THE BLACK KEYS GOLDONTHECEILING
IRON MAIDEN
THENUMBEROFTHEBEAST
FOO FIGHTERS THESEDAYS
iSSUe 231 SEPTEMBER 2012
#231 SEPT 2012 £5.50
LeArn To PLAy THE BLACK KEYS • IRON MAIDEN • FOO FIGHTERS • BOB MARLEY & MORE
“IMPRESS YOU THEY WILL”
ST TA Ar W WArS WAr ArS Ar S INSPIRED PEDALS
PEARL JAM THE OFFSPRING MARK TREMONTI
✓Learn jazz chords ✓ Play like Brian May ✓Learn the only scale you’ll need!
FOO FIGHTERS
These Days
IRON MAIDEN
The Number Of The Beast
BOB MARLEY One Love
SKRILLEX
Bangarang (riff) totalguitar.co.uk
JS BACH
Badinerie
THE BLACK KEYS Gold On The Ceiling
“WE’RE NOT REVIVALISTS” DAN AUERBACH
ON VINTAGE GEAR AND GOING BEYOND THE BLUES SEPTEMBER 2012
PRINTED IN THE UK
£5.50
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There is no simple way to sum up The Story Of Light. Vai’s superhuman technical ability frees him of the difficulties of playing the guitar in different styles, and so, perhaps unsurprisingly, the album meanders freely through prog, metal, jazz, country, blues and rock genres, with Steve’s own lead guitar lines the only constant thread. How you view The Story Of Light ultimately depends on how you feel about multi-styled, experimental and constantly avant-garde instrumental guitar music because, at times, this isn’t an easy listen. If you prefer Steve’s arguably more fun-loving Passion And Warfare-era material, simply deduct a couple of stars from this review; there are only a couple of tracks here for you, Gravity Storm being the best. Still, this is peerless music. No-one else writes or plays like Steve, so you simply have to give this a listen.
Chris Bird Download: The Moon And I
the Last aLbuM i bouGht MyLeskeNNeDy aLteR bRiDGe / sLash biG WReCk aLbatRoss “i ToUreD with those guys in the 90s, and I’m thrilled with this record. Ian [Thornley, vocals/ guitar] and Brian [Doherty, guitar] sound great. Ian is an amazing guitar player, singer and songwriter – the dude is crazy talented. I can’t recommend it enough.”
Our ratings explained eXCePTionAL
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noDDing reverently to the towering pillars of the Young brothers, kneeling before the altar of May, on through the arch of Gorham and strutting into the gardens of anthemia… We’ve missed The Darkness and the unapologetic way they wield rock ’n’ roll as a force of joy. At their best, the Hawkins brothers have always possessed enough substance to back the excessive bravado. Throughout a delightful 40 minutes both are present and correct here. The choruses of With A Woman and Living Each Day Blind shine – the lead breaks ring, twin guitars sing. Welcome back, boys. rob Laing Download: With A Woman
BLoC Party’s 2005 debut Silent Alarm was a masterpiece of jerky, indie-disco floor-fillers and spectral guitar atmospherics. Fast-forward seven years and, following a series of misadventures in electronica, Kele Okereke and co finally sound like a band again. And what a band. Informed as much by post-rock as the art-pop sensibilities of Blur, Russell Lissack’s Coxonmeets-Greenwood guitar playing is back at the forefront, sharp and pretty in equal parts. Matt Bellamy take note: it’s possible to be innovative without switching a synth arpeggiator preset on and snapping the knob off. Chris Vinnicombe Download: So He Begins To Lie
BrUCe Soord deserves more now than the cult acclaim built in the last 10 years. This might be the breakout. With the production flair of Steven Wilson and Thom Yorke’s careworn gift with melody, Bruce is operating around comparisons that suggest bigger stages and sales are waiting. This is ambitious British indie-rock with tunes to spare. There’s balance, too: strings feature heavily and swirl around the majestic title track and Someone Pull Me Out, but Soord isn’t afraid to light the touch paper with pounding Muse-style headbobber riffs on Burning Pieces and Give It Back. David hands Download: Someone Pull Me Out
Photography: © Gabrielle Geiselman
eXCeLLenT
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MoNuMeNts GNosis
