by John Drenning

Now we move on to how a compressor can help your playing and tone.

First, let’s say you want the advantages of playing with gain, but you need a clean tone. We all know playing with distortion is “easier” because distortion compresses your signal – but you can’t play the intro to “Stairway To Heaven” with the gain dimed on your Triple Rectifier (unless you want to be struck dead by a bolt of lightning).

Your solution: Compression, which like distortion, is a clam-eraser. It can push your signal enough to even things out without the hard clipping you get from amp distortion.

This also helps with funk-style chordal passages, where unless your picking technique is flawless, your dynamics will be all over the place. Think of Jamie West-Oram’s gem of a rhythm track on The Fixx’s “One Thing Leads To Another” (below). What makes that a perfect track is how consistent, how uninflected it is.

(I had long assumed he was just plugged right into the board, then run through an outboard compressor. Turns out he played it through either a Dyna Comp or a Valley People compressor, then used an MXR Stereo Chorus to split the signal to two Marshall JMP combos. So maybe Marshalls are versatile. And the guitar? Not a Strat – a p.o.s. Ibanez Blazer!)

West-Oram’s a great guitar player, but probably not great enough to be able to play every single chorded note and muted chikka-chikka at the exact same volume. A compressor does the heavy lifting of raising those quieter pick strokes and lowering the louder ones.

Second, when you’re playing in that in-between gain zone, a compressor can give your signal that little additional push. Not the this-one-goes-to-11 push (that comes later), just a bit more grit, which can also make the semi-dirty amp as forgiving to play through as a properly distorted amp. Take a slightly overdriven amp signal, push the output of the compressor a few degrees past unity gain to drive the amp a bit harder, and you’ve got the sustain and “give” of higher overdrive settings, but without all the dirt.

(”Unity gain” is the output setting on a compressor’s volume where your volume is the same when the compressor’s on as when it’s off. On a Dyna Comp, or most compressors for that matter, unity gain is a moving target: When you turn the Sensitivity knob up, the pedal gets louder, too.)

Guitarists like distortion because it’s a security blanket: Unless you’ve got the technique of Paco de Lucia and don’t need it, gain makes screw-ups harder to hear. A compressor gives you some of that blanket when you’re playing at less-than-gargantuan gain settings.

Third, a compressor can serve as the missing “11″ on your amp’s volume knob. And who doesn’t want that! Of course, any pedal with an output or level knob can do this. You’re just using the pedal to boost the weedy signal generated by your guitar’s pickups, which then pushes the front end of your amp harder, making you sound more huge. Compressors are really good at this, since the two things they can do – make your guitar louder, and enhance sustain – are two things most guitarists aren’t going to be sad about. I never thought of a compressor as a “more” pedal until I put one in front of my aged JCM900, which I love but sometimes wish it had “more” – more girth, more gain, more sustain – the things that make an amp “forgiving.”

So if your cover band wants to blow the roof off that next casino gig when you’re covering “Time,” dime the output on that Dyna Comp! For single-coils especially, a compressor can be that much-needed sonic viagra to help you take it to the next level.

Sonic Penalties

Lest we end on a high note, let’s recall the words of Dr. Drew, who reminds us there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Compressors exact two sonic penalties. The first is noise. Since compressors raise the floor and lower the ceiling signal-wise, you can expect a lot more hiss when you’re not playing.

To mitigate this, try placing your compressor early in your signal chain, ideally right after your tuner and before any distortion or modulation effects. Conventional wisdom also places the compressor after the wah, but your mileage may vary.

You’ll find that the compressor makes other pedals work differently. I put my compressor before my tremolo pedal, and the compressor makes the trem sound completely different, which you’d expect, since compressors and tremolos are designed to do the exact opposite thing.

Of course, you can also kill the noise of a compressor with a good gate at the end of your signal chain (well, maybe before delay or reverb, but that’s another post) – just expect to raise the threshold of the gate a bit to account for the extra noise generated by the compressor.

The second sonic penalty is going to be a deal-breaker for some – for others, it’s the coolest thing about compressors: It’s the coloring (or “mangling,” if you will) a compressor adds to your signal.

