way to defining
the cross-section of editorial, community
and relational commerce actually looks like
for musicians. Where as you have big box
accounts with 20,000 SKUs… everything
under the sun. We have never endeavored
to do that. We actually want to have good,
better, best of only the things that we believe in. We want to use the collective size
of our membership base, which is growing
every day, to actually go out and leverage
opportunities on their behalf in the same
why that (record) labels actually used to do
in the past.”
The notion that Hello Music doesn’t like
to be called a retailer might rub some the
wrong way. While the desire to steer clear
of the label is noted, if it walks like a duck,
talks like a duck... and you know the rest.
Camino wants Hello Music to be known as
a ‘curator of opportunities’ for musicians
and while the gear store is a large part of the
equation, the company also offers deals on
tracking, mixing, mastering and duplication
of music. They are also on the cusp of getting into more marketing service to create
visibility for its musician member base.
“We’re musicians for musicians,” said
Camino. “Everybody on my team is a musician first and foremost. We’re different from
everybody else because they all have a very
product-centric view. We have a 360-degree
lifestyle view of the musician, which means
we’re not only selling products, we’re selling gear, recording, marketing and distribution services as well as live performance
opportunities.”
Hello Music had a dozen people on the
floor at Winter NAMM in January 2011
trying to sell their concept and get direct
deals done with selected manufacturers. No
one would talk to them. The team did not
write one order. Undeterred, Camino found
alternative ways of sourcing products and
launched that April. The initial reaction was
less than complementary.
“Most called up furious,” admitted
Camino. “But we educated them and they
decided that it was interesting and that they
could use us. We had a couple of early
adopter that really jumped on, they exploited the hell out of it and they did really,
really well. Those success stories spread
virally and that’s how we get to the 200
manufacturers that we have today.”
As of Summer NAMM, Hello Music had
over 275,000 members and counting. The
company has lined up some growth initiatives that will roll out later this year and into
next aimed at growing the member base.
This fall, Hello Music will launch supplier
speciality stores, exclusive ‘gear insurance’,
membership financing, a commission-driven member buy/sell/trade area, a Facebook
store and a portal for musicians seeking
bands and vice versa.
“If we were only a discount retailer, I’d be
very disappointed,” confessed Camino.
36
FEATURE u
Summer NAMM
of new, old stock germanium transistors.
The v2 Crimson also boasts the addition of
a Tone knob. The new Hoof Reaper builds
off the success of the limited edition version
released last year. This refresh offers a foot
switch to turn the octave off and on... something the original had in toggle switch form.
The real news from EarthQuaker wasn’t at
the show. The company is coming out with
a compressor sometime in the near future.
No details are available just yet, just confirmation that it is happening. Two pedals that
are not happening... not just yet anyway...
are a single-knob bit crusher and a ring
modulator. Both have been designed, but
are currently on hold. These could be revisited and refined for release at a later date.
Kickstarting a new guitar line
J Backlund Designs turns to fan-financed solution to make its
Korean-made axes a reality
Renovo Amp Works
California-based Renovo Amp Works had
its range of products on display at the show
- including its 22-watt Tejas amp and its
Stompblox modular pedalboard. The Tejas is
a boutique beast loaded with 6L6s. According to the company, the heart of the Tejas is
its hybrid turret board/circuit board. Each
part is placed on the turret board by hand
and all connections to the board are hand
wired. The circuit board allows the builder
to control impedances and paths to ground,
which helps diminish hum.
AMPED UP: Renovo Amp Works’ amp
range includes the 22-watt Tejas and the
customizable Vintage Duo.
Stompblox is a modular pedalboard system that allows users to customize the size
and configuration of their boards. Slide two
units together, and twist the thumb tightening screw to lock them in place. Need more
space? Add another unit. Stompblox can be
connected side to side or back to front.
Osiamo (Mooer)
One of the bigger pedal splashes at Summer NAMM came in very small packages the US invasion of a line of mini-pedals from
Mooer. The line included 10 micro-stomps
ranging from dirt boxes to modulation to
reverb and beyond. Pedals included Mooer’s
37
THE CREW at J Backlund Designs not
only had the high-end, futuristic axes
we’ve come to know from the shop at
their booth at Summer NAMM, but
the first of what they hope are many
affordable Korean-built models. Being
marketed under the name Retronix, the
company is using fan finance mega-site
Kickstarter in an attempt to raise enough
cash to green light the new line.
According to the company, they have
been working for the past three years
on Retronix line in an attempt to bring
Backlund’s unique design concepts into a
repeatable, less expensive product.
With the Kickstarter campaign, Backlund
is looking to raise $75,000 for manufacturing ramp up and production of the
first run of Korean guitars.
The campaign gutiars are being offered
take on the vintage Tube Screamer circuit
(Green Mile), the ProCo Rat (Black Secret),
and the MXR Phase 90 (Ninety Orange).
The range also includes the Ensemble
King, a clone of the old Boss CE-2 chorus
with the addition of a Level knob. The
ShimVerb is a reverb pedal that offers three
modes - Room, Spring and Shimmer.
Distributed by Osiamo in the US, Mooer
also had a micro-amp head on display. The
head, dubbed the Little Monster AC, is a
5-watt tube amp (EL84) with sonic inspriations rooted in the Vox sound.
The pedal line runs in the sub-$100 range
each, while the Mooer micro tube amp
head is priced around $300.
in eight color choices, and both six-string
and bass guitars are available. Sponsors
will also be able to choose between hardtail and tremolo models.
Retail price for the Retronix guitars is
expected to range between $1000 and
$1250, but early adopter via Kickstarter
can get their gutiars for significantly less
in order to generate enough orders to
meet minimum production requirements.
Like most Kickstarters there are varying
levels of pledge awards including guitar
picks, t-shirts, Backlund original art and,
of course, guitars.
The team at Summer NAMM was meeting with potential hardware suppliers in
order to finalize all of the design parameters ahead of the fundraiser deadline.
(Unfortunately, the company fell short of
its Kickstarter goal as we went to press.)
ALL IN A ROW: Mooer’s line of new
mini pedals runs the gamut of tone tools
- from dirt to delay and beyond.
FEATURE u
Summer NAMM
OTHER NAMM SHOTS: (Clockwise from the top) The man,
the myth, the smart phone owner, Mike Matthews of EHX
(INSET: New pedals!). A pair of black and white Tausch Guitars. The pedalboard at the Cusack Music booth. The high-gain
playground of Dynamo Amplification. Australian musician
Andrew Winton at the Don’t Fret Instruments booth playing
the custom ‘Lucky 13’ 12 string lap steel guitar.
38
JACKSO
A C T I O N
THE ROAD to Jackson Ampworks’ headquarters in Keller, Texas, is under construction. It is a nuisance, but the project - and the town itself offers a fitting parallel to the trajectory of the boutique amp shop coming off its most successful summer to date.
Keller is a community just north of Fort Worth that is outgrowing its
infrastructure at an alarming rate. In 2009, it was ranked seventh in
Money Magazine’s list of best cities to live in the United States.
The US 1980 Census calculated the town’s population at 4,555. Today,
that has increased almost ten-fold.
While Jackson is not in any real danger of outgrowing its spacious
office park accommodations, the growth of the company has mirrored
that of its home town.
While producing top products has been key, the majority of that
growth can be traced back to a single ‘cold e-mail’ from company
founder Brad Jackson to then John Mayer band member and former
Pretenders guitarist Robbie McIntosh.
WORDS & PHOTOS BY BLAKE WRIGHT
ABOVE: Several Jackson Ampworks products, both finished
and unfinished, sit in the front room at company HQ.
FEATURE u
“It’s a funny thing,” recalls Jackson. “In
2009, my wife and I were at the (John
Mayer) concert in Dallas. I was watching it
and Robbie was playing. I could see from
where we were sitting that he was playing
a Matchless DC-30 or something like that.
I looked over at my wife and said ‘I’m
going to be on that stage next year.’ I
wanted my amp to be on that stage.”
Not long after the tour ended, Jackson saw a tweet from Mayer while
he was working on the Battle Studies album that confirmed he’d be assembling the band again, including
McIntosh, to hit the road in support of
the new record. Jackson was on a trip
in California when he saw the news.
“I decided ‘Screw it. I’m just going to
e-mail Robbie.’ So I found his website
and shot him an e-mail,” he remembers.
“A month went by and no response.
Not too long after that I get an e-mail.
He thanked me for writing him. He said he
had heard of me and that my amps were in
the Dumble/VanWeelden category. I thought
‘Ok! Yeah! I’ll take that! I’m not going to argue with you, sir (laughs).’ He said he would
love to try our stuff out and that he was going to be in Manhattan that next week rehearsing for the tour and that I should send
some stuff up and they would check it out.”
To say Jackson was pleased with this development would be an understatement, but
there was one small problem.
“I didn’t have a Britain built yet,” he
confesses. “Well... I had one. It was my
“I decided ‘Screw it! I’m
just going to e-mail
Robbie.’ So I found his
website and shot him
an e-mail.”
brother-in-law’s. He was playing it. So I
went to him and said ‘Do me a solid. Let
me borrow your amp and send it to Robbie
McIntosh.’ He didn’t have a problem with
that. So I sent it up to Manhattan and Robbie said he just fell in love with it. Everyone
in the whole band loved it. I was completely
blown away. I talked to Robbie and he said
Jackson Ampworks
it was a go. He’d talked to John, and John
liked it. He said build me a couple of cabs
and a couple of heads and let’s do it.”
At that point, no one really knew about
Jackson Ampworks, but not long after the
tour started and folks started to get curious
about that tiny head sitting on stage
behind Robbie, that changed.
“They play for several million people,”
says Jackson. “We started getting calls.”
Today, Jackson Ampworks has four
amp models - the flagship Britain, the
rangey Atlantic, the Behemoth bass amp
and the stripped-down NewCastle. Both
the Britain and the Atlantic are in their
fourth iterations and are likely to stay
there for the time being. The Behemoth
was a slow starter, but now is gaining
traction. The NewCastle, which was
introduced at this year’s Winter NAMM
show in California, has been a swift
seller out of the gate.
“The NewCastle is me fighting with the
designer in me to come up with the most
simple amp I could possibly imagine building,” explains Jackson. “So I put a 12X7 up
front, a volume control, a phase inverter and
a EL84 power section. There’s nothing more
simple you can do, really. It’s been great for
us, because people who want to get into the
Master builders John Lynn and Cole Novak discuss a Behemoth
component with Brad Jackson (right).
40
FEATURE u
Jackson Ampworks
Jackson Pedalworks?