TheSe Swedes blend ethereal, melancholic calm with heavy metal groove, an art they’ve been honing for years. Founder Anders Nyström and Per Eriksson (making his album debut) are thoughtful band players, and know when to let Jonas Renkse’s hypnotic vocals and the pulse of Frank Default’s moody synth breath. Their cleaner lines lock broodingly on Ambitions, while mournful leads cry in Leech before a hulking riff cracks the serenity. It’s a tasteful, dynamic balance that is unique. Metal for sensitive souls? No wonder they share fans with Opeth. rob Laing Download: Lethean
emerging from East London, armed with horn-rimmed glasses and hype, Spector’s debut is a studied affair. Essentially a love letter to 2005, Enjoy It While It Lasts aims for the knowing synth-pop of The Killers, but falls short. Every track feels like a rehash of a smarter, catchier song: Friday Night, Don’t Ever Let It End is The Vaccines without the hooks, while Twenty Nothing could be a Strokes cover. Favouring dramatic vocals and synthesisers over guitar heroics, Spector are a band bursting with ambition, but still in search of a personality. rob Power Download: Never Fade Away
John Browne is one of the key players who spearheaded what would become the djent metal scene alongside his old Fellsilent bandmate Acle Kahney and Periphery’s Misha Mansoor. Now, after a few personnel hiccups, he finally sees his own band’s debut released. The intense sound of Gnosis places the Browne sound at its heart; a tech-metal player whose sophisticated approach to the art of advanced picking and left-hand muting subtleties is the result of years of hard work. And it pays off with kinetic thrills on Memoirs and Doxa. David hands Download: Denial
RobeRt CRay NothiN but Love
Ry CooDeR eLeCtioN speCiaL
DyLaN LebLaNC Cast the saMe oLD shaDoW
The Strat is the most expressive guitar there is, and on his 16th studio album, bluesman Cray proves he’s one of its greatest exponents. Every scrape, slide, bend, wail and whisper is captured brilliantly by producer Kevin Shirley, as are Cray’s signature glassy, ice-cool tones and that unmistakable in-between-position quack. The band (Jim Pugh on keys, in particular) are also superb. Some of the upbeat soul- and 50s-flavoured material is only so-so, but the masterful slow blues of I’m Done Cryin’ epitomises Cray’s triple-threat talents as a singer, writer and player. Bill Weaving Download: I’m Done Cryin’
There are slide guitar players, and there are slide guitar players. And then there’s Ry Cooder. Although he’s probably best-loved for lending his spectral touch to The Rolling Stones on such towering masterpieces as Sister Morphine, Cooder’s solo output stands at 16 albums since 1970, discounting soundtracks and other collaborations. Election Special is curmudgeonly and politically charged, with Cooder’s weathered voice framed by varied guitar and mandolin playing in songs that range from restrained Americana through to hypnotic blues and almost punky lo-fi rock ’n’ roll. Chris Vinnicombe Download: Brother Is Gone
hoW US singer-songwriter Dylan LeBlanc has penned, arranged and co-produced such a staggeringly mature set of songs at the age of just 21 is a conundrum still haunting us on the umpteenth listen. This is alt-country at its darkest and most cinematic, with opener Part One: The End kicking off proceedings with assured Bondmovie panache. The oft otherworldly pedal steel of Melvin Duffy occasionally brings to mind mid90s Radiohead, while LeBlanc’s own tremolo-drenched stylings shine throughout. Fans of Neil Young, Jeff Buckley and Townes Van Zandt should tune in. matt Frost Download: Part One: The End
Anyone familiar with the Treasures books knows the deal: you get a boxset with a biography and reprinted flyers, passes and gig tickets. This biog takes you from the band’s early days at 924 Gilman Street to stadium giants, and era-spanning pictures and goodies will provide hours of studying. It’s unclear whether Green Day fans a) own a coffee table or b) keep books on it, but it still justifies its £25 price tag. Stuart Williams
