#139: Guitarlords, vol. 3 – Centaurs of Bespokewood

These things get garbled over the years, of course, so I could be wrong, but the version of his rig I've always heard was Les Paul Custom –> MK3 Tone Bender (dunno what brand name) –> half-cocked wah (probably Cry Baby) –> Marshall 200, which I got slightly wrong in the show. They're such similar amps that it wouldn't have made a ton of difference, especially cranked, but the Marshall 200 was the predecessor to the Major, much as the Super 100 preceded the 100-watt 1959SLP Super Lead. I can only imagine the sheer aural wrath of a Tone Bender into a dimed 200-watt Marshall, all with the wah cocked up to the most sensitive waveband of the human ear. Some of the insanity of those Ziggy-era Bowie crowds must have been the sheer neurological effect of exposure to that kind of SPL and frequency range. That history has gotten complicated a bit by the fact that Ronson OWNED a Vox-badged Tone Bender, probably Mk1.5 or 2, but I don't think that's the one he used with Bowie. Everybody who talks about his rig back then seems to remember a pedal that must've been a Mk3, with the Tone knob and the comic-book style graphics (which means it was probably a Solasound). I don't know if Ronson used the same rig in the studio (probably? People did insane shit back then), but if I had to name the most sheerly nasty, filthy, obscene-sounding guitar tone of all time, my first reach would be "Cracked Actor," original studio version on ALADDIN SANE, both the rhythm riff intro and the wah-wah'd lead that enters shortly after. It's like a pure sonic transduction of overexposed, oversaturated, soiled, blurry, bruise-colored Super 8 coke-binge porn.

I dream

After looking around for a while, it appears that "weed" isn't the name of the mod – there's apparently a Japanese pedal company called Weed Effectors (awesome), and what you're seeing are Dyna Comps modded by them. I don't know what the mods are specifically, but I can tell you that almost every modded Dyna Comp is changed in one or both of the following ways: • it has a new control, probably an internal trimpot or dipswitch, to adjust Attack, i.e. how long the compressor waits before grabbing hold of your note, because some people hate how the Dyna Comp swallows the sound of your pick attack; and/or • it has a new control, also probably an internal trimmer/switch, for Blend, which lets you mix the clean and compressed signals, so you can get a more normal-sounding body of the note which then gives way to the compressed side of the sound as the sustain kicks in. Trimpots/dipswitches: just in case you haven't run into this before, some pedal makers (especially boutiquey ones) and a lot of modders will put secret special controls *inside* the pedal enclosure. These usually come in the form of little black two-way switches called dipswitches or tiny little screwdrivier-adjusted controls called trimpots or trimmers. DO NOT mess with anything inside the pedal unless a) there's a note in the instructions alerting you to a secret control, b) there's a little note or label inside the pedal doing the same, or c) you look the pedal up online and discover that it's got a well-known set of secret controls. ... But, with that out of the way, take the back cover off your small-builder/boutique-style pedals at least once and see if there's something secret in there! A lot of the great pedal builders have an ongoing game of telephone in the form of hiding secret controls for each other to find, and you might stumble onto a switch that does something magical.

You had the official rig of the year 2000

Here's my question: we recognize that "Moog," being Dutch, is pronounced like "mohg," not "mewg." Hence the Moog Rogue, which totally failed to teach people how to say "Moog." But, if we accept precept #1, do we then presume that "Moogerfooger" is pronounced "moh-ger-foh-ger" or "moo-ger-foo-ger"? Or, for that matter, could it be "moh-ger-foo-ger," which arguably sounds the most like "motherfucker"? And if the most recognizable synth designer of all time is also mispronounced by 95% of its presumptive audience, then isn't corporate branding pretty much bullshit? Questions. ... Questions.

I accept that. It looks like one of those standalone handheld video games they sold in the early ’90s, with their own little consoles, and it sounds like heaven

Oh yes, Sovtek is in here. I don't know why – a lot of Eastern European immigrants, maybe? – but Kansas City was a Sovtek vortex for a while. Every pawnshop and Goodwill had one. One of my longest-running bandmates used a Sovtek Mig 50, which is basically a thinner-sounding Fender Bassman copy & great for pedals, and they made a Mig 60 that was a Marshall Master Volume Lead copy as well. They were great for a $150-200 pedal amp, but the Obscure Object of Desire quotient has swung all the way toward the other pole, and now they're like $1,000, which is absurd. A cheap Mig 50 is still a great pickup if you run into one, though, and don't mind having to replace most of the knobs, which WILL break.

hush