All the pedals on this back cover photo from the Devil Gods’ album, Sick Little Monkey, were used in its recording, in 1999.
Judge not, lest ye miss out on a lot of great guitar tones!
Over the years, at various gigs, I’ve been asked “What do you need all those pedals for?” If it’s a civilian or guitar novice, I tend to run down a quick explanation of what’s on my board, citing examples, ideally, in songs they’ve just heard my band play. If it’s a wise guy with a beef about pedal tones, I simply reply, “Just following orders from Mr. Hendrix.” And I step away.
Wise guys about pedal tones irritate me. Any guitarist should be able to approach their sonic palette without judgment. After all, guitar playing is about freedom. Even if you're playing scripted parts, there is a nearly limitless way to nuance them. And, laughably, I’ve also heard, “Link Wray didn’t need pedals.” And “Muddy Waters didn’t need pedals.” Is it even worth pointing out that pedals, as a widely available resource for guitarists, didn’t exist in the days of “Rumble” and “I Can’t Be Satisfied?” Further, I got to know the late bluesman Louisiana Red a bit, and he was a hard-core Muddy disciple. He was also a fiend about overdrive and fuzz boxes. (And slide. In Red’s estimation, any tubular metal was fair game if it fit his finger and he could slice a length off.) Nearly every time I saw him play electric, he had a stompbox next to his feet, and his primary goal was to use it to recreate the dirty patina of the guitar on Muddy’s early Chess recordings—not “Creeping Death” or “Hell Bent for Leather.” I’ve also heard “Johnny Ramone didn’t need pedals.” And that is true. And I don’t care, as much as I love the Ramones.
There is also a difference between needing and wanting. In the late ’90s, I had a 14-piece pedalboard with my band Devil Gods. The lead guitarist, Mark Sullivan, had even more. And we had a blast with everything from waves of gooey modulated fuzz to live looping. For most of the life of my next band, Scissormen, I played a guitar plugged into a Marshall and, later, a modded Epiphone Valve Standard, with a tuner in line. That’s it. The program was music influenced by the blues of Mississippi hill country, so pedals would not have been appropriate. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's,” y’know.
“Louisiana Red was a hard-core Muddy disciple. He was also a fiend about overdrive and fuzz boxes.”
These days my pedalboard is messy. It’s got 11 pedals, but when I find time to populate the 24" two-deck Pedaltrain board I have waiting, that population is going to increase. Perhaps radically. I like having myriad, potentially unpredictable sounds at my feet and, more importantly, in my brain. At heart, I am an improviser, and sound is my paintbrush.
Clearly, I’m not the only one. This is our annual issue focusing on pedalboards of the pros, and yours, our readers. I’m always excited about this issue. Whose boards can I cop ideas from—about ordering the chain, about new devices or blends of tones? Who’s gonna make me nod my head and say, “Yeah, I can hear that,” even through the silence of print? I know that when this issue is done, it will have punched through my inertia and compelled me to set up my new board. And I’m excited about that, too.
It’s been a long, strange trip from learner to perpetual learner with the guitar, including effects. I started with a single MXR Distortion+ and now I’ve got granular delays, insane stereo tremolo pedals, classic vibratos, and a host of overdrives and fuzzes, including a prized one-of-a-kind Burns Buzzaround clone made by Gary Kibler at Big Knob Pedals. I also love Gary’s Tone Bender clones, and used both extensively on recent soundtrack recordings. I even own a Mantic Conceptual Flex Pro, which puts Hunter Thompson’s oft-quoted observation—“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro”—into a 6-dial stomp.
The other great thing about pedals is their relative affordability. You can find a lot of great pedals, like an MXR Phase M290, for around $100. And you can get a lot of expression from a good phase shifter. I can’t afford to buy David Gilmour’s black Strat that he used on Dark Side of the Moon, which sold at auction for nearly $4 million. But during the height of my drunken-sailor pedal-buying spree over the pandemic lockdown, I did spend a little under $300 on a modified B.K. Butler Tube Driver, which helps Gilmour get his sustain. And dang if it doesn’t get my Strat and PRS SE Silver Sky in the right tone zone. And that makes me happy. And isn't the pursuit of joy one of the reasons—maybe the biggest—you and I started playing guitar?
![Rig Rundown: Kenny Wayne Shepherd [2023]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-kenny-wayne-shepherd-2023.jpg?id=33113856&width=600&height=400&quality=85&coordinates=182%2C0%2C18%2C0)
This week’s ep is just a couple of Strat dudes talkin’ gear. The guys get deep on everything from their favorite guitars to pedals and some speaker chat, and the busy New York guitarist and professor talks about improv and the up-and-coming crop of jazz cats.
