What can you reveal about the history between EarthQuaker Devices and Dr. Z Amplification?

I’ve been a fan of Dr. Z Amps for a long time. My introduction to them was through an old friend, Al Karpinski (from the Kent, Ohio band The Six Parts Seven), who had a stereo pair of Dr. Z amps. Al was incredibly particular about his tone back in the ‘90s, I wasn’t worried so much about tone, I just wanted to be as loud as possible, but Al was a total gear nerd. He had these Fulltone pedals—which no one was really using yet—and a beautiful guitar running into the Dr. Zs. I knew immediately those amps were special just because they met Al’s standards, and I thought it was cool that they were made in Ohio.

I didn't see another one until years later at EarthQuaker’s first Summer NAMM in Nashville. I found a Dr. Z KT-45 in a local music store for a great price, played through it, and it was incredible. I bought it on the spot, and that KT-45 ended up being used in almost every one of our demo videos for a long time.

Do you remember when you first met Mike Zaite a.k.a Dr. Z?

I don’t recall the exact introduction, but I had friends working there—it was likely through Buddy Akita. Eventually, Z reached out to me about designing an overdrive pedal specifically for one of his amps. That led to the Dr. Z Z-Drive, a Germanium/MOSFET dual-voice preamp that was in production from 2015 through 2023.

In the beginning, I mostly went back and forth with Buddy, who would then take the designs to Z. We worked indirectly at first, but eventually, we became friends, and the pedal did well.

What led to the discontinuation of the Z-Drive?

We ran out of the specific diodes used in the circuit and there was no good approximation for them. Any replacement we tried changed the sound too much. Rather than compromise the tone, it made the most sense to discontinue it.

How did you and Dr. Z arrive at the ZEQD-Pre? Were there plans to reimagine the Z-Drive?

About two years ago, Z reached out about doing a new version of the Z-Drive. I was interested, but before I could start, he came back and asked, “What if we made a tube pedal?” He developed a preamp circuit similar to the first gain stages in his amps that utilize the EF86 tube.

When it was ready, he and Buddy brought it down to Akron. It was a tiny circuit housed in a giant amplifier chassis. I plugged it in and was blown away—it was this massive, full-range clean boost. I ran it into my Sunn Model T, and it tightened the low end while adding harmonics I’d never heard from that amp, even with overdrive pedals.

I loved it, but I didn’t know much about working with tubes or high voltage. That was the main hurdle—figuring out how to generate high voltage from a standard nine-volt power supply.

How did you approach the voicing of the speaker cabinet simulation for the ZEQD-Pre?

Other analog simulations often fail in the high frequencies. They’re either rolled off so much that the sound becomes dark and muddy, or they aren't filtered correctly, allowing harsh, sterile frequencies to cut through. You need some of those highs to hear the attack of your pick, but you have to walk a fine line.

For the ZEQD-Pre, I used a series of analog filters to emulate the resonance and smoothness of a speaker. It isn't a scientific measurement of a specific cabinet, I just used my ears. I listened to my own amps and tried to approximate that general feel—good low-end resonance, solid mids, and a high end that isn't shrill.

It has a specific “thing”—if you hit a chunky palm-muted note, it resonates beautifully while staying tight.

What’s the main difference between the analog simulation in the ZEQD-Pre compared to the digital simulations that are all over the market?

Digital simulations are essentially approximations of analog circuits, speaker responses and sometimes room response and even recording technique written in code. Analog simulations are approximations of cabinet responses created by discrete filters.

The main difference is that we’ve preset the sound of the ZEQD-Pre’s analog simulation to just be good.

You can’t flip through fifty different cabs like you can on a digital modeler, but I find having too many options can lead to option paralysis. You find a sound you like, switch to the next one, think it’s better, switch back, and suddenly the first one sounds terrible.

I wanted to simplify that experience. When you spend all your time menu-diving for presets, it kills creativity. 

You’ve mentioned that you’re seeing a shift away from digital modelers at EarthQuaker clinics.

I realize I sound like an old person when I talk shop about modern gear, but I’ve noticed a trend. People tell me they bought a high-end modeler, got tired of the complexity, and moved to something like our Easy Listening pedal because they wanted to simplify.

For myself, I don’t want a digital approximation of an amp that sounds like it already has room reverb and compression baked in. I want an amp to be loud, articulate, and clean so that whatever I put into it sounds like itself.

What makes the EF86 tube different from the standard 12AX7?

The EF86 is a unique tube. It takes a much larger signal to push it into overdrive, and it doesn't clip like a 12AX7. When it does break up, it’s almost like a fuzz. It’s very Hi-Fi with a big, full-frequency response. Because of how it responds, the ZEQD-Pre works best as a way to amplify and enhance the other effects in your chain rather than acting as a traditional "tube overdrive" pedal.

Are there hidden features or "pro tips" for using the ZEQD-Pre?

One interesting thing is the "third voice." If you bypass the pedal entirely but still use the Direct Out, you get a sculpted but mostly flat signal from the cab simulator. It’s a great way to send a filtered clean signal to a DAW or headphones.

Also, the Direct Out is very hot. It can easily drive an interface channel, so I strongly suggest using a pad on your input if you don’t want that. In some cases, it can lead to excellent results with a really nice preamp.

The pedal requires 500mA of power. What happens if a user provides less?

It needs 500mA to work as advertised. It won’t make a sound at 100mA. However, if you run it at 200mA or 300mA, it produces this gated, "zippery" fuzz tone with zero sustain. It’s an interesting sound, but for the intended loud and clear response, you must hit that 500mA requirement.

How does it handle bass?

It sounds awesome on bass. It adds a pleasant growl—it stays clean but gets "growly" in a way that really fills out the mix.

Any closing remarks on the ZEQD-Pre?

I think the beauty of the ZEQD-Pre is its simplicity. It’s a high-quality, Hi-Fi clean platform. It’s starting to bother me that there is a whole generation of kids that have never plugged a guitar into a tube amplifier in their life because they're expensive and they have a free one on their laptop.

So I hope a pedal like this could be a turning point for players and make them realize that there is something special about analog technology that they’ve been missing. It just thickens up the signal in a way that just feels a little more organic to the player and familiar to the listener.

This isn't just a gear demo—it’s a deep dive into the "shared brain" of two master builders.

Corey Jenkins is the Marketing Specialist at EarthQuaker Devices. An Akron, Ohio native, he started chasing tone at age nine after hearing Mick Ronson's guitar work on "Ziggy Stardust" for the first time. He has been active within the local music community for years and has worked professionally as a creative problem solver for the past decade and a half. In his spare time, Corey enjoys spending time with his son, his three cats, and his 1973 Univox miniKORG K1.

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This cute little guy is our loving homage to the iconic MKII Tone Bender circuit and has been one our most successful new releases thanks to the support and enthusiasm of fuzz freaks like yourself.

The beating heart of Barrows is its trio of germanium transistors, so before we go any further, I’ve asked Matt Clouston, Product Manager and resident circuit geek at EarthQuaker Devices (think of him as the Doc Brown to my Marty McFly), to explain the difference between two-transistor and three-transistor fuzz circuits in a way that even my feeble mind could understand.

He was nice enough to scribble out the following insights on the back of a Denny’s placemat for me:

Two-Transistor Fuzz Circuits

• Most famously found in the Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face circa 1965. (Dark Side of The Moon-era Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles)

• The type of fuzz that simply cleans up when you turn down the volume on your guitar without breaking out a pedalboard tapdancing routine. Eric Johnson and Jimi Hendrix are some of the best sources for live examples of this.

• Mellow, simple, stable, easy to use

Three-Transistor Fuzz Circuits

• More aggressive and saturated fuzz tones than achieved with two-transistor designs. 

• It’s more Stones than it is Beatles. Think of the raspy fuzz on “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” or Jimmy Page’s fuzz tones on Zeppelin I.

• Most famously associated with the Sola Sound Tone Bender Circuit that served as inspiration for Barrows

• Three-transistor fuzz circuits make it possible for a tone control to exist in the design due to the circuit’s ability to accommodate a recovery gain stage after the tone control. 

Ok, so far we know that Barrows is a three-transistor fuzz and, thanks to Doc Clouston, we’re clear on the differences between two- and three-transistor fuzz circuits. At this point, I’m going to assume you have a good idea of what Barrows sounds like, either because you own one or you’re familiar with the three-transistor fuzz sound. If not, I strongly recommend you check out the product demo video sandwiched between this paragraph and the next.

For me, the sound in a compact footprint is only part of why Barrows is an instant board-essential for any fuzz fan. Do I love that the pedal delivers on its advertised promises of producing everything from light, singing distortion to crushing fuzz tones with nearly infinite harmonic-rich sustain. Yes, I do. Do I love that I can put it in a chain with my Les Paul, wah, and Marshall JMP to play every guitar riff Mick Ronson ever played with Bowie and shake all the pictures off my wall? OMG, a thousand times yes.

But what I really love is how freakin’ usable of a fuzz this is. I’ve read enough comments, reviews, and threads to understand I am not alone when I say that I love fuzz, but always had trouble making one sound good on a pedal chain or on a board with other pedals. As a big time user of modulation and time-based effects, this was always a big problem for me whether I was recording or playing live.

It just wasn’t practical for me to have a fuzz and the story was always the same. Boy meets fuzz, boy falls in love with fuzz, fuzz turns out not to be who boy thought and breaks boy’s heart. The cycle always ended with me selling my fuzz and living a fuzz-less life until I was ready to get my heart broken again.

But then I met Barrows. Barrows wasn’t like all the other fuzzes. There was something different about Barrows. Barrows was able to break the cycle because Barrows has a phase-corrected and buffered output.

What does that mean? Well, vintage-style fuzz circuits typically sound weak or degraded in a pedal chain primarily because of impedance mismatches that occur when buffered pedals are placed before them. This is because buffered pedals have an output signal that is a lower impedance than the input impedance of a non-buffered or true bypass pedal, like a classic Tone Bender circuit.

The aural result of an impedance mismatch is a loss of high-end frequencies, reduced dynamics, and an anemic, noisy, compressed and overall undesirable sound. Barrows, however, is designed with a buffered output. So it plays nicely with all the other pedals in your chain. And because it’s phase-corrected, the signal leaving the Barrows is in phase with the signal entering it. This prevents sound cancellation when stacked with other pedals in a series setup on a pedal board or in a parallel setup like the kind you can run with our One to Four Splitter and Four to One Mixer.

The original Tone Bender MKII was released in 1966. It’s sixty years later and now we have Barrows Fuzz Attacker at our disposal—a pedal that captures all of the original’s strengths and unique sonic fingerprints in a compact, convenient form factor with modern functionality. You should get one, it will make your life so much easier and I can sincerely say my signal chain is so much happier and healthier thanks to Barrows.

Corey Jenkins is the Marketing Specialist at EarthQuaker Devices. An Akron, Ohio native, he started chasing tone at age nine after hearing Mick Ronson's guitar work on "Ziggy Stardust" for the first time. He has been active within the local music community for years and has worked professionally as a creative problem solver for the past decade and a half. In his spare time, Corey enjoys spending time with his son, his three cats, and his 1973 Univox miniKORG K1.

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After experimenting with around a dozen circuit designs, Jamie settled on one that produced the same modulation stages and frequencies, and shared a similar LFO as his vintage Uni-Vibe, but was original and unique in terms of functionality.

The Depths made landfall on the Isle of Akron on Wednesday, July 3, 2013, where it was met with much love, warmth, and excitement. The Depths was adopted by players of every level and found a home on pedal boards seen in basements and arenas alike. Legend even has it that one pedal builder abandoned their own plans for a Uni-Vibe clone altogether because they felt they couldn’t do one better than The Depths.

As it matured, The Depths grew from V1 into V2 with the addition of Flexi-Switch technology, and continued to make fast friends with anyone looking for a fresh take on the classic optical vibe circuit sought by generations of players.

My personal relationship with The Depths is the kind we as musicians don’t get every day and shouldn’t take for granted. It’s the type of relationship Mudhoney had with the Univox Super-Fuzz and the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff. The type of relationship Sir Mix-a-Lot, OutKast, Missy Elliott, Beck, Madonna, and countless others have had with the Roland TR-808.

I’m talking about the type of relationship where a piece of gear becomes a muse and it’s not enough to simply use it on a recording. The type of relationship where you feel the need to at the very least reference it in the lyrics and maybe name your album, band, or in my case, a song, after it.

I met The Depths at EarthQuaker Day in 2019. It wasn’t a custom color or limited run. It wasn’t even an A-Stock unit. But on that day, it called to me. I took it home, plugged it in and played what would have amounted to a fairly vapid sounding arpeggio on my guitar had The Depths not been in the equation. The sound it produced was hypnotic. Somehow calm and commanding all at the same time.

I quickly recorded my new idea, gave the session the working title of “The Depths,” and sent it over to my friend Jeri—a frequent collaborator of mine and fellow Depths owner—so she could write lyrics and record vocals.

Upon listening to the completed song, I discovered she’d done something I hadn’t expected. She had written The Depths into the hook of the song. The working title stuck and the song prompted us to start a new band which would become the focal point of our creative lives for the following few years.

