Anti-Pedals
In this article, I'm going to show you my favorite anti-pedals.
What's that, you say? You don't know what an anti-pedal is?
Basically, an anti-pedal is an effect for your guitar that just won't fit in your gig bag. It's not contained in the normal pedal enclosure. It's probably quite large, cumbersome, really complicated, but they can sound amazing and a lot of these units you're about to see have inspired some truly fantastic pedals over the years.
Without further ado, let's jump right in.
Danelectro 9100
The first is the Danelectro 9100 all tube spring reverb unit. This was made in Neptune, New Jersey** in 1965, which made this pre-90s rebirth Danelectro. A lot of you guys know about the reissued guitars and the cool pedals that Danelectro put out, but this is before all that. This unit came out when Danelectro made a lot of amps; they were the not-quite-secret manufacturer for some of the worlds biggest amp brands as well as their own brand.
**Yes, this is a real place that exists. No, it’s not located in Area 51.
You'd actually find the Danelectro 9100 in the Sears catalog, just past the photos of that family with tennis rackets and sweaters draped over their shoulders.
What you need to know is that this thing is spectacular on guitar. It's also great on vocals, drums, and synthesizers. My good friend Nick has this living at his desk from time to time. It may be the gear equivalent of carrying around a 1980s cell phone (purely for the size reference here; this is still a quality piece of gear), but you can really rock out some sweet reverberated moods with this thing.
Sweet Sound Ultra Vibe
The second anti-pedal is a Sweet Sound Ultra Vibe in a 19-inch rack case.**
**Yeah, I wasn’t kidding when I said ‘won’t fit in your gig bag’.
Some of you guys thought you got me because I named a pedal, but this is no mere pedal. It turns out he made one of these larger units for an artist, at which point I (who am basically the Indiana Jones of the pedal world) dodged poison darts and outran giant boulders to get hold of it. It was 100% worth the search. This unit is really, really cool and super rare.
You probably know the Mojo Vibe if you've ever looked into Uni-Vibes, and then there's the Ultra Vibe here, which is supposedly the pedal that’s inside this rack. The Mojo Vibe and Ultra Vibe sound nearly identical, so this is a really cool find.
Now, you might be saying, “Why don't you just play the pedal instead of the giant rack case?” Well, I don't want to play the pedal because I have this rack case, and this is big, and big stuff is cool, and it's an anti-pedal. To paraphrase Nike, “Just play it.”
Conn Strobotune
There's nothing better than making sure your guitar is in tune. Nobody likes it when you're out of tune. I don’t like it. You don’t like it. There's a lot of pedals out there that do this, but if you go back to 1961 you have the Conn Strobotuner. It weighs 20 pounds. It's basically like lugging around two 10 pound babies (I know math), it's really finicky, and there's a door on it that is almost impossible to open.
I realize I’m not doing a great job of selling this so far, but stick with me.
If you have the Herculean strength to get it open, you’ll see the EV (Electro-Voice) mic, which is an old microphone, because you might want to plug it in here and hold it up to your guitar and tune it.
Basically, this has tubes in it, so it gets super hot. Like, it'll burn your hand off, and yet it's a strobe tuner? Jimmy Page's guitar tech used this and people in that era, and that's why they're a little out of tune sometimes, because this is really hard to deal with, but their music sounds fantastic. That’s my pitch here. If you want to sound like Jimmy Page, tune your guitar with the Conn Strobotuner.
Multivox Multi Echo MX-312
Next up is the Multivox Multi Echo MX-312. It's made in Japan, so you know it's good, and it's heavily inspired by the Roland Space Echo. That’s what you call a win-win.
I actually like this one better than any of the other Tape Echoes in my collection, including all of the EP versions made by Maestro and others. This is my favorite. If you go back and watch the JHS show episode where I play this, take note that I turn a knob on here that turns up the spring reverb, which I think is fantastic. I also love the microphone inputs on this unit. It's awesome on vocals, really cool on snare drums, and rocks with just about anything you can put a mic to.
