Designer Ben Fulton pays homage to two seminal guitar heroes with a pair of amp-in-a-box stomps that cover British arena rock and Sunset Strip sludge.
Zeppelin
From the mind and soul of Ben Fulton, boutique pedal master and designer/owner of Red Witch Pedals, comes perhaps his crowning achievement.
Zeppelin by Imperial Electrical.
Zeppelin captures the sound and feel of a time when guitar gods ruled the airwaves and arenas all over the world. Combining the tone of an Echoplex preamp going into a Plexi, Zeppelin recreates the sound and fury of a bygone era in a compact pedal at home in any guitarists rig.
Versatile, visceral, and focused, Zeppelin creates an artistic soundscape of past glories and sounds yet to be discovered. More than a drive, more than a boost, more than a preamp, Zeppelin combines these essential elements in a reactive, easy to use, package. From subtle tonal shading to full-on bombast, Zeppelin provides a platform for conjuring the sounds of yesterday and tomorrow.
Let the hammer fall and the gods rejoice-Zeppelin has arrived.
The End Will Show Us How is scheduled for global release on January 10, 2025.
Mark is backed in Tremonti by Eric Friedman (guitars), Tanner Keegan (bass) and Ryan Bennett (drums). Each song on The End Will Show Us How is intended to take the listener on a journey as Mark sets out to create an album of a dozen individual compositions each unique from the other. The debut single “Just Too Much” is a perfect example of this. The song opens with a driving guitar riff – the basis for the entire song - as Mark delivers the message to keep pushing forward no matter what adversity is in front of you.
Tremonti’s musicianship and songwriting is on full display on each song on The End Will Show Us How. Tracks like the opener “The Mother, The Earth and I,” the thought provoking “It’s Not Over” and the epic closer “All The Wicked Things” show that Mark continues to create compositions that continue to engage audiences - both old and new fans alike. “Nails” is a musical idea that Mark has had for years and finally found the inspiration to complete. “Tomorrow We Will Fail” is an inspirational piece that talks about not putting off until tomorrow something you can conquer today. “Now That I’ve Made It” is a message for anyone who has ever had anyone doubt them and try to hold them back from following their dreams. The End Will Show Us How was produced by longtime friend and collaborator Michael “Elvis” Baskette – the producer Mark has worked with exclusively since 2007.
The End Will Show Us How
PG Contributor Tom Butwin checks out the Tone Pod system by Jon Kammerer Customs. Tone Pod is an innovative modular system that makes swapping pickups incredibly easy and quick. Whether in the studio or on stage, this system offers unmatched flexibility and creativity.
Learn more: https://tonepod.com.
By splitting your signal into low- and high-frequency bands, and feeding them to separate effects loops, the XO lends a new, expansive vocabulary to the effects you already have.
Smart, intuitive controls. Exponentially widens the tone potential of just a few effects. High quality construction
Players with limited use for such effects will consider it expensive.
$279
Great Eastern FX
greateasternfx.com
Though some musicians consider it a chore, I relish the creative possibilities associated with mixing a song or record. Working with the Great Eastern FX XO Variable Crossover feels a lot like the process of experimental mixing using EQ and outboard effects. The concept is simple: The XO splits the low and high frequencies from your input into two separate bands, which are routed via corresponding send and return jacks to different effects or series of them.
Depending on how you set the crossover frequency, the return balance, dry blend, and phase, you can fluidly shape, blend, and move between sounds that are subtly different or radically deconstructed. On the surface, it might look and sound like a cumbersome process. In reality, it’s intuitive, fun, and full of surprises
Fear Not the Frequency Shift
The XO’s control set will probably look alien to most guitarists. The largest knob controls the crossover frequency, which determines the point at which the full frequency band is divided and sent to the low and high send and return. The range button just to its right selects two frequency ranges: 50 to 600 Hz, or 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz. The first is recommended for use with bass, the second for guitar, but you can experiment with either setting for any instrument. The return balance knob sets the relative levels of the two effects returns and the dry blend knob performs its namesake task. The phase button can be used to either correct phase issues when the two bands are out of phase or applied creatively to fashion out-of-phase variations on a sound. A very useful send button, meanwhile, switches the high and low sends, enabling instantaneous selection of mirror-image frequency and effects mixes.
