We go over the semi-filling, arena-rocking loads of gear that John Shanks, Phil X, and Hugh McDonald brought on the road to support This House Is Not for Sale.
Another one-off is this korina Suhr Classic T pro that was constructed specifically for the 2009 NAMM Show.
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B. K. Butler Tube Driver
With only three controls, this deceptively powerful pedal was designed to offer everything from light overdrive to full on distortion with all the clarity and blissful grinding.
"Sometimes pedals can change. Parts drift, pots break, transistors go bad. They go to new homes; they get neglected and resold. Sometimes people get in there and try to revive them to their original state and sometimes they just throw whatever is laying around inside and hope it does the trick. In this case, weāre pretty sure all the above happened to the fuzz pedal that made its way to James Murphy and ended up finding a forever home with LCD Soundsystem."
The Chelsea has been the chosen bass fuzz for several LCD Soundsystem recordings and has traveled around the world with them.
"It has been beat up and taped back together. It looks like it shouldnāt work but it always delivers. It is old, it is fragile, and it sounds massive. Too good to retire yet too tired to keep going. That is where we came in. We were tasked with replicating the exact sound of this pedal but it a reliable format that can withstand the stresses of this modern world. No easy feat, for sure, but we persevered and have brought you the Chelsea."
Features
- All-analog signal path
- True bypass
- Electronic relay-based switching
- Limited lifetime warranty
- Current Draw: 10 ma
- Input Impedance: 50 kΩ
- Output Impedance: <10 kΩ
- Retail Price: $179.00
Named after the guitar shop in which it was purchased back in 1989, the Chelsea recreates all the idiosyncrasies of the original but without the threat of total collapse. With only three controls, this deceptively powerful pedal offers you everything from light overdrive to full on distortion with all the clarity and blissful grinding that make the original so special. Just like the original, a Tone On/Off switch allows you to remove the tone control from the circuit, opening up a whole new world of midrange grind. Switch it off for a simplified and straightforward attack or leave it on for a full-bodied distortion with loads of low end with a slight natural scoop. Roll up the Sustain for wall-shaking bass notes or sustaining lead and adjust the Tone for a wild and wide frequency response from aggressive top end to low-end rumble. This thing is deep and will cover pretty much anything you can throw at it.
Each Chelsea is handmade at EarthQuaker Devices headquarters in always sunny Akron, Ohio, USA.
An all-new circuit designed to blend the best of vintage fuzz character with modern flexibility, offering guitarists a shape-shifting fuzz experience.
Features
- The Character Control (Bias Knob) ā The heart of the Cryptid Fuzz, this knob redefines your fuzz tone.
- Turn it down for a smooth, distortion-like fuzz with warm sustain.
- Crank it up for gated, Velcro, glitchy chaos inspired by the Fuzz Factory and experimental fuzz sounds.
- Chime & Tight Switches
- The Chime switch adds three levels of harmonic sparkle without making your tone harsh.
- The Tight switch sculpts three levels of low-end response, letting you dial in a thick, heavy fuzz or a sharper, punchier tone that cuts through any mix.
- Fuzz That Cleans Up ā Like the best vintage fuzz pedals, the Cryptid Fuzz reacts dynamically to your guitarās volume and tone knobs. Roll back the fuzz control for glassy cleans or turn it up for full-throttle fuzz intensity.
- More Than Just a Fuzz ā With Volume, Tone, Fuzz, and Character controls, the Cryptid isnāt limited to one soundāit goes from gnarly, woolly sustain to tight, distortion tones, making it entirely usable as an overdrive as well.
- A Unique Circuit, Not Just a Clone ā The Cryptid Fuzz is a blend of transistors, FETs, and an op-amp stage, designed from the ground up to provide a brand-new fuzz experience - this isnāt yet another copy of any other existing fuzz pedal.