When tone corksniffers talk about the “transparency” of an effect, basically they’re talking about the signal-to-noise ratio of that pedal. Take chorus, for example. The signal is the good part – it’s what coming out of your pickups, enhanced by the chorusing effect to have a pleasing aquatic swoosh. The noise (the bad part) is the extra hiss the chorusing adds, as well as any unwanted tonal shaping the chorus inflicts on your tone.

This analysis gets tricky because some people like the noise as much as the signal. Lo-fi chorus makes my eardrums bleed, but it worked out okay for Kurt Cobain.

Compressors do have various degrees of transparency. One example is the Keeley compressor, which I’ll take a look at in this series of posts, is prized for its transparency. But the reason the classic Dyna Comp has such a mighty sonic footprint is because it’s as transparent, and as subtle, as a cinder block. Party on!

Pete Townshend's pedalboard, with T-rex Echo, Boss OD-1 and Demeter Comp-1 Compressor (click to see it bigger).

Coming soon:

Comp Lit, Pt 3: A review of the brand new Dunlop CSP202 Custom Comp compressor pedal.

Comp Lit, Pt 4: The Dunlop Custom Comp goes mano a mano with the Dyna Comp, Keeley and Diamond compressors.

During the day, John Drenning is a mild-mannered professional. But on his off hours he’s a tone fiend.

P.S.

Since everyone doesn’t read every post, will append posts with this for a bit. C’mon fellas!

Doing a “keep the lights on and do more cool sh*t” fund drive. If you dig and look forward to WoodyTone, and find the info fun and valuable, please frickin’ donate! Options for a one-time $20 or $5/mo below. Gracias amigos! Vamonos!

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Pete Townshend could never be accused of understating things. In some ways he always seems like the classic artist, in the “here’s the way I see it and F you if you don’t like it” sense. In a new-ish and excellent PremierGuitar.com interview, Pete is all that and says some stuff I’ve never read before, maybe you’ll be in the same boat.

Here are some choice quotes – all are Pete’s. If you’re a Townshend fan, the article is worth a full read.

On His Playing

> “The Who worked fairly solidly from 1963 through to 1982, when I felt I had had enough. Over the entirety of those years, I had regarded my stage guitars as tools rather than instruments. I never tried to play eloquently, I didn’t practice much and I didn’t work very hard on my sound.”

> “I would never have been a Who fan.”

> “I’ve never gotten a rush or thrill from performing. I’m good at it, and I find it easy and natural.”

On Hendrix and His Style

> “When Jimi was in London, it just so happened I was using a Strat, and he modeled his entire amplifier rig, apart from a couple of special fuzz boxes, according to my advice. So for a while our sound was similar. But no one could approach what he did with that rig, and I decided to concentrate much more on chordal work, trying to give a beat backbone to Moon’s flailing and undisciplined drumming.”

On Amps

> “It’s interesting to think that the Marshall sound I helped Jim and his guys develop was built around the very low output and thin, surfy sound of the Rick [Rickenbacker].”

> “…let [Jim Marshall] sue me, but I know that the first Marshall amp was almost a dead copy of the Fender Bassman head with some minor changes to boost the level – minor changes that I insisted be major. The [Fender] Vibro-King sounds more like an early Marshall amp than a new Marshall amp. They’re great amps, but they require quite a bit of maintenance, tube biasing, etc. I mix 10″ and 12″ speakers in two cabs.”

> “‘60s amplifiers…look so beautiful. Marshalls look like something from The Munsters. That’s why I put the Union Jack Flag on the speakers. Before I had a Marshall, I had a Bassman and a Fender Pro split-wired. That is the sound I loved. Using two amps was my first trick. Getting Jim Marshall to make them louder was my second.”

PG noted that Pete has four Fender Vibro-Kings each with a 2×12 extension cab. Pete usually uses one Vibro-King and cab with the volume set on 3-3.5. At times he adds the second with the other two spares.

On Guitars

Pete says he still loves SGs.

> “My present guitar tech, Alan Rogan, came to me sometime in the very early ‘70s I think, and after a while I developed the Les Paul Special [Deluxe?] with a middle humbucker set for feedback. Those guitars were heavy. Gibson did a signature Pete Townshend model Les Paul, which works well though it’s still a heavy guitar. The middle pickup is meant to be set close to the strings to allow instant feedback. It is on a separate on-off switch to allow machine-gun staccato effects. The other two small humbuckers are wired in the conventional Gibson manner but with a phase switch. In the studio I could get almost any sound I wanted with that guitar.”

