Municipal waste founder Ryan Waste (left) and Nick Poulos brandish their RIP Custom and Ibanez rock machines.
Municipal Waste guitarist Ryan Waste is passionate about old-school metal. “I’m as much a fan as a player,” he attests, “so I try to keep as true to the roots as possible.” His allegiance to metal’s early days is loud and clear on Electrified Brain—the band’s most recent record—a 14-track, 34-minute explosion of vintage, full-throttle thrash at its finest. Leaning heavily into the sonic template forged by albums like Metallica’s Ride the Lightningand Slayer’s Reign in Blood, Electrified Brain easily qualifies as a contemporary torchbearer for the genre and effectively associates Municipal Waste with the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal scene. By embracing the tried-and-true ’80s-era sonic stew of Marshall amps and standard-tuned guitars, and by avoiding modern production aesthetics that rely on click tracks and drop-tunings, the band has crafted an album that captures the incendiary spark of pure, unadulterated OG thrash.
Since forming in 2001 in Richmond, Virginia, Municipal Waste has released seven studio albums, three EPs, and four splits, with founding members Waste and lead vocalist Tony Foresta solidly guiding their musical amalgamation of ’80s thrash and hardcore punk. The current lineup also includes Philip “Landphil” Hall on bass, Dave Witte on drums, and their latest addition, Nick Poulos, on lead guitar. Long-running metal label Nuclear Blast released Electrified Brain, the follow-up to 2017’s widely praised Slime and Punishment, which was the first to feature Poulos on guitar—though the band also released the EP The Last Rager in 2019. Prior to that, Municipal Waste was a four-piece, with Waste handling all guitar duties.
MUNICIPAL WASTE - High Speed Steel (OFFICIAL LYRIC VIDEO)
Over the course of the last two decades, albums like The Art of Partying (2007) and The Fatal Feast (2012) have burnished Municipal Waste’s reputation as the world’s foremost purveyors of “party thrash.” Electrified Brain continues that trend across a set of short, insistent songs with tongue-in-cheek titles like “Last Crawl,” “Ten Cent Beer Night,” “Crank the Heat,” and “Paranormal Janitor.” A good example of putting the “party” into “party thrash” is the “Rock You Like a Hurricane” riff that concludes the propulsive “Ten Cent Beer Night.” These dudes have a sense of humor, and it’s one of Municipal Waste’s coolest attributes.
Poulos confirms that the initial intent for Electrified Brain was to be a bit more “traditional,” and cites elements of Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” in the song “High Speed Steel.” “There’s a little lead that I do at the end that is pretty ‘Kirk-y,’” he says.
Beyond these towering musical influences, the pandemic also had a profound impact on the creation of Electrified Brain. “We had more time than we’ve ever had for an album,” recalls Waste. “Instead of rushing through—write, hit the studio, hit the road—this one was like, ‘Okay, we’re going to write, let the songs marinate a little bit, revisit them, and then collectively go in the studio.’” During the height of the pandemic, they holed up in Redwoods Recording Studio with engineer Arthur Rizk in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for two weeks and got down to business.
“Now that we have the power to pull off double guitars live, we’re going to really let it shine.” —Ryan Waste
“We were all masked up—five of us—in an Airbnb and just taking Lyft to South Street every day and working 11, sometimes 12, hours,” recalls Poulos. “We were so ready to do just about anything as a band. Obviously, we couldn’t play shows at that time, but the studio was a real cool escape from the world and everything that was happening.”
Poulos says both he and Waste recorded two guitar tracks each per song, so when you listen to Electrified Brain, you’re hearing four rhythm guitar tracks. “We would finish a pass of the song, punch-in, fix whatever mistakes, and then go ahead and do a whole other take,” he recalls.
