THIS CHARMING SAUCEPAN

Flogging A Dead Zebra.

If you’ve ever heard ‘Our Love Will Still Be There’ by The Troggs from way back in 1966 then you’ll know precisely the sound I’m going to write about. I’ve looked high and low (and still have far to go) to find an effect that mimics the oddly desirable sound a fuzzbox with a dying battery makes. Luckily with the seemingly endless list of fuzzes out there I’ll find one, in the mean time I’ve spent peanuts on a very clever and very tiny box by UK effect merchants Dead Zebra FX.

As it says on the tin, the dead battery simulator controls the voltage received by the pedals. The single control knob takes the current from a full 9v down to a rolling blackout level of 4.5v. This gradual ‘starving’ of the effect yields some pretty quirky sounds not just from fuzz/OD/distortions but from anything else you can throw at it effects-wise. I say anything, I mean anything analog as digital pedals just up sticks and leave when receiving anything less than what they need. If you take a regular Boss adaptor and daisy chain with the Dead Zebra DB between them you can easily dial in that velcro-like quick decaying fuzz. The lack of voltage makes it feel like you’re playing with a noise gate in the chain, this will affect your playing dynamics much like an enveope filter would, whereby you need to ‘open’ the gate to allow sound through.

I would recommend that when using this that a clean booster is perhaps added somewhere along your signal chain as your carefully honed unity gain control settings are shot to shinola as the voltage is decreased. Other than that and the distaste for all things digital no FX fiends box of tricks should be without a Dead Zebra.

Set Phasers To Kill (Solid State Amps)

Like a fair portion of the guitar playing community I prefer valve amps. I prefer their tactile nature and organic response. With this in mind it’s fair to say that I’m not so keen on the majority of solid-state amps, mainly for their often sterile and lacklustre tones but also because the majority of gigging sized ones come with some pretty naff digital effects loaded in as a sort of compensation from the manufacturer. Most likely by way of apology for the sinfully cardboard ‘rock and roll’ tones the amp is possible of producing. This post isn’t an invitation to throw your solid states from the top of a cliff or multi-story car park though, it’s about these naff effects and how they’ve turned an entire generation against the sounds of phasers and dare I say it, flangers.

Many guitarists these days cut their teeth on the sort of small combo amps that cater for a strictly ‘rawk’ sort of player, something high-gain and bells and whistles laden. These hissy and crackling buzzboxes do nothing, I believe, but turn us off very usable and atmospheric flange and phase stompboxes for fear of sounding a bit tacky or a bit too 80’s.

Boutique makers have lately taken a keen interest in trying to replicate the pulsating warbles of the Leslie spinning speaker units beloved by George Harrison and other tone cognoscenti. Be aware though that a boutique product costs as much as it does because the R&D involved is usually done on a microscopic scale, the construction methods are labour intensive and the parts are usually bespoke or difficult to source. This is justified and fair enough if you’re a fully fledged touring professional musician or a hedge fund manager on a crazy wage or just crazy and willing to go without food for a month or two to own these units.

If you have a shred of sense and the price of a round of pints and scampi fries in your pocket I suggest you hit the auction sites or local pawn stores for some ‘sleeper classics’ that will not only give you your own sound but could also become collectable. Slowhand himself, Eric Clapton, once reportedly favoured an Arion SCH-1 Stereo Chorus. Not only that but Jimmy Page apparently also enjoyed a cheapie in the Yamaha CH10 MkII chorus. While this is perhaps admittedly nerdy stuff it just goes to show that even the high priests of guitar are partial to a bit of cheap modulation fun.

I’m always on the lookout for cheap and interesting pedals, I recently picked up an Ibanez FL5 Flanger from their criminally underrated Soundtank series for very small change. With the ‘Regen’ (not Ronald Reagan) control fully clockwise this makes the zaniest raygun/Looney Tunes falling sound I’m ever likely to hear. Interestingly enough: Andy Summers of The Police created that chorus sound with none other than an Electro Harmonix Electric Mistress Flanger, while I’m not saying this unit will capture that holy grail of flanger sounds it’ll get pretty close and you’ll have fun playing a few of his classic chord sequences. I was chuffed to receive an old Rocktek Phaser as a Christmas present from my fellow Wood Burning Savage, Tom. These things are entirely plastic and look like something an eastern bloc spy would use to jam radio signals. It sounds great and with some tinkering some great tremolo-like pulses can be created, I had hours of fun creating layers of looped swells and organ like tones with the help of an octaver pedal.

