Need a new Stompbox? Find your next effect in this month's Gear Finds!
TriceraChorus
Inspired by the classic Tri-Stereo Chorus and stompbox choruses of the 1970s and early 1980s, the TriceraChorus pedal pairs rich Bucket Brigade-style chorusing with Eventide’s legendary MicroPitch detuning for a lushness that rivals the jungles of the late Cretaceous Period. TriceraChorus features three chorus voices and three unique chorus effects which can be used to create a wide stereo spread with pulsing waves of modulation. The innovative “Swirl” footswitch adds psychedelic flanging, phasing, and Univibe-style tones. It has never been easier to dial in syrupy smooth, deep modulation on guitar, bass, synths, strings, vocals, and more.
Maestro Original Collection
To be called “legendary” is to have shaped music as we know it. From the Rolling Stones to the Raconteurs. From Pete Townshend to George Harrison and from Clapton to Frampton. They strived to coax the truest expression from their instruments - the sound they heard in their heads and their hearts. Their signature sound - so uniquely shaped by effects that it changed everything. It’s the Fuzz-Tone FZ-1 that fuels the groundbreaking riff in the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and the funky wah filter that anchors the “Theme from Shaft.” While the impact they had on the lineage of music is also unique, many have one thing in common—Maestro. So, while not everyone has heard of Maestro, everyone has heard Maestro.
Maestro, the “Founder of Effects,” is back with an all-new line of effect pedals - the Maestro Original Collection. Five new pedals, designed, voiced, and styled for the musician looking to shape their unique sound. A tribute to the sound and style of the brand’s much-beloved classic models of the 60s and 70s, with modern features, expanded versatility, and advanced tone-tweaking capabilities. Each function as an innovative “two-in-one” pedal, with a single toggle that switches between two distinct modes. Each features a straightforward three-knob setup, true bypass switching, and an ergonomic, pedalboard-friendly wedge profile.
It doesn’t matter what you play. As long as there are sounds being made, new legends will emerge. Maestro is back to help you SHAPE YOUR SOUND.
Electro-Harmonix Intelligent Harmony Machine
The EHX Intelligent Harmony Machine instantly creates matching harmonies to what you play. It’s like having one – or even two – guitarists jamming with you at the same time and always in perfect sync. The Intelligent Harmony Machine opens a door to the music of great multi-lead guitar bands and multi-part harmonized solos. Plus, its ability to apply harmonies ranging from simple to sophisticated will totally transform what you play. Of course, it also boasts EHX’s renowned impeccable tracking and genuine musical tone.
MESA/Boogie Drive Pedals
MESA® Drive Pedals are built by the same artisans that create the award-winning Mark Five™ and the legendary Dual and Triple Rectifier® amps. They stand ready to serve up all rock genres with cut and aggression while retaining much of the signature warmth and organic sonic quality found in our amplifiers. Ranging from high to lower gain applications, including classic rock or howling blues, we have a drive pedal that will help you achieve the sounds that so many artists have employed in our amps to create the world’s heaviest guitar tones!
Progressing along the gain spectrum, the transparent boost/overdrive CLEO™ is joined by the vintage-inspired, medium gain DYNAPLEX™ and the higher gain GOLD MINE™. The CLEO is a transparent boost/overdrive design focusing on vintage-inspired low to medium gain overdrive sounds packed with dynamic nuance, lively attack, and a wide variety of essential clip sounds. Moving on to medium gain, the DYNAPLEX is all about the “British Crunch” style with classic mid punch, chirping harmonics, and the chime players desire for classic rock sounds and beyond. Progressing to the higher end of the gain spectrum, the GOLD MINE is focused on mid to high gain sounds, classic heavy chunk, and rich gain with harmonic complexity, soaring single note sounds, and the liquid gain and girth that gain lovers expect from MESA.
Like every MESA product, our pedals are built using the same quality components, craftsmanship, and inspiring performance as our custom amplifiers...all hand-built in Petaluma, California, USA!
Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork+ Polyphonic Pitch Shifter
Dual engine pitch shifting with nearly endless possibilities and expansive control options! The EHX Pitch Fork®+ features two independent pitch shifting engines with full control over each. Both will transpose your pitch up or down over a +/- three octave range and detune +/-99 cents. With rock solid tracking, an organic, musical tone and extensive control, it’s your ultimate harmonizer.
Pedal Pad CUSTOM PEDALBOARDS : BUILT TO ORDER!!
Pedal Pad pedalboards are hand-built for YOU in Coatesville, Pennsylvania! Our boards feature an ALL-IN-ONE solution where the board is also the case. Just pop the top and PLAY! Our ordering interface allows you to configure any board with a plethora of options. More options or requests? Just email or call and we'll make it happen! Most custom orders ship within 2-3 weeks!
Electro-Harmonix Nano Big Muff Pi Fuzz
EHX took the Big Muff Pi circuit and simply shrunk it without changing its rich, creamy, violin-like sustain and sound. The EHX Nano Big Muff Pi works and sounds identical in every way to our classic NYC Big Muff Pi. Get a piece of the pi for yourself!
Valeton GP-200
Implementing the HD digital modeling technology accumulated throughout years of the Valeton team's diligent efforts, the GP-200 delivers hundreds of re-editions of tones from world-classic amplifiers and stompboxes with a comprehensive upgraded algorithm. Combining 140 legendary amplifiers and cabinets simulations and 100 renowned stompbox effect pedals, plus 20 factory cab IR slots, the GP-200 will guarantee your consistently great sound on stage.
Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar Emulator
Transform your electric guitar into a sitar! Very few instruments offer as much harmonic and dynamic flexibility as a sitar. Electro-Harmonix has streamlined the essence of the sitar into a compact enclosure that offers a polyphonic lead voice and tunable sympathetic string drones that dynamically react to your playing. With the EHX Ravish Sitar Emulator, you can create your own custom scales for the sympathetic strings while you set the decay time for the lead voice.
Two expression pedal inputs allow you to bend the pitch of the lead voice and control the volume of the sympathetic strings simultaneously. These unique controls offer the player the ability to program the Ravish to become a totally unique and organic instrument unto itself.
The Ravish is truly a design with the flexibility to be a crossover tonal wonder.
VOX Valvenergy Pedals: Mystic Edge
Iconic amp sounds for your pedalboard. The Valvenergy series valve distortion pedals offer the warmth and harmonics of amp distortion in a compact pedal format. The all-analog signal path and Nutube allow for genuine overdrive and distortion tones with the feel of a real tube amp, while internally boosted voltage gives greater headroom and dynamics. Three output modes allow you to use this as a standard pedal, a line-level preamp, and a direct amp-sim using the built-in analog cabinet simulator.
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Acorn Amplifiers F#%k Face Fuzz
The F#%k Face is a triple gain stage fuzz with thick and meaty sustain that sounds huge in front of a slightly cranked tube amp. Baseball card collectors from the late 80’s will immediately recognize the infamous ‘error card’ graphics of the same name. The circuit is based on the legendary Fuzz with a different Face, but with an additional silicon transistor gain stage and voiced to retain more useable and dynamic fuzz tones all along the sweep of the two controls. In the front of your pedal chain, the F#%k Face will add dynamic interactivity to the volume controls on your guitar which enable a sweep from slight grit to full ripping-velcro breakup.
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Blackstar Amplification Dept. 10 Pedals
Brought to you by Blackstar’s R&D division responsible for blue-sky innovation and design, Dept. 10 are the most advanced valve pedals in the world. Meticulously designed and engineered by a team of musicians for musicians. At the heart of each Dept. 10 pedal is an ECC83 triode valve, running at more than 200V internally like a valve amp, which allows them to deliver organic tone, dynamics and break up. Dual Drive and Dual Distortion include Cab Rig, our next-generation DSP speaker simulator that reproduces the sound and feel of a mic’d up guitar cab in incredible detail. Deep-dive using our free software and capture the incredible tones via low latency USB, XLR D.I. out or headphones. Choose from Boost, Dual Drive or Dual Distortion to help you craft your perfect tone.
