Effects Bay

Today I was super stoked to see a new Rig Rundown featuring Nels Cline of Wilco on PremiereGuitar. I’ve been a fan of Nels from a distance for years, but never really got to learn about his gear until this blog. Coincidentally, I did a pedal board breakdown of his board a while back (you can read it here – Nels Cline – Wilco – Pedal Board), but this video is fantastic. Nels really goes into detail about his guitars, amp and his effects. I really like it when artists go into ‘why’ they like a particular pedal. That kind of insight is very useful when looking at new pedals to purchase or understanding issues you might be having with your current pedals.

Here is the video by PremiereGuitar:

Here is the breakdown of pedals of his main guitar board:

Boss DD-7 Delay
MXR Phase 45
Crazy Tube Circuits Starlight
Crazy Tube Circuits Vyagra Boost
Fulltone ’69 Fuzz
Crowther Audio Hot Cake
Electro-Harmonix Pulsar
Bigfoot FX Magnavibe
Boss Digital Delay (DD-3?)
Boss VB-2 Vibrato
Klon Centaur (gold)
Boss FV500H Expression Pedal
Digitech Whammy
Fulltone Mini Deja Vibe
ZVex Fuzz Factory
Boss CS-3 Compressor
Boss TU-2 Tuner
Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+ x2

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Nels Cline has always been an oddity to me. And maybe that really explains his ‘style’ if he even has any. He is a truly a fantastic musician, and a guitarist that can play literally any style is a special indeed. Now, what separates Nels from any session player is his attention to ‘art’ when he plays styles. Sure he can play blues to country to rock to jazz to noise, but he has the ability to put a passionate character thumb print on anything he does. That’s special.

A little while back I did a pedal board break down from his Wilco rig which is quite interesting. I thought his ‘noise’ section was especially interesting and I found this absolutely amazing video of Nels doing a live improvisation in 2008 at the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, CA. Sometimes when I see the word ‘improvisation’ I get that taste of acid in the back of my throat, but since this was Nels Cline, I had to see what he was going to do. This isn’t for everyone, but there might be a cool thing or two for most of you.

The video was submitted by stelkins

Let me know what you thought of this!

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Over on Premier Guitars Facebook page, they posted some fresh shots of Nels Cline’s pedalboard while on tour with Wilco. It’s nice to see a recent photo of his pedals. There were two unidentified pedals there.. so if you can help ID them, please comment below (Pedals have been identified!).

Nels mentioned he feels awkward talking about his pedals on his website. Here is the relevant snippet:

OK, people. You all seem fixated, I dare say HYPNOTIZED, by all my damn effects boxes. So here you go: all about my NEW PEDAL BOARD, being used with Wilco and anything else I can find to drag all 75 pounds of it (including swanky road case) to! I confess that it is a bit irritating to me that people seem so fixated on HOW MANY pedals I have. This is because there seems to be something double-edged about it: a kind of fascination mixed with feelings of skepticism and/or disgust, as though it’s somehow amazing that I can keep track of it all and at the same time I must be some kind of charlatan to NEED so many pedals! Well, what can I say?

Nels has two boards. The first is his primary guitar pedal board and the second is his ‘ambient/noise’ board.

Board 1

Boss TU-3 Tuner
Boss CS-3 Compressor/Sustainer
Fulltone Mini Deja Vibe
ZVex Fuzz Factory
Digitech Whammy
Boss FV500H Expression Pedal
Crowther Audio Hot Cake
Boss VB-2 Vibrato
Fulltone ’69 Fuzz
Klon Centaur
Electro-Harmonix Pulsar
Bigfoot FX Magnavibe
Crazy Tube Circuits Starlight
Crazy Tube Circuits Vyagra Boost
Boss DD-7 Delay x2 (possibly Boss DD-2 Delay)
MXR Phase 90
Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+ x2

Board 2

Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man
Electro-Harmonix Ring Thing Modulator
Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Plus Reverb
Mid-Fi Electronics Glitch Computer
Electro-Harmonix 16 second digital delay
Korg Kaos Pad

Let me know what you think by commenting below!

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I came across this video today. It was quite cool on many different levels.  I’ve always been interested and intrigued by Nels Cline, so this was a cool view into his style. Looks like he stopped by the ZVex shop in Minnesota to talk about the ZVex Box of Metal distortion pedal. The video was submitted by russianmusicgear.

I definitely thought it was odd that Nels would be into this pedal (judging the artist and the pedal by the cover), but after hearing his reasoning.. it made good sense. I think it’s important to not stereotype pedals to the genre of music you’re in, there could always be hidden/useful traits that can be greatly applied in your style of music.

If you liked what you heard coming from the ZVex Box of Metal, you can pick up one for yourself at Musician’s Friend for $219.00.

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