Upon resurrecting the long-lost Dual Op-Amp Big Muff 2 circuit with Josh Scott of JHS Pedals, Electro-Harmonix recognized that the pedal would be an instant favorite of low-end lovers and went to work “bassifying” the pedal. Enter the low-end optimized Bass Big Muff Pi 2 with features selected for full spectrum fuzz tones of all flavors.
The Bass Big Muff Pi 2 features the original’s pushed mid grunt and classic singing sustain any Big Muff lover would feel at home with. The bass version now includes a clean BLEND knob and Bass Boost for extended tone performance with Bass Guitar or any player looking for extra clarity and low-end. The typical VOL/TONE/SUSTAIN knobs set overall output volume, treble/bass eq balance, and distortion respectively. BLEND sets the overall wet/dry mix to dial in the perfect balance of fuzzy chaos and solid fundaments from your clean tone. The BASS BOOST switch adds even more low-end to your signal for booming bass tone even at higher TONE knob settings.
Additionally, the pedal features a silent true bypass footswitch with Latching/Momentary Action. Click the footswitch for normal latching functionality or press and hold the footswitch of a momentary burst of fuzz.
At this point, Nashville heavy hitters All Them Witches are friends of the show. They’ve had their rigs rundown twice before, but like they say, the third time’s the charm. PG’s Chris Kies rendezvoused with bassist/vocalist Charles Michael Parks Jr., guitarist Ben McLeod, and keyboardist/violinist Allan Van Cleave at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl for this new Rig Rundown, packed with tone goodies you’re gonna wanna see. Tune in for the full scoop, and skim the highlights below.
McLeod’s 2010 GibsonLes Paul Traditional is his first pick. It’s been modified with a bone nut, Tone Pros bridge, DiMarzio Super Distortion in the neck position, and a custom bridge pickup, plus a string butler. No doubt about it—this one is ready to rock.
Black Beauty
This Knaggs Honga is used for certain songs in alternate tunings, like those off the band’s 2015 record, Dying Surfer Meets His Maker. McLeod mainly uses D’Addario NYXL .011s, tuned to drop C and D standard.
Take It to the Bank
This Banker V-style is tuned to D standard for slide playing; McLeod’s slides wait atop his Fender Twin. The Martin acoustic beside it is used for collaborative live performances with tourmates King Buffalo.
Fruit and Fender
The Orange AD30 head is McLeod’s main amplifier, running into a Marshall 1960B cabinet loaded with Celestion Greenback speakers. The Fender Twin beside it is on hand as a backup.
Ben McLeod’s Pedalboard
McLeod carries a Dunlop Cry Baby 95Q wah, TC Electronic PolyTune Mini, WEM CCB-1 Copicat Boost, Lehle Mono Volume S, Analog Man-modded Boss BD-2, Stomp Under Foot Silverfish, Boss DM-2W, and Strymon TimeLine.
Boomsticks
On the left, we have Parks’ number-one “Doom Broom”—a custom copy of a 1972 Rickenbacker 4001 bass—with its distinctive horns sheared, of course. The ’60s-era Fender Precision/Jazz hybrid beside it, which belonged to Parks’ dad, is a backup, and features unique out-of-phase switching.
Sovtek Siblings
<p>This Sovtek MiG 100 recently came out of retirement for this tour, and its smaller relative—the not-so-sensitively-named Sovtek Bassov Blues Midget—runs into a custom cabinet with a single 12" speaker. A Milkman The Amp is nearby in case of emergencies. </p>
Charles Michael Parks Jr.’s Pedalboard
PArks runs a Shure GLXD16+ Guitar Pedal System, Radial ABY switcher for switching between bass and guitar, Boss EQ, Electro-Harmonix Hum Debugger, Ibanez Echo Shifter, Amptweaker Bass Tight Fuzz, Greer Little Samson, Keeley 30ms Double Tracker, Electro-Harmonix Pitchfork, and Hiwatt Fuzz.