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Nir Felder on Improvisation
Cory Wong: Okay. I want to ask you a little bit more about improvisation, creativity, and harnessing it in the moment. A lot of people talk about, "Oh, how do you find inspiration for writing every day?" Or it's like, "Oh, yeah. Sometimes you just show up to work and you just have to find it or you have to find some way to harness it." Then there's the other side, which is, how do you find something compelling to say, improvising solos over your own music, over other people's music. Then when you're on tour, you're playing the same tunes night after night. Do I play same concepts every night? Do I build an arc and craft a solo that I loosely follow the script night after night? Or do I try to find something completely new night after night? These are all different approaches, and you are such a master improviser. I've seen you in so many different settings where I'm just curious about how you approach your creativity in improvisation and how you keep that spark going for you, so the listener feels that excitement every time they listen to you play.
Nir Felder: Oh, man. What a great question. I think that list that you made is pretty spot on. I'm a definite number three. I must start over because if I do make any attempts to... I was like, "Oh, wow. That solo last night really worked. Let me try to go for the same arc," I always fall flat on my face. I cannot repeat it. One thing I've learned from doing both jazz tours and pop tours and everything in between is some of these pop musicians that I would play with are more in the moment, more of what you think of as jazz than some of the jazz players, I would tour with sometimes, because they were really reactive to the energy in the room.
"Okay. We're playing the same set, we're playing the same songs. There's no solos. But the room feels different, the energy is different, the weather's different, we're in a different city. I'm just going to play 1 percent louder or 1 percent softer, do a slightly different fill here." It was like they were really feeling it in the moment. Some people are still trying to play their "improvised solo" from last week. That doesn't land with any kind of emotional connection to the city you're in, the people you're with, all that kind of stuff. Same for me. If I try to do the same thing, I'm not going to make it. It's just not going to work. So I just try to go for it every time. And sometimes I fail miserably. But that's the risk, right?
Rig Rundown: Nir Felder and Will Lee
Nir Felder has been called “the next big jazz guitarist” by NPR and hailed by The New York Times as a “whiz kid.” Will Lee is the Grammy-winning Musician’s Hall of Fame member you’ve likely seen and heard playing bass as part of Paul Shaffer’s World’s Most Dangerous Band on David Letterman’s late-night talk shows.
Currently, Felder and Lee are touring together with drummer Keith Carlock (Steely Dan, Sting), Jeff Coffin on saxophones and woodwinds (Dave Matthews Band, Bela Fleck & the Flecktones), and keyboardist Jeff Babko (James Taylor, Toto) as Band of Other Brothers. On April 20, the Other Brothers made a stop at Nashville’s City Winery, supporting their second album, Look Up. Lee and Felder took a break pre-soundcheck to usher PG’s John Bohlinger through their rigs.
[Brought to you by D’Addario XS Electric Strings]
From Robin Trower to Eric Johnson to Tom Morello, Joe Bonamassa, the Edge, Green Day, Eric Clapton, and more—10 S-Styles that’ll give you 6-on-a-side envy!
Here’s PG’s stats on Strats—the top 10 Rig Rundowns featuring Fender Stratocasters and other Strat-style guitars. We’re not giving away who’s number one, but you’re welcome to guess—or simply watch the compelling show-and-tells in this video. You’ll see a slew of signature models close up, with guided tours from Robin Trower and Eric Johnson (who also show off vintage Marshalls), and by Eric Clapton and the Edge’s stalwart techs. Meet the 1958 Fender Strat that John Oates played on virtually all of Hall & Oates’ smash hits. (Can you go for that?) Plus, get the lowdown on Doyle Bramhall II’s hard-played 1964 Stratocaster and the left-of-center pickup configuration employed by Khruangbin’s Mark Speer.
Still want more? How about the super strat rocked by Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, or a demonstration by Tom Morello of his famed scratching technique—with a slide. (Hint: It’s not a kill switch, and he’s an inventive badass.) And Joe Bonamassa tells you why he bought a guitar that was presented to him as the “best Stratocaster” ever, and makes a compelling case for exactly why it’s that, by a good 5 percent. Spoiler alert: There’s a lot more great gear details you’ll pick up along the way. F’rinstance, does Clapton really never change his strings unless they break? How funky do flatwounds needs to get until they’re perfect? How many Flying V’s does the Edge use during a concert? What pickup settings yielded the sounds you’re heard on classic recordings? How many marmots does it take to fill a VW bug? (Just seeing if you’re playing attention.) Sure, the Stratocaster and its variants have been around since 1954, and we’ve heard them played on countless recordings, but you won’t leave this Top 10 Rig Rundown without learning something new about Leo Fender’s greatest hit!