“There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think, ‘This is fucking great,’” Chrissie Hynde replies when asked about her 36-year run with the Pretenders. She’s right, of course. Growing up in Akron, Ohio—the Rubber City, where she attended Firestone High School—Hynde wanted nothing more than to be in a rock band. And for more than half her life she’s led one of the best through a dozen incarnations—all of them dependent on her poetic writing, her smoky and commanding voice, and her partnerships with a variety of fellow guitarists that have created a perfect union of artful rhythm playing and terse, conflagrant solos, leads, and licks.
Those fretboard collaborations have bristled and purred through truly extraordinary songs. They range from the punk-inflamed and bellicose early classics “The Wait” and “Tattooed Love Boys” to meat-and-potatoes rockers like the title track of the band’s new album Alone to elegant and reflective ballads like “Hymn to Her” from 1986’s Get Close and “Almost Perfect” from 2008’s Break Up the Concrete.
“I’m not really very guitar savvy,” Hynde says. “I just do the job. But I won’t talk to fashion magazines or Esquire or Rolling Stone—all the ones I think have gone the wrong way. So I’m delighted to talk to a guitar magazine.”
She’s also clearly delighted to play guitar, and while Hynde isn’t likely to engage in a deep conversation about orange drop capacitors or tuning machine gear ratios, she is an impassioned and skilled musician who sometimes talks about the guitars she’s owned over the years as if they were pets.
“I didn’t learn to play rhythm guitar by default because I couldn’t play lead,” Hynde explains. “I never tried to play lead. I was a rhythm guitar fan right from being inspired to play by listening to James Brown, where the rhythm was the anchor of the whole song and everything was based around it—sometimes on only one chord. That really turned me on. I like things that never change. I’ve discovered that with the least amount of chord changes you can come up with the most melodies and stuff, and I’ve stayed on that.”
Premier Guitar caught up to the great Pretender in Nashville the morning after Hynde and her band opened for Stevie Nicks in an early November concert at the Bridgestone Arena. Hynde talked about some of her favorite instruments, recording Alone in Music City with Dan Auerbach at his Easy Eye Studio, her band’s current lead guitarist James Walbourne, and what she looks for in a 6-string sparring partner.
I first saw you in 1980 at Toad’s Place in New Haven, Connecticut, on your debut U.S. tour, and you were playing a Telecaster. You’re still playing Telecasters. What interested you in that model and what’s sustained your interest over the decades?
I like the feel and look of it, the necks and everything. But the first electric guitar I had was a Kay—a semi-hollowbody. I was a teenager trying to play [the Butterfield Blues Band’s] “Born in Chicago” and stuff on my own. I didn’t want to jam with anyone, because they were all guys. I missed out on that. I just like to get straight into it—although I really regret that, because that’s where all the fun is and where you can go on a journey with the rest of the band. My excuse is that I was a girl and I never really felt like, you know, wanting to. I would maybe go for it now, but it never comes up. Jams aren’t me.
So I had that Kay electric, and then I had a fantastic little Gibson Melody Maker. I loved that guitar. It was in the boot of a car and got stolen, so a guy I was working with leant me his Melody Maker, and I went into a guitar shop to have the machine heads fixed or changed, and I saw my Melody Maker that had been stolen the past week. They said, “How can you prove it?” I got it for my 21st birthday.
Chrissie Hynde gave Nashville guitar ace Kenny Vaughan a ringing endorsement on Twitter during the recording process.
Then I had an SG—that was a nice, light nifty little thing. James Walbourne is the other guitar player in my outfit and he’s doing amazing things on an SG. And then I don’t know how I got the Tele. Maybe I thought it looked cool or something. But when I first picked one up I thought, “I’ll never be able to carry this for an hour.”
I have a few. I’ve had a couple made … a Zemaitis … but the one I’m using now, I don’t know what year it is. I got it a long time ago and it was already old. They had two in this shop in New York. Maybe in Manny’s. There was one with the original finish and one with spray paint. They said the one with the original finish was worth more. I said, “Give me the other one.” Only because I hate collectors’ things. I’m anti-collector. I thought, “Give me the shitty one.”
