The first amp Marshall ever released was the JTM45, named for Marshall’s two sons and its wattage. Despite Marshall’s later reputation for manufacturing amps used by hard rock musicians, the first model was a combo amp that was designed as a “girthier” alternative to the Fender amps that had been making their way across the Atlantic
It wasn’t until years later that I got into sound design, and a huge inspiration for that came from playing video games both in the arcade and at home on a console, and not just Mortal Kombat. But one particular facet of that game’s soundtrack really stuck with me: FM synthesis. Back then, I couldn’t really put a finger on what made the Sega Genesis sound palette so unique, but both the Genesis and the first two MK cabinets used the same sound chip, the Yamaha YM2612. Yamaha’s own DX7 used the same chip, which was a hallmark of ‘80s synth in general. It is primarily this synthesis method that earned digital synth tech the reputation of sounding “cold” compared to analog devices, and though the sound quality between arcade games and console games varied wildly, the Genesis chip was FM synth at its most primitive. Long after its implementation came and went, many people went chasing this sound, myself included.
If you’re anything like me (and let’s face it, if you’re reading this, you are), you love a good fuzz pedal. And lord knows I’ve written about some fine ones, from the strange (Zoom Ultra Fuzz, Uni-Fuzz) and the traditional (Fuzz Face, Tone Bender). There are some very distinct flavors that I have yet to cover, and one of those is the almighty Mosrite Fuzzrite. But this isn’t just any Fuzzrite, this is the one with germanium transistors inside.
It’s no secret that wah is one of my favorite effects types, and the Cabinet is not short on them. I’ve regaled you all about the Cry Baby, but what I haven’t talked much about is the technology behind it, what more you can do with it besides play the “Shaft” theme, and what modifications can be done to them to more tailor them to your rig.
Now that we live in an era where overdrive pedals have 12 knobs, the idea that someone can skirt by without so much as a tone knob is rather droll. But when you’re first at bat, you can either hit or strike out, and MXR hit. Much like the company’s other products, the simplicity and actual tones were a revelation in the mid ‘70s. Manufacturers both domestic and foreign descended on MXR’s designs and used them as a foundation to launch their own lines. Ross Electronics of Chanute, Kansas was one such company, as was Japan’s Coron among many—almost innumerable—others. But it was MXR that coined the term “distortion pedal” and made monstrous cranked amp tones accessible to apartment dwellers and beginners.
I don’t care how full the cabinet gets, there will always—and I mean always—be room for more fuzz. Like many pedal folks, fuzz is my favorite effect. There’s something beautiful about it in an interconnected Eulerian way, in that such great variance, such seemingly countless varietals can all be derived from such a meager, concise bill of materials. It makes sense; after all, the first fuzz effect contained just one part; a faulty console tube, or a razor-altered speaker. The first commercially-produced fuzz circuit contained 18 components, but some enterprising gentleman soon decided that the number was perhaps better at 11. Rarely do parts counts hover higher than 20. They definitely do in this one—this is the Univox Uni-Fuzz.
Throughout the history of effects, there have been several genre constants. In the ‘60s, every manufacturer had a fuzz pedal. Some companies that were barely guitar-adjacent even bought the scraps from OEMs and released them under a shell name—such was the nature of the great pedal gold rush. Overdrive and distortion pedals followed, as did—curiously—octave pedals. One thing that sat on the sidelines, quietly accumulating numbers, was the humble compressor.
Everything in one’s collection can essentially be classified into one of three categories. There are pieces that one must have due to sheer rarity, there are things one must have due to historical provenance and there are things one must have due to them sounding utterly and completely badass. A very select few fit all three categories, and this is one of them. This is the Binson Echorec.
It started in 1989 with the DigiTech Whammy (WH-1). While it was revolutionary and all that jazz, the tracking wasn’t all the way there (though it was very good) and you were confined to whichever interval was selected. However, the seeds were planted; players desired a pedal that did clean octaving and could handle multiple simultaneous notes; chords, or more technically, “polyphony.” Though DigiTech went through five whole iterations of the Whammy before they got it right, Electro-Harmonix stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park much earlier. The Polyphonic Octave Generator, or POG, was the result.
It may come as some surprise, but the Small Clone’s lineage is just about as complicated as any other EHX pedal. While the varietals of the Big Muff have been tracked to the ends of the Earth, the Small Clone’s history is still shrouded in secrecy. And what good would a vintage effect nameplate be without several agonizingly small details?
I’m not a persnickety man when it comes to the Cabinet; if you’d like to peruse the wares, whichever instrument you wish to plug in is A-OK with me. I offer equal space to bassists and synth players alike. Want to put some phaser on your hi-hats, dear drummer? Let’s do the thing. And friend, if you’d like to bring your horn, I’ve got some stuff for you as well. Special things. Things technically only you can play. And unlike all the other pedals in this vault, this one is made by an actual horn company. This is the Conn MultiVider.
Even though most of the effects are iffy, the FX500 series—mostly the FX500 itself—have a lot to do with the shoegaze genre. 1993’s Souvlaki by Slowdive relied heavily on the FX500, specifically patch 40, named “Soft Focus.” It packs a lot of bang for the buck, with a 100 percent wet mashup of many different effects for a very interesting synth-like sound. Another setting on the FX500 (not a patch), called “Early Reflections” is a very close approximator to a handful of My Bloody Valentine tones. In essence, the FX500 is a shoegaze machine; it’s one box that basically forces you to use several effects at once. And while the onboard preamp leaves much to be desired, slamming it with literally any gain pedal takes the FX500 to a whole new level—and that’s exactly what Slowdive did.