Amp builder plans first foray into pedals
JACKSON Ampworks has honed its
brand of amp-making to a point of comfort with its current slate of offerings
and may now turn its attention towards
additional endeavors, including dipping
its toes into the boutique pedal market.
The company has polled the online community on the subject before and now it
appears the company is in a place where
Jackson pedals will become a reality.
“It is definitely, absolutely happening,
but it is not something we can really talk
about just yet,” says company top man
Brad Jackson. “It’s still a lot of theory.”
He laments the limits of change in the
pedal business over the past decade or
so, with most newcomers offering the
same circuits with a tweak or twist.
Jackson’s goal is to put something out
there that hasn’t been done - something
he can claim as a true contribution to
the pedal world.
“If you’re not really contributing to the
brand can now do it at a good price point.”
The layout to Jackson Ampworks shop is
made up of a handful of rooms staged as
points on the production curve. The entry
room is a large shipping/receiving space
that doubles as a storage area for unpopulated amp heads and speaker cabinets. It
also houses the laser machine that burns the
control panels for all of Jackson’s amps.
The next room down the main hall is for
chassis prep. No wiring is done there, but
all of the components for each amp chassis
are put in place here.
One door down is the circuit board room.
Master builder Keller Knobloch spends
most of his time on boards there before they
move to the production manager’s office for
integration and final assembly.
“Cole (Novak) is our production manager,” explains Jackson. “He’ll take a half-done
chassis and a bunch of circuit boards and
put it all together in a final product. He’ll
do the testing on it and eventually burn it
in. We test them with a bunch of different
effects. We basically try and break it. If it
works... and all the features work correctly...
it moves over to the burn-in rack. It will
spend about three days on the burn-in rack.
We’ll leave it on for three days straight and
try to kill it.”
For an amp like the Britain with four
power modes (15 and 30 watt with EL84s,
41
industry then why are you doing this?,”
he asks. “You’re just another voice in the
crowd. I’m working on the architecture,
looking at doing pedals in a smarter way.”
Jackson is drawing his inspiration for the
future pedal line from both likely and
unlikely sources.
While a big fan of the work done by
builders like Strymon, he also is looking
beyond the pedal smiths of today and yesterday, concentrating at least some of his
preliminary study efforts on other effective
tech brands.
“I’ve literally sat down and asked myself
‘How would Apple build a stompbox?’ that’s been my inspiration,” says Jackson.
“Whenever Apple does something they
come up with the most obvious, clever
things that you wished would have been
thought up 20 years ago. That’s what I’m
trying to come up with. They do it in a
package that is so streamlined and so sexy.
That’s where I’m heading. I’ve got the
25 watt with EL34s in Class A, and 50-watt
EL34s in Class A/B) that means 24 hours of
burn time for each mode to make sure all of
the potential failure points are exhausted.
“If it doesn’t fail sitting there baking for
three to four days, it is probably going to be
fine,” says Jackson. “With a Class A amp,
the worst thing you can ever do is just leave
it there, turned on and not playing music
through it. It is harder on the amp not to be
playing music through it... just leaving it on
and sitting there. So we torture test them
that way.”
Through the last door in the office is the
warehouse - an fairly oversized space for
Jackson’s current throughput, but that may
not always be the case. For now, it houses
spare parts, various storage containers and,
most noticeably, the large, wooden crate
the company used to ship its amps to Los
Angeles for the NAMM show.
Later, sitting in Brad’s office - appointed
with its own workbench on one wall, floorto-ceiling bookcases on another - he talks
about how he got his start in amp building.
“My entire life I’ve always built stuff,”
he says. “That’s kind of who I am. I started
playing guitar when I was 12 and that really
took over my life. I think coming from the
background I came from... my dad’s an
engineer... so I was always seeing him build
stuff. My passions just started to merge.
architecture figured out it is just a matter
of figuring out how to get it all done...
the software programming and everything else.”
While it remains early days on the pedal
line, we do know that it is the intention
for any Jackson pedals to sport 100%
analog circuitry with digital control of it.
Jackson has enlisted the assistance of an
engineering group in nearby Fort Worth,
Texas, to work out some of the details.
As for what types of effects Jackson will
showcase first? That is still up in the air,
but Brad did let one detail slip.
“Am I going to put out a delay pedal?
Not as long as the (Strymon) Timeline is
out,” he says. “Why? I’ll concede right
now that they have the best delay pedal
ever made. What could you possibly do
to beat that? I want to contribute something to the industry that says ‘This is
my thing’ and it’s worthwhile. Talk to me
next year. We’ll have lots to talk about.”
Manufacturing... building toys whether it
was pedals, amps or whatever... it was just a
logical progression.”
He recalls building his first amp around
2001 after he sold his Marshall Superbass,
then longed for those tones again. Playing
in a country band at the time, there was
little need for the 100-watt beast. He ended
up going out and purchasing a DIY kit for a
50-watt Plexi.
“It didn’t work at first,” confesses Jackson.
“I did lots of things wrong, but I enjoyed
digging into the process to build something
like that. Once I did get it working it was
really cool to go out and play music with
something that I had built.”
Around 2005, again following his father’s
lead, Jackson took a job as a commercial
pilot flying corporate jets out of Love Field
in Dallas. He admits getting bored with it after a couple of years, but the time aloft and
away afforded him time to read and rekindle
his earlier passion for electronics.
“During the time I was flying, I would
be in a hotel room in New York or somewhere... and instead of going and hanging
out in Manhattan I would stay in my room
and build something or design something,”
he says. “I started to watch my life and
watch the progression of how things were
going and decided that I really loved building and designing more than anything else.
FEATURE u
It is what I always went back to when I had
downtime. That was where I was happiest.”
His pilot job took a hit in 2010 when the
company he was working for went bankrupt. By that time, Jackson Ampworks had
already been started. His careers intersected
- piloting on the way down met amp building on the way up.
“My life didn’t change, I just changed
directions when I left the driveway in the
morning,” recalls Jackson. “Instead of going
to Love Field I went to my shop. It’s nice
when things work out that way.” G
BELOW: Jackson’s new pre-wired
isolation cabinet and one of two
Britain heads signed by John Mayer’s
2010 touring band. BELOW, RIGHT:
A packed burn-in rack in the Jackson
Ampworks’ final assembly room.
Jackson Ampworks
Churches dig iso-cabs
ONE OF Jackson’s newest products is a
multi-functional speaker isolation cabinet. The product came about due to the
need of the company’s number one client
base... churches.
“I never planned it to be that way, but
it just worked out that churches are 75%
of our business,” says Jackson. “If you
think about it, a guy playing a blues club
might play once a week or something. A
guy goes to church, he could be playing
several times a week.”
One chief requirement of most
churches is maintenance of a restrictive
sound level. Jackson saw the potential for
an iso-cabinet in that market, but also
saw the chance to create a more versatile
piece of equipment. The Jackson iso-cab
is built essentially like any of its 1x12
cabinets, but there is a ‘lid’ that can be
snapped to the front of it to create the
iso-cab. Also, everything is pre-wired. It
all stays permanently wired up.
“There is a dish plate on the side with
two XLRs so it always stays miked up,”
says Jackson. “There are two quarter
inches in parallel, so you can run your
amp into here then run out to another
cabinet somewhere else.
“I’ve used iso-cabinets before, and it kind
of sucks that an iso-cabinet is all those
are ever going to be. The cool thing about
this is when you take the lid off of it, it’s
a cabinet.”
42
ARTIST Q&A u
Vaden Todd Lewis
Toadies. Rock. Music.
VADEN TODD LEWIS and the Toadies have returned with the raw and powerful Play. Rock. Music. perhaps the band’s best effort since the landmark Rubberneck album of the late 90’s. GEARPHORIA
caught up with Lewis just prior to the band launching a year-long tour with Helmet and got his take on
record companies, the new album and his gear.
GEARPHORIA: Given the fairly highprofile dust up between you and Interscope
Records back in the 90s, did you ever think
of taking the Toadies the independent route
and doing it yourself?
VADEN: Not really. With the Burden Brothers we had worked with Kirtland Records
and I really liked them and liked working
with them. That was pretty much just my
‘go- to’ whenever I decided to get the band
back together. The flipside to that is that,
yeah… the DIY stuff is kick ass. You do
everything yourself and you get everything,
but there is some stuff, like… I don’t know
how to hire a publicist. You know? I could
do that if I wanted to, but I don’t really care
to find out! (laughs) I like the ease of having
43
people work for me and still continue to
have a great time at Kirtland.
GEARPHORIA: We understand you approach the new album, Play. Rock. Music.,
differently than the Toadies albums in the
past. How so?
VADEN: Yeah, yeah… this was just a giant
experiment. Traditionally with the Toadies
I would write the record at home. I mean,
with No Deliverence, the whole record was
written and in the can except for one song
that we wrote in the studio because we had
some time. The guys would get the songs…
and they were fully realized. Maybe no
guitar solo, because that is usually Clark’s
bag. But the drums, I know how to program
the drums so they are kind of like Rez plays,
and then have him come in a play real
drums on it. But the songs are fully realized usually. With this record, the way it
started is that we had been wanting to work
with this producer named Frenchy… Chris
‘Frenchie’ Smith. We also wanted to see
what it was like to go into the studio with
just some ideas and see what happens. Just
do some demos. That’s how we looked at
this. We’ll do some demos then we’ll see if
we have what we need for a record or whatever, and then just see where to go from
there. So last October we spent two weeks
just doing demos basically… and they came
out so good, and we were so pleased with
it, that we decided that we would do a few
more songs and make it an EP… and release
ARTIST Q&A u
VADEN: (laughs) That’s a friend of ours.
He works as a director in Portland. He and
his co-producer put together this treatment
and I think they just mined our collective
subconscious for all of our favorite things! I
mean… cake and shotguns. That’s about as
good as it gets! (laughs) I read the treatment
and I was just laughing my ass off, going
‘Yes!’ And the more I read it, the more ‘Yes!
We’re going to do this! Fuckin’ A!’ Yeah…
it was pretty awesome. Shooting a video
for me is a nightmare. I do not enjoy it.
This was a blast! I don’t like… I’ve gotten to
where I can stand having my picture taken,
but to have make-up on and have someone
ABOVE: The Toadies lighting up the House of Blues in Houston at the
beginning of their Play. Rock. Music. tour with Helmet. RIGHT: Vaden’s
trusty Marshall JCM-800 adorned with Texas flag.
GEARPHORIA: With our predecessor
outlet almost two years ago, we talked
with your tour mate Page Hamilton... who
you know has quite a philosophy on guitar
tone… especially distortion. What do you
use to get that signature Toadies crunch?
