What's your favorite overdrive/distortion pedal and why?
Andrew Leahey – Andrew Leahey & the Homestead
Photo by Jen Gray
A: It's like a battlefield over here, with two pedals fighting for the role of my "always on" overdrive. For years, I've been using the Greer Lightspeed Organic Overdrive. I'll set the volume at 2 o'clock and the drive at 11 o'clock, then plug into my AC30 and turn up. I love the clean and crunchy tones that can both be coaxed from the pedal, depending on how hard I play.
The Benson Preamp is a newer addition to my arsenal and also works as a "set it and forget it" pedal, although I usually find myself adjusting the knobs between songs, dialing up some fuzz one minute and some raw British vibes the next. I'm trying to make room in my life (and on my board) for both of these pedals. Please send help.
Current Obsession:
I'm falling in love with touring all over again. I just got back from a short run of shows on the East Coast—my first out-of-town gigs since February 2020—and it feels like someone flipped a switch in a dark room. Like I can see where I'm going again. People get tired of touring all the time, but even the bad parts start to look pretty good after you've been stuck at home for so long. We have an 8-hour drive? An early wake-up call? A broken AC in the van? Bring it on. At this point, I'll drive down pretty much any road if there's a show waiting for me at the end.
Jason D. Killips – Reader of the Month
A: My klone from a $50 kit because it was 100-percent handwired by my 14-year-old son. And it sounds great! Here's a photo of me and my son, Mav (Maverick), by our basement worktable with my Tele project on it.
Current Obsession:
My current musical obsessions are the Tedeschi Trucks Band's new Layla Revisited album, and Jason Isbell's lead-guitar tone on "Overseas."
Shawn Hammond – Chief Content Officer
A: My core sound—on-the-verge breakup from my Fender Vibrolux Reverb—is a combination of a SoundBrut DrVa Mk.II's MOSFET variable boost circuit and a Ground Control Tsukuyomi midrange boost.
The MOSFET circuitry adds a lovely cushiness to the sound, while the Tsukuyomi adds sparkle that's been hard to get otherwise. For bristling distortion, I add in the SoundBrut's op-amp drive channel.
Current Obsession:
I've been playing pretty heavy strings for many years now—.011s for standard tuning, .013s for D-standard, and .014s for baritone guitars—but carpal/tendon pain has got me moving back to .010s and .012s. The reduced strain and easier playing action are refreshingly freeing. I feel like a better player now, too!
Nick Millevoi – Associate Editor
A: My favorite overdrive or distortion pedal will change depending on the task, but the Analogman King of Tone sure covers a lot of ground. It works great with my rig and pushes my amps in a warm, natural, and responsive way that's hard to beat for an impressive range of tones that span the distorted spectrum.
Current Obsession:
Music, Math, and Mind, the recent book by brilliant composer and scientist David Sulzer (aka Dave Soldier). It's almost like a music-centric version of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Sulzer deftly explains the physics and neuroscience of music in a comprehensive and understandable way that should give anyone a lot to ponder, regardless of their background knowledge.
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Tom Bedell in the Relic Music acoustic room, holding a custom Seed to Song Parlor with a stunning ocean sinker redwood top and milagro Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
A born storyteller, Bedell doesn’t keep his passion to himself. On Friday, May 12, at New Jersey boutique guitar outpost Relic Music, Bedell shared some of the stories he’s collected during his life and travels as part of a three-city clinic trip. At Relic—and stops at Crossroads Guitar and Art in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, and Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center in Wheaton, Maryland—he discussed his guitars and what makes them so special, why sustainability is such an important cause, and how he’s putting it into practice.
Before his talk, we sat in Relic’s cozy, plush acoustic room, surrounded by a host of high-end instruments. We took a look at a few of the store’s house-spec’d Bedell parlors while we chatted.
“The story of this guitar is the story of the world,” Bedell explained to me, holding a Seed to Song Parlor. He painted a picture of a milagro tree growing on a hillside in northeastern Brazil some 500 years ago, deprived of water and growing in stressful conditions during its early life. That tree was eventually harvested, and in the 1950s, it was shipped to Spain by a company that specialized in church ornaments. They recognized this unique specimen and set it aside until it was imported to the U.S. and reached Oregon. Now, it makes the back and sides of this unique guitar.
A Bedell Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides.
As for the ocean sinker redwood top, “I’m gonna make up the story,” Bedell said, as he approximated the life cycle of the tree, which floated in the ocean, soaking up minerals for years and years, and washed ashore on northern Oregon’s Manzanita Beach. The two woods were paired and built into a small run of exquisitely outfitted guitars using the Bedell/Breedlove Sound Optimization process—in which the building team fine-tunes each instrument’s voice by hand-shaping individual braces to target resonant frequencies using acoustic analysis—and Bedell and his team fell in love.
Playing it while we spoke, I was smitten by this guitar’s warm, responsive tone and even articulation and attack across the fretboard; it strikes a perfect tonal balance between a tight low-end and bright top, with a wide dynamic range that made it sympathetic to anything I offered. And as I swapped guitars, whether picking up a Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides or one with an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, the character and the elements of each instrument changed, but that perfect balance remained. Each of these acoustics—and of any Bedell I’ve had the pleasure to play—delivers their own experiential thumbprint.
Rosette and inlay detail on an Adirondack spruce top.
Ultimately, that’s what brought Bedell out to the East Coast on this short tour. “We have a totally different philosophy about how we approach guitar-building,” Bedell effused. “There are a lot of individuals who build maybe 12 guitars a year, who do some of the things that we do, but there’s nobody on a production level.” And he wants to spread that gospel.
“We want to reach people who really want something special,” he continued, pointing out that for the Bedell line, the company specifically wants to work with shops like Relic and the other stores he’s visited, “who have a clientele that says I want the best guitar I can possibly have, and they carry enough variety that we can give them that.”
A Fireside Parlor with a Western red cedar top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