I just do the job with my guitar and I’m not as diligent with it as I wish I was. I also found a $200 Stratocaster not long ago. My office had them to sign to give to some charity, and I picked it up and said, “I love this guitar.” So they gave me one and I played it a while at home, but I’m aware of the fact that no one wants to see me playing a Stratocaster. Not that I’m that image conscious, but when I said I was going to bring in a Strat, I could see a look in my guys’ faces, so I thought, ‘Oh, oh. Maybe that’s not such a good idea.’ ”
What did you play on Alone?
I don’t really play on the album. I play on one song. We recorded the album in two weeks. Dan Auerbach plays on all of it, and Kenny Vaughan. I just kind of brought in some demos. I wasn’t very well for those two weeks and wasn’t sure I’d get through the sessions. I was on cortisone. It was changing seasons and I had a bronchitis kind of thing. From being an ex-smoker, smoking all my life, I couldn’t even talk. And Dan said, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll do all the vocals in the last few days.”I was literally crying when I got back to the hotel after the first day, because I was so sick.
[Bassist] Dave Roe would pick me up and take me back to my hotel every day. We’d play the demos, which I sent to Dan before the sessions, and Dave would write out a chart, pass it out to everyone, we’d do three takes, and move on to the next song. And I might croak out a guide vocal.
I played on “Gotta Wait.” That really is a rhythm-driven song. I might have played on “Chord Lord,” too. But I’m playing all the songs now, because we’re doing them live.
“I never tried to play lead,” says Hynde. “I was a rhythm guitar fan right from being inspired to play
by listening to James Brown.” Photo by Larry Marano
You’ve worked with a series of distinguished guitar players. What are you looking for in a guitar foil?
I want excellence. But it’s not about who’s the best; it’s about who does the right thing. I like a guitar player who can hold down the fort with a nice rhythm part, a nice arpeggio, and then let it rip. James is a wild card, so that’s great. I see my position as a singer as being there to set up the guitar player. I orchestrate the band and keep them on their toes, because if it gets polite or you’re going through the motions—game over. It’s not rock ’n’ roll and it’s not fun anymore. If you’re playing for an extended period you have to be very mindful of that. So I’ll come in at a different place or end songs in different spots, or tell James to keep going or cut a solo. He always has to be ready to switch the plan.
I like bands. I’m not, for the most part, interested in individuals. It’s the band dynamic that turns me on. And there you go. The line-ups have changed, but the spirit of the thing has remained the same.
How did you and Dan come to work together on this album?
We’ve met over the years in passing. I don’t think we ever had a conversation. I’d admired him from afar and seen the Black Keys a couple of times. I didn’t listen to the stuff he was producing. I’d seen him play guitar and that was all I needed to know. You don’t know what’s going to happen until you get into the studio anyway, and I didn’t have a real idea about what I wanted. I never do. You just take the songs in. And Dan is absolutely the producer of the moment.
He’s super organic and really traditional, and if you’re traditional in a rock thing, you’re going to be experimental. He sees an album as a two-sided vinyl LP. That sets a kind of boundary so it doesn’t get lost up its own ass. Look at the difference from when people were working with eight tracks and then went to 48 tracks? Less is more.
not such a good idea.’ ”
Dan brought in his Nashville team, including guitarist Kenny Vaughan and bassist Dave Roe, to play on Alone. How different was that from using your own band?
It had a good vibe, just like with my band. The first thing I noticed about all these guys is that they really just want to play rock ’n’ roll. When I walk into the room, they know they’re safe—they know it’s gonna be a rock thing. That’s the impression I get. Everyone wants to be in a rock band, like they did when they were 16.
How has your guitar playing evolved?
I don’t think it’s evolved at all. I’m in exactly the same spot I was at when I was 22. I’ve played more because I’ve gone on tours. I absolutely fucking love guitar, but I don’t dig it that way.
I mean, I started painting a lot this year. Once I start that, I can do it for four hours and not look at or listen to anything else, and not lose focus. Shit, if I did that with a guitar, I’d be a hotshot player by now. But it’s not my medium. For me, it’s more writing songs and singing.
How do you compose?
It’s the rhythm, a few chords, and the melody.
What amps are you using these days?
Two Ampeg Super Jets. I like small amps. I like the sound of the rehearsal room. If you can recreate the sound of the rehearsal room and keep it relatively contained onstage, then the house guy can crank it and control the sound, and that gives him a lot more to play with. If it’s too loud, it’s a mess onstage. We consistently get compliments on our volume.