VADEN: That’s interesting. In the studio, it
can be any number of things, but I’ve got
my definite set-up that I use live. In the studio, it can be whatever fits the bill. There is
always going to be an overdriven Marshall
in there somewhere. Almost always. The basis for the sound, in my opinion, is going to
be some smaller amps overdriven all to Hell
like Zeppelin used to do it. All of those giant
guitar tones were tiny little amps just maxed
out. That’s kind of the way I’ve always approached it, but there is always going to be
a Marshall with a 4x12 popping up here
and there. (laughs) I just can’t not have that.
Live, I’ve got a JCM-800 going into a
4x12. In front of it I’ve got a Tube Screamer
and a Fulltone Bass Drive, which is a
distortion pedal for a bass guitar because
WRIGHT
VADEN: For the most part, ‘Summer of
the Strange’. I had the main riff, the guitar
riff… verse one and verse two and that’s
all. I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t
GEARPHORIA: The video for Summer of
the Strange… we are curious about how
that treatment was shopped to the band or
did it come from within the band itself?
saying ‘Do this.’ I don’t want to do that.
But this one… When ‘Do this.’ is ‘Play with
a shotgun.’ Yeah! Ok, yeah! (laughs). We
were kids in a candy store. We did it all in
one day too… and it wasn’t even that crazy
of a long day. It was very productive and
cool… kind of the way we did the record.
Everything was pretty lock-step and making
it happen.
BY BLAK
E
GEARPHORIA: Where there any ‘Holy
Shit!’ kind of moments in the studio during
the writing process… when you knew you
had something good?
know where to go with it. I got together
with the guys and jammed a little bit and
came up with some ideas. We went in the
studio and it just happened. Another one
would be ‘Animals’. That one, all I had was
a couple of riffs and no idea how the words
would go or anything, and that whole thing
happened in the studio. The chorus happened in the studio.
Frenchy contributed to that. He chimed in
with ‘What you have as a chorus cool, but
I hear it exploding and going somewhere
else.’ So that became the new chorus. It was
just a really cool experience.
PHOTOS
it. So instead of just being demos, it would
actually be a release. The label was behind
that, so we booked another little session and
I finished up a couple of things. As we’re
doing that I realize that I had more songs
and that this could be something. Then it
changed from being an EP to being a fulllength. The thing is that once we decided
to do an EP, the label announced a release
date that was doable… for an EP.
When I decided to make this a full-length,
everybody was on board, but the label kind
of freaked because they did a release date,
and had done all this work for a release date
and ‘Oh shit!’ what’s going to happen now?
Somehow they stuck to it and we went back
in and did the rest of the album. The majority of this record was written in the studio.
There were a few songs that were written
before hand and some that were bits and
pieces that got completed in the studio, but
a good chunk of this record was just an idea
when we went into the studio – if that. It has
been a really cool experience. Really different for the Toadies.
Vaden Todd Lewis
44
ARTIST Q&A u
Vaden Todd Lewis
VADEN’S BLUES: Toadies front man Vaden Todd
Lewis draws the crowd in during ‘Quitter’.
distortion pedals for guitars – the first thing
they do is pull the low end out, and I can’t
stand that. So this adds in a little low while
it beefs up the tone.
I set the amp to relatively clean, like for
‘Possum Kingdom’-style clean. That’s what
I call clean. Marshall clean. For distortion I turn on the Fulltone. For over-thetop, wacka-doodle noises I hit the Tube
Screamer. In line, I’ve got a little MXR Micro
Amp that cranks up the signal a little bit for
solos. Occasionally I’ll have something in
front of it like a Small Stone or Small Clone.
I’ve gotten to where I have a little delay/
reverb pedal that I play around with for
stuff like ‘Hell and High Water’… for the
reverb crash, and for certain songs that were
recorded with a little slapback.
GEARPHORIA: What is your #1 guitar?
VADEN: Oh, SG, man… all the way. I’ve got
a ’62 Reissue that I bought in the 2000s. I
bought it when the band got back together
so that was around ’07. Then Gibson was
gracious enough to loan/give me another
one exactly like it, so I’ve got two identical
guitars that I can play. If I pop a string or
45
need to change guitars I can do it without
having to reset my rig. So that’s really good.
GEARPHORIA: What was the most recent
add to your collection?
VADEN: The last instrument I bought was a
mandolin, honestly.
GEARPHORIA: We didn’t hear that on the
new record.
VADEN: (laughs) Nope. I brought it. It was
there! I brought everything. But… I started
playing it at Dia De Los Toadies Night One.
I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but
that’s where we take the songs and reinvent
them. So that is part of that whole process.
So I actually play mandolin live with the
Toadies, if you can imagine that.
GEARPHORIA: Speaking of Dia De Los
Toadies, how did that get started? And what
makes it any better than all the other summer festivals around?
VADEN: This started, as best as I can
remember, when we were sitting around
during pre-production for No Deliverance.
Pre-production is just a fancy word for sit
around, tell stories and maybe play the
songs a few times. At least that’s the way we
do it. But, we were getting offers in.
You know, No Deliverance, we were just
working on it. We had been broken up for
several years and we didn’t know what
kind of response we were going to get. We
fully expected that we would put out No
Deliverance and people would go ‘Who
are the Toadies?’ That people forgot who we
were. We were beside ourselves when we
found out that wasn’t the case… and still
are, honestly.
It’s just a shock that people give a damn.
Anyway… we didn’t know that at that point,
so we were getting offers to do these radio
shows and festivals. We’d done a couple.
And it was Clark I think that said that clearly
there are people who are interested in having us, so we still have some draw. What
if we were to do something crazy and just
do our own thing? Because, you do radio
shows, it’s always fun to do a show, but you
don’t get to pick who you play with and a
lot of times I’m not that happy about who
we’re playing with, honestly! (laughs)
So we pitched it to the label… just spitballing ideas.
What if we did our own festival… model
it after Willie’s Picnic (Willie Nelson), make
it a moveable feast where we go somewhere
in Texas around water and make it a ‘destination’ show… we pick all of the bands and
promote it ourselves? Us being our team
at Kirtland and our management. Within
ten days, our management came back with
potential locations. I was excited! It has
been my experience with prior management
teams that you pitch an idea that is going to
be a big pain in the ass and super hard and
potentially disastrous, you get a ‘Yeah, we’ll
get right on that!’ and it just goes away. So
I was really stoked to hear back at all and
that they were already on it and as excited
about it as we were. This is Year 5, and it’s
getting bigger every year.
GEARPHORIA: Explain Dia De Los Toadies
for the uninitiated.
VADEN: It’s an all-day thing. It is two stages
back and forth that starts around noon. And
Night One is the alternate set. We called
it acoustic night for a while, but not really.
We’ve got Rhodes piano and electric guitars… theirs is all sorts of stuff.
We just kind of reinvented the stuff. We
released – I think for Record Store Day last
year – one of the songs from Dia – a cover
of LCD Soundsystem we did. We do a
couple of covers and then revisit a bunch of
our songs.
ARTIST Q&A u
GEARPHORIA: We’re approaching the
20th anniversary of Rubberneck in less than
two years. Do you still look back on that
record with fondness?
VADEN: Yeah, yeah! That whole record I
figured there is no way in Hell that the label
is going to keep us around. You know? What
did we have that they want? We got a good
record deal, in my opinion, at the time and
I thought well, I get to go in and make the
record that I want to make in a kick-ass,
state-of-the-art studio. Then they’ll put me
on tour, so I’ll get to see the states… at least
a couple of times. Then they’ll drop us and
I’ll go back to working at the record store.
That was my attitude going into it. It was
like that well into me looking up and saying
‘Oh shit, now there’s not 300 people, there’s
2000 people. Oh shit, there’s 3000, 4000…
10,000.’ It was really weird. Had I had
hindsight I would have positioned the deal a
little differently, but it was what it was. Getting to do my first record and going out and
doing all of that crazy shit.
GEARPHORIA: Do you ever get tired
answering the seemingly endless questions
about the meaning of the song ‘Possum
Kingdom’?
Vaden Todd Lewis
VADEN: (laughs) You know, I did for a
while. I then I came to realize that I’m
happy that people are asking me anything!
(laughs) Actually on the last tour, we got
done and I was going back to the bus and
we had to walk by the little outside smoking
area with the fence around it. This group of
people was there and someone said ‘Hey,
hey! Come over here I want to ask you a
question.’ And I walked over and said ‘Vampires.’ … and started to walk off.
I didn’t walk off… I didn’t want to be a dick.
The guys goes ‘What?! No… we want to
know if you want to get high with us?’ Well,
I said, ‘No, but thanks!’ (laughs) G
The Toadies are: Vaden Todd Lewis (TOP, LEFT), Doni Blair (TOP, RIGHT), Mark Reznicek
(BOTTOM, LEFT) and Clark Vogeler (BOTTOM, RIGHT).
46
BUILDER Q&A u
Empress Effects
A Confident Coronation
CANADIAN-based Empress Effects has managed
to create a range of boutique effects pedals that
not only follow a distinct visual style and top of
the line build quality, but also push the envelope
in terms of features. The Empress range is expanding with a current trend towards smaller, less intimidating tone shapers. Just this summer, Empress
revealed three new offerings on the horizon – the
Tape Delay (basically the tape echo stripped out of
the Vintage Modified Superdelay and put in its own
pedal) and a pair of buffers. GEARPHORIA caught
up with Empress founder Steve Bragg to find out
more about the company’s past, present and future.
INTERVIEW BY JONATHAN BLOOMER
47
EMPRESS TEAM (L to R): Mike Stack, Jay Fee, Steve Bragg,
Cody Gilchrist and Dan Junkins
BUILDER Q&A u
Empress Effects
GEARPHORIA: You graduated from university with a degree in Electrical Engineering,
but you must have had a very keen interest
in music in order to start tinkering with
effects?
STEVE: I’ve always been into music. My
dad’s a professional musician, so I was surrounded by it. But I didn’t pick up a guitar
until I was 13.
GEARPHORIA: What was the first pedal
that you made?
STEVE: My friend and I both made the Tycobrahe Octavia. His sounded really awesome
and weird, but I never got mine to work.
GEARPHORIA: You weren’t tempted to
revisit this pedal once you had honed your
skills a little more?
STEVE: No, I had nightmares about the
Octavia. Also, I wanted my first couple of
pedals to not be distortion/dirt pedals. There
are so many of those kinds of pedals, it’s
really hard to differentiate yourself.
GEARPHORIA: Did the business grow from
building pedals for friends?
STEVE: Kind of. A friend wanted me to build
him a tremolo, so I got to work on the Empress Tremolo. About a year later I was done
with the design, but my friend wasn’t really
interested in the build. He didn’t need tap
tempo, the waveforms, and the rhythm feature. He really just wanted a Boss Tremolo.