āIāve always felt something was missing from fuzz pedals,ā Wampler explains. āI tried to get there with the Velvet Fuzz over 10 years ago, but I knew I could go further. The Cryptid Fuzz is the culmination of everything Iāve ever wanted in a fuzz pedal.ā
Designed to honor legendary fuzz tones from artists like Jimi Hendrix, Mick Ronson, J. Mascis, and Jack White, the Cryptid Fuzz also inspires individualityāgiving players a tonal playground for discovering new sounds and textures.
Whether youāre after classic, soaring leads, heavy, bass-driven fuzz, or glitchy, spitty, unpredictable tones, the Cryptid Fuzz delivers.
Pricing & Availability
The Wampler Cryptid Fuzz is available now at a street price of $199.99. Learn more athttps://www.wamplerpedals.com/products/fuzz/cryptid-fuzz/ or visit your favorite authorized Wampler dealer
Reader: Cary Cummings
Hometown: Seattle, WA
Guitar: Labrocaster
Cary Cummingsā dog-obsessed axes have appeared in this column in the past? Do any of our readers have a cat-o-caster? If so, please share.
A partscaster took on a whole new meaning when a simple canine-inspired logo took shape.
Winter was coming. I wanted to make my sunburst sunnier. I wanted to update and revive itāsomething classy, yet sassy, like the unsinkable John Bohlingerās rakish hairdo (Iād wager he is a Dapper Dan man). It needed to sound vibrant, look happy, play great, and be versatile enough to cover a lot of ground. Something that calls out: āPlay me! Letās get lost for a while and forget our troubles.ā
I started with an older Warmoth Strat-style alder body from an old project and added a Warmoth vintage-style, 1-piece maple neck with 6100 frets, a 43 mm nut slot, and a Fatback profile. It wasnāt quite right. I sanded the profile down to a comfortable 0.96" at the first fret and finished it off with a wipe-on polyurethane finish and affixed my signature Labrador graphic to the headstock. The Labrador on the headstock is an homage to my three Labrador retrievers and to my previous three who have crossed the Rainbow Bridge. And if ever there was a breed of dog that is a happy clown, it is a Labrador retriever. Just looking at them makes me smile.
A set of Guyker Dopamine vintage locking tuners in blue and rose started me down the yellow-brick road. My entourage included a blue anodized aluminum pickguard and backplate, a red metal switch tip, and purple stainless steel saddles for the Fender American Special bridge and jack plate. Pretty.
Caryās love for his herd of Labs inspired him to create a signature logo for the headstock.
Letās get down to the nitty-gritty. Itās wired up with 22 AWG pushback cloth wire, 3XCTS 250K pots, an Oak Grigsby switch, a Switchcraft jack, and a 0.015 ceramic disk capacitor. The capacitor takes the treble off but not so much midrange that comes standard in so many guitars. The bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan Red Devil, the middle is a Duncan Hot Stack, and the neck is a Duncan Parallel Axis Stackāall noiseless.
The final touch is the DāAddario elliptical-shaped strap buttons. Now, when I rock out in my living room, sending the guitar flying over my shoulder and around my back, nothing gets damaged!
Cary Cummings and one of his Labrador retrievers.
Intermediate
Intermediate
⢠Get familiar with power chords on every string set
⢠Create new sounds with tried-and-true shapes
⢠Use the entire neck with compelling power-chord-based lines
We all know that grip, but power chords actually come in many forms and sizes, and they fit equally well in a powerful riff or a more ethereal-sounding part. This lesson presents a handful of examples aimed at extending your power-chord vocabulary, with particular attention to range and orchestration.
Power chords represent a true staple for many of us guitarists. Accessible yet captivating, they provide the foundation for a lot of music we love. I still remember the countless hours spent playing Nirvana or Green Day riffs when I first picked up the guitar. Fast-forwarding to my current career as a session player, Iāve found myself extending the use of power chords to many different purposes and styles.
Power chords indeed come in many shapes, making for a comprehensive tool to have in your arsenal. In this lesson Iām going to focus on a few key aspects:
- No matter where and how you play them, power chords always sound tight, economical, and effective, tracking really well even when using large amounts of distortion, reverb, or delay.
