From the company’s inception, the folks at Meris have had their own take on pedal creation. Elegant packaging and interfaces have been a hallmark. They have outdone themselves with the LVX, however. In addition to the futuristic GUI, bit crushing and granular effects make this not your father’s delay pedal. They also include a tuner so you can take that pedal off your board help make room for this one.
FutureFret: Episode One is the first event in what Vernon Reid and Chris Buono hope to be an ongoing series. The event is this Saturday, May 14th, 2022 and will include a collective of panel discussions, masterclasses and live performances centered around forward-thinking concepts for the modern guitarist. Here is my interview with Vernon about the idea, its possibilities and many other things. Below that is an introductory video and the details.
When I was checking out Source Audio’s Ultra Wave distortion pedal, I found the compression options available with the Neuro Editor alone made it worth the price. That flexibility is built into the company’s new Atlas Compressor.
Compression can be a complicated, confusing effect, and plugging the Atlas into its Neuro Editor can be daunting, but just fiddling with the options reveals many of the sonic secrets professional users of compression have known for years. Most modern guitarists know how compression brings heavily reverbed and delayed volume swells alive. Check out these videos for more elucidation about this essential effect.
People, and by people I mean non-guitarists, wonder about the amount of overdrive pedals on the market, seemingly growing like mushrooms after a wet winter. Ah, but like mushrooms, each type has a distinctive flavor and effect. Earthquaker Devices new Special Cranker sounds like no other, so if you feel like there is a particular piquancy missing from your tone palette, this might be the answer. For specs, click on the ad to the right.
Festivals have been attempted and the jury is still out whether they were a good idea. As a new round boots up this summer, along with a new strain of Covid, here is a safe festival that somehow has been sitting in the can for almost a year (my how time flies). Legends, legends in the making, and some upstarts.
Bill Frisell Trio, Recorded July 3, 2021