Thirty-one years after Gish, the Smashing Pumpkins are still exploring the architecture of sound in their often explosive and unpredictable songs. For their current Spirits on Fire Tour, Billy Corgan leads with his Reverend signatures and a few other carefully culled guitars, and Jeff Schroeder lends support with his fleet of Yamahas.
The Smashing PumpkinsSmashing Pumpkins' first two albums, Gish and Siamese Dream, were a huge part of the soundtrack for the early ā90s alternative rock revolution. Still sounding revolutionary all these years later, the bandās leader, Billy Corgan, recently brought the Smashing Pumpkins to Nashvilleās Bridgestone Arena for the Spirits on Fire tour, on the heels of their 11th studio album, Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts.
The concept album is a sequel to the Smashing Pumpkinsā definitive three-LP masterwork Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, from 1995āwhich also brought them crushing into the mainstream. Acts two and three of Atum are scheduled for January and April 2023. But meanwhile, there are live shows ⦠and all the gear it takes to recreate more than three decades years of the bandās signature sounds. PS: Special thanks to super-tech Trace Davis for his help with the fine points.
Brought to you by DāAddario XPND Pedalboard.
Sticker Shocker
Billy Corganās main guitar, tuned in standard, is his Reverend signature Z-One in midnight black, loaded with Railhammer Billy Corgan Z-One neck and bridge pickups. This model is the third collaboration between Corgan and Reverendās Joe Naylor, and Mr. Cās axe takes Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys, gauged .010ā.046.
Purple Haze
For a back-up, Billy has his Reverend BC1 signature in satin purpleburst, loadedāagaināwith Z-One neck and bridge pickups, which blend the bite of P-90s with humbucker heaviness.
Those Pickup Covers!
Stare long enough at those pickup covers, and perhaps youāll see the universe, putting a new spin on the old Zen koan. When Corgan wants things just a bit looser, in Eb standard tuning, heāll reach for this Z-One sig in silver freeze. Oh! The strings? Ernie Ball Power Slinkys, .011ā.048.
Truly Special
For a classic P-90 voice, Corgan lets the strings on this 1994 GibsonĀ Les Paul Special sing. He keeps it tuned to C# standard and the switch has been modified (it's a secret), as has the sticker. Ernie Ball Not Even Slinkys (.012ā.056) adorn this axe.
ES for Eb Standard
Another low-tuned Gibson, Corganās 1972 ES-335 with block inlays and a trapeze tailpiece, lives in Eb standard land and gets called out to play on the song ā1979.ā
The Silver Surfboard
For some mini-hum sting, Billy plays this Gibson Firebird with a Bigsby in silver finish. There are several switches in the headstock, which Corganās tech Davis says control the āsecret sauce and voodoo magic.ā
Star Baby
Corgan tours with two of his signature Yamaha LJ16BC acousticsāone in E and one in Eb standard. Theyāre medium-jumbos and all-stock, which means a spruce top, rosewood back and sides, a 5-ply mahogany and rosewood neck, and the companyās comfort traditional neck style.
Double Vision
Corgan tours with two identical amp rigs, with four different heads used separately for different tones, and all switched with an Ampete 444. This allows him to drive all four heads into one Laney Black Country Customs LA412 4x12 speaker cab loaded with Celestion G12H-75s. It lives in an iso box under the stage. The amps? Thereās a Laney Supermod, an Orange Rockerverb 100 MKIII, a Carstens Grace, and an Ebo Customs Del Rio.
Billy Corganās Pedalboard
Hereās what underfoot: an RJM Mastermind GT/16 MIDI controller, an MXR CAE Power System, Analog Man Beano Boost treble booster with Mullard-style transistors, a Lehle III switching and looping tool, a Tone Bender-inspired Minotaur Sonic Terrors Evil Eye MkIII fuzz, a Strymon Brigadier delay, a Behringer Octave Divider, and a Dunlop Volume (X), used as an expression pedal for the Strymon.
Yamaha, Aha!