Chrissie Hynde’s Gear
Guitars1965 Fender Telecaster
Fender Custom Shop Telecaster
1998 Fender Squier Telecaster
1964 Fender Telecaster
Amps
two Ampeg Super Jet SJ-12T reissues
Effects
Fulltone Fat Boost
Boss CE-2 Chorus
Boss TR-2 Tremolo
Boss TU-2 Tuner
Shure wireless
Strings and Picks
D’Addario EXL120s (.009–.042)
Scotty’s medium nylon
Do you use effects?
I use a chorus pedal and stuff, but my guitar tech switches that on the side, so I don’t need to think about that so much.
How did you decide to make another Pretenders album instead of a solo album, like 2014’s Stockholm?
None of them have been solo albums. They’ve all been Pretenders albums, but with different line-ups. For the last album, I went to Sweden and the guys I work with usually were all doing other things. So I thought, “I’ll call it a solo album.” This album also has a different line-up, but when my manager played it for someone, he said, “Oh, it’s great to hear the Pretenders again.” So my manager, Ian [Grenfell], said, “What do you think about calling it a Pretenders album?” So I wrote Dan to ask him what he thought about it, and he said, “Call it whatever sells the most records.”
Your voice has continued to become richer, warmer, and more controlled. How has your singing grown?
I don’t know what to say about that, really. I just do what I do. I don’t know technically how to talk about singing. I don’t train or warm up or rest my voice. I think singing is psychological. The things that are unique about singers are probably the things they don’t like about their voices. I don’t think there were any comps on this album. I just sang the songs a couple times and Dan took the best take. You can tell on one song that I’m hoarse—“Blue Eyed Sky.” I sound like I’m on death’s door, but I got used to it and said, “Oh fuck it.” And I quit smoking a few years ago, and that’s obviously a huge benefit.
You’re having a great career. What do you think when you look back at what you’ve done?
I’m just glad I got away with it, to be honest. I’m on the road and I’m in a nice hotel and I can order room service. Fuck it. When I’m on tour, I’ve got a tour manager who will carry my bags, and when it’s over, I go home and I live above a shop on my own and I can do some painting. I live a very, very ordinary, almost kind of reclusive life at home. And nobody knows who I am. I’m pretty much the same as when I moved to London in 1973. I just do my thing. It feels great! It’s always felt great to be in a rock band. It’s what I wanted when I was 16. I didn’t think it would happen.
YouTube It
In this guitar-laden performance of “Holy Commotion,” the first single from Alone, the Pretenders are joined by the album’s producer, Dan Auerbach, on the BBC’s Later … with Jools Holland. Auerbach plays a Gibson Trini Lopez model as James Walbourne picks the song’s melody riff on a 1950s parts Fender Stratocaster that was a gift from Chrissie Hynde, who strums one of her workhorse Telecasters. And that’s Eric Heywood laying down extra texture on pedal steel.
Laying into a Telecaster that’s now departed his touring arsenal, James Walbourne slams it down with Chrissie Hynde at Chicago’s Riviera Theatre during the Break Up the Concrete tour. Photo by Tim Bugbee / Tinnitus Photography
James Walbourne: “Run Everything Loud and Rock Out”
The Pretenders have a lineage of distinguished lead guitarists, beginning with the incendiary but self-destructive James Honeyman-Scott and continuing with Billy Bremner (Rockpile, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds), Robbie McIntosh (Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey), Johnny Marr (the Smiths), and Adam Seymour (Katydids). That gives the band’s current string-slasher, James Walbourne, 10 pairs of shoes to fill—but the biggest belong to Honeyman-Scott, who helped define the Pretenders’ savage-to-soothing sound on 1980’s Pretenders and ’81’s Pretenders II.“When I first joined the band, it was great to discover all of Jimmy’s parts,” Walbourne says. “He was a great stylist, really, and to try to make those parts my own a bit, without changing up the character of the songs, was a challenge. But Chrissie made it clear that she wanted me to bring my own thing to the table.”
Walbourne’s own thing is, well, nearly a bit of everything. Before joining the Pretenders he played with Americana roots outfit Son Volt and was a member of the Kinks’ frontman Ray Davies’ solo band, navigating the singer-songwriter’s new works and classic-rock catalog. He met his wife, Kami Thompson, while playing on the sessions for her mother Linda’s 2007 album, Versatile Heart.