Poulos cut his rhythm tracks with his late father’s vintage Gibson Explorer, calling on a pair of Marshalls for his amplification needs: his own ’88 JCM800 for his primary rhythm tracks, and one of Rizk’s studio Marshalls for his second tracks. Poulos also “messed around with” a Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive. “I play out of my JCM800 with the reverb cranked at about two-and-a-half, three o’clock, with a Tube Screamer and Overdrive. I just run them both and have it dialed in so it’s not completely noisy. It’s pretty primitive, honestly. There’s really not much to it, but when you put a microphone up to it the way Arthur did, it sounds awesome—very Slayer, Trouble, even early ’Tallica. You just can’t go wrong.”
Ryan Waste’s Gear
Back in the early days of the band, Ryan Waste, here with singer Tony Foresta, designed the Municipal Waste logo. Since 2008, he’s worked with a series of builders to bring that logo to life, culminating in his crushing signature model, the RIP MW-AX.
Photo by Tim Bugbee
Guitars
- RIP Custom Guitars MW-AX with Kahler 2300 Tremolo and Seymour Duncan JB Trembucker pickup
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinky (.010–.046)
- Dunlop Tortex Standard .73 mm
Amps
- 1986 Marshall JCM800
Effects
- Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer
- Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner
Waste followed the same tracking protocol, using his own JCM800 amp from ’86 with a V2 mod that boosts the gain and the low end. “It’s definitely loud as shit, but a little less gain-y than mine,” says Poulos. The guitarist runs just a single Ibanez Tube Screamer in front.
Waste tracked Electrified Brain using his RIP Custom Guitars MW-AX, built by Rob Gray. It’s a custom model in the shape of the band’s logo. “I’m a left-handed player. Not being able to find a Flying V or find guitars at a guitar shop, I had a custom guitar made in the shape of our logo as far back as 2008,” explains Waste. In the time since, he’s turned to various builders to make the guitar, from luthier Andy Strangio, who made the initial model, to Fernandes, and to local Richmond builder John Gonzales. “I’ve had five incarnations,” explains Waste. “And now, I teamed up with Rob Gray at RIP Custom Guitars, which is Radical Instrument Products. He’s made the final MW-AX that I’ve actually marketed and made a signature model out of that kids can buy.”
To capture the most brutal sounds around, the band headed up I-95 to Philadelphia and engineer Arthur Rizk. In the City of Brotherly Love, they spent two weeks carefully crafting their riffage—though they recorded their guitar leads at the home of bassist Philip “Landphil” Hall.
Both guitarists credit Rizk with helping them get the desired results. “He’s a great guitar player himself and understands that we want a crunchy, natural tone,” says Waste. “He got my favorite sounds, drums-and guitar-wise, on this album, so I was psyched.”
Even though Electrified Brain is the third Municipal Waste record to include Poulos, it’s their first release to prominently feature a lot of lead guitar playing. “On this one, we’re really letting him shine with more leads,” says Waste. The guitarists decided to take a different approach to tracking their solos than they did to their rhythm parts, cutting them at bassist Philip Hall’s house and shipping them to Rizk fox mixing.
Rig Rundown: Municipal Waste
We filmed a Rig Rundown with the thrash twins back in August — see their live setups up close.
Poulos says he went into each solo with a rough blueprint of what he was going to play before they hit record. “For most of the stuff, I had an idea of how I was going to execute it, but I definitely came up with a couple of cool things on the fly that I’m really stoked on.” He differentiated his tone by using his Ibanez RG550 for solos, and adds, “I just used a couple of different pedals. For the leads, I used a Waza Craft Metal Zone. It’s not like most Metal Zones. I know a lot of people hear the term Metal Zone and think basement metal and Battle of the Bands, but the mod definitely helped make it less noisy. You can really just tone back and dial it in to be great for leads.”
Poulos also admits that in the past he’s been terrified when it came to tracking leads in the studio. “But now, especially working with Phil, we have this rapport,” he explains. “It’s calm, it’s easy. And my abilities have improved over the past couple of years. I really try to do some extracurricular activities, as far as thinking outside of my go-to tricks and my normal toolbox of moves. I’m level-headed, I’m ready to do it, and it feels good. Once you hit something really sick, it’s like, ‘Wow, that sounds really cool.’”
