“Analog voicing” in digital delays typically refers to approximations of the foggy, frayed echoes created by a chain of analog bucket brigade devices. Digital devices aspiring to analog-ness usually accomplish this with little EQ tweaks elsewhere in the chain. And it sounds cool when done right.
Austin, Texas’ Berserker Electronics employs a multi-pronged approach to generating analog warmth from their very inexpensive, well-made, USA-built Aquanaut. To start, designer James Millican uses analog filtering at the input and output—inspired in part by the analog Way Huge Aqua-Puss and Boss DM-2. And for generating the repeats, he employs the PT2399 chip, an inexpensive and abundant digital unit originally conceived for karaoke machines that also drives delay devices like the EarthQuaker Space Spiral, Death By Audio Echo Dream 2, Caroline Kilobyte, and others categorized and marketed under the “vintage” and “lo-fi” umbrellas. This formula really works in the Aquanaut, adding an appealing analog-like toastiness that, apart from the absence of clock noise, could fool experienced analog delay users.
Deftly Walking the Digital Divide
The few limitations in the Aquanaut design have little bearing in basic delay applications. If you use oscillation effects at high mix and repeat levels, however, you might find the Aquanaut’s controls feel a little uptight compared to true BBD effects. Some users might like this less twitchy and temperamental feel. But it’s likely everyone can appreciate the generously proportioned and easy-to-manipulate blend and delay knobs, which facilitate hands-on Nigel Godrich flying-saucer-liftoff effects, Jimmy Page Echoplex manglings, and other outer-limits oscillation-based sounds.
“The Aquanaut responds to dirty, distorted tones in the same visceral, haunted way a BBD device does.”
As for the repeats, they’re warm and contoured at the edges, with a little more capacity for midrange detail than the Supa-Puss and Carbon Copy I used for comparison. That said, there is haze aplenty. By pushing the PT2399 beyond its usual 300ms maximum repeat time spec, Millican introduced some distortion to the repeats. The analog input stage filtering, meanwhile, removes some of the high frequencies in that distortion. There’s also a diode limiter before the delay chip. This recipe adds a lot of the ambience—some might call it signal pollution—that makes real bucket brigade echoes sound so hazily mysterious and immersive. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hear slightly more of this ambience in the repeats of a Supa-Puss and Carbon Copy. But the Aquanaut’s version is pleasing and practical in other ways. And like my real BBD echoes, the Aquanaut responds to dirty, distorted tones in the same visceral, haunted way a BBD device does—rounding off edgy harmonic peaks and adding a very open compression that allows plenty of room for aggressive picking dynamics.
The Verdict
At $129, the Aquanaut is just $20 less than the genuine bucket brigade MXR Carbon Copy and the same price as digital delays like the TC Flashback, which features a less dimensional “analog” simulation. Yet it’s a high-quality pedal, and the compromises inherent to this kind of design are executed in a way that doesn’t require many sacrifices in sound, quality, or value. James Millican and Berserker pulled off a nice balancing act here—assimilating virtues from great, straight-ahead BBDs without the clock noise, and with a little extra headroom and midrange fidelity that dovetails beautifully with drive, distortion, and fuzz.
Does the uncertainty of tariffs provide an opportunity for builders who’ve been collecting vintage, rare, and favorite electronics to turn them into cool, premium pedals?
I’ve been thinking recently about the state of electronic components as it pertains to imports and tariffs. Now, before you get turned off, this will be from a manufacturing perspective and not a political one. This is actually in line with my very first article about supply-chain issues, from the March 2022 issue.
I feel pretty confident saying that most of us pedal manufacturers are collectors and enjoyers of components—especially vintage and rare ones. Quite possibly to the extent that it encroaches on pack-rat behavior. I’m no Analog Man, but I have personally accrued components for a variety of reasons: discontinued models, overstock, vintage coolness, and even wishful thinking. These components typically sit dormant, patiently waiting for their chance to be called up to the big show, all the while looking on from the sidelines as standard production components rule the roost.
So, how do these components play a role in the conversation as it pertains to tariffs? Well, as we monitor the rollercoaster that is import tariffs on foreign goods, it makes me think about looking internally. Now, that’s not me subtly implying a “make the stuff in America” ideology. It’s more about taking stock of the component collections already here and creating what we can with what we have. It’s the practice of creating when working within limitations—the antithesis of option paralysis. When you’re given limitations, it often breeds creativity in a healthy and productive way.
