It rhymes with cello for a reason—EHX’s new attack filter lends beautiful blooms to every note.
Electro-Harmonix is excited to introduce the Pico Swello Attack Envelope pedal. Inspired by the legendary POG2 ATTACK slider, the core effect of the Swello is a polyphonic attack filter which applies individual volume swells to each note you played, even within chords and through sustained arpeggios. This unique effect is paired with an adjustable Low Pass Filter for smooth swells and envelope filter-style effects.
Housed in EHX’s Pico-sized chassis, the Swello has a simple four knob/one button layout. VOL adjusts the overall output of the pedal while ATTACK sets the attack envelope time. Low ATTACK settings attenuate just the initial attack of your instrument, while higher settings offer epic, long note swells. The Low Pass Filter is controlled by the FILTER button as well as the FREQ and MOD knobs. FILTER engages the LPF and applies an adjustable high or low resonance setting. The FREQ knob sets the cutoff frequency of the LPF and the MOD knob controls the depth and direction of the filter modulation akin to an envelope filter. Turn MOD up from noon for an upward filter sweep or down from noon for a downward filter sweep.
The EHX Pico Swello comes equipped with a standard EHX 9 Volt power supply. It will be available Mid-September and features a U.S. Street Price of $149.50.
Adrian Belew has spent his career on the cutting edge of guitar sounds, inventing the most forward-thinking tones to ever appear on record. His work as a solo artist and with King Crimson would be enough to land him on every guitarist’s radar. But that’s just one facet of his musical life, and he’s famously spent time with some of the biggest artists of all time: David Bowie, Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, Nine Inch Nails. He even appears in places you’d never expect experimental guitar, like Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al.”
To talk about Adrian, we called up Blair White. As co-owner of Nashville’s Eastside Music Supply, White and Belew struck up a friendship and they ended up working together to decode some of the tones that Belew needed for the much-lauded Beat tour and beyond. Blair gives us some insight into Belew’s playing, his process, and helps us solve a mystery.
This time host John Bohlinger sits down. plugs in, and slides besides the musical Canadian chamaeleon who talks about embracing your influences, playing bold (and loud) onstage for maximize risk taking, and shaping the might Revv D20 and D25 amps. Plus, he notes the guitar star that gave him memorable compliment after Joey bombed a solo.
Henri and Bill Cash, the brotherly guitar duo behind Los Angeles glam-rock band Starcrawler, linked with PG’s John Bohlinger before their gig at the Pinnacle in Nashville to show off some rose-colored rock tools. Check out highlights of their dazzling setups below, and tune into our full Rig Rundown to scope the full details.
This China-made Gretsch Electromatic Double Jet has just a single TV Jones Power’Tron Plus pickup, but beneath the hood, it’s also got a Rangemaster-style treble-boost circuit (as does another 3-string Electromatic that Henri plays). Henri traced out and applied sparkle-pink paper to give the guitar its memorable finish.
This pink powerhouse is tuned to open G.
Flying Bigsby
Daniel Slusser of Slusser Guitars in San Luis Obispo, California, built this custom V-style according to Henri’s requests, borrowing from a design by Japanese builder Saraso Ju. It’s made from pine from Home Depot, bound with leather, and outfitted with a Bigsby and a Filter’Tron pickup for Gretsch groove.
Triple Threat
Cash runs his dry signal to either this Satellite Amplifiers Neutron head or Vox AC15 combo, and his effects go to the Magnatone Twilighter Stereo on the right.
Henri Cash’s Pedalboard
After a pair of Boss TU-3s and a Boss ES-8 switcher, Henri’s board has a pair of DigiTech Drops, TC Electronic Shaker, R2R Electric Preamp, Boss GE-7, MXR Carbon Copy, Way Huge Red Llama, custom “Lamb’s Head” fuzz designed by Henri and Desi Scaglione, EarthQuaker Devices Tentacle, EQD Bit Commander, and Strymon Flint. A Lehle P-Split sends his signal to either the Neutron/AC15 and the Magnatone.
Tweaked Tele
Bill’s main axe is this heavily modified Fender Noventa Tele, with a Curtis Novak P-90 and a Glaser B-bender system.
Slide Away
For slide parts, Bill uses this GFI Expo pedal steel.
Souped-Up Super
Bill plays through this modded Fender Super Reverb Reissue. The tweaks included inserting a 5E3-tweed-Deluxe-Style circuit in first channel that switches to a handwired Super Reverb-style circuit in the second channel so he can use the tweed channel on guitar and clean black-panel tone on pedal steel. It was inspired by a mod he saw Colleen Fazio did to a friend's Bassman where she changed the first and second channel to be channel switching as well.
Bill Cash’s Pedalboard
On his sprayed-painted pedalboard, Bill runs a Boss TU-3, custom “Lamb’s Head” fuzz by Henri and Desi Scaglione, Way Huge Red Llama, Way Huge Conquistador, MXR Micro Amp, DigiTech Drop, Catalinbread Belle Epoch, MXR Reverb, MXR Tremolo, EarthQuaker Devices Levitation, Electro-Harmonix C9, and a Nocturne Brain Mystery Brain.
The in-demand gunslinger brings a load of silverware to arenas across the world.
Devon Eisenbarger, session ace and touring shredder for stars including Chappell Roan and One Direction’s Zayn Malik, met up with PG’s Chris Kies at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena before hitting the stage with Katy Perry to show off the sleek 6-string rig she’s using on Perry’s Lifetimes tour.
Eisenbarger cut her teeth on a Stratocaster, and its sonic character still feels like home. She filmed a demo for Fender using this American Professional II Strat with a coil-splitting humbucker in the bridge—the best she’s heard so far. This one and all other electrics run D’Addario strings (.010–.046).
Fiery Fiore
Eisenbarger just scored this PRS Fiore before this tour. It has a beefier, slightly more midrange-y sound than the Strat.
Silver Surfer
This Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay II, designed in collaboration with Cory Wong, was made for Eisenbarger just before this run of shows.
Saintly Signature
Eisenbarger uses this Ernie Ball Music Man St. Vincent Signature for “I Kissed a Girl.”
Taped-Up Taylor
This Taylor 814ce, wrapped in silver tape, comes out for a mid-show acoustic set.
Devon Eisenbarger’s Rack Setup
Eisenbarger runs an all-digital rig, contained in this rack backstage. The key pieces are a Radial JX42, two Shure AD4Ds, a Kemper Profiling Amplifier, and a Fractal Axe-Fx. The Kemper runs a SELAH SOUNDS pack of profiles and impulse responses.
With no onstage monitors, Eisenbarger’s signal runs only to in-ear monitors and front of house.