The L.A.-based session ace takes PG through his studio and talks about his love for “player grade” guitars.
Tim Pierce’s guitar can be heard on more than a thousand recordings, starting in the ’80s, when he played on hits by Bon Jovi, John Waite, and Rick Springfield. In subsequent years, he’s added to his resume with recorded performances for Crowded House, Christina Aguilera, Seal, Avril Lavigne, Tracy Chapman, Joe Cocker, Ricky Martin, Meat Loaf, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Rob Thomas, Rick Springfield, Phil Collins, Madonna, Toy Matinee, Don Henley, Santana, Rascal Flatts, Chris Isaak, Jewel, Faith Hill, Celine Dion, Dave Matthews Band, the Goo Goo Dolls, Lana Del Ray, Demi Lovato, Jason Mraz, Kelly Clarkson, and many more.
These days, Pierce also has a popular YouTube channel with more than 400,000 subscribers and offers an online masterclass program for thousands of users. You can get more information at timpierceguitar.com.
Meanwhile, here’s what we saw—and learned—when Pieces shared the wisdom and the gear he’s accumulated in four decades of playing sessions.
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Tim’s Troupe
Here’s a look at Tim Pierce’s go-to instruments, including a 1962 ES-335, a 2020 Gibson Custom Shop 1960 Les Paul reissue with Arcane humbuckers, a one-off PRS McCarty 594 Singlecut in black with binding, and a ’62 Fender Jaguar strung with flatwounds.
Ol’ ’35
After nearly four decades of sessions, Pierce has pretty much every tool for any job. His heavy rotation includes this 1962 Gibson ES-335, which has enough wear to be considered “player grade,” with Ron Ellis pickups. Most of Tim’s electric guitars are strung with Elixir nanoweb strings, either .009 through .042, or .010 through .046.
Green Machine
This 2022 Mario hardtail S-style with a paulonia-wood body weighs a mere 4 pounds 13 ounces!
The Right Stripe
You’d be hard pressed to find a more beautiful flame top than this 2019 PRS McCarty Flame Top Doublecut. It sports a carved flame maple top on a mahogany body, a rosewood fretboard, two volumes, two push-pull tone controls, and a 3-way switch.
Marshall Power
Pierce has a lot of amps to choose from in his control room, including this 1967 Marshall Super PA 100 head (top) and 1968 Marshall Super Tremolo plexi.
A Park, Divided
There’s also a Park JTM 45-100 from a limited run of 10 and a Divided by 13 RSA 23 head, with 23 watts, natch.
More Amped Up
Rounding out the lineup of Pierce’s amplifiers is a Bad Cat Lynx, a Bad Cat Hot Cat, and a Joe Morgan custom 15 head (not pictured).
That’s 16 x 48
Pierce’s amp cabs live in a separate, sealed room, built specifically for isolation, far from the control room. They include these four vintage Marshall 4x12 cabinets, dating from 1968 through the early 1970s. There’s also a vintage Vox 2x12 with 15W Bulldogs.
He keeps his cabs miked with Shure SM57s, two Royer R-122V tube ribbon microphones, and two Sony C800 large diaphragm condensers from the early ’90s. A Scheops CMC5 condenser microphone is used for acoustic guitars.
Tim Pierce's Pedalboard
Pierce began the interview playing though his main mobile Pedal Board, which includes a Nobels ODR-1, a Strymon Lex rotary, a Keeley/Timmons Halo delay, a Meris LVX delay, a Karma MTN-10 overdrive, an XTS Modded Boss GE-7 equalizer and Boss TR-2 Tremolo, a vintage Boss VB-2 Vibrato, an MXR Reverb, a Fairchild Circuitry Shallow Water modulation pedal, a Providence System Tuner, two Dunlop mini expression pedals, a Dunlop volume pedal, a Voodoo Lab Dingbat pedalboard, and a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power Mondo.
Pedal Muscle, Part II
While in his studio cockpit, these are Pierce’s effects, which you can hear him play in his online videos: Ibanez MT10 Mostortion, Vemuram ODS-1, Nobels ODR-1, MXR Boost/Line Driver, Way Huge Red Llama, Boss OC-2 Octave, Boss VB-2 Vibrato, Way Huge Supa-Puss Analog Delay, Fender MTG Tube Tremolo, Universal Audio Golden Reverberator, Neon Egg Planetarium 3, Ebo E-verb, three Eventide H9s used with the iPad App, and a Boomerang Looper. And as you can see with the additional gear photos, Tim Pierce owns (nearly) every tone-tweaking device ever made!
You probably know Ed Helms from his unforgettable turns in The Hangover movies, The Office, and a laundry list of era-defining comedies, but what you might not know is that he shreds bluegrass music, too. (Actually, if you’ve seen The Office, you’ll know about his impressive musicianship.) Helms has played in bluegrass bands since his college days, so he knows a thing or two about writing a great American roots song. And what’s more American than getting too pissed off and ruining nice things?