> “From 1971, everything changed. Alan Rogan helped me track down a lot of cool guitars. Joe Walsh gave me a Gretsch and a Fender Bassman combo with an Edwards pedal, to get the Neil Young sound. He also gave me a Flying V that I am sad to say I sold to help buy my first big boat – he’s never quite forgiven me.”

> “When I found the Eric Clapton Strat, I got the best of two worlds: a clean Fender sound when I wanted it, and with the built-in power booster the ability to make the sound dirty for slab-drive chord work. I have often tried SGs again, and I still love them and use them for recording, but I love the Strat-style whammy bar.”

> “…Before I set eyes on a Rickenbacker— still a beautiful sight, I think—I had wanted a Fender Strat. I still believe it to be the most beautifully designed guitar of the modern era.”

> “What is useful to me onstage is that I get a sizzling string sound from the piezo, to give color and detail to the sustain sound I use these days for solos. One of my techniques is banging the bridge and back pickup with the palm and wrist, and I do this quickly to create a kind of thunderous explosive sound – like a heavy machine gun. The piezo plays a big part in this sound because it relays the sound of the body of the guitar being thumped.”

PG noted that the Clapton Stratocaster is modified by Gordon Wells of Knight Guitars with a Fishman Acoustic bridge pickup and an EMG preamp. Half the signal goes to a Demeter DI box to allow blending of electric and acoustic sounds.

On Effects

> “I have a T-Rex delay I use for color, a [old] Boss OD-1 for sustain and distortion, and a Demeter compressor. They are in a box [pedalboard] built by Pete Cornish.”

Notable

> He uses Ernie Ball 11-52s for his electrics and D’Addario EXP 19s (12-56) for his acoustics. His picks are any-brand heavies.

Here's an early shot with early Marshalls.

You probably know that Pete Townshend had an important role in Marshall Amplification becoming what it is today. You probably have heard that Pete is responsible for the Marshall stack.

That’s all true, but you may not know the details (I didn’t). So here goes.

In a Premier Guitar-filmed video tour of the Marshall factory (below), Paul Marshall (son of founder Jim), had this to say about the history of the 100-watt stack:

“The company’s history goes back to 1962, when Mr. Marshall, my father, had a music shop in London. He used to play [in bands] with Pete Townshend’s father, so Pete Townshend used to go into the shop to have his guitars repaired…and buy his own musical instruments from there.

“When he was in there, he obviously asked about the amplifiers. He wasn’t happy with the amplifier he was using, and so Mr. Marshall built an amplifier for Pete Townshend with [engineers Ken Bran and Dudley Craven] at the back of the shop.”

Actually, Marshall built Pete several prototypes and still has the one Pete okayed. Starting from about 20:11 in the video: “Right here we’ve got what is referred to as the ‘number-one’ amp. Back in 1962, Pete Townshend plugged into that amplifier – that was the prototype – and said, ‘Yep, that’s the sound we want.’ So the first amplifiers were built to that specification….”

In the August 1996 issue of Guitar magazine, Pete said he told Jim Marshall, “‘I want to be louder, but I want my sound,’ which was at that time a Fender Pro amp, with I believe a 15-inch speaker, and a tweed Fender Bassman [combo], which was another 15-inch speaker cabinet. The two were linked together with a split cable. I said I wanted that sound, exactly that sound, but just a bit louder, a bit bigger. [Marshall] managed to achieve that.

“And then I went back and said, ‘No, I want it even louder, even bigger. What’s happening is very, very interesting.’ There were harmonics happening that were very interesting. And I got very angry, very frustrated — I kept pushing them. I said, ‘You’d better f***ing do this, there’s something happening here which is really interesting.’

“The guitar kind of starts to sound like a symphony orchestra. You get up to a certain pitch, and something happens between the pickup and the amp. I knew that in distortion there was music of a much higher harmonic order than anything that I could play, so I started that whole trip off.”

Why So Loud, Pete?

Two answers. The first, five words: John Entwhistle and Keith Moon.