WiLko JohNsoN LookiNG baCk at Me For a British guitarist so inimitable, the collection of memories, photographs, paintings and general Wilko wisdom that forms his autobiography was never going to be conservative. So, this reads like a quirky, personal scrapbook dressed in coffeetable smarts and that’s just fine with us – fans of Dr Feelgood and Wilko in general will find this an entertaining read. David hands
MuDDy WateRs & the RoLLiNG stoNes Live at the CheCkeRboaRD LouNGe on 22 November 1981, The Stones visited Buddy Guy’s Chicago nightclub to pay homage to huge influence Muddy Waters, but the gig soon became an all-star blues jam session. Inexplicably, Jagger has dressed for a game of football, but everything else about this elegantly wasted evening makes you wish you were there. Chris Vinnicombe
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Mainstream radio play, a hit album, US arena shows, critical acclaim, huge slots at Reading and Leeds… and that’s just his day job. We catch up with singer, guitarist and record producer Dan Auerbach at his Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville, Tennessee to talk guitar, ‘El Camino’ and the inexorable rise of The Black Keys Words: Chris Vinnicombe Photography: Joshua Black Wilkins
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Dan Auerbach, photographed for Total Guitar at Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville, Tennessee
Au ba ’s g rs @ ho in Easy Eye S nd No- frills rock ’n’ roll was on the stereo during the recording of El Camino
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ROLLING IN THE DEPP JOHNNY STEPS UP FOR A SUPERSTAR CAMEO
The 2012 MTV Movie Awards in June saw international film star and all-round legend Mr Johnny Depp appear onstage with The Black Keys, playing a TV Yellow Les Paul Special, and contributing tasty guitar parts to Gold On The Ceiling and Lonely Boy. Check out the set on the MTV website. Meanwhile, Johnny, if you happen to be reading this, any time you want to talk guitar to TG, feel free to pick up the phone!
direct nature of El Camino was a spontaneous product of the music that they were listening to at the time. “When we made [2010 album] Brothers I was definitely listening to a lot of soul music, lots of hip-hop. I was writing a lot to hip-hop instrumentals. It kind of shows on the records, and when we made El Camino we were both listening to lots of rock ’n’ roll. From every decade, you know? 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s – it was all simple, stripped-down rock ’n’ roll, from when it was just basic instrumentation and really no frills.” Asked to name the rock ’n’ roll artists in question, Auerbach lists The Johnny Burnette Rock And Roll Trio, Raspberries, Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers, The Cramps, and The Cars. All very different propositions to the swampy Junior Kimbrough-influenced garage blues that characterised The Black Keys’ sound on earlier albums such as 2003’s Thickfreakness. Indeed, anyone
Photography: Joshua Black Wilkins Getty Images (x3)
by esoteric vintage equipment and pawn-shop guitars in the Aladdin’s Cave of his Nashville studio, The Black Keys mainman Dan Auerbach cuts a stylish yet defiant figure. His band’s latest and most successful album, El Camino, has seen the duo step up to headline arenas Stateside and make the corresponding jump to the biggest festival stages on this side of the pond. Auerbach insists that El Camino “is a modern record”, and refuses to identify with attempts to pigeonhole The Black Keys as retro-obsessed blues-rockers. “We’re not revivalists,” he maintains. “We’re not trying to be retro. I f***ing hate retro stuff.” When you consider his love affair with old guitars, Dan Auerbach’s impassioned antiretro exclamations may seem somewhat contradictory, yet as the singer/guitarist/record producer explains, when it comes to sonics, it’s the space between the old and new that The Black Keys seek to inhabit. “I like some modern records,” he explains. “I’m sort of an old soul, so I like things that have a hint of classic sound to them. When I say classic, I’m talking like 50s, 60s. I think there’s a purity to the sound, there’s something about it.
