ZOPA, from left: drummer Olmo Tighe, guitarist and singer Michael Imperioli, and bassist Elijah Amitin. On the table sits a guitar built by NYC-based luthier Cindy Hulej.
In Kurt Vonnegut’s groundbreaking 1963 satirical novel, Cat’s Cradle, the author lays out the framework of the jargon-heavy Bokononist religion. One recurring concept is the karass—a group of people pulled together by forces outside of their control to complete a mission beyond their understanding. If you’re a member of a karass, you don’t really know who’s in it with you or what you’re doing, but you might pick up the clues through context. Anyone who’s formed a band and experienced the unexplainable, inevitable pull of musical connection among a group of musicians who often come together despite sometimes improbable circumstances can surely relate.
Without citing Vonnegut, actor and musician Michael Imperioli, whose A-list filmography includes early career parts in Goodfellas and Trees Lounge through his recent role as Dominic Di Grasso on season two of The White Lotus, has felt these forces at work throughout his life. Whether it’s foresight, intuition, or even magic, Imperioli jokes that some friends have accused him of being a witch. Whether or not that’s the case is probably a matter of perspective.
Take, for example, Imperioli’s relationship with John Ventimiglia. In 1986, the two aspiring actors, who’d already known each other for years, were roommates when Ventimiglia, also a musician playing in bands around the New York and New Jersey underground rock scenes at the time, showed the then-20-year-old Imperioli his first chords on a guitar. He quickly took to the instrument, forming his first band almost immediately. At the end of the next decade, the two were cast to play life-changing roles on The Sopranos—Imperioli as Tony Soprano-protégé Christopher Moltisanti and Ventimiglia as the capo’s lifelong pal, chef Artie Bucco—forever intertwining their artistic paths on one of the most important television shows of all time.
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Coincidence has tied Imperioli to his guitars as well. After falling in love with his 1966 Fender Jaguar, which he had Rick Kelly of Carmine Street Guitars modify with humbuckers, he decided to track down a second. When that guitar landed on Kelly’s bench and the luthier popped the neck off, they learned just how much the two Jaguars had in common. “Those two guitars were made in the same factory on the same day in September of 1966. This is the year I was born,” Imperioli points out, incredulously. “And they’re maybe 30 serial numbers apart.”
So it goes that “very strange connections” pulled Imperioli into orbit with drummer Olmo Tighe and bassist Elijah Amitin in the mid 2000s and led them to form their now-long-standing trio, ZOPA. Imperioli and Tighe had first met while working on the 1994 film Postcards from America, when Olmo was only eight years old. They didn’t reconnect until years later, when Imperioli ran into Olmo’s older brother, Michael, at a party. In this chance meeting, Imperioli learned Olmo was drumming, and “for some bizarre reason—and I still don’t know why—I thought he and I should play music together,” he recalls.
“I had the idea of forming a trio, and it was really inspired by Galaxie 500 and what they did with a trio and the way it was three distinctive musicians coming from three different point of views making this one thing happen together.”
The two eventually connected against the odds, Imperioli going to great lengths to find the drummer, and they set up a time to rehearse. On bass, Olmo suggested Amitin, who, they learned, had his own family connections to Imperioli through his old management and family—real small world kind of stuff. By the time the three ended up in the same room, they already felt like they belonged together, and ZOPA was born.
Michael Imperioli's Gear
On stage, ZOPA manifest the trio energy of their influences, from Lou Reed to Dinosaur Jr. to Galaxie 500.
Guitars
- Two 1966 Fender Jaguars
Amps
- Fender Twin Reverb
- Fender Princeton Reverb
Effects
- Death By Audio Fuzz War
- Dunlop Cry Baby
- EHX Small Clone
- EHX Big Muff
- MXR Distortion +
- MXR Duke of Tone
- MXR Phase 100
- MXR Carbon Copy
- Neunaber Immerse Reverberator
- Walrus Audio Phoenix power supply
Strings and Picks
- D’Addario XL or Ernie Ball .010s
- Custom ZOPA Dunlop Tortex .88 mm
As much as this is a fun story, to Imperioli, it’s much more. The relationship, and their coming together seemingly at random to discover connections between them, resonates. And it makes ZOPA an extra tightly knit unit. (The band became even tighter when Tighe married Imperioli’s cousin and the two became family.) “I think it comes from good intentions and getting a good perception of somebody and wanting to further that connection,” he says.