In the October 1994 Guitar World, John Entwistle was asked whether he was the first one to introduce the Marshall 4×12 to The Who, and he said: “Yeah, but I didn’t buy the very first one. It was a guy in a band called the Flintstones who got that. I bought the second one…and the fourth and the seventh and the eighth. Pete bought the ones in between. It was great. I’d buy one, he’d buy one, I’d buy one, then he’d buy another. And I went, “Is it loud enough? F**k, I’ll buy two more.” And I started using the two-amp system — bi-amping.”

Here’s the second answer. In the August 1994 issue of Guitarist magazine, Pete said: “Before John, Keith and I got into personal volume competitions, one of the first reasons I went to Jim Marshall to say ‘build me a big Marshall amp’ was because I wanted to shut the f***ing audience up. I was sick of standing playing in the Oldfield Hotel only to get Reggie Kray-types in suits coming up during numbers to say…’It’s my girlfriend’s birthday, play the Tennessee Waltz.’

“So we’d be…looking at one another thinking, F*** this…. We had to do something. Johnny McLaughlin [yes, him] had sold me my first Fender amp – a Pro – when he worked at Selmers, and it was a really great buy. I eventually took the Fender Pro and a Bassman head to Jim Marshall and said, ‘I want this sound but I want it 10 times louder.’ When he asked why, I said, ‘Because I don’t want to hear any heckling, I don’t want to hear any requests. All we want to hear when we’re in a hall is The Who — that’s all.’

Jim Marshall was amazingly inspired…. He built a big, powerful amp, but I kept going back and saying, ‘Bigger, bigger,’ and Jim would turn to his backroom bloke and say, ‘Bigger, Pete wants it bigger,’ and so the amps would come back with yet another couple of big valves in the back.”

The Stack

Here’s how Marshall remembers the development of the stack – which is different than how Pete and John remember it.

Paul Marshall, starting at about 8:20 in the video: “In those early days, bands were playing larger and larger venues, and you didn’t have the PA systems that you now have so they had to create their own sound and send that sound across the vast audiences. So they wanted bigger amplifiers, larger speaker cabinets and many more of them.

“So in 1965 we built the 100-watt amplifier with initially an 8×12 [cab], which Pete Townshend thought would be a good idea but his roadies obviously didn’t like carting that around and soon complained. So he brought it back, and that is when the first stack was born. Mr. Marshall cut that in half [into] two cabinets and fixed them together. hence the 100-watt stack was born….”

Pete, from an October 1989 Guitar Player magazine interview: “John was the first person to use a Marshall stack on its side [in 1964]. He used two 4×12 cabinets, and I bought a single 4×12 and used it on a waist-high stand so my Rickenbacker would feed back. Then it seemed a logical extension to stand a top 4×12 on another 4×12 that was actually a dummy, and then eventually to do what John was doing and have two amplifiers.” [John agrees with this version.]

Why the Black Stack?

It was just John’s preference – from a November 1975 Guitar Player interview:

“When we first started calling ourselves The Who I used a Marshall 50-watt amp with a 4-12 cabinet. I had the first 4-12 cabinet that Marshall made. We more or less forced them to make 100-watt amps by changing to Vox, who already had one out. Marshall decided that if they were going to keep us, they’d have to make a 100-watt amp.

“They used to make their amps with speaker material [? not sure what he means] on the front, and they looked completely different. I said, ‘I don’t like that – I want it all black,’ so they changed them.”

And there you go.

Notable

> Pete, from the October 1989 Guitar Player interview: “I never, ever used a stack with one amplifier until I got into Hiwatts, and I didn’t use Marshalls very long. In fact, I never used Marshall in the beginning at all. I used to use Fenders. I had a Fender Pro and a Fender Vibrasonic and a Fender Bassman top, and I used to drive Marshall 4×12s with those amplifiers. I thought Marshalls were awful, and I’m afraid I still do [!!], although that’s just a personal opinion. I don’t mean it’s bad stuff: I just mean I didn’t like the sound. And when I heard Hiwatt I was over the moon because they sounded to me much more like a really good, top-line mid-’60s Fender amp. I still think it’s hard to beat Fender amps – they’re astonishing.” [I guess that's why Pete is all Fender these days.]

