Graduating beyond his hardcore roots, guitarist/vocalist JB Brisendine marries the sting of Neil Young’s “Old Black” with searing and spacey Southern-rock grooves.
Facing a mandatory shelter-in ordinance to limit the spread of COVID-19, PG enacted a hybrid approach to filming and producing Rig Rundowns. This is the 15th video in that format, and we stand behind the final product.
Following the release of Brother Hawk’s EP Big Trouble Sessions (with remarkable covers of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden) and amid writing sessions for their next full-length album, the guitar-and-keys duo of guitarist/vocalist JB Brisendine and keys/vocalist Nick Johns-Cooper welcomed PG’s Perry Bean into their Atlanta-based jam space. The hardcore-kid-turned-southern-blues-rocker explains tailoring his tone to a specific pickup, switching from American-voiced 100-watt amps to 50-watt British-flavored plexis, and dealing spades of snarl and sizzle thanks to three different fuzzes. Plus, Johns-Cooper lays out his setup putting him more in a driving “rhythm-guitar” role than backseat-keys player.
JB is an unabashed Les Paul dude. He got the Les Paul Standard (left) at 18. It was his main guitar for years (always favoring the neck pickup) until he purchased the 1978 Gibson Deluxe Pro (right) about five years ago. Loving the tone of P-90s but hating their onstage shortcomings (buzz), he opted for the middle ground by putting in a Lollar mini-humbucker in the bridge and a Porter mini ’bucker in the neck. The Lollar bridge mini is his go-to pickup on the Deluxe Pro and is the foundation in which the rest of his current tone is built around. Both guitars are typically in Eb standard tuning and take D’Addario strings gauged .012–.060. (That’s the set he’s played since he was 9 years old because he read SRV used huge strings.)
During his days of neck-humbucker glory with his first Les Paul, he would pair that force with a 100-watt Fender or Dumble-style amp with tons of headroom to even out the guitar’s low-end thickness and woof. Now that he rocks and rolls with a mini-humbucker in the bridge, he prefers matching the Deluxe Pro with 50-watt plexi-style amps. His main guitar for the last year or so has been this 2006 Germino Classic 45. The head uses high-plate voltage on the power transformer to give more clarity and headroom to the standard plexi formula. The Classic 45 runs into two Germino 2x12 cabs—the one under the head has Celestion Cream Alnicos and the all-black cab has Celestion Heritage G12H 30-watt speakers.
JB’s signal starts by hitting the Peterson StroboStomp HD. The first tone tickler is the D*A*M* (Differential Audio Manifestationz) Stompboxes Maggot Brain fuzz based on a BC108 Fuzz Face. To its left is another fuzz—a custom recreation of a Dallas Rangemaster made by Moreland Magnetics. And continuing down the bottom row you have a Prescription Electronics Experience octave fuzz and a his longtime favorite, a Subdecay Super Spring Theory reverb. Up top he has an Analog Man ARDX20 Dual Analog Delay (tap tempo/modulation controlled by the auxiliary Analog Man Amaze1 on its right).
Analog dirt tones and digital control equal a crunchy to fuzzy to metallic distortion jack-of-all-trades.
Subdecay’s Liquid Sunshine overdrive pedal helped put the Newberg, Oregon, company on the stompbox map in 2004. Since then, they’ve made waves with more adventurous builds like the Noisebox harmonic frequency generator, the Prometheus filter pedal, and the unique Super Spring Theory reverb.
Their latest creation, the Vector, marks a return to the company’s overdrive origins. But as Subdecay’s recent work might suggest, it’s more than another clone in an endless sea of distortion pedals. Instead, the Vector is an 11-voice preamp featuring an analog signal path and a digital control section. In essence, you get 11 dirt boxes in one small enclosure.
One Ice Cream Cone, 11 Flavors
The Vector looks cool with its very ’80s graphics and, for as much as the pedal can do, it has a simple and intuitive control layout. Under the pedal’s three standard overdrive controls—volume, tone, and gain—is a knob that lets you choose from the Vector’s 11 distortion and drive modes: drive 1, drive 2, crunch, vintage, fuzz 1, fuzz 2, meltdown, 1980s, 1990s, modern 1, and modern 2. In some ways, each of the Vector’s 11 channels could warrant a full review. So we’ll take a quick overview of the main sounds available.
While some of the Vector’s 11 channels take inspiration from classics, they aren’t clones. For example, drives 1 and 2 are inspired by the Tube Screamer circuit, although, to my ears, they are less transparent than my TS9. If anything, these channels are closer sonically to my Boss SD-1 than my TS9.
as clean boosts
I was particularly enamored with the warm, singing sound I got with drive 1 set with tone at 1 o’clock, and gain at noon. Sustain here was excellent, and there was a buttery feel to single-note phrases. With drive 1’s gain all the way off and volume bumped up, there’s still some grit (much like the TS9), so it’s not a totally clean boost. The pedal’s excellent sensitivity to dynamics, however, lets you manipulate the interplay between clean and crunch with the intensity of your pick attack.
