The second installment in the company’s new line of overdrives—and the latest collaboration with guitarist Andy Timmons—shows evolution on multiple fronts.
Asked to describe his new Muse Driver pedal, Robert Keeley keeps coming back to a single theme: versatility.
Based on Keeley’s much-admired Blues Driver-inspired circuit, and designed in collaboration with Andy Timmons, the Muse Driver features two different selectable overdrive voices and a pair of tone stack options. The result: a highly flexible and responsive pedal that’s likely to appeal to a broad range of players.
Keeley even came up with a new phrase, calling the pedal a “drive workstation” as a shorthand way to convey the Muse Driver’s versatility. “I was trying to say that it could do everything from a clean boost to distortion and overdrive and even fuzz,” he says. “The drive control is so dynamic that it offers incredible range.” That phrase wasn’t meant to be boastful; it simply seems like an accurate, compact way of getting the point across. “It becomes a workstation because you can get so much out of it. In my mind it qualifies as a workstation of drive pedals.”
Brandishing its myriad tones, the Muse Driver, with a street price of $199, is the second pedal in Keeley’s new line of sleek, seductive overdrives. It follows the Noble Screamer, a potent mash-up of the beloved Tube Screamer and Nobels ODR-1, which Keeley released in late 2023 to broad acclaim. The Muse Driver continues the Noble Screamer’s form factor, with dual toggle switches for modifying the circuit, and points the way for three more overdrives coming in 2024. (More on that shortly).
Tapping Into Timmons' Tone
Importantly, the Muse Driver represents the latest chapter in Keeley’s ongoing collaboration with Andy Timmons (known for his solo work and touring/recording with Danger Danger, Olivia Newton-John, Kip Winger, and many more). They first began working together in early 2020, when Timmons and Keeley teamed up on the wildly successful Halo dual echo pedal, and the creative partnership continued with the 2023 release of Timmons’ signature Keeley Super AT MOD overdrive.
For their newest collaboration, Keeley and Timmons once again used a modified Blues Driver circuit as the foundation of the tone. But this time around, the goal was to provide even more sonic options—enough to satisfy Timmons’ most expansive creative urges.
“The Muse Driver name is a play on words with the Blues Driver,” Timmons notes, “and Muse Driver really is an accurate term for the pedal because it reflects how inspiring it is. The core of both the Super AT Mod pedal and the Muse Driver were designed to capture the modded Blues Driver, but could really get those notes to speak and articulate in a certain way. The circuit gives me that clarity on the top end. With the Muse Driver pedal I feel like I’ve truly arrived. I can plug this into any nice, flat amp. It retains the clear top end and it speaks well. And it has a surprising amount of gain, that’s really usable. It doesn’t get too tubby or floppy in the low end. It’s very carveable. I started the search with the Keeley Blues Driver, and now I feel that it’s really there.”
“The gloves come off when we’re working with Andy,” Keeley adds with a laugh. “We’ll try almost anything to create something that’s going to be inspiring for him. I know my job is done when he gets excited and starts writing musical parts with it.”
Keeley Electronics - Muse Driver Overdrive and Distortion with Andy Timmons
Cracking the Diode Code
But it wasn’t easy getting there. “We had three different sessions for the Muse Driver,” says Timmons. “The key was Aaron Pierce [a core member of the Keeley creative team], Robert, and I being in the same room. At one point we thought we were really close,” Timmons admits, “and I’m driving back to Oklahoma. About an hour into the drive, I get a call from Robert. He had an epiphany: ‘We should try germanium diodes!’ Going from silicone to germanium diodes, you’re going from asymmetrical to symmetrical clipping, and it’s going to be a little less compressed. And it turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. The germanium turned it into an ideal pedal for full-on gain and lead tones. Now the pedal is capable of a huge range of tones.”
Andy Timmons Reacts to Germanium Mode
Keeley elaborates about the Timmons’ “AT” Drive mode: “In Andy’s mode there are a pair of diodes—one is a regular silicon diode and one is an LED. They have two different rates at which they start to conduct and it creates this asymmetrical clipping that I think kinda sounds like a tube. When you go to the RK mode [Robert Keeley’s original mode], that engages two back-to-back germanium diodes, which have a much lower voltage that they turn on. They also have an extra bit of capacitance which rounds off the highs. Because the Blues Driver is such a dynamic circuit, when you make a change there it’s going to be amplified and distorted further. These little differences between the silicon and germanium diodes are really amplified.”
The Human Factor ... Blended with Science
Another important current in the development of the Muse Driver: the increased use of advanced scientific tools at the Keeley shop, part of the company’s continuing evolution since it relocated to its new factory in 2021.
“We began using Audio Precision Analyzers starting in around May 2023,” Keeley explains. “We now have several of them so we can test every unit and make sure each unit is spot on, beyond the scope of human hearing. Every pedal gets a ‘birth certificate’ when it passes the analyzer test. I think that when we acquired those analyzers, Keeley Electronics went ‘professional audio,’ because now whenever we’re studying a rare vintage circuit of any kind, I can really see what it sounds like. And if Andy says, ‘I want less compression,’ I can huddle with the engineers and see how each stage of a circuit responds. It’s an amazing way to look at audio. It helps during the design phase and it helps during production. I now have a repeatable product that’s rock solid.”
Timmons lauds the scientific strides, but admits that the ultimate vindication arrives in your gut: “When you hit the ‘eureka’ moment and get it right, you can’t verbalize it. You feel it. Whether it’s the hair on your arms raising, or a smile on your face, you just know it’s there. That’s the only way to know. Sure, you can look at it on scopes and measure it on graphs—and those scientific measurements are certainly valuable—but the real test is how it makes you feel on a molecular level.”
