Name: Frank Malitz
Hometown: Chicago, IllinoisGuitar: Short-Scale Magicaster
I’ve been a blues musician for 50 years in Chicago. At 71, I’m still playing and have no intention of stopping. I play better today than I did at any other time in my life. I played with most of the famous Chicago names and recorded at Chess records in the ’60s.
Initially as a business, I started building Telecaster-style guitars, but each had to be unique. So far, I’ve probably done close to 50. For my own use, I wanted to build a Stratocaster-style model because I love the tone but found them difficult to play blues on due to the nature of their necks. I decided to build one after measuring the neck on my early ’60s Gibsons, which I found very easy to play, and duplicated the radius, frets, and scale for this Strat-style build.
I started with a Japanese body from 1975 and upgraded the hardware, but kept the original brass saddles. Around 1976, I met Larry DiMarzio at a photo shoot of his handbuilt, then-new pickups. He gave me the pickup prototypes they were photographing. At that time, they were called “Fat Strats,” but I don’t think they were able to continue using that branding. The neck is from USA Custom Guitars using the same frets I have in my ES-335, with a 12-inch radius, and the short scale used on a Les Paul or ES-335.
I merely reversed the middle and bridge pickups, leaving the wiring intact. Using that switching architecture, position No. 2 gives me neck and bridge only for an incredibly hollow Fender sound. At every gig, someone comments on the tone. DiMarzio deserves much of the credit. The guitar is easier to play than a standard Strat; bends are easier as well, but I lost some bass definition from the shorter scale. By the way, short-scale “Strats” are almost unheard of. The guitar is truly unique. Overall, I couldn’t be happier with this instrument.
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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