At a recent show at Philadelphia rock club Kung Fu Necktie, there was a different kind of energy buzzing throughout ZOPA’s tightly packed audience. It was a frenetic, excited, and celebratory scene, with fans at times reaching for strums on Imperioli’s Jaguar as the band kicked out a set of mostly new songs from their newest, Diamond Vehicle, which was yet to be released at the time, as well as a song or two from their debut, La Dolce Vita.“That love of music was definitely infused into The Sopranos.”
ZOPA is a formidable unit; they’re a trio, with all the special rock ’n’ roll spirit that implies. Tighe appears on stage as bashful at first, but he emerges as a basher in the style of Dinosaur Jr. drummer Murph (though Imperioli suggests John Bonham is probably his more dominant reference point). At stage left, Amitin bops around confidently, donning a rock stance, bare chest popping through a one-third-unbuttoned shirt, easily dominating his Peavey 4-string. Imperioli’s presence lands somewhere between the two. He’s casual and engaging, comfortable taking the limelight during brief, melodic Big Muff-driven solo spots, but otherwise delivering a low-key stagecraft that evokes that of his biggest influences, which range from Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground to Dinosaur Jr. to dream-pop pioneers Galaxie 500.
Those influences play out across Diamond Vehicle. Produced by John Agnello, whose extensive credits include Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile, Lee Ranaldo, and Son Volt, the album evokes intimate rock clubs, where live music is mutually transformed by audience and artist. A few days after that show in Philly, we caught up with Imperioli to talk about his life in music.There was a lot of energy at your show the other night. Is that the ZOPA vibe or was that a Philly thing?
Imperioli: I have to say the Philadelphia audiences are consistently fantastic. I think it’s kind of a combination, but Philly has a certain spirit. I think just the spirit of the city, especially that neighborhood [Fishtown], where we’ve played a few times. They love music and they want to have a good time and they let you know it when they’re having fun. It makes it really exciting as a performer, without a doubt.
The audience included all ages of people but skewed young. Has that always been the case?
Imperioli: We started performing in 2006. In those first seven years, our audiences were more our own age group for the most part. We stopped playing together around 2013 for about seven years because I was living on the West Coast. During the pandemic, we released an album [La Dolce Vita]. I was on Instagram and often would post things about music, not just our music, but my musical tastes. When we started playing together again in 2021, we noticed that the audience had gotten a lot younger than when we started the band.
I think it’s a combination of being able to reach younger people through social media, and through some of the other projects I’ve been involved in, and The Sopranos finding a younger audience, and The White Lotus, which kind of hit a younger audience.You started playing when you were 20 years old. How soon after learning your first chords did you start performing?
Imperioli: I immediately started playing with one guy who was in my acting class who had been a musician first, and then two other musicians. We started a band that was really kind of a no-wave band based on the Mudd Club scene of the early ’80s, and it was just instrumental. There was no singer, and there was guitar, bass, and drums. I had the only guitar I could afford at the time, which was a nylon-string acoustic guitar. It was the cheapest thing in the store. I tried to mic it and it didn’t really sound good. Then, I bought a little pickup and glued it, and then I was able to plug into the amplifier and try to make sounds. And that’s how I started playing.
The band’s second record, Diamond Vehicle, was recorded with producer John Agnello, known for his work with artists such as Dinosaur Jr. and Kurt Vile.
What was that band called?
Imperioli: Black Angus. I didn’t really know anything. Then, I bought my first electric guitar, maybe a year or two after. That was a Telecaster, which I bought at Matt Umanov Guitars, which used to be on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. It was a little easier to play no-wave music with an electric guitar.
We only recorded demos, didn’t record in a studio at all. We did play one gig. It was an Earth Day benefit at a place called McGovern’s, which was a dive bar that had live music in SoHo on Spring Street.
Who influenced your no-wave guitar playing?
Imperioli: One of my favorite guitarists is Pat Place from the Bush Tetras. We did a benefit with them a couple of years ago, which was kind of a thrill to be on the bill with them. Pat Place’s approach to the guitar always really cut through for me. I think she’s somebody who really found her own style and really mastered that and just adds such a unique dynamic to the music.
“Going back to when I was 20, I was playing in bands and doing little plays and writing and producing plays and directing plays…. That’s always been my life.”
Speaking of that scene, I’ve seen you post on Instagram about Robert Quine.