James Walbourne’s Gear
Guitars1963 Gibson SG Junior with Maestro Vibrola
1968 Gibson Firebird with Maestro Vibrola
1958 Fender parts Strat
1950 Fender Tele Relic
Gibson Les Paul Classic
Amps
two Fender ’68 silverface Deluxe Reverb reissues
Effects
TC Electronic Flashback X4 Delay
ZVEX Box of Rock overdrive
Crowther Audio Hotcake distortion
MXR Custom Audio Electronics Boost/Overdrive
Dunlop Cry Baby wah
Tone Bender fuzz
Boss CE-2 Chorus
Boss TR-2 Tremolo
Strings and Picks
D’Addario EXL15s (.011–.049)
Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
“I’ve played with him quite a bit, so it’s definitely rubbed off,” Walbourne relates. “Now, being in the Pretenders lets me play rock guitar, and the Rails gives me the opportunity to do everything else I enjoy, so I get to have a lot of scope.
“Chrissie is a great rhythm player,” Walbourne continues, “but it’s kind of funny, because sometimes she gets so lost in performing that she forgets which fret she’s on. But she’s always inspiring. She writes aggressive lyrics that really bring out an aggressive edge in my guitar playing, and I love that she can go from extreme rock to doing a ballad seamlessly. She’s a natural, and she can also write some really complicated rhythms, like in ‘The Phone Call.’ To get your head around a song like that takes some time. The bottom line is, her guitar drives the band—even Martin. Besides that, she’s just amazing to be around. When we’re not onstage we always talk about music and have quite a good time, really.”
It also took Walbourne some time to wrap his head around chorus pedals, which Honeyman-Scott made a staple of the Pretenders’ foundational sound with his ringing chord stabs and arpeggios in numbers like “Mystery Achievement” and the band’s first single, “Brass in Pocket.”
“To me, they were the Devil’s pedal,” Walbourne says. “I couldn’t stand them, really, but Jimmy made it work. He was fantastic with the chorus and used it to really create his own sound, instead of that horrible singer-songwriter chorus approach. So now I can’t be without one.”
Another essential element for Walbourne’s tone is volume. “I run everything loud and just rock out on it,” he says. “I turn everything up on my amps and guitar, and I don’t touch my volume and tone pots except for some swells on ‘Hymn to Her.’ I don’t like to fiddle around. I just like to concentrate on playing.”
Dave Roe plays his Lemur Music Jupiter upright at Easy Eye Studio. He ran the bass through a custom DI, a console sidecar, and a compressor.
Kenny Vaughan and Dave Roe: Inside the Alone Sessions
If you check the credits on Dan Auerbach-produced albums by the Arcs, Nikki Lane, Ray LaMontagne, and Lana Del Ray, you’ll notice the names of guitarist Kenny Vaughan and bassist Dave Roe. They’re regularly drafted for sessions at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Studio because they’re among Nashville’s sharpest and most versatile players, and they likely appeal to Auerbach because of their ability—although it’s practically an insistence—to think outside of the box. Plus, they have tone for eons.
During their regular Monday night gigs together at Nashville’s 12 South Taproom, Roe and Vaughan’s sets rip from surf music to jazz to swamp blues to R&B to classic country to originals to, really, just about anything that crosses their minds. Today Vaughan’s most high-profile gig is with Marty Stuart’s Fabulous Superlatives, where he and Stuart regularly engage in virtuoso crossfires. Early on, Vaughan was a student of Bill Frisell and he left an indelible mark on the music of Lucinda Williams during his tenure in her band. Roe held the bass chair in Johnny Cash’s group for 12 years and has played the same role for Dwight Yoakam and, more recently, John Mellencamp. They’re also in demand throughout the broad spectrum of Nashville’s recording scene.
Vaughan praises Auerbach’s approach: “Dan takes each song as a separate entity, and maintains a focus on the song until he sees it through. He doesn’t fall prey to letting other tunes on the project affect the one he’s sculpting at the moment. There’s none of that foolish, ‘Oh, we can’t do that because we did that on the last song’ mentality, which is something that drives me nuts. He looks for the essence of each song, and that takes work. Sometimes you have to admit that you’ve gone down the wrong road and you need to break it down and start over.
“Recording with Chrissie was great,” Vaughan adds. “She’s easy to work with and very open to trying things out. She’d stand there and sing live with the band, and we’d all get shivers when that voice came through the speakers.”