Jeff Schroeder plays Yamaha guitars. And heās got four Revstars on tour. This one has an especially elegant finish. They came stocked with P-90s, but now one has Black Cat Vintage Repro Minis, another features Lollar Low Wind Imperial Humbuckers, and the one he keeps in drop D is totally stock. Schroeder goes with Ernie Ball Paradigm .009 sets for standard, .010s for Eb standard, .009s with a heavier .046 on the bottom for drop D, and .011s for C# standard.
Cutaway to the Pacifica
This Yamaha Pacifica has a scalloped fretboard and Seymour Duncan Hunter humbucking pickups in the bridge and neck, and an SSL-5 single-coil in the middle. It also features a Floyd Rose whammy upgraded with titanium parts.
Big Red
For a semi-hollow, Jeff goes with his Yamaha SA2200 guitars, with Lollar Low Wind Imperial Humbuckers.
Playerās Pick
As with all his axes, his plectrum choice is Dunlop Tortex 1.14 mms, including the the just-for-fun Dunlop YJMP03YL Yngwie Malmsteen picks (yellow), but the Dunlop YJMP02RD Yngwie Malmsteen picks (red) are beefier at 2 mm.
Double Generation
Schroeder tours with two Revv Generator 120 MKII tube headsābig, beefy, and versatile.
Donāt Call a Cab
No big boxes for Schroeder ⦠at least onstage. He uses a pair of Two Notes Torpedo Captor X simulators, emulating a 4x12 micād with a Shure SM57 and Sennheiser MD421 on Celestion V30s. As a back-up, there is a Marshall 4x12 in an isolation cabinetāwith a Shure SM57āunder the stage. And Jeffās āicing on the cakeāāa suggested addition from tech Trace Davis (of Voodoo Amps)āis a Retrospec Juice Box. This inconspicuous box is a transformer-less, all-tube DI that has upped his live tones to a studio quality.
Double Helix
His effects array has two Line 6 Helix Rack units that live in his rolling rock case.
Central Command
At his feet he has a Line 6 Helix Control Foot Controller that works with an Analog Man Beano Boost, like Billyās. These are fired up for solos. Also, Schroeder has a pair of Dunlop DVP3 Volume (X) pedals (one for volume and another for pitch-shifting effect from the Helix) and a Dunlop JB95 Joe Bonamassa Signature Cry Baby wah.
But Wait, Thereās More
He also uses an Origin Effects RevivalDrive, a Vox Satchurator, and Fenderās Yngwie Malmsteen signature OD.
- Billy Corgan on Smashing Pumpkinsā New Mellon Collie Sequel: āNowās the Time.ā āŗ
- Rig Rundown: A Perfect Circle āŗ
- Reverend Launches the Billy Corgan Z-One āŗ
- Reverend Billy Corgan Drop Z Signature Electric Guitar - Premier Guitar āŗ
- From Songwriter to Guitar Designer, Billy Corgan's Evolution - Premier Guitar āŗ
In recent years, Samantha Fishās most often-used guitar was this alpine white Gibson SG, but it ran into some issues last summerāāI ended up having to reglue the neckāāand it is now on hiatus.
The rising blues-rock star has made a dozen records, topped roots-music charts, played 150 dates a year, and opened for the Rolling Stones. Now her new album, Paper Doll, finds her at a hard-playing creative pinnacle.
Samantha Fish is moving in new circles these daysācircles occupied by the kind of people you see a lot on classic-rock radio playlists. First there was the invitation from Eric Clapton to play at his 2023 Crossroads Guitar Festival in L.A. Then there was the summer ā24 slot on Slashās S.E.R.P.E.N.T. tour, followed by the Experience Hendrix tour, on which she dug into Jimi classics in the company of Eric Johnson, Dweezil Zappa, and other luminaries. And, oh yeah, she opened for the Stones in Ridgedale, Missouri, on the final date of their Hackney Diamonds jaunt. Thatās right, the Rolling Stones.
