An unusual, intuitive amalgam of sustain pedal, looper, delay, and modulator that can be a mellow harmonizer, a chaos machine, and many things in between.
Easy-to-conjure unique-sounding, complex waves of sound, or subtle, swelling background harmonies. Intuitive operation, including secondary functions.
Many possible voices begs for presets.
$229
MXR Layers
jimdulop.com
It’s unclear whether the unfortunate term “shoegaze” was coined to describe a certain English indie subculture’s proclivity for staring at pedals, or their sometimes embarrassed-at-performing demeanor. The MXR Layers will, no doubt, find favor among players that might make up this sect, as well as other ambience-oriented stylists. But it will probably leave players of all stripes staring floorward, too, at least while they learn the ropes with this addictive mashup of delay, modulation, harmonizer, and sustain effects.
Unlike the simplest sustain pedals, the Layers enables the player to significantly mutate sustained notes and textures. You can add blends of delay and chorusing that aren’t perceptibly either effect, which creates uncommon-sounding stacks and waves of guitar sound. The Layers pedal takes practice to use with precision, but even partial command of its time-warping capabilities makes it rewarding to use, and it’s relatively easy to dial in chaotic—or fluid and ordered—sustain and harmonizing effects to suit your whims.
Blink Twice If You Understand
Dive straight into Layers without a peek at the quick-start guide and you might fast end up swimming in washes of repeats and harmonic tangles. At first, it might not even be apparent what a layer is supposed to be, particularly because the delay and modulation effects can be so prominent. Essentially a layer is a snapshot of the sound you’re playing as you trigger the effect—either by pressing the soft-relay footswitch or by dynamic picking, depending on where you set the threshold control. (This type of functionality will be familiar to players that use envelope filters.) From there, you can control the length of the layer with the decay control, the wet/dry mix, and the rate at which the layer becomes audible, with the attack knob. By getting a feel for these functions, you can use Layers to predictably create droning and harmonizing accompaniment to what you play. But several additional features enable dramatic alteration of the shape and color of your layers. The “single” button allows switching between a default mode, in which as many as three layers can play concurrently, and another that allows only a single layer at a given time.
A set of secondary functions for each knob are activated by holding down either the single or sub-octave button, which primarily transposes layers down an octave. Options here include the ability to adjust the modulation time, modulation blend, delay time, diffusion (between more or less cavernous ambience), and the amount of dry signal sent to the delay effect, which makes the echoes dirtier and more prominent. The footswitch does triple duty. A single click activates a layer, clicking and holding sustains a layer for as long as you hold the switch, and clicking twice clears layers and puts the pedal in bypass. Functions like dry/wet signal splits, stereo operation, and control via external pedals are also available.Third-Eye Super Vision
The features listed here make the Layers seem more imposing than it is. As I said at the top, you may stare at the pedal a lot to see when the attack threshold is crossed or see which layers have been activated in the multi-layer mode. But the longer you work with Layers, the more you can do by feel. Getting a feel for what rate of swell and decay are right for a given guitar part can change from tune to tune, which makes the absence of presets a slight inconvenience. But it’s not terribly hard to make these adjustments in between tunes or even on the fly, when you’re comfortable. If you elect to go with a single set up and stick with it, you can still add much dynamic control depending on where you set the threshold. Configuring the pedal with a low- to medium-sensitive threshold, three available layers, conservative mix levels, and more generous delay times means you can move between gentle passages where you ride over misty, slow-fading overtone backgrounds or forceful, blown-out ones—all by varying pick intensity. It’s a much more interesting way to build quiet-to-loud dynamics than just switching on, say, an extra drive pedal and reverbs simultaneously. And that flexibility can help you respond to a live performance with extra sensitivity to the mood of a piece. (By the way, it bears mentioning that Layers is often more effective at the start of an effects chain, where it will respond most directly to your input.)
Layers can be subtle. I enjoyed using low mix levels, long decay settings, a permissive threshold, and slow-ramping rise times to create hazy harmonizing trails. I also loved the avalanches of deeply modulating, colliding, and completely unsubtle soundwaves you can slather over a still-coherent melody. Loopers will love building stacks of rising, falling, swelling, and swirling passages of all of these textures that roll like storm clouds. In fact, a two-pedal setup of Layers and a looper will make a simple guitar and amplifier weirder and more otherworldly by orders of magnitude.
The Verdict
The Layers inhabits a sweet middle ground between a simple single-function sustain pedal and overflowing loopers or multi-delays. And though you can utilize very prominent harmonizing voices, it’s generally grainer, less loaded, and more unique than a shimmer reverb. It’s these very uncommon voices and sounds, as well as a capacity for intuitive operation, that make Layers so alluring.
It’s almost over, but there’s still time to win! Enter Stompboxtober Day 30 for your shot at today’s pedal from SoloDallas!
The Schaffer Replica: Storm
The Schaffer Replica Storm is an all-analog combination of Optical Limiter+Harmonic Clipping Circuit+EQ Expansion+Boost+Line Buffer derived from a 70s wireless unit AC/DC and others used as an effect. Over 50 pros use this unique device to achieve percussive attack, copious harmonics and singing sustain.
Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is one of the loudest guitarists around. And he puts his volume to work creating mythical tones that have captured so many of our imaginations, including our special shoegaze correspondent, guitarist and pedal-maestro Andy Pitcher, who is our guest today.
My Bloody Valentine has a short discography made up of just a few albums and EPs that span decades. Meticulous as he seems to be, Shields creates texture out of his layers of tracks and loops and fuzz throughout, creating a music that needs to be felt as much as it needs to be heard.
