Check out the ALL-NEW PRS Pedals and more in this edition of our Stompbox Gear Finds!
Horsemeat - Transparent Overdrive
The PRS Horsemeat transparent overdrive pedal is designed to enhance your sound without coloring your tone. Horsemeat adds harmonic midrange richness and overdrives without cutting out your high notes – all while giving you more available headroom. It features a robust EQ section so you can dial in your tone and has a wide range of gain on tap. Depending on the setting, Horsemeat can be used as a clean boost, straight overdrive, or even enhance your amplifier’s distortion by slightly pushing the front end of the amplifier’s preamp section.PRS pedals were created to be high-end pieces of audio gear. Designed by PRS Guitars in Stevensville, MD, USA. Made in the USA.
Ranger Overdrive
Inspired by the overdriven tones of some of the world’s most cherished vintage tube amps, the Ranger is a modern, all-analog overdrive pedal featuring a Mode toggle switch that provides two different tonalities; a warm, expressive, amp-like overdrive and a second tonality that’s slightly cleaner and exceptionally touch-sensitive; it blends in some of the clean signal and is a great choice for use as an “always on” effect that can be controlled with your pick attack and your guitar’s volume control. The Ranger’s classic 3-knob layout provides
intuitive adjustment of Gain (amount of overdrive), Tone, and output Level, with plenty of volume on tap to go well beyond unity gain. You can easily use the Ranger Overdrive as a boost to hit the input of your tube amp harder for even more grit and dirt.
Tech 21 SansAmp Character Plus Series
The SansAmp Character Plus Series celebrates the unique chemistry between specific historic amplifiers and specific historic pedals, and cleverly unites them together in single packages:
- Screaming Blonde = Fender-style + Tube Screamer-style
- English Muffy = HiWatt-style + Big Muff-style
- Fuzzy Brit = Marshall-style + Fuzz Face-style
- Mop Top Liverpool = Vox-style + Rangemaster Booster-style
Each of the individually-voiced Character controls sweep through an entire spectrum of eras within their particular amp style. Screaming Blonde tones range from the ‘50s Fullerton to blackface and silverface. The English Muffy spans from classic UK rock to prog rock. Fuzzy Brit goes from classic hard rock to all current rock genres. The Mop Top Liverpool embodies the British invasion through “Bohemian” rock.
These 2-channel multi-function pedals are each like having a stompbox within a stompbox. You can use the SansAmp amplifier emulation on its own or just the effect on its own. The all-analog SansAmps Character Plus Series pedals can be used as stand-alone pre-amps to drive a power amp, a studio mixer, or a PA system, or to complement your existing amp. Other features include built-in speaker simulation individually tuned to match each of the speaker/cabinet configurations associated with each amplifier type; 3-band active EQ, XLR Output, included 9V DC Power Supply. Rugged all-metal housing measures 7.75”l x 2.5”w x 1.25”h and weighs just 12 oz.
EARTHBOARD Pedalboard System
Never before has an effects pedalboard been so effortless to build and painless to change or rearrange on the fly - So you can Focus on the Music, Not the Set-Up!
Our game-changing design incorporates Rare Earth Magnets ("cupped" so there is no risk to your pedals!) and a long-lasting Battery to give you the neatest, cleanest sounding and looking rig! All of the hassles of using a traditional board are gone. No more messy cobweb of cords and cables. No need to look for outlets and extension cords. No need to deal with dirty noise at gigs. Increase voltage and isolate those "picky" pedals without adding more mess and expense of separate power bricks and adapters. NO MORE SOUND OF RIPPING VELCRO!!!
Here's what's possible with EARTHBOARD:
- Your choice to use our Battery or AC Adapter
- Jacks are on both sides to accommodate YOUR style and the unknowns of the gig space
- All of our power supplies have built in circuit protection to safeguard your pedals
- Built-in cross board audio patch cable saves you money and the hassle of finding the right length cable to connect your top and bottom rows of pedals
- Ability to power large pedals off the board to maximize board real estate - make room for one more pedal!