If youāre already a fan of Fishās tough Delta-mama singing and high-temperature guitar work, youāll probably think that all this is just as it should be. You gotta reap what you sow eventually, right? And Fish has been sowing for a long time, from her bar-band days in Kansas City 15 years ago through eight rootsy, eclectic albums as a leader (not counting the two early-2010s discs she cut with Dani Wilde and Victoria Smith as Girls with Guitars, or her 2013 outing with Jimmy Hall and Reese Wynans in the Healers, or 2023ās tangy swamp-rock collaboration with Jesse Dayton, Death Wish Blues) to her current tour schedule of about 150 dates per year in North America, the U.K., Europe, and Australia.
Still, even with such a solid career foundation to draw on, mixing and mingling in the flesh with folks youāve known all your life as names on record covers could be a little intimidating. Is it? āYou know, I donāt ever think about it in those terms,ā Fish says on the phone from her home in New Orleans. āSo when you lay it all out there like that, it feels like, āAw shit, thatās crazy.ā I mean, it is crazy. When I think about the goals that Iāve made over the years ⦠honestly, Iāve crossed off a bunch of things that I thought were even ironic being on the list, because they just seemed so far-fetched. Every interview Iāve ever done, they were like, āIf you could ever open up for somebody, who would it be?ā And I always said the Stones, ironically. Cause when the hellās that gonna happen? Iām a guitar player from Kansas. Thatās nuts.āWith her Stogie Box Blues 4-string, heavy hitting style, and wide array of blues and rock influences, Fish is an artist of a different stripe.
Photo by Jim Summaria
Fish spits out the sentences above in a fast, excited spray, one word tumbling over another. Then she pauses for a second, and itās clear that wheels are turning in her head. Her voice gets more playful. āIām gonna start speaking some even wilder things into existence just to see what happens,ā she cracks, her grin nearly audible over the line. āA billion dollars!No, moneyās evil, but you know what I mean.ā
āI wanted to lean into superpowers.ā
Given her formidable chops, itās not that daring a leap to suggest that Fish could be capable of playingsome wilder things into existence, too. Sheās certainly off to a good start with the just-released Paper Doll, her ninth solo album overall and third for Rounder Records. Whether your personal taste leans more toward nasty string-snapping riffs (the aptly titled āCan Ya Handle the Heat?ā), sizzling slide escapades (āLose Youā), or high lonesome twang (āOff in the Blueā), you canāt deny that the albumās loaded with prime guitar moments. And its two longest tracks, āSweet Southern Soundsā and āFortune Tellerāāālongestā being a purely relative term (theyāre both under six minutes)āoffer listeners just a taste of the neo-psychedelic fantasias that can occur when Fish stretches out in concert.
āPeople always come up to me and say, āYouāve got to figure out a way to capture the live feeling on a record,āā she reports. āSometimes you go into the studio and itās like, āShit, I gotta make the song work for vinyl, so letās cut it down,ā and you end up hacksawing away some of these parts that are kind of the feeling and heartbeat of the song. This time we set out to make something that felt live.ā
Fish made her recording debut in 2009 as the leader of the Samantha Fish Blues Band, with the punny-titled in-concert indie album Live Bait.
Photo by Curtis Knapp
Thatās one way in which Paper Doll differs dramatically from its predecessor, 2021ās Faster, which delved into a poppier territory of synths, beats, and high-tech production (and, in this writerās opinion, did so with great effectiveness; one of Fasterās highlights, āHypnotic,ā sounds like it could have been recorded at a late-night dance club hang with Prince and the Pointer Sisters). In contrast, obviously electronic sounds are nowhere to be heard on the new disc, and the music referenced stays firmly in the American roots category: soul, rock, country, juke-joint blues. For some artists, a stylistic shift like this could be seen as a retrenchment, but for Fish, itās the result of a major departure. This is the first time sheās ever used her road bandākeyboardist Mickey Finn, bassist Ron Johnson, and drummer Jamie Douglassāto make a studio album.
