Blackstar Dept. 10 Dual Drive 2-channel Tube Overdrive Pedal
The Dept. 10 pedals combine modern versatility with real tube-driven tones, using an ECC83 triode preamp tube running at 250V at the heart of each pedal. The Dual Drive and Dual Distortion are powerful tube effects, preamps, and audio interfaces, and the Dept 10 Boost is a flexible tube boost, eq, and overdrive.
WaterFall
A JAM pedals favorite for a lot of guitar, bass and keyboard players, the WaterFall is serving as a mainstay on boards of such greats as John Scofield, Nels Cline, Steve Lukather, Anthony Jackson and John Mesdeski for many years now, and has established itself as one of the best analog chorus/vibrato pedals in the market.
It features BBD chips faithful reproductions of the Panasonic MN3207, 2 toggle-switches, the first to select between chorus and vibrato modes, and the other to switch to a āwetterā effect resulting in a deeper, more contemporary sounding chorus, or a more intense, deranged vibrato sound! Max out the Depth and Speed controls to get Leslie-speaker type effects!
Pedaltrain Classic 2 w/ Tour Case + BTPA I/O Panel mounted + Power Cable + High Def Guitar Cable
Pedaltrain Classic 2 Pedalboard w/ Tour Case installed with BTPA interface panel for input, output, send, return, and power. Power cable included + BTPA High Definition Straight to right angle instrument cable.
Honey Bee OD 4K Mini Standard
One Control Honeybee Overdrive 4K Mini and Mini Custom Versions.
For the 20th anniversary of the original BJFe Honeybee Overdrive, Bjƶrn Juhl has now brought the sound of his classic low-gain overdrive to the One Control Mini pedal platform, featuring both the classic Honeybee warm syrupy texture with Modern/Vintage Switch and a special new Custom version, with enhanced gain and a hot crimson finish. Gold finish is classic, Crimson finish is the high gain variant.
One of the most popular customer requests from the original Honeybee OD was for enhanced treble response. While many guitarists love the original āNatureā knob, Bjƶrn has equipped the new HBOD4k Mini with both Bass and Treble controls. This new design will enable players to dial the pedal in more easily with a wider range of amplifiers.
After the original run of 200 BJFe Honeybees, Bjƶrn started to change the original circuit in response to requests from guitarists worldwide. You can have both flavors of the Honeybee OD with the 4K Mini ā simply flip the switch on the side between Vintage/Modern and experience the original sound of both Honeybee circuits in our Mini size enclosure to allow the HBOD4K Mini to fit on any pedalboard setup.
Vidami Blue
Vidami Blue is a revolutionary multi-modal tool that gives you hands-free control of todayās most popular music production, performance and education technology.
ā The Worldās First Hands-Free Video Looper with Page Turning, Tab/Lyric
Scrolling and Digital Audio Workstation Control.
ā The Vidami Blueās 3 Modes Features
1. Video Mode: Handsfree looping, slowing, and navigating of videos with the
tap of your foot.
2. DAW Mode: Control of many of todayās most popular Digital Audio
Workstations
3. Page Turning & Tab/Lyric Scrolling Mode: Easily Turn Pages, Scroll Tabs,
Lyrics, and other functions on your favorite Digital Sheet Music apps and
Tab sites
ā Vidami maximizes the time you spend with your hands on the instrument by
putting the controls at your feet
ā Cuts your practice time in half: no more tedious reaching for the mouse and
keyboard to control the video
ā Experience Freedom, Focus and Flow while you loop and slow down and learn
at your own rate
ā Vidamiās easy to use Patented technology makes learning on YouTube and 50+online platforms easier, faster and more fun because your not distracted by technology
ā Vidami Blue makes handsfree recording a breeze
ā Scroll tabs and turn pages with ease
"I donāt like any type of art that has to be explained."