I didn’t just get EarthQuaker’s take on the classic optical vibe circuit the day I brought The Depths home. I got a song and eventually a band. For these gifts that The Depths gave to me, I will always be grateful.

It wasn’t just my life that was touched by The Depths. During the pedal’s life, EarthQuaker released over 10,000 units into the Optical Vibe Ocean, making it possible for The Depths to touch the lives of musicians the world over.

And if you’re here with us today, I’ll bet The Depths touched your life as well.

Sadly, the very thing that gave The Depths its life would ultimately bring about its death when it became unsustainable and impractical to secure the Light Dependent Resistors (LDRs) that were the lifeforce of The Depths.

It’s one of life’s great ironies.

The Depths may be gone, but its legacy and tonal imprint will continue to live on. Not only as a dweller of the celestial realm, but right here in our physical plane every time someone plugs one in and shoves off on a fantastic voyage of the vibe.

So as we stand along the coast, staring out at The Depths’ final resting place and paying our respects, it is important to us that we thank each and every one of you who let The Depths into your signal chain, and thus your life.

Bon voyage, Depths. Until we meet again.

Photos by Taichi Nishimaki.

Corey Jenkins is the Marketing Specialist at EarthQuaker Devices. An Akron, Ohio native, he started chasing tone at age nine after hearing Mick Ronson's guitar work on "Ziggy Stardust" for the first time. He has been active within the local music community for years and has worked professionally as a creative problem solver for the past decade and a half. In his spare time, Corey enjoys spending time with his son, his three cats, and his 1973 Univox miniKORG K1.

Here is a compilation of artists who are defining the sound of modern Indigenous music. Sample the tracks below, and support Indigenous musicians by purchasing a record or catching them on tour.

Status/Non-Status >>> “Find A Home”

Black Belt Eagle Scout >>> “Soft Stud”

OMBIIGIZI >>> “Street Names and Land Claims”

nêhiyawak >>> “copper”

Nechochwen >>> “spelewithiipi”

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson >>> “I Pity The Country”

Raven Chacon >>> “Black Streaked Humming”

Laura Ortman >>> “SMOKE RINGS SHIMMERS ENDLESS BLUR”

Tecuexe Band >>> “Acahual with the chia”

Zoon (ft. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson) >>> “Astum”

Ribbon Skirt >>> “Wrong Planet”

sadbirthdays >>> “shoestring”

Raven Chacon & Present Music >>> “Owl Song”

Geoffrey Crowe is a designer, visual artist, and composer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has worked as an in-house designer for Element Skateboards, Smartwool apparel, and is currently the Art Director at EarthQuaker Devices. He has provided art direction and archival restoration for countless record releases. Crowe is a member of Alderville First Nation.

As I get a little older and a little wiser, I’m learning that we don’t always need loud tube amps. My wife and I were also blessed with the birth of our first child last year so I might just be gaslighting myself, but I’m sure there are plenty of other people in my boat. The boat where you’re not allowed to turn it up to eleven on your full stack. This same boat where even a tweed deluxe is a little too much. On this boat we still get to play guitar, but we have to do it quietly. We must do some Easy Listening. 

Sure, there are plenty, maybe too many, amp simulators, cabinet simulators, modelers, interfaces, software plugins, and console-in-a-boxes out there. But what about an inexpensive and reliable little box to plug your headphones into that's under a hundred bucks and half the size of a Snickers bar? Did we mention that it comes with a lifetime warranty? We will finish the other half of the Snickers bar while you try to find one. 

Didn’t find one? That’s why we invented Easy Listening. Not the “popular music genre and radio format that was most popular from the 1950’s to 1970’s” (thanks wikipedia), but the $99 amp simulator / headphone amp. What amp is it modeled after, you might be asking? None other than the semi-disputed king of amps ... the AB763 Deluxe Reverb. 

One of the most recorded and revered circuits of all time, the Deluxe Reverb still graces many stages you’ll see today. But what makes it a great pedal platform and why did Jamie Stillman base the Easy Listening on that, relatively, low wattage amp? 

Jamie Stillman demos the Easy Listening amp sim.

The beauty in the Deluxe Reverb lies in the sum of its parts. It has the classic Fender tone stack with the mids scooped. It is loud and clear thanks to a generous amount of negative feedback, especially compared to earlier tweed amps. It also has an undersized power transformer and output transformer, which lend more touch sensitivity, sag, and compression than the other Fender amps of the 1960’s and 70’s.  

On the Easy Listening there is no adjustable EQ, but we tuned it so the Treble is around 5 and the Bass is around 6 on a Deluxe Reverb. You know those old amps, they all sound a little different from one to the next. That little extra bass boost comes in handy though, and it wasn’t boosted enough to overwhelm the tiny little speakers in your headphones. If you do find that you need a little EQ tweaking, I highly recommend placing an EQD Tone Job EQ pedal right before the Easy Listening in your signal chain.

In addition to being a great headphone amp, the Easy Listening is also a fantastic preamp to run right before your recording interface. Especially handy for bedroom recording settings where you’re looking to get a touch more gusto when running straight into a little Scarlet interface. 

Most amp sims and modelers out there make you sound like the model that has been programmed into the tiny computer that you paid hundreds or thousands for. This little amp modeler lets you sound like yourself for less than a hundred bucks. No menu diving, no little computer whose memory can corrupt, just a simple solution to the age-old problem of wanting to play your guitar while everyone else in your house is fast asleep.

Photography by Dan Price.

Matt Clouston is the Product Manager at EarthQuaker Devices. He has spent most of his life in and around the music industry, as an amp & pedal builder, musician, touring guitar tech, and technical writer. The only thing he loves more than playing music, talking gear, and hauling heavy amps up and down stairs is hanging out with his little family in their very old Akron home.

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Kurt first heard about EarthQuaker Devices while working as an engineer at a number of venues. “I started seeing bands coming through with EarthQuaker Devices and I was always impressed by their versatility and how good they sounded. I thought ‘wow, that’s a great sounding pedal’ or ‘that’s a great concept of things that that pedal does’”. He also states the Pyramids as one of his favorites. “I have always loved modulation pedals… and the Pyramids flanger is, I think, a fantastic pedal. I’ve used it in the studio a lot… and they’re a lot of fun in the studio and can add a lot of character to a track”.

Currently working as the touring engineer for Melvins, Kurt uses EQD pedals in his signal chain as a way to really express himself in the mix, truly feeling the music while he mixes. The pedals, aside from the sounds they create, allow him to manipulate the physical knobs while the band is performing. This gives him the control to trigger sounds or to use tap tempo functions to taste even if the performance is slightly different than the night before. Watching him do this in person is truly as entertaining as watching the show he is mixing.

The Avalanche Run, Pyramids, and Hizumitas are in his current lineup of touring pedals, using them in very unique ways. “I use the Avalanche Run for delays, and I love that there’s three different delay characteristics: swell, normal, and reverse. I use all three with Melvins. I use the aforementioned Pyramids on overheads and vocals. During drum solos I’ll throw a flanger on the overheads to get a nice liquidy effect. I am also using the Hizumitas to put some distortion on drums and vocals on a handful of songs in their current set”.

Outside of the touring world, Kurt operates Lucky Cat Recording in San Francisco where he really gets to enjoy his down time from touring. Working with hundreds of bands a year has shown him how the music industry is trending, and bands are playing it a little too safe in many aspects. “I think people need to take more chances artistically. They need to step away from the cut and dried and proven, and get more experimental. You know, it takes a little more time to find things that work, but I think that the rewards are definitely worth the time spent, whether it be in the studio or the rehearsal room. Experimentation is lacking right now, not to say that you need to be avant garde or anything like that, but stepping outside the comfort zone is something that, for me, is always welcome”.

Kurt cites performers such as Jack White and Melvins as two bands specifically who are not taking the safe route, as well as local bands he works with such as Secret Chiefs and Bolero, who are paving the new generation of sound exploration.

Kurt Schlegel’s take on music is very hopeful and inspirational, yet leaving a lot to be discovered. It’s not about being famous, it’s about being yourself. “Have fun! Play around your music. Music is fun. You know you put in the work, and then it’s time to just have a ball. That’s what it’s all about.”

Jake Forgan is a Medina, OH based musician, student, and employee of EQD that specializes in audio engineering and production. While not a professional in this particular field, Jake frequently earned A’s on essays and reports throughout his high school and undergraduate education, and also enjoys writing poetry in his free time. He hopes you’ve enjoyed seeing his hands throughout the last few months’ demo videos and hopes to one day sneak his elbow into a video or two.

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That’s why we’re proud to support the work of The Portal Foundation (H37P!) and their innovative Music Expression program, now led by the deeply inspiring Isaiah Mitchell, known for his work with The Black Crowes and Earthless. 

“I guess let me just tell a story,” Isaiah begins. “Growing up, you face problems—things you don’t know how to handle. I didn’t know how to turn to people to talk. I turned to alcohol. It was how I coped.” 

Isaiah’s story is raw and real—about the pain of isolation, hitting rock bottom, and the fear of losing everything. “It took a long time. I was scared I’d die, or do something horrible, or lose it all—which was already happening. That’s when things changed.” 

Sobriety, for Isaiah, wasn’t just about quitting. It was about discovering how to live again—fully, honestly, and creatively. “I’m all or nothing" he shares. And through that clarity, he found healing in the place that had always been waiting for him: music. 

Healing Through Creativity: The Power of Music Expression 

Isaiah details a recent Music Expression session: A man walks in—skeptical, exhausted, raw. “He was slightly standoffish,” Isaiah remembers. “Probably because he wasn’t high. He was feeling everything he’d been trying to avoid.” 

But then the music starts. 

“We began working on a song together,” Isaiah says. “People love art. People love expression. Music opened him up. As the session progressed he became more alive, more participative. He sat up straighter, got into the process, and we connected. For those moments, all the anxiety disappeared. He was just there. Creating. And something beautiful happened.” 

By the end, the man who walked in heavy with doubt walked out a little lighter.  

“There was a shift in him,” Isaiah says. “That’s what music does—it puts you in a place of extreme presence. That’s what living is.”

Why Music Expression Matters: Music as a Lifeline for Mental Well-being

The Music Expression program at the Portal Foundation (H37P!) is more than music therapy—it’s a journey of emotional release, reflection, and reconnection. Participants—no matter their background or musical ability—are guided through storytelling, songwriting, and sound exploration. It’s a process of being seen, of breaking through pain, and stepping into creative power. 

In 2025 alone, over 150 participants are expected to engage in the program. Many report improved emotional resilience, clarity, and well-being. In a world where anxiety and loneliness continue to rise, programs like these are a lifeline—offering people a chance to reclaim their voice and their sense of purpose. 

Isaiah’s Role: A Musician Giving Back 

Isaiah brings more than musical talent to this work—he brings empathy, presence, and lived experience. “I understand the struggle,” he says. “I know how powerless and fearful people can feel in those early moments. I’ve been there.” 

To the participants, Isaiah isn’t just a facilitator—he’s a living example of what healing through creativity can look like. His sessions are not about perfection, but about presence. “Music is a meditative place,” he reflects. “It brings you into a zone where you're lost in creation. That’s Zen. That’s where life and beauty are. That’s honoring life.” 

Partners with Purpose: EarthQuaker + The Portal Foundation (H37P!) 

At EarthQuaker Devices, we’re rooted in community and creativity. We’re proud to align with The Portal Foundation (H37P!) and PORTAL EXP, organizations redefining how we talk about—and support—mental health. 

Together, we’re committed to: 

1. De-stigmatizing mental health through open conversations and creative expression. 

2. Providing tools for emotional resilience like somatic coaching, breathwork, and sound healing. 

3. Building inclusive, supportive communities where no one feels alone in their struggle. 

 
We believe in amplifying this work. And we invite our community—musicians, creators, and fans—to join us in supporting this mission. 

Get Involved: Join the Movement 

You can support mental health and music expression in several ways:

Donate: H37P! is growing to meet increased demand. Your contribution supports mentorship and creative therapy for those who need it most. https://www.h37p.me/make-a-donation 

Partner with Purpose: Join our network of companies who pledge 1% for mental health. Show that you and your brand support what matters. Reach out here.

Experience the Portal: Join the virtual and live events like Club Consciousness, breathwork circles, somatic coaching and immersive weekends—or gift a Music Expression session to someone in need. These spaces create healing, one moment at a time. https://www.h37p.me/music-expression 

This is the Moment: Centering Mental Health in Culture and Community

Mental health is health—period. And yet, so many still suffer in silence, unsure where to turn or how to begin healing. By supporting or engaging with programs like Music Expression and elevating voices like Isaiah’s, we’re not just talking about mental health—we're doing something about it. Every song written, every session held, every person seen and heard is a step toward a world where emotional well-being is prioritized, not stigmatized. Let’s continue to create, connect, and advocate—because awareness is only the beginning. True change comes when we show up - for ourselves, each other, and for a world where healing is not only possible, but expected, supported and celebrated.

Written in collaboration with EarthQuaker Devices, Portal EXP, and The Portal Foundation (H37P!).

