Proper Charlies

Effects expert Dan Steinhardt of TheGigRig on building Andy’s ’board

“Andy will always experiment but the constants are his signature ‘AT’ Angry Charlie overdrive/ distortion by JHS: it’s basically an Angry Charlie version II that has a little switch that allows you to switch between three different power stages of Marshall-style tone: there’s 25-watt, 50-watt and 100-watt. So that just means varying levels of compression. And Andy always has a couple of those on his ’board set to different levels. That pedal has effectively replaced the gain channel of his Mesa/Boogie (see opposite). That’s the big thing on his ’board. Another very big part of his sound was having two Memory Man delays running together at different times. But as much as he loved that, he found it too unreliable, so he’s replicated that sound in the TimeLine and makes it sound amazing. Then he’s got some pedals by a company in Brazil called GNI: a flanger/chorus and an octave pedal. There’s also the signature Carl Martin compressor that he uses as a boost with just a bit of compression on there – he uses that in conjunction with his Xotic BB Preamp pedal, for certain sounds, and he’ll swap the order of the compressor and the BB. The original Carl Martin compressor is a mains powered thing but Andy got them to change the design to the extent that it can now operate from a 9V DC input, which is so cool. I would urge anyone reading this who hasn’t seen him play live to do so: it’s a revelatory experience – he is so expressive. You really get a sense of who he is from his playing. It’s joyous.”