Tonewood Bound
John and his tech Pat Meyer give us a tour of the new additions and old friends since our 2014 Rig Tour
PEDALBOARD RJM Masterm ind GT/22 Midi controller
Pat: “When I joined he had the One Control Crocodile Tail just to put everything on a loop because he stamps on things… and breaks them. Then that got outdated because he just kept building on it. I went to the RJM stuff because he wanted something with a lot of instant access and some presets, but it all still had to be flyable. The Maxon 808 is on all the time, except for one song when he plays his Weissenborn. The Akai Headrush is used in the intro for Betterman when he goes on the nut side with the slide to get that real chimey kind of vibrato. It gives him something to play over.
“He’s got a two pickup setup on the bridge side of his acoustic now so he has the Digitech Jamman for percussive loops. Then we have that running into the Gig Rig
Loopy 2 for the bridge pickup side.”
John: “Pat put this together and it’s great. It’s a little more user friendly. I’ve used looper systems for a while, and switcher systems for a bit and eventually they all get to the point when they stop working because they get old. So this is the latest upgrade that just allowed me to have enough buttons to use all the different effects that I want and then to have a few buttons that fuse them as well. I hate scrolling through pages and shit. I like everything to be on one page with one button each. I’d happily use just a bunch of pedals but it’s too hard, I’m tap dancing. I want to make it easier for myself but I don’t want someone side of stage changing them for me.”
Pat: “The signal chain is roughly the same as it was a couple of years ago - I think a lot of the album was recorded with his old pedalboard. But going to this kind of system offers the opportunity to expand and go further. You just need to add on. John wants everything there and that’s why we went to the 22 [control].
“He switches to the [Nessfield] Bluezer instead of the Maxon for a different drive stage. Then he’s got an [J Rockett] Archer we call ‘Klon’ for obvious reasons – quite often he’ll use that for his Tele. He loves the
Caroline Killobyte delay and I’ve modded it so that he can have the Havoc switch here [on the Mastermind], it’s the chaosy kind of repeat. When everything is starting to get a bit crazy and he wants it to get crazier, he uses that. But it’s a great delay. Seymour Duncan gave us that Pickup Boost to try and it’s great – it’s a straight-up boost.”
Guitar s Maton Custom 11-string ‘Newie’ and six-string jumbos
John: “The Maton is not a recreation of Oldie. It’s a jumbo. I designed a guitar for my wife’s band [Mama Kin] once that was my perfect guitar in terms of how can I fuse a Lowden European fingerstyle with an American jumbo kind of thing. I could pick and choose from all the models they had and it’s a jumbo, cedar top, Indian rosewood back and sides when they used to sell it. That six-string sounds so good and it’s one of the nicest I’ve played. I wanted to hear it in a 12-string [John removes the high G to make it an 11-string] but it needed a stronger top wood because cedar doesn’t really like to be hit very often [for percussive playing]. I created the same specs but with a spruce top that was like Oldie. It’s beautiful. It took a while to get used to because it’s so articulate, but it’s great. It’s funny, I’ve been playing Ocean and the band asked, ‘Are you playing new stuff for that?’ I’ve been playing it forever on Oldie but you couldn’t hear it. My playing feels much more precise and satisfying because before I couldn’t hear it when I was plugged in, it faded away. So Oldie has gone and ‘Newie’ is around.”
AMPS Marshall JMP MK2, JCM 800 2203 and Fender Deville
John: “Why two Marshalls? Usually sound pressure. I probably don’t need two tonight but when I start playing outdoors, for me it’s all about sustain. When you hit these notes with the volume pedal and it’s almost like you have an Ebow on. And that needs a certain amount of volume and sound pressure. I want to be able to hit a note and go [makes long sustaining sound] - it’s all very Spinal Tap!”