Effects Pedals

Not having a fully developed identity as a player yet...and not having a great ear for sound quality...means that I don't mess much with effects. KiD plays a pretty clean, straight signal bass...so I haven't needed to mess much with it. I have takent the baby step to notice and react to the fact that she played a different kind of bass at different points in the Pixies' career and that this changed the tone. I might not have noticed this on my own admittedly, but I read it online.

Aria Pro II Cardinal Series – The Pixies' first bass belonged to Kelley,and is heard on Come On Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa and seen on the Town & Country live video. It later reappeared in the Kelley Deal 6000.

1962 Fender Precision Reissue– Acquired for use on Doolittle on Gil Norton's insistence. It appears in the video for "Here Comes Your Man". On the Bossanova album, the Precision was used on "Dig for Fire" for its "lazier, growlier sound" that was "not as boingy-boingy-sproingy".

Music Man Stingray – Added in time for Bossanova "because it was active and had a different sound" and became her main live bass "because it was a little less country-sounding than the Fender". The instrument was afterwards played by Josephine Wiggs in The Breeders and Luis Lerma in The Amps.

Steinberger headless (but full-bodied, two-cutaway) bass – Bought during the recording of Trompe Le Monde because the other basses were out of tune on the higher frets. Deal described it as having a "weird, organ-y sound".

The upshot for me as a practical matter is that there are a few songs that I either play with a pick or turn the tone knob "brighter" on. Well...now that I think about it...I really only do this for one song...Bird Dream. I turn the knob all the way bright (I normally play all the way the opposite). I play with a pick on Debaser, Blown Away, and Is She Weird...not for tone reasons per se, but because there are parts of those songs where I play alone and the boys couldn't clearly make out the notes (and thus the tempo) because they were too muddy. So I play with a pick to make them more articulated and louder. But as we are getting into the last of the Trompe le Monde and Bossonova songs I AM more aware of the different, brighter, tone. And I will probably adjust the tone.

My only other experience with effects or tone was for the Flaming Lips tribute. I bought a bass distortion pedal for that (that, even though it is the actual pedal that Michael Ivins uses live, I only ended up using on one song for an over the top punch in wall of ridiculous sound)fuzz pedal for that and borrowed a Peach Fuzz pedal (which is awesome, but pricey). I also briefly experimented with a multi-effects pedal on one song...but we ended up having the keyboard player use that pedal instead for that song.

I don't much fiddle with the knobs on my amp. I'm not sure what I'd even be trying to accomplish. I also have a modern and a vintage channel on my amp...but I don't much know the difference. I know that I like a fatter, less treble, bass sound. That's all I know.

I feel like I ought to try and understand more about effects and the quality of sound. Not so much because I care, but because it is part of the language. It would be nice, when RS and CT are debating this or that tone, if I had any idea what they were talking about.

So I've been obsessed with R Ring lately. And they use some serious effects...and in weird ways I gather. I took some pictures of their pedals the other night.

Here's KeD's guitar pedals. It is a little hard to make out what they are. Left to right it looks like...Boss tuner, Boss Digital Delay DD7, Ibanez/Tube Works Tube King Overdrive TK999 (maybe an older one), and Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Nano Reverb.  It helps to look at these pics on Flickr blown up and flipped right side up.

Here's KeD's vocal pedals. She kneels on the floor and adjusts these throughout the songs that she uses them on (personal side note here...the setlist is in this photo!). Left to right below is Boss Digital Reverb Delay RV-3, Boss Distortion DS-1, and...and...the label is covered...but it sure looks like a second Boss Digital Reverb Delay RV-3. I'm not sure if she runs these through her amp or through the PA. There's a direct box sitting there. I'm pretty sure that the acoustic guitars were run through the amps, so there's good odds that that direct box is for the mic that runs through the pedals. I don't remember her switching mics though. She would unplug her guitars/keys and run them through the same cable. But I don't remember that with the vocal mic. Hmm.

Last but not least here's MM's board from two angles. Top left to right: Boss Delay DM-2 (red), Boss Tuner, Radial Tonebone JX2 Pro Switchbone AB/Y Pedal. Bottom left to right: Boss Equalizer GE-7, Death by Audio Fuzzwar

I really have no idea how these particular combinations result in the sounds they produced on stage. But at least I know what they were using.