MITCH DALTON
The studio guitarist’s guide to happiness and personal fulfilment, as related by our resident session ace. This month: One Hit Blunders.
There was once a satirical sketch from the Monty Python gang featuring a judo instructor and his captive audience of fresh faced students.The protagonist is employed to teach self defence to his captive charges but it becomes apparent quickly that he’s deranged and instructs them instead as to how to defend themselves against attack by endless varieties of fruit. “Have we done pineapple?” “Yes sir, we did it last week.” “What! Tinned and fresh?” “Yes. Can’t we learn how to defend ourselves from an attack by a man with a pointed stick?” “I see. Fresh fruit not good enough for you, eh? Well, let me tell you my lad, if some homicidal maniac comes at you tonight with a bunch of loganberries, don’t come crying to me!”
Which, if I can persuade you to attempt a metaphysical leap of faith, is how I feel about the world of effects units, stomp boxes, processors and the never ending flood of metal boxes that has continued to rain down on our feet since the dawn of man. Or 1965 - which is when archaeologists have calculated that Keith Richards unleashed the Gibson Maestro Fuzz Tone upon an unsuspecting world with 'that'unforgettable riff on
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. Iconic. Mains operated. Noisy. All yer favourites.
Then followed the discovery by the inspirationally named Brad Plunkett, who had been charged with the task of making Vox amplifiers cheaper to manufacture. He noticed that when he replaced the mid-boost with an inexpensive potentiometer it created a strange pitch fluctuation when rotated. He then took the volume pedal from a Vox Continental organ and replaced its workings with the pot and a nine-volt battery. The Cry Baby was born. The rest is mystery. Of course, DeArmond had introduced the Model 600 Volume Pedal way back in 1941 and its numerically modified tremolo unit, The Model 60 ‘Trem-Trol’ in 1946.
Clunky and unreliable as they were, it didn’t stop Bo Diddley from recording, er, ‘Bo Diddley’ with it in 1955 and changing rock and roll forever.
Nevertheless, it was indeed the 60s that prompted the start of the stompbox tsunami, driven by electronics miniaturisation and battery operation for portability, the never ending quest for new sounds and the reasonable chance that it might illuminate encouragingly when you switched the object on.
Now, here’s the thing. I can confirm that for 99.9% of a guitar wielding studio career, the sum total of all things stompy that you’re gonna need are:
1) A volume pedal. The Ernie Ball VP Junior ain’t at all bad considering that its critical component is a piece of string. 2) A distortion/overdrive box of some kind. There are literally hundreds of the things out there. Personally I lean towards a type that has an AX7 valve at its heart. 3) A chorus pedal that produces a pretty shimmer around the guitar sound. I lean towards the old Boss Digital Dimension iteration, which is a tad more subtle. And, as is so often the case with items I prefer, discontinued.
4) Some kind of compressor/ sustainer, if you must. 5) A delay pedal. Could be digital or analogue, to taste.
6) A tremolo device. Even this may be ignored if your amplifier of choice happens to be branded Fender and is equipped with the ubiquitous ‘Vibrato’ channel, in Fullerton-speak.
Sadly, these six items have morphed mysteriously over the
“THE OBLIGATION TO PURCHASE A PRODUCT THAT YOU KNOW WILL BE USED ONCE AND THEN
CONFINED TO THE ROOM OF REDUNDANCY ”
course of a lifetime’s insolvency into a collection of at least one hundred toys. If you (under) guesstimate an average value of at least £100 per pedal, that’s 10 grand’s worth. Gulp. And I can’t even recall what some of them actually do.
Compressors by Boss, TC Electronic (Hypergravity) and Forest Green (Mad Professor). Noise suppressors. Touch Wah pedals. Flangers by the flange load. Parametric EQ boxes. And onwards as we hurtle through space and delay time. I think that I must be a sucker for a name, irrespective of form or function. I mean, who can resist an analogue echo by MXR named Carbon Copy? Or Electric Mistress and Memory Man by ElectroHarmonix? Zen Drive and Obsessive Compulsive Distortion ain’t too shabby, either.
The worst of it is the obligation to purchase a product that you just know will be employed but once and then consigned to the room of redundancy for ever more. A £400 Strymon Timeline, purchased to replicate Nile Rodgers' double delayed part on Let’s Dance serves as but one salutary example. So, if some homicidal maniac comes at you tonight with a Small Stone Phaser, don’t come crying to me.
For more on Mitch and his musical exploits with the Studio Kings, go to: www.mitchdalton.co.uk