- The built-in, under mounted, Blue LED lights enhance visibility and the "cool factor"
- Daisy-chain multiple boards and power them all with a single battery
- Rearrange or add pedals on the fly, between sets, in a matter of seconds
Gator Cases G-TOUR Large Pedal Board with Wheels
Large tour grade pedal board and flight case for 10-14 pedals with removable 24″x11″ pedal board surface and inline wheels
Features:
Pro-grade shock absorbing EVA foam interior
Removable pedal board surface 24" x 11"
Two (2) rubber-gripped handles for easy lifting in and out of the case
3M Dual Lock» hook and loop fastener for pedal installation
Cable and accessory storage under the removable pedal board
Retractable tow-handle and inline wheels
Plywood construction with aluminum edging to create a secure closure between lid and base
Protective ball corners at vulnerable points
Commercial grade Gator red signature hardware
Lockable latches
Spring-loaded rubber gripped handles
George L's Effects Cable Kits
George L's Effects Cable KitsEnhance the tone and clarity of your pedalboard with award winning sound.
The George L’s effects kit.
The kit comes with 10’ of cable, 10 right angle plugs and 10 stress relief jackets.
Available in black, vintage red and purple.
As easy as 1, 2, 3 no soldering!
Cut, poke and screw your way to 47 years of sound excellence.
The All-Pedal Microdose is a mind-altering experience, but it’s not for the faint of heart.
Endless sounds and tweakability, from subtle to brain-melting.
Expensive. Probably too much firepower for most users.
$325
All-Pedal Microdose
allpedal.com
When it comes to effects like phase, chorus, and vibrato, many of us tend to have a staple (and sometimes cheesy) sound in mind. But such preconceptions obscure the reality that these effects can be much more radical than their best-known applications.
If you’ve ever thought that phaser pedals are one-trick ponies, All-Pedal’s new Microdose, a digital phaser collaboration with Portland’s Spaceman Effects, will happily relieve you of that notion. The Microdose is to the MXR Phase 90 what the modern smartphone is to an old Nokia flip phone: It’s so feature-packed and overflowing with an embarrassment of tone riches that it feels barely related at all to its humble ’70s ancestor.
“It gets percussive, punchy, and juicy, turning single-note runs into intergalactic transmissions, and full chords into blasts of alien goop.”
Discoveries From the Outer Reaches of Space(man)
The Microdose is an evolution and expansion of Spaceman’s Explorer Optical Phaser. It’s maximalist in terms of both enclosure art and functionality, and can feel a bit cluttered as a result. Between eight knobs, two switches, two footswitches, and a groovy font and graphics vying for visibility there is a lot to take in. There are a lot of sounds too. The crowning achievement here is the collection of 16 wave forms—more than triple the Explorer’s five—all of which are selectable via an 8-stop rotary knob and a switch that moves between standard or alternative (and weirder) versions of each wave form. Each setting can be treated to two-, four-, or eight-stage phasing, and the level control provides a hearty boost for the effect to make sure that when its engaged, differences between settings won’t get lost.
Rate, multiplier, blend, and depth knobs all function as you’d expect them to, but the Microdose’s resonance and warp controls breathe new life into familiar sounds. Resonance controls phaser feedback, generating gentle, tried-and-true phase sweeps at low settings and more prominent, insistent phasing when cranked the other way. Coupled with the depth knob, it allows for precise tuning of intense phase sounds. The warp knob, meanwhile, does exactly what it says: At noon, the phase wave form remains unaltered, but turning it in either direction produces varied modifications to each wave form.
The Microdose’s tap tempo is a welcome addition that adds flexibility and more control over complex modulations—especially in live situations. But with such a vast expanse of sounds on tap and no preset functionality, the pedal’s usefulness on stage can feel limited. While dedicated phase jockeys will no doubt find a spot for it on their gigging boards, it sometimes feels more like a piece of studio kit.
Mind-Expanding Tones
The Microdose lives up to its name. It can give you a subtle, just-fun-enough, vintage experience if that’s what you’re after. But it can also blast way beyond that into sci-fi, psychedelic, and fearsome ghost-in-the-machine meltdowns that sound nothing like guitar.