> Jim Marshall (from “The Father of Loud” book) on Pete’s switch to Hiwatts: “It was unfortunate, but simply a misunderstanding. The group used to come in my shop, and at one time we were waiting for a check. The check was put in, but my son sent them another bill, thinking they still had a balance due. Pete said they had paid, but Terry swore, ‘No, you haven’t paid, you haven’t paid.’ So Pete was upset and went to Hiwatt. And Hiwatt was one of the first copies of us! It was a complete misunderstanding.”

> Jim Marshall from the same book: “We made a prototype first then we made three heads just for [Pete]. We were so proud of them when they were finished. They were sitting on a bench in the workshop with us thinking they looked wonderful, and then Pete’s roadie came along and just threw them into the bloody truck! I remember thinking, Oh my God! I can’t believe he just did that.”

> The first Marshall stacks had four KT66 power tubes, not the EL34s Marshalls are known for. Hendrix also used KT66-powered Marshalls, as have the Young brothers (Malcolm and Angus).

> Some of these quotes came from this AWESOME site on The Who gear: thewho.net

Joe Walsh isn’t a tone king, he’s a tone emperor. A couple examples: He insisted that Jimmy Page take (buy, whatever) the Les Paul that became Jimmy’s No. 1. And he hooked Pete Townshend up with what to this day is one of Pete’s favorite rigs. (More details on both of these below.)

I’m sure there are more unreported examples, but the bottom line is that Walsh has GREAT ears…which is why it might be surprising to learn that one of his favorite amps is the solid-state Roland Cube 60. Yes, solid-state!

This is the guy who sounded KILLER with Marshall and Hiwatt heads through 4×12s, who obviously digs vintage gear and…is a tone emperor! Solid-state?!

There have been instances of tone fiends loving certain solid-state amps – though Joe Bonamassa’s (and BB King’s) love of Lab Series amps is the only one that comes to mind, and Joe doesn’t play live through those amps (but BB does). Maybe also Billy Gibbons using Marshall Valvestates as power amps. But mostly it’s tubes, for good reason.

Anyhow, here’s some of what Joe has said about these Cube amps through the years.

From an interview on the Boss website (Boss is a division of Roland Corp.) around the time of the Eagles reunion tour (2007?):

Roland: You have a small Roland Cube amp between your monitor wedges. How is that being used?

Joe: “That’s driving the talk box [used on “Rocky Mountain Way”]. The speaker isn’t hooked up – it’s driving the talk box. It’s an old 60-watt Cube — an orange one that’s been painted black.

“Those Cube amps are so great. I used to play with four of those in the early Eagles when Hotel California came out. In fact I used a Cube to play slide on “The Long Run.” I liked to stack ’em too. That’s what I did in the old days. I even made a stand so I had two and two stacked. The top ones drove the bottom ones. I’d like to try out the new Cube-60.

“I used to play a pair of [Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus amps]. I used those when I played the second Us Festival [1983]. That was during the So What [solo] album. There’s film footage of that out there.”

[Boss/Roland noted that shortly after the interview, Joe received a new Cube-60, and Joe's manager said: "We took it to his dressing room and it’s a killer to say the least! Joe loves it big time." Bear in mind that that is the manager talking to the manufacturer, so maybe add a grain of salt....]

From a 1983 issue of Musician Magazine:

“Walsh’s onstage amplifiers include a Roland JC-120 driving two Peavey 4×10 speaker cabinets instead of its own enclosed speakers, a Mesa/Boogie Simul-Class combination amp also driving two Peavey 4×10 cabinets, and another Mesa/Boogie combination driving its own 12-inch Celestion speaker [undefined], as well as an extension cabinet also containing a 12-inch Celestion [ditto].

Here you can see the JC-120 on-stage at the ‘83 Us Festival – but it looks like only the Vox amps are mic’d.

Joe also used a Roland Micro-Cube amp backstage in his dressing room on the Eagles reunion tour.

Notable

Why this stuff was in Keyboard Magazine I have no idea – other than reusing content from its sister publication, Guitar Player – but here it is:

More on Page and Townshend

> “Walsh may have significantly altered rock history by giving his pal Jimmy Page a ’59 Gibson Les Paul sunburst—yes that sunburst, the one that became the Zepmeister’s number-one go-to guitar. ‘At the time, [Page] didn’t have that kind of money, so I gave him mine,’ says Walsh with typical modesty.”