Nick Poulos’ Gear
Electrified Brain is Nick Poulos’ third album with the band, but this time, Waste says, “We’re really letting him shine.”
Photo by Adam Malik
Guitars
- Ibanez RG550 Genesis Collection
- Gibson Explorer
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinky (.010–.046)
- Dunlop Nylon Max Grip 1 mm
Amps
- 1988 Marshall JCM800
Effects
- Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer
- Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive
- Boss MT-2W Waza Craft Metal Zone
- Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner
The band also embraced more of the creative possibilities of their two-guitar lineup. “Now that we have the power to pull off double guitars live, we’re going to really let it shine,” promises Waste. On “Last Crawl,” they took the opportunity to trade leads. “The trade-off stuff is cool,” he says. “I think maybe we’ll do more of that.” But it’s also refreshing for Waste to be able to focus on his rhythm work. “It was just such a relief, like, ‘Okay, you’re the lead guitar player now.’ I have no ego about it whatsoever, man.”
Perhaps their generous guitar partnership stems from the guitarists’ collaborations outside of the band, which have been ongoing for some years. They both play together in two more traditional heavy metal bands, Bat and Vulture. Waste plays bass in both, which may account for his willingness to play a more supportive role. It also perhaps highlights his seemingly innate ability to conjure great, single-note, air-guitar-worthy riffs. “I was a bass player long before I was a guitar player, so, honestly, I’m more comfortable playing bass,” he confesses. “I even feel more proficient at bass. I didn’t pick up a guitar until I was 18. Back then it was funny. I played bass since I was 13, and everyone told me I played bass like a guitar player, because I’d be up high on the neck doing stuff. So, I was like, ‘I might as well get a guitar.’ And now I feel like I play guitar like a bass player, so I can’t win, man.” [laughter]
“The studio was a real cool escape from the world and everything that was happening at the time.” —Nick Poulos
Waste points to Geezer Butler and Lemmy as huge influences, and says he loves “bass that stands out and you can hear it. I’m a champion of the bass. I want to be able to hear it in recordings. I love a nice distorted, loud bass tone. I love Mob Rules, the Dio Sabbath— ‘Country Girl.’ There are some bass lines on that one.” Ultimately, Waste says his playing style likely evolved from his sense that “riffs are more important—you can shred all day, but can you write a song?”
Poulos cites a slew of influences, starting with “a lot of the British guys, like Jeff Beck. These cool, nonchalant, guitar slingers—they just made it look so easy.” He says he got really into Carcass when he was young and is a fan of guitarists Bill Steer and Michael Amott. “I love Glenn Tipton’s playing on a lot of those post-’70s -era [Judas] Priest records too, like the early-’80 stuff, where he really honed his ability and got a little flashier.” He goes on to gush about Whitesnake’s Adrian Vandenberg, Vinnie Moore, and Thin Lizzy—singling out Gary Moore. “Also, my dad was a blues guy,” he adds. “He always instilled this sense of how to work around a pentatonic and make it sound more bluesy, and that’s driven into my skull. I’m definitely trying to open my mind to stuff like Freddie King.”
After discussing a wide range of players, Poulos circles back to the conversation about the band’s intent to make a more traditional-sounding record, and ultimately concludes that labeling Municipal Waste could be a futile endeavor. “The ‘New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal’ label is a little ridiculous,” he chuckles. “Heavy metal is timeless.”
Municipal Waste - Live @ Hellfest 2019 (Full Live HiRes)
Thrash riffs, gang vocals, guitarmony, crushing riffs … Municipal Waste has it all. Check out lefty Ryan Waste’s custom guitar in action as the band wreaks havoc at Hellfest in Clisson, France, in 2019.
- Rig Rundown: Municipal Waste ›
- Rig Rundown: Megadeth [2022] ›
- How to Play Advanced Heavy Metal Rhythms - Premier Guitar ›
Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.