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KGR Harmony, founded by Keijiro (KG) Fukushima, is based in Iwate, Japan, and specializes in handcrafted guitar pedals. Kejiro’s strong interest in the long-debated topic of how enclosure materials affect tone led him to Oitomi Ironworks. Oitomi is known for handcrafting traditional and modern-style iron teapots and kettles, referred to as Tetsubin, using “Nanbu-tekki” techniques dating back over nine hundred years.

KGR Harmony and EarthQuaker Devices began working together to develop enclosures for the Plumes and Blumes pedals, which were showcased at EarthQuaker Day 2024. The few pedals made for the showcase generated a lot of excitement and sold out immediately. Soon after, Jamie Stillman and Julie Robbins travelled to Japan and watched in person as the enclosures were cast for this special run of pedals. “It was a very special experience to visit the Oitomi forge to witness the casting process,” said Julie. 

Be sure to check out the FULL INTERVIEW with Jamie and Julie, sharing their time in Iwate touring the Oitomi facility and witnessing the creation of a genuinely fantastic batch of enclosures made by a group of hardworking and talented individuals!

100 Blumes and 100 Plumes in these custom cast-iron enclosures are now available exclusively on Reverb.com. These will only be available to customers in the USA until supplies run out.

************** EDIT **************

This run of the cast iron Blumes & Plumes is now sold out. We hope to continue this collaboration and bring more Nanbu-tekki effects to you in the future.

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Mine were pretty chill, except for the copious time I spent hangin’ out with my new pal Gary. That guy has no chill at all, to be honest. 

I met Gary through EarthQuaker Devices’ Jamie Stillman and IDLES guitarist Lee Kiernan, who created Gary out of the sort of fiendish collaboration you typically see in creepy black and white horror films from the 1930s. On paper, Gary’s concept is simple: He’s basically an opamp overdrive conjoined with a gated fuzz. But the results, as in those films where the mad scientists inevitably go too far, may initially seem too wild and weird to wrap our feeble minds around. Still, once you take the time to get to know Gary and really understand where he’s coming from, you just might find yourself wondering what you ever did without him. 

It would be fair to say that Gary has a split personality. The left side of his brain is a pretty straightforward affair, intuitive in its workings and more than happy to be of assistance. But then there’s the right side of his brain, which is unstable, chaotic and almost impossible to tame. We’ll get into that in a moment — but first, let’s talk about his more congenial left side. 

The left side of Gary is essentially a modified version of the “Green” circuit from EQD’s now-discontinued Gray Channel® Dynamic Dirt Doubler, long a favorite pedal of Lee’s. Though that overdrive featured three clipping modes, Lee only ever used its “N” mode, which removed all clipping diodes from the circuit — so that’s what he and Jamie installed in the left side of Gary’s brain. To access this overdrive, just tap Gary’s left Flexi-Switch, then use the Go knob to adjust the amount of opamp drive, and the That’s It knob to adjust the master volume. (Yes, that’s what the controls on this side of the pedal are called; even at his most conventional, Gary’s still a little… eccentric, shall we say?) 

The tones that emanate from the left side of Gary’s brain are wonderfully rich, dynamic and downright loud; in just about every setting I’ve dialed in, the opamp overdrive gave my Strat’s single coil pickups a beefier, more rounded presence, while also bringing out the mid-range sparkle of my SG’s humbuckers. There are several settings for great “always on” rhythm tones, like the one with both knobs at noon (which makes for a nice chunky clean tone, especially when combined with your bridge pickup), or the one with Go at 7 o’clock and That’s It at 5, which delivers a really appealing combination of low-end growl and trebly snap. Putting Go at 8 o’clock and That’s It at 3 is good for some indie-style jangling and droning, but this setting also sounds absolutely killer when you send the signal into a fuzz pedal like EQD’s Park Fuzz Sound. 

The lead tones that Gary’s left side produces are even tastier. Set Go at noon and That’s It at 9 o’clock to produce a nice gritty low-end boost; then dial Go up to 3 o’clock to achieve a fat, Marshall-like roar. Crank Go all the way up to 5 o’clock and boost That’s It to 10, and you’ll get a sweetly distorted overdriven tone that sustains for days when you’re using your neck pickup with the guitar’s tone knob dialed all the way down. Crank both Go and That’s It all the way up, and you’ll revel in some beautifully heavy saturation that nonetheless cleans up impressively whenever you back off a bit the guitar’s volume knob. For even more fun, run Gary’s left side into a distortion pedal like EQD’s Zoar Dynamic Audio Grinder, and hear your amplifier tubes tremble and sweat under the onslaught of the big rock action that you’re slamming them with. 

If that was all Gary brought to the table, we’d get along just fine. But it’s the other side of Gary — that ripping square wave fuzz with an envelope-controlled variable pulse width — that really makes him such a memorably unique and unpredictable character. Of course, if we’re going to examine that other half of Gary’s personality, we should probably talk first about what the terms “square wave,” “pulse width” and “envelope” mean. 

A square wave is a waveform that symmetrically alternates between two fixed values; it’s called “square wave” because the positive and negative amplitude peaks of the waveform pulses are both evenly chopped off. (All fuzz pedals utilize signal clipping in one way or another, but square wave clipping creates the that harsh, “synthy” sound that you hear in a lot of early fuzzes.) Pulse width is a measure of elapsed time between the leading and trailing edges of a single waveform pulse, and an envelope is a description of how a sound’s qualities (including attack, decay, sustain and release) change over time from the moment it begins to the moment it fades out. 

Got that? Good! Because the Oosh knob on Gary’s right side controls the volume of his square wave fuzz, and the large Yes! knob (like I said, Gary’s a bit on the eccentric side) controls the sensitivity of the fuzz’s envelope. The more sensitive the envelope becomes, the greater impact your picking attack has upon the fuzz’s pulse width — and the harder you hit it, the more the pulse width narrows, resulting in a sound that’s increasingly pinched, glitchy and weird.  

Oh sure, Gary can behave like a “normal” fuzz pedal — just tap the right Flexi-Switch, keep the Yes! control all the way down at the 7 o’clock position, and crank up the Oosh to noon or more, and you’ll have a nasty old-school fuzz that sounds especially smooth and “zippery” on the neck pickup with the tone rolled back. But if you want to add an element of glitchiness and unpredictability to the proceedings, just roll your guitar volume back a bit as well and hear what happens; Gary is super-sensitive to input volume, so even just slightly lowering it can make the fuzz sound like it’s starting to disintegrate. 

From there, start turning Yes! clockwise, listening to how envelope changes and Gary responds as you go. I found a real sweet spot on that control between 10 o’clock and noon; with Yes! set between those parameters, and Oosh up around noon, it sounds like a heavy square wave fuzz that’s teetering on the edge of sickness. But when you really dig into the guitar and hammer out some four-four barre chords, Gary coughs up a wonderfully smeary, phase-y sound that gets even nastier the harder you play.  

But be forewarned — once Yes! passes the noon mark, Gary becomes increasingly sassy and temperamental. As the pulse width narrows, the notes you play will become ever more spitty and glitchy, sometimes even disappearing mid-bloom, and your amp will sound progressively close to complete collapse. Which, of course, can be enormously cool! Plug an expression pedal into Gary’s expression port (maybe take him out to dinner first), and you’ll be able to toggle in and out of the sonic chaos and adjust the tonality of his fuzz on the fly as you play. 

When Yes! is turned all the way up to 5 o’clock, the harder you hit the strings, the more chaos Gary will create — but picking gently can produce some interesting effects as well. For instance, with Yes! cranked and Oosh at about 9 o’clock, try playing a single-note melody with a really (and I mean) light touch to achieve a nasally, sustain-free twang reminiscent of an electric sitar. 

And then, of course, you can rock Gary’s left and right sides simultaneously, which makes for an especially powerful combination that can help Gary’s special brand of madness cut right through an onstage mix. But if you really want to get Gary riled up, put a gain pedal (like, say, an EQD Plumes) in front of him. Remember how his right side is super-sensitive to input volume? Well, just check out how nuts he gets when he’s being driven by a high-gain signal.  

For example, with a gain pedal pushing Gary, and Yes! in the 10-to-noon sweet spot, that gloriously smeary, phase-y effect I mentioned earlier becomes even more wonderfully smeary and phase-y. Or, with Yes! at 11 o’clock and Oosh at noon, try playing legato hammer-ons high up on the neck with your neck pickup engaged and the pickup’s tone rolled all the way back; between the crazy sustain and phaser-like whooshing it produces, it sounds like you’re playing a theremin in a windstorm… 

So yeah, I think I’ll be hangin’ with Gary for a long time to come; I have a feeling he’s got a lot more crazy shit he wants to show me, once I figure out how to coax it out of him. He’s got a lot to show you, too — so if you and your guitar are looking for a new best friend, don’t be afraid to give Gary a call. 

Photos by Tom Ham.

Dan Epstein is an author, editor, journalist and guitarist based in New York's Hudson Valley. He writes about his latest musical obsessions at Jagged Time Lapse, and songs from his latest musical project The Corinthian Columns can be found at corinthiancolumns.bandcamp.com

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What would you say if I told you that there was something you could add to your pedal board right now that would immediately improve your guitar tone? And what would you say if I told you that it’s just a “set it and forget it” kinda thing — it requires no dialing in or even much in the way of conscious thought, because it doesn’t have a footswitch or control knobs?

What? You’d say I’m high? Whoa there, pal — let’s not cast unnecessary aspersions, or say anything we’ll regret later. I’m only tryin’ to help you out here.

But okay, yeah, you got me. I am high — high on EarthQuaker Devices’ new Buffer/Preamp and Buffer/Splitter utility pedals, that is. And I could honestly stare all day at their trippy black and white op-art graphics, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s more important is these little rectangles take up precious little in the way of pedalboard real estate, all while helping your guitar maximize its sonic potential.

There’s nothing fancy or complicated about them; as I mentioned before, there are no knobs to turn, no footswitches to step on, no internal trimmers to tweak. You just place the Buffer/Preamp or Buffer/Splitter on your board, power ‘em up with a standard 9 volt DC supply and plug ‘em into your signal chain, and they’re instantly ready to help you combat that dreaded scourge known as Tone Suck.

Yes, I said Tone Suck. It’s okay; you don’t have to be embarrassed to talk about it. Tone Suck is something that we’ve all suffered from at one time or another; it’s an issue that even the most legendary guitar heroes have had to grapple with. Because ever since the 1960s, when guitar cables started getting longer in order to give musicians greater freedom of movement onstage, guitarists have noticed that lengthier cables typically result in duller sound. This is basically because the longer the cable is, the higher its capacitance will be, which in turn translates into a greater roll-off on the high end of the audio spectrum.

This is why treble boosters were so popular among British guitarists of the 1960s and 70s: the combination of dark-sounding tube amps and long curly cables that they used often resulted in the high end of their sound going completely MIA, and treble boosters helped restore the bite to their attack. (These treble boosters also inadvertently helped birth heavy metal by overdriving said amps into heavily distorted territory, but that’s a delightful story for another time.)

But even if you don’t use anything longer than a 10-foot cable, Tone Suck can still plague your sound like an uninvited guest that refuses to leave, especially if you have multiple stomp boxes crammed onto your pedalboard. Don’t believe me? Let’s try a little experiment…

Go ahead and plug your guitar directly into your amp, and play it completely clean for a little bit. Sounds great, right? Okay, now plug your packed pedalboard into your amp, and your guitar into your pedalboard, without actually engaging any of the effects. Does your clean tone sound noticeably duller and weaker when you’re playing through the pedalboard? Then, my friend, I’m afraid you are indeed suffering from Tone Suck.

And this, frankly, could be for several reasons. The majority of pedals made these days are either true bypass (i.e., containing a hardwired input-to-output connection that’s completely removed from the signal chain whenever the pedal is deactivated) or buffered bypass (i.e. containing a 1 to 1 amplifier that remains in the signal path whether the pedal is active or not, like a delay or reverb where the “tails” continue to be audible even after switching it off). Daisy-chaining a combination of true bypass and buffered effects can wreak havoc on the top end of your tone; then again, so can an all-true bypass lineup, which potentially puts you at the mercy of higher capacitance. And while an all-buffered pedalboard seems like the obvious solution, not all buffers are created equal — and cascading multiple buffers of various quality levels can actually lead to both high and low end roll-off.

If you’re a guitarist who favors vintage or vintage-style effects, that can create a whole other issue, as well. Germanium fuzzes are notoriously temperamental creatures, but especially so when there’s a buffer placed in front of them — which means you typically want to place those pedals first in the chain, right after your guitar. But even then, the circuitry of these pedals combined with the rest of your signal chain can still create capacitance issues that will diminish the majesty of your true tone. 

What’s to be done about it? Well, pal, I’m glad you asked. Remember those EQD Buffer/Preamp and Buffer/Splitter utility pedals I mentioned earlier? They’re just what the tone doctor ordered, and they will have your guitar sounding fat and sassy again in no time flat.