I’ll end by saying a Phaser isn’t just for Christmas, to be honest it isn’t even for life but for that lead lick or middle eight that needs something different that’ll add texture to your records and grab the audience by the ear lobes, you can’t go wrong with a cheap Phaser/Flanger stompbox.

(Unless you happen to be Eddie Van Halen.)

Bad Vibes

It’s disappointing when something you like gets broken. It’s a bit more disappointing when something you want to like arrives not quite broken but not quite working. This is the ever-present gamble when someone lists an eBay item as ‘untested.’ I picked up a Danelectro Cool Cat Vibe pedal a few months back and never quite got around to playing it very much. The crazy casing is the same as the Fuzz I reviewed a few months back and it’s built like a gosh-darned tank.

There are the fairly usual ‘Mix,’ ‘Speed’ and ‘Intensity’ controls on the top end of the unit. Plugged in and activated it takes a second or two to kick in, like any fan of valve amps I don’t mind this so much, you do have to double-guess yourself though for when you want the effect to begin when playing a lead riff. Sonically, it conjures up everything from reserved under-the-sea sounds to blatant 1950’s B-Movie raygun sounds. When this one works, it stumbles slap bang into warbling Fender amp ‘Vibrato’ (or tremolo, as Leo erroneously forgot.) This conjures up all those sweet Santo & Johnny 45 record sounds and makes your guitar sound like something from Capitol Records’ long forgotten pop catalogue. I could see Richard Hawley, the great tone connoisseur, using one of these to great effect.

Sadly, this isn’t going to be happening anytime soon as my own and many other folks (apparently) are having the same issue with this unit. Long story short, it plays fine for around 20 minutes and then decides to pause for reflection and produces no sound whatsoever. If anyone has had this issue fixed, drop me a line in the ‘ask’ section at the top of this page. It makes for a nifty paperweight in the meantime…

Wah’s Going On?

I love fuzz. I love Fender. So when I’m in a hock shop and I see a Fender Fuzz Wah reissue for less than half price in great condition it’d be like Rolf Harris leaving his local animal shelter without a depressed badger and some goldfish that have forgotten how to swim.

Firstly, this thing is a humongous piece of kit considering the size of other wahs. I stood on it earlier today and felt like Marty McFly on a hoverboard, it’s also reassuringly heavy. It looks like Fender lifted the gas pedal from Steve McQueen’s Bullitt Mustang and fitted some wah and fuzz circuitry into it.

Towards the end of the 60’s and the dawn of the 70’s, manufacturers jumped on the new fangled stompbox bandwagon after witnessing the likes of Hendrix, Richards and Trower incorporating these units into their rig and in the process making hit records and spawning countless imitators. Many companies experimented by building fairly rudimentary ‘multi special effects units’ which compounded fuzz, tremolo (or ‘repeat percussion’ as it was often referred to) and wah circuits to create some fairly wild and interesting sounds. Sensing that stompboxes weren’t just a phase, Fender dipped their toe in the water with the Fuzz Wah.

History lesson aside, upon plugging in this skateboard sized wah and resisting the urge to jump on with both feet I was greeted with some slightly less than traditional wah sounds. I associate that ‘chicka-whacka’ wah sound with 70’s cop shows, bad gameshows and everyone who doesn’t know what’s making that sound that I know passes a blue movie comment. I like that throaty, gurgling Hendrixy wah sound, but anyone who tries to imitate it sounds like someone trying to imitate that Summer of Love sound, poorly.

I prefer to use a wah like a slow filter, like a parametric EQ or as something that’ll squash whatever I’m playing. This wah nails that vocal formant sound with a full compliment of ‘ee’ and ‘oo’ sounds. The fuzz is more of a low-gain overdrive but with a little tinkering of the guitar’s volume control and the pedal’s ‘Fuzz Volume’ trimpot I was able to dial in some substantial clipping goodness. While the wah is controlled by rocking the treadle in the usual manner the fuzz can be controlled to a certain degree by twisting the top of the pedal to the right or left, something Fender borrowed no doubt from their lap steel department’s volume/tone pedal. Another nifty feature is the ability to flip the order of the circuit, essentially fuzzing out your wah or inversely adding wah to a fuzz signal.

Overall, this is an odd and great sounding piece of gear that no doubt has a song or two trapped inside it’s Fort Knox like build. Just don’t tell Mark Knopfler.