āThe robots are machines that I made in Max/MSP,ā clarifies Okazaki. (Max/MSP is visual programming language for music and multimedia.) āItās kind of a long story, but Iāve been doing this stuff on the side for 20 years or so. Some of the music theory, some of the conceptual stuff involved in the album, I programmed into these things that I built. These improvising machines can do things that humans canāt do. Theyāll play faster than humans, but theyāll fit in because theyāre playing the same type of material.ā
I'll Build a World, by Miles Okazaki
Okazaki explains that he creates parameters for the robots to improvise within: āIām just telling this robot, āPlay at this tempo and play this many subdivisions per beatāeight subdivisions or something like thatāso that itās linked up with the drums.ā For pitches, he assigns a scale and can control the phrasing. āIām saying for the pitch choices, āYouāre going to use a chromatic scale and youāre going to play each note of that scale until you exhaust the scale without repeating a note,ā which makes a 12-tone row. It could be any scale, but thatās one of the settings that I have made in there. [After each 12-tone row is done] I tell it, āYouāre going to take a little break, but I donāt want it to be the same break every time,ā so that itās a phrase.ā
To get a sound that convincingly blended in with the rest of the tracks, Okazaki had keyboardist Matt Mitchell run the robots through his Prophet Six analog synth. āI wrote a file of them improvising and ran that file through the synth,ā explains Okazaki. āMatt would do the sounds for it,ā so both the robots and Mitchell used the same Prophet Six in their own way.
āIāve never been that interested in imitating anybodyās style.ā
Okazaki, a family man with three children, seems busy in all parts of his life, but he must have learned to maximize his time because heās incredibly productive. In 2018, he recorded his magnum opus, the critically acclaimed Workāa five-hour, 70-song marathon of the complete works of Thelonious Monk, all performed on solo guitar. Itās a project heās wanted to do since his teen years. But in the process, he labored so relentlessly that he ignored his bodyās warning signs and suffered a repetitive stress injury. That didnāt stop him from intensely preparing for and entering the New York City Marathon just a few months later. When that chapter was over, Okazaki again focused on his musical pursuits and proceeded to record several more albums, both as a leader and side musician.
Thisness is Okazakiās fifth album in a three-year period and reflects his collaborative approach. It features his Trickster band, which includes Mitchell on keyboards, Anthony Tidd on electric bass, and Sean Rickman on drums. Okazaki has worked with each of these musicians for years, both in his own group and in saxophonist Steve Colemanās, and theyāve developed a creative relationship that made it possible to record complex music quickly. The entire album was recorded over a two-day span with the quartet recording live on day one and overdubs the following day.
The Trickster band (left to right): bassist Anthony Tidd, keyboardist Matt Mitchell, drummer Sean Rickman, and Miles Okazaki.
And the music on Thisness is incredibly complex. Though Okazaki has studied Indian music seriously, his compositions are also somewhat reminiscent of contemporary Western classical music. Youāll see no shortage of odd note groupings, polyrhythms, and mixed meters carving out space for intricate atonal melodies throughout. Plenty of advanced jazz musicians that proudly boast about their ability to play John Coltraneās āCountdownā in all 12 keys would cower in fear if they were asked to perform some of Okazakiās works.
Despite the puzzling, esoteric nature of his compositions, Okazakiās roots draw from the jazz tradition. After initially starting on classical guitar at age 6, he developed an interest in jazz at 12 and was doing solo guitar gigs at a local Italian restaurant by age 13. His first guitar teachers were Michael Townsend and Chuck Easton (a bebop-influenced Berklee grad), and he took music theory group classes in a cabin in the woods with a teacher named Alex Fowler.
Miles Okazakiās Gear
Miles Okazaki can be seen with a host of instruments, but his 1978 Gibson ES-175, which has a Charlie Christian pickup, is his most common 6-string companion.
Photo by John Rogers
Guitars
ā¢ 1937 Gibson L-50
ā¢ 1940 Gibson ES-150 Charlie Christian (bought with matching EH-150 amp)
ā¢ 1963 Gibson C-O Classical
ā¢ 1978 Gibson ES-175 with Charlie Christian pickup
ā¢ 2018 Slaman āPaulettaā with Charlie Christian pickup modified with adjustable pole pieces drilled into the blade. A hum-canceling coil was recently added by Ilitch Electronics.