Up until a few years ago, I had been collecting a bin of special parts. This bin ranges from cool transistors to germanium diodes to bags of my personal favorites, tropical-fish capacitors. These are caps that I scrub through internet marketplaces to procure. They aren’t prominent in any current products, but for me they fall into that aforementioned “wishful thinking” or “one of these days” categories. It’s the equivalent of a hutch or cabinetry to accommodate a fine china collection—those plates you never use because your mom was saving them for special occasions, and now they’re yours.
As much as I appreciate the idea of a special occasion, that concept can lead to an idea or project being placed on the back burner indefinitely—shades of the saying “perfect is the enemy of done.” There may never be an occasion that is deemed special enough. Let’s also remember that we are the givers of value and one person’s mundane is another’s special occasion.
“When you’re given limitations, it often breeds creativity in a healthy and productive way.”
You’ve probably heard enough philosophical cork-sniffery from me for one article, so let’s get back to pedals and components! Now the joy for these components is not just the province of builders; it’s also often important to players. To reference Analog Man again, when looking at ordering options for a Sun Face fuzz from their website, I was presented with 18 transistor options. This helps corroborate the idea that players get on the same nerd level as builders. Both share a joy for these little electronic components. Choosing your pedal-to-be’s transistors is the same thing as your friend that’s a car nut ordering custom parts from a small body shop.
Creativity is something I would categorize as an unstoppable force. Much like how Dr. Ian Malcolm said “life finds a way” in Jurassic Park, I say creativity demands an outlet. Suppression is futile. So let’s bring it back to those fancy dinner plates in the hutch. They’re screaming to be used and not just left on a trajectory of an unfulfilled future.
The thought of this unfulfilled future is something that sticks in my head. It makes me take that image of plates and replace it with that bin of components. That, compounded with import difficulties, leads me to more aggressively entertain the idea of moving forward with that bin of parts and bring something fun to life. Perhaps these tariffs are the catalyst us pack rats need; perhaps we’re ready to take that fine china out of the hutch.
Trending instrumental guitarist Al Nesbitt and his all-star band deliver their newest track to fans everywhere.
The band announced its latest independently-released single is an original composition penned by Nesbitt that includes memorable melodies—all captured and mixed byGrammy award recipient, Steve Smith. An all-new music video accompanies the single and can be found on the band’s YouTube Channel.
Nesbitt comments, “Steve’s work has been just beautiful. Everything has its own space in the mix, but each track becomes very cohesive and big when it needs to be.
”The legendary “Fretless Monster” Tony Franklin of The Firm, Blue Murder, Kenny WayneSheppard, David Gilmour and Kate Bush fame provides world class bass lines with his signatureFender Fretless Precision Bass.
Completing the rhythm section is ace studio drummer, Curt Bisquera. Kirkee B as he is also known, has played with notable artists including Tom Petty, Mick Jagger, Elton John and ChrisIsaak. Bisquera and Franklin lock in a solid foundation for Nesbitt’s nylon string solos and hooks.
Keyboardist extraordinaire, Jonathan Sindelman completes the four-piece ensemble and has contributed to the music of GooGoosh, Alan White Band, Furious Bongos, Element Band. Sindelman’s impressive solos are featured throughout the “The Lost Night” as well as the “Live in Seattle” EP.
Follow Al Nesbitt and the Alchemy on Facebook and Instagram. “Live in Seattle” including “TheLost Night” and first single “Room 53” can be streamed on Spotify.
Is music the galactic language? Our columnist contemplates breaking down even the most far-out barriers with the power of song.
In the 2015 animated film Home, the heroine, voiced by Rihanna, plays Rihanna’s “Dancing in the Dark” for Oh, an affable alien whose tribe, the Boov, have overtaken the world. Oh hates the song, claiming it’s “not even music.” Yet, as the beat hits, his body betrays him, twitching and gyrating to the groove. Oh cries, “You have tricked me into listening to a debilitating sonic weapon. I am not in control of my own extremities!” It’s a cartoon, sure, but it nails a truth: Music, whether you’re human or Boov, grabs you by the soul—or at least the hips.