Imperioli: Robert Quine, I think, was a genius. From Richard Hell’s Band, the Voidoids, and his work with Lou Reed. He was a distinctive, expressive guitar player with a unique voice that always stood out in his work. As a young person, he recorded the Velvet Underground at Max’s Kansas City, then eventually wound up playing with Lou.
I think Lou Reed is a very underrated guitar player. Of course, as a rhythm guitar player, it’s known, but his leads were very interesting, especially when he was improvising. He really was able to express a certain point of view from inside those songs. And when Quine decided to play with Lou, one of the stipulations he made was that he wanted Lou to play leads as well.
After Black Angus, you were in the band Wild Carnation.
Imperioli: Yeah, it was a couple of years later, before they were named Wild Carnation.
I was singing, I wasn’t playing guitar. That was kind of a brief thing for me. I had to leave the country for some project, and they really were ready to record. So, it wound up not being a good time for that.
Then, I met Olmo and Elijah in 2006, and I had been working on guitar stuff then. Shortly after we started playing, I started taking some lessons with Richard Lloyd from Television, who basically taught me how to practice, and that made a big difference. I mean, I was practicing before, but I just learned different ways to approach it from him. It was a really big, big step for me.
I only had a few lessons with him, but they really made a big impact over the course of a few months. He’s a very demanding and exacting teacher.
Michael Imperioli with his humbucker-loaded 1966 Fender Jaguar.
So, ZOPA was your first band that was based more around your songwriting.
Imperioli: I brought some songs that I had had kicking around for a while, and we created some songs—the process is pretty collaborative. Some songs come from a drumbeat, some songs come from a bass line, some come from ideas that Elijah or Olmo have lyrically. Some come from me, even if it’s something that I bring in like a chord progression and some lyrics. It really doesn’t become a ZOPA song until it’s worked out by all of us.
I had the idea of forming a trio, and it was really inspired by Galaxie 500 and what they did with a trio and the way it was three distinctive musicians coming from three different point of views making this one thing happen together. It’s never just a singer-songwriter with a rhythm section. That’s kind of always been the approach.
Dinosaur Jr. is an example that is similar, which is a big influence on me, and I think on ZOPA as well.
I can hear the Dinosaur influence in the band. Has J been a longtime favorite of yours?
Imperioli: For a long time. J’s a virtuoso as far as rock guitar goes, he’s really quite incredible.
My abilities are so far less than his, but sonically how he uses the guitar, and how he approaches a lead, the way he expresses himself, especially his lead playing, I think is spectacular and sometimes really breathtaking and moving.
I think my favorite guitar solo in all of rock might be the song “Pick Me Up,” from the Beyond album. Three minutes into the song, he starts this three-and-a-half-minute guitar solo. I think it’s just genius and perfection, and he’s definitely a compass point of guitar playing for me.
“I’m someone who likes to be engaged in things that are creative and exciting to me and find a way to keep doing that.”
When did you start writing songs?
Imperioli: Pretty much right when I started playing guitar. There’s one song that was on our first album that I think was the first song I ever wrote, called “Roll It Off Your Skin.” The last verse was written when I was living at the Chelsea Hotel in ’95, and then we started playing it together 10 years after that.
The Death by Audio Fuzz War informed the direction of the story in “Love and Other Forms of Violence” from Diamond Vehicle. Can you tell me how that song was written and the role that pedal played?
Imperioli: Sometimes, we’ll write songs and they’ll come out of jams in practice sessions for ZOPA. That’s all electric obviously. But if I’m writing at home, I’ll either use an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar that my son made that has a Strat body. I’ll just play that and record on my phone. So, that song just started off with a very simple two-chord thing for the verses.
I started practicing that alone in the studio with the Jaguar, and I had just gotten the Fuzz War from Oliver Ackerman who makes them—he’s a friend and a musician I really admire. His band is a Place to Bury Strangers. It’s a great band. I was going to use that in place of the Big Muff and just see what would happen.
I was using the Fuzz War for the rhythm part of these verses, and there was something in the way it fed back in a very weird way. There was this little high frequency that just surprised me. And it happened every time, no matter what amp I would use or what the settings were. But there was something about that, doing the verses cleaner and then doing them with the Fuzz War, and I was like, “Oh, this is what this song is about, light and darkness.” And it just gave me a direction for the chorus.
Our February issue had Stevie Van Zandt on the cover, so talking to you, I’m now thinking about the heavy musical vibe going on in Sopranoscasting.
