Effects Bay

One of my favorite guitarists out there is Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth. I had an opportunity to meet him backstage a few years ago to check out his gear and talk shop.. and it was great experience. It was before this blog, I wish I go back in time and take some quality photos and ask some great questions instead of “You remember that time.. when you were in Sonic Youth? That was awesome…”

Anyway, I don’t have a time machine, but I do have the power of the interweb and the ability to query, so I bring you Lee Ranaldo’s latest set up. A ton of info is available on Sonic Youth’s website, they describe equipment in great detail and is an incredible resource.

This is his set up as of 2009. Haven’t found much info on 2010, but I’m guess it’ll still be close.

He has two pedalboards with one single effect on a mic stand.

Pedalboard #1

Moog MF-102 MoogerFooger Ring Modulator
Ernie Ball VP JR. (for the Ring Modulator)
Electro-Harmonix MicroSynth (old version)
MXR M-103 Blue Box

Pedalboard #2

BJF Honey Bee Overdrive
Ibanez AD80 Analog Delay
Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor Overdrive
Klon Centaur
Digitech PDS 1002 two second Digital Delay
Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+
Custom Line Selector (In/Out/Send/Receive) used for Antenna Box

Additionally he uses a custom delay box called the Antenna box that is mounted to the mic stand. The Antenna Box was custom built by Matt Zivich

This is mainly used for the song Antenna, but might be used for other infinite repeat delay sounds. It looks like he can route his signal from the ring modulation side into the delay and control repeat, time and volume, and then punch it out of his line with the custom selector.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with Antenna, check out this video where you can see the Antenna box in action. Video was submitted by ZeRapaz:

Popularity: 19%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• sonic youth pedalboard
• lee ranaldo pedalboard
• Lee Ranaldo
• lee ranaldo gear
• sonic youth pedals
• lee ranaldo pedals
• sonic youth pedal
• sonic youth effects
• pedalboard sonic youth
• lee ranaldo effects

From some  of my previous postings, you may notice that I’m a big Foals fan. Truth be told.. these guys are awesome, and I’m really into what they’re doing. Foals have a unique way of creating inter-weaving guitar interplay and tension with the use of clean guitar tones and upbeat drumming. There are various aspects of the tone they create from the guitars to the amps and to the pedals. For this post, I wanted to showcase Yannis Philippakis who is the singer and one of the guitar players of the band.

Yannis primarily uses Travis Bean guitars (Travis Beans were manufactured from 1974 to 1979 and utilized a aluminum neck design) played through a Hiwatt halfstack. They like to play clean but can build up to overdriven tones. They are a fans of reverb and delay pedal to help create their sonic landscape.

Below is a shot of Yannis’ pedal line from their 2010 US tour.

Bottom row from right to left:

Boss TU-2 Tuner
Boss DD-3 Delay
Boss RV-5 Reverb (possibly a Boss RV-3 Reverb)
Electro-Harmonix Nano Holy Grail Reverb
Klon Centaur

Top row from right to left:

Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2
Empress Super Delay
Telenordia TK-23 Kompressor

Here is a older shot of the board (missing the EHX Holy Grail).

Yannis also used a vintage Echoplex tape delay on stage.

If you have a chance to see them… you need to check out Foals. Fantastic band. Here is a listing of tour dates.

Popularity: 24%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• foals pedalboard
• yannis philippakis guitar
• foals gear
• foals pedals
• Gary Moore Pedalboard
• yannis philippakis
• foals guitar gear
• yannis philippakis pedals
• foals guitar pedals
• Yannis Philippakis pedalboard

Today I stumbled onto a great video on DunlopTV. It’s an interview with Trace Foster, the guitar tech of Joe Perry. There are some great gear shots and discussions from backline to pedals to guitars.

Here is a shot of his pedal board (screen capture) of the video:

I was able to break down the board, but Trace skipped a few pedals including a couple I could not identify. The unidentified pedals are the narrow pedal between the Class A Boost and Klon, the pedal left of the Klon and the blue pedal above the G-Lab delay. *Update* Looks like we have them locked down. Thanks everyone!

Top row
Option 5 Destination Rotation
G-Lab Smooth Delay SD-1 (doesn’t mention it in the vid)
Line 6 DL4 Delay
G-Lab Dual Reverb DR-3
Line 6 MM4 Modulation
Guitar Synth Siren Pedal (custom pedal)
Electro-Harmonix POG Polyphonic Octave Generator (classic silver face)

Bottom row
MXR Custom Audio Electronics MC-402 Boost/Overdrive Pedal
Option 5 Destination Bump (buffer/boost)
Klon Centaur
Lovepedal Amp 50 Overdrive
Pharaoh Class-A Boost Pro
Fulltone OCD
Digitech Whammy
Dunlop JH-1B Jimi Hendrix Signature Wah
Earnie Ball Volume Pedal

Thanks for the help everyone!

Popularity: 7%

Incoming search terms for EffectsBay.com:

• trace foster
• trace foster guitar tech
• joe perry guitar gear
• klon into timmy
• vox ac30 power indicator bulb broken
• joe perry guitar
• joe perry affect
• G LAB SD-1 SMOOTH DELAY
• g labs boost
• joe perry guitar tech