The Buffer/Preamp is easily the simplest device in the entire EQD line: It contains one input jack, one output jack, a 9 volt DC power supply, and a little red LED light to indicate whether or not the device is powered up. But there’s beauty in that simplicity, especially when you put this little baby at the end of your signal chain. Once in place, the Buffer/Preamp’s high 1 Mohm input impedance and low 100 ohm output impedance will straighten out whatever capacitance-related jankiness might be ailing your tone, giving your pickups a new lease on life. And while I tend to think that the Buffer/Preamp sounds best at the end of the signal chain, you don’t have to take my word for it — try placing it between different pedals and listen to the results. (But for best results, you probably should put it after any germanium fuzzes on your board.)

But the Buffer/Preamp doesn’t just vanquish Tone Suck; in addition to restoring any high end loss, this device contains a nifty little preamp that lends a subtle-but-noticeable depth, warmth and presence to your tone, whether you’re using single coils, humbuckers or both. Even with just the Buffer/Preamp between your guitar and amplifier, you can totally hear (and feel) the difference.

But what if you’re the type of guitarist who plays with a stereo set-up, or uses two different amplifiers to achieve a unique tonal blend? How can you get in on some of this tone-affirming action? Well, once again, I’m glad you asked. Because the EQD Buffer/Splitter works the same exact magic as its simpler sibling — only with two inputs instead of one! Just station the Buffer/Splitter at the end of your signal chain, run a separate cable from each output to each of your amps, and revel in the sonic goodness that results. (Don’t be put off by the fact that “Preamp” isn’t part of its name; that preamp oomph is still very much present and accounted for.)

So take it from me, pally — say hello to the Buffer/Preamp or Buffer/Splitter, and say goodbye to Tone Suck. Whether you’re playing live with a band, practicing by yourself, or tracking in the studio, you’re gonna be really pleased with the big difference these little devices can make. You can thank me later.

Dan Epstein is an author, editor, journalist and guitarist based in New York's Hudson Valley. He writes about his latest musical obsessions at Jagged Time Lapse, and songs from his latest musical project The Corinthian Columns can be found at corinthiancolumns.bandcamp.com

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Alas, even though scientists say time travel is theoretically possible, such options don’t yet appear to be available to us, at least not corporeally. But if you’d like to try time traveling from a sonic perspective, hitch a ride on Silos, EarthQuaker’s new tri-mode delay pedal — or, rather, Multi-Generational Time Reflection Device.

Yes, that’s “multi-generational” in the sense that this ingenious little stompbox contains three separate operational modes (Digital, Analog and Tape) that can generate a wide array of delicious delay tones — as well as delay times ranging from zero milliseconds to a whole second — with just a tweak of its Mix, Time and Repeats controls. Which is pretty damn cool in and of itself, as are additional features like the Save/Recall button that allows you to save up to six presets, a Preset knob that accesses them, a user-assignable expression control jack, a dedicated Tap Tempo footswitch, and a buffered bypass Activate footswitch which lets the delay trails naturally decay even when you abruptly kick it off.

But Silos is also multi-generational in the sense that it can transport you to any number of sounds and textures from the past sixty-plus years, while also giving you the tools to create the music of the future. Whether you’re seeking the pristine repeats of a digital delay, the quirky character of an analog “bucket brigade” delay, or the atmospheric colors of an old-school tape delay, Silos will take you there. Climb aboard, plug in your guitar, and let us show you what we mean!

304 HOLLOWAY ROAD

Our first stop on this Silos tour is 1962, where maverick producer Joe Meek has built a home studio in a third-floor flat above a leather goods shop on North London’s Holloway Road. One of the first people to grasp the notion of using a recording studio as an instrument unto itself, Meek gleefully experiments with massive amounts of compression, distortion, reverb and tape delay to create the otherworldly sounds heard on his hit productions like “Telstar” by The Tornados. (It is rumored that the “rocket launch” effect at the beginning of that record is actually a tape of a flushing toilet slowed down and replayed backwards.)

To create a delay sound that fits right in with the new, futuristic world that Meek hears in his head, switch the Silos mode to T (Tape Delay), set the Mix control to 2 o’clock for a strong delay signal, set the Time control to 9 o’clock for a fast delay time in the 200-300 millisecond range, and set the Repeats control at just a hair before 3 o’clock to keep the delay right on the edge of self-oscillation. The freaky, pingy effect this setting produces — especially on high-pitched single-note melodies — sounds even cooler when you throw some compression and reverb into your signal chain (may we suggest an EQD Warden Optical Compressor and a Ledges Reverb?). But even on its own, this setting will supercharge your guitar with the sound of the future, 1960s-style.

MAGGOT BRAINED

Our next stop on this sonic time-travel tour finds us landing in early 1971 at Detroit’s United Sound Systems recording studio, where George Clinton is leading the original Funkadelic lineup through the recording of what will turn out to be their final album together. “Maggot Brain,” the album’s title track, is a slow-building ten-minute instrumental dominated by wailing guitar of Eddie Hazel; before rolling tape, Clinton has instructed Hazel to play it like he’s just gotten the news that his mother is dead. It’s a searing and understandably emotional performance, one made even more haunting by Clinton’s LSD-influenced decision to run the tape through an Echoplex multiple times.

To get that dark and moody “Maggot Brain” sound, keep Silos in Mode T, dial the Mix control down to 9 o’clock, set the delay Time to 11 o’clock (or roughly 450 milliseconds), and set the Repeats at around 10 o’clock to get a similar four-repeat delay. A little gain on your guitar (provided by, say, EarthQuaker’s Plumes overdrive) will add nicely to the murk of the degrading signal; and while it’s not quite the same as having an acid-crazed Dr. Funkenstein twiddling the knobs, you can achieve a similarly disorienting effect by assigning the Mix control to your expression pedal, and bringing the delay signal up or down with your foot as you play.

RUNNING LIKE HELL

On our next Silos stop, we’ll touch down briefly in 1979 at one of the several studios where Pink Floyd are fractiously building their forthcoming opus The Wall. Guitarist David Gilmour’s affinity for the Binson Echorec is well known, but in the last few years he’s been experimenting with digital delays to get longer and more precise delay effects. “Run Like Hell,” a new track he’s been working on for the album, features a funky, palm-muted riff and a ringing refrain, both of which are notably enhanced by a digital delay.

While it’s difficult to fully replicate Gilmour’s double-tracked “Run Like Hell” parts without running your guitar in stereo between two different amps and delays, this Silos setting will put you solidly in the, er, Wallpark: With Mode D (Digital) selected, turn the Time knob to around 10 o’clock for a delay time in the 350-400 millisecond range; then set the Mix at around 10:30 and the Repeats at about 1 o’clock to get about seven or eight repeats that are audible without being overbearing. Throw a little gain and reverb into the signal chain to really make it sing… but then you’d better run like hell before Roger Waters comes in and angrily wonders what the hell you’re doing here!

LIVING ON THE EDGE

Of course, we can’t talk about classic delay effects without bringing The Edge into the discussion, since his delay-drenched guitar sound not only defined U2’s music but also influenced countless guitarists in the 1980s and beyond. So this next stop on the Silos time travel tour finds us alighting at Ireland’s Slane Castle in the summer of 1984 to check him out as he works on The Unforgettable Fire.

Sure, The Edge achieves his patented “guitar wash” by running his axe through a variety of delays (some analog, some digital) and multiple amplifiers. But if you’re looking for a more cost-efficient route to a similarly Edge-y attack, just keep Silos at Mode D, turn the Time to around 11 o’clock, the Repeats knobs to noon, and the Mix control to two o’clock for a sturdy delay sound. Boost your signal with a bit of gain, then strike a chord; once you get the feel of the 450 millisecond repeats, start playing in between or against them to get that “In the Name of Love” sound. If the song you’re playing requires a faster or slower tempo, just adjust the Time knob manually (or with an expression pedal) or tap the Tap Tempo switch accordingly, and “U2” can impress your bandmates with your intrinsic Edge-iness.

COPPING THE KARMA

Our next stop on this sonic time-travel tour is St. Catherine’s Court in Bath, England, in late 1996, where Radiohead are presently constructing their era-defining OK Computer. “Karma Police,” one of the album’s key tracks, goes wonderfully wonky during its last minute, thanks to Ed O’Brien’s use of an Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man to wheel his distorted guitar tone in and out of self-oscillation.

If you have an expression pedal, you can achieve a similar effect with Silos. After putting Silos in Mode A (Analog), crank the Time to 5 for a full one-second delay, put the Mix at noon, then assign the Repeats mode to the expression pedal. As you play, the delay repeats will degrade and pile up — and when you rock the expression pedal all the way forward, the self-oscillation effect will kick in hard, producing a throbbing, distorted sound that you can then pull back as needed. You can also access a similar sound without an expression pedal, by setting the Repeats to about 3:30, as anything after 3 o’clock in Mode A or T will unleash the self-oscillation beast. But be warned: keep your hand or toe in very close proximity to that Repeats knob, because those oscillations can get crazy loud pretty damn quickly!

NEROTIC

For our last stop on this time-travel tour, let’s land in Port Jefferson, New York, where progressive/indie/math rock trio Covet are finishing up their 2020 album Technicolor. While compression is a major component of guitar phenom Yvette Young’s sonic arsenal, analog delay is the secret sauce to her intricate tapping patterns and fingerstyle runs.

To achieve a similar delay as the one she uses on Covet’s head-spinning track “Nero,” keep Silos in Mode A, dial the Time control to 11 o’clock, the Mix control to 10 o’clock, and the Repeats control down to 8 o’clock. This setting gives you a single repeat of about 450 milliseconds, and the low Mix setting makes it sound and feel almost like a slap-back echo, albeit with slightly more heft. Combined with a nice dose of compression, it’ll bring your tapped and fingerpicked passages to sparkling life — and it’ll sound pretty sweet when applied to wailing leads, as well!

Dan Epstein is an author, editor, journalist and guitarist based in New York's Hudson Valley. He writes about his latest musical obsessions at Jagged Time Lapse, and songs from his latest musical project The Corinthian Columns can be found at corinthiancolumns.bandcamp.com

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The original Time Shadows “Subharmonic Multi-Delay Resonator” — created in an infernal summit between two wizards of the effects realm, EarthQuaker’s Jamie Stillman and Death By Audio’s Oliver Ackermann — had always been little more than a fascinating rumor to me. Released in a limited edition in 2020, the pedal was already sold out and changing hands for big bucks on the collectors’ market by the time its demo videos first began to haunt my dreams. But haunt my dreams, they most certainly did; so when a new, expanded sequel appeared on the horizon, I knew I had to get my hands on one.

And could you blame me, Doctor? For not only does the new Time Shadows feature the same mind-melting circuits that made the original so prized among seekers of sonic arcana — an EQD-designed envelope controlled sub-octave filter delay and a DBA-wrought multi-delay regenerating filter, to be specific — but it also comes with such added attractions as a user-assignable expression jack, six preset slots, and (most enticing of all to me) a mysterious “dual delay” mode that, so it was whispered, “brings your earthly transmissions repetitively closer to the heavens while simultaneously diving deep into the hells.” I was utterly powerless to resist.

On the fateful day that the Time Shadows finally arrived, I greedily plucked it from my doorstep and hurried into my chambers, where I attempted to unlock its secrets away from the prying ears and eyes of the whimpering lackwits whose imaginations were simply too limited to comprehend this pedal’s unearthly powers. And what I found, Doctor, I can barely bring myself to recount here; and yet, I must. Where do I begin?

THE TUBA-CELLO FROM HELL

With the pedal in EQD mode — and placed between my Strat and my Marshall — I turned its control knobs with trembling fingers. Time, I soon learned, alters the signal’s delay time. Span adjusts the intensity of repletion, and Filter (at least in this mode) serves an envelope control for the filter frequency, and a gate for the cutoff to the input of the delay. Before I knew it, I found myself cranking the Time and Filter knobs all the way up to 5 o’clock, while leaving the Span set low at 7 o’clock, and plucking out single notes on my lower E and A strings. And oh, the terrifying sounds that setting created, Doctor! Was it a cello groaning from the depths of Hell itself? Or was it a tuba doing the same? I shudder even as I recall it now, the way that the cranked Filter knob caused the notes to roar viciously to life like demons disturbed from their vile slumbers. “Dare I go on?” I wondered to myself. But I had to, I tell you. I had to!

SPACE PULSE

Determined to boldly go where no mere mortal had gone before, I plugged my expression pedal into the Time Shadows EXP jack. After turning the Span control up to 5 and setting the Filter at around 2, I set the expression pedal in “toe down” position and wiggled the Time knob to assign that control to the EXP jack. Easing back slightly on the expression pedal, I realized that each note I plucked vibrated as if it were suspended in outer space, and that each subsequent plucked note overlapped with it, creating an eerily pulsating chord. The sound of this was gorgeous and enchanting, and I could have luxuriated in it for hours — maybe I even did. But then some madness possessed me to rock the expression pedal all the way backward, and suddenly I was hurtling through hyperspace, with the echoes of my notes falling rapidly away behind me in a neon-colored blur of pitch-hurtling trails…

SPACE SHIMMER

I must have passed out from the shock, Doctor; because when I came to, the Time Shadows was now in DBA mode. I gingerly unplugged my expression pedal, hoping to calm the raging space demons that I had apparently unleashed, at least until I could find a way to regain my bearings. Thankfully, I soon stumbled upon the most delightful of settings: With the Time and Span knobs set at Noon, and the Filter cranked to 5, the pedal produced a shimmering interstellar delay that sounded especially lovely when fingerpicking along the G, B and high E strings. It sounded something like Spacemen 3 meets The Cure, yet oddly cheerier; and for a time, at least, it soothed my tortured soul.

