www.beatmag.net/march06/technical.htm
Beatmag's regular technical columnist James Spectrum (AKA Jari Salo of Pepe Deluxe) equates effects pedals with space travel.
Only a fool would disagree with the fact that Tiger Woods is absolutely the best golfer on planet earth. Yet there was a man with a swing that would make Tiger look like a first-timer kitten on the field. His name was Alan Shepherd.
This mighty king of golf had two unbeatable records under his belt: the longest single hand drive (about 400 yards), and also the most expensive sports performance in the history of mankind.
Financed by US government, Alan drove his custom golf cart named 'Apollo 14' to the moon and started playing. He barely moved the first ball but then whacked the second one for good: job done. All that was left to do was going back home to be celebrated as a national hero.
If you fail to see the logic behind all this, remember that it happened during the '70s when the cold war was full on. The two superpowers were locked in a mad competition to burn as much money as possible, achieving as little as possible but always trying to look as cool as possible.
Alan ended the space race with one great swing. Picture an office in Kremlin, a grim old man with eyebrows thicker than Elvis's sideburns sitting by a huge desk, receiving a frightened phone call: "Comrade Secretary General, the imperialistic pigs have played golf on Moon. There's NO way we can top THAT!"
(Astronaut models available for purchase here)
What REALLY intrigues me is that Alan and his crew actually made a return trip (instead of just one way). Taking a small rocket crammed with '60s analogue instruments and crude computers, would you dare to fly over 500,000 miles just to play golf? If you still have faith in 'scientific estimates' always being accurate, remember the guys working on the first atomic bomb estimated that the weapon would be so powerful it could destroy an entire harbour! Returning from the Moon on a lunar module and missing the estimated position of the command module merely by 1% would surely ruin your day. On the other hand, I know I myself would go for an old school rocket if the alternative was a modern spaceship with computers running Windows XP
That's because the good thing about the '60s is that they used analogue components which rarely do exactly what they're supposed to do, so you tend to build things both extra durable and also very adjustable... or at least that was the case until the Japanese realized it was good for the business if things didn't last too long. Anyways, while digital stuff messed up is usually nothing but tears, analogue loves to get crazy.
It might be just a coincidence, but the art of creative short-circuiting low voltage devices such as guitar effects to create new sounds and instruments dates back to 1966, the same year that both NASA and Russians sent the first probes to Moon.
Mr. Reed Ghazala, who named the art form 'circuit-bending', believes that body-contact interfaces extend players and instruments into each other, creating new life forms, and calls them "an emerging tribe of bio-electronic Audio Sapiens". Far Out, Man! Let's join the tribe!
Improvising a little, team Deluxe decided that a worthy analogue sacrifice was necessary for the tribe initiation rite. A quick inventory check revealed a costly design artefact called 'Voice Changer', fitting the space theme perfectly as it featured switchable voice modes called 'Robot', 'Alien' and 'Spaceman' - clearly a sign of spiritual guidance. Opening the hood, we were poking around for some bio-electric action, when lo and behold, things started happening! One of the resistors seemed to control the pitch of the affected voice, as touching it made the sound jump madly. Armed with this valuable info, the modification and manufacturing department took over, and within a few hours we had a new audio tool: a pitch shifting pedal with two separate controls for the pitch (replacing the original resistor).
Plugging it in, we were mentally prepared for everything. That is everything except the actual results - a time machine! Ladies and Gentlemen, the most convincing 78 rpm record simulator we've ever heard.
Right click here to save.
www.beatmag.net/march06/technical.htm