āEverybodyās scratching their heads about what genre this falls into, but I know where every song startedāwith a blues riff.ā
āUsually,ā Fish explains, āIāve worked in studio situations where thereās been a producer and they want to put the people they know together. So it was cool to bring in the band that Iāve been playing with for the last couple of years instead of session musicians. I feel like the dynamic was differentāthe familiarity, and just kind of knowing where the others were gonna go. It might be a minute difference to a listener, but for the players in the room, it helped breed another sensibility.ā
Also helping in that department was producer Bobby Harlow, late of Detroit garage-rock revivalists the Go. Paper Doll is the second Fish album that Harlowās produced; the first was 2017ās Chills & Fever. But whereas that album was all covers, the focus this time was on original songs, more than half of them co-written by Harlow with Fish before he was even considered to produce the album.
āLast March, Bobby came out to a show we did in Detroit,ā Fish recalls. āWe went out to lunch, and because I was working on writing songs, I asked him to do some co-writing with me, because I love the songs he wrote for the Go. Heās really fun to be in a room with when youāre making something, because heās incredibly devoted to it. So we started writing, and then a few months later the label was like, āWe gotta make this album, whoās gonna produce it?ā Well, weāre on the road all summer, so I donāt know when yāall expect us to do this record. But Bobby was available, and it was like the universe bringing us back together. He was passionate about the kind of songs I was writing, and he understood where I wanted to go with it.ā
Samantha Fish's Gear
Before finding her SG, Fishās main guitar was her Delaney signature model thinline style, with a fish-shaped f-hole.
Photo by Frank White
Guitars
- Alpine white Gibson SG
- Gibson Custom Shop ES-335
- Delaney 512
- Stogie Box Blues 4-string
- Danelectro baritone
Amps
- Category 5 Andrew 2x12
- Fender Hot Rod DeVille
Effects
- Dunlop volume pedal
- Analog Man King of Tone
- JHS Mini Foot Fuzz
- Electro-Harmonix Micro POG
- MXR Carbon Copy
- Boss PS-5 Super Shifter
- Voodoo Lab Pedal Power ISO-5
Strings, Picks, & Slides
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys (.010-.046)
- 1.0 mm picks (any brand)
- Various brass and ceramic slides
And where was that? āI wanted to lean into superpowers,ā Fish quickly answers. āWhat are my strengths, what are the things that people know me for and recognize me for, and what can I amplify to make this a real statement record? Itās funny, because everybodyās scratching their heads about what genre this falls into, but I know where every song startedāwith a blues riff.ā
Born out of the blues it may have been, but when the Paper Doll material reached the studio (actually, two studios: the Orb in Austin and Savannah Studios in L.A.), it went through some changes, partly due to the bandās contributions, partly due to Harlowās conceptual leaps. āBobbyās like a musicologist,ā Fish says approvingly. āHeās deep. He pulls from so many different spaces, and heās definitely introduced me to some things that I wasnāt hip to over the years. Thatās done a lot to shape my musical tastes.ā If youāve had the significant pleasure of attending one of the many gigs in which Fish breaks out proto-punk nuggets like the MC5ās āKick Out the Jamsā and Loveās ā7 and 7 Is,ā well, now you know the guy to thank.
āThis time we set out to make something that felt live.ā
Perhaps not surprisingly, one of Paper Dollās best tracks, āRusty Tazor,ā is a similar romp through the garage. In a rare case (for this album) of the producer bringing in someone he knows, Harlow tapped Mick Collins of cult faves the Gories and the Dirtbombs for backing vocals. āHe adds such a personality to that song,ā Fish says. āAnd Iām a punk rock fan. I love that whole era. I just love this raw, uninhibited way of playing. Thereās nothing precious about it. Leaning into the edgesāthatās where the real shit lies.ā
Because the Paper Doll sessions took place in between periods of touring, Fish only brought her road instruments, including a new white Gibson SG and Stogie Box Blues 4-string cigar box guitar (see sidebar for more on her personal collection). But both the Austin and L.A. studios presented plenty of other options. āA ton of guitars,ā Fish remembers with a laugh, āin varying degrees of disrepair. I used a rather unruly [Gibson ES-] 335 in Savannah for āSweet Southern Sounds.ā You know how some guitars fight you when you play them? Well, I like a little bit of fight, but not so much that Iām pulling the strings out of the saddle, and it was fighting me like that. It was hard to push the strings down, I could only bend in certain places. But that just made the performance more intense, and it sounded good. There was also a Tele and a Strat that they had at the Orb. We had so many tools at our disposal, it was like, āLetās go nuts and play with everything we can.āāThat choice of m.o. also sounds like a positive way to respond to a career moment that Fish calls āan incredible ride. Especially in the last year-and-a-half, two years, itās just upped the ante even more. Thereās nothing more to do, really. I went out, I played to the best of my ability and I did the thing that Iāve been working hard to do for the last 15 years or so. And itās awesome to be able to show up in that capacity and perform alongside people that Iāve really looked up to. I just feel grateful. I know Iām lucky.ā
Fishās Favorites
Fish has a brawling style of playing slide, often on her cigar box. āLose You,ā on her new album, is especially representative of her approach to the classic blues technique.
