What are your four ‘must-have’ pedals? That is what we ask our guests to share with you in our Four On the Floor podcast segment.
Hamish caught my attention with his Ictineo EQ Preamp pedal, and the rest of his line did not dissapoint. If you are not familiar with Southampton Pedals do yourself a favor and check them out. He gave us a fantastic interview too! You can hear the episode for yourself right here. Check out Hamish’s choices for his Four On The Floor.
1. Diamond – CPR1 Compressor
“It is not a super squshy compressors, but it is one of those always on tone enhancers that is perfect. I keep the compression knob at about ten o’clock and really don’t mess with it. The EQ can be left flat, or it can drastically change the EQ of your guitar which is great if you want to be a little brighter or a little muddier. The volume knob lets you cut or boost, and this is great if you are switching between humbuckers or single coils, or going between guitars with weak output to one with a really strong output. It acts as a buffer too so when you have it at the front of your chain it gets all the high frequencies from your pickups, and it makes you sound better. Its one of those pedals that you think is doing nothing, but then you turn it off, and it makes you sad.”
Check out the Diamond – CPR1 Compressor
2. Analog Man – King of Tone Overdrive (clone)
“It is a killer overdrive that is two overdrives in one because it has two footswitches. It is also a distortion and a boost if you need it to be. The King of Tone is by far the most versatile overdrive I’ve ever played. The circuit is based on the Marshall Bluesbreaker. The one I have has been heavily modified but it sounds just killer with every guitar I’ve put through it.”
Check out the Analog Man – King of Tone Overdrive (clone)
3. Empress – Echo System Dual Engine Delay
“This is a super versatile pedal. It has 15 different modes to choose from, and each mode has about 4 or 5 sub modes, so easily 30-40 delay engines. It has a pretty small footprint considering how many options it has too so it won’t eat up space on your pedal board. One thing I love about this pedal is that it has two main delay engines that you can run into each other, or in series, or in parallel. You can also run one to the left output and one to the right output. Plus it has modulation and reverb available too. This is loaded another favorite feature are the tape modes. It has tape that is old, tape that is extra old, and old tape with pristine tape—it’s amazing.”
Check out the Empress – Echo System Dual Engine Delay
4. Earthquaker Devices – Zap Machine Overdrive/Fuzz
“This is a dual overdrive or really its one overdrive with two functions so it has two foot switches. It has two transistors— silicon and germanium. On the low gain side is overdrive that is really “chewy” almost like a fuzz. On the high gain side, it is super distortion/fuzz. It’s not really either individually, it’s just in between. Man, this pedal is super fun. Sooooo chewy!”
Check out the Earthquaker Devices – Zap Machine Overdrive/Fuzz
Huge thanks to Hamis for being a guest on our show and please check out Southampton Pedals Reverb Store. We wish him continued success!