For each song, Vaughan was “assigned a position: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, sound effect guitar, baritone guitar, etc.—and then we’d look for the right instrument and amplifier to make it happen. I don’t use a pedalboard, but there are hundreds of pedals around if you might need to try one. I don’t recall using one.” A highlight: “I played my Dan Dunham Junior Watson model through a cranked tweed Gibson GA-5 on the rock tune with all the chords [“Chord Lord”] and the solo went down live in one take. It was a roller coaster ride.”
“If anything was out of the ordinary about the sessions,” says Roe, “it was just that it was Chrissie fucking Hynde! Working with Chrissie was unbelievable, on so many levels. From day one, I’ve always been a Pretenders fan, and she’s one of the best singer-songwriters ever. Once I was able to step back from that, it turned into a really enjoyable place to be. She was delightful, extremely intelligent, and a really fun hang. Chrissie totally handed the reins to Dan, trusted him and us, and it went great. To hear that voice in the phones was sublime and inspiring.
“I also loved hearing her stories about the Pretenders starting out in England,” Roe continues. “Most everyone associates them with the British punk and post-punk explosion of the late ’70s, so one of the striking things for all of us was the realization that the Pretenders never related to that at all. They had that punk energy for sure, but it surprised them to find that they were lumped into that. I think that the playing level in that band was far beyond any of that.”
Roe used Auerbach’s vintage Fender Mustang with La Bella flatwound strings that he almost always uses for Easy Eye recordings. “The way that the bass sits in the mix on those old records is what he goes for. He loves to say that you can ‘see the bass,’ and I get that,” Roe relates. “Modern music, especially the stuff that comes out of Nashville, is overloaded with a sort of false low end that really doesn’t allow for much movement. I like that as well, but it’s not right for everything.” Roe also played his Lemur Music Jupiter upright, a 3/4-size bass with a 7/8 body strung with “the classic Nashville upright setup—flats on the bottom, and gut G and D.” He also employed a Collin Dupuis custom DI through a channel of an Altec 9300 console sidecar through a Universal Audio LA-3A compressor. The Jupiter was miked with a Funkwerk Leipzig RFT 7151 through an Old World Audio U33 compressor for color, not to compress.
Revv G3 Purple Channel Preamp/Overdrive/Distortion Pedal - Anniversary Edition
The Revv G3 revolutionized high gain pedals in 2018 with its tube-like response & tight, clear high gain tones. Suddenly the same boutique tones used by metal artists & producers worldwide were available to anyone in a compact pedal. Now the G3 returns with a new V2 circuit revision that raises the bar again.
It would have been easy for Wampler to simply make a Mostortion clone and call it a day, but they added some unique twists to the Mofetta pedal. While the original Mostortion had a MOSFET-based op amp, it actually used clipping diodes to create its overdrive. The Mofetta is a fairly accurate replica and includes that circuitry, but also has a toggle switch for texture, which lets you choose between the original-style diode-based clipping in the down position and multi-cascaded MOSFET gain stages in the up position.
Luscious Low Gain and Meaty Mid-Gain
The Mofetta’s control panel is very straightforward and conventional with knobs for bass, mids, treble, level, and gain. The original Mostortion was revered for its low-gain tone and is now popular among Nashville session guitarists. Wampler’s tribute captures that edge-of-breakup vibe perfectly. I enjoyed using the pedal with the gain on the lower side, around 9 o’clock, where I heard and felt slight compression that gave single notes a smooth and silky feel. I particularly enjoyed the tone-thickening the Mofetta lent to my Ernie Ball Music Man Axis Sport’s split-coil sound as I played pop melodies and rootsy, triadic rhythm guitar figures. The Mofetta has expansive headroom, and as a result there’s a lot of space in which you can find really bold, cutting tones without muddying the waters too much. Even turning the gain all the way off yields a pleasing volume bump that would work well in a clean boost setting.
There’s a lot of space in which you can find really bold, cutting tones without muddying the waters too much.
Switching the texture switch up engages the MOSFET section, introducing cascading gain stages that elevate the heat and add flavor the original Mostortion didn’t really offer. Classic rock and early metal are readily available via the MOSFET setting. If you need to stretch out to modern metal sounds, the Mofetta probably isn’t the pedal for you. Again, the original Mostortion was, first and foremost, a low-to-mid-gain affair, so unless you’re using it as a boost with a high-gain amp, the Mofetta is not really a vehicle for extreme sounds.