"When a guitar is “the one,” you know it. It feels right in your hands and delivers the sounds you hear in your head. It becomes your faithful companion, musical soulmate, and muse. It helps you express your artistic vision. We designed the Les Paul Studio to be precisely the type of guitar: the perfect musical companion, the guitar you won’t be able to put down. The one guitar you’ll be able to rely on every time and will find yourself reaching for again and again. For years, the Les Paul Studio has been the choice of countless guitarists who appreciate the combination of the essential Les Paul features–humbucking pickups, a glued-in, set neck, and a mahogany body with a maple cap–at an accessible price and without some of the flashier and more costly cosmetic features of higher-end Les Paul models."
Now, the Les Paul Studio has been reimagined. It features an Ultra-Modern weight-relieved mahogany body, making it lighter and more comfortable to play, no matter how long the gig or jam session runs. The carved, plain maple cap adds brightness and definition to the overall tone and combines perfectly with the warmth and midrange punch from the mahogany body for that legendary Les Paul sound that has been featured on countless hit recordings and on concert stages worldwide. The glued-in mahogany neck provides rock-solid coupling between the neck and body for increased resonance and sustain. The neck features a traditional heel and a fast-playing SlimTaper profile, and it is capped with an abound rosewood fretboard that is equipped with acrylic trapezoid inlays and 22 medium jumbo frets. The 12” fretboard radius makes both rhythm chording and lead string bending equally effortless, andyou’re going to love how this instrument feels in your hands. The Vintage Deluxe tuners with Keystone buttons add to the guitar’s classic visual appeal, and together with the fully adjustable aluminum Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge, lightweight aluminum Stop Bar tailpiece, andGraph Tech® nut, help to keep the tuning stability nice and solid so you can spend more time playing and less time tuning. The Gibson Les Paul Studio is offered in an Ebony, BlueberryBurst, Wine Red, and CherrySunburst gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finishes and arrives with an included soft-shell guitar case.
It packs a pair of Gibson’s Burstbucker Pro pickups and a three-way pickup selector switch that allows you to use either pickup individually or run them together. Each of the two pickups is wired to its own volume control, so you can blend the sound from the pickups together in any amount you choose. Each volume control is equipped with a push/pull switch for coil tapping, giving you two different sounds from each pickup, and each pickup also has its own individual tone control for even more sonic options. The endless tonal possibilities, exceptional sustain, resonance, and comfortable playability make the Les Paul Studio the one guitar you can rely on for any musical genre or scenario.
For more information, please visit gibson.com.
Introducing the Reimagined Gibson Les Paul Studio - YouTube
Grissom and Paul Reed Smith’s first collaboration appeared in 2007 in the shape of theGrissom DGT—a signature instrument that’s seenmany iterations since. His Custom 30 amplifier followed five years later. But at 30 watts, that amp is pretty powerful for a lot of folks. So, this year PRS and their lead amp designer, Doug Sewell, unveiled the more club-friendly, tremolo-equipped DGT 15.
The basic architecture of the Indonesia-built DGT 15—single-channel, 2 x EL84 power section, 15 watts, and onboard reverb and tremolo—bears more than a little resemblance to a few important ’60s combo amps. But its 3-band EQ with presence, top-cut, and bright boost controls lends a lot of additional functionality and flexibility without cluttering the control panel or the playing experience. And, unlike some classic amps in this power class, the DGT 15 generates its wallop from a pair of output tubes in cathode bias, driven by three 12AX7s and one 12AT7 in the front end.
Feature Length
If the DGT 15’s control set were made up of just the EQ, presence, and top-cut controls, it would offer impressive tone-sculpting power. But the 3-way bright, boost, and master volume switches add exponentially more colors and gain contrasts. The bright switch is clever. It can be switched to always-on mode or set to disengage when the boost is on. The footswitchable boost, meanwhile, gives the single-channel DGT-15 the flex of a two-channel amp with a lead mode. Better still, you can set the amp up so you can activate the boost and master volume together—enabling access to the most headroom with the boost off and keeping the gain from running wild when the boost is engaged. The tremolo, too, can be activated via a mini-toggle or the included footswitch.