Keys to the Kingdom
<p>Allan Van Cleave’s Fender Rhodes runs into a Twin Reverb, with a couple of pedals perched atop the Nord keyboard. These include a Donner Hexadrive, Fender Pugilist, Electro-Harmonix Canyon, Moog MF Delay, and MXR Carbon Copy, all powered by a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus. </p>
Allan Van Cleave’s Violin Pedalboard
Van Cleave’s 5-string Yamaha violin has its own humble board, loaded with a Boss TU-2, JHS Series 3 Reverb, MXR Carbon Copy, Electro-Harmonix Pitchfork, Demonfx Overdrive Preamp, and a wah pedal.
George Thorogood and the Destroyers have been burning the world up with their blues- and boogie-rock for more than half a century, and before their February gig at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, our Rig Rundown crew met up with Thorogood, tech Rev Jones, and veteran Destroyer Jim Suhler at PRG Nashville for a look at how they cook up their kick-ass riffage onstage these days. PG’s John Bohlinger takes you through all the details in our video, but have a look at some essential pieces of the pie below.
Thorogood’s long been a vintage Gibson ES-125 TDC devotee—the dual-P-90, single-cutaway, semi-hollow design has been his calling card for decades—so Epiphone created the George Thorogood ES-125 “White Fang” Outfit for him so he’d always have a road-ready 125. The instrument has P-90 PRO pickups and Wilkinson Deluxe tuners.
Thorogood’s tech, Rev Jones, cuts and tapes lengths of copper pipe for Thorogood to use as slides in open-G and open-D tunings. Jones uses GHS strings, with .012–.054 for standard tuning and .015–.056 for open tunings.
Paint It Black
Aside from its finish, this black ES-125 is as close as can be to Thorogood’s primary “White Fang,” so they can be switched out at any time with almost no change in feel.
George Thorogood’s Pedalboard
Thorogood uses Electro-Harmonix 22 Caliber Power Amps—which aren’t manufactured anymore—on the road, cranked through Mesa/Boogie 1x12 cabinets. Ahead of that setup, he runs a rack-mounted board operated with a Voodoo Labs PX-8 Plus Programmable Switcher, which includes an MXR Boost/Line Driver, Empress Para EQ, DigiTech FreqOut, Boss BF-3, Boss TR-2, and Boss DD-5.
Goldie Rocks
Longtime Destroyer Jim Suhler likes this goldtop Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro III for touring thanks to its comfort and consistent tone.
Jim Suhler’s Pedalboard
Like Thorogood, Suhler’s sound runs through a combo of Mesa/Boogie cabinets and EHX 22 Caliber Power Amps. Upstream from them, on Suhler’s board, are a TC Electronic PolyTune 3 Noir, Fender Micro DI, TC Electronic Spark Mini, J. Rockett Archer Ikon, and Boss TR-2.
John Mayer's guitar tone is instantly recognizable. Nearly three decades in, it remains one of the most studied and chased sounds in electric guitar. In Blueprints: John Mayer, Tom Butwin breaks it down to its core tenets. It starts with the signature PRS Silver Sky, runs through an iconic stacked chain of vintage overdrive circuits (with help from our friends @KeeleyElectronicsEdmond) and lands on spring reverb. The building blocks are approachable. The results speak for themselves.
PRS
Silver Sky
The PRS Silver Sky is an idealized version of a vintage single-coil guitar where every detail adds up and sets this guitar apart from the pack and the past. The result of a close collaboration between Grammy Award-winning musician John Mayer and Paul Reed Smith, the Silver Sky is based off of years of development. Incorporating Mayer and Smith’s favorite elements of 1963 and 1964 instruments with an eye toward modern references, the PRS Silver Sky delivers the warmth and familiarity of an old guitar with the finesse of a brand-new instrument.
The ALL NEW – KATANA CLEAN BOOST! Redesigned, making perfection sound just a bit better!
