Pedal Line Friday – 4/5 – Henry Gascon

Today’s Pedal Line Friday submission is from Henry Gascon. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedalline@nulleffectsbay.com. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

Pedal Line Friday – 4/5 – Henry Gascon

I’m an avid lifelong fan of Johnny Marr who instilled in me not only a love of post-punk music but also a love of guitar. I’ve been playing casually for the better part of 15 years now primarily experimenting with sound to find my own guitar voice if you will.

A few years ago, after listening to Johnny Marr’s first record The Messenger, I was motivated to start building a collection of Carl Martin pedals which Johnny uses in his studio. He talks about his usage of them in a fantastic interview with Premier Magazine in promotion of his most recent (and fabulous) record Call the Comet.

I’ve been fortunate to find these pedals over time, either new or used, but here they are.

• Carl Martin DeLayla XL
• Carl Martin Chorus xII
• Carl Martin AC-Tone
• Carl Martin PlexiTone
• Carl Martin Hot Drive’N Boost
• Carl Martin Compressor Limiter
• Boss Chromatic Tuner TU-3W Waza Craft

 

The DeLayla XL is a vintage echo pedal with some neat slapback capabilities, the Chorus xII enriches the overall tone without compromising your sound, the AC-Tone mimics the voice of a vintage Vox AC-30, the PlexiTone allows you to be more aggressive with the crunch of a Marshall amp, the Hot Drive’N Boost provides some serious overdrive when needed, the Compressor limited helps to control feedback (always a good idea on a pedal board) and I got the new Boss Waza Craft tuner primarily to match the colors of the other pedals. The original white one of course is outstanding.

What I like about these pedals are its versatility. I can easily toggle echoes, delays, slapbacks, and tones with a couple of foot taps or adjustments. The only thing I’m really missing here is a Reverb pedal which I’m still considering. I usually prefer a sound that is clean and aggressive, but also gives you the range for dreamy, psychedelic effects. This board does that. Overall, the diversity of the pedals provides me great range of what I want to do musically, depending on the mood I’m in or where the guitar wants to take me.

The board is connected to a Fender Reverb Deluxe which has always been my favorite amp and goes beautifully with my Johnny Marr signtature Jaguars. For patch cables, I primarily use Mogami cables which are really fantastic, durable and stable. Their instrument cables come with a lifetime warrantee too.

I also have the Boss GT-100 which Johnny uses on stage but these Carl Martins are a bit more fun and easier to play with.