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.
Aside from making great pedals and being able to spin a great story, Grant is one of the most active builders in the guitar pedal community making great efforts to unite builders and share ideas. If you are not familiar with Big Ear Pedals do yourself a favor and check him 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. Hardwire – RV-7 Reverse Stereo Reverb
“The Hardwire series was made by Digitech in the mid-late 2000’s and this particular pedal used licensed reverb sounds from Lexicon. It’s seriously amazing. The reverse reverb sound is my go-to setting and I actually put early in my pedal chain. I use it to create these pads, like an instrument, so I can put effects on it. You can make it sound crazy. The reverb crashes in like a wave. I’ll do some really fast picking and it just turns into this wall, this swelling wave crashing thing. Then I’ll distort that sound and put various pitch effects on it.“
Check out the Hardwire – RV-7 Reverse Stereo Reverb
2. BOSS – PS-5 Pitch Shifter
“I generally only use it in octaves, and then I’ll just change the speed. It’s also usually set to ‘non-latching’ so I can just step on it and go up an octave or down an octave either instantly or really slowly. Non-latching for those who aren’t familiar with that term, just means it is momentary. So that’s really fun because you can get some glitchy or stuttering type sounds, kind of by tapping the footswitch really fast or to a tempo. But I’m usually always going back and forth between the two-octave settings. And so I just decided the other day I need to get a second PS-5 so I can have one set to always octave up and one always set to octave down so I can jump back and forth between the two more easily.“
Check out the BOSS – PS-5 Pitch Shifter
3. Vintage ProCo – RAT 2 Distortion
“I love, love, love the Pro Co RAT. I always have some sort of RAT or RAT-based pedal on my board. In fact, I have one in my collection (Oddly a RAT2, made in ’88) that is the basis for our own pedal, the WOODCUTTER. There’s just something special about that one particular pedal. It’s not like all the others!Listen to the podcast episode to hear why!”
Check out the Vintage Pro Co – RAT 2 Distortion
4. G Lab – SD1 Smooth Delay
“Karen, my fiance, and co-owner at BIG EAR pedals got it for me for Valentine’s Day our first year together and so it’s a special pedal. But aside from that it actually is a really, really good pedal, too. All the tone settings on the actual delay itself are awesome. Also, it lights up in a way that is super attractive and not cheesy. It’s a very subtle, calming light. I like it. You have a bass and treble control for your repeats which is crazy. The foot switches are wild. They have a screw right in the middle of them that holds the footswitch in, they designed their own knobs, too.. the ‘feedback’ and the ‘level’ knobs have rubber pads on top of them so you can adjust them with your feet. It’s just a fantastic pedal.“
Check out the G Lab – SD1 Smooth Delay
Huge thanks to Grant for being a guest on our show and please check out Big Ear Pedals. We wish him continued success!