Set for a classic, two-stage sine wave phase with all controls at noon, the Microdose is surprisingly unassuming, adding just a sliver of movement and dimension. This is where the pedal’s dense tweakability really shines. You can dial in a modest always-on sound that breathes life and unusual texture into rhythm or lead parts without overpowering your signal. Deep depth and blend will swing you well into Waylon Jennings territory, but that’s just the start.
Things get trippy in the best way possible as you add phase stages and explore the alternative wave form algorithms, which are a lot of fun on their own and even more so with a wiggle of the warp knob. With each bump up in stages, the effect gets waterier and three-dimensional, which feels like splashing around in some interstellar swamp. When you max out at eight, the effect is in the driver’s seat. It gets percussive, punchy, and juicy—turning single-note runs into intergalactic transmissions, and full chords into blasts of alien goop.
The Verdict
There’s a whole world of sounds here between the Microdose’s extremes. It can probably execute every single phase sound you’ve ever dreamed of—plus some wackier than what your puny human brain could come up with without lysergic inspiration. If you’re up for a phase experience, Microdose is a trip you’ll want to take. PG
On their new album, Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney loosen up and pay tribute to all of their roots—chasing the intuitive Zen of collaboration.
You know that feeling you get when you find a hundred-dollar bill on the ground? That jolt of joy that makes a bad day better and a good day even more awesome? That’s the feeling I get when I hear the new Black Keys album, Ohio Players. Except, in some ways it’s more like stumbling on a diamond.
There are so many facets and reflections, so many angles beaming influences and ideas … and it’s clearly the product of time—a work Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney say they could not have completed earlier in their partnership, although there has been lots of groundwork along the way.
“It’s amazing to be 20 years into our career and have a new trick to be able to do, which is collaboration,” says Auerbach, when asked about the sprawl of styles and the roster of mighty contributors—including Noel Gallagher and Beck—on Ohio Players. “That’s kind of the key to most people’s success throughout musical history, but we’ve shied away from it, extremely. Now, it’s lit a fire under our asses, and the possibilities feel endless.
“Pat and I are at the point in our careers where we feel like letting other people into our space. We never used to be.”—Dan Auerbach
“We were just too insecure back in there,” he continues. “But now we’ve produced enough records, we’ve worked with enough people, so it’s really fun for us. Pat and I are at the point in our careers where we feel like letting other people into our space. We never used to be. And at the same time, our own relationship is tighter than it’s ever been.”
The Black Keys - Beautiful People (Stay High) ("Official" Video)
Revisiting the Black Keys’ first two albums, The Big Come Up and Thickfreakness, it’s hard to imagine they would become an international juggernaut and that Auerbach, their singer and guitarist, would evolve into one of the most interesting players, producers, and songwriters in modern American music. After all, the duo’s initial recordings were raw as uncooked bacon—recorded in a basement in Akron, Ohio, with mics bought on eBay—and their repertoire bridged garage rock and a style, cultivated by North Mississippi hill country rural bluesmen Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, that’s so rough and thunderous that even some hardcore fans of that genre had difficulty comprehending it.
But Auerbach and Carney’s intelligence, empathy, and history as collaborators might be more apparent to their fans than it seemingly was, at least until this album got underway a few years ago, to them. Starting with 2008’s Attack & Release, they’ve worked with Danger Mouse as a producer and co-writer; Mos Def, Ludacris, Q-Tip, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, RZA, and other hip-hop luminaries on their 2009 Blakroc album; North Mississippi firebrands Kenny Brown and Eric Deaton on 2021’s blues payback Delta Kream; even Billy Gibbons and Sierra Ferrell on 2022’s raucous Dropout Boogie. And Auerbach’s co-op rock band, the Arcs, recorded two acclaimed albums and toured the world, while his second solo recording, 2017’s Waiting on a Song, was a spelunk into the heart of his adopted hometown Nashville’s studio history, drawing on a cross-generational cast of legendary session players. Then, there’s the guitarist’s football-field-long production credits, ranging from the Black Diamond Heavies to Dr. John and Grace Potter to La Luz to CeeLo Green to Marcus King to Hermanos Guitiérrez to Robert Finley and Yola.