Also, I caused Rhett Shull to buy one and he isn't mad at me.
BOSS ROD-10 and the RCE-10
The fifth anti-pedal is actually a couple of pedals combined in a rack unit. It's the BOSS ROD-10 and the RCE-10. These came out in 1985 for the then booming home studio market. I never really got into the home studio market, just because the equipment tended to be overpriced and wasn’t all that great.
That said, BOSS made this rack unit and BOSS is awesome, so I stand by this piece of gear 100%. I've been a big fan of this series for years and years. The power supply is actually stored down on the bottom of the rack. You can’t really play with this unit without going full out 1985 shredder vibes, and I honestly don’t think you’d even want to try any other genre.
Ibanez HD 1000
1983 had a lot of stuff going on. There was a new type of rock invented, Fraggle Rock**, and Ibanez released the HD 1000 harmonic 8-bit delay. It's a 19 inch rack unit that does way too much stuff. I like to think that if EarthQuaker Devices was around in '83, this is what they would have made because it's awesome and I love it, yet I'm joyfully confused when I try to use it.
**I don’t care if you’re a Jim Henson fan or not, you still know that the opening riff to that theme song was sick.
There's an actual chart included with the unit that kind of shows you the method to their madness. This is the Inspector Gadget of rack units, basically. It does everything from flanging chorus, doubling hard reverbs, slapback, long echo, harmony, octave doubling, true vibrato, feedback sweep, arpeggios, and time compounding.
I didn't know that time compounding was a thing until I played this unit. Now I do. Now I’m compounded.
Milkman Reverb Tremolo Head
The next anti-pedal I'm showing you is the only one that's actually made new today, so you can go buy this if you want. It is the all tube Milkman Reverb / Tremolo Head.
Now, this is harmonic tremolo which is really different than just your standard stuff. It's almost like a weird type of vibrato. I really, really love it. This is definitely my favorite reverb unit I've ever had, and I have all the original Fenders. This thing is just amazing. What Tim does is he just takes these Fender circuits and he refines them to death, goes completely overboard with it. So they're not clones; they're just these vastly improved and enhanced modernized versions of the circuits that we already love.
So, I really love this. When I asked Tim about it, I think he described this unit better than I can: “They kind of fall into the Ben & Jerry's category, which is, there's just too much of everything, which makes them really fun.” I couldn’t have put it better myself. Too much of everything definitely makes this the most fun reverb trem head I've ever played. This is basically ‘loud is more good’ taken to its logical conclusion.
Leslie 760 Cab
The last and greatest anti-pedal that I own is a giant Leslie 760 cab. As you all know, I'm about 12 feet tall, so when I sat down on a stool next to this and realized the proportions were actually correct for someone like me, I nearly cried tears of joy. Standing next to the Leslie 760 cab, I'm about nine feet tall, which makes the unit itself roughly eight feet tall. I'm exaggerating everything, but I want you to get the idea that this thing's big, roughly the size of a dishwasher.
You don't carry it to a gig. And if you do, you're Chuck Norris**.
**Chuck Norris doesn't play guitar; the guitar plays itself in fear of Chuck Norris.
But seriously, this thing is amazing. In the bottom, it has a 15-inch speaker with a rotating baffle, and in the top there's a horn that turns in a circle. It's a rotary horn, much like you hear when the weather's really bad in your neighborhood.
The control panel has a button that allows me to speed it up or slow it down. This is one of the best sounds there is possibly ever. This is the origin of chorus, and I'm just really in love with this. I cherish it, because it was broken and we fixed it, and that makes me happy.
Let's keep the conversation going about anti-pedals. I'm okay with it. I make pedals, but sometimes I just don't want to see a pedal and that's okay. And in that, I think I'm happier, and if I’m happier I like to think that you're happier, and the world is just a better place.
Just go play a guitar.