From the time the first sound-altering device was ever connected between guitar and amp the floodgates have been open for the inventors, mad scientists and flat-out fringe lunatics to push the bounds of what an electric guitar can do. Some of the old electro-mechanical devices have always been among my own favorites—rotary speakers, jiggle-switch tremolos, oil-can delays—because they often present a sonic depth that few transistorized or digital devices can match. The unbridled ingenuity of modern effects designers has, however, brought an entirely new dimension to the world of effects, and crazier sounds are being crafted today than ever before.
Continuing from the first installment of this series several weeks ago, Part 2 profiles six more extreme sounds, old and new. Note that there’s some historical context to this series, and entries that might not seem entirely extreme by today’s standards need to be considered for their revolutionary achievements at the time they were first released (feel free to get all lathered up with righteous indignation regardless; that’s half the fun of these “list” pieces). In such cases, please substitute “crazy” with “inventive” if it makes you feel any better.
Throughout the series I’m hoping to give the nod to effects old and new—some from the dawn of the effects unit as well as some released recently—in order to keep from getting hung up on any old vs. new dichotomy. And please remember: this isn’t a competition, there’s no wrong answer, and this series is ongoing. If your favorite bonkers pedal isn’t mentioned here, chances are it’s coming up in the near future—or name it in the comments section below, and I’ll take the hint!
1) Roger Mayer Octavia
The octave pedal is so ubiquitous today that it might be difficult to think of it as being all that crazy, but consider that nothing else in its day messed up a guitar sound quite so entirely—taking your input signal and adding a gnarly octave-up tone to it—and it was definitely one of the wilder concoctions of the later-mid ’60s. Or consider, too, the mad genius of Roger Mayer’s concept in devising the thing in the first place: “I was just thinking about doubling the frequency and different electronic techniques. And we came across a technique that, looking at it simplistically, almost acts like a mirror. It doubles the number of images of the note. And that, apparently, makes it sound twice the frequency—whereas it really isn’t, but... Because the signal’s going up and down twice as much, the ear perceives it as twice the frequency.
It’s much like putting a picture up to a mirror and you see two of them, but there’s still only one real picture. Reflection of sound is much like that.” Mayer only built half a dozen or so Octavias in the ’60s, one of the first of which was used by Jimi Hendrix on Purple Haze and other recordings. Then he got too busy with custom-built studio electronics to go into the pedal business right away, while others like Tycobrahe jumped in to fill the octave-pedal void. Mayer got back into the game a couple decades later, by which time—never one to rest on a design—he had revised and improved the Octavia circuit.
2) Electro-Harmonix Talking Pedal
In the ears of many players, the Electro-Harmonix Talking Pedal is what the wah-wah was trying to be in the first place. Sure, the wah was originally conceived as an analog of trumpeter Clyde McCoy’s mute tone, but when used with electric guitar, and ideally with fuzz in the chain, this effect tends to reach its zenith when the player achieves a chewy, vocal-like sounds that gets the solo almost “talking”. Voila—the Talking Pedal! With a rocker controlling dual band-pass filter, this beauty of the mid to late ’70s kicked out vowel-like tones in a distinctly male-pitched voice, with or without the addition of the streamlined version of EHX’s Big Muff fuzz that’s onboard. EHX’s extremely clever recent re-conception of the effect does away with the potentially troublesome rocker treadle and potentiometer in a one-piece rocking chassis that uses a internal motion sensor to trigger the vowel-like tones according to how you angle the thing with your foot, with on/off also selected by rocking forward past a determined point.
It’s less of the all-out-wild than some extreme modulation pedals and other whacky devices, perhaps, but when used well this thing exudes compelling tones that can get just about as trippy as anything out there. I like that the extent of its outré performance relies on the player’s creative use of the device, rather than the circuit simply slathering wild sounds all over whatever tired lines you play into it, and the fact that it’s also less tiresome on the ear than some extreme “novelty” pedals.
3) Fender Dimension IV Sound Expander Universal
This installment's first nod to the vintage electro-mechanical effect, the Fender Dimension IV Sound Expander was a groovy unit that followed that popular ’50s and ’60s line of thinking that went, “if you’re going to modulate your sound, you’ll have to actually move something around to do it!” Funny thing, though: the Dimension IV came out in 1968 when there were already several other ways of producing wild vibrato-tremolo-modulation sounds, though perhaps none of them quite so rich and under-watery sounding as this thing.
