Q: What’s a song that always cheers you up and why?
Julien Baker — boygenius
A: “Fly Me to the Moon.” This song is a cultural touchstone that seems incredibly timeless, and the sentiment is simple and pure. It’s a straightforward declaration that celebrates love in an uncontrived, very wholesome way. It’s one of the only times I would use “old-fashioned” with a positive connotation. The melody is also addictive. I started using this song to warm up my voice before shows because I was too embarrassed to do real warm-ups. It’s such a well known standard that it’s unpretentious and disarming; it doesn’t feel performative or like an exhibition of formal technique, which I think makes it fun.
Current obsession: The Excess by Old Blood Noise Endeavors. It’s a distortion that you can run series or parallel. That is, you can manipulate the wet/dry of the distorted signal, and you can also use one of the mod settings to mess around with the spacing of the harmonics it creates, which ends up varying from just a fuzzy wash to a twinkly POG-delay sort of sound. It’s one of the most versatile pedals on my board and I’ve been using it for everything on this recent tour.
Watch her demonstrate its powers in her Rig Rundown:
Skully Lawrence — Reader of the Month
A: Not a song, but just pick up a ukulele, and I dare you not to smile.
Current obsession: My current musical obsession is taking classic rock songs and turning them into ukulele songs. I’m working on some Pink Floyd songs, too.
Tessa Jeffers — Managing Editor
A: “Wow” by Beck. For me, it’s about downplaying existential nonsense and turning worries into light energy. Things get rough but just giddy up, giddy up, snap out of it, get funky, and get into your own groove. Life flashes by in an instant, so ride the waves. As the wise man in the track says, “It’s my life, your life, live it once, can’t live it twice.”
Current obsession: Since discovering 19-year-old drummer Sina Doering on YouTube, I’ve been watching all her covers. Tool’s “Forty Six & 2” might be my favorite. She’s incredible. I’m also currently and continually obsessed with Freddie Mercury’s voice.
Meghan Molumby — Art Director
A: “The Night Begins to Shine” by B.E.R. It’s an utterly goofy ’80’s synth-rock tune originally written for an in-house music library and featured in the cartoon series Teen Titans Go! The obscure earworm snuck onto the Billboard rock charts in 2017, and my 5-year old son became obsessed. Whenever I hear it, I think of him and can’t help but smile.
Current obsession: EarthQuaker Comics. EarthQuaker Devices is no newbie when it comes to wicked art, and having staff artist Matt Horak develop a fantasy adventure comic is genius. Octo Skull issue #1 is out now, complete with an equally intriguing original soundtrack.
![Jerry Cantrell Rig Rundown [2024]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/youtube.jpg?id=53714787&width=600&height=600&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C560%2C0)
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.