- Power chords are well known for delivering dynamic, high-energy parts in the low/mid register, but they work equally well for creating textures in the higher portion of the fretboard.
- Power chords are versatile, and they feel āat homeā in a wide variety of genres and styles.
The first part of the lesson focuses on extending our knowledge of power chord shapes across the fretboard, and is made up of four preparatory exercises, each one focusing on a specific key, set of strings, or guitar arrangement. The second part of the lesson is aimed at providing six practical applications of these concepts, spanning different styles of music.
The main goal of this exercise is to develop familiarity with power chord shapes that start from the 5th of a given chord (5-1-5), instead of just the root (1-5-1). When combining the two, it is possible to play multiple iterations of the same chord progression up and down the neck on a string-set of your choice, providing more flexibility in terms of range and voicing. Ex. 1 illustrates a I-V-VI-IV chord progression in the key of E, to be executed using three-note power chords on the 6th, 5th, and 4th strings. The style chosen for this sequence is fairly common to a lot of rock and pop-rock applications.
Ex. 2 is structured exactly as Ex. 1, but changing the key, string set, and guitar arrangement. Here youāll find a I-V-VI-IV chord progression in the key of A, played using three-note power chords on the 5th, 4th, and 3rd strings. The style chosen for this example is a palm-muted arpeggio with a nostalgic, ā80s feel and sound. Notice how, despite the key, the shapes of each chord are the same as the ones in Ex. 1.
Ex. 3 is another iteration of the same concept. This example illustrates a I-V-VI-IV chord progression in the key of D, to be played using three-note power chords on the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd strings. The sequence is executed using a syncopated funk pattern. Youāll notice how the two basic power-chord shapes (1-5-1 and 5-1-5) present a different fingering on this specific string set compared to the previous two exercises, but the interval structure of the chords does not change.
As the last preparatory exercise, Ex. 4 is a I-V-VI-IV progression in the key of G, to be played using three-note power chords on the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings. The style for this one is a classic palm-muted arpeggio using a dotted-eighth-note delay. These shapes might feel a little unconventional, but they make for a great resource when playing textures in the upper register of the guitar.
Ex. 5 is what I call āfake drop tuning.ā I find this application to be extremely helpful to add depth to riffs in the lower register, especially for heavier styles of music. The idea is to substitute in standard tuning any power chord in root position (1-5-1) with its inversion starting from the 5th degree (5-1-5), allowing us to āsimulateā the sound of a drop tuning (drop D on this example).
Ex. 6 implements power-chord shapes on different sets of strings, allowing us to play a high-register/textural part conveniently contained in a box between the 12th and 17th frets. Some passages of this exercise include notes that arenāt just roots and fifths, albeit still in line with the diatonic nature of the harmonic sequence.
Ex. 7 features a different way of articulating a two-note power chord (1-5), by playing the fifth not on the string right next to where the root is, but skipping to the next highest one instead. The end result is a leaner-sounding alternative to a standard shape, and can be quite helpful when playing chord melodies in the mid-to-high register of the guitar.
Using a similar approach to Ex. 6, Ex. 8 implements power-chord shapes on different sets of strings to craft a fast-paced funk guitar part in the style of Cory Wong. Notice how the entire chord progression is contained in a total of six frets.
Ex. 9 shows a way to use two-note power chords to imply a certain harmonic sequence over a pedal point. On this specific instance, the pedal is provided by an open D string, with power-chord shapes on the 2nd and 3rd strings layered on top, configured both as 1-5 and 5-1.
Ex. 10 is one last arrangement featuring a combination of power-chord shapes in a box. The goal stays the same: to create a guitar part that sits in a specific part of the mix, providing a distinctive sonic quality. All chords are embellished with notes that arenāt just roots and 5ths, but still in line with the diatonic nature of the progression.
I hope these examples were able to provide some fresh new ideas on how to use power chords in a variety of settings. I encourage you to make these concepts your own, and to try to apply them when crafting a new guitar part. You might find the simplicity of power chords refreshing and, ultimately, inspiring.