One of the Mofetta’s real treats is its responsiveness. Even at higher gain settings the Mofetta is very touch sensitive. You can tap into a wide range of dynamic shading just by varying the strength of your pick attack. I enjoyed playing fast, ascending scalar passages, picking with a medium attack then really slamming it hard when I hit a high climactic note, to get the guitar to really scream.
The Verdict
Wampler is a reliably great builder who creates pedals with a purpose. I own two of his pedals, the Dual Fusion and the Pinnacle, and both are really exceptional units. The Mofetta captures the essence of the Mostortion and makes it available at an accessible price. But even if you’ve never heard or played an original Mostortion, you’ll appreciate the truly versatile EQ, touch sensitivity, and the bonus texture switch, which expands the Mofetta’s range into more aggressive spaces. The wealth of dirt boxes on the market today can make a player jaded. But Wampler pushed into a relatively unique, satisfying, and interesting place with the Mofetta.
Filthy, saturated fuzz is a glorious thing, whether it’s the writ-large solos of Big Brother and the Holding Company’s live “Ball and Chain,” the soaring feedback and pure crush of Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady,” or the sandblasted rhythm textures of Queens of the Stone Age’s “Paper Machete.” It’s also a Wayback Machine. Step on a fuzz pedal and your tone is transported to the ’60s or early ’70s, which, when it comes to classic guitar sounds, is not a bad place to be.
Catalinbread’s StarCrash is from their new ’70s collection, so the company is laying its Six Million Dollar Man trading cards on the table—upping the ante on traditional fuzz with more controls and, according to the company’s website, a little more volume than the average fuzz pedal, while still staying in the traditional Fuzz Face lane.
The Howler’s Viscera
Arbiter Electronics made the first Fuzz Face in 1966. The StarCrash is inspired by that 2-transistor pedal, but benefits from evolution, as did almost all fuzz pedals in the ’70s, when the standard shifted from germanium to silicon circuitry to improve the consistency of the effect’s performance. The downside is that germanium is gnarlier to some ears, and silicon transistors don’t respond as well to adjustments made via a guitar’s volume control.
While Fuzz Faces have only two knobs, volume and fuzz, the silicon StarCrash has three: volume, bias, and low-cut. Catalinbread’s website explains: “We got rid of that goofy fuzz knob. We know that 95 percent of all players run it dimed, and the remaining 5 percent use their guitar’s volume knob to rein it in.”
I suspect there are plenty of players who, like me, do adjust the fuzz control on their pedals, but the most important thing is that the core fuzz sound here is excellent—bristly and snarling, with a far girthier tone than my reissue Fuzz Face. It’s also, with the bias and low-cut controls, far more flexible. The low-cut control allows you to range from a traditional, comparatively thinner Fuzz Face sound (past noon and further) to the StarCrash’s authentic, beefier voice (noon and lower). Essentially, it cuts bass frequencies from 40 Hz to 500 Hz, resulting in an aural menu that runs from lush and lowdown to buzzy and slicing. And the bias control is a direct route to the spitty, fragmented, so-called Velcro-sound that’s become a staple of the stoner-rock/Jack White school of tone. The company calls this dial a “dying battery simulator,” and it starves the second transistor to achieve that effect.
Sweet Song of the Tribbles
Playing with the StarCrash is a lot of fun. I ran it through a pair of Carr amps in stereo, adding some delay and reverb to mood, and used a variety of single-coil- and humbucker-outfitted guitars. While both pickup types interacted well with the pedal, the humbuckers were most pleasing to my ears with the bias cranked to about 2 o’clock or higher, since the ’buckers higher output allowed me to let notes sustain longer before sputtering out. Keeping the low-cut filter at 9 o’clock or lower also helped sustain and depth in the Velcro-fuzz zone, while letting more of the instruments’ natural voices come through, of course.
With the low-cut filter turned up full and the bias at 10 o’clock, I got the StarCrash to be the perfect doppelganger of my Hendrix reissue Fuzz Face. But that’s such a small part of the pedal’s overall tone profile. It was more fun to roll off just a bit of bass and set the bias knob to about 2 or 3 o’clock. Around these settings, the sound is huge and grinding, and yet barre chords hold their character while playing rhythm, and single-note runs, especially on the low strings, are a filthy delight, with just the right schmear of buttery sustain plus a hint of decay lurking behind every note. It’s such a ripe tone—the sonic equivalent of a delicious, stinky cheese—that I could hang with it all day.