Photo by Jim Summaria
For nearly a decade, Samantha Fishās primary stage axe has been a 2015 alpine white Gibson SG that she bought new online. Sheās still got it, but last year it ran into some trouble. āI ended up having to reglue the neck over the summer,ā she says, āand itās been having tuning issues. So Gibson sent me another white SG thatās just beautiful, in great shape. The neckās a bit fatter, which is cool, different from mine. Iāve been using that one a lotāāindeed, the new SG is all over Paper Doll. āIāve hung onto it, and I feel bad about that. I donāt want to be the person who borrows a guitar and keeps it. But it just played so great, and it was like, āI need this thing. What can I do to keep it?ā Luckily, the people at Gibson have been so good to me over the years.ā
An even more recent addition to Fishās electric arsenal is a Custom Shop Gibson ES-335 in silver sparkle finish, purchased in the fall at Eddieās Guitars in St. Louis. āBecause I played a 335 on āSweet Southern Soundsā in the studio, I was like, āWell, Iām gonna need one live, so of course I have to get this one!ā Iāve always wanted a silver sparkle, and this one is pristine. Iām so scared of the first scratch I get on it, or buckle rash. Iām probably gonna cry!ā
Fish hasnāt been playing her Delaney SF1 Tele-style āFish-o-casterā so much recently, but another Delaney model, the hollowbody 512, is still getting lots of action (often tuned to open D for slide use), as is her Stogie Box Blues 4-string, equipped with a P-Bass pickup. Her Danelectro baritone, Bohemian oil-can guitar, and clutch of Fender Jaguars are also safe at home, along with her current acoustic main squeeze, a new Martin D-45.
YouTube It
Samantha plays Jimi in this September 2024 performance from the most recent Experience Hendrix tour. The selection: āFire.ā
Great Eastern FX Co. has released the limited-edition OC201 Preamp, featuring vintage Mullard OC201 transistors for a unique fuzz sound. Part of the 'Obsolete Devices' series, this pedal combines classic circuits with modern components for optimal tone and reliability.
Boutique British pedal designers GreatEastern FX Co. have released a new pedal. Limited to just 50 units, the OC201 Preamp is an intriguing twist on the familiar two-transistor fuzz circuit, built around a pair of new-old-stock Mullard OC201 transistors.
āThe OC201 is a very early silicon transistor,ā company founder David Greeves explains. āIt was actually the first silicon transistor made by Mullard, using the same method as their germanium devices. Itās pretty crude by modern standards, with very low gain and limited bandwidth, but thatās exactly what makes it so great in a fuzz pedal.ā
This little-known low-gain silicon transistor is responsible for the OC201 Preampās palette of sounds, which GreatEastern FX say ranges from dirty boost and garage rock drive sounds up to a raw and richly textured fuzz, all with the excellent volume knob clean-up characteristics this style of fuzz is famous for. The circuit has also been tweaked to deliver a healthy kick of volume to your amp.
This limited-edition pedal is the first in a new series that Great Eastern FX are calling āObsolete Devicesā. According to the company, the Obsolete Devices series will feature the companyās take on a range of classic circuits, constructed using a mixture of vintage and modern components. Itās a distinct departure from Great Eastern FXās main range of pedals.