BLACK HOLE

And there, Doctor, I could have happily stayed. And perhaps I should have, but I knew there was so much more of the Time Shadows to explore. Up to 5 o’clock went the Time and Span controls, and back out came my expression pedal, this time with the Filter assigned to the EXP jack. Subtly moving the expression pedal from all the way forward to about midway back while playing the guitar added strange and magical overtones to my delayed notes, but kicking the pedal all the way back made them sound as if they’d been suddenly swallowed up into a cosmic black hole. And then, Doctor, I kicked the pedal forward… and it was as if the black hole had vomited forth the notes back up in partially digested form. What kind of dark sorcery was this?

RAYGUN REVELATION

Nonetheless, I had to see for myself exactly what this “dual delay” mode was all about. I once again disengaged the expression pedal; I then turned the Time knob down to 7 o’clock, and set both the Span and Filter controls at 5. I clicked the Mode switch into its middle position, and played a note… and I swear to you, Doctor, it was as if my guitar had magically transformed into a raygun! And not your dimestore “Pew! Pew!” model, either — but rather one firing a cascade of simultaneously ascending and descending notes that seemed to tear a hole in the fabric of time and space itself. I was dazed at first by this unexpected sonic outburst, but then I blasted it again, and again, and again…

DIMINISHED 7TH NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

Throwing caution to the wind, I turned the Time knob all the way up to 5 o’clock, while leaving the Span and Filter controls at 5 and the Mode switch in its middle position. I plucked a string, and was completely taken aback when the note I’d played produced a diminished 7th arpeggio that kept ascending until it disappeared from earshot. I did it again, and realized that not only was the note going up in this fashion, but it was simultaneously going down! I plucked another note, and then another, hypnotized by the way the ascending and descending notes danced around each other like mischievous pixies; the bizarre harmonies they made together were as addictive as they were entrancing, and I kept concocting new melodic lines to see how they would come together and split apart…

And that’s how they found me, Doctor — passed out on the floor in front of my amp in a state of complete and total exhaustion, with those unearthly diminished 7th arpeggios still ringing in my ears. They took my Time Shadows away from me; they told me that I needed to rest and regain my health before I could go anywhere near it again. But all I can think about is how badly I want to plug into it, and how I must discover for myself what it can do in conjunction with my fuzz, echo and reverb pedals. I have heard them whispering that I have gone mad, and that the Time Shadows has melted my mind. I beg of you to tell me, Doctor: Do you think me mad? Do you?

Dan Epstein is an author, editor, journalist and guitarist based in New York's Hudson Valley. He writes about his latest musical obsessions at Jagged Time Lapse, and songs from his latest musical project The Corinthian Columns can be found at corinthiancolumns.bandcamp.com

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ZOAR

This pedal provides medium to high gain distortion that creates an overdrive perfect for summer refuge on a warm muggy night. Only transistors are used, helping to create a distortion that is not over the top and from a bygone era. The medium level grind is the best setting but there is always more saturation and power to add to the signal. It’s perfect for a hard rocking band playing onstage one weekend night after a sound soaked sunny day.

If you are looking for online guitar lessons, be sure to check out Guitar Tricks.

AURELIUS

Imagine a summer morning with the sun rising and the best day ever awaiting, the tri-chorus of the Aurelius pedal will help recreate those vibes. The saturated and watery effects are similar to psychedelic rock out of the 60’s and 90’s. The chorus and vibrato from this pedal invoke older sounds but with modern grit and heaviness added. Like many EarthQuaker Devices pedals, this one allows you to build some pretty thick soundscapes that invoke a lot of emotion.

HUMMINGBIRD

When we think of energetic summer creatures, the Hummingbird comes to mind. Its wings and flying are so fast that they sometimes appear to be floating. This tremolo pedal recreates that vibe with a percussive rhythm by using sawtooth waves to chop the guitar signal up. You can play slowly and it will have a laid back mood or speed up for a catchy rhythm that will capture an audience’s attention. There is a huge range of styles to be played with this simple tremolo effect from 50’s surf rock to modern shoegaze.

Check out this guitar chord chart for specific chord voicings in any style.

SPATIAL DELIVERY

This envelope filter can help you create sounds suitable for a clear summer nighttime sky. With these filter sweeps you can create auto wah and funk sounds that will travel across the universe and maybe even through other dimensions. If the presets aren’t suitable you can alter the range, filter, and resonance to create different fuzz and hi gain sounds. With this pedal you may play so funky that Old Gregg himself shows up to share his watercolor paintings.

ASTRAL DESTINY

With this octave reverb pedal you can build luscious soundscapes that are reminiscent of summer skies, valleys, peaks, and really any nature at all. By adjusting the length, rate, tone, and more there are endless possibilities that will give your music a movie feel. This pedal will even make the most mundane pentatonic scale practice more exciting. The octave reverb pedal is an excellent effects unit for an audience that has had a long summer day and is just looking to sit back and escape on a plane of sounds and good vibes.

AQUEDUCT

We often think of swimming in pools, rivers, lakes, and the ocean when summertime hits, this vibrato pedal will help with those watery vibes You can wobble, whammy, pitch bend, and pulsate your guitar signal as if it was moving through H2O. There are many styles and genres you can play from vintage smooth jazz to modern saturated grunge depending on your setting. If you have a summer show near water this pedal will surely fit the scene.

WHITE LIGHT

The summer is a time to let loose, dance, and rock out and what better pedal to do that then with a classic overdrive. This effects unit has a wide gain range, diverse EQ, and raw power to help drive your music. When the weather gets nice and you need something that will blow the audience away with some power chords, this will give you just the right amount of distortion. It’s not an overly complicated pedal, it is simply a classic that provides the guitarist with a guaranteed hard clipping vintage voice.

WESTWOOD

The image on this pedal is a grove of trees as the feeling it wishes to invoke is that of the breeze through the branches. This overdrive manipulator adds tones and harmonics to the signal to create a more pleasing sound. By adjusting the gain and EQ we can play a gritty powerful vibe but with the added articulation and sustain of the extra harmonies. Considering this pedal was influenced by forests, birds singing, and the wind it seems perfect for a summertime effect.

SUNN O))) LIFE PEDAL

The summer feeling isn’t always made up of nice breezes, water fun, and beautiful scenery, often it is hot and oppressive. There will be days where the great weather quickly turns into overkill and what better way to represent that than with this octave distortion and boosting. The Life Pedal has a crushing tone that will feel like the sun itself is sitting upon your shoulders. Try it with some full barre chord voicings. But this is more than just an octave signal booster, you can alter the sound, saturation, and tones for your final vibe. If the heat is going to be that much, we might as well melt while rocking.

RAINBOW MACHINE

When we think of spring, summer, or good weather vibes it is common to picture the colors, especially the rainbow. And just like the light of a rainbow this pedal has quite a range of sonic possibilities. The Rainbow Machine is a pitch warping effects unit that will allow you to experiment with your signal. You can create pleasant sounds or wild noises that will blow the audience away. Whether it is vibrato, chorus, choppy tremolo, or overdriven shrieks this pedal can do it all.

There are plenty of EarthQuaker Devices that will help you enjoy the summertime and good weather vibes. By simply plugging your guitar in you can create songs and soundtracks in every genre and style of music. There are endless possibilities when it comes to sound sculpting with guitar pedals, the only limit is your own creativity. Effects units are extensions of your instrument so let your imagination and playing soar on those hot summer days and wild nights.

By Shawn Leonhardt for Guitar Tricks and 30 Day Singer.

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As its “v3” implies, this isn’t the first iteration of EQD’s voltage-controlled envelope filter to hit the scene, but it is the first Spatial Delivery to feature an expression pedal jack, as well as the first to feature six preset slots that are ready and waiting to contain the settings of your choice. Aside from the new preset selector knob, the controls on v3 are the same as before: there’s a Mode toggle switch for the pedal’s Up Sweep, Down Sweep and Sample & Hold functions, and knobs for Range, Resonance and Filter.

The Spatial Delivery is a voltage-controlled envelope filter, an effect better known to many as an auto-wah. But the term “auto-wah” is something of a misnomer, since the “auto” implies automaticity, and therefore that this a “set it and forget it” kind of pedal. Nothing could be further from the truth, however - because an envelope filter, perhaps more than any other effects pedal, truly gives back whatever you put into it.

Whereas a regular wah-wah pedal relies on foot movement to shape the tone, an envelope filter responds to the intensity - or lack thereof - of your guitar playing. The harder you hit the strings, the more pronounced the effect becomes, which is why envelope filters have long been a favorite of funk rhythm guitarists. It can be difficult to be subtle with a wah-wah pedal, but a player that knows their way around an envelope filter can go in a second from a sweetly percussive groove to full-on “bow-chicka-wow-wow” and back with nothing more than a slight adjustment in the force of their strumming hand. And for lead guitarists, a nicely dialed-in envelope filter can add an arresting vocal element to one’s choice of notes.

On the Spatial Delivery, the Range control informs how sensitive the pedal’s filter should be to any incoming information; the lower the Range is set, the harder you have to hit your strings to produce an effect, and the more slowly the effect will manifest. In Sample & Hold mode, where the filter is controlled by random voltage, the Range controls the speed of its output. The Filter control crossfades between high pass and low pass filters; turn it clockwise to carve off the high end, clockwise to carve off the low, and leave it right at Noon to leave all your guitar’s frequencies intact. The Resonance knob serves as the filter’s feedback control, opening up or limiting the filter voice as you and your guitar see fit.

While it must be said that a whole lotta bassists and keyboardists have unleashed all manner of creative possibilities via the first two incarnations of the Spatial Delivery, this blog entry has been written for all you guitarists out there, especially for those of you who are laboring under the mistaken impression that an envelope filter is a one-trick pony, or an effect that is solely the province of funkateers. Because there’s really no end to the voices and flavors you can achieve with the Spatial Delivery, especially once you start combining it with other pedals on your board.

Speaking of which, conventional wisdom says that you should always put an envelope filter at the beginning of your pedal chain, and that’s where I currently have it on mine. But I’m not the boss of you, so place it wherever - and set it however - you like. The Spatial Delivery might actually sound pretty cool coming after a dirt pedal or even a modulation pedal; you never know until you try it, right?

In any case, here are five distinctly non-funky sonic flavors that you can achieve with a guitar and the Spatial Delivery, just to give you a sense of how far this pedal can go beyond its admittedly impressive funk capabilities.

THE LIPPY LESLIE

For nearly sixty years now, guitarists have been playing through Leslie organ speakers – or effects boxes that simulate them – to get that warbly, wobbly, swirling rotating speaker sound like Jimi Hendrix got on “Little Wing,” Eric Clapton (or was it George Harrison?) got on Cream’s “Badge,” or Keith Richards got on the Rolling Stones’ “Let It Loose”. The Spatial Delivery can deliver a similarly lush effect, and some sassy sonic asides along with it. In Upward Sweep mode, set the Range control to 3 o’clock, turn the Resonance down to 9 o’clock, keep the Filter at Noon, and pick out a descending or ascending arpeggio. When you pick harder, the effect will “squawk” a bit, like it’s telling you to watch where you’re going or casting humorous aspersions on your choice of footwear. If you desire less of this lippy aspect, use this setting with two pickups engaged and the treble rolled off a bit; but if you want to really bring its feisty personality to the fore, switch to your bridge pickup and turn the treble all the way up!

THE TALKING SITAR

A 1967 radio ad for the Vox Wah-Wah claimed that it “can even make your guitar sound like a sitar!” Which was sort of true - by pushing the treadle all the way forward, you could emphasize the treble end of your guitar sound, lending an additional element of Eastern intrigue to droning, sitar-like runs. You can achieve a similar but even more expressive effect with the Spatial Delivery: With the pedal in Down Sweep mode, turn both the Resonance and Filter controls down all the way to 7 o’clock (thereby filtering out all the low-end frequencies), set the Range control at about 11 o’clock, and turn the treble of your guitar’s bridge pickup all the way up. The raging ragas and snake-charming six-string spells that result will have an unearthly vocal quality to them, like there’s a mysterious Jinn trying to make contact through your music, and you can further emphasize this effect by turning up the Range control.

FUTURE BLUES

The Spatial Delivery’s Sample & Hold mode is wonderfully loopy – all you need to do is hit a string, and all manner of random bleeps and burbles tumble forth - and easy to get lost in for hours, but it can also be difficult or guitar players to figure out how to incorporate it into their playing. (Synthesizer aficionados, on the other hand, have been using Sample and Hold technology for decades to generate complex clusters of notes and all kinds of other fun effects.) One good way to get a handle on the pedal’s S&H mode is to slow it down as much as possible, which entails turning the Range control all the way down to 7 o’clock. Set the Filter control at noon to let both the low and high frequencies through, and turn the Resonance control all the way up to 5 o’clock to really bring out the effect’s robotic flavors. Hit a note to start the effect moving, then find your space between the rhythmic blips and start playing. Try some slow, mournful pentatonic licks to get a call-and-response thing going with the effect, then add a little delay (or a lot) to the proceedings. It’s like you’re playing the blues on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise!