> “After receiving an ARP 2600 synthesizer from Pete Townshend in the ’70s, Walsh reciprocated with what he called the Neil Young setup—a ’59 orange Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins model hollowbody paired with a ’59 3×10 Fender Bandmaster and an Edwards pedal steel volume pedal (the rig that would provide Townshend’s signature tone for most of his post-“Tommy” recordings up until 1993). One can only imagine the good karma points Walsh earned by such generosity!

Joe’s Favorite Gear

> “Walsh once told GP that his all-time favorite setup was a ’58, ’59 or ’60 Gibson Les Paul, a wah pedal, a tube-model Echoplex, and a pair of Fender Super Reverbs, and that he prefers a Les Paul with raised action for slide work.”

Joe Helps It Sound Good

> For the “it’s all in the hands” crowd: “Walsh performs his own mods, tricking out guitars and beefing up amps with countless tweaks that range from simply screwing down a stop tailpiece for increased sustain to switching capacitors in a Fender Twin to boost gain and treble response.”

This looks like the Joe Walsh rig....

I recently subscribed to Guitar Player’s GP2 on-line mag (subscribe here – it’s free) because this time I saw Pete Townshend on the cover. Had to read it, and glad I did. Following are some cool tone-making and tone-recording excerpts from the interview.

Studio Rigs

All quotes are from Pete:

“In the studio I just plug an old Telecaster into an old Fender Deluxe, shove a Shure 56A in front of it, straight into a Neve 1066 with a compressor, down to tape. I get a guitar sound in 5 seconds that blows my socks off. They had this stuff back in 1956….

“On The Who records I often used my Hiwatt amplifiers – rarely a stack, just a head and a 4×12. Whatever guitar I happened to be using sounded good with this rig…. The mics would usually be a Shure 56A close up, but [producer] Glyn Johns often used a Neumann U87 or KM86 about a foot away.

“I also used, and still use, a rig made for me by Joe Walsh. This is an orange Gretsch Chet Atkins, deeper body, through an Edwards light-diode 110-volt volume pedal, designed for pedal-steel, into a 1965 Fender Bandmaster. This fives that grungy Neil Young sound I use sometimes. You control the distortion with the pedal rather than the amp.”

[Amazing. Walsh is a tone-fiend!]

> Pete mentioned he also records direct with, Danelectros (”those ‘lipstick’ pickups are genius”) and also uses his Fender Vibro King amps to record but likes a compressor with them.

> He says his favorite guitar is “the ‘56 Telecaster. Orgasmic. Sell your house or your Picasso, and buy one. Or steal mine.”

Recording Advice

“…what advice I would give to those who want to make records at home: If they want those records to sound like well-regarded records made at a certain time, they may need to emulate the equipment used rather more exactly than software designers are prepared to admit is achievable. An emulation of an RCA ribbon mic is not going to sound like an RCA ribbon mic.

“Phil Spector’s famous mono recordings were often made…at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles. They had a very cool mono reverb room there that sounded better than any other in the world. They weren’t sure how it happened. There was some trash on the floor in the corner they didn’t dare move.

“They did this to the mono version of ‘I Can See for Miles.’ There is no better version of the song.

“So remember, start with a good-sounding space. And if it sounds bad, fix that first. Next, buy at least one truly great microphone. Next, buy at least one truly great mic preamp. If you can, buy a single module from some old board – an API, a Neve or whatever.

“If you start with digital hard disk [vs. tape], try some test sessions at different sample rates and bit depths – you may be surprised that your system sounds better at ‘lower’ quality rates rather than higher because it doesn’t have to work so hard.

“If you can afford none of these things, buy a small tape Portastudio. Four tracks will sound better than eight.”

On recording drums, and noting that back in the day it would sometimes take a week to get a good drum sound:

“Often it was the room that the drummer was in that mattered the most. Surely even a home studio enthusiast could haul his gear to the local gym one day? Or a church hall? Or a school? The bathroom can be good too…take out all the soap and towels.”

Who is Pete flipping off here?! (photo: PerformingMusician.com)

Re-Bias While Playing, Blood on His Guitars…

Performing Musician recently posted an interview with Michael Kaye, who is Pete Townshend’s amp/electonics tech and is a guitar tech for other bands (Springsteen, Bon Jovi, others): Alan Rogan has been Pete’s guitar tech since 1977.