“We got to this maturity as a band where not only can we call these friends, but we can deliver music our idols want to play on.”—Pat Carney
Sometimes, when you’re in the forest, all you can see are the trees. But now, after all that experience, the Black Keys’ omnivorous tastes, ceaseless drive, and undeniable success tilted their creative compass and comfort zone to Ohio Players, which might be poetically described as an album of peace, soul, and thunder. Also, eclectic and skillful af. Here, Auerbach and his drumming buddy have evolved what sounds like a mastery of every genre they’ve chosen to assimilate over the years: blues, jazz, country, classic pop, rock in its old and new variants, soul, hip-hop … even ambient music. Spend 20 minutes listening to the anthemic chords of “On the Game,” a co-write with Noel Gallagher; the fuzz fests “Paper Crown” and “Everytime You Leave,” the latter co-written with Beck; the psychedelic hip-hop-pop of “Candy and Her Friends;” and the period-perfect reworking of William Bell’s 1968 Stax hit “Forgot to Be Your Lover,” and you’ll get lost in the vibe—a happy time traveler through roots-informed music’s past and present.
The band’s new release was made at the same time as they were creating their last few albums, with Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney collecting the results of their collaboration wish list.
The album’s other spark plugs include hip-hop-beat brainiac and producer Dan the Automator; Memphis rap legends Juicy J (of Three 6 Mafia) and Lil Noid; producer/guitarist Angelo Petraglia, who’s made records with Kings of Leon and many others; and Nashville session hero Tom Bukovac, a truly estimable guitarist.
Of course, the biggest surprise is Gallagher, who co-wrote three rockers for Ohio Players, lending his patently anthemic touch. As it turns out, Gallagher is a big Black Keys fan, and in 2009, the duo were invited to open for his former band, Oasis. “But we were busy,” Carney says, “and they broke up.”
Despite a four-year hiatus from 2015 to 2019, the Black Keys stayed busy—even separately, during that break. They resumed making Black Keys albums in 2018, with ‘Let’s Rock’, and while they were creating its two successive releases, Auerbach and Carney also launched the series of collaborations that yielded Ohio Players.
“We had this epiphany—we can call our friends to help us make music,” Carney says. “It’s funny because we both write songs with other people, but we got to this maturity as a band where not only can we call these friends, but we can deliver music our idols want to play on.”“Noel Gallagher was feeling inspired because he hadn’t recorded like that. It’s not really common to have zero baffles between the vocals and the drums.”—Dan Auerbach
The first call was to Beck—a major influence on Auerbach and Carney when they were growing up in Akron. “His aesthetic was incredible,” Auerbach says. “He wore his influences on his sleeve, and we learned from that. There was someone showing us a way to go.” Beck was also an early Black Keys fan, and took them on tour in 2003. He is on half of Ohio Players’ 14 tracks as a writer, vocalist, guitarist, and keys player.“
After we’d gotten Beck in the studio, we were throwing names back and forth—‘Who else would be meaningful and write big songs we like?,’” says Auerbach. “Noel was at the top of the list.” The Keys’ manager, and even Gallagher’s team, when initially approached, responded that the former Oasis co-leader simply doesn’t co-write. “But we got a message back a few days later that said he’d be down if we came to London. We didn’t know if it was going to work, but after we recorded one song the first day, it took all our nervousness away.” By the end of a week, they had three numbers for Ohio Players.
Dan Auerbach's Gear
Dan Auerbach plays one of his original Supros in concert in 2023. He has a collection of vintage guitars, including instruments owned by Hound Dog Taylor and Mississippi Fred McDowell.