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Nobels ODR-mini
The ODR-mini delivers creamy, natural overdrive – Everything from pushed clean amp tones to gain filled stacks! It has the same tones as its legendary brother – the ODR-1. You‘ll love the warm mid-gain tones for rock and blues, and the screaming hard rock sounds from the ODR-1 Mini. Plus the mini features true-bypass switching, the SPECTRUM pot with mid-click, fluorescent pointers on the “GitD“ – knobs (Glow-in-the-Dark). Guaranteed to be a BIG part of your sound while a small part of your pedal board.
Effect-Type: Overdrive
Analog
Mono/Stereo: Mono In, Mono Out
Control: Drive, Tone, Level
Bypass Modus: True Bypass
9-18 Volt, center negative
Consumption 25 mA
Dimensions (WxLxH / mm): 42 x 93 x 50
Weight: 175 gr
Country of origin: China
Solid metal housing
Low current consumption
Requires stabilized power supply 9-18 Volt DC, with min 100 mA, 2.1 mm plug, center negative, (not included)
Hear Audio
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Darkglass Electronics Alpha Omega Photon
Versatility, empowerment, limitless options, and ever-demanding tools at the disposal of every musician and composer are today on demand. A call for inventive devices continues to make musicians more inspired, clever and connected. The Alpha·Omega Photon combines Darkglass' signature Alpha·Omega parallel distortion with the versatile format of the Aggressively Distorting Advanced Machine. In addition to powerful distortion and studio-quality compression, the Alpha·Omega Photon is capable as an audio interface via USB-C or an amp replacement using cab sim IRs and XLR DI output.
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George L's Effects Cable Kits
Enhance 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.
SurfyBear Metal Reverb Unit
The Holy Grail of guitar reverb effects, the Fender®-style spring reverb, has been finally revisited with modern features!
Try it and discover why most surf guitarists and the truly reverb addicted are turning to SurfyBear.
★ exclusive SurfyPan type-4 spring reverb pan by Accutronics® and Surfy Industries
★ aluminium body with removable feet on the bottom side for better positioning on pedalboards
★ clean boost to adjust the volume when the effect is on
★ innovative dual-LED on/off button
★ true bypass functionality to keep your signal intact when the effect is off
★ external footswitch possibility though the dedicated 1/4" jack (footswitch not included)
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His credits include Miles Davis’ Jack Johnson and Herbie Mann—next to whom he performed in Questlove’s 2021 documentary, Summer of Soul—and his tunes have been covered by Santana and the Messthetics. But it’s as a bandleader and collaborator where Sharrock cut his wildest recordings. As groundbreaking as Sharrock’s music could be, his distorted tone and melodic tunes helped bring rock listeners into the jazz tent. Our callers let us know how much Sharrock meant to them and why he’s one of the “top guys of all time.”
Making a quiet, contemplative album allows Isbell to reflect on the material in a new way and to really explore the relationship between his guitar and voice, which he’d recently lost and reclaimed.
With his new album, the Americana hero faces the microphone alone—save for a 1940 Martin 0-17—and emerges with an album full of nuanced emotional touchstones framed by the gentle side of his virtuosic musicianship.
Imagine, just for a moment, that you’re a successful, internationally recognized singer, songwriter, and guitarist. (Nice dream, right?) You’ve been in the public eye nearly a quarter-century, and for all that time you’ve either been a band member or a band leader. Then one day you decide the time is right to step out on your own, for real. You write a bunch of new songs with the express intent of recording them solo—one voice and one acoustic guitar, performed simultaneously—and releasing the best of those recordings as your next album. No overdubs. No hiding behind other musicians. No hiding behind technology. For the first time, it’s all you and only you.