GEARPHORIA: Can you explain the features of the Tap Tremolo that set it apart
from other tremolo pedals?
STEVE: The Rhythms are the main differentiating feature. It allows the tremolo to play
syncopated rhythms.
GEARPHORIA: It seems 2007 was a pretty
significant year for Empress Effects with the
addition of Mike and Jason?
STEVE: Yeah, 2007 definitely was. It was the
year I incorporated the business. I was trying
to design the Superdelay, but I was spending all my time filling orders and building
pedals. So I brought Mike on to help with
building. And I hired Jay to help me finish
the design of the Superdelay.
GEARPHORIA: So at this point were there
just two of you building all of the pedals?
STEVE: By the time we released the
Superdelay, Mike was building the ped-
EMPRESS KING: Steve Bragg shows off some of the Empress
line (while giving props to a fellow Canadian pedalsmith).
als fulltime. I would help with testing and
shipping. Jay, I think, was working on the
ParaEq. GEARPHORIA: How big is the Empress
team now?
STEVE: There are five of us now. I hired Dan
in 2008 to take over the business side of
things, and we hired Cody in 2010 to design
and build pedals.
GEARPHORIA: Are all of your pedals still
handmade in Canada?
STEVE: Pretty much. We have the PCBs
stuffed by a company in Ottawa, and we do
the final build and testing. The parts that go
into the pedals come from all around the
world.
GEARPHORIA: Do you think you will
expand the team further in the near future?
The effects pedal market seems to be
booming at the moment.
STEVE: I think we’re going to stick with the
five of us for a couple more years. Business
is going well, and we’ve never had a decrease in sales, but I’m worried about hiring
people too quickly. I'd rather we all be too
busy, so that we really think before taking
on projects. That being said, who knows,
maybe some idea will require a bigger team
sooner than I think!
GEARPHORIA: The Empress Superdelay is
considered one of the most versatile and
powerful delay pedals among effects aficionados, how long did it take to design and
build the first prototype?
48
BUILDER Q&A u
Empress Effects
STEVE: Hard to say how long, my memory
is a bit fuzzy. I think I started the design
early 2006, and we released it in late 2008.
So let’s say it took two years!
GEARPHORIA: This pedal is the only pedal
to feature graphics, is there a specific reason for that?
STEVE: That really depends on the design of
the amp. In most cases I’d say put it in the
effects loop.
GEARPHORIA: In the specs of the Phaser,
it says 2/3/4 stages with ‘3’ being an Empress exclusive. Can you explain what that
means?
STEVE: I’m not sure why I added a graphic
to the Superdelay. I think it was just on a
whim. We’ll probably add graphics to future
pedals, but they’ll probably be pedals that
do something a little out there.
GEARPHORIA: Tell us about the ParaEq. At
first glance it looks quite intimidating.
STEVE: Most phasers have an even number of stages. Each stage flips the phase at
some frequency. So two stages in a row will
cause some notches in the frequency spectrum. But an odd number of stages leaves
the audio above the phase shift frequency
out of phase, meaning they get cancelled
out when blended with the original signal.
This leads to a smoother sound, since the
upper mid frequencies tend to be harsh.
GEARPHORIA: There seem to be a multitude of effects pedal companies these days,
how do you stay ahead of the competition?
STEVE: If you break the functionality into
groups, it’s not too intimidating. There are
three bands, and each band has the same
three controls: Frequency, Q, and Gain.
Each band can either provide a hump or a
dip in the frequency spectrum. So the Q is
the steepness of the hump, and the Gain
is the height of the hump. There is also a
selectable input pad and a boost feature that
can be toggled with a stomp switch.
GEARPHORIA: Is this an effect that you
would use in front of your amp or in the
effects loop?
49
STEVE: We try to do stuff that’s a pain in the
ass to do. Like using embedded microprocessors in our products. It makes the
development process painfully long, but the
results are worth it. GEARPHORIA: You have some big names
on your artist list, Prince, Paul Gilbert,
Andy Summers, Brad Paisley, have you ever
been approached to build an artist signature pedal?
STEVE: No, I don’t think so. I imagine artist
signature pedals are usually the result of a
company contacting an artist. I don’t know
if we’ll ever get into that kind of thing. But I
could see us doing a variation of a pedal.
GEARPHORIA: We saw the Buffer and Buffer+ at Summer NAMM. Can give us some
detail about each of these pedals? Why or
when would someone benefit from using
these buffers?
STEVE: The Buffer and Buffer+ are mainly
intended to be used with a pedal board.
They provide buffering for both your guitar
and your amp. The Buffer+ plus has a bunch
of features that the Buffer doesn’t: an optional noise cancellation circuit, a tuner mute,
an input pad, and variable input impedance
so you can load down your guitar as much
as you want.
Jonathan Bloomer is the owner and curator
of Guitar Noize, one of the oldest and mostrespected guitar-centric blogs on the internet.
Visit the site at www.guitarnoize.com.
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Eddie Veliz
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WITH...
For Los Angeles-based rock trio Kyng, the journey
towards the release of their debut album Trampled
Sun was a unique one full of delays, derailments and
‘bro-deals’ gone bad. The results, however, are hard
to argue with. We spoke with guitarist Eddie Veliz
recently about the album and his ‘big’ sound.
Where did the name Trampled Sun
come from?
Trampled Sun was just kind of a play on
words. It was very poetic sounding when
I said it. It sounds cool. Writing the song
around the name kind of happened. The
album was actually supposed to be called
‘Stages’… or something like that. We
were going to group the songs in threes.
It was going to be like Act I, Act II and Act
III. The whole idea was conceptual. If you
listen to the album in its entirety it starts
out strong… but first, let’s go back – the
album cover. The (original) cover was this
guy cocooning himself on stage… like in
a Vaudeville show. On the insert, he’s on
fire… like the Phoenix. He’s just destroying the building and everyone’s melting.
It’s crazy. That’s how the concept came in.
He becomes very strong, but weak in the
end. Towards the end of the album it starts
getting real melancholy. That was the first
idea… but, we ran into scheduling conflicts
and it got to where we just needed to pick
the songs we wanted on the album and go.
So we changed the title.
What is your #1 guitar?
My Guild S-100, ’71. I got it back in ’97. It
has been through Hell… and every one
of my girlfriends! I’ve got some others. A
buddy gave me a ’76 Les Paul Studio. I have
a ’58 Gibson Custom.
Done any mods to it?
You know… Somewhere along the line I
joined a thrash metal band. We were called
Oodles of Demon. We were this crazy thrash
band. So I ended up getting these Seymour
Duncan Pearly Gates (pickups). Then I
ripped those out to put the EMG-81s in.
Just to get more attack. It helped. For some
reason… that guitar… maybe it’s the wood
or maybe the pickup was put in wrong,
but it doesn’t sound like an EMG pickup.
It’s weird. I kind of left it alone rather than
replace it. I’ve got three other guitars with
EMGs in them… and they all sound identical. This one sounds different. I just picked
up another ’71 (Guild S-100) with this weird
after-market bridge. I’m collecting these
Guilds. They are getting hard to find.
What is your amp preference?
I would play anything I could get my hands
on. It just so happened that my girlfriend at
the time bought me a Line 6/Bogner Spider
Valve. She just randomly bought me that for
Christmas. So I line that up with my Mesa
Boogie Triple Rectifier… and that runs dry.
So all of the effects come through the Line
6 head… usually with some reverb and
delay… while the Mesa runs straight. As
a three piece with one guitarist you have
to make yourself sound as big as possible.
They both run straight. No stereo. I have a
Boss Noise Gate, a Morley A/B switch, my
guitar and that’s it.
If you had one Kyng song to play
for a would-be fan to win them
over, which would it be?
For a guy, maybe ‘Trails and Veins’…
because it’s everywhere. It starts off kind
of stoner rock-y, then it gets into this cool
picking pattern where Pepe is slamming
the drums. There is enough in that song to
show you where Kyng goes and can go. For
a girl, it would be either ‘Takes Its Toll’ or
‘The Roses’.
TOP: Eddie rocks his #1 guitar - a 1971 Guild
S-100. BOTTOM: His amp rig - a Line 6/
Bogner Spider Valve and Mesa Triple Rectifier
atop a pair of Orange 2x12 cabs.
50
EARNED HIS
S T R I P E S
FOR MORE than 35 years, Randy Jackson has fronted the New York via New Orleans rock trio Zebra.
After four studio albums, including a debut that was
label Atlantic’s fastest selling ever, the band is preparing to make a new one later this year.
Zebra’s last record - Zebra IV - was released a
decade ago, but the band has maintained a steady
slate of gigs.
For years, Jackson has kept a healthy schedule of
solo acoustic shows with setlists made up of both
classic Zebra and other rock gems from the likes
of The Beatles and The Moody Blues.
GEARPHORIA recently spoke with Jackson about
all things Zebra and his current gear of choice.
ARTIST Q&A u
GEARPHORIA: What was it like being
a rock band in New Orleans in the late
1970s?
RANDY: There was a kind of a local club
scene with bands doing covers. Most of the
bands that were successful were covering
English bands - Bowie and Zeppelin. There
was some Aerosmith and stuff like that. So
those bands were there. Mink was one of
them... another band called Star. Guy, Felix
and I figured we could go out and make
some money doing the same type of thing.
At the same time, we had the intention of
doing original stuff. That was there before
we even started playing. So we were kind
of mixing it up. The scene was very healthy.
New Orleans is known for jazz and other
styles of music before rock, but there was
a pretty happening little rock scene down
here. There were a lot of clubs... and bands
were working regularly.
Randy Jackson
Jackson caught mid-‘La’ during
Zebra’s ‘The La La Song’.
GEARPHORIA: And the move to New York
was about getting more nation exposure
going?
RANDY: The move was about getting a
record deal. That was our goal. We wanted
to at least give it a shot. It wasn’t just us. It
was other bands too. We weren’t seeing the
ability to get record deals for a rock band in
New Orleans. The only band that was doing
rock that we knew that actually got like
a major deal from the New Orleans area
was Thunderhead. They called themselves
the Paper Steamboat before that. They just
happened to get a record deal I think more
because of their relationship with Johnny
Winter. It wasn’t through getting a record
label to come see them, so to speak. They
were more of a US-based blues-type rock
and we were certainly leaning in a more
English direction. We just didn’t think we
had a shot of getting a record deal in New
Orleans even though we did really well in
the clubs. So, we went to New York figuring
we would get better exposure up there. That
was the intent.
GEARPHORIA: What was it like for you to
hear Zebra on the radio in New York even
before you guys had a record deal? That
rarely happened back then and it surely
wouldn’t happen today.
