Reader’s Rig: Percy Adler

The new features are coming fast these days at Guitar Moderne. This one will be Reader’s Rig, where readers are encouraged to submit clear pictures of their setups along with a description of the signal path and how they use it. Links to video and sound clips will move the submission to the top of the queue.

For the first installment we present Percy Adler, a Canadian metalworker who makes beautiful atmospheric music and whose toolbox based rig neatly ties his two worlds together.

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“I am about to enter my 60th year on this planet and these offerings are the fruits of a fairly constant commitment to exploring a personal habitat without regard to any particular genre, or making a living playing music. I am committed to improvisation, which I do not define as playing solos over a predetermined progression. I like to play every note heard; I’m not comfortable with looping, although some of my longer delays head in that direction. I have almost eliminated (maybe totally) solos as part of what I do and seek instead to create melodic forms and energy clusters.

I love to spontaneously compose either on my own or with others who think this way. Consequently, I enter the studio with no material and an empty head and so far things just explode out as soon as we hit record. Brent Bodrug from Sly-Fi Studio has proven to be a willing partner is enabling this process.”

Foreign Body is totally solo with no overdubs and quite a bit of it was recorded using a flat top acoustic with welding wire stuck in the strings to get the percussive effects.

Rocket Parts is no overdubs with drummer Chris Cawthray who I met the morning we started recording. We did two days of spontaneous composition and here are the results.

When I hear these two albums now, I am still amazed at the sounds we made and also how much sonic energy there is on these tracks.

Gear

I have been using the same idea for many years now where basically the guitar goes into a Framptone Amp Switcher splitter box and then one side goes through whatever effects and to one amp (the main voice) and the second signal goes into a volume pedal which then goes into delay and then into stereo and an amp for each side. So three amps are used. This gives me the orchestral backdrop, which hovers around the main guitar voice (my Drift sound).

The main voice is: Compression>Pog 2 >Fairfield Circuitry Four Eyes>Holy Grail Max. This signal then goes to the splitter split from which one side goes to the main voice amp and the other into the Drift circuit.

The Drift circuit from the splitter box goes into a Goodrich volume pedal Goodrich volume pedal>POG> Memory Man, which comes out in stereo. One side gets Ibanez DML and the other side goes through a Boss PS-3 and then each side goes into it’s own amp.

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The toolbox idea marries my mechanical side with my musical side and is intended to make you laugh. But it is also practical as the devices I want to adjust on the fly are at a comfortable height. You will notice I have a spot reserved on the upper level of the toolbox for my new Meet Maude pedal hopefully arriving soon from Fairfield Circuitry.

IMG_2261C1All three amps are from Trinity Amps, made by a guy who lives just down the road from me.”

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