ā¢ 2002 Yamaha SA2200
ā¢ 2016 Kiesel HH2
ā¢ 2008 Caius quarter-tone guitar
Amps
ā¢ Quilter Aviator Cub
ā¢ Quilter Tone Block 200
ā¢ Raezerās Edge Twin 8 cabinet
Effects
ā¢ Boss OC-2 Octave
ā¢ Boomerang III Phrase Sampler with Side Car controller
ā¢ One Control Mosquito Blender Expressio
ā¢ Gamechanger Audio Plus Pedal
ā¢ Dunlop CBM95 Cry Baby Mini Wah
ā¢ Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb
ā¢ Analog Man Peppermint Fuzz
ā¢ MXR GT-OD
ā¢ Electro-Harmonix Micro POG
ā¢ Dunlop DVP4 Volume
ā¢ Sonic Research ST-300 tuner
Strings and Picks
ā¢ Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .013s (Gibson ES-150 Charlie Christian and Slaman āPaulettaā)
ā¢ Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .014s (Gibson ES-175 with Charlie Christian pickup and Caius)
ā¢ Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .012s (Yamaha SA2200)
ā¢ Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .011s (Kiesel HH2)
ā¢ DāAddario Roundwound .014s (Gibson L-50)
ā¢ DāAddario Pro-Arte high tension nylon (Gibson C-O)
ā¢ Fender .88 mm for .012 strings, 1.0 mm for .014 strings
ā¢ Homemade picks using Pick Punch (Preferred material is American Express Delta Sky Miles Credit Card)
ā¢ Ilitch Electronics Driftwood pick
ā¢ Knobby picks bought from an Instagram metal shredder
During his teens, Okazaki went through a jazz-snob phase, and although he hails from Port Townsend, Washington, he never got into the nearby Seattle scene. āThe ā90s, Nirvana and Soundgarden.ā¦ No, I kind of missed all that,ā he admits. āI was there, but I was into Wes Montgomery and Thelonious Monk. I was stuck in the ā60s and ā50s at that point.ā He still cites those musicians, in addition to Grant Green, George Benson, and Charlie Christian (whom he hailed as āthe greatest guitarist that ever livedā in a blog post) as influences.
After attending Harvard University, where he earned a bachelorās degree in English Literature, Okazaki came to New York to pursue his masterās degree in guitar at Manhattan School of Music. There, he found a mentor in Rodney Jones, a jazz/R&B player with tremendous chops. āI studied with, and continue to study with, Rodney,ā explains Okazaki. āHe was my teacher from 1997. I worked pretty closely with him for about 10 years, rebuilding my technique. My technique wasnāt good. You know I didnāt really have a teacher before him that really talked about guitar so much. I had teachers, but it was more just sort of like other people from other instruments. His technique is based on a hybrid George Benson type of deal. It has to do with the picking, but also there are many, many things that have to do with micro movements of the right hand. So, I spent a long time studying that. I still donāt really play like that, but I play kind of like a hybrid version of his hybrid version. Now mine is mixed with some other stuff.ā
TIDBIT: On his new album, Okazaki creatively repurposed an influence in his approach to āAnd Wait for Youā: āI played a piece of a Charlie Christian solo that Iām kind of riffing on. Thatās a phrase from āStompinā at the Savoyā but obviously the context here is a little different.ā
Jones referred Okazaki to legendary saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, and Okazaki did a few gigs with the soul-jazz master shortly before his passing in 2000. It was around this period that Okazaki made his mark on the NYC jazz scene. He worked with vocalist Jane Monheit and was initially cast as a straight-ahead guitarist. āFor a long time, I was just a standards player. I was pigeonholed in that area,ā he recalls. āI did this weird stuff on the sideāwell, I didnāt consider it to be weirdābut it was hard for people in their mind to imagine that you do different things.ā
The guitarist found he was able to fully explore other sides of his playing when he landed a gig with Steve Coleman, whose M-Base Collective created a new language of incredibly challenging, forward-thinking music. From 2008 until 2017, Okazakiās artistry thrived as he played alongside Coleman.
āI donāt know how many people you know that can play in James Brownās band. Itās harder than playing in my band, thatās for sure.ā
Very few players can comfortably hang with both the down-to-earth, bluesy jazz sounds of George Benson and the futuristic, ultra-heady maze of Colemanās music like Okazaki can. The guitarist sees the two approaches as sharing common heritage. āBensonās language is blues and R&B, and Steve Colemanās is, too. Thereās different theories and stuff behind it, but itās not technically different to me,ā he explains.
