While the attention of the sports world is on South Africa because of the
World Cup soccer tournament, Murray Kuun Design & Lutherie recently
caught our eye. The one-man shop based in Johannesburg, South Africa, is
run by woodworker and furniture designer-turned-luthier Murray Kuun. After
20 years of designing and creating less musical wood creations like beds,
kitchen countertops, and entertainment centers, Kuun decided to add luthier
to his woodworking résumé.
For about nine years, Kuun constructed violins ranging from the 18th century
classical instrument to the hand-carved, jacaranda-based X-bow, which
resembled a futuristic a crossbow more than a violin. Three years ago he
moved into the world of archtops and acoustics. In a short amount of time,
Kuun has developed several models, including the Norma Jean Family guitars
dedicated to his favorite American actress, Norma Jeane Mortenson—aka
Marilyn Monroe. His guitars maintain a more traditional look and feel compared
to some of his violins. “I consider myself an artist and designer rather
than a technician,” says Kuun. “Most of the changes I’ve made are aesthetic
… I generally use traditional bracing and building techniques until recently
with my Moon and Stars Classical.”
Sonata
The classical Sonata is a guitar that embraces the tonewoods found in Kuun’s
homeland of Africa. It features an African mahogany neck with an Indian rosewood
fingerboard. The soundhole inlays are made from African rosewood and wild olive.
The back and sides are made with African rosewood. The only part of the guitar
lacking African woods is the top, which is made of European spruce.
Norma Jean Archtop
The Norma Jean Archtop is all
hand-carved with a red cedar
top and birdseye maple back
and sides. It’s loaded with
a chrome Kent Armstrong
Slimbucker Neck Jazz pickup.
The pickguard is koa and
attached to it is a discrete volume
control only sticking out a
few millimeters. Like standard
archtops, the Indian rosewood
bridge’s height can be adjusted,
as can its intonation. “In terms
of traditional American archtop
builders, I really admire the
guitars of Ken Parker and Bob
Benedetto,” says Kunn.
Moon and Stars Classical
On the Moon and Stars Classical, Kuun flexes some of his design talents on its innovative bracing and
laminated linings that create a “very stiff, but responsively powerful top that gives the guitar a crystal clear
clarity and sustain.” He implemented a fanned lattice-style bracing derived from cathedral architecture
that’s “designed to relieve the string tension the neck is put under and negate any problems it could
inflict on the soundbox … it just helps create a spectacular sounding guitar with its own vocabulary.”
In addition to the structural changes, Kuun aesthetically jazzed this model up by giving it a unique
moon-shaped soundhole that is lined with genuine tanzanite stones for the appearance of stars. The
tonewoods include a western red cedar top and Indian mahogany back, sides, bridge and binding. It
has a Honduras cedar neck paired with an ebony fretboard.
Norma Jean Classical
The Norma Jean Classical
features a German spruce top
with curly maple back and
sides. The neck is made from
a blonde mahogany and is
matched with an Indian rosewood
fretboard. The guitar’s
aesthetic is minimalist, but it
does have soundhole inlays
made of wild olive.
Pricing and Availability
Murray Kuun’s guitars start at around $3500, but vary depending on the particular model
and its specifications because each instrument is individually priced and made. Also, the
wait time on a Murray Kuun guitar varies between three months and a year, depending
on the backlog of orders and the availability of materials.
murraykuun.com
EBS BassIQ Blue Label Triple Envelope Filter Pedal
The EBS BassIQ produces sounds ranging from classic auto-wah effects to spaced-out "Funkadelic" and synth-bass sounds. It is for everyone looking for a fun, fat-sounding, and responsive envelope filter that reacts to how you play in a musical way.
Reverend Vernon Reid Totem Series Electric Guitar - Shaman
Silos features six presets, tap tempo, one full second of delay time, and three voices—two of which are styled after bucket-brigade and tape-delay sounds. In the $150 price category, it’s not unusual for a digital delay to leave some number of those functions out. And spending the same money on a true-analog alternative usually means warm, enveloping sounds but limited functionality and delay time. Silos, improbably perhaps, offers a very elegant solution to this can’t-have-it-all dilemma in a U.S.-made effect.
A More Complete Cobbling Together
Silos’ utility is bolstered by a very unintimidating control set, which is streamlined and approachable. Three of those controls are dedicated to the same mix, time, and repeats controls you see on any delay. But saving a preset to one of the six spots on the rotary preset dial is as easy as holding the green/red illuminated button just below the mix and preset knobs. And you certainly won’t get lost in the weeds if you move to the 3-position toggle, which switches between a clear “digital” voice, darker “analog” voice, and a “tape” voice which is darker still.
“The three voices offer discernibly different response to gain devices.”
One might suspect that a tone control for the repeats offers similar functionality as the voice toggle switch. But while it’s true that the most obvious audible differences between digital, BBD, and tape delays are apparent in the relative fidelity and darkness of their echoes, the Silos’ three voices behave differently in ways that are more complex than lighter or duskier tonality. For instance, the digital voice will never exhibit runaway oscillation, even at maximum mix and repeat settings. Instead, repeats fade out after about six seconds (at the fastest time settings) or create sleepy layers of slow-decaying repeats that enhance detail in complex, sprawling, loop-like melodic phrases. The analog voice and tape voice, on the other hand, will happily feed back to psychotic extremes. Both also offer satisfying sensitivity to real-time, on-the-fly adjustments. For example, I was tickled with how I could generate Apocalypse Now helicopter-chop effects and fade them in and out of prominence as if they were approaching or receding in proximity—an effect made easier still if you assign an expression pedal to the mix control. This kind of interactivity is what makes analog machines like the Echoplex, Space Echo, and Memory Man transcend mere delay status, and the sensitivity and just-right resistance make the process of manipulating repeats endlessly engaging.
Doesn't Flinch at Filth
EarthQuaker makes a point of highlighting the Silos’ affinity for dirty and distorted sounds. I did not notice that it behaved light-years better than other delays in this regard. But the three voices most definitely offer discernibly different responses to gain devices. The super-clear first repeat in the digital mode lends clarity and melodic focus, even to hectic, unpredictable, fractured fuzzes. The analog voice, which EQD says is inspired by the tone makeup of a 1980s-vintage, Japan-made KMD bucket brigade echo, handles fuzz forgivingly inasmuch as its repeats fade warmly and evenly, but the strong midrange also keeps many overtones present as the echoes fade. The tape voice, which uses aMaestro Echoplex as its sonic inspiration, is distinctly dirtier and creates more nebulous undercurrents in the repeats. If you want to retain clarity in more melodic settings, it will create a warm glow around repeats at conservative levels. Push it, and it will summon thick, sometimes droning haze that makes a great backdrop for slower, simpler, and hooky psychedelic riffs.
In clean applications, this decay and tone profile lend the tape setting a spooky, foggy aura that suggests the cold vastness of outer space. The analog voice often displays an authentic BBD clickiness in clean repeats that’s sweet for underscoring rhythmic patterns, while the digital voice’s pronounced regularity adds a clockwork quality that supports more up-tempo, driving, electronic rhythms.
The Verdict
Silos’ combination of features seems like a very obvious and appealing one. But bringing it all together at just less than 150 bucks represents a smart, adept threading of the cost/feature needle.
EarthQuaker Devices Silos Multi-generational Time Reflection Delay Pedal