I think it’s hi-fi and I think it hits harder than modern sh**. I don’t think that old stuff is old sounding, not to me anyway. Some of it is just as loud as anything. “I like a mix of old sounds and new sounds,” he continues. “I think we started to accomplish that by using very minimal mic’ing and giving it to somebody like [inventive, unorthodox US engineer] Tchad Blake to mix. It’s that kind of mixture of the old style of recording with the new style of mixing that starts to achieve something that’s close to what I want, you know? But the whole record was done on Pro Tools, so it is a modern record.” Released in December of last year, El Camino is The Black Keys at their most immediate, and its pop-savvy hooks have translated into wider exposure than ever before for the duo. As usual, the ever-evolving Akron, Ohio natives Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney didn’t go into the studio with a plan; rather, the
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hoping for a straight-up blues record from Auerbach and Carney any time soon is likely to be disappointed. “Revivalism is a little bit boring to me,” the frontman explains. “It’s really boring and the idea of just playing blues music seems weird to me. How can you play blues music when you grow up around classic-rock radio and hip-hop? There is no place in America that doesn’t have that kind of stuff all around you at all times. You can’t play blues music if you go to McDonald’s and have lunch. I don’t know, man. It seems a little weird to me.” That said, when reflecting on the heavily blues-influenced guitar playing of his early career, there’s nothing that the 33 year old wishes that his younger self had done differently. “I look back and it’s all those imperfections that make music so great,” he says. “It’s all the naïve ways of thinking that when you’re young that can kind of make it special. So, I would never change anything that we did. It’s just where we were and I love it, you know? I love flaws in music and I love reality in music, I guess. So, you know, my worry is that we get too smart for our own good. I think that musicians can get like that and then all of a sudden it takes them three years to make a record. You know they’re worrying about minutiae, and it’s so pointless.” With two Black Keys studio albums, hip-hop collaboration LP Blakroc, and a wonderful solo record – 2009’s Keep It Hid – under his belt in just over three years, plus a string of production credits, it’s hard to imagine the multi-talented Auerbach spending more than a couple of months working on any one project.
the bLaCk keys
The conversation turns to Auerbach’s fondness for guitar brands such as Harmony and Supro – distinctive instruments that have helped the guitarist develop an instantly recognisable signature sound. “All my guitars pretty much sound similar,” he admits. “They’re all kind of overdriven, overwound DeArmond singlecoil sounds, you know? I’m pretty consistent with that. I’ve got a ton of guitars and they all pretty much sound the same. I’ve just always liked them. I think that the musicians that I was listening to were playing them, like Hound Dog Taylor, who played Teiscos; JB Hutto would play the Supro. I would see video footage of them playing and they would get the whole distorted sound that I wanted to get. They were playing those weird open tunings that I wanted to get. When I was starting to play, that was a big influence on me. I still love that stuff today and I love it even more just because it’s unique. It doesn’t sound just like everybody else, I guess.” We joke that it’s difficult to imagine Dan walking into a guitar shop today and picking up a shiny new PRS or something similarly nu-school. “Man, I don’t get those at all,” he agrees. “But something like a Strat… Strats can sound so cool, you know? I really like Strats. Somebody like Jimmie Vaughan will just pick up the cheapest Mexican Strat and it will sound awesome. I really love that, when people can just pick up budget guitars and make them sound great. I know it’s hard for you as a guitar magazine to back that philosophy. But it’s not about the f***ing guitar. It’s all about the song really, and the musicians.”
“We’re not revivalists. We’re not trying to be retro. i f***ing hate retro stuff”
Auerbach onstage with one of his pawn-shop prizes, a Guild Thunderbird
LET IT BLEED WANT TO SOUND LIKE DAN AUERBACH? PREPARE TO BREAK THE RULES
When he was recording guitars in the studio for El Camino, Dan used small amplifiers. “Everything from a little five-watt Tweed amp to my Ampeg Gemini II,” he confirms. “I know I used that a bunch because I blew up the speaker. I also used the Magnatone M10 a bunch. We recorded all the rhythm guitar tracks live in the room with the drums. I wanted to get this kind of sh**ty bleed into the drum mics, so I kept it to small amps – I like small amps anyway. I would never use a big Marshall stack to record. On every track of El Camino there’s the sound from the guitar amps bleeding into the drum mics, which kind of gives it a little bit of raw flavour.”