āWith pedals like the Design-a-drive and the XO Variable Crossover, weāre really committed to developing original designs that bring something new to the table,ā founder David Greeves explains. āIām always very conscious of choosing parts that arenāt going to go obsolete so we can go on making the pedals for as long as people want to buy them. But I also love messing around with old parts and classic circuits, which is a totally different mentality. The Obsolete Devices series is basically a way for me to have fun modifying these classic circuits and experimenting with my stash of NOS components, then share the results.
āThe name is a little bit of an inside joke,ā he continues. āI think what gets labelled as āobsoleteā is very subjective. As pedal designers and guitar players, we obsess over obsolete components and what, in any other field, would be considered outdated designs. So the name is a nod to that. I also loved the thought of us coming out with some brand-new Obsolete Devices of our own!ā
Alongside the pedalās new-old-stock Mullard OC201 transistors ā which are the reason only 50 of them are being made ā the OC201 Preamp uses quality modern components, including high-tolerance Dale metal film resistors and WIMA capacitors. GreatEastern FX say that this hybrid approach, using vintage parts where they make the most difference sonically and low-noise modern parts elsewhere, will deliver the best combination of tone and reliability while also keeping the price from spiralling out of control.
The OC201 Preamp will cost Ā£249 in the UK, $299 in the US and ā¬299 in the EU. Itās available now direct from Great Eastern FX Co. and from the following dealers:
- UK ā Andertons
- Europe ā Pedaltown.nl
- USA ā Sound Shoppe NYC
- Canada ā Electric Mojo Guitars
For more information, please visit greateasternfx.com.
Obsolete Devices OC201 Preamp | Great Eastern FX Co. - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.āI do think that PTP circuits should stay that way, and circuits made for PCB sound great and donāt need to be handwired to sound good,ā says R2R Electric's Cris Vincent, who is especially adept at creating vintage-flavored fuzz machines.
Do vintage parts make better pedals? Not always.
Treble boosters have been used by legends like Brian May, Tony Iommi, Rory Gallagher, Marc Bolan, Stevie Ray Vaughanāyou name it. They have empirically proven their place in the evolution of rock ānā roll, and even paved the way for entirely new music genres. Naturally, as a pedal builder, I had to make my own. In fact, I was building treble boosters even before Sehat Effectors was born. Technically speaking, the circuit is simpleājust a single transistor and a few components.
Treble booster pedal, Vintage fuzz pedals, R2R Electric effects, Guitar pedal building, Brian May treble booster, Dallas Rangemaster clone, Vintage guitar tones, Recycled pedal components, Boutique guitar pedals, Handmade effects pedals, Analog guitar effects, Point-to-point wiring, DIY guitar pedals, Vintage amplifier tone
But hereās the catch: The results didnāt meet my expectations. At least, not with the setup I had at the time: an old Japanese Iwama Strat copy and a small solid-state practice amp. The sound was terribleājust downright awful! I kept asking myself, āDid I do something wrong? Or was I missing some secret sauce?ā My experiments with the treble booster ended up as a long-abandoned project, collecting dust in my workshop.
Years later, I stumbled across R2R Electric on Instagram, and man, I was blown away by this guy. Heās laser-focused on crafting treble boosters using all kinds of old, recycled parts, and they sound amazing! I couldnāt help but be influenced by what he showcased in each post. It was like a masterclass on how he builds treble boosters and how vintage fuzz pedals work their magic.
This curiosity led me to reach out to Cris Vincent of R2R Electric to ask him about his perspective on treble boosters and vintage fuzz.
Can you share the origin story of R2R Electric?
R2R Electric began officially five years ago. I had been saving old parts from reel-to-reel recorders, old radios, and other vintage audio equipment. I had no experience in building pedals, so I didnāt know what to do with all the parts.
