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Rig Rundown: The Struts

One of the U.K.’s most buzzed-about rock bands shares the stories behind gear with two settings—loud and louder.

One half of Adam Slack’s two-amp setup is this Vox AC30 head with matching 2x12 cab loaded with Celestion G12M Greenback speakers.

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Dynamic and pitch control of delay textures pave roads to new compositional and playing approaches in another unusual effect from Latvia’s foremost stompbox provocateurs.

Impressive control over parameters. Coaxes new playing and compositional approaches for players in a rut. High build quality.

Interrelationships between controls will be hard to grasp for many.

$329

Gamechanger Audio Auto Delay
gamechangeraudio.com

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From the outset, it must be said there are easier ways to get a delay sound than using Gamechanger’s Auto Delay. But if simple echoes were the sole objective of this pedal, I doubtGamechanger would have bothered. As you may have gleaned from a listen to the company’sBigsby Pedal,PLASMA Pedal fuzz, orLIGHT Pedal reverb, the Riga, Latvia-based company rarely takes a conventional approach to anything they design or release. But what is “conventional” from a guitarist’s point of view, may be something quite different for musicians determined to bend notions of what sound and music are, how it’s made, and by what means.

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The Smiths’ 1984 press shot. From left to right: Andy Rourke, Morrissey, Johnny Marr, and Mike Joyce.

Bassists from California’s finest Smiths tribute bands weigh-in on Andy Rourke’s most fun-to-play parts.

Listen to the Smiths, the iconic 1980s indie-rock band from Manchester, and you’ll hear Andy Rourke’s well-crafted bass lines snaking around Johnny Marr’s intricate guitar work, Mike Joyce’s energetic drumming, and singer Morrissey’s wry vocal delivery.

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Guitarist Brandon Seabrook, architect of fretboard chaos, and his trusty HMT Tele.

Photo by Reuben Radding

With a modified and well-worn heavy metal Tele, a Jerry Jones 12-string, a couple banjos, some tape sounds, and a mountain of fast-picking chops, New York’s master of guitar mayhem delivers Object of Unknown Function.

“It’s like time travel,” says Brandon Seabrook, reflecting on the sonic whiplash of “Object of Unknown Function.” The piece, which opens the composer’s solo album of the same name, journeys jarringly from aggressive “early banjo stuff” up through “more 21st-century classical music,” combined with electronic found sounds from a TASCAM 4-track cassette recorder. The end result approaches the disorientation of musique concréte.

“The structure is kind of like hopping centuries or epochs,” he adds. “I [wanted] all these different worlds to collide. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure.”

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The Fearless Flyers' Cory Wong & Mark Lettieri Rig Rundown
- YouTube

Cory Wong and his Flyers comrade Mark Lettieri do a little show-and-tell at their summer camp.


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