RANDY: We were really in a unique time
period with a really special guy named Bob
Buchman. He was right out of school and
he had gotten a job as program director at
the largest station on Long Island - WBAB.
It was just the right place at the right time
for us. He liked the band and he was always
asking if we had anything he could play on
the radio. They had a show on WBAB called
‘Homegrown’ where they played songs from
local, unsigned bands everyday around
five o’clock. It was always in prime time.
So the station was already allowing him to
do that much. He just took it a step further
by starting to include the Zebra songs in a
regular rotation at the station, even though
we didn’t even have a record out. They
started becoming the most requested songs
at the station. But you’re right... that doesn’t
happen today. It’s too corporate now. Times
have changed. The rock stations are all programed by somebody in another state.
GEARPHORIA: Next year is the 30th anniversary of Zebra’s debut album. Do you
reflect back on the making of that record
fondly?
RANDY: I look back at life in general as a
learning experience. Just learning. If we
knew what to do... if we had the hindsight
as we were going certainly we would do
things maybe differently. But I don’t regret
anything we did and I’m not unhappy with
anything we did. We’re still playing. I make
a living playing music... so I have nothing
to complain about. We had a great experience, you know? We had Jack Douglas
producing our records. That in and of itself
was unique because at the time we were all
starry-eyed because here was this guy that
produced Aerosmith and John Lennon...
he’s producing our record. The side that we
didn’t see was the fact that here was a guy,
Jack Douglas, that had just come off of winning a Grammy for producing John Lennon,
and John Lennon was gone. Jack’s a human
being and I’m sure it affected him a lot. It
was only months... when you think about
how short a time period it was after that had
happened. To have that going on... and then
all of that taken away the way it was, I’m
sure he was... he certainly wasn’t the same
person he would have been I think. Now
he’s back with Aerosmith and doing his
thing again. It was a unique experience and
I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
GEARPHORIA: Are there any special plans
for the band in 2013?
RANDY: We’re looking at doing a new
52
ARTIST Q&A u
Randy Jackson
record. The material is written. Felix and
I were just talking about it the other day.
There are just some things that I’ve got to
do. Do some house cleaning myself, but
hopefully I’ll get started on it by the end of
the summer - September/October... and get
the thing finished rather quickly. We’re also
planning to do more shows than we have in
the past. It looks like we’re going to be signing with a new agency who wants to take
us into some places we haven’t been in 20
years... the West Coast, Canada and maybe
over to Europe too.
GEARPHORIA: Where would you record
the new one? Do you have a home studio
you would use?
RANDY: Yeah. I did the fourth Zebra record
at home, and I’ll do this one at home. If you
know what you’re doing there’s no reason
to go into a studio. I mean, studios are great
when you have a good engineer and it gives
the band freedom to focus on the music as
opposed to... being engineers. It’s a lot of
work to do both, but I’ve been doing it a
long time. I kind of like the ability if I wake
up in the middle of the night with an idea
and can go in and throw it down, or get
some work done whenever I feel like it as
opposed to having blocked time at a studio.
The quality of the record won’t suffer from
it, I can tell you that. Technology is just
way past the point where that even matters
anymore.
Until I get more into the arranging of them
it is hard to say. I liked some of the elements
of (Zebra) IV when we were a little heavier,
but there is a lot of stuff on the third record I
really, really like. Chord structures and stuff.
I’m sure it will be some sort of combination
of those with something else thrown in.
GEARPHORIA: Led Zeppelin obviously had
a big impact on you and your music and
specifically Jimmy Page’s guitar work. Was
he an early inspiration for you?
RANDY: I stumbled on Led Zeppelin by
accident. I bought one of their records at a
store - it was almost like a 7-11, but not...
and they sold albums. I just liked the cover.
So I picked up the record, brought it home
and I had never heard anything like it. I fell
in love with it. At the time I was really focused on learning guitar. I was a big Grand
Funk fan and I had done a pretty good job
of copying a lot of the Grand Funk songs by
ear. I did the same thing with Led Zeppelin
II. Certainly Jimmy Page had a much deeper
blues influence than a lot of the people I
had been listening to... or at least a different blues influence. He was one that I really
liked. They way he bends notes. Of course,
everybody is influenced by somebody.
Later on, when I would hear some of Elvis’ Christmas records you know, he would
let Scotty Moore do a lot of solos on the
old blues Christmas songs he used to cut.
You can hear Jimmy Page all over it. Scotty
Moore was like... the guy. If I had to point
at any one guy. It’s coming from somewhere
and I’m sure Scotty got it from somewhere
too. Page was an influence not just with the
guitar, but in the way he approached producing their records. With Zeppelin, they
were just so good they could just go in there
and bang it out. With us, it was not quite
as simple. It takes a while. Certainly the
blueprint was there for a big part of what we
did anyway. I was a big fan of The Moody
Blues and The Beatles as well. I think a lot
more of my lyrical lean is in that direction.
Musically it comes from all the big bands of
that period - Yes, Moody Blues... all of the
early 60s stuff. I’m a big fan.
GEARPHORIA: What is your #1 guitar?
RANDY: Hmmm... Number one? The one
that’s staying in tune! (laughs) You know,
guitars need work every once in a while.
They need work and you go to another one
and that becomes #1. The guitars I’ve been
playing recently have been my BC Rich
Bich, which I’ve had since 1981. I have a
Les Paul Standard (a cherry sunburst with
Transperformance tuning system) that I’ve
been playing. I also have a D’Angelico New
Yorker guitar that I just got and played it...
and it surprised me. I used at a Zebra show
we did at Belmont and it was awesome.
Those are the three on deck right now.
GEARPHORIA: What about the black Les
GEARPHORIA: Any hints regarding the
direction of the new material?
RANDY: I couldn’t tell you what it is going
to end up being. It is just songs right now.
53
RANDY’S AXES: Jackson’s current spread of go-to
guitars includes his classic BC Rich Bich standard
and double-neck as well as a D’Angelico New Yorker.
ARTIST Q&A u
Paul from the 30th Anniversary DVD?
The one missing the neck pickup and
wired to the Roland Guitar Synth.
RANDY: Right, right. I put the Roland
pickup on that guitar. I had actually
taken the neck pickup out while we
were making the second Zebra record
(No Tellin’ Lies) I just never put it back
in! I think I took it out because I wanted
to try it in the Treble position, and didn’t
like it... and just kept switching pickups
and never put the one back in the neck
position. People would ask if I did that
because it got me a better tone. (laughs)
No, it was never for the tone.
It’s kind of funny what people will
think sometimes. They couldn’t just say
that the guy is lazy and couldn’t put the
pickup back in. I never really used the
neck pickup in a guitar anyway. Sometimes I did, but it would usually be a
single coil. On my BC Rich I changed
it from a double coil to a single coil so
I will switch to the neck on it. I never
really bothered with that Les Paul. I was
using the guitar synth at the time anyway
so I wasn’t even using a pickup period.
GEARPHORIA: Do you still have your
old BC Rich double neck?
RANDY: Yes. As a matter of fact BC Rich
contacted me a couple of months ago and
offered to ‘re-do’ all of the BC Rich guitars
I had. They took them and rewired them. I
had some modifications done to the double
neck and they did a really great job making
it work.
I put an acoustic pickup on the 12-string
to go with the other two pickups and I was
having a problem getting it wired to switch
between the two guitars - muting all the
pickups on one or the other. They solved
that issue. It was great.
GEARPHORIA: And acoustics? Still playing
Yamahas?
RANDY: I played Yamahas for maybe 10
years and still have probably six of them.
they served me well, but I got a Martin Custom 12-string cut away and fell in love with
it. I even bought another one. So I’ve just
been playing the Martins for the past three
years or so.
GEARPHORIA: You still using KJL Amps on
stage?
RANDY: Oh yeah. I’ve been using them ever
since I met Kenny (the owner). He’s a great
guy. We have a lot of fun together. We’re
working on a couple of different projects
right now. I use a Cat 5. The amp is great.
You can do a lot with them. The gain stages
17 August 2012
Randy Jackson
are very versatile. You can get a real clean
sound if you want or you can drive it up. It’s
powerful without being overly distorted. For
me, if I’m playing full chords - all six strings
- there are some amps that just can’t handle
it. They bottom out and the harmonics are
all screwed up. Kenny has got it down.
I can play any chord at pretty much any
volume and it sounds clean... you can hear
all of the notes. That’s what I really like
about it.
GEARPHORIA: Do you use many effects
nowadays?
RANDY: I use delay. It’s really the only
effect I’ve ever used. I’ve never really
been a reverb fan on stage. I used a little
chorus occasionally in the early days, but
not much anymore. It is really just delay.
I’ve got a Line 6 HD-500 that I use. It’s
got a tap tempo on it.
I use the HD-500 on my acoustic
shows as well. It is almost like a mixing
console. It’s got two separate input paths.
I use it for my vocal mic and my acoustic guitar.
I can separate them on the output and
give the sound guy two separate channels
or I can mix them together and give him
a stereo mix. It has come in real handy
for me. G
Se t Li st - Ea rl y
Se t, BFE RO CK
BAR
Be tter No t Ca ll
La La So ng
Sp ac e Oddi ty (D
av id Bo w ie)
Brai n Dam age/
Ec lip se (P in k Fl
oyd)
Be ars
Th an k Yo u (L ed
Ze pp eli n)
Yo u’re On ly Lo sin
g Yo ur He art
Yo u’re M in d’s Op
en
In My Li fe (The
Be at les )
Wish Yo u Were
He re (P in k Fl oy
d)
Al l Yo u Ne ed Is
Lo ve (The Be at
les )
A Day In Th e Li
fe (The Be at les
)
Ta ke Yo ur Fi nger
s From My Ha ir
One More Ch an
ce
Nigh ts In Whi te
Satin (The Moo
dy Bl ue s)
Why?
Ti me
Who’s Be hi nd Th
e Do or ?
St ai r way To He
aven (L ed Ze pp
eli n)
Go lde n Sl um be rs
med ley (The Be
at les )
Te ll Me What Yo
u Wan t
At a recent acoustic show, Randy only played his
12-string Martin running though a Line 6 HD 500. He
uses one channel for the guitar signal and the other for
his vocals. When desired, he mixed in vocal delay via
the board’s expression pedal.
54
GEAR REVIEW u
Cusack Kingsnake
E
V
I
S
U
L
C
EX
The Union of the Snake
Cusack amp keeps the best of its Reverend predecessor
and mixes in a modern spin
IT WAS last fall when the news emerged that
Joe Naylor, the captain steering the ship at
Michigan-based Reverend Guitars, was putting his amp designs up for sale. For a handful of years last decade, Naylor and former
Ampeg ampsmith Dennis Kager designed a
trio of amps that blended the ability to produce a Fender-esque clean tone with a more
loose and open overdriven sound. Reverend
pulled the plug on its amp line in 2005 and
since then the designs have remained idle.