Crunch and vintage—channels 3 and 4, respectively—have lots of classic Marshall muscle and were an especially good fit for Van Halen-type rhythm figures that mix double-stops with arpeggiated figures. If you’re a heavy-rock rhythm player, you could live exclusively on these channels.
Fuzz 1 and fuzz 2 offered a spitty, gnarly sound perfect for in-your-face garage rock riffs. Even with the pedal’s tone knob rolled down to 9 o’clock, there was still a lot of top end (and a lot of attitude). With the gain between zero and 9 o’clock, however, things were surprisingly clean—cleaner than even the drive channels with the gain off. Counterintuitive as it might seem, fuzz 1 and fuzz 2 worked well as clean boosts.
More Gain, No Pain
Typically there’s a great range of gain available in each mode. Even “meltdown” mode could work as an overdrive with the gain set at noon or lower (it offered a nice, cleanish boost when I had the gain set at 9 o’clock and switched to my neck pickup). Past that, though, meltdown becomes a different beast altogether and would be a fuzz lover’s dream.
Ratings
Pros:Very wide range of excellent drive sounds.
Cons:
Would be nice if settings for each channel could be saved.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$179
Subdecay Vector
subdecay.com
The 1980s channel was super fun, and setting the tone set at noon and the gain up at 3 o’clock inspired me to play Dio-style, Aeolian chord progressions. Here, the Vector got deep into the hair metal zone, and palm-muted, low-string figures and pinch-harmonic-infused solo phrases sounded Sunset Boulevard ’82 authentic.
Without changing any of the settings from 1980s mode, I switched over to the 1990s channel. I noticed the pedal took on a less aggressive, less metal-oriented personality. That doesn’t mean it sounded any less powerful, though. The big, beefy low end was perfect for fat Nirvana-style rhythm tones and riffs.
Modern 1 and 2 offer gobs of sustain and make fluid runs feel easy. Note articulation in complex, syncopated riffs and complex chords is excellent. With the gain above 3 o’clock, I played chords embedded with Holdsworth-style clusters and the note clarity was amazing. Prog-metal heads will love this channel!
The Verdict
You could conceivably replace several dirt boxes on your board with the Vector. By the time I reached the modern 2 mode, I reflected on how far I had come tonally from my drive 1 point of departure. And I couldn’t think of a small-form dirt pedal that offers a range of distortion quite this wide and varied. Another strong impression is that I never really had to do much tweaking. I rarely came across unpleasant sounds, and my adjustments were typically limited to slight turns of gain or tone. And that’s perhaps the Vector’s greatest trait among many: In spite of the seeming complexity of a pedal with 11 channels, it’s really easy to cop a killer tone.
Because you can’t save settings, some players might argue that Vector is less versatile than a digital modeler. But the analog sounds are killer. And when a jack-of-all-trades pedal like this can outdo the pedals that inspired it—often for the same or less money—it warrants a serious look.
Watch the Review Demo:
Take a walk on the wild side—or an interesting float trip through deep space—with the dark magic of a ring modulator.
They're not exactly subtle, they can make your guitar sound like, well, not a guitar anymore, and maybe they shouldn't be engaged with young kids or pets in the room, but ring modulators can take your guitar to places you've only dreamed about—and further. For a sampling of what's available out there, we've rounded up 10 to consider climbing aboard.
Gonkulator
This updated version of the ’90s original still brings all the clangy and robotic sounds to the table, but is now equipped with true bypass and a more flexible/adjustable carrier signal control.
Grumbly Wolf
Featuring an asymmetrical hard-clipping distortion circuit followed by an octave/ring mod effect based on the classic Green Ringer, this box offers up crunchy overdrive to fuzzy octave insanity.
Super Ringtone
This 16-step version of the original Ringtone boasts features such as MIDI sync, tap-tempo control and sync, expression-pedal friendliness, and eight user-programmable memory locations.
Randy’s Revenge
This all-analog oscillator provides space travel in a small package and features expanded control voltage (CV) capabilities that permit interactions beyond the simple stacking of effects.
Vitruvian Mod
The Vitruvian takes its cues from the principle of cross modulation and was designed to be easy to dial in and forget, even when making changes in key.
Crystal Dagger
This all-analog, dual-harmonic pedal features independent true-bypass circuits for octave-up fuzz and a unique collection of ring modulation, octaving, and phasing for bone-chilling sounds.
Ring Thing
Complex modulations with interactive parameters are on tap with the Ring Thing’s articulate pitch shifting, preset tuning, and selectable waveforms.
Syntax Error
Incorporating an advanced 32-bit microcontroller, which adds presets, expression, and MIDI capability, this pedal’s ring mode combines a ring modulator with a sample-and-hold LFO.
MF-102
A direct descendant of the original Moog modular synths, the MF-102’s ring modulator can conjure effects from subtle trem to rich distortion along with sweeps, swoops, and whatever else can be dreamt up.
String Ringer
Primed for exploration, this modern replica of the Lovetone Ring Stinger features a classic LT44 transformer for a distinctive, vintage ring-mod sound plus ’60s germanium distortion.