The GigRig G2

Writer Jamie Dickson Editor, Guitarist The pedalboard and G2 get a Jimi-style overhaul as our editor ponders whether he is Experienced enough to conjure up the tonal colours of Hendrix’s landmark debut album…

Like Nev Marten (see page.128), January found me prepping in earnest for a tribute performance of Jimi Hendrix’s debut album. The gig is taking place at Bristol’s excellent International Jazz & Blues Festival and the idea is that Nev, Mick Taylor of That Pedal Show and I – backed by superb Bristol musicians Eric Mylod-Okafo and Matt Brown – will perform the whole of Jimi’s Are You Experienced to a crowd of avid Hendrix fans. No pressure, then! A Strat is a given, of course, and vintage fuzz. Marshall Plexi tones will need a bit more thought, however. Jimi got his studio sound by turning his amp up (so loud it caused arguments between him and manager Chas Chandler) and distance mic-ing it. The venue isn’t likely to permit that, however, so I might need pedals to help evoke that unique blend of bassy compression, touch sensitivity and brimming feedback. Starting with kit I’ve got to hand, I reckon the Hudson Electronics Broadcast germanium preamp is a strong contender as far as 60s fuzz goes, while a Thorpy Gunshot, with its mid-rich Brit overdrive voicing might provide a ‘wide-open Marshall’ flavour for leads. Meanwhile, bluesman Innes Sibun (see interview, page 84) kindly loaned me a Moollon clone of a Tychobrahe Octavia for the squirly bits of Purple Haze’s solo. All good. But can I plausibly team these with my Dr Z Jaz 20/40 combo, with its Fender-ish power stage of 6V6s and twin 10-inch speakers? The short answer, says effects expert Daniel Steinhardt of TheGigRig, is no.“Jimi’s gain structure was a crucial part of his sound and it came from Plexis cranked up to where the amp is compressing naturally,” he says, adding that the only way to ‘fake’ that signature British amp sound is to use an amp with plenty of clean headroom, such as a Super Reverb, as a ‘blank canvas’ and put Marshall-style drive pedals in front of it, such as Xotic’s SL Drive or Friedman’s BE-OD. In that scenario the amp is acting merely as a tonally neutral projector of a pedal-formed drive sound, lending little of its own clipping characteristics to the mix. It’s an imperfect solution, though, so looks like I’ll have to borrow a Plexi-style head to do proper justice to Jimi, as my Dr Z doesn’t really have enough headroom even to act as Dan’s ‘blank canvas’. In the meantime, I’m busy tweaking the ‘board to supply the album’s spectrum of tones – from the warm, pliant cleans of Wind Cries Mary to the primal howls of cosmic feedback on Third Stone From The Sun. The addition of Free The Tone’s new Ambi Space reverb, in for review at Guitarist, is helping with some of the album’s spacier interludes, while G2 allows me to organise all these diverse pedals into groups that can be engaged with one footswitch when required. All my clean tones are thus organised on the bottom row of the G2, ranging from absolutely dry to progressively more heavily effected cleans, laden with delay and verb. The top row is assigned to drive tones – again moving from the most lightly driven on the top left to the last switch in line, which brings forth a screaming eagle-cry from the stellar void. Or something like that, anyway! Note that the more gain is generated by my drive pedals, the more post-effect clean boost I’ll have to add on with G2 to ensure they’ll be loud enough to be heard in the mix. High-gain tones may sound ‘hot’ but by their very nature they are heavily compressed, which means they lack dynamic range – the spiky quality that makes notes jab cleanly out of a mix. Hence they need a volume hike. I’ll keep you posted on the gig as we progress…