Would you be excited? Would you be petrified?
This is the challenge that Jason Isbell voluntarily took on for his 10th and latest album, Foxes in the Snow. There were some extenuating circumstances. He was sorting through the aftermath of a very public breakup with his longtime partner in life and music, singer/violinist Amanda Shires, and the new songs reflected that situation, sometimes uncomfortably. Music this personal needed a personal approach. And so, when Isbell entered Electric Lady Studios in New York City for five days of recording last October, none of the members of his regular band the 400 Unit were there. He was accompanied only by co-producer/engineer Gena Johnson, who’s worked with him regularly for the past eight years.
Soundstream
“It was difficult to pull off,” Isbell acknowledges via Zoom from his Nashville homebase, “but it didn’t require me to look for ways to make the record sound weird. And that’s important to me, because what I don’t want to do is write a bunch of songs and then go in the studio and intentionally try to make them sound strange, just so they don’t sound like things I’ve done in the past. It made sense to me to just walk into a studio with a guitar and a notebook and make a record that way. First of all, because I can, and I’m grateful for the fact that I can. And I also thought that it would be really hard. And it was.”
Although Foxes in the Snow is Jason Isbell’s first solo acoustic album, acoustic guitars have long been a part of his onstage 6-string regimen.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
Making it especially hard was Isbell’s insistence on not overdubbing his vocals. “I didn’t want [the album] to sound like anything that could have been replicated or fabricated,” he explains. “I wanted it to sound like somebody playing a guitar and singing. To me, the only way to do that was just to go in there, sit down, and play it. And it’s hardto play the guitar and sing at the same time in the studio. Normally, that’s something you wouldn’t do; you’d be in a really controlled environment with mics on the guitar, everything would be isolated, and you’d have to play very carefully, not the way you play live. The idea of doing that while singing master vocal takes … well, it was tough, because if you screw up, well, you just screwed up. But the good news is you don’t have to make everybody else start over, and I liked that. I liked the fact that if I messed up, I could just stop and immediately try another take.”
“I brought an old D-18 into the studio, like a ’36 or ’37, and it sounded beautiful, but it didn’t sit in the right spot. It ate up so much space, and it was so big.”
Being aware of the difficulties and doing it anyway—that can’t help but be a vote of confidence in one’s own ability as a musician. And it should come as no great surprise that Isbell’s confidence was well-founded. Foxes in the Snow shines a bright spotlight on his guitar playing, and the playing proves eminently worthy of such a showcase. From the bluegrass-tinged solo on “Bury Me” to the Richard Thompson-esque fingerpicking at the end of “Ride to Robert’s” and the bouncy, almost Irish-reel-like hook of “Open and Close,” Isbell always gets the job done, coming up with tasty parts and executing them with panache. It’s been easy to forget in recent years amid all the critical accolades and Grammy wins that when Drive-By Truckers brought Isbell into their fold in 2001—his first major-league gig—they didn’t do it because of his singing or songwriting, which were still unknown quantities at the time; they did it because of his considerable skills as a guitarist. By putting those skills on display, Foxes in the Snow helps rebalance the Isbell equation.
Isbell says his new album was “difficult to pull off, but it didn’t require me to look for ways to make the record sound weird.”