Imperioli: That really comes from David Chase, who in high school was a drummer. He loved music, especially the British bands from the ’60s, like the Stones and the Kinks—like, David was at Altamont to see the Stones. That love of music was definitely infused intoThe Sopranos. I mean, David at some point thought Steven Van Zandt could be Tony Soprano. He was watching the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductions, and Steven Van Zandt inducted the Rascals. And David loved his speech so much and thought it was so charismatic that he had him audition for Tony Soprano. Stevie was one of the three finalists for Tony Soprano.
At Philly rock club Kung Fu Necktie this winter, ZOPA delivered a fiery performance that ignited the packed audience with a setlist of mostly new material from Diamond Vehicle.
Photo by Nick Millevoi
I’m curious about the intersection between your acting career and your music, and finding time and how you navigate that.
Imperioli: It’s an extension of what I always did. Going back to when I was 20, I was playing in bands and writing and producing plays and directing plays. My wife and I opened this off-Broadway theater in 2003, and I was producing and directing and acting there. So that’s always been my life: writing, directing, acting, producing, film, theater, television, fiction, podcasts, Sopranos podcast….
If it’s something you’re passionate about, you just budget your time to include the important things. That’s all. There’s no formula to it. It’s just that I’m someone who likes to be engaged in things that are creative and exciting to me and find a way to keep doing that.
Is music any more important in your life now than it was before? Have you intentionally foregrounded that?
Imperioli: I think we’ve just gotten more confident. Recording is a big part of that, especially recording the new record. The first album was stuff we had written over the course of six years, and the new album was stuff that was in the last year or two for the most part.
We tend to do best when we play in local places that have a local music scene. Something like Kung Fu Necktie, the band that opened for us, Andorra, is a local Philly band. And in New York we’ve been playing a lot at Baby’s All Right and Mercury Lounge, places where people go to see bands, both local bands and bands that are touring. So, a lot of musicians come to the gig. I love playing clubs that are part of a local music scene.
Sometimes when we’re on the road, if we played a theater that has a very wide variety of touring bands, we don’t do as well. And it’s not as fun as playing at a club that’s part of a local indie music scene.
It connects more, I think.
Imperioli: Exactly. Meeting other bands, playing with other bands that are from similar scenes, it’s been really, really satisfying being part of that.YouTube It
ZOPA perform their two-song Lou Reed medley at Manhattan’s Mercury Lounge, with Imperioli’s phaser set to max swirling, psychedelic effect.
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Neutrik’s Timbre plug, made for toggling between capacitors.
Let’s begin with some typical additional capacitance values that certain lengths of cable (or capacitors) can bring to your system:
• 10’ vintage coiled cable (approx. 3 meters) -> 1 nF
• 15’ vintage coiled cable (approx. 4.5 meters) -> 1.5 nF
• 20’ vintage coiled cable (approx. 6 meters) -> 2.2 nF
• 30’ vintage coiled cable (approx. 9 meters) -> 3.3 nF
• Ritchie Blackmore-style, ultra-long vintage coiled cable -> 4.7 nF
I listed standard values here, so you should have no problem getting caps to match them in any local electronics store or online; the type of cap doesn’t really matter and will mostly be dominated by size, but I’ll share more about this in a minute.
Let’s quickly summarize the first installment of this column from last month’s issue: From a technical point of view, added capacitance shifts down the resonance frequency of the pickups, so they sound fatter, especially when using overdrive. This is exactly the reason why a lot of distortion and fuzz boxes with a vintage voicing use an additional cap at the input section; the resulting overdriven tone is fat and warm.
This month’s mod, which involves adding a capacitor to your signal, works best with vintage-flavored single-coil pickups (approximately 2.4 H inductance) or a typical old-school PAF-style pickup (approximately 3.8 H inductance). Modern high-output pickups are often sporting inductances of 6 H to 8 H, and don’t sound very good with this mod—when adding more cable capacitance to such pickups, the result is a dull and wooly tone without any clearness and definition. If you want to make your single-coil guitar sound more Les Paul-ish, you should try a 4.7n capacitor. It will shift the resonance frequency of your single-coil pickups down to the typical PAF ballpark, making for a very cool and usable old-fashioned guitar tone. It might feel a little muffled when playing clean, but ultra fat and punchy when using overdrive! In general, values higher than 4.7n are not recommended.
We have two options for where to install our cap.