Built for Fender by Tel-Ray (which sold it as their own Ad’n’Echo before licensing to Fender… even though it’s not a traditional echo effect, per se), the Dimension IV used a spinning drum filled with mystery oil to create a warbly, rhythmic modulation that was, clearly, intended to launch you into another dimension, naturally. As you can imagine, the reliance on said mystery oil for the unit’s sound—as well as the spinning drum, and the heat from the motors that spun it—could lead to some problems, and these things are notoriously temperamental. The full-sized Universal unit connected between guitar and amp like a conventional effect, while a smaller and cheaper variation was intended for use with Fender reverb amps, and connected in the reverb loop on the back.
4) Z.Vex Wah Probe
Just about any of Z.Vex’s Probe series effects qualify here, but I’m looking at this one first because it’s Zachary Vex’s personal favorite. The Probe pedals house variations of otherwise conventional effects (by Z.Vex standards, anyway) that are controlled theremin-style by how you move your foot, or hand, in proximity to a rectangular copper plate on top that acts as an RF antenna. They take some practice to get the hang of, but once you catch on, the process yields a lot of finesse and added dimensions of creative control.
Regarding the sound of the Wah Probe, when I asked Vex which of his pedals was closest to his heart, he replied: “Well, it’s always the simplest: the Wah-Probe. It’s not terribly popular, but it’s so pretty, and it’s got such a nice, wide range. That circuit I use in the Ooh-Wah and the Seek-Wah and the Wah-Probe, you only really get to hear it shifting phase the way it does naturally in the Wah-Probe, as you sweep through it when you move your foot up and down, or your hand up and down, you can hear the phase twist, like it’s phase shifting at the same time as it’s wah-ing.” Next-level stuff, for sure.
5) EarthQuaker Devices Rainbow Machine
A certain journalist quipped, when reviewing this then-new EarthQuaker Devices pedal in Guitar Player magazine two and a half years ago, “If Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters had a Rainbow Machine, they wouldn’t have needed the bus.” Well, yeah, that was me… but I still can’t think of a better way of conveying the freaked-out acid-test nature of this thing. This creative contraption from the inventive EarthQuaker company of Akron, Ohio, definitely takes us Further, but it’s kind of a reverse-bus trip in this case, a 21st century circuit that instantly embodies ’60s psychedelia better than any actual effect of the era. The means of said trip? A DSP engine that accurately models analog octave-filter and pitch-shifting effects to produce utterly mad pitch intervals, octave filtering and atonal chorusing (often in combination), with anything from drum-tight to anarchically sloppy tracking, as desired.
What more could you ask for? Well, how about a Magic switch that adds “pixie trails,” a stuttering, robotic, arpeggiated decay that also freaks large through the pitch-shifting processors. This is yet another maker’s own favorite: “I’m really happy with the Rainbow Machine,” EQD main man Jamie Stillman told me shortly after it came out. “Most people think of that as a little bit gimmicky maybe, like it just does one thing. But once you get into that it does a lot of things; it’s a pretty useful, but a totally weird thing… it does all kinds of wild stuff, from basic harmonies, to normal chorus, and it’s a very touchy thing. The more I play with it, the more I learn what it can do. I’ve seen it used in all different genres of music for all different kinds of things.”
6) Maestro Rover RO-1
After the mind-altering sonic splendor of the Rainbow Machine, the Maestro Rover might seem “only” another spinning speaker in a box. Get in a room with one in action, though, and you’re less likely to sniff so disdainingly in its direction. Nothing quite fills a room with moving sound like, well, a moving speaker. That, and hey: this thing whirls sideways within a gilded cage mounted on spindly mic stand, and what could be wilder than that? (Okay, plenty… but work with me here.) Rather than spinning a ported baffle in front of a speaker to produce its Doppler effect as the Leslie and licensed Fender Vibratone cabinets did (see Part 1), the Rover actually spun a 6” speaker that was powered by the unit’s own internal amplifier.
Controls allowed you to dial all of your sound through that speaker, or to variably tap off the low end to your standard guitar amp, rendering the Rover a sort of rotary tweeter. Rather than just the fast/slow of the Leslie format, the Rover had a variable speed control, and all of that brought it in at a little under 20 lbs, a mere fraction of the weight of a Vibratone. The entire contraption was arguably more delicate than a Leslie/Vibratone, but proved robust enough for many players, notably David Gilmour, who has used the effect on several Pink Floyd recordings.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dave Hunter
Dave Hunter is a writer and musician who has worked extensively in the USA and the UK. The author of The Guitar Amp Handbook, Guitar Effects Pedals, Guitar Amps & Effects For Dummies, The Gibson Les Paul and several other books, Dave is also a regular contributor to Guitar Player and Vintage Guitar magazines.