Jason Isbell’s Gear
Acoustic Guitars
- 1940 Martin 0-17
- Martin Custom Shop 000-18 1937
- Two Martin OM-28 Modern Deluxes
- Martin D-35
- 1940s Gibson J-45
- Fishman Aura pickup systems
Electric Guitars
Amps
- 1964 Fender Vibroverb
- Dumble Overdrive Special
- Tweed Fender Twin
Strings, Picks, & Capos
- Martin Marquis phosphor bronze acoustic lights (.012–.054)
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys (.010–.046)
- Dunlop Tortex 1.14 mm picks
- McKinney-Elliott capos
And it does so while employing one guitar and one guitar only: an all-mahogany 1940 Martin 0-17, purchased within the past couple of years at Retrofret Vintage Guitars in Brooklyn. “My girlfriend [artist Anna Weyant] lives in New York,” Isbell notes, “and I didn’t want to keep bringing acoustics back and forth. I’ve got a lot of old Martins and Gibsons, and I don’t love to travel with them and subject them to air pressure and humidity changes. So I needed a guitar that could just stay in New York. As far as pre-war Martins go, it’s about the least special model that you could possibly find. But it sat perfectly in the mix. I brought an old D-18 into the studio, like a ’36 or ’37, and it sounded beautiful, but it didn’t sit in the right spot. It ate up so much space, and it was so big. The sonic range of that guitar was overpowering for what I was trying to do, and with the little single-0 I could control where it was in relation to my vocal.”
“There’s Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney all staring at me, and I knew that I had to sing in front of them with a busted voice.”
That control was important, because Isbell’s voice is spotlighted even more brightly on the new album than his guitar work. If you hear more strength in his singing these days, it’s not your imagination; he hired himself a vocal coach last year—out of necessity. “My voice failed,” he says simply. “I didn’t have any nodules or anything, but for some reason, anything above the middle of my range was gone. It was painful and embarrassing. I was doing the MusiCares tribute to Bon Jovi [in February 2024] and my voice was gone and I knew it. I was singing ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ on stage, and I looked down and there’s Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney all staring at me, and I knew that I had to sing in front of them with a busted voice.” He pauses and sighs. The sense of humiliation is palpable.
“You know, I did it,” he continues after a few seconds. “I did my best, and it was not good. And then after that I started working with this coach, and it made a huge difference. I figured out that I hadn’t been singing in a way that was anatomically correct. I’d been squeezing and pushing all these notes out, and [the coach] was good enough to manage to keep my vocal quality the same; I didn’t have to change the way I sounded, I just gained a wider range and a lot more stability. Now I’m able to sing more shows in a row without having vocal trouble. It’s been really, really nice.” He pauses again, this time to laugh. “And I made fun of people for so many years for blowing bubbles and, you know, doing all the lip trills and everything backstage … but here I am doing it myself.”
While recording sans band, Isbell said, “I liked the fact that if I messed up, I could just stop and immediately try another take.”
Isbell’s voice has made gains in both upper and lower range, as the Foxes in the Snow ballad “Eileen” demonstrates. In a clever touch, he pairs an unusually deep vocal part with a high, chimey guitar line, produced by placing a capo on the 0-17’s 5th fret. “Now that I’ve learned how to sing after just hollering for my whole career, I’ve got the ability to support a vocal in that low a key,” he says. “Having a vocal coach made it possible for me to sing a song like that. And the 5th-fret capo is a little tricky sonically, too. People usually go between two and four [the 2nd and 4th frets]. At least I do. Matter of fact, when I was a kid, my grandfather didn’t like for me to capo up over the third fret. I remember he’d tell me that would damage the guitar. I’ve never found a way that it would damage the guitar,” he adds with a grin. “I think it just irritated him.”
“My grandfather didn’t like for me to capo up over the third fret. I remember he’d tell me that would damage the guitar.”
Growing up in northern Alabama in the 1980s, Isbell took to music in large part because of his multi-instrumentalist grandfather. “He was a Pentecostal preacher, and he played every day. When I’d stay over with him, he’d play mandolin or banjo, fiddle sometimes, and I would have to play rhythm guitar. And then my dad’s brother, who’s a lot closer to my age, had a rock band. He taught me to play the electric guitar and rock ’n’ roll songs. I feel like I just got lucky that I loved it so much. That’s really at the heart of it—the fact that I’ve never had to sit down and practice because I just think about it all the time.”
Isbell is typically found onstage with his fleet of electric guitars, including vintage Telecasters, Les Pauls, Stratocasters, and his ’59 Gretsch Jet Firebird with a Bigsby.