Not long after Naylor put the word out
that the Kingsnake, Hellhound and Goblin
designs were on the market, and it was fellow Michigander Jon Cusack scooped them
up. Cusack was looking to expand beyond
his successful effects line and the idea of an
amp line was a no-brainer. To date, Cusack
has revamped and released the Kingsnake the flagship of the Reverend range.
Building off the legacy of the Reverend
model, the Cusack Kingsnake is a single
channel, 60-watt all-tube amp sporting
four 12AX7 pre-amp tubes and a pair of
6L6 power tubes. The amp’s control panel
55
will be very familiar to anyone who owned
the original Kingsnake. Knob controls
include Gain, Volume, Treb(le), Mid, Bass,
Pres(ence) and Rev(erb). There also is a
Standby and Power switch. Like the Reverend model, Cusack retains the ‘Schizo’
control - a three-position switch that allows
access to the amp’s three distinct voices UK, US and Lo-Fi. The UK voicing offers a
gainier, distinctly British tone. The US voice
is a cleaner tone with a little less throat on
the overdrive. The Lo-Fi setting gives the
user softer treble and a stronger mid-range.
The back panel of the Kingsnake sports
the power outlet, a switch that cuts the
power from 60 watts to 20 watts, an effects
loop and three (4 ohm, 8 ohm and 16 ohm)
speaker out 1/4” jacks. The combo Kingsnake comes loaded with a 1x12 Eminence
Man O War speaker standard.
One of the chief complaints Cusack
would hear from original Kingsnake owners
was concerns around build quality. The
Cusack Kingsnake is made in the USA, and
the builder made it a point to work with
CUSACK AMPS
KINGSNAKE
Single channel, 60W all tube amp
Tubes: 4 12AX7, and 2 6L6s
Spring reverb
Effects loop
1×12” Eminence Man O War Speaker
(Combo model)
Optional: Jensen Neo 1×12” (Combo model)
Dimensions: W: 18 3/8”, H: 18 7/8”, D: 10”
Weight: 38 lbs.
Price: $1399 (combo), $1199 (head)
GEAR REVIEW u
other domestic manufacturers in creating his version of the amplifier, including
Heyboer Transformers, which was tapped to
create a more reliable version of the original
Chinese-made Kingsnake transformer. The
amp’s PCBs and cabinet are all made inhouse... and a good portion of the wiring is
done at Cusack HQ as well.
Being a pedal builder, Cusack approached
the revitalization of the Reverend line as
an opportunity to create an ideal platform
for pedals to shine. Like the company says:
What you feed into the Kingsnake is what
you’ll get out… only much louder.
With a Tele, the Kingsnake is capable of
solid mid-to-low gain tones and nice tex-
tures, especially on the bridge pickup when
in US or Lo-Fi modes.
The Kingsnake also brings alive the single
coils of a Strat, offering great response to
pick attack across all voices.
The humbuckers on a Les Paul can boom a
bit, but that can be reigned in via the amp’s
EQ. Once you’ve dialed in a nice highergain, UK-voiced sound, it is not difficult to
fall into a medley of old Zeppelin riffs and
really dig the results.
The single channel amp does not offer the
cleanest cleans we’ve ever heard, but they
are there, and wholly usable, when you roll
off the Gain and roll up on the Volume.
As a pedal platform, the Cusack Kingsnake
Cusack Kingsnake
is a star, whether it be pushing dirt or more
breathy modulation. The amp’s own built-in
spring reverb is quite good at both subtle
and drenched levels.
At $1399 for the combo, or $1199 for the
head, the Cusack Kingsnake is one of the
more afforable, US-built boutique amps on
the market today. The amp is a winner for
any gigging musician looking for a versatile,
no-nonsense tone machine that welcomes
pedal effects with open arms and won’t eat
through your gear budget.
It remains to be seen if Cusack remakes
the other Reverend models, but if the Kingsnake is any indication of what to expect,
we’d be looking forward to it.
BACKSIDE: A view from the rear of the
Kingsnake, which also is available in classic
black tolex.
56
GEAR REVIEW u
EarthQuaker Devices Talons
E
IER
M
E
R
P
RLD
WO
Raptor rapture
The EarthQuaker Devices Talons is a full-featured
overdrive with something for everyone
JAMIE STILLMAN and the team at EarthQuaker Devices have long been a favorite
of those pedal fanatics across the globe attracted to top flight quality at an affordable
price. Earlier this year at Summer NAMM,
EarthQuaker showcased three upcoming
releases - the reissue Crimson Drive, a new
version of the Hoof Reaper fuzz and the
Talons overdrive. Talons is a full-range overdrive that is designed to cover tone from
straight clean boost all the way to neighborhood of modern rock distortion.
The Talons has been a long-term project
for the Akron, Ohio-based pedal maker.
After a solid 12-month period of prototyping
various incarnations of the stomp and finetuning the voicing, the Talons is on the cusp
of being released to the public.
The drive sports six knob controls - Level,
Presence, Drive, Treble, Middle and Bass.
The Presence control is an extra tone shaper
on top of the active EQ, which allows additional tweakability to Talons’ already broad
sonic palette.
According to Stillman, it was not inspired
57
by one specific sound or meant to emulate
any particular vintage amp tone. Instead,
the goal was to make the a rangey drive
pedal that was unlike any other overdrive in
the company’s line.
Mission accomplished.
The Talons overdrive is a crunch factory
of earthy, spacious tones that treat varying pickup arrays to a wide push of sizzle
and growl.
At its higher gain settings with humbuckers,
the pedal gets almost beastly and while not
full-on metal chugga, it will get you to the
modern hard rock neighborhood with ease,
treating the user with loads of tasty sustain.
Armed with a Telecaster, we were able to
achieve a beefy growl with mid-gain settings
using the bridge pickup.
The Tele also took to the Talons’ higher
gain levels well while maintaining good
string definition.
With the single coils of a Stratocaster, the
Talons excels at offering low gain tones
that really beef up the neck pickup, making
bluesy solo work pop.
EARTHQUAKER DEVICES
TALONS
Controls: Six knobs (Level, Presence, Drive,
Treble, Middle and Bass)
Pedalboard-friendly top-mounted jacks
Active three-band equalizer
Presence control for fine tuning
Dimensions: W: 2.7” H: 1.6” D: 4.75”
Weight: 9.6 oz.
Price: TBD
GEAR REVIEW u
EarthQuaker Devices Talons
INSIDE: A gut shot of the soon-to-bereleased EarthQuaker Devices Talons
full-range overdrive.
The Talons is wider in scope than the
EarthQuaker Devices White Light (another
favorite) while throatier than its Dirt Transmitter, and not as dark as the Monarch. The
addition of the active EQ really opens up
the tone sculpting possibilities - think Dr.
Scientist’s The Elements for a tweakability
comparison.
Once you dial in the gain and EQ settings
to your liking, the edge can be rolled on or
off by using the Presence knob.
There are sweet spots aplenty across the
gain spectrum of the Talons, but don’t be
afraid to use all six knobs on the pedal to
explore the full range. This is not a set-itand-forget-it overdrive. The Talons begs
to be tweaked... leading to different, but
always delightful, results.
THE COMMITtEE
Weighing in on the EQD Talons overdrive
“Firing up this pedal on a Strat with a humbucker I was instantly
taken back to England in the 60s. Lots of crunch, while maintaining string clarity. On the single coil neck pickup, this pedal produces some really warm, glassy tones. If you’re looking to strengthen
your arsenal, the Talons has plenty to offer. It’s a keeper. May I have
this one?”
“I have a new love now! My heart now belongs to Talons. My heart used
to belong to my Fulltone FS2, but this pedal has some sweetness that will
make you shiver!”
Bill Solley, Guitarist
www.kimandbill.com
Dane Sonnier, Guitarist
Former Geffen recording artist
Jeff Mikel, Guitarist
Vintage gear enthusiast
“The Talons is a very throaty OD that can turn a clean amp into a dragon.
Nice gain while remaining very articulate. A great addition to any rig.”
58
GEAR REVIEW u
Stephen Douglas Design Scattershot
Click. Click. Boom!
Stephen Douglas Design germ drive + boost combo is armed and ready
STEPHEN Douglas Design is a relative
newcomer to the boutique pedal scene with
only a handful of pedals currently out in
the wild. With a day job in the MI industry,
pedal smith Stephen Hailey started tinkering
around with pedal builds a few years back,
eventually landing a role building fuzzes for
Texas-based Skinpimp Handcrafted. Eager
to branch out a bit, Hailey began exploring
other builds, which ultimately ended up as
the first efforts of SDD. The builder’s flagship
stomp is a germanium-based overdrive/
boost combo pedal... the uninspired name
for which is Germ Drive with Germ Boost.
However, the Scattershot (a custom-housed
GD+GB) proves that Hailey can be quite
inspired and imaginative.
The Scattershot is housed in 100% authentic
rattlesnake skin... and its knob controls are
filed ends of real 12 gauge shotgun shells.
At its heart, the Scattershot is an OD and
treble boost that play together quite nicely
under the pedal’s single hood. Versatile, the
pedal can supply the user with near clean
boost tones all the way to fairly searing
lead sounds.
In front of a clean amp, the Scattershot
can push it into light gain territory, and offer
crunchy rhythms at medium gain. Roll the
guitar’s volume back and you return to your
clean signal. Place the pedal in front of a
dirty amp and it is pushed into smoking
leads and fully-saturated overdrive.
59
STEPHEN DOUGLAS DESIGN
SCATTERSHOT
Controls: Four knobs (Boost Level, Drive Level,
Tone and Gain)
Real Diamondback rattlesnake skin cover
Dimensions: W: 4.75” H: 1.5” D: 3.5”
Weight: 9.6 oz.
Price: $300 base (Customs vary)
Note: For a cheaper alternative, SDD is now putting both ‘sides’ of the GD+GB pedal in its own,
smaller enclosure.
The drive and boost sections of the
Scattershot are independent of each
other. The boost engaged on its own will
boost mids and add a sweet crunch to
your rhythm playing.
The pedal also is sensitive to pick dynamics - meaning the harder the player strikes
the strings the more the gain will be coaxed
from the pedal. Dig into the strings for a
heavier crunch... pick lightly for cleaner
tones, regardless of gain setting.
Pushing the humbuckers of the Les Paul,
the Scattershot is biting, but can be a little
spiky at higher gain settings. Once you
become familiar with the controls, which
are not labeled on the Scattershot (Ed note:
GUTS: A peek inside the Scattershot.