āIf it was language, Iām interested in the grammar, not so much what language Iām speaking about,ā he explains. āOr if it was cooking, I might be interested in the principles of āhow do you cook a piece of meat,ā as opposed to, āIām doing French cooking.ā George Benson has a style for sure, and a lot of people, when they learn about George Benson, will also sort of imitate his style. Iāve never been that interested in imitating anybodyās style. I kind of want to have my own style.ā
Trickster performs during their recent residency at SEEDS:: Brooklyn.
Photo by Alain Metrailler
Okazakiās style is radically different from both the sounds of his main guitar influences and other offerings in todayās jazz landscape. His abstruse music has been called academic, but thatās a label the guitarist isnāt particularly fond of. āI would push back a little on āacademicā because, first of all, I donāt like academic music,ā he says. āI donāt like any type of art that has to be explained. When I go to an art museum, I donāt want to have to read the little blurb. I donāt want anybody to have to know anything about music to appreciate it. There are things involved in how itās made that are interesting to me, but I donāt care if theyāre interesting to anybody else, or I donāt want that to be a feature of it thatās really that important, unless people want to look for that.ā
For Okazaki, his music might be also called academic, or complex, or cerebral, but that doesnāt explain his purpose, or set him apart. āJames Brown is complex, or Robert Johnson is complex,ā he says. āAll these things are complex, meaning that theyāre not easily explained. I donāt know how many people you know that can play in James Brownās band. Itās harder than playing in my band, thatās for sure.ā
āThe test is: Does it sound good, or does it not sound good? Thatās the only question for me.ā
Complexity comes in many forms. Just because a piece of music happens to be based on one chord āthat doesnāt mean that itās simple,ā Okazaki observes. He believes the opposite is true as well. āThere are things that take a lot of work, and thereās a lot of machinations involved, and a lot of manipulation of materials and thought, and construction, and it still sounds like shit,ā he laughs. āAnd there are things that are just one chord and amazing.ā
As much as Okazaki is known as a musical thinker who can throw down some heavy information in his compositions and playing, what matters most is how it sounds. āIt might look good on paper, but if it doesnāt sound like anything, then itās not good,ā he says. āThe test is: Does it sound good, or does it not sound good? Thatās the only question for me.āTrickster's Dream - "The Lighthouse"
The Trickster band was scheduled to go on a six-week tour starting in May 2020 but got derailed by the Covid lockdowns. Instead, they created a video concert featuring music from Okazakiās 2019 release, The Sky Below. This version of āThe Lighthouseā is from those sessions and captures the band conjuring the energy and spirit of playing to a captive audience.
Caspian's Phil Jamieson
Post-rock instrumentalist Phil Jamiesonās most recent live board features four main food groupsādirts, loopers, delays, and reverbsāplus Electro-Harmonix Voice Box and MEL9 pedals for a snack. A Boss GE-7 graphic EQāused for a clean boost with low-mid punchāis always on, while a Strymon Sunset and an Empress Heavy provide three layers of beef.
Next is an Ernie Ball VP Jr. volume pedal, then a TC Electronic Ditto X4, which Jamieson favors for its hold and tape-stop modes. Four more Strymons followāa TimeLine, an El Capistan (āThe pedal I canāt live withoutā), a blueSky Reverberator, and a Flint. At the end of the signal chain are a Boss RC-3 Loop Station loaded with samples for use as interludes, a mini black box for dramatic signal cuts, and a TC Electronic PolyTune Mini.
Nick Perri ā Photo by Justin Higuchi
The Underground Thieves frontman (and former hired gun with Shinedown and Perry Farrell) has a fairly modest and old-school board.
His guitar signal first hits a vintage Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face, then proceeds to a Texadelphia Germanium Booster, a Sir Henry Uni-Vibe clone, a Metropoulos Supa-Boost, a Peterson StroboStomp HD, a Maxon AD999 Analog Delay, and a Hamstead Soundworks Signature Analogue Tremolo.