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From grocery store to Grammy Awards: “I’m just a normal guy who loves music,” says Auerbach
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BACH CATALOGUE DAN’S STINTS IN THE PRODUCER’S CHAIR
Ki ing ba ilor-ma
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CheCK oUT…
hacienda – LoudIs TheNight (2008, Alive)
Buffalo Killers –LetItRide (2008, Alive)
Dr John –LockedDown (2012, Nonesuch)
It’s the same with Pat, you know? There are no two people that I trust more when it comes to their musical opinion.” Unsurprisingly for one of the most prolific bands in the business, it’s still the sheer joy of creating music that lights the fire. “We want to be popular,” Auerbach admits, “but we’re not going to just do songs for radio or something like that. A lot of people do that and it’s real obvious. We’re making records because we like to, we love it. We always have, that’s why we started. We didn’t start a band to play onstage. We started as a recording project on four-track and that was what we loved. We loved the idea of putting together a group of songs and having it on one tape. It was appealing to us and then all of a sudden from one of those tapes we got a record deal. Then we had to go play some shows. And here we are today.” Ah yes, live shows… This brings us to the small matter of The Black Keys playing directly before superstar headliners Foo Fighters on the main stage at Reading and
Leeds at the end of August. Do Dan and Pat plan any special surprises when they take to the stage in front of what promises to be one of the biggest crowds of their career? Don’t bet on it… “It’s just rock ’n’ roll,” he says. “I mean, while I kind of like and appreciate bands who use fireworks onstage and all that kind of stuff, it’s just not who we are. I think that our fans appreciate us because we’re normal people
“i love flaws in music. Worrying about minutiae is pointless”
who love music. If the audience is excited and they’re going crazy, then it’s going to be fun because we feed off that energy. It’s that give and take that makes it so much fun. This is not some act. We’re not acting like rock stars. We’re not posturing and posing. I go to the grocery store and buy my groceries just like everybody else, you know what I’m saying?” There’s no escaping the band’s worldwide popularity, though. So, how is it possible to
Photography: Joshua Black Wilkins Getty Images Retna/Photoshot (x2)
Speaking of personnel, El Camino saw Auerbach and Carney enlist the production, co-writing and occasional keyboard services of Brian ‘Danger Mouse’ Burton for the third time (they first collaborated on their fifth album, 2008’s Attack & Release). Given that both members of The Black Keys are no strangers to making records without outside intervention, we wonder what Burton brings to the band’s recording sessions and how it changes the dynamic. “I think we just trust him like we would trust each other,” Auerbach says. “So, he just jumps in there and we go at it. There really are no rules and we just kind of do it by intuition, I guess. It’s a lot of positive reinforcement, really. We trust each other’s taste. “Brian has got really great taste in music,” he continues. “Whether it’s pop, f***ing classic rock, South American psych, hip-hop, I like his taste in music and I trust him.
Not only is Dan Auerbach in one of the hottest bands on the planet right now, but he also finds the time to add a warm, fuzzy glow to other people’s records, too. “Most people produce records to make a living. I’m the opposite; I just produce records because I like the music. Being in The Black Keys allows me that luxury to be able to just work with bands that I like. Even if they have zero budget.”
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Y LEARN TO PEILALING ’
‘GOLD ON THEC ! TURN TO P.74
MORE BLACK KEYS TAB! The Black Keys – el Camino (Tab) (Guitar tab, 60pp, £16.95, HL02501766) Play all the songs from El Camino by The Black Keys with this matching album songbook. Complete with full lyrics and chord symbols, you can stomp your way through the singles Lonely Boy, Gold On The Ceiling and Dead And Gone, in the spirit of the modern American rock ’n’ roll duo. Available from: www.musicroom.com
Dan is rarely seen onstage without a rare vintage guitar, such as this Supro
retain that kind of day-to-day normality in the light of increased commercial success? “I feel like if we’d had this kind of success on our first record we probably would have broken up by now,” admits Auerbach. “But all the years of hard work – knowing what it’s like to have to play the show, sell our own T-shirts and then load the van ourselves – I think have taught us to appreciate it but not get big headed.” If Auerbach buys his own groceries, then, we wonder if he also still gets a kick out of hunting down the kind of rare vintage gear that surrounds him in Easy Eye Sound. “Everybody knows that I like weird stuff, like keyboards, basses, whatever,” he says. “If somebody has got something weird to sell I usually get a call. I like to stop in the pawn shops even though everybody has eBay now. Even pawn shops have the most ludicrous prices. I think that whole culture of going to pawn shops and finding cool stuff for cheap is gone. Those days are over… “I mean, I just went into a pawn shop the other day,” he recalls. “I was in Oklahoma and they had some cool old Harmony and Supro stuff. They were just the most astronomical prices, though, higher than New York City prices. I was just like, ‘What’s going on here? I don’t get this, you know? First of all, we’re in Oklahoma: why do you guys think you can get the highest eBay price ever?’”
