Russian Circles – Mike Sullivan – Brian Cook – Pedalboard Break downs

I’m a big fan of Russian Circles. These guys are awesome. For those of you not familiar with them, they’re a Chicago based band that creates instrumental based music on the heavy side. If you’re familiar with other instrumental bands, like myself, and like bands like Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky and Earthless – Russian Circles is a band you need to check out. Mogwai/Explosions in the Sky take a more shimmery approach to their music while Earthless is more psychedelic, but Russian Circles would fall into the more rock aspect. Russian Circles is about the loudest and most complex 3 piece on the planet. The band implements awesome looping techniques to build soundscape, the drummer is absolute phenomenal.

To start things off, let’s check out some Russian Circles. Here is a live in the studio of the song 309.

A while back I did pedalboard breakdowns for the bassist Brian Cook and guitarist Mike Sullivan. It’s always cool to see how the board on pro rigs change over time. That is why I was especially stoked to see Premier Guitar recent Rig Rundown. They interviewed Mike and Brian at Electrical Audio where they’re recording their new album (pumped about this). This video is great since we also go into some of Mike Sullivan’s guitar techniques!

So here is a break down of the boards:

Mike Sullivan

TC Electronic Polytune Mini
Ernie Ball Jr Volume Pedal
Xotic BB Preamp
Loooper True Bypass Looper
MXR Micro Amp
Strymon El Capistan
Strymon Flint
Akai Headrush II
Digitech Jamman
Fulltone Secret Freq.
Zvex Fuzz Factory
Maxon CS-9 Chorus
Mesa Boogie Flux Drive
Mesa Boogie Tone Burst
??
??

Brian Cook

Digitech Whammy
Fuzzrocious OC Demon
Fuzzrocious Rat Tail
Tym Guitars Big Bottom Magic Dirt
Way Huge Swollen Pickle
Ernie Ball Jr Volume Pedal
Akai Headrush II
Boss TU-2 Tuner
EHX POG2
Dwarfcraft Eau Claire Thunder
EHX Memory Toy

Extra Pedals:
Verellen Big Spider Fuzz
Dwarfcraft Pitchgrinder
Dwarfcraft Somms
Tone Butcher Pocket Puss
Tone Butcher Wee Wah
Tone Butcher Ring Modulator
Tone Butcher Blue Whale
Fuzzrocious Ram the manparts
Moog Taurus

As you see above, I’m missing two of the pedals (upper left hand area) of Mike’s board. If you know what those pedals are.. please let me know and I’ll update the post. Please let me know what you think about Russian Circles by commenting below!