Keeley agrees with a laugh: “The major benefit of working with a guy like Andy—and not just relying on a bunch of expensive analyzers and measurement tools—is that he really cares about all the nuances and dynamics! He’s an incredible player that LIVES in the world of dynamics and will explore the entire range. He shows how these circuits actually work for players, instead of machines.”
“The new era of Keeley is really a dream come true for me.” Keeley continues. “For 20 years I would look at other people’s equipment and how they progressed, and I finally feel like I’m at the point where I can take information from artists and their desires, and I can mix it with some of the great people and equipment that we have at the shop. We can study the circuits and listen to them in ways that we’ve never been able to do before.”
Keeley Factory Tour Drone Video
04 10 2023 Drone VideoMore Drives To Come!
The Muse Driver’s flexibility, with its two toggle switches for selecting overdrive voicing and tone stacks, is a hallmark of Keeley’s new series, which debuted with the Muse Driver’s predecessor, the Noble Screamer.
This powerful, versatile approach will culminate in spring 2024 with the release of three more overdrives in the series. Each will feature a pair of overdrive options based on iconic circuits—ranging from soft-clipping favorites to brawny, hard-clipping stalwarts—along with extra tone-shaping capabilities.
But in the meantime, Robert Keeley and his team are savoring the results of the rigorous-but-enjoyable process that yielded the new Muse Driver. “These signature pedals with Andy Timmons are really special,” Keeley says. “They have to be dynamic, expressive instruments in their own right. I know it might sound old-fashioned and quirky, but Andy’s name doesn’t go onto these pedals until he’s satisfied. It’s a lot of work, but it’s also so much fun.”
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Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.
LR Baggs HiFi Duet High-fidelity Pickup and Microphone Mixing System
"When a guitar is “the one,” you know it. It feels right in your hands and delivers the sounds you hear in your head. It becomes your faithful companion, musical soulmate, and muse. It helps you express your artistic vision. We designed the Les Paul Studio to be precisely the type of guitar: the perfect musical companion, the guitar you won’t be able to put down. The one guitar you’ll be able to rely on every time and will find yourself reaching for again and again. For years, the Les Paul Studio has been the choice of countless guitarists who appreciate the combination of the essential Les Paul features–humbucking pickups, a glued-in, set neck, and a mahogany body with a maple cap–at an accessible price and without some of the flashier and more costly cosmetic features of higher-end Les Paul models."
Now, the Les Paul Studio has been reimagined. It features an Ultra-Modern weight-relieved mahogany body, making it lighter and more comfortable to play, no matter how long the gig or jam session runs. The carved, plain maple cap adds brightness and definition to the overall tone and combines perfectly with the warmth and midrange punch from the mahogany body for that legendary Les Paul sound that has been featured on countless hit recordings and on concert stages worldwide. The glued-in mahogany neck provides rock-solid coupling between the neck and body for increased resonance and sustain. The neck features a traditional heel and a fast-playing SlimTaper profile, and it is capped with an abound rosewood fretboard that is equipped with acrylic trapezoid inlays and 22 medium jumbo frets. The 12” fretboard radius makes both rhythm chording and lead string bending equally effortless, andyou’re going to love how this instrument feels in your hands. The Vintage Deluxe tuners with Keystone buttons add to the guitar’s classic visual appeal, and together with the fully adjustable aluminum Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridge, lightweight aluminum Stop Bar tailpiece, andGraph Tech® nut, help to keep the tuning stability nice and solid so you can spend more time playing and less time tuning. The Gibson Les Paul Studio is offered in an Ebony, BlueberryBurst, Wine Red, and CherrySunburst gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finishes and arrives with an included soft-shell guitar case.
It packs a pair of Gibson’s Burstbucker Pro pickups and a three-way pickup selector switch that allows you to use either pickup individually or run them together. Each of the two pickups is wired to its own volume control, so you can blend the sound from the pickups together in any amount you choose. Each volume control is equipped with a push/pull switch for coil tapping, giving you two different sounds from each pickup, and each pickup also has its own individual tone control for even more sonic options. The endless tonal possibilities, exceptional sustain, resonance, and comfortable playability make the Les Paul Studio the one guitar you can rely on for any musical genre or scenario.
For more information, please visit gibson.com.
Introducing the Reimagined Gibson Les Paul Studio - YouTube
Phat Machine
The Phat Machine
The Phat Machine is designed to deliver the tone and responsiveness of a vintage germanium fuzz with improved temperature stability with no weird powering issues. Loaded with both a germanium and a silicon transistor, the Phat Machine offers the warmth and cleanup of a germanium fuzz but with the bite of a silicon pedal. It utilizes classic Volume and Fuzz control knobs, as well as a four-position Thickness control to dial-in any guitar and amp combo. Also included is a Bias trim pot and a Kill switch that allows battery lovers to shut off the battery without pulling the input cord.
Silk Worm Deluxe Overdrive
The Silk Worm Deluxe -- along with its standard Volume/Gain/Tone controls -- has a Bottom trim pot to dial in "just the right amount of thud with no mud at all: it’s felt more than heard." It also offers a Studio/Stage diode switch that allows you to select three levels of compression.
Both pedals offer the following features:
- 9-volt operation via standard DC external supply or internal battery compartment
- True bypass switching with LED indicator
- Pedalboard-friendly top mount jacks
- Rugged, tour-ready construction and super durable powder coated finish
- Made in the USA
Static Effectors’ Street Series pedals carry a street price of $149 each. They are available at select retailers and can also be purchased directly from the Static Effectors online store at www.staticeffectors.com.