Regarding Catalinbread’s claims about the volume control? Yes, it gets very loud without losing the essence of the notes or chords you’re playing, or the character of the fuzz, which is a distinct advantage when you’re in a band and need to stand out. And it’s a tad louder than my Fuzz Face but doesn’t really bark up to the level of most Tone Bender or Buzzaround clones I’ve heard. In my experience, these germanium-chipped critters of similar vintage can practically slam you through the wall when their volume levels are cranked.
The Verdict
Catalinbread’s StarCrash—with its sturdy enclosure, smooth on/off switch and easy-to-manipulate dials—can compete with any Fuzz Face variant in both price and performance, scoring high points on the latter count. The bias and low-cut dials provide access to a wider-than-usual variety of fuzz tones, and are especially delightful for long, playful solos dappled with gristle, flutter, and sustain. Kudos to Catalinbread for making this pedal not just a reflection of the past, but an improvement on it.
Catalinbread Starcrash 70 Fuzz Pedal - Starcrash 70 Collection
The release of a newRed Panda pedal is something to be celebrated. Each of the company’s devices lets us crack into our signal chains and tweak its inner properties in unique, forward-thinking ways, encouraging us to be daring, create something new, and think about sound differently. In essence, they take us to the sonic frontier, where the most intrepid among us seek thrills.
Last January, I got my first glimpse of the Radius at NAMM and knew that Red Panda mastermind Curt Malouin had, once again, concocted something fresh. The pedal offers ring modulation and frequency shifting with pitch tracking and an LFO, and I heard classic ring-mod tones as the jumping off point for oodles of bold sounds generated by envelope and waveform-controlled modulation and interaction. I had to get my hands on one.
Enjoy the Process
I’ve heard some musicians talk about how the functionality of Red Panda’s pedals are deep to a point that they can be hard to follow. If that’s the case, it’s by design, simply because each Red Panda device opens access to an untrodden path. As such, it can feel heady to get into the details of the Radius, which blends between ring modulation and frequency shifting, offering control of the balance and shift ratios of the upper and lower sidebands to create effects including phasing, tremolo, and far less-natural sounds.
As complex as that all might seem, Red Panda’s pedals always make it easy to strip the controls down to their most essential form. The firmest ground for a guitarist to stand with the Radius is a simple ring-mod sound. To get that, I selected the ring mod function, turned off the modulation section by zeroing the rate and amount knobs, kept the shift switch off and the range switch on its lowest setting. With the mix at noon and the frequency knob cranked, I found my sound.
From there, by lowering the frequency range, the Radius will yield percussive tremolo tones, and the track knob helped me dial that in before opening up a host of phaser sounds below noon. By going the other direction and kicking the rate switch into its higher setting, a world of ring-mod tweaking opens up. There are some uniquely warped effects in these higher settings that include dial-up modem sounds and lo-fi dial tones. Exploring the ring mod/frequency shift knob widens the possibilities further to high-pitched, filtered white noise and glitchy digital artifacts at its extremes.
There are wild, active sounds within each knob movement on the Radius, and the modulation section naturally brings those to life in more ways than a simple knob tweak ever could, delivering four LFO waveforms, a step modulator, two x-mod waveforms, and an envelope follower. It’s within these settings that I found rayguns, sirens, Shepard tones, and futuristic sounds that were even harder to describe.
It’s easy to imagine the Radius at the forefront of sonic experiments, where it would be right at home. But this pedal could easily be a studio device when applied in low doses to give a track something special that pops. The possible applications go way beyond guitars.
The Verdict
The Radius isn’t easy to plug and play, but it’s also not hard to use if you keep an open mind. That’s necessary, too: The Radius is not for guitar players who prefer to stay grounded; this pedal is for sonic-stargazers and producers.
I enjoyed pairing the Radius with various guitar instruments—12-string, baritone, bass—and it kept getting me more and more excited about sonic experimentation. That feeling is a big part of what’s special about this pedal. It’s so open-ended and controllable, continuing to reveal more of its capabilities with use. Once you feel like you’ve gotten something down, there are often more sounds to explore, whether that’s putting a new instrument or pedal next to it or exploring the Radius’ stereo, MIDI, or expression-pedal functionality. Like many great instruments, it only takes a few minutes to get started, but it could keep you exploring for years.
Red Panda Radius Ring Modulator/Frequency Shifter Pedal
