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. Aaron’s pedals are pretty unmistakable, however, they may be hard to spot due to their micro size. But that’s what is so cool about them. If you are not familiar with AWOL 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 these choices for his Four On The Floor.
1. JHS – Pulp N Peel Compressor
“I like something a little more subtle, not as squishy. I like the sustain that compression brings to like a guitar signal, but I don’t necessarily like how much it can change at the tonal quality, especially when you’re using a lot of compression like an MXR Dyna Comp. That’s like more of a chicken picking kind of compression sound to me. I like a little more of like a smoother, barely there, always on type of compressor. I used to not like compressors, but I do now just cause like I didn’t really understand them or get them, but like as I dove into it more, I like compressors. I like hearing the nuances of each one and it’s also made me a lot pickier about which a compressor I use and what I, what I ended up with because they are kind of polarizing. I don’t like compression to so obvious that it sounds like, oh, I’m compressing my sound. I can’t stand that sound. I think it just kind of like crushes the signal sometimes to where it’s like your notes just sound like chalky almost. You know, they’re just so like the life’s been squeezed out of the note and all you have is like pitch, you know what I mean? It’s just kind of like dry and sandy.“
Check out the JHS – Pulp N Peel Compressor
2. Marshall – Blues Breaker Overdrive
“When it comes to overdrive, I like this sort of dance that happens between like a tube amp on the verge of breaking up and suddenly breaking up and getting that soft clipping overdrive that kind of just pushes it to the next level. I like them to kind of be working together rather than, you know, like 70, 30 overdrive amp or vice versa.“
Check out the Marshall – Blues Breaker Overdrive
3. Electro-Harmonix – Canyon Delay
“So…I’m obsessed with the EHX Canyon delay. It has every delay sound that basically I’ve ever wanted and they’re all really good. Like the Tape sound is really impressive and really convincing. It’s not necessarily like the El Capistan where it’s like got all the kinds of high-fidelity of it but sounds great. It has a Deluxe Memory Man emulator that sounds really good. It has octave delay and It has a reverb built-in. I want to build a delay really badly and this pebble exists, so I probably won’t because I can’t compete with that at all. And it’s beautiful.”
Check out the Electro-Harmonix – Canyon Delay
4. Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb
“I have one right now and I think it’s my third one I’ve owned and I just keep coming back to it. And I think it’s because of the ease of use and the functionality. I know how to set the knobs to get a good sound when I’m on the modulate setting, which is kind of everyone’s favorite it seems. And then I really like the room sound on it. It’s just very like very minimal but still pretty high fidelity. I don’t use a lot of reverb, typically I use a medium to low amount and it does that job perfectly.“
Check out the Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb
Huge thanks to Aaron for being a guest on our show and please check out AWOL Pedals We wish him continued success!