FUTURE FOLK

Once you’ve got the hang of that, increase the speed of the Sample & Hold effect by turning the Range control to Noon. Dial the Resonance back to around 2 o’clock, and bump the Filter control to 1 o’clock. With your guitar’s neck pickup selected and its tone knob dialed back, gently pluck a clean open chord and let it ring; when this unleashes a rhythmic series of bloops and bleeps from the pedal, start building a chordal or melodic pattern around them, and be amazed at the folky yet futuristic textures that result. Again, the addition of a delay - such as the Avalanche Run - can take the Spatial Delivery’s Sample & Hold function on some jaw-dropping sonic excursions. (Note: when in S&H mode, if any of the repeats that the pedal produces sound annoyingly harsh to your ears, try rolling off the treble on your guitar and/or switch over to the neck pickup. That’s usually all that’s required to tame the rowdy robots.)

INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT

As cool as the Spatial Delivery is on its own, it’s also fun to combine the pedal with other effects and hear the results, like the weird and wonky octave effect that can occur when you pair it with a raspy, vintage-style fuzz - like, say, a Park Fuzz Sound with its treble bumped up a hair. In Down Sweep mode, set the Range to 3 o’clock, set the Resonance at noon and dial the Filter down to 9 o’clock, and kick on the fuzz. Playing single-note leads up the neck produces a clanging, biting tone that’s nasty and abrasive enough in and of itself; but once you go down the neck, the notes start producing an out-of-tune octave effect that becomes more jarring the further down the scale you go. Whether used for unsettling effect against a lovely melodic backdrop, or to add an extra layer of jagged crud to a full-on noise assault, this particular combination is so deliciously awful that that it’s guaranteed to trigger an involuntary “stinkface” expression from anyone within a mile radius.

Guitar and bass demo.

Dan Epstein is an author, editor, journalist and guitarist based in New York's Hudson Valley. He writes about his latest musical obsessions at Jagged Time Lapse, and songs from his latest musical project The Corinthian Columns can be found at corinthiancolumns.bandcamp.com

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I never played with my toys very much. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy them. Much to the chagrin of my parents, my enjoyment was found in taking them apart to see how they worked. I was especially fascinated by electronics. They just seemed so magical. I would stare at the circuit boards and try to understand how it all worked. My greatest enjoyment was in manipulating my toys that made sound. I would take them apart and touch paper clips to different parts in an attempt to do what I later realized was circuit bending.

I became much more interested in music around the age of 12. I loved watching MTV late at night to see strange music videos. One night, I had seen the video for “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails and it totally blew my mind. Sounds were being used in ways that I had not heard before. I had to hear more! I convinced my parents to take me to a record store, but they refused to let me buy it because a song from the album was named “Heresy”. I was super bummed, but “Life, uh, finds a way”. I ended up trading my friend Chris a pair of real sai (the martial arts weapon) to get the album. You read that right. My parents were ok with me having deadly weapons, but not a Nine Inch Nails album. I must’ve listened to those tracks hundreds of times. I was captivated by all of the synth sounds and was super curious about how they were created. I immediately wanted to make my own synth music.

When I was 15, I accompanied my grandfather to RadioShack. I was excited to see that they had keyboards, microphones, mixers, amplifiers, and a giant wall of curious electronic components. I began saving my money and finally had enough to buy one of the Casio keyboards that they had on display. I really enjoyed that keyboard. I played it every day and tried to dig as deeply as possible into the settings to find ways to make experimental sounds. I also acquired a copy of Propellerhead’s Rebirth RB-388 synth software. This had a big impact on my awareness of what a synth was. I spent many hours on our shared family computer making strange manic beats and recording them to cassette tape. This was fun, but I needed to find more sounds! I slowly taught myself to play keyboard and learned a little bit of guitar. I began to get far more serious about music when I met my good friends, Brian Sekula and the late John “JJ” Sekula, two well-known musicians in the Cleveland music scene. They encouraged and inspired me to delve further into music, composition, and audio recording. JJ had given me guitar lessons for a number of years. We created a number of recordings together that were sadly lost in the destruction of a studio computer. As I leaned further into music, I began to get more and more curious about electronic instruments.

There used to be Lentine’s Music, Guitar Center, and Sam Ash all within a few blocks of one another in a nearby city. I would wrangle my friends into going with me to all of these stores at least once a week. I must have been such a pest. I asked tons of questions and played every single synth and drum machine. After years of saving and a gracious partial loan from my parents, I ordered a Minimoog Voyager. I was so excited for it to arrive that I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up day and night experimenting with its settings and plugging it into every pedal that I could get my hands on. After many hours of experimentation, I did what I do with all of my toys. I took it apart.

I know what you must be thinking. Yes, I got it back together and everything worked just fine. No extra pieces! Opening up the Voyager lit a fire inside of me. I needed to learn more, but where to start? I started back where I began. I went to RadioShack and started looking through all of the kits and books that they offered. I bought every book that they had on electronics and a few of the smaller kits. The most memorable of all the books was a series called Engineer’s Mini Notebooks. They covered an array of topics and projects. I read each of the books cover to cover, but at that time was only able to glean a basic understanding.

Before joining EarthQuaker in 2015, I worked in hospitality management. During that time, I met the love of my life, Angie. We got married and had two wonderful children. Shifts at the hotel were long and strenuous. I often had to work several 12-hour shifts back-to-back, and there were even occasions where I would be required to stay overnight at the hotel for an entire weekend. While I made a lot of really great friends, I quickly realized that I was deeply unhappy with my career path. I was getting home too late to see my wife and kids, and I wasn’t getting any time for my hobbies. Despite that, I studied synths and electronics late into each night. I especially liked to study all of the schematics and kits available online by Paia, Ken Stone, Bbob Drake, Music From Outer Space, and various DIY forums. I completed the free online learning resources from Allaboutcircuits.com. I also learned a lot from MIT’s free online learning resource, MITOpenCourseware. I am super grateful for all of these free resources. I am also really grateful to Eric Barbor of Metasonix for graciously answering a number of my questions in regard to DIY tube circuits.

In those late hours, I also managed to complete a couple of my own DIY projects that I am really proud of. I built a guitar-shaped touch synth controller and a voltage-controlled tube distortion device. I showed them at a local Mini Maker Faire, and they actually gained quite a bit of attention from the attendees and organizers.

Being aware of my fascination with music electronics, my good friend JP tipped me off that EarthQuaker was hiring a Customer Service Manager. I was immediately super interested. I was already familiar with EarthQuaker, as my favorite pedal at the time was a Disaster Transport SR. I had a ton of experience with customer service and couldn’t be any more excited about the subject matter. A couple of interviews later, I found myself surrounded by one of the best groups of people that I have ever met. Since I was hired, I have transitioned to a role as EarthQuaker’s Systems Administrator. JP joined EarthQuaker as our Customer Service Manager a couple years after I was hired. EarthQuaker’s origins in DIY encouraged and inspired me to push myself further into circuit design. During my time here, I have gone deeper down the bottomless rabbit hole that is modular synthesis. As my collection of synth modules has grown, I’ve accumulated a wish list in the back of my mind for different features for an oscillator. I wanted more simultaneous access to different wave shapes, an ultra-fine-tuning control, fine CV control of pitch, etc. While it would have been fun to make an oscillator that fulfilled these needs, it didn’t feel like quite enough to justify creating a module.

*In walks Serendipity*

I have always been fascinated by metamorphosis, transmutation, transformation, transfiguration, and morphology. As such, I was working on an effects routing device that could morph a signal path by rearranging the order of effects devices by turning a single knob. This posed a technical challenge in that the circuit would have created undesirable feedback when in a parallel configuration. So, I sat down with a pen and paper and worked to solve the problem mathematically. I created an algorithm that controls the levels of the signals passing between each effect. I then designed an analog circuit based upon the algorithm. I tested it and it worked! Mostly, anyway. Not quite perfect, but cool! For some reason, I decided to sweep the circuit with various frequencies of sine waves to see where my solution would break down. As I began to approach audio frequencies, I suddenly became aware of the circuit’s potential for wave shaping.

The initial wave shaping was cool, but I knew that I could push things further. I began including various feedback paths, additional analog math operations, differential integration, and subharmonic generation. The circuit began to quickly take shape.

The best way that I can describe it is that the original waveform is broken into several different pieces, analog voltage math is then asymmetrically applied to each segment, and the waveform is then reassembled at the output in a gnarled mass of audio mutations. It functions in a way that is reminiscent of west coast style wave shaping circuit in that you start with a simple waveform that increases in harmonic complexity as you increase the control, but that is where the similarities end. The Wave Transformer offers a unique arrangement of even and odd harmonics and subharmonics with curious asymmetrical characteristics. I also included an insert jack to allow the player to choose the starting waveform, whether internal or external. The possibilities are further expanded by the ability to choose to have the sub octaves track the internal oscillator or the external source, and if those sub octaves are 1 octave down, 2 octaves down, or muted. You can also choose to mute the original waveform so that the wave shaping circuit acts as a harmonic VCA. As the Transform panel control or CV input increases, so does the volume and harmonic complexity. This allows The Wave Transformer to act as a synth voice without the need for a filter or VCA. Combining the Transform circuit with the available Linear and Exponential FM, Hard and Soft Sync inputs, Pulse Width Modulation, µTune CV input, and the 6 other audio outputs can yield a shockingly large variety of tonal options. You can create searing leads, thunderous bass lines, mellow plucks, texturally complex drones, vast soundscapes, gristly, self-modulated monstrosities, and everything in between. I also added a uTune control and input to give the ability to precisely adjust the tuning and modulate the pitch.  The latter was inspired by my love for Richard D. James’ use of custom tunings, microtonality and interesting pitch bends in his music.  I found it difficult to achieve the same results with other oscillators without using additional attenuators from other modules. The microtune CV input makes it possible to do microtonal sequencing, gentle pitch modulation and precise pitch bends.

I could barely contain my excitement when I had a fully functional prototype. I called EarthQuaker President and Founder Jamie Stillman and CEO and co-owner Julie Robbins and asked if I could show it to them. We spent a good two hours using it to create all sorts of crazy sounds in their basement. Jamie thought it sounded awesome, and he seemed to be most struck by the many different sounds that can be achieved with very few other modules. After some discussion and lots of experimentation, we decided to move forward with it as a product. Since then, I have been working with our amazing team to define all of our systems and processes. It is unbelievable just how much goes into making a new product. I truly respect and appreciate the role that every person has in the process. I have treasured all of these new experiences that I have had working with my fellow EarthQuakers to make this dream a reality.

Joshua Kolenc is the Modular Synth Designer and Systems Administrator for EarthQuaker Devices. He is a multi-instrumentalist composer with roots in DIY and Circuit Bending, and has a background in audio production, graphic design, sculpture, culinary arts, hospitality, data analytics, and manufacturing technology.

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Knowing his playing style and the kind of music he’s currently performing — he’s holding down the low end in a ‘90s Brit Pop cover band — I admit that I did an involuntary face-palm at his mention of an octave pedal. But I couldn’t blame him for instinctively heading in the wrong direction; back in the ‘80s, when we were both coming up as musicians and playing in a band together, nobody talked about pedals for rock bassists, who typically weren’t encouraged to explore any sonic or tonal options beyond what they could achieve between their instrument and amplifier. I remember the time my friend tried using a distortion pedal for a “fuzz bass” effect at one of our gigs; it sounded cool — but it also completely removed all bottom end from his (and our) sound. And since neither of us were aware of any better bass effect options in those days, he simply ditched the distortion and moved on.

In recent years, the array of pedal options for guitarists has since exploded to a degree that was unimaginable even a decade ago; ditto for the array of resources and forums that can teach guitarists about which pedals do what, and which ones might be right for them. But bassists have remained relatively underserved on this score, which is why many of them have turned to guitar overdrive pedals — such as the EarthQuaker Devices’ Plumes Small Signal Shredder — to punch up their sound, and which is why I recommended that my friend do the same. But I wish he’d asked me the same question just a few months later, because then I’d have had a better answer for him: Get yourself a Blumes, baby!

Much like the Plumes, the Blumes Low Signal Shredder is an all-analog overdrive that offers three different clipping options for your tone-sculpting, face-melting needs. Blumes, however, features a circuit that’s designed specifically to enhance the deep-end frequencies purveyed by the bass. (Sure, it sounds fantastic with down-tuned guitars, as well — but let’s give the bassists their moment in the sun, shall we?)

With its three control knobs (Level, Tone and Gain) and three-mode toggle switch, Blumes can add all manner of flavors to your bass sound. It can deliver serious crunch, fuzz and full-on, bowel-disturbing distortion, but it can also work for you on a much more subtle level. Think of Blumes as a variety pack of sonic hot sauces: some of the settings will make things a little tastier, some will give you a nice burn, and others will make your eyes involuntarily bug right out of your head. Here are six that’ll give you a sense of what Blumes is capable of.