Mutating Tone Tangles
My first experiments with the XO were simple: sending the low band to a delay with long repeats and the high band to another delay with fast repeats, lurking just at the brink of oscillation. The ways I could blend these divided and reconstituted tone composites were often unexpected, surprising, and totally inspiring. I could set up signals that found trebly repeats hovering at the edge of feedback, while low and low-mid frequencies (which can overwhelm a self-oscillating signal) provided a fat foundation for the resonant, ringing top end—a totally cool sound that responded in really interesting ways to picking dynamics and different rhythmic patterns. In a modification of that formula, I routed an intensely throbbing Vox Repeat Percussion clone, slow-sweeping phaser, and long-repeat delay to the low band and assigned a clean, heavily compressed, slapback to the high frequencies. In this configuration, simple folk-rock chords and melodic lead lines took on complex, alien alter egos, sometimes sounding like two players—one handling a bubbling bass synth, and a guitarist carrying the tune via the clear detailed high end. When the pulsing low end got tiresome, it was easy to dial in more dry signal via the dry-blend knob or dial in a mix favoring the tighter, chiming high band.
“Simple folk-rock chords and melodic lead lines took on complex, alien alter egos, sometimes sounding like two players.”
The spins you can put on these recipes are endless. Situating an octave-down pedal amid the tremolo and phaser made the two bands even more distinctive and heightened the illusion of a guitarist and synth player working together. You can mix fuzzy, thumping low end with ringing and heavily chorused top-end output. Or you can blend two similar but distinct effects to create oddly chorused and powerful widescreen tonalities.
The cool part of all this potential is that it can be realized with a single amp and just a few pedals. Some of my most radical sounds came via just four or five pedals including the XO, which adds up to a very modest and portable array, all things considered. Players that work with pedalboards that count stomps in the double digits could disappear in labyrinths of sound that are as immersive as those afforded by synthesis. And while XO is, after some practice, easy to control, the new, chaotic molecular reactions provoked by unorthodox stimulation of your pedals all but guarantees unique results. You will definitely find new sounds and new ways to play and compose here.
The Verdict
The XO Variable Crossover is more likely to see service as a studio tool than become a staple of live setups, though plenty of courageous musicians will find it practical in that environment. Although the mechanics and principles behind its workings can seem complex at first, it can be used effectively and dramatically with just a few stompboxes. The sounds and voices it can extract from, say, a phaser and a delay are exponentially greater in number than what you’d get by simply using two such effects in series, even if some of them are subtle. And the ability to manipulate and warp these sounds on the fly with the XO’s elegant, simple control interface could bring out your inner Lee “Scratch” Perry or DJ Shadow—creating new moods, scenes, and tapestries that can turn a simple song or riff into a moving, mutable, and flowing tone story.
Joe Bonamassa and Brent Mason make guest appearances on Andy Wood’s new instrumental album, out August 9.
The 11-track collection of instrumental compositions is slated for release on August 9th . Andy Wood is backed by a collection of some of Music City’s finest musicians on drums, bass, organ, keys, strings and even traditional Asian instruments. Guitar legends Joe Bonamassa and Brent Mason also lend their talents to album. The album is available in numerous physical configurations as well as available via all digital service providers here.
Free Range Chicken feat. Brent Mason (Official Music Video) - Andy Wood
From the opening track “Shoot The Sun Down” to the outro of “Believe,” Andy Wood expresses his emotions through his fingers and playing. Andy Wood tackles the Alice In Chains classic “Rooster” in a solo guitar arrangement that demonstrates Wood’s versatility on the instrument. Joe Bonamassa lends his talents to the track “Moaning Lisa” and thefirst single “Free Range Chicken” features another Nashville legend, Brent Mason.
Andy Wood, Charisma.
The tracklist for Charisma is:
1) Shoot The Sun Down
2) Free Range Chicken feat. Brent Mason
3) Rooster
4) Storms and Sparrows
5) Charisma
6) Cherry Blossoms
7) Master Gracey’s Manor
8) Hylia
9) Moaning Lisa feat. Joe Bonamassa
10) Copperhead
11) Believe
Andy Wood will be touring throughout 2024 and beyond in support of Charisma with a handful of recently announced dates and more dates to be announced in the future. Andy also hosts a sleepaway guitar camp - The Woodshed Guitar Experience – that will be returning this September and registration is currently open at https://www.woodshedguitarexperience.com. Aside from that, he also spends time as the band leader for the famed band The Stowaways onannual sold-out cruise, Shiprocked The announced tour dates are below and tickets for all upcoming events can be found at https://www.andywoodmusic.com/events/.