Photo by Jordi Vidal
Guitars
- 1960 Fender Telecaster Deluxe
- 1965 Teisco Del Rey ET-300
- Gibson J-45
- Danelectro Vincent Bell Signature Coral Firefly
Amp
- 1950s narrow-panel tweed Deluxe
Effects
- Analog Man Sun Face
- Marshall SupaFuzz
- Fulltone Octafuzz
- Vintage flanger
- Strymon El Capistan
- Xotic RC Booster
- Custom fuzz (gift from Pat Carney)
Picks, Strings, & Slides
- National metal finger pick
- Custom picks
- SIT .011 sets
- Brass slide
“That was amazing on a lot of levels,” Auerbach continues. “It was fun as hell. We’d really wanted to go to Toe Rag Studios in London and record there. Toe Rag is such an amazing studio. It’s one room, no vocal booths or anything like that—smaller than a single-car garage. [The all-analog space is where Wolf Alice, Tame Impala, the Kills, James Hunter, Hugh Cornwell, and many others have recorded.] Pat’s got a drum kit, I’m on guitar, and Noel’s playing his ES-335 most of the time, with Leon Michaels on this weird little German ’60s keyboard, and [engineer] Liam Watson behind the old, beautiful desk.”
After the sessions, Auerbach and Carney dubbed Gallagher “the chord lord.” “He would sit there and cycle through chords until he found that one that worked with mine,” Auerbach recounts. The songs they cut, “On the Game,” “Only Love Matters,” and “You’ll Pay,” were essentially recorded live, with additions—like Bukovac’s guitar—done at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville. “Every time we listened to a playback, it sounded so good that it was inspiring, and Noel was feeling inspired because he hadn’t recorded like that before. It’s not really common to have zero baffles between the vocals and the drums. We were just going for it.”
“I definitely tend to classic sounds, and then it’s nice to be able to move from there, finding new ways to use them.”—Dan Auerbach
If anything, collaborators like Gallagher and Beck have amplified the Black Keys’ already impressive way with hooks and choruses—reinforced as usual by Auerbach’s guitar, which, regardless of musical setting, always seems rooted in the tones of the ’60s and ’70s.
“I definitely tend to classic sounds,” he says, “and then it’s nice to be able to move from there, finding new ways to use them. But just being able to find that classic sound has always been thrilling. It’s finding the right fuzz pedal or finding the right combination of things that make that magic that’s on all of this stuff.”
On their most recent major tour, the Black Keys hit the road as a sextet. “Our band is so capable,” says Auerbach. “The guys that we’ve been touring with sing and play percussion and keyboards, so we can recreate anything, which is awesome.”
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Fuzz has long been an important element of Auerbach’s sound, and it expands the dimensions of “Please Me (Till I’m Satisfied),” “Paper Crown,” and others. Auerbach primarily used three fuzz pedals on Ohio Players: an Analog Man Sun Face, Marshall SupaFuzz, and Fulltone Octafuzz—sometimes in combination, mostly driving a narrow-panel tweed Deluxe when he was on home turf at Easy Eye. But there’s plenty of sweet stuff in the grooves, too. In particular, the cover of “Forgot to Be Your Lover” enjoys not only a sweeping string arrangement but a lovely, chiming phase-shifted guitar that pairs perfectly with Auerbach’s near-falsetto vocal—another element of his singing that he’s perfected over time. (“My family would sing bluegrass, with all those falsetto parts, so it never felt out of the realm of possibility for me—although I never had the balls to do that until we made the Blakroc album, and we were messing around and experimenting,” he notes.) “Forgot to Be Your Lover” was done at Valentine Recording Studios in Los Angeles, a room frozen in time, left exactly as it was after its last remodeling in 1975—a place perfect for the track’s old-school vibe.
With its intuitive intersections of locations, collaborators, and the Black Keys’ realization of the strength of their own artistry, maybe there was some Zen at work during the Ohio Players sessions. And perhaps beyond. As we end our conversation, Auerbach offers an anecdote: “I was just making a record with Early James yesterday, in a friend’s hundred-plus-years-old home. As I was getting ready to record, my friend said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this guitar in a case here. Your friend dropped it off for you a couple years ago. He couldn’t get ahold of you or something.’ It was an old Supro Res-O-Glass that I had bought in Akron and completely forgotten about. I had loaned it to somebody 10 years ago. We took it out of the case. The strings on it were prehistoric, rusty, and we plugged it into a little black-panel Champ, and James played slide guitar on it, and it’s got a little Airline pickup. God! It sounded so amazing. And it was just like all kinds of wrong—hadn’t seen a luthier in a decade. You know what I mean? But it was the perfect thing for the sound that we were looking for. The perfect thing.”