(Note: your own results may vary slightly depending on your setup. Blumes can drive the hell out of any tube amp you pair it with; but I found the following settings while recording with my P-Bass through a direct box for a truly neutral “playing field”.)

OLD SCHOOL

Looking to cop some sweet late-sixties/early-seventies rock and soul tones — you know, the ones with a ton of supple analog warmth and just a touch of hair? “Come Together” with Blumes’ Mode 1, which utilizes a pair of light emitting diodes to produce symmetrical LED clipping that’ll give you some serious high-output crunch when you crank the Gain. Only, don’t crank the Gain; instead, dial it and the Tone control all the way down to 7 o’clock, set the Level between 11 o’clock and noon. Open your pickups all the way up, and set the Tone knob on your bass at about the halfway point, and your bandmates will be asking you that time-honored question, “What’s Going On?”

PUNK’S NOT DEAD

But if you really want to hear the kind of mosh-pit-roiling roar that Blumes is capable of unleashing in Mode 1, set the Level to noon, and the Tone and Gain controls to around 2 o’clock. The crunchy attack produced by this setting is brutal as all hell, yet still articulate enough to distinguish between driving single-note runs and slamming chords. And if the only card you need is the Ace of Spades, play this setting with your bridge pickup and bass tone cranked all the way up for maximum visceral, head-motoring power.

CLEAN BOOST

Let’s say you already have a killer bass tone but need it to cut through the mix a little more, or just want to drive your amp a little harder without sending it into full-on distortion territory. Set the toggle switch to Mode 2, which engages Blumes’ OpAmp drive without bringing the clipping diodes of Modes 1 and 3 into it, resulting in both the pedal’s loudest output and its fullest tonal frequency response. Then set the Level at 11 o’clock, the Tone at Noon (tweak as needed for added bite or warmth), and the Gain all the way down to 7 o’clock. This will give you a nice, full-bodied boost that’s just the ticket for bass solos, funky slapping, plucking with your fingers, or picking out high-register Peter Hook-style drones.

SHOEGAZIN’

It can be tough to be a bass player in a shoegaze-oriented band — you need to anchor the music as well as provide the melodic counterpoint, but it’s all too easy for your playing to get lost in the swirling guitar firestorms. Happily, Blumes can sort you out. Just put the pedal in Mode 2 for maximum full-range output, then set the Level around Noon, and dial both the Tone and Gain to around 1 o’clock. This setting will let your tone cut through the maelstrom, while also adding some deliciously flammable material of your own to the mix.

FUZZ GROOVE

Fuzz can be a tremendously cool effect to add to your bass arsenal; but as mentioned above, it can be difficult to dial in a fuzz bass tone that’s actually still really bass-y. If it’s fuzz nirvana you seek, proceed directly to Blumes’ Mode 3 — the asymmetrical silicon diode arrangement of this mode delivers a fuzzy, compressed tone with a really warm low end. With the tone knob on your bass turned all the way down, crank the Level of Blumes to 1 o’clock, and position both the Tone and Gain knobs to around 10 o’clock. The resulting fuzz is something you can get funky and fluid with, like the one used in that nasty bass line from Curtis Mayfield’s “(Don’t Worry) If There’s Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go)”. And if you’re looking for a fuzz that’s a little more doom-oriented (but will still totally cut through the mix onstage) just turn the Tone and Gain knobs up a few notches each to find that Sabbath-y sweet spot.

NOISE ASSAULT

Okay, look — we’re not saying that you should use Blumes to totally dominate the stage and completely drench your band in insane (yet still remarkably articulate) distortion. But should the opportunity somehow present itself, just know that this pedal can totally rise to the occasion. With Blumes in Mode 3, dial the Level to 1 o’clock, then crank both the Tone and Gain all the way up to 5 o’clock. Make sure to have the tone knob on your bass turned all the way up; this will allow your individual notes to ring out with some clarity, even with the massive amount of dirt that they’re hauling. It will also really bring out the top-end sizzle of this setting, which can at times make you think that you’re playing a glitchy old bass synth. But if you choose to crank the Level even higher, please be aware that EarthQuaker Devices assumes no legal responsibility for any cabinet speakers (or audience heads) you may explode as a result.

Check out a deep dive into the Blumes Low Signal Shredder.

Dan Epstein is an author, editor, journalist and guitarist based in New York's Hudson Valley. He writes about his latest musical obsessions at Jagged Time Lapse, and songs from his latest musical project The Corinthian Columns can be found at corinthiancolumns.bandcamp.com

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So, please, take some time to dig the sounds and support the artists.

Anna Blumenthal handles Sales and Artist Relations for EarthQuaker Devices. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, plays guitar in The Midnight Confessions, DJs 60s soul and R&B at various Brooklyn bars, and has seen Cheap Trick over 30 times.

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Built using a high-powered proprietary DSP platform, the Avalanche Run contains a multitude of features and options within its remarkably user-friendly confines, creating sounds that range from dreamily ambient to aggressively hostile — and its sonic palette expands even further with the use of an expression pedal and the pedal’s stereo inputs and outputs.

Yes, the Avalanche run is one of the most expensive pedals in the entire EQD line, but it’s also one of the most mind-blowing — not to mention one of the most versatile. Guitars? Synths? Drums? Vocals? Brass and Wind instruments? The Avalanche Run can process them all in an incredible variety of ways… many of which you haven’t even imagined yet.

Why is the Avalanche Run V2 the greatest stereo delay and reverb stompbox of all time? And why is it such a marvelously useful creative tool, both onstage and in the studio? I could easily talk your ear off about its sheer awesomeness for hours — but since your time (and mine) would ultimately be better spent playin’ than yakkin’, let’s just touch on some of my favorite sounds that I’ve encountered in the pedal’s various modes while using the Avalanche Run with my guitar…

NORMAL MODE

As you might surmise from its name, the Avalanche Run’s Normal Mode delivers exactly the sort of effects you’d expect from a “standard” stereo reverb and delay pedal. And if I had to pick just one setting to show off just how beautifully the Avalanche Run’s reverb and delay complement each other, I’d put the Time, Repeats and Tone controls all at about noon or a little before, the top Mix knob — which controls the volume of the delay line — around 10 o’clock to give the dry signal more prominence, crank the Decay all the way up, and set the lower Mix knob (which controls the volume of the reverb) to around 1 o’clock. The resulting sound is hauntingly cavernous yet impressively precise, lending clean, fingerpicked guitar figures some really nice articulation, while also bathing them in gorgeous ambience.

However, if you want to go off into much trippier territory using Normal Mode, simply turn the top controls all the way down and crank the Decay and lower Mix controls all the way up — then pick out a few well-chosen notes. You’ll find yourself floating away on cascading clouds of reverbed drones in no time flat.

Of course, when some people think of “delay,” they immediately think of the skittery guitar figures of ‘80s-era U2, which the Avalanche Run can deliver as well. Just set the Time control to about 9 o’clock, the Repeats knob to about noon, and the Decay to around 2 o’clock; set the tempo to quarter notes using the Tap footswitch, turn the Ratio selector to ¾ (dotted eighths), and you’ll be ready to rock where the streets have no name!

And if you’re using an Expression pedal, setting the EXP switch to “Time” will enable you to achieve some pretty crazy pitch shifting effects, especially with the Decay and both Mix controls up past noon. Want to conjure up a flock of screaming, dive-bombing seagulls with your guitar, or generally freak out your neighbors? This’ll definitely do it.

REVERSE MODE

Ever since I first learned what was making those unearthly-yet-alluring wooshes on The Beatles’ Revolver LP, I’ve been obsessed with backwards sounds and signals, so it’s a given that I’d be a total sucker for the Avalanche Run’s Reverse Mode.

One of my favorite things to do in Reverse Mode is to play call-and-response psychedelic duets with myself. By turning the Time control all the way up and keeping the Repeats control all the way down, I can play a burst of notes up to two seconds long, which the Avalanche Run then answers with a backwards phrase so sweetly psychedelic that I start to wonder if there’s actually a tiny guitarist “tripping balls” somewhere inside the box. I use the Tone knob to control how brightly the reversed “answer” cuts through, and the Mix control on the top to adjust the blend of forward playing and reversed response to taste. Like many of the Avalanche Run’s effects, this one sounds especially cool and dramatic when you’re running the pedal in stereo out into two different amplifiers that are spaced at least a few feet apart.

Want an especially weird and attention-grabbing sound? When you turn the Time and Repeats knobs all the way down, and dial the Decay and both Mix controls to noon or beyond, Reverse Mode creates a glitchy, abrasive, ring modulation-type distortion whose dissonant, semi-random overtones that really work their magic when you’re playing single-note runs. If you’ve ever dreamed of making your guitar sound like a robot who’s mad as hell and ready to push the “Self-Destruct” button, this setting will definitely make your dreams come true!

And if you want to teleport yourself from the dystopian future back to the gloriously greasy 1950s, keep the above settings the same while turning the Time knob to somewhere between 8 and 9 o’clock. The glitchiness suddenly cleans up, and the Reverse Mode produces a nicely pulsating tremolo-with-reverb effect — think the closing bars of Link Wray’s “Rumble” — that really sounds like a slap-back blast from the past when you turn down the Decay and brighten up the Tone.

When the Avalanche Run is in Reverse Mode, the delay subdivisions are always 1/1, regardless of where the Ratio switch is set. But don’t let that dissuade you from experimenting with the Tap switch or your expression pedal in this mode, however, because you can still create some really freaky rhythmic parts and patterns with them. Try holding the Tap switch down to temporarily send the delay back to Normal (forward) mode, then releasing it when you want to go back to Reverse mode. Or put the EXP switch in the Toggle position, which will enable you to go back and forth from Reverse to Normal by using your expression pedal. And while you’re using the expression pedal, you can also simultaneously employ the Tap switch to send the delay into self-oscillation, thereby unleashing all manner of sonic heaven or hell, depending on your settings and general disposition.

SWELL MODE

I’ve always loved the sound of volume swells achieved via volume pedals or the guitar’s volume knob — but lack of pedalboard space and general hand-foot coordination have made both of those options non-starters for me. Thanks to the Avalanche Run’s Swell Mode, however, it’s become pretty easy to work volume swells into my playing. My favorite setting in this mode involves putting the Time control around noon, the Repeats control around 9 o’clock, the Tone control around 11, the top Mix control all the way down, both the Decay and the lower Mix controls around 3. The result is a beautiful, violin-like tone that really sings as it swells — and you can also get a  cool “cello” effect in this setting by fretting the lower strings while also rubbing them with the fingers of your picking hand.

TAILS MODE

As cool as the Avalanche Run’s many sonic flavors and options may be, sometimes your music or performance will require you to turn the pedal off — and when you do so, you might want the wet signal to fade out organically, rather than cut abruptly. Of course, the Avalanche Run has you covered there, as well; the Tails Mode allows you to, er, tailor your delay tails to a length that best fits whatever you’re playing. Engaging the Tails Mode (which requires the simple task of unplugging the power cable and setting the Ratio switch to the desired Tail length before you plug it back in), gives you the option of short, medium and long tails, as well as “Sound on Sound” infinite repeats — which allow you to solo over an ambient pad — and “User Defined” custom tails that are determined by where the Repeats control is set.

The “User Defined” option has been my favorite part of Tails Mode, ever since I discovered that turning the Repeats knob nearly all the way up in this setting (a.k.a. “3/4” on the Ratio switch) creates a kind of “tape loop” effect which gradually becomes ever more degraded as it repeats. Set the Tone control all the way up to make the loop lose a little more of the low end each time it repeats, or all the way down to make it lose a little more of the high end each time. For added trippiness, put the Avalanche Run’s toggle switch in Reverse Mode, which will alternately loop the signal backwards and forwards!

So there ya go — and believe me when I tell you that this is all really just the barest tip of the creative iceberg when it comes to the Avalanche Run V2. The more time you spend experimenting and generally messing around with it, the more cool sounds you’ll coax out of it, and the more crazy ideas you’ll wind up putting into action. Don’t be surprised if the Avalanche Run winds up broadening your musical horizons in all sorts of unexpected ways.

Dan Epstein is an author, editor, journalist and guitarist based in New York's Hudson Valley. He writes about his latest musical obsessions at Jagged Time Lapse, and songs from his latest musical project The Corinthian Columns can be found at corinthiancolumns.bandcamp.com

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ARIES - PLUMES

Aries is known for being self-assertive, ambitious, and even a little aggressive at times, so what better pedal than the Plumes Small Signal Shredder! It has a classic tube-like overdrive and will give your amp a clear but heavy boost. For the Aries folks that are brave and ready for anything, Plumes has you covered. Aries are independent, just like the Plumes, which can totally fill out your sound while being the lone pedal on your board for those times that you’re traveling light, because your, er, self-assertiveness, has driven your roadie away.

TAURUS - AVALANCHE RUN

You might think Taurus and automatically picture the Hoof Reaper – hello, bulls! - but the Avalanche Run Stereo Reverb & Delay feels more appropriate. Tauruses are a determined bunch, excelling at focusing and concentrating, and with the Avalanche Run’s plethora of sonic landscapes just waiting to be explored, we can think of no better group of starchildren more equipped to dial in the dreamiest settings on the Avalanche Run.