Photo by Matt Condon
This is not to say that Isbell doesn’t practice; quite the contrary. Indeed, one of the most moving segments of Sam Jones’ excellent 2023 documentary on Isbell for HBO, Running With Our Eyes Closed, is when he recalls just how crucial practicing became to him as a child. The guitar was a refuge, a way to literally drown out his parents’ vicious arguments in the next room. (Another poignant aspect of Jones’ film, shot mostly in 2019 and 2020, is the delicacy with which it captures the often tenuous state of the Isbell/Shires relationship, prefiguring their breakup.)
When asked what exactly it is about the guitar that makes it so special to him, Isbell doesn’t hesitate. “The guitar is the best instrument,” he says. “It’s the smallest, most portable instrument that you can make full chords on. You can’t take a piano to a dinner party, you can’t accompany yourself on a clarinet, and you need something that’s big enough to where the volume of it can fill a room. In the days when everyone had acoustic instruments, like in the 1920s, there was nothing else like the guitar that you could carry on your back and travel from place to place and entertain people with."
“I realized pretty early on in the solo experiment that when you’re playing with the band, you don’t have a chance to work with tempo or volume in the same way.”
With that question answered, all that remains is to inquire, now that Isbell’s done the solo acoustic thing once—both in the studio for Foxes in the Snow and live for his tour to promote the album—whether he’d ever consider doing it again. “I don’t see why not,” he responds. “It’s not in any kind of plan right now, but I enjoyed the challenge of it. And I think anything that makes me turn off the ‘Don’t fuck this up’ switch is good for me, because if you sit there and spend the whole time thinking, ‘Don’t fuck this up,’ you’re not ever gonna get into that zone where you’re communicating with the work, and you’re not ever gonna get to a point where you can deliver it comfortably. This has been a really good opportunity for me to just practice letting all of that go.
“Obviously I miss the horsepower of the band,” he adds. “I miss the people individually, being on stage and communicating musically with them. But I realized pretty early on in the solo experiment that when you’re playing with the band, you don’t have a chance to work with tempo or volume in the same way. Usually you’re just trying to count a song off at the same tempo you recorded it in or the way you’ve been playing it lately, but when it’s just me, I can intentionally speed up and slow down within a song. And with respect to the volume, I can drop the bottom out soquickly, whereas it’s more like steering a ship when I’ve got the whole band up there—it happens more slowly, no matter how good they are. I would not enjoy this as much if I had to do it all the time,” he concludes. “But it’s nice to have both sides.”YouTube It
In this version of “Ride to Robert’s,” Jason Isbell demonstrates the flexibility of playing solo by picking up the tempo of this song from Foxes in the Snow.
Belltone Guitars has partnered Brickhouse Toneworks to create a one-of-a-kind, truly noiseless Strat/Tele-tone pickup in a standard Filter’Tron size format: the Single-Bell pickup.
The Single-Bell by Brickhouse Toneworks delivers bonafide single-coil Strat and Tele tones with the power of a P-90 and no 60-cycle hum. Unlike typical stacked hum-cancelling designs, Brickhouse Toneworks uses a proprietary ‘sidewind’ approach that cancels the 60-cycle hum without sacrificing any of the dynamics or top-end sparkle of a Fender-style single coil.
Get the best of both worlds with clear bell-like tones on the neck pickup, signature quack when combining the neck and bridge pickups, and pristine twang in the bridge position backed with the fullness and power of a P-90. Push these into overdrive and experience the hallmark blues tone with plenty of grit and harmonic sustain — all with completely noiseless performance.
Key Features of the Single-Bell:
- Cast Alnico 5 Magnet, designed to be used with 500k pots
- Voiced to capture that signature Fender-style single coil tone without the 60-cycle hum
- Lightly potted to minimize squeal
- Made in the USA with premium quality materials
The retail price for a Bridge and Neck matching set is $340.00 and they’re available directly and exclusively through Belltone® Guitars / Brickhouse Toneworks at belltoneguitars.com.