Ryan Lerman is the cofounder of Los Angeles-based dynamic funk project Scary Pockets. The musical collective has been crushing it on Youtube since 2017, and eventually they decided to take their show on the road—a shift that’s turned them into a celebrated and successful touring act. Lerman met up with PG’s John Bohlinger before Scary Pockets’ Nashville show at the Brooklyn Bowl to talk through his current touring rig.
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Making Melodies
Beatlemania—With Fuzz
In the Lap of De-luxury
On this leg of the tour, Lerman is rolling with backline amps—generally two Fender ’68 Custom Deluxe Reverbs.
Funk on the Floor
For his stompbox kingdom, Lerman tapped Dave Phillips at L.A. Sound Design to build him a road-ready board. First up, Lerman runs a 1/4" cable from his guitar right into a 29 Pedals Euna. From there, the signal runs the gauntlet through: an Electro-Harmonix Superego, WMD Geiger Counter, Rainger FX Reverb-X, Ross Compressor, Klon Centaur, JHS SuperBolt, JAM Pedals WaterFall, Non-Human Audio Slow Loris, Eventide H9, Strymon Flint, Empress Superdelay, Sonic Research Turbo Tuner ST-300, Fairfield Circuitry Shallow Water, Mooer Slow Engine, Surfy Industries SurfyVibe, and a Lehle volume pedal.
Imagine being able to combine your favorite parts of different overdrive & boost pedals in order to create hybrid sounds no one has ever played through before. That is exactly what we've engineered with the Noble Screamer. It’s a 4-in-1 pedal that gives you two very familiar drive circuits and two brand new amp-like distortion tones that no one has used before. It’s almost like pedal-modeling, except these are 100% analog circuits, and you decide which tone-control or clipping-section you want to play through. You can play through battle-tested, classic overdrive effects or innovate new music with hybrid tones, let your ears be the judge. Even with all of these features the pedal remains a simple and easy to use three knob overdrive. The innovation in the Noble Screamer doesn’t end there; our new design features true-bypass or buffered, truly silent switching, on the fly. The Keeley Noble Screamer Overdrive and Boost is entirely manufactured at Keeley Electronics and is the first in our new aluminum enclosure.
Learn more here.
Tone Control
Broad Spectrum Tone Control or Narrow Focus Filter Control: The Noble Screamer gives you two tone control circuits to choose from. When the Tone Switch is up and in the OD Position you will hear a 'Spectrum' type of tone control that has the ability to go from a flat EQ to an EQ that has a boost in the treble and bass response. If the Tone Switch is in the TS Position you have a Low Pass Filter that rolls off the high frequencies only.
Diode Clipping
Hard or Soft Clipping: The Noble Screamer gives you both styles of diode clipping. Diodes are used to create hard clipping distortions or smooth overdrive sounds. If the Clipping Switch is in the OD Position it features Hard Diode Clipping which is an edgier, more aggressive tone. When the Clipping Switch is in the TS Position that uses Soft Diode Clipping, like a tube amplifier softly overdriven.
Noble Screamer Has Both Buffered and True Bypass
The Keeley Noble Screamer features our Vitamin K Infused Buffer for noise free switching. We have developed an amazing sounding buffer which not only makes your rig sound better, it gives you silent switching with no tone loss. No more pops and clicks to distract from your music. If you want to turn that feature off and go back to true bypass, simply press and hold down the foot switch for two seconds and the pedal will switch to True-Bypass (LED will flash twice). True Bypass is great for players that want the effect of plugging directly into their amp when the pedal is off. Alternatively, players that want a strong and clear signal even when the Noble Screamer is turned off, simply hold the stomp switch down for two seconds and the effect is back to Buffered Bypass (LED flashes three times). Enjoy truly silent switching and let your music be the only voice.
More info: https://robertkeeley.com.