GEAR REVIEW u
Newer versions are labeled.), the user
can easily dial in a vintage growl for tasty
rhythm playing. Hit the boost and silky
lead tones are ready to cut through the
densest mix.
With the Telecaster, the Scattershot is
punchy and raw. This was probably our
favorite guitar with the pedal. Clean up was
solid and dynamic blues lead tones could
be achieved on the neck pickup.
The single coils of the Strat took advantage of the Scattershot gain structure as we
zeroed in on a distinct classic rock vibe. The
bridge pickup soaked up and spit out a very
pleasing rhythm crunch at mid-gain settings.
The Scattershot is not a high gain pedal,
rather a sizzle machine designed to react to
each player’s individual dynamics. Again,
if you play hard... it plays hard. If you pull
back, it pulls back... and so on.
While the price may turn a few folks in the
other direction, it is the custom enclosure that
eats up most of those dollars. Stephen Douglas offers cheaper alternatives including either
‘side’ of the pedal in a single enclosure.
With a solid gain array in tow, and one of
the most unique looks we’ve seen, the Scattershot is on target for anyone looking for a
germanium-based overdrive with tones that
howl and looks that kill.
Stephen Douglas Design Scattershot
PUNCH-INS
Mad Professor Golden Cello
The idea of a drive/delay combo
pedal from the mind of pedal designer
extraordinaire Bjorn Juhl is a very
exciting prospect. The result - the Mad
Professor Golden Cello - is an excellent soloing tool for players who desire a darker, overdriven tone that can
be blended with a limited, but useful,
delay effect. You won’t be copping
Gilmour or Eric Johnson tones overnight, but this Guitar Center exclusive
does open up interesting possibilities
for a lead tone that used be acheiveable only via use of multiple pedals.
Six String Effects Carbonator
While no household name, even in
the boutique effects world, one could
do much worse than playing close attention to the products being churned
out by Six String Effects. The Carbonator is one of the company’s more
interesting dirt boxes, offering both
fuzzy and fizzy tones. At higher gain
settings, the Carbonator is a creamy,
crunchy delight. At lower gain settings, the Fizz switch introduces some
lo-fi percolation. A bass switch offers
a low-end boost that can add a bit of
thump if things get too trebley.
60
ALBUM REVIEWS u
ARTIST: Bob Mould
ALBUM:Silver Age
LABEL: Merge Records
VERDICT:
ARTIST: Josh Smith
ALBUM: Don’t Give Up On Me
LABEL: Crosscut Records
VERDICT: Mojo Rising
Ex-Sugar, Husker Du songsmith returns with a stellar set
of guitar-driven rock songs
WHETHER it was time spent with his buddy
Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters during the making
of their last album Wasting Light or just the reemergence of the need to turn things up a bit in
celebration of the recent album reissues of his
last band Sugar, rock veteran Bob Mould (Husker
Du, Sugar) has delivered a cool bit of crunch
with his latest, Silver Age. From the opening
chords of the first track, the scalding profile of
today’s disposable celebrities ‘Star Machine’, one
gets the feeling things will be going in a decidedly more uptempo direction than Mould’s last
effort, 2009’s Life And Times.
Mould keeps the party going on the title track
and the single ‘The Decent’ with its three-chord
main riff and verse-section energy that is more
than a little reminiscent of ‘Fortune Teller’ off
Sugar’s debut release Copper Blue.
The album kicks into full anthemic mode with
the ‘Steam of Hercules’ - a mid-tempo thumper
built on swirling guitars and Mould’s reverbdrenched vocals. Pounding toms and more
Check out more albums from Bob Mould
61
crunchy guitars introduce ‘Fugue State’ - a
three and a half minute gem showcasing more
of Mould’s sonic adeptness.
Things don’t really slow down on Silver Age
until the end. The last - and longest - track on
the record, ‘First Time Joy’, is also one of its
best. Clean, chiming guitars and subtle keyboard strokes give way to power chord crunch
as Mould sings about the dreams and decisions that move all of us through life.
The new record features Mould’s current
band - drummer Jon Wurster (Superchunk, The
Mountain Goats) and bassist Jason Narducy
(Split Single, Verbow). The band is on the road
in the US right now in support of Silver Age, as
well as playing Sugar’s aforementioned Copper Blue record in its entirety.
Silver Age is an upbeat, crunchy audio feast
for fans of Mould who had hoped he would
make a third Sugar full-length. The songs hold
their own with the best of those records without sounding dated or contrived.
LOS ANGELES-based guitarist
Josh Smith (Raphael Saadiq,
Taylor Hicks) takes a soulful turn
on his latest solo album, Don’t
Give Up On Me. The album’s
11 cuts are steeped in rootsy,
vintage Memphis-style blues
complete with horn section and
plenty of shimmering keys work.
Fans shouldn’t let that description put them off this record at
all. Josh Smith, the guitar hero,
remains ever-present, but does
step aside for a bit to let Josh
Smith, the singer, take the center
stage on songs like the title
track, ‘That Ain’t Me’ and ‘Carry
Me Through’.
The distinct 1970s Stax
Records vibe permeates every
cut here down to the laid back
funk-inspired bass lines and
groove-oriented vibe.
Some of Smith’s best guitar
work on Don’t Give Up On
Me comes in the extended
solo sections on songs like the
Steely Dan-tinged instrumental
‘Sneaky Jo Turner’ or the back
alley slink of ‘I’ve Always Been’.
Following 2009’s Inception
- a solid collection of guitarcentric instrumentals - with a
vocal-heavy, soulful ‘mood’
record like Don’t Give Up On
Me is a gamble for Smith, but
one that pays off in more ways
than simply being an exercize
in flexibility. Don’t Give Up On
Me is one of the most complete
‘nighttime’ records we’re heard
in years. So dim the lights, pour
a cocktail, invite a lady friend
(or two) over and let Mr. Smith
do his thing. You’ll be happy
that you did.
ALBUM REVIEWS u
ARTIST: Blackberry Smoke
ALBUM: The Whippoorwill
LABEL: Southern Ground
ARTIST: John Moremen
ALBUM: Floation Device
LABEL: Mystery Lawn Music
VERDICT: Mojo
VERDICT: Mojo
GEORGIA’S Blackberry Smoke lands with country megastar Zac
Brown’s record label Southern Ground for its third full-length release - a southern rock-and-boogie joyride called The Whippoorwill. Equal parts The Black Crowes and Drive-By Truckers with
some Skynyrd added in for good measure, the quintet rips through
the album’s opener ‘Six Ways To Sunday’ with serious crunch and
down-home charm.
‘Ain’t Much Left of Me’ is an excellent piece of grit and shimmer that leads into the title track, a ballad-leaning centerpiece that
echoes the best of the Crowes in their prime.
The guitar duo of Charle Starr and Paul Jackson trade off earthy,
classic rock tones that scream ‘There’s a British amp in the room!’
The band isn’t above cliche as is evidenced by the chorus of
‘Sleeping Dogs’ and the verse lyric to the album’s closer ‘Up The
Road’, but The Whippoorwill rises above it all and stands as one
of the best Southern Rock records released so far this year.
THE DECIDEDLY ‘surf-a-billy’ vibe on multi-instrumentalist John
Moremen’s latest album, John Moremen’s Floatation Device is
an infectious blend of Tele twang and serious chops. Invoking
both rock and jazz icons of the past with deft solo lines and an
unrestrained chordal palette, the 15-track, all-instrumental effort
has a little something for everyone, highlighted by the delay-heavy
‘Outta Here’, the ‘60s-era spy movie inspired ‘Magic Dust’ and
top-down, PCH-dream inducing ‘Play It’. None of these tunes
span over four minutes, so even with a Baker’s dozen plus two on
offer, the record doesn’t drag.
San Francisco-based Moremen played all of the instruments on
the album - a true triple-threat on guitar, bass and drums. Since he
can’t clone himself for stage, his live band includes bassist Chris
Xefos (King Missile, Moth Wranglers), guitarist Ian Robertson (The
Bye Bye Blackbirds) and drummer Adam Symons (The Parties). If
the album is any indication, the live experience should be a treat.
RE-LIC’’D
ARTIST: Kerbdog
ALBUM: Kerbdog
RELEASED: 1994
VERDICT:
BIG THINGS were expected
of the quartet from Kilkenny,
Ireland after the release of
their eponymus album in
1994. Kerbdog, made up of
Cormac Battle on guitar/
vocals, Colin Fennely on bass
and Darragh Butler on drums,
had all the looks of a punk/
grunge hybrid with influence
leanings towards bands like
Black Flag and Nirvana. What
was delivered with their debut
album was something much
more akin to Metallica’s Black
LP - a sonic barrage of heavy,
hook-filled songs that trended
more metal than anything else.
From the thick, chorus-y distortion of the intro to the albums lead cut ‘End Of Green’
to the thunderous outro of the
final song ‘Scram’, Kerbdog
seemed more at home in
metal’s arms.
Unfortunate then was the
timing of the release of the
debut. Delayed almost a year,
the record finally hit stores
in the throes of the grunge
era of guitar-oriented music...
released in the same year as
Soundgarden’s Superunknown,
Alice In Chains’ Jar Of Flys and
Pearl Jam’s Vitology.
Even though the band recorded the album with grunge
pioneer Jack Endino (Nirvana,
Screaming Trees), the album
never found traction with the
alt-grunge crowd in the US.
The record remains virtually
unknown in the US, despite
charting in the UK.
The sound of the debut comes
as close to a hybrid of grunge
and metal as there could be.
The guitar is big and out front,
but not as bottom-end focused
as say the Metallica Black
album. The bass sits in the mix
nicely with the near-industrial
sounding drum track.
The album never really slows
down, but coming in at just
over 37 minutes ear fatique
isn’t really an issue like it can
be with some over-long battering ram-style albums.
Songs like ‘Dry Riser’ and
‘Clock’ find melody in the
sonic, but hook-driven, rubble.
Others like ‘Earthmover’ and
‘The Inseminator’ are unapologeticly raw.
A few years after the debut,
Kerbdog released a second
record - On The Turn... a much
more alternative effort that
brought in a more pop-punk
shimmer to the guitars without
wholly sacrificing the band’s
more metallic core.
On The Turn sold poorly and
the band officially split in 1998.
After an idle period, the band
re-emerged in 2005 and since
then has performed at a series
of one-off type events in and
around Ireland. Their last gig
was April of this year in London
to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the release of On
The Turn.
62
Mayhem
Returns!
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally ran on What’s That Dude Play? in November 2011. This reprint is dedicated to the memory of muppeteer Jerry Nelson (the
original Floyd Pepper) who passed away on August 24, 2012.