“While it’s basically clear, round, and full, depending on where you set the powerful EQ controls, you can reshape those tones into chunky, chiming, or sparkly variations on the clean theme.”Because the DGT-15 is cathode biased, the output tubes require no re-biasing when you change them. But the back panel includes jacks for monitoring bias levels, which is handy for matching tubes or diagnosing possible issues. The back panel is also home to the 5-pin DIN footswitch jack and three speaker outs for various combinations of 4 ohm, 8 ohm, or 16 ohm cabs. Our test unit came with the ported-back PRS DG 1x12 cabinet, which is loaded with one 60-watt Celestion Vintage 30. The DGT 15 head itself is a little bigger than lunchbox-sized (unless you’ve got a particularly hefty appetite). But it’s still an easy load at just 17.25" x 9" x 9.25" and a hair under 20 pounds. The 1x12" cab is relatively compact too, at 24" x 22.18" x 10.5", and weighs 27 pounds.
Tejas Tone!
If you read only the specs for the DGT 15 (or never had the pleasure of playing a Custom 30), you’ll probably expect a British voice. But the DGT 15’s core tonality leans as much toward the 1960s black-panel Fender camp, and it has a ready-to-rumble personality that shines through whether you match it to an ES-355 or a Telecaster.
With Fender single-coils in the mix, non-boosted settings are very clean right up to around 3 o’clock on the volume, where the amp starts to edge into breakup just a little. That’s a lot of clean room to roam. But while it’s basically clear, round, and full, depending on where you set the powerful EQ controls you can reshape those tones into chunky, chiming, or sparkly variations on the clean theme. Humbuckers push the DGT 15 to juicier, crunchier zones much sooner, of course. Even so, the amp remains crisp and taut without going muddy. With both single-coils and humbuckers, the overdrive and saturation generated by the boost avoid the sizzly sounds you hear from many modern lead channels and overdrives. It’s also very dynamic—easing into light distortion when you pick hard, and shedding its aggressive edge when you use a light touch or reduce guitar volume. Overdrive pedals (in this case, a Klon-like Wampler Tumnus Deluxe, Marshall-style Friedman Small Box, and a multi-voiced Tsakalis Six) gel with both the boost and clean modes, too. The reverb and tremolo are superb. The range of both successfully spans subtle and more radical sounds—and between these, a couple of drive pedals, and the Boost function, a gigging guitarist can wrangle a lot of flexibility out of this amp.
The Verdict
Using the single-channel, 2 x EL84/reverb/tremolo architecture as a jumping-off point, the DGT 15 scales new heights of versatility—not just via flexible switching and tone-shaping power, but by melding Vox-y edge with Fender clarity and body at a very accessible price.
Phat Machine
The Phat Machine
The Phat Machine is designed to deliver the tone and responsiveness of a vintage germanium fuzz with improved temperature stability with no weird powering issues. Loaded with both a germanium and a silicon transistor, the Phat Machine offers the warmth and cleanup of a germanium fuzz but with the bite of a silicon pedal. It utilizes classic Volume and Fuzz control knobs, as well as a four-position Thickness control to dial-in any guitar and amp combo. Also included is a Bias trim pot and a Kill switch that allows battery lovers to shut off the battery without pulling the input cord.
Silk Worm Deluxe Overdrive
The Silk Worm Deluxe -- along with its standard Volume/Gain/Tone controls -- has a Bottom trim pot to dial in "just the right amount of thud with no mud at all: it’s felt more than heard." It also offers a Studio/Stage diode switch that allows you to select three levels of compression.
Both pedals offer the following features:
- 9-volt operation via standard DC external supply or internal battery compartment
- True bypass switching with LED indicator
- Pedalboard-friendly top mount jacks
- Rugged, tour-ready construction and super durable powder coated finish
- Made in the USA
Static Effectors’ Street Series pedals carry a street price of $149 each. They are available at select retailers and can also be purchased directly from the Static Effectors online store at www.staticeffectors.com.