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.
Mike is a prominent figure in the guitar world these days under the moniker “Puisheen” on Instagram. He helped fan the flames of the offset craze and co-founded of Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar. He is also known for making some fantastic guitar noise. If you are not familiar with “Puisheen” 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. Zvex Effects- Fuzz Factory
“That pedal was the pedal that got me into pedals. I remember seeing it on their old website. They had these demos where I heard this like explosive, chaotic, rainbow sounds. I got mine about two years later because it took me a while to save up. I bought it from an online retailer and waited patiently for my box to arrive in the mail. I think I paid like two $279 for it. When it finally came, it was like Christmas Day all over again. I immediately plugged it in and made just the most cacophonous noises, like manipulating the stab knob so it just constantly oscillated. Over the ensuing a few years I learned how to really like tame that pedal and get like these weird big sounds out of it. I love that part of the design. Something that I tend to look for in pedals these days is personality. I liked pedals that do a thing. You know, I’ve had enough of transparent boost overdrives, I’ve had enough of like copying the best 1960’s tones. I want something that is just going to blow my mind and be horrible and weird and most people will hate it. You figure out what to do with the gate knob, you figure out what to do with the stab knob and it becomes like second nature. I have never felt like the fuzz factory was overly bright or thin sounding the way that I hear other people talk about it. I don’t know, maybe I just found something that works but I love that pedal. “
Check out the Zvex Effects- Fuzz Factory
2. Small Sound Big Sound – F – – – Overdrive (Custom version for Mike Adams)
“The F * C K Overdrive is built out of pure and binding hatred of overdrive. Brian Hamilton, of Small Sound Big Sound found that overdrive pedals didn’t work for him and sounded bad to his ear. Intentionally or not he set about creating one of his own and it is my favorite overdrive pedal I have ever used in my life. It blew away the Klon KTR that I used to have. at it. It’s supplanted, the space reserved on my board for my first overdrive pedal, which was a full tone OCD. This pedal goes from like clean boost if you want it, but it still has its own wonderful little character to it. And then as you crank up the dial, it goes into like a good rawkus overdrive all the way into fuzz into overblown territories. There’s even a switch on the pedal that emulates a blown tube. And so if you want your sound to just completely implode, it does that and it does it beautifully. I purchased mine directly from Brian with a requested a special graphic on the top. Now you heard me spell the word, uh, but my pedal is the F Dash Dash Dash Pedal. And the reason is that I really wanted it to have Ralphie from ‘A Christmas Story’ on the front of it. So there’s that scene in the movie where he says, “I said it—the dreaded F Dash Dash Dash”. I custom ordered it with sparkly knobs and Ralphie with Life Bouy soap in his mouth as the graphic. I’ve had it since I think 2011 and it has never left my board. “
Check out the Small Sound Big Sound – F – – – Overdrive (Custom version for Mike Adams)
3. DigiTech – Whammy 5 Pitch Shifter
“
I have a curiously been getting a lot of use out of that in the band that I’m in called Fellow Robot. The band started out as a soundtrack to a book that the singer is writing, and it spans 120 years of a robot’s life through his creation, through the death of his creator, all these things. And as such, the music goes between a number of different genres. There’s like folksy stuff, and then there’s metal, and then there’s weird cacophonous punk rock stuff. So the Whammy 5 has been really helping me nail some very specific sounds like I don’t own a baritone guitar. I hope to rectify that soon. But the whammy fourth down, uh, has enabled me to absolutely nail tick-tack bass sounds from spaghetti westerns live and in the studio. Uh, that and a jazz master is pure
”
Check out the DigiTech – Whammy 5 Pitch Shifter
4. Strymon – Blue Sky Reverberator
“I have two Strymon Pedals on my board at all times. One is the Flint and one is the Blue Sky and that’s because I find that I really respond to different types of reverb. It’s a good kind of a tone tool for me. Getting a nice spring out of the Blue Sky is essential for the song that I mentioned where I’m doing tic-tac baselines. I want that Spaghetti Western kind of pad underneath it and the Blue Sky and nails that. The real reason that I bought it was that it was the only pedal at the time that I could find that did that cavernous Sigur Ros reverb. I’ve got a Les Paul Studio that’s set up just for a bow so that I can nail that sound when I want to. I’m a big fan of that band and I needed something that did the moaning, low reverb thing and that thing does it in spades. That is a saved setting for me. So I go between spring and I go between Sigur Ros. That pedal is amazing. I can’t get enough of it. And it’s different enough from the Flint that I don’t feel like I’m a redundant at all.“
Check out the Strymon – Blue Sky Reverberator
Huge thanks to Sean for being a guest on our show and please check out Mike Adams aka “Puisheen”. We wish him continued success!