On the Guitar Cable
This is the easiest location to add additional capacitance to your system, with several mod options:
1. The lightest mod ever isn’t a mod at all—it’s to simply buy a vintage guitar cable and plug it in whenever you need it! I don’t know of any company that offers modern guitar cables with intentionally high capacitance.
2. The Neutrik company offers a special angled plug, called the Timbre Plug, that you can solder to any guitar cable of your choice. The plug has a 4-way rotary knob on top to toggle between different capacitors. In addition to a bypass setting, the plug offers capacitances of 1nF, 2.2nF, and 3.3nF, letting you simulate different cable lengths on the fly.
3. You can add an additional capacitor to any guitar cable of your choice to convert it into a “longer-sounding” cable. You simply open one of the plugs to solder the cap between the hot and ground—that’s it. Small, 2.5 mm contact spacing ceramic caps are easy to put into a standard plug and are your weapon of choice here. It’s essential to only add the additional cap to one of the two plugs, but it doesn’t matter if you plug this side into your guitar, an effect, or your amp. This method allows you to build yourself some cables that simulate their older, longer relatives.
You can add an additional capacitor to any guitar cable of your choice to convert it into a “longer-sounding” cable.
Photo courtesy SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
Inside the Guitar
You can also add a cap (or several) inside your guitar if you only need this mod for one instrument. If you’re looking for added capacitance with all your guitars, you’d be better off choosing one of the techniques mentioned above.
1. The easiest way is to solder your additional capacitor directly to your volume pot; this way it has a fixed value that can’t be changed and is always engaged. This operation is very simple to do, and you can use regular-sized caps for this.
You can add a cap (or several) inside your guitar if you only need this mod for one instrument.
Illustration courtesy SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
2. If you want to make the cap switchable, such that you can run it either bypassed or engaged, you can install a SPST mini toggle switch or use half of a push-pull or push-push pot, which usually sport a DPDT switch underneath.
This drawing shows how to make your additional cap switchable.
Illustration courtesy SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
3. If you want to use more than one cap to simulate different cable lengths, your weapon of choice is a rotary switch, setting up a kind of Gibson Varitone wiring without the inductor. Because we are switching capacitances, it is essential to run an additional 10 meg resistor in parallel to each of the caps, and to use a make-before-break, not a break-before-make, rotary switch to prevent loud popping noises when using the switch while your guitar is plugged into an amp. Leave the first lug of the rotary switch open for the bypass position without an additional cap.
If you want to use more than one cap to simulate different cable lengths, use a rotary switch.
Illustration courtesy SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
4. If you want to make this mod even more flexible, you can add an additional “cable simulator pot” to your system. The pot should have the same resistance as your volume pot, and should be wired to your volume pot. This way, for example, you can add a 3.3nF or 4.7nF cap to the extra pot, and dial in as much cable capacitance as you like.
On the Pedalboard
The idea of putting a rotary switch or cable-simulator-pot solution into an external unit to create a kind of extra-capacitance stompbox to use with all of your instruments is just around the corner, and yes, it’s possible! However, I don’t recommend this, because it’s physically located after the volume pot in the guitar, which means less volume (no unity gain) and less high end. But don’t worry: If you are looking for a pedalboard solution to simulate different cable lengths (which, as we defined earlier, means to shift the resonance frequency of the pickups), there are some active solutions on the market offering such a feature, usually in combination with a boost or buffer functionality. To name just a few, you should look into the Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster, Stellartone Micro Pedal, or the i2e Audio AG1.0 The PURR. Along with some other brands, these pedals will do the trick, and they’re not difficult to build if you are looking for a DIY solution.
So far, I’ve received several emails from readers asking for some more DIY guitar tools, so next month, we will look into some sustainable and environmentally friendly DIY guitar helpers—all of which you can build yourself easily by upcycling things you already have at home. Stay tuned!
Until then... keep on modding!
Vox’s Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
I spent a day workshopping ideas in my studio using just the Vox Valvenergy Smooth Impact compressor and Tone Sculptor EQ, and a dash of amp tremolo and reverb to taste. In the process, I produced more arresting sounds than I had heard from my guitars in many days. There were radical direct-to-desk-style Jimmy Page/Beatles distortion tones, sun-sized, cosmic electric 12-string, Bakersfield twang that could burn through crude, and many other sweet and nasty colors. Most decent EQ and compressor combinations can achieve variations on all those themes. But the Smooth Impact and Tone Sculptor also reveal interesting personalities in unexpected places.