YouTube It
On October 9, 2023, the Black Keys threw a blues party at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl, digging into their North Mississippi hill country sonic roots with Magnolia State ringers Kenny Brown on guitar and Eric Deaton on bass. Here, they play “Fireman Ring the Bell,” a variation on the “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” theme by the late R.L. Burnside.
The limited-edition 1963 ES-335 1963 ES-335 by Gibson Custom, in collaboration with SLASH, features light aging by the Murphy Lab, Bigsby tremolo, and Custombucker pickups. Only 50 hand-signed guitars available exclusively at Gibson Garage Nashville.
Made in close collaboration with Slash and the expert luthiers of the Gibson Custom Shop in Nashville, Tennessee and artfully aged by the Murphy Lab to match the original guitar, only 50 of these Collector’s Edition hand-signed guitars will be available exclusively via the Gibson Garage Nashville, alongside an exclusive VIP live performance at the Gibson Garage with the artist this summer. For more details, call the Gibson Garage Nashville (615) 933-6000.
“I used a beautiful and killer sounding 1963 ES-335 Gibson for more than a few songs on Orgy of the Damned,” says SLASH. “Gibson has now built a fantastic replica of this extraordinary guitar. Same dot neck, Bigsby tremolo, and finish. You have to check it out.”
Slash’s original ES-335 is a super clean example from 1963 which proved inspirational when recording his latest solo record, the star-studded blues album Orgy of the Damned, out May 17 on Gibson Records. In celebration of the release of Orgy of the Damned, buyers of the Collector’s Edition SLASH 1963 ES-335 will receive a rare assembly of case candy that includes a hand-signed copy of SLASH’s new album, Orgy of the Damned, a signed copy of the The Collection: Slash coffee table book, and a Certificate of Authenticity. In addition, buyers will be invited to attend a once-in-a-lifetime exclusive VIP experience at the Gibson Garage Nashville, where SLASH and his blues band will treat fans to an intimate live performance and signing event.
Photo by Gibson
For each Slash ES-335 purchase, buyers will receive two (2) tickets to attend an “Evening with Slash & Friends in Nashville, Tennessee” on June 30, 2024. This special evening at the Gibson Garage Nashville includes a live performance with SLASH and his blues band, as well as an intimate, moderated interview with SLASH and Mark Agnesi, Gibson’s Director of Brand Experience, a photo opportunity, receipt of the Slash 1963 ES-335 Collector’s Edition guitar from Gibson Custom, a copy of the new Orgy of the Damned album, and a The Collection: Slash coffee table book, all signed by SLASH. Food and Beverage for the event will be provided onsite.
*Travel expenses for the event are not included, and no cash value has been assigned to the Experience and no exchanges or refunds will be offered or given for those unable to attend the Experience.
Photo by Gibson
Slash announced he will officially release his sixth solo album, a star-studded blues record titled Orgy of the Damned, on May 17, 2024, via Gibson Records (Firebird Music distribution). A collection of 12 dynamic songs that revitalize blues classics, on Orgy of the Damned SLASH reteamed with storied producer Mike Clink and enlisted the album’s diverse guest vocalists, which include Gary Clark Jr., Billy F. Gibbons, Chris Stapleton, Dorothy, Iggy Pop, Paul Rodgers, Demi Lovato, Brian Johnson, Tash Neal, Chris Robinson, and Beth Hart. Rounding out his blues band in the studio and on the road, SLASH reunited with two of his bandmates from his Blues Ball outfit in the 90s, bassist Johnny Griparic and keyboardist Teddy ‘ZigZag’ Andreadis, and brought on drummer Michael Jerome and singer/guitarist Tash Neal.
For more information, please visit gibson.com.