Thermionic Studios

Amazing. Scott Weiland channeling Jim Morrison...

Everybody seems to know about the KitRae Big Muff Pi Page, which, admittedly, is probably the most authoritative page on the internet about the history of the Electro Harmonix Big Muff distortion pedal .

It includes all the different versions, and each of the permutations of parts within each version.

What we didn't think there was an equivalent for, as the title of this article makes clear, was the same kind of page exulting the ProCo Rat... But there is!

Hello Team.

Once again, I made the trek to Santa Monica - and this time the $30 Dunlop GCB-95 I bought arrived. Unlike the last time I made the trek to Santa Monica, I wasn't listening to any KCRW or being thrown into horrendous confusion with southbound 405 traffic to Long Beach backing up for miles. No, today was different; and the traffic was surprisingly easy.

But, it did give me a chance to muse on some pedal things...

Posted by our friends at the Society of Rock. Video of 81-year grandfather showing everyone how it was done when he was a young lad.

So, "rocks out" as a description is probably a bit strong, if only on two accounts:

1.) He's 81 and probably doesn't move so fast any more.
2.) When he was 18 in 1951, "Rocking out" probably meant something different

Here at Thermionic, we're not always open to new interpretations of heavy songs, however, the past two days have been interesting. Yesterday, driving back from Santa Monica I was listening to KCRW. DJ Raul Campos played a tastefully remixed version of Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan.

One of the great things about buying an album used to be the collateral that came with the album. It wasn't just the music. It was the other things that came with the music in the physical album. There was always a sleeve that came with the physical media (the vinyl record, the cassette, or the CD) that you purchased the music on. The least imaginative record labels used the sleeve to hawk their other bands.

So there's a really interesting thread that was started on The Gear Page that we happened upon a few days ago and it really got us thinking - not just about guitarists, but about bass players, keyboardists, and singers too. Yes, yes, we know that drummers get no love - but drummers don't seem to use, or even need a lot of effects in their repertoire and so, perhaps, this isn't as germane.

So everyone here at Thermionic Studios is a huge fan of the Tony Iommi wah-wah sound on Electric Funeral. And it's mostly because we don't hear that wah sound anywhere else.

So there's a group of Fender Rhodes aficionados who post by the name of "Audiotech VR" on Youtube. The video that they've posted is well over an hour long. The video describes the Rhodes Electric Piano, its pieces and its function, and a bit of history as to when it first started being built. They describe the Rhodes in its heyday and put theirs through a number of different songs and artists. They then also go through and put the Rhodes through several effects for a really cool viewing experience.

So we occasionally look to keep our eye out for things that take us back to "The Halcyon Days".

This "Golden Age" includes gear for musicians that used to be available but no longer is. We look for things in the past that musicians claimed to give them great tone.