Helms joins Sean Watkins and Peter Harper for a writing session that centers on a paraphrased version of Abraham Maslow’s law of the instrument: “When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything’s a nail.” The trio use the phrase as a way to look at personal and societal inabilities to approach situations with “the right tool,” like nuance, patience, or grace. Instead, anger—the hammer—seems to be the only tool in our belts. That inevitably means we end up smashing stuff.
Tune in to hear how this John Prine-inspired country tune takes shape—plus, don’t miss the story of Sean’s DMV blowup when he was just 16.
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Jack White played a big part in making these vintage outcasts desirable. But these are still fine times to make cool sounds for less—especially if you aren’t brand or image conscious. And White, staying faithful to his roots, likes the idea of making sure there’s fewer financial obstacles to making a racket. That led to the collaboration with Donner reviewed here—the Donner X Third Man Triple Threat—a $99 distortion, phaser, and delay combo that you can practically fit in a pencil case.
Light and Little Analog Amalgamator
China-based Donner is probably best known to PG readers for its very inexpensive mini effects, which can usually be had for less than 50 bucks. Keen-eyed effects heads will notice that the Triple Threat looks a lot like Donner’s Alpha Crunch and Alpha Force—three-in-one distortion/chorus/delay units in identically sized enclosures that sell for 69 bucks. The Triple Threat effectively subs a version of Donner’s Pearl Tremor mini phaser for the chorus. While many players will find more utility in the chorus-equipped Donner three-in-one, White’s choice of a phaser substitute is a cool one.
Those consumed with the matter of portability will be tickled by the Triple Threat. It measures about 7 ½" wide and less than 2 ½" deep. It will actually fit in a back pocket. And if you’re committed to making your load-in as light as possible or maximizing square inches in a tiny apartment, the Triple Threat is less problematic than the king-sized Mr. Goodbar on your desk that you shouldn’t eat anyway. While it’s not heavy by any means, the Triple Threat feels super sturdy. The tiny knobs might be the only part of the design that I would worry about in terms of fragility—particularly given the very necessary proximity of the knobs to the footswitches. But the removable rubber rings that surround the knobs, which also make them easier to adjust, also work as bumpers of a kind against glancing blows.
Blast, Warp, Repeat….
I don’t think the intent of the Triple Threat is to emulate any particular tone synonymous with Jack White. I’m not as familiar with White’s solo output as I am with that from the White Stripes. But I associate the former with a lot of glitchy fuzz and octave scramble and the latter with the sound of a Silvertone Twin Twelve bludgeoned by a Big Muff or Micro Amp. If he used a phaser anywhere in his catalog, I don’t remember.
White and Donner probably envisioned the distortion circuit in the Triple Threat as the best compromise between simply rowdy and evil. It serviceably covers Jack White sounds ranging from organic amp filth to fuzzier stuff, and can change in feel drastically depending on your guitar. Sixty-year-old lipstick pickups in a Silvertone, for instance, sound super-White Stripes-like—gritting up a clean black-panel Fender at the mellow end of the gain spectrum and sounding fuzzy and mammoth at the more aggressive end. Alnico V PAFs coaxed trashier, more modern, more metallic tones at high-gain extremes. And a Stratocaster spanned SRV-ish and L.A. glam-metal tonalities. A Boss DS-1 is a pretty reasonable touchstone in a very general way. But the wide ranging gain and tone controls give the Triple Threat’s distortion a pretty varied personality.
As mentioned, the Triple Threat’s phaser is based on Donner’s Pearl Tremor. It sounds a little like a script-era MXR Phase 90. However, it’s less thick than that circuit, and even at maximum depth it’s not as bubble-gum chewy as a more modern block-script Phase 90 or a Small Stone. Some of that might be down to what sounds like a slight reduction in low end when the phaser is engaged. But the Triple Threat phaser also requires a level boost. To reach unity gain, you need to set the level at 3 o’clock, which leaves much of the parameter’s lower reaches pretty ineffective.
The delay is uniquely quirky, too. At its highest mix levels, repeats are much louder than at equivalent settings on analog echoes, including the MXR Carbon Copy and Ibanez Analog Delay. That can open up cool textural options based on pronounced echoes. Lower mix levels evoke some of the hazy qualities of the Carbon Copy, Memory Man, DM-2 and others. But the Triple Threat’s repeats are brighter than any of those delays, sounding closer to an MXR’s Carbon Copy Bright. Some analog delay users will miss the dark taper of vintage BBD units. The greater treble response also means the effect swells a little less smoothly to the self-oscillation point. But despite its brighter profile, the Triple Threat’s delay is still thicker sounding than the Boss DD-3 I used as a digital comparison.
The Verdict
At 99 bucks, it’s hard to fault differences between the Triple Threat’s individual effects and analog equivalents that, for the most part, cost $100 to $160 by themselves. In spite of its quirks, the Triple Threat’s combination of tiny size, convenience, ease of use, and range of tones make it a steal. And any pro with a simple rig that more-or-less mirrors this one could do a fly-in or backline gig with confidence that cool sounds—and a very light load-in—await.