One day, I met Tucker [Krishock] of Lamp Electric and asked him to build a Dallas Rangemaster from the parts I had collected. The first time we plugged in, it blew our minds! So, we began āReel To Reel Effects.ā I began practicing copying the pedal Tucker had made me, and selling them on Reverb under the brand āR2R.ā Sadly, Tucker ended up passing away, and so I decided to carry on by combining our two names into R2R Electric.
āIf you feel better playing a hand-built pedal versus a mass produced one, thereās something to that. Even if itās only in your head.ā
What fascinates you about treble boosters and vintage Fuzzes?
I became obsessed with vintage effects during my time working in recording. I would always be hunting for new tones or to replicate tones from classic records. I had picked up a Roland BeeBaa, which has a fuzz and a treble booster, and I decided to see what the booster sounded like. I loved it! There is something to the simplicity of these old circuits that I feel give a more natural feel and tone. A vintage boost or fuzz needs to be as equal in your rig as the guitar or amplifierāthey have that much impact on the overall performance of a rig.
Do you believe vintage effects should ideally be paired with vintage amplifiers?
I think they can sound great through both vintage and modern amps. The drawback with some vintage amps is that they werenāt meant to be hammered by a huge fuzz signal. Iāve had to refine several vintage speakers that couldnāt handle fuzz. Most modern amps are designed with pedals as a fact of life and can handle most of the tones you throw at them. So, from a reliability standpoint, modern amps handle old fuzz pedals a bit better. But for those classic tones, the pairing of a vintage amp and vintage pedal is the only way to get there.
What inspired you to use recycled components?
That was all I had. I have no formal electrical experience, so I didnāt realize that old parts could go bad or be noisy. It took a lot of working with them to realize how unreliable they can be. I also feel like they have a sound that modern components can produce too. Using old parts to build old circuits just makes sense to me.
Do you think there's a tonal difference between PCB construction and point-to-point designs?
I donāt think one sounds better than the other, really. I think it comes down to the original design of the circuit and the limitations of that particular construction type. I do think that PTP circuits should stay that way, and circuits made for PCB sound great and donāt need to be handwired to sound good. The old PTP circuits tend to sound better, but thatās just my opinion. I think it all comes down to everyoneās own personal taste. If you feel better playing a hand-built pedal versus a mass-produced one, thereās something to that. Even if itās only in your head.
Based on this brief interview, Iāve come to realize just how deeply spiritual and immersive the experience of finding the sound in your head can be. Itās a stark contrast to my own initial disappointment with the treble booster I builtāit was something I felt was a failure and quickly discarded. Cris, on the other hand, exemplifies someone who devoted himself with unwavering focus, constantly seeking until he reached that moment of enlightenmentāthe āeurekaā momentāthat validated what he had believed in all along.
In a way, what Iāve doneālike replacing electric guitar strings with nylon stringsāwas not technically wrong, but clearly not the right fit. The same principle applies to treble boosters, fuzz pedals, and perhaps many other effects pedals. They each have unique tendencies and characteristics that may be waiting for their own āeurekaā moment to truly shine.
PRS Guitars celebrates 40 years with the Limited Edition 40th Anniversary Custom 24-08 Semi-Hollow.
This limited-edition instrument also features a ā10-topā grade figured maple top, semi-hollow body, ziricote fretboard and headstock veneer, and special inlay package. Only 300 of this special release will be available worldwide, each including a certificate hand-signed by Paul Reed Smith.
āThe Custom 24 is one of the first two guitars I made to launch the company and has been our flagship design,ā said PRS Guitars Founder & Managing General Partner, Paul Reed Smith. āUpdating the 24-08 version for our 40th Anniversary with a semi-hollow body, EQ mini toggles, and this wood combination really allow the instrument to āsingā in a full, beautiful voice of its own.ā
Now made with American alnico and updated build specs, TCI pickups are designed to offer a full, musical sound reminiscent of single-coil and soapbar tones without the hum.
The dual EQ mini-toggle switches were originally developed in PRSās Private Stock department and act as tuned high-pass filters when engaged (in the up position), removing shelved low-end and allowing the high frequencies through for more clarity and musical highs.
For more information, please visit prsguitars.com.