The individuality and energy in the Vox Valvenergy pedals is attributable, in part, to the Nutube vacuum tube used in the circuit. Though it looks little like a vacuum tube as most guitarists know them, the thin, wafer-like Nutube is, in fact, a real vacuum tube like those used in fluorescent displays. Fluorescent display tubes have limitations. A maximum operating voltage of around 40 volts means they aren’t useful for bigger power tube applications like a 6L6, which has an operating voltage of about 400 volts. But it can work quite well as a preamp tube in concert with an op amp power section, which is how the Nutube is used in the new Valvenergy pedals, as well as older Vox products like the Vox MV50 and Superbeetle amps.
Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
When you think about “cinematic” effects, you likely imagine big reverb or modulation sounds that create a vivid picture and feeling of space or motion. But narrow, hyper-focused EQ profiles can evoke very different and equally powerful images. Radical EQ settings can add aggression, claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts more evocative of Hitchcock’s Psycho than Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
Any of these moods can be summoned from the Valvenergy Tone Sculptor. Six sliders cut or boost 10 dB frequency bands spanning 100 Hz to 5.6 kHz. A seventh slider cuts or boosts the master output by 12 dB. This platter of options might not sound like much. But you can use these seven controls together to very specific ends.
“Radical EQ settings can add aggression, near-claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts.”
For example, bumping the high-midrange and the master output produces narrow cocked-wah-like filter sounds with enough push to produce extra amp overdrive—effectively turning the Tone Sculptor into a buzzy, almost fuzz-like filter effect. But unlike a wah, you can carefully scoop high end or add a spoonful of bass to blunt harsh frequencies or give the tone a bit more weight. You can also broaden the palette of an amp/guitar pairing. I matched a particularly trebly Jazzmaster bridge pickup with a very hot and toppy Vox AC15-flavored amp for this test—a recipe that can be spiky on the best days. But with the Tone Sculptor in the line, I could utilize the same sharp, fuzzy, and filtered Mick Ronson wah tones while shaving some of the most piercing frequencies.
EQ pedals exist on many points along the cost spectrum. And at $219, the Tone Sculptor lives on the high side of the affordable range. Does it offer something less expensive models can’t deliver? Well, for one thing, I found it relatively quiet, which is nice whether you’re shaping toppy high-contrast effects or performing more surgical adjustments. And the sliders feel nuanced and nicely tapered rather than like a dull axe with a few basic frequency notches. But in many situations I also liked the color imparted by the circuit—generated, presumably, by the Nutube. “Color,” in audio terms, is a broad and subjective thing, and one should not necessarily expect the warm, tube-y glow of a vintage tube Pultec. Still, the Tone Sculptor has many forgiving, flattering qualities—typical of studio EQs—that enable fine tuning and experimentation with more radical and creative applications of the effect.
Valvenergy Smooth Impact
As with the Tone Sculptor, the Smooth Impact’s use of Nutube engenders certain expectations. It’s easy to surmise that because Smooth Impact has a vacuum tube in the circuit that it will behave like a little Teletronix LA-2A leveling amplifier. That’s a big ask for a $219 stompbox. On the other hand, the Smooth Impact exhibits some appealing characteristics of studio tube compression. At lower compression levels, it works well as a thickening agent—adding mass without much additional noise. And at higher compression levels it can sound snappy, crisp, and tight without feeling like you’ve bled every trace of overtone from your signal.
The Smooth Impact’s controls aren’t totally atypical. But because it lacks some familiar features like variable attack and release, yet is more complicated than a 1-knob DynaComp, you have to trust your ear to navigate interactions among the controls. The most unfamiliar of these is the 3-way vintage/natural/sag toggle. The first two are defined by preset attack and release settings: Vintage is slow attack and long release, and natural is the opposite. The sag mode’s compression is more like what you get from tube saturation, and it’s useful for adding thickness and complexity to a thin amp tone at modest compression levels.
Though the vintage and natural modes certainly have a different feel, they don’t always sound worlds apart. And like the sag mode, the thing they have in common is the way they enrich lifeless amp output at low to medium compression, with a bit of grind from the tube gain and a little extra makeup gain from the output. At the most aggressive settings, the tube gain can get a little crispy. And really crushing the compression can flatline your tone without adding much in the way of extra sustain. These are limitations common to many compressors with similar features. But unless I was chasing very ultra-snappy Prince and Nile Rodgers fast-funk caricatures, I enjoyed the Smooth Impact most in its in-between ranges, where mass, mild, harmonious drive, and low noise showcase the pedal’s sometimes studio-like personality.
