SIGNAL CHAIN
As a youth, the coolest thing you could do to fill in the gaps of your playing abilities, was to daisy chain as many dissimilar sound effects together to make a racket. As a broke teenager, you go for gold and try to goose the system with a multi-effects processor.
My first mistake was the RP100 from Digitech. SHEW that thing was a mess. 99 presets, 50 mistakes to choose from in amps, stacked delays, distortions and phasers. They had a mysterious Acoustic Simulation preset that, to me, gave you the acoustic you wanted from the electric you received. It didn’t but it sounded like a strategy whilst hiding behind the amp wall in the Mars Music showroom, trying not to draw attention to yourself while you struggle to locate a plugged in amp, a cord, a guitar that isn’t too expensive and near-silently test the only pedal no one else is trying.
The DigiTech RP100 - Shear Garbage. Engage the Rhythm section to sound awful in-time.
The RP was my only effects unit for a good number of years before I learned more and branched out a bit. My budget expanded to near dozens of dollars. I got way too into Tim Reynolds’s solo acoustic music, with the acquisition of Stream and See Into Your Soul.
Stream (the album) is literally just Tim and a 6 string D-35 (maybe a Gibson Songwriter?) and a 12 string D18-24 for a dozen songs. He put a quarter cup of verb on the whole thing and just raw dogged it for an hour. I can’t express to you, how unbelievably important these albums were at that time, in my music tastes. Tim is not just the well-paid sidekick to Dave Matthews or the DMB. He’s the oracle of sincerity in learning your craft. Tim doesn’t miss notes. He doesn't get sloppy. He’s intentional and direct in his playing, even when electronics are involved. And, MAN do they get involved.
In more than a few tracks on Luther College and a few on See Into Your Soul, you start to feel like you’re losing your hold on what’s happening. Tim establishes that you’re hearing just him pretty quickly. You can pick up the notes, you can follow the licks to the end. He makes you feel safe in your listening. When things get intense though, something happens. At full speed, notes start to double, phrases start to drone, and then someone else is playing over the last thing and you lose all cabin pressure,
I bet I listened to Stream live, 600 times. You are on this roll for 2 full minutes before there is this glitch. A stuck note. B string, 12th fret. And it goes in 8th notes on repeat, in perfect time. You’re not sure its you or him. Then, a fucking sitar sounding riff starts playing over 2 layers prior. Both get quieter before he rips into a rhythmic overstrum that perfectly depict a rushing river, in sound. Quiet again, that same note still pinging. Back to the rhythm, rushing up and down the fret board for another half measure.
It lands, after 5 minutes of varied paces right back where it started. All overlapping sounds cease and the whole song pauses for audiences to pick up their jaws.
HOW. IN THE HELL. <- Beginning of Rabbit Hole
Guys, this was 1998. The internet, forums, magazines, INTERVIEWS were sparse. If it wasn’t cool for MTV or VH1 or MUCH, it wasn’t accessible to the world.
Gratefully, Fluffy Centner ran the TR3 website (any maybe still does?) and spent the hours documenting Tim’s live rig. I found the forum post in 2000 and the hardware on MusiciansFriend.com a nano second later. Had to get this stuff. Had to see how the hell it worked.
The beginning of something insane.
Delay had been around forever. The DD3 introduced on-the-fly Hold. Hold the pedal down and play. When you release, that phrase will play on, forever.
Literally too stupid simple to waste time on a product description
Sweetwater Marketing Department (probably)
THAT’S LITERALLY IT. These two pieces of gear imposed the lesson that more gear is not the answer. You can mow down an audience’s expectations with unnecessary skills and 2 little modulators. The volume pedal was a fun way to volume-swell on acoustic guitar, where a volume nob doesn’t really exist. The DD3 was the source behind the trickery. It has a natural bleed off setting, a HOLD setting and an analog mode that acts like a pitch shift when adjusted in real-time while playing.
These two things provided the physics of the acoustic world I had landed in. No muss, no fuss, no phasers, no distortion. Just you and your little robot friend to synthesize more-than-you when the time called for it.
As my musical tastes improved over time, I found may way into the forrest of distortions, tube amps, better guitars, non-microphonic pickups, and other tone chasing nonsense that guitarists use to delay the writing process. I went through the delays, distortions, drivers, eq’s, compressors, fuck flange, and then the brands. Boss, Ibanez, JHS, Morely, EVH, Diablo, and more. Moving combo’s in and out, trying to whittle down the perfect loop for a gig that gave you options without having to jog from one end of your pedal train to the other.
Today, the rig is as light as it gets:
Boss Chromatic Tuner -> Boss DD8 -> Boss-RC1 -> Boss AE-8
The AE-8 acts as a signal clean-up and output L/R to 2 powered speakers or the Bose Solo thing.
It gives you 2 or 3 not-completely-obnoxious reverbs and that’s all I use it for. It keeps your house mix at your feet and leaves little to be desired. The DD8 is just for the analog fuckery when you’re trying to finish a song without an ending. The RC1 is for live looping which almost never happens and the tuner is for bypass/mute and tuning/switching guitars.
I’ve owned every stupid ass acoustic effects processor they’ve made, every witchcraft hardware/software modeler. Nothing has come close to this setup and I’m a tough sell for things you have to carry with you and destroy slowly over time.
Boss AE-8 Acoustic Performer