The story goes that Johnny Ramone used Mosrite guitars because they were so cheap, and then the popularity of his band meant that his favourite instruments became a whole lot more expensive. We wouldn’t mind betting that Mr Auerbach’s considerable success is having a similar ripple effect in pawn shops and vintage stores everywhere… even in Oklahoma.
The Black Keys joined the LA elite at the MTV Movie Awards in June
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Steven Battelle: the man who made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs My boss is Darth Phaser‌
LostAlone harness the power of Jimi Woolley’s Force-fed pedals
han Solo Boost
Klaatubescreamer overdrive
The mPi StrikesBack Fuzz
Steven Battelle: “Jimi and I were watching Star Wars one night when we came up with the idea for these pedals. Then a group of us started coming up with all these Star Wars-themed names for effects.” Jimi Woolley: “This Han Solo Boost is the first idea for an effects pedal we had…” Steven: “I’ll use it every time you see me play a guitar solo. A lot of boost pedals slightly affect the tone – they do something [to it], even though they claim not to. This is a true boost. It just rams your sound and drives the valves.”
Steven: “We went really deep with this one – Klaatu is a lesser-known Star Wars character.” Jimi: “Steven had a Tube Screamer but it didn’t sound quite right, so I took its schematics and changed a few components, like the capacitors to tame out the fizziness.” Steven: “It’s between my hugest sound and my cleaner sound. I use it to kick into the chorus before the bigger pay-off at the end. So I’ll move from the Marshall JMP on its own with the Mesa clean, then bring the Klaatubescreamer in to dirty it up a bit. It’s a stepping stone.”
Jimi: “It’s a beast…” Steven: “I can’t use it in Europe legally, it would hurt too many people! One of the in-house sound engineers said to our sound technician, ‘He can’t use that – it’s not fair!’ It’s beyond a Big Muff. We have a song called Do You Get What You Pray For? and I put that one on when the riff kicks in. It’s full on; it takes it to another level.”
echo Base Delay
A-B-y X Wing ABy amp switch
Steven: “I really wanted a Brian May-style tape-echo kind of delay. It’s quite unique with some of the sounds you can get, by mistake sometimes. I’ll use it to decay chords and whack it on for certain solos. As I’m playing in a three-piece [with drummer Mark Gibson and bassist Alan Williamson], it can add that certain depth. We’re talking about adding to it so it has more sends on it to go between my three cabs.” Jimi: “It’s a PT2339-based [chip type] delay pedal designed by one of the DIYstompboxes.com users who goes by the username Slacker. His original design has a cool feature where the delay repeats can either be killed when the pedal is bypassed – such as a Boss delay pedal – or left to fade out when bypassed. It’s a really handy feature, but it does mean the pedal is not true bypass. I disabled this feature on Steven’s as we decided it would be better to have true bypass.”
Steven: “I normally have a three-amp setup and this is for switching between them. I always have my Marshall JMP and early Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier on at the same time, apart from a couple of intros where I use the Mesa clean. I don’t have the third amp today – a Carlsbro 50 Top head – because the venue is too small.” Jimi: “There was a bit of hum and I worked out that by making it an active ABY as opposed to just a passive, there was a way of reducing the hum. So I turned up with a little PCB and all the wires, and it was a case of opening it and popping it in. Luckily, it worked!” Steven: “These pedals have been used in most of the arenas in the UK when we’ve supported My Chemical Romance and 30 Seconds To Mars. We’ll be setting up and these American crew guys would come over and see the pedals and say, ‘What the…?’ It becomes a talking point.” SEPTEMBER 2012
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stevenusesanumberofJimi’sother‘starWars’-themed steven uses a number of Jimi’s other ‘star Wars’-themed creations creationstodropathermaldetonatorintohisstudiotones to drop a thermal detonator into his studio tones ➊
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SITH SENSE
JIMI WOOLLEY ON HOW AND WHY HE WENT DIY
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Tell us a bit about your pedal partnership with Steven. “It’s been perfect that I’ve been good mates with Steven, because it’s all right making all these pedals but without someone to try them out at Wembley, it just isn’t the same!”