GEMINI - ORGANIZER

Geminis are said to be adaptable and outgoing, but they also have a dual nature of leading different lives, so what better pedal than one that makes a guitar sound like an organ! The Organizer is a polyphonic emulator that gives you that vintage organ and Leslie speaker vibe. If your twin isn’t an organ, perhaps you can masquerade as an analog octave synth with the Bit Commander.

If you want to up your chops before delving into pedals, consider getting up to speed with online guitar lessons like these.

CANCER - RAINBOW MACHINE

Cancer can be known as an intuitive, emotional, and sensitive sign of the warmer months, so the Rainbow Machine is a fitting pedal. This polyphonic pitch mesmerizer can provide mystical vibes that are ethereal or even harsh at times if you need something more to cut through the mix. And there are plenty of mood swings within this pedal, so beware. Cancers are also known as homebodies, and the Rainbow Machine can keep you entertained at home for hours on end.

LEO - LEDGES

Leo, you’re just screaming out for a reverb! Leos are known for being joyful, confident, and ambitious, but only when approached properly. The super approachable Ledges offers a variety of reverb sounds that create space, warm tones, and fill your song up. Like a Leo, if used correctly, it can be the sonic fabric that confidently holds it all together.

VIRGO - THE WARDEN

Virgos are excellent organizers, detail-oriented, and great at putting everything together – so, naturally, an optical compressor is the perfect effect for the bossy – or, sorry – “solution oriented” - types! The Warden provides complete control over attack, release, sustain, ratio, and uses optical compression to glue your track together to provide an incredible tone. Problem solved.

LIBRA - PYRAMIDS

Libras are all about balance, romance, and art, which mix to create a powerful approach to life. Meet your match with the Pyramids Stereo Flanger, known to open up a whole world of new dimensions with its eight flanger modes, tap tempo, tap subdivision, and a multifunction Modify control. Positive and negative feedback and stereo inputs provide balance. Libras are great listeners, and the Pyramids works best with those who are content to play a single note and listen as the Pyramids works its flanging magic. For the less fanciful types, Tone Job is also a great pedal choice as it helps bring balance to the signal with its EQ and clean boost.

SCORPIO - ZOAR

Scorpios can be private and secretive at times, and you may not always know what they are thinking and feeling. A great pedal for Scorpios is the new Zoar Dynamic Audio Grinder, whose potential might not be immediately apparent until you look closer – or until you plug in! Zoar’s three band passive EQ lets you tweak the weight, gain, bass, mid and treble. Like a Scorpio, you get more than you realized to fine tune your signal.

SAGITTARIUS - ARROWS

Sagittarians have big personalities and can light up a room with their energy and charm. They can give others a boost, just like the Arrows Pre-Amp Booster. Arrows supercharges your signal and boosts your riffs, making it the perfect accompaniment for the archers, never complete without their arrow. Or, you know, Arrows.

CAPRICORN - DATA CORRUPTER

Capricorn is known for being data driven and often having a no-nonsense personality, which means a great match is the highly tweakable Data Corrupter. It’s just like a Capricorn to figure out all the facts and then bend them to their will, and this modulated monophonic harmonizer is a great way to do that. Another perfect pedal for the sea goats may be the Disaster Transport Legacy Reissue, as they can be prone to pessimism!

AQUARIUS - SPATIAL DELIVERY

The star sign Aquarius is often known as quirky and eccentric, so what better pedal for them than the Spatial Delivery Envelope Filter with Sample & Hold. It’s an oddball pedal that uses a controlled envelope filter for its funky auto wah. Aquarians are known for their creativity and also being extreme in every sense, so crank those range, resonance and filter knobs, and prepare to go down the most extreme, funky rabbit hole with your new favorite stompbox.

PISCES - SEA MACHINE

The water sign Pisces is known for being empathetic and dreamy, and pairs beautifully with the Sea Machine Super Chorus. The Sea Machine allows you to modulate your sound, creating swoony, sub-aquatic soundscapes. Pair the Sea Machine with EarthQuaker’s other oceanic offerings - the Tentacle Analog Octave Up and The Depths Optical Vibe Machine - at your own risk. Don’t forget your life vest, for this combination is only suited to the most adventurous water babies.

BONUS PEDALS: ASTRAL DESTINY & GRAND ORBITER

Since we are dealing with astrology and star matters, we’d be remiss to not include a few more pedals that suit the mood. Astral Destiny is a modulated octave reverberator that will allow you to shape reverb and harmonies. Its tone is well suited to any star sign. The Grand Orbiter is a phase machine that can handle slow and mellow sounds or be turned up for fast and twirly phasing! Earth, water, fire and air signs will all feel spiritually fulfilled by plugging into this sparkly red box.

So there you have it: the best pedals for each sign of the zodiac! If you feel drawn to a different pedal, don’t fret. In fact, when building your pedalboard, using effects from every star sign ensures optimal spiritual - and sonic - alignment. The strangest pedal pairings often produce the coolest results, so don’t delay – but certainly use delay – and chart your own orbit around the sun today. Bon voyage!

By Shawn Leonhardt for Guitar Tricks and 30 Day Singer.

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But once I started playing and realized where distortion actually came from, I bought my first pedal — a DOD FX55 — and never looked back. Even in band situations where I’ve opted for a “lean and mean” pedalboard approach, I’ve always kept one fuzz or distortion box handy, because it’s always nice to have the option of adding a little (or a lot of) extra hair to my chords and solos.

I’ve learned over time, however, that using distortion actually does require some skill — at least in terms of dialing in tones that work well with your playing style, as well as with the music you’re making, with the sonics produced by the rest of your band, etc. I’ve seen some guitarists thoroughly drown themselves (and their bandmates) in distortion, which sometimes works well but sometimes just sounds like a soggy mess. Likewise, I’ve known some players who are totally fixated upon using some tasty-sounding vintage fuzz or another, but whose ripping fuzz licks get completely lost in the mix as soon as the rest of the band kicks in.

Which is why I love EarthQuaker Devices’ new Zoar so much. A transistor-powered medium-high gain discrete distortion pedal (or, if you prefer, “Dynamic Audio Grinder”), Zoar is not only loud as hell — and even more so when you’re powering it at 18v — but it’s also quite possibly the most versatile dirt box I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing through. The passive 3-band EQ allows you to dial in all kinds of cool flavors and textures; combined with the Weight and Gain controls, this passive EQ can take you from teetering on the edge of amp breakup to plunging deep into some serious earth-churning heaviness. Whether you’re painstakingly sculpting your own signature sound, or just looking to emulate any number of crunchy guitar tones from your favorite rock, punk, metal, garage, psych, jangle pop, funk and even country records, Zoar will send your guitar soaring in whatever direction you want to go.

Like a lot of EQD pedals, Zoar sounds pretty great when you first plug into it … but it’s well worth taking some time to really familiarize yourself with how it works. The pedal’s six controls are highly interactive and extremely touch-sensitive; even just a slight tweak to any of the three passive EQ bands can affect the other two, as well as affect how they all sound in conjunction with the Level, Weight and Gain controls. Also, pay special attention to the Weight control, which dictates the amount of low end that passes through the circuit, and thus can radically alter the character of your distortion — especially when you have the Gain cranked anywhere past noon.

Once you really get the hang of what Zoar can do for your guitar sound, the pedal can become incredibly addictive. While exploring its wide spectrum of distortions and tones for this blog post, I kept finding myself thinking, “I wonder if I can get that sound out of it?” and running back to plug into it again. How Zoar interacts with your amp and guitar settings — as well as other effects — is a whole other ball of wax as well, so I kept the parameters of my sonic search relatively simple: I ran Zoar straight into a clean tube amp without any other effects, while keeping the volume and tone knobs on my guitars turned all the way up. What followed was a veritable smorgasbord of six-string awesomeness…

Davie Allan & The Arrows — Blue’s Theme

This fuzz-tastic theme from The Wild Angels, a 1966 biker flick starring Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra, remains one of my all-time favorite guitar instrumentals, and is usually the first thing I’ll try to play whenever I plug into a new fuzz pedal. Allan — one of the most underrated guitarists of the original fuzz era — got his hairy tones from a Mosrite Fuzzrite, but I was able to coax something remarkably similar from Zoar by setting the Level and Weight at 3 o’clock, the Gain cranked up to 5 o’clock, the Bass and Middle EQ at 10 o’clock, and the Treble pushed all the way to 5. I played the nasty opening lick on my SG’s bridge humbucker, then switched to the neck humbucker for the main riff … and suddenly, all I could think about was being free to ride my bike without getting hassled by THE MAN.

Creedence Clearwater Revival — Commotion

In addition to writing some of the greatest and most enduring rock songs of the late 1960s and early ‘70s, John Fogerty was a whiz at getting killer guitar tones. “Commotion,” the B-side of CCR’s 1969 hit “Green River,” features some of my favorite Fogerty lead licks; while he most likely recorded the song using either a Gibson Les Paul or a humbucker-equipped Rickenbacker 325 through a Kustom 200 amp, I was able to cop “Commotion”’s raspy, biting tone using the single-coil bridge pickup of my Telecaster and the following Zoar settings: Level at 2 o’clock, Weight at noon, Gain at 2 o’clock, Bass at noon, Middle at 10 o’clock, and Treble cranked all the way to 5. I also dropped my lower E string down to D in order to play the song correctly — and in the process discovered that Zoar plays really nicely with down-tuned guitars, as the drop-D tuning produced some really rich (but not at all overwhelming) overtones at this pedal setting that I wasn’t expecting.

The Rolling Stones — Happy

Speaking of alternate tunings, I then tried tuning my Tele to Open G to see if I could emulate Keith Richards’ sound from “Happy,” a highlight from the Stones’ 1972 classic Exile On Main St., and (for many folks) the quintessential Keith tune. And sure enough, Zoar delivered — I kept the Level at 2 o’clock, dialed the Treble back a bit to 4, and set the Weight, Gain, Bass and Middle all at noon, which produced a tight, ringing tone with just the right amount of dissolute attitude and defiant crunch. Not surprisingly, this setting also worked a treat for other Exile tracks like “Rocks Off” and “Soul Survivor”.

The Ramones — Blitzkrieg Bop

After getting my rocks off playing punchy, Keith-esque upstrokes, I wanted to see how Zoar would respond to some jackhammer downstrokes. Johnny Ramone recorded his guitar parts on the Ramones’ landmark 1976 debut album using a single coil-equipped Mosrite through a Marshall amp, so it didn’t seem like too much of a stretch to try and achieve a similar three-chord roar using the pedal and my Telecaster. And it wasn’t — at least once I figured out that emulating Johnny’s massive early sound actually required some judicious taming of the bass and middle frequencies. I set the Level at 3 o’clock, cranked both the Weight and the Gain to 5 o’clock, dialed the Bass down to about 8:30 and the Middle down to 10 o’clock, and the Treble to 2 o’clock, and I was immediately all revved up and ready to go!

AC/DC — If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)

The argument over which Bon Scott-era AC/DC album is the best will never be settled, but my personal favorite is 1979’s Highway to Hell, both because it was the first album that I ever heard by the legendary Australian hard rockers, and because it’s such a stone cold classic from beginning to end. (Okay, maybe “Get It Hot” isn’t so hot, but it’s only two and a half minutes long, and anyway I digress…) The record also contains several of my all-time top AC/DC tracks, including “If You Want Blood,” which never fails to get my own blood pumping thanks to Malcolm Young’s slashing intro riff. Emulating Malcolm’s (or brother Angus’s) guitar crunch is somewhat counter-intuitive — it feels like it should be heavily distorted, yet that classic AC/DC sound is really more about texture, tone and attitude than actual distortion. Set Zoar’s Level to 2 o’clock, dial the Weight down to 9 o’clock for a crisper, more cutting sound, set the Gain at about 1:30, put the Bass at 2 o’clock, the Middle all the way up to 5, and the Treble at 3. Now play the song’s main riff on a bridge humbucker … and if you want AC/DC, you’ve got it!

Judas Priest — Diamonds and Rust (Live)

Thinking back on my earlier misconceptions about guitar distortion, I just had to see if I could use Zoar to get that thickly distorted sound I first heard all those years ago on Judas Priest’s classic 1979 live album Unleashed in the East. Zoar can clearly dial in all manner of big rock flavors, but can it hold its own when it comes to classic metal? I’m pleased to report it can, though my upstairs neighbor may be less than pleased by this news. In fact, it’s really simple to go from AC/DC crunch to Judas Priest chug with Zoar; just keep four of the settings exactly the same as above (Level at 2, Bass at 2, Middle at 5, Treble at 3), crank both the Weight and the Gain up all the way to 5, and play “Diamonds and Rust” on a bridge humbucker. Sure, some reverb, phasing and delay are needed to really nail Glenn Tipton’s tone — but even without it, you’re more than ready for a hellbent-for-leather rip through the greatest heavy metal version of a love song to Bob Dylan ever made.

Dan Epstein is an author, editor, journalist and guitarist based in New York's Hudson Valley. He writes about his latest musical obsessions at Jagged Time Lapse, and songs from his latest musical project The Corinthian Columns can be found at corinthiancolumns.bandcamp.com

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