We go to the ultimate source as Billy Corgan leaves us a message about how it felt to hear those sounds in the pre-internet days, when rather than pull up a YouTube clip, your imagination would have to guide you toward a tone.
But not everyone is an MBV fan, so this conversation is part superfan hype and part debate. We can all agree Kevin Shields is a guitarists you should know, but we can’t all agree what to do with that information.
This episode is sponsored by Fender.
Learn more: https://www.fender.com./
He’ll forever be remembered for his unparalleled mastery of the Telecaster, but Roy Buchanan kept an open mind when it came to his guitars.
Perhaps you’ve read something where an artist or a brand is dubbed “authentic.” It’s marketing hype that’s both real and manufactured, but I assure you it can be both a legit and important concept. The problem is when it gets used in the first person. Who judges whether something is authentic or not? Critics? Magazines? The internet? A brand itself? What does it mean to you? We often refer to things as the “real deal,” so is that the same? Not exactly.
The real deal can be something that is what it purports to be—like a working cowboy. But if you see his hat brand in a store in New York, is that authentic? If you think this is splitting hairs, you might be right. We’d like to think that when we choose a guitar to play, our desire for playability and sound is at the forefront of the decision-making process, and mostly it is. But that blacked-out, pointy axe with the studded strap just won’t fly in your bro-country cover band, so you glom onto a paisley Telecaster, even though it doesn’t feel as good to you. Does this make you authentic? Personally, I’d love to see some chicken pickin’ on that pointy fiddle. Busting down barriers and breaking rules is the spirit of expression and creativity, and that’s authentic.
There’s no shame in honoring tradition and nodding in reverence to your influences, but you don’t have to bow down so low that you can’t be yourself, too. I used to think I was a “Gibson guy.” To a large extent, I still am, but many of you know my love of the Strat and Tele. My music room is full of other brands that I adore and use for certain applications. I believe that you have to use an instrument, effect, or amplifier to get what you need for the situation you’re in, no matter what the social connotation is.
“If Roy freaking Buchannan can rock out on a Les Paul or a Hamer Standard, you can break some rules, too.”
One night in the late 1970s, I answered the phone at the Hamer Guitars factory, mostly to see who on Earth would call at that late hour. To my surprise it was Roy Buchanan, the original master of the Telecaster. He wanted to chat about our Sunburst model that was fairly new to the market. His questions revolved around scale length, fretboard width, fret size, and weight. When I asked why he was interested in our guitar when he was known for playing Telecasters, he told me that he already had one of our Explorer-shaped Standard model guitars! I found this even more puzzling than the fact that Roy Buchanan had cold-called our office at night. Roy went on to say that in the studio he used a lot of different guitars, including a Les Paul with P-90s that he liked a lot. He used the Tele onstage, he said, “because people expect me to do all those Telecaster things.” He didn’t ask me to ship him a guitar for free or inquire about an artist discount. He said he’d check one out at a dealer. I recommended one near him, and we said goodnight. I began to wonder if it was a crank call.
I’d forgotten the whole episode until recently, when I saw a newspaper photograph of Roy Buchanan with his young daughter, Jennifer. I thought about how happy they looked and how sad it was that his death had stolen that little girl’s father from her. And right there in that photo, he’s playing that Hamer Standard. I’m not gonna lie and say that I didn’t cry.
So there it is, folks. If Roy freaking Buchanan can rock out on a Les Paul or a Hamer Standard, you can break some rules, too. I’m certain that he was most comfortable onstage with that beat-up old Tele, but it wasn’t his only love. It’s just the one that people think of when they imagine the authentic guy.
Songwriters often say they strive for connection through authenticity in their music and lyrics. And at the very core, that’s what it’s about—human connection. If you love that cowboy hat and live in Philadelphia, I’m not going to criticize you—just go ahead and wear it, dude. It’s about wearing the hat for its intended purpose, not putting it on to hope it makes you authentic.
Introducing the Martin M-6 and M-7 Johnny Marr signature guitars, featuring a unique seven-string configuration to honor Marr's sound.
The standout feature of the Martin M-7 is its unique seven-string configuration, adding an octave G string to the mix. This design delivers Marr’s unmistakable jangle, making it perfect for replicating the lush, intricate sounds of his most iconic tracks. Also available as a standard six-string model, the M-6, and designed in close collaboration with Marr, these guitars feature a genuine mahogany neck with a full-thickness profile and slightly thinner width at the nut for a unique feel, allowing for fluid transitions and complex chord structures.
Wide like a Jumbo with the thickness of a 000, its Grand Auditorium (0000/M) body size ensures plenty of comfort and projection while offering a precise distinction between the treble and bass. Equipped with LR Baggs Anthem electronics, these guitars ensure your sound is perfectly captured on stage or in the studio with volume, mix, mic level, and phase controls.
“I've now got my own signature guitar that makes me sound like in the studio when I've put this really great old compressor on it with a great mic and a little hint of the high string in there,” says Marr. “All of these things that I do on record using a few guitars, I've all got it in the one guitar that I can carry around with me, and if I go play with a pal or go and guest with someone, I sound like me.”
Marr’s history with Martin guitars is storied – his beloved 1971 D-28 has been the backbone of several classic Smiths songs, including “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” and “Cemetry Gates.” The M-6 and M-7 pay homage to that legacy while ushering in a new era of sonic possibilities. A hardshell case and exclusive Souldier™ strap are included.
For more information, please visit martinguitar.com.