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➊A Tremor in The Force Tap tempo tremolo
Jimi: “This one is designed by the clever people at DIYstompboxes.com – the only pedal I’ve ever built using a prefabricated PCB, which came from MusicPCB.com. It has rotary switches for wave shape and for tempo multiplier. You can set the tempo using the stompswitch and then double, triple, half – and so on – the tempo using either the rotary switch or the multiplier switch. Great fun.”
➋ Buffa FettBuffer
Jimi: “I wanted to build a standalone [buffer] to see if it really made a difference. I was going to use it for Steven’s ’board but with a [Boss] TU-2 at the start and the A-B-Y X Wing at the end with its own built-in buffer – but it wasn’t needed.”
➌ it’s A Tap! Tap tempo switch
Jimi: “This is for use with pedals that have an external tap tempo input. It has a polarity switch to enable it to be used with a variety of different pedals.”
➍ r2-eQ eQ
Jimi: “I built it to see if I could. It’s an active EQ pedal built into an R2-D2 bubble-bath holder. It actually functions as a pedal and is quite a nice EQ pedal. It has bass, mid, treble and gain controls and also a mid-shift switch to give a more Fender-like mid section or a more Marshall-esque mid section.”
➒ ➎ A-B Wing AB switch
Jimi: “It’s handy to take to the studio, or for trying out a new pedal compared to an old one.”
➏ Jedi master VolumeVolume switch
Jimi: “This one acts like the volume knob on a guitar: turning it down cleans up a dirty valve amp; turning it up pushes an amp to break up. It’s very handy if you use the volume knob to clean up your sound. Steven used to use a [Boss] LS-2 Line Selector with the volume down on one line to clean up his JMP for his clean sound, so this was designed with that in mind.”
➐ hyperdriveoverdrive/distortion
Jimi: “This uses an LM741 Op Amp. It’s similar to the DOD Overdrive 250 and the MXR Distortion+. We’ve not found a place on Steven’s board for it yet…”
➑ Storm Trooper Looper Double true bypass looper ➒ Super hard-onBoost
Jimi: “This is a Z.Vex SHO clone. I couldn’t resist putting Leia in the gold bikini on it!”
➓ Send/return of The Jedi True bypass looper
Jimi: “This is another handy pedal to have knocking around, but it’s not required for Steven’s current setup as all the pedals I’ve built are true bypass.”
This article and the products featured within it are in no way officially affiliated with, authorised, licensed or endorsed by Lucasfilm Ltd. These pedals are ‘inspired by’ Star Wars and its characters, and belong to a one-off private collection. They are not available commercially.
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SEPTEMBER 2012
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how did you get into making stompboxes originally? “I’ve always been a massive gearhead and liked vintage pedals. I started by getting into the DIYStompboxes.com website and it all just went from there.” how do you go about fine-tuning the sounds for Steven’s pedals? “I do this thing called ‘bread-boarding’. I made this board where you can put the components of the pedal into little slots, so you can set up the whole circuit then remove a part. For example, you could remove the input capacitor and try a different value. Then you can literally see by changing that component how much more bass, and so on, you will get. So we’d plug into Steve’s setup, play around with a few parts and get it to sound how we wanted. It’s nice to be able to take a pedal and improve it. If you’re struggling at all, you can search on Google and you’ll find the answer to various conundrums.” how do you get the Star Wars designs on the cases? “They’re aluminium cases that I buy, and I sand them all down to make them nice and shiny. Then the designs are acid-etched into the casing. It takes an long time to do each one, but then I like to do things properly.”