IT HAS
HAS BEEN
BEEN ALMOST
ALMOST 40
40 YEARS
YEARS since
since the
the Electric
Electric Mayhem
Mayhem took
to thethe
stage
forfor
thethe
IT
stage
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FEATURE u
Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem
WTDP?: Let’s get the big question out of
the way first... what have you guys been
doing since we last saw you on the big
screen? Given the condition of the bus, we
gather you haven't been on tour.
DR TEETH: When it comes to touring: It
ain’t the condition of the bus, it’s the condition of the band that matters.
FLOYD PEPPER: Yeah, we needed some
body and fender work ourselves.
JANICE: But now we’re, like, entirely copacetic, incredibly groovy.
DR TEETH: …and ready to rock.
ANIMAL: Rock! Rock!
FLOYD: In other words, we’re not exactly
sure where we been…but we’re back.
ZOOT: Huh?
WTDP?: We think fans had always wondered if the band got its fair share of the
standard ‘Rich & Famous’ contract Lew
Lord signed the whole gang to back in ‘79.
We all know that Hollywood, and the music business, can be a cruel mistress.
DR. TEETH: We don’t play for the money,
we play for the music.
FLOYD: Good thing, too. Cause we ain’t
seen much moola.
ANIMAL: Moola! Moola!
DR TEETH: But that’s okay, cause the frog
keeps us in fresh gigs…and we never want
for food, shelter or the occasional set of
replacement drums.
ANIMAL: Drums! Drums!
FLOYD: Animal tends to be kinda tough
on timpanis and positively brutal on the
bongos.
JANICE: Fer sure.
ie THE MUPPETS features musical creations
that are among our greatest…
FLOYD: ...and most recent.
WTDP?: Back when you were doing The
Muppet Show, did you ever think that
almost four decades later you'd still be
together and making music... and movies?
DR. TEETH: Makin’ music is not what we
do, it’s who we are. Without music, there
would be no “us”.
JANICE: Yeah, like you can’t spell M-U-S-I-C
with “us”
FLOYD: Yeah, without “us” it’s M-I-C, and
those letter belong to the mouse.
ANIMAL: Mickey! Mickey!
DR. TEETH: Returning to your question,
permit me to elucidate, explicate and otherwise clarify….
FLOYD: Is that legal?
DR TEETH: Which is to say that we will
always be together for we am, is, are and
be they whom are known as the Electric
Mayhem.
ZOOT: What he said.
DR. TEETH: However, there was a plus
side….
FLOYD: …we sure beat the traffic.
ANIMAL: Beat Traffic! Beat Traffic!!!!
WTDP?: The vintage 70s-era rock and soul
vibe has always been a staple of the band’s
sound. What were some of the earlier influences on your music? Floyd, we seem to
remember an admiration for Fats Waller?
WTDP?: Given the band’s longevity, we’d
bet there are plenty of crazy stories from
the road (We’re looking at you, Zoot!).
What was the most embarrassing thing to
happen to you during a gig?
FLOYD: Fats Waller, most definitely! Also,
Fats Domino, Minnesota Fats and David
“Fathead” Newman….
JANICE: Fer sure. We were into “Fat” before
it was “Phat”
DR. TEETH: We are absotively and possolutely eclectic in our musical influences.
FLOYD: Kinda like a musical blender – the
influences go in the top, we blend, chop,
grate, liquefy and puree, and pour ‘em out
the other side.
DR TEETH: Personally speakin’ I gotta shout
out to the great Dr. John, as well as the
inestimable Elton John and the inextinguishable Liberace.
JANICE: Joan Jett and Tina Turner, totally.
ZOOT: Bird.
ANIMAL: Krupa! Rich! Moon! Baker!
WTDP?: Are there any bands or artists out
there today that you're digging?
ZOOT: Huh?
JANICE: It happened at Woodstock.
DR. TEETH: Very embarrassing.
FLOYD: We arrived two weeks late.
DR. TEETH: Oh yes indeed…..In fact, we
just did a video with a group we love OK
GO!
ANIMAL: OK GO! OK GO!!!!
WTDP?: How did the band become involved in this latest film project?
DR. TEETH: Well, Kermit had a distinctive
melodic motif he wanted to fabricate for this
particular motion picture…
FLOYD: …Yeah, the frog had a symphonic
ambiance he wished to conjure.
ZOOT, ANIMAL, JANICE: Huh?
DR TEETH: Kermit needed music…
FLOYD: ..and we were available.
WTDP?: Are we going to get any new material out of the band this time around or are
you sticking to the classics?
DR. TEETH: With the Electic Mayhem Band,
it’s always new material.
FLOYD: We never ever play the same thing
twice.
JANICE: That’s cause we never ever remember what we played the first time.
DR. TEETH: But I will say that this new mov65
They am, is, are and be they whom as are
known as the Electric Mayhem.
FEATURE u
Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem
MOVING RIGHT ALONG?: The Mayhem’s
tour bus has seen better days.
FLOYD: In a few minutes, Animal. They’re
still interviewing us.
ANIMAL: Sorr-ee
JANICE: We love Weezer, too. We did a
video with them, too. Awesome!
DR. TEETH: And there are a number of other
fine young musicians who paid homage to
Muppet music on “The Green Album”- The
Fray, Alkaline Trio, My Morning Jacket, Amy
Lee, Sondre Lerche, The Airborne Toxic
Event, Brandon Saller, Andrew Bird, Matt
Nathanson, Rachael Yamagata We are fans
of theirs in equal measure to their fandom
of us.
WTDP?: Being seasoned veterans of the
rock scene, do you have any advice for up
and coming bands trying to ‘make it’ in the
business?
DR. TEETH: Never let Animal drive the tour
bus.
JANICE: Major bummer.
FLOYD: Also, play for the love of the music
and for saying what’s in your soul….not for
the fame and fortune.
DR. TEETH: Yeah, if you do the former, the
latter—fame and fortune—will follow.
FLOYD: Ours is due any day now.
WTDP?: We understand Animal was getting
treatment in California for anger management. Was that a success? Did the band
have to use a fill-in while Animal was
otherwise ‘occupied’?
ANIMAL: An-ger? Huh?
FLOYD: Still a touchy subject with Animal.
DR. TEETH: Yes indeed, as depicted in the
movie heretofore mentioned and herein
plugged once again as THE MUPPETS, Ani-
mal had a brief sojourn at anger management establishment. But he’s groovin’ again.
JANICE: Like, totally.
FLOYD: It was a bit of a misunderstanding.
Animal doesn’t get angry; he merely tends
to express his passions at a much higher
physical, decibel and percussional level
than most.
ZOOT: Oh yeah.
DR. TEETH: As for “replacing” Animal, it
can’t be done. He is the one and only…
WTDP?: Janice, first off... You look great!
We wanted to ask about your favorite guitar. We recall seeing with a Gibson Les Paul
quite a bit. Would you consider that your
main axe? We can imagine it's difficult to
find a lot of variety being a southpaw
JANICE: You are, like, sooooo nice…and,
like ,soooo observant! And I am, like,
sooooo happy to answer your question…..
What was it again?
FLOYD: He wants to know about your axe.
JANICE: Fer sure! I adore my Gibson Les
Paul. But I also have several custom made
guitars, crafted for me by that legend of lefthanded guitar-smithing, Tremolo Buffkins.
FLOYD: Tremmy makes a mean axe.
DR. TEETH: And that’s a fact, Jack.
JANICE: Fer sure.
WTDP?: Floyd, you still blowin’ that old
Fender bass?
FLOYD: Indeed and in fact, I am. Though I,
like Janice, have had several custom guitars
built for me. Mine are crafted by the great
right-handed bassmaster, Scratch Finnster.
Thanksgiving. Are there any plans for the
band to hit the late night promotional circuit? We think everyone would love to see
the band blowing the doors off Letterman
and Leno.
DR. TEETH: We are exploring the possibility of such appearances, but we first need
to determine if our rock insurance covers
repairs to talk show doors. It’s a very capacious policy.
ZOOT: Huh?
FLOYD: He means we ain’t booked yet, but
we’re workin’ on it.
ZOOT: Oh.
WTDP?: What does 2012 hold for The
Electric Mayhem? New album? World tour?
Retirement party?
DR. TEETH: Well, lemme see – we got our
“Mayan Calendar Tour” ...and we’re still in
studio workin’ on a box set.
FLOYD: So far all we got is the box, but
eventually we hope to fill it with music.
JANICE: And we’ve been exploring lots of
World Music.
FLOYD: And not just on this World, may I
add.
JANICE: So, I , like, think you’ll be seeing
those influences in our music soon.
ZOOT: Retirement? Uhn-uhn.
FLOYD: Never ever happen.
JANICE: Like, that’s crazy talk.
DR. TEETH: We will play until we drop…
and then come back and do an encore.
ANIMAL: Encore! Encore!
FLOYD: Take it easy, Animal… We’re just
gettin’ started. G
WTDP?: The new movie hits around
66
67
Thank you.
The following people played a role in helping make Gearphoria a reality. Apologies
in advance if we forgot anybody.
Bart Provoost
Peter Hodgson
Jon Bloomer
Zachary Vex
Adam Grimm
Jane Smith
Jeff Wittman
Josh Seaton
Rytis Daukantas
Robert Macli
Jamie Stillman
Harri Koski
Jon Cusack
Brad Fee
Oz Hoffstater
Bob Weil
Orin Portnoy
Phil Vickman
Philippe Herndon
Seth Wilk
Siouxsie Medley
David Grissom
Paul Czeresko III
Philip Sayce
Brad Jackson
Rick Camino
Vaden Todd Lewis
Steve Bragg
Eddie Veliz
Randy Jackson
Josh Smith
AJ Brann
Julie Robbins
Stephen Hailey
Steve Mikesell
Dane Sonnier
Jeff Mikel
Bill Solley
Scott Chitwood
Danny Luckert
Ivan Plascencia
Cayce Moyer
Erika Tooker
Lauren Mele
John Chandler
Nicholas Harris
Stefanie Castillo
Josh Holley
Paul Barker
Robert Gillan
Brady Smith
Zach Early
Matt Johnson
Jack Pineda
Very special thanks to Holly Wright
Doug Kauer
Marc Ahlfs
Erik Means
Mark Hillier
Luke Johnson
Anthea Pitt
Noah Brenner
Anthony Guegel
Kathrine Schmidt
Tom Liskey
Jamie Mackenzie
Robert Watts
Jim Johnson
Chris Cimpson
Kyle Wright
Marilee Wright
Shirley Chronister
Buford Chronister
Gearphoria Magazine is wholly owned by WrightSide Media Group, Houston, TX. All rights reserved. Published September 2012

Publication - Gearphoria

Transcription

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