Want a mirror image of your tone, only louder? This is it. The Katana Boost is also a fat, harmonically rich boost, just pull out on the volume knob and stretch your imagination with overdriven tone! You can keep it on all the time to push your amp harder, or as an occasional boost to cut through the mix.
The Keeley Manis Overdrive uniquely combines both germanium NOS transistors and diodes for more compression and saturation plus a 3db bass-boost makes it unlike any other mythical Klone!
Keeley pens the next chapter in the legend of the mythical Klone with several storied upgrades and features. First up is the germanium diode switch. The “essential” germanium diodes are at the heart of the myth. By substituting essential germanium diodes with germanium transistors (circa Cold War era) we increase the compression and saturation of the tone. The Manis can give you a softer attack that sounds more like a tube amp. Less ice-pick, more tube amp. This feels incredible under your fingertips too. Wouldn’t you like to hear a little more of the natural low end from your guitar? The bass boost switch lowers the cutoff by exactly one octave and increases the output by +3dB. It’s the perfect low end recovery and push for single coil guitars. True Bypass or Buffered Silent Switching on the fly. The Manis is built like a tank and is the first klone you can power with 18 volts. The Manis is a Hard Clipping ‘clean boost’ that has been updated and modernized with our power supply improvements as well as other mind bending fixes to the inherent tonal problems of the original circuit.
Keeley combines two completely different overdrive and distortion circuits to create four different drives in one box. The Blues Disorder has two switches that allow you to separate the tone control from the clipping section. By mixing and matching the Tone and Drive switches you get two hybrid sounds. With both switches up it’s a smooth, soft-clipping Bluesy Breaker. The BB side is a low gain, soft-clipping overdrive. With both switches down it’s a fuller sounding, hard-clipping OC Distortion. The clever design keeps the pedal a simple three knob overdrive with 4 unique sounds. Switch easily between buffered or true-bypass; whichever sounds best in your rig. The Keeley Blues Disorder Overdrive and Distortion is designed and manufactured entirely by Keeley Electronics in our brand new aluminum enclosure.
Imagine being able to combine your favorite parts of different overdrive & boost pedals in order to create hybrid sounds no one has ever played through before. That is exactly what we’ve engineered with the Noble Screamer. It’s a 4-in-1 pedal that gives you two very familiar drive circuits and two brand new amp-like distortion tones that no one has used before. It’s almost like pedal-modeling, except these are 100% analog circuits, and you decide which tone-control or clipping-section you want to play through. You can play through battle-tested, classic overdrive effects or innovate new music with hybrid tones, let your ears be the judge. Even with all of these features the pedal remains a simple and easy to use three knob overdrive. The innovation in the Noble Screamer doesn’t end there; our new design features true-bypass or buffered, truly silent switching, on the fly. The Keeley Noble Screamer Overdrive and Boost is entirely manufactured at Keeley Electronics and is the first in our new aluminum enclosure.
The Keeley Electronics NOCTURNE Andy Timmons Reverb captures the haunting beauty and tonal atmosphere of Andy Timmons’ signature sound — the spacious half of his HALO tone. Known for its lush ambience and emotional depth, Andy’s reverb has now been carefully isolated and perfected as a standalone effect.
It's no slag to pin Rich Robinson as a rhythm-guitar master. He actually prefers that lane of rock. His musical heartbeat pulses on complex chord changes and moving, harmonious melodies that you can hum. If big brother and Black Crowes' lead singer Chris Robinson is the driver, Rich is the rumbling Hemi motor. It's not always been easy, and it's not always been pretty, but the duo has rock and rolled for 36 years producing 11 groovy albums including their brand-new release, A Pound of Feathers.
Leading up to the record's release Rich sat down with host John Bohlinger to speak on several topics: riding the band's meteoric rise in 1990, dealing with their unimaginable success as a teenager, explaining why he never forces creativity or guitar playing, sharing the reasons he regularly relies on open tunings, reminiscing being shaped and inspired by the Atlanta music scene (including bands like R.E.M. & the B-52s), and trying to remain true, honest, and pure to their simpatico sibling songwriting approach.
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