Boss’ firstWaza Tube Amp Expander, built with an integrated power amp that enables boosted signal as well as attenuated sounds, was and remains the OX’s main competition. Both products have copious merits but, at $1,299 (Boss) and $1,499 (Universal Audio), each is expensive. And while both units are relatively compact, they aren’t gear most folks casually toss in a backpack on the way out the door. The new Waza Tube Expander Core, however, just might be. And though it sacrifices some refinements for smaller size, its much-more accessible price and strong, streamlined fundamental capabilities make it a load-box alternative that could sway skeptics.
Micro Manager
The TAE Core is around 7 1/2" wide, just over 7 " long, and fewer than 4 " tall, including the rubber feet. That’s about half the width of an original TAE or OX. The practical upside of this size reduction is obvious and will probably compel a lot of players to use the unit in situations in which they’d leave a full-size TAE at home. The streamlined design is another source of comfort. With just five knobs on its face, the TAE Core has fewer controls and is easier to use than many stompboxes. In fact, the most complicated part of integrating the TAE Core to your rig might be downloading the necessary drivers and related apps.
Connectivity is straightforward, though there are some limitations. You can use TAE Core wirelessly with an iOS or Windows tablet or smartphone, as long as you have the BT-DUAL adaptor (which is not included and sets you back around 40 bucks). However, while desktop computers recognize the TAE Core as a Bluetooth-enabled device, you cannot use the unit wirelessly with those machines. Instead, you have to connect the TAE Core via USB. In a perfectly ordered world, that’s not a big problem. But if you use the TAE Core in a small studio—where one less cable is one less headache—or you prefer to interface with the TAE Core app on a desktop where you can toggle fast and easily between large, multi-track sessions and the app, the inability to work wirelessly on a desktop can be a distraction. The upside is that the TAE Core app itself is, functionally and visually, almost identical in mobile and desktop versions, enabling you to select and drag and drop virtual microphones into position, add delay, reverb, compression, and EQ effects, choose various cabinets with different speaker configurations and sizes, and introduce new rigs and impulse responses to a tone recipe in a flash. And though the TAE Core app lacks some of the photorealistic panache and configuration options in the OX app, the TAE Core’s app is just as intuitive.Less Is More
One nice thing about the TAE Core’s more approachable $699 price is that you don’t have to feel too bad on nights that you “underutilize” the unit and employ it as an attenuator alone. In this role, the TAE Core excels. Even significantly attenuated sounds retain the color and essence of the source tone. Like any attenuator-type device, you will sacrifice touch sensitivity and dynamics at a certain volume level, yielding a sense of disconnection between fingers, gut, guitar, and amp. But if you’re tracking “big” sounds in a small space, you can generate massive-sounding ones without interfacing with an amp modeler and flat-response monitors, which is a joy in my book. And again, there’s the TAE Core’s ability to “expand” as well as attenuate, which means you can use the TAE Core’s 30-watt onboard power amp to amplify the signal from, say, a 5-watt Fender Champion 600 with a 6" speaker, route it to a 2x12, 4x12, or virtual equivalent in the app, and leave your bandmate with the Twin Reverb and bad attitude utterly perplexed.
The Verdict
Opting for the simpler, thriftier TAE Core requires a few sacrifices. Power users that grew accustomed to the original TAE’s super-tunable “resonance-Z” and “presence-Z” controls, which aped signal-chain impedance relationships with sharp precision, will have to make do with the simpler but still very effective stack and combo options and the “air feel level” spatial ambience control.The DC power jack is less robust. It features only MIDI-in rather than MIDI-in/-through/-out jacks, and, significantly, 70 watts less power in the onboard power amp. But from my perspective, the Core is no less “professional” in terms of what it can achieve on a stage or in a studio of any size. Its more modest feature set and dimensions are, in my estimation, utility enhancements as much as limitations. If greater power and MIDI connectivity are essentials, then the extra 600 bones for the original TAE will be worth the price. For many of us, though, the mix of value, operational efficiencies, and the less-encumbered path to sound creation built into the TAE Core will represent a welcome sweet spot that makes dabbling in this very useful technology an appealing, practical proposition.