“Alan takes care of Pete’s guitars — the tuning, the guitar changes, the strings, the stretching and all that stuff,” Michael said. “My responsibility is to take care of Pete’s amps and pretty much everything involving the electronics, from the pickups — the magnetics and the piezo in the bridge — all the way through to the speakers.”

The interview dishes up many details about what Pete is using gear-wise right now, so here you go. (All quotes below are from Michael.) I had no idea Pete was all Fender now.

Gear

Pete's pedalboard, click to see it bigger: The orange unit is a T-Rex Subdivision. (photo: PerformingMusician.com)

> Guitars: Fender Strats (Clapton signatures?) with a Fishman Power Bridge [gives a piezo signal for Pete's acoustic sounds], gold Lace Sensor pickups and an on-board Fender preamp which gives a 25dB boost. Apparently guitar tech Alan Rogan turned Pete onto these guitars (see vid at bottom).

> Boxes: The guitar goes to a Pete Cornish [sort of the Bob Bradshaw of England] splitter box, and the piezo goes through to two DIs — a main and a spare. “The main is a tube Demeter DI and the spare is a Fishman Platinum Pro DI. We have had problems in the past with valve DIs failing, and that’s why we have two of them in the signal path at all times, so if there’s a problem we can switch to the spare. The magnetic signal from the pickups goes through the Pete Cornish splitter and then out to a Pete Cornish pedalboard, which has a compressor, an overdrive and a delay in it. Then the signal goes back to the splitter box, which splits his signal to a number of amplifiers.”

Pete's amp settings, click to see it bigger (photo: Performing Musician)

> Amps: Pete uses Fender Vibro-King amps, which are 60-watt (two 6L6s) combo amps with three 10-inch speakers. He runs his amps with a 2×12 extension cab underneath each, and has four stacks: “The front two stacks are used through the show, while the rear stacks are spares.” Apparently he’s been using these amps since 1998. Here’s a quote from the 2003 Fender catalog: “They do exactly what I need. Remember that the first Marshall amps were very close emulations themselves of the Fender amps I first used — and which I asked Jim Marshall to make ‘10 times as loud!’ Today, this rig fills every hall I come across. There are very few products Fender has made – even in bad times – which were ugly. This amplifier is so pretty I have one in my living room next to the expensive furniture. It reminds me why I wanted to play guitar in the first place. I thought I looked prettier with a guitar. I do. But with a Fender Strat and a Vibro-King I’m as cool, as irresistible as James Dean.”

Townshend Tech Stories

> On making sure Pete is is happy with his tone: “It’s knowing what’s going on and if things don’t seem to be going right. If you listen to Pete play, you can sometimes tell when he’s not comfortable with the situation. Then it’s a matter of going out and seeing if you can find what doesn’t seem to be working and any kind of resolution. During the show, we have re-tubed and/or re-biased Pete’s amps on a number of occasions.”

> “During one of the last shows that we did [in December '08], Pete was not quite sure about the response of his amps, so I did a little bias adjustment during the fourth song, ‘Fragments’, while he was playing. That way, both he and I could hear the change. It probably wasn’t obvious to the audience what was going on, but it allowed Pete to continue to play with confidence.”

> “A lot of the time with guitar players, they can appear to sound like them and make the sound that everyone’s used to hearing, no matter what amplifier they’re playing or which guitar they’re playing – but sometimes they have to work extra hard to get those sounds. You need to find an easy way to get those sounds, whether that’s in the setup of the instrument, the gauges of the strings, the amp settings or the valve bias. If you can figure out ways to make it easier for them, they will love you forever!”

> “Pete is very, very expressive. He jumps three feet in the air and then comes down on the pedalboard, and his guitars are covered with blood more often than not! He really has a go at his guitars, so it takes some work to keep them going. Sometimes we get a Strat back and the pickup has been pushed through the pickguard, perhaps by the heel of his hand as he’s strumming, so you have to fix that and put it back where it needs to be. However, Pete is not all aggression – he can be very analytical and very precise when it comes to things like guitar setup and sound. I have seen Pete use an Allen wrench to adjust the bridge saddles of his guitar on stage during a show because something just didn’t feel right to him!”

Alan Rogan on Pete’s guitars and amps