The Extreme guitarist shares his pedal philosophy—including how a visit from EVH inspired him to use a phaser on the new record—and talks about ripping with Rihanna at the Super Bowl and more.
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Nuno Bettencourt on Pedals
I have a love-hate relationship with pedals. That's why I don't use anything, because I've always felt they get in the way of what you're trying to say if you use them wrong, especially with choruses and things like that. When Edward switched from being straight in your face, and then started splitting things left and right and chorusing and doing that, which was amazing and creative and beautiful, I lost a lot of him. I heard less of him and I heard more of what it was going through as the voice.
And I really prefer any guitar player, whether it's Brian May or Jimmy Page especially, anybody, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Meaning, sometimes it's not the greatest tone in the world and sometimes it's not the prettiest to listen to, but there's an emotion there, and I think pedals and what you do processing-wise gets in the way. The notes are there, but they get in the way of expression and emotion because there's a physicality that you have in your fingers that, to me, it's like I always try to find that straight shot from here to there, to that speaker, to that microphone, to the record.
And it's funny because recently, let me drop a name, Steve Vai. Recently, when I was at Steve Vai's house, he wanted to hear the album before it came out. So I drove to his house. He has an amazing studio, and he's like, "Let's play it from top to bottom." He's like, "We're not going to stop. I want to listen to this damn tone." And he stopped after every song, he's like, "All right, now wait a second." I'm like, "Steve, we're supposed to listen to this like an album." He goes, "Yeah, yeah, but the guitar's right there. How did you get it to be right there?" I just said, "Because there's nothing there. There's no magic, no hocus-pocus.”
It's always been a 57 and a 421, and I don't do anything to equalize, and I let it be on the outside of the center of the speaker, outside the cone, and I let it go. And yeah, I'll use a little delay. Delay is different for me or so revere because it enhances what you've done already. What I need is the type of processing that becomes the body of what you're doing, it becomes part of that note, if you know what I mean. That's like more of... And I always feel like, as a guitar player, the real you tends to never never come out when you do chorusing or flanging or something. Unless you want it for an effect. It's like an effect or even to make it pretty. Sometimes we do chorus with chorusing stuff or you want it to... By the way, you want it to have that sound and that just a big body of just beauty, then you're doing it right.
I don't think there's a right or wrong, don't get me wrong. I'm not being a pedal snob or anything. But for me, I love my heroes and the guitar players I heard when there's not much in the way of their hands, and they find the right amp to just be that extra voice for them to interpret what they're doing with their hands. And that's always been my goal. And amps have changed every album, but I think wherever your headspace is at, that becomes the tone.
Nuno Bettencourt on Why He Doesn't Use Pedals | Wong Notes Podcast
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Peterson StroboStomp Mini Pedal Tuner
| The StroboStomp Mini delivers the unmatched 0.1 cent tuning accuracy of all authentic Peterson Strobe Tuners in a mini pedal tuner format. We designed StroboStomp Mini around the most requested features from our customers: a mini form factor, and top mounted jacks. |
But by gosh, if delay—and its sister effect, reverb—haven’t always been perfect for the music I like to write and play. Which brings us to the Fishman EchoBack Mini Delay. The EchoBack, along with the standard delay controls of level, time, and repeats—as well as a tap tempo—has a toggle to alternate between analog, tape, and digital-delay voices.
I hooked up my Washburn Bella Tono Elegante to my Blues Junior to give the EchoBack a test run. We love a medium delay—my usual preference for delay settings is to have both level and repeats at 1 o’clock, and time at 11 o’clock. With the analog voice switched on, I heard some pillowy warmth in the processed signal, as well as a familiar degradation with each repeat—until their wake gave way to a gentle, distant, crinkly ticking. Staying on analog and adjusting delay time down to 8 o’clock and repeats to about 11:30, some cozy slapback enveloped my rendition of Johnny Marr’s part to “Back to the Old House,” conjuring up thoughts of Elvis trapped in a small chamber, but in a good way. It sounded indubitably authentic. The one drawback of analog delay for me, generally, is that its roundness can feel a bit under water at times.
Switching over to tape, that pillowy warmth evaporated, and in its place came a very clear replication of my tone—but with just a bit of the highs shaved off the top. With the settings at the medium-length mode listed above, I could see the empty, glass hall the pedal sent my sound bouncing down. I heard several pronounced pings of repeats before the signal fully faded out. On slapback settings (time at 8 o’clock, repeats at 11:30), rather than Elvis, I heard something more along the lines of a honky-tonk mic in a glass bottle. Still relatively crystalline, which actually was not my favorite. I like a bit more crinkle—so maybe analog is my bag....“That pillowy warmth evaporated, and in its place came a very clear, pristine replication of my tone—but with just a bit of the highs shaved off the top.”
Next up, digital. Here we have the brightest voice, and as expected, the most faithful repeats. They ping just a few times before shifting to a smooth, single undulating wave. When putting its slapback hat on, I found that the effect was a bit less alluring than I’d observed for the analog and tape voices. This is where the digital delay felt a little too sterile, with the cleanly preserved signal feeling a bit unnatural.
All in all, I dig the EchoBack for its replications of analog and tape voices, and ultimately, lean towards tape. While it’s nice having the digital delay there as an option, it feels a bit too clean when meddling with time of any given length. Nonetheless, this is surely a handy stomp for any acoustic player looking to venture into the land of live effects, or for those who are already there.