Play the first few bars of Chaka Khan and Rufus’s “Tell Me Something Good” or AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” and bodies move—doesn’t matter if it’s Tokyo, Nashville, or a yurt in Mongolia. This is not an exclusively human response. We can see both domesticated and wild animals move to music. Even plants, without the benefit of ears or a nervous system, respond to music.
So if music is the international language of Earth, what about beyond our planet? Just a few years ago, if you admitted you believed in alien life, the general public would act like you were crazy. But in these James-Webb-Telescope, Space-Force days, most agree that there is probably a whole lot outside of our little rock. That being established, one has to ask: Will life forms outside our world dig “Bohemian Rhapsody?”
Here’s the rub: Space is silent. Sound needs a medium—air, water, something—in which to travel. Space is a vacuum, so your Marshall stack’s wail dies before it leaves the stratosphere. But sound isn’t totally absent out there. In rare spots, like plasma clouds or planetary atmospheres, vibrations can carry. But even if the vibrations carry, is there anything or anyone there, and do they have ears?
Humans hear sound through ears tuned to 20–20,000 Hz, but some theorize aliens might sense sound differently—not through ears but via skin, picking up vibrations like a cosmic bass drop. That’s not much of a stretch when you consider that plants in lab experiments respond to music via cells called mechanoreceptors, growing faster when serenaded with Mozart. If ferns can vibe, why not E.T.?
Still, there’s no proof aliens have music or the brains to make it. Their sensory organs might be so alien that our 440 Hz-tuned melodies sound like static. Imagine a species evolved in a vacuum, communicating through light pulses like fireflies or electric fields like sharks. Or, if aliens have mastered sound waves to move pyramids or carve Petra in Jordan (as some fringe theories suggest), they might scoff at our use of music to shake our asses rather than build complex architecture.
“If ferns can vibe, why not E.T.?”
But here’s where it gets wild. Sound might not just be vibes—it could carry mass. A 2019 Scientific American article dropped a mind-bender: Phonons, the particles of sound, may have a tiny negative mass, like a hydrogen atom. In water, these phonons fall upward against gravity at a measly 1 degree over 15 kilometers. It’s barely measurable, but it hints at sound’s untapped power. If aliens use sonic waves to teleport (as abduction stories claim), time travel, or levitate stones, our Spotify playlists might seem like cave paintings to their sonic tech.
Yet, primitive or not, music hits us where it counts. It’s emotional, instinctual, universal. When Oh dances despite himself, it’s a reminder that music bypasses the brain and goes straight for the gut. That’s why we’ve sent it to the stars with the Voyager Golden Records, launched in 1977 with Voyager 1. Curated by Carl Sagan, it’s two copies of a gold-plated LP carrying Earth’s greatest hits: Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” Bulgarian folk music, Senegalese percussion, even whale songs. Sagan called it a “bottle into the cosmic ocean,” a hopeful bet that advanced aliens might spin it and get us. In 2008, NASA beamed the Beatles’ “Across the Universe” toward Polaris at 186,000 miles per second. Yoko Ono called it the dawn of interplanetary communication. And Vangelis’ Mythodea soundtracked NASA’s 2001 Mars mission, because nothing says cosmic like a synth symphony.
So, are we naive to think music’s our galactic handshake? Maybe. Aliens might hear “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and think it’s a distress signal. Or they might have no concept of melody, their culture built on silent pulses we can’t fathom. But I’m with Sagan—there’s hope in the attempt. Music’s our best shot because it’s us at our rawest: joy, pain, love, all distilled into a riff or a chord. If aliens don’t get that, they’re missing out.
Maybe music’s not the galactic language—maybe it’s just ours. But if it makes us dance, cry, or feel alive, that’s enough. Here’s to the last call, when the amps are off, but the song’s still ringing in your bones. Raise a glass to the hope that somewhere, out there, an alien’s tapping its foot.
You already know about Peter Frampton’s use of the Talk Box and the wild success of Frampton Comes Alive. On this episode of 100 Guitarists, we’re celebrating those things, but we’re also getting into all the stuff that made Frampton so great, from Humble Pie to his Simpsons cameo. His smashing success often overshadows some of the other fun facts about his life, like how he once played in a band managed by Bill Wyman, or his long friendship—and musical collaboration—with David Bowie.
Our very own Jason Shadrick tells the story of the time he played Frampton’s famous Les Paul and how that guitar got its very own standing ovation.