Rich Iavarone  

Home

Web Design

Guitar


Guitar

My stuff...

Guitars:

Amps:

Effects: (gotta love 'em)

  • Analogman King of Tone - Hands down the best dirt box I've ever owned. I use one as a mostly clean boost with the Mesa amp and keep a second one set for extra dirt for use with the Fender Champ. Very natural sounding and feeling overdrive.
  • Analogman Beano Boost - Treble booster; GREAT lead boost plus cool notched tones for funky rhythm sounds.
  • Analogman stereo Bi-Chorus - Very sweet and honest sounding chorus.
  • Analog Man AR20DL Analog Delay and AR20DL-XL extended delay time model - All I wanted in a delay - no change in volume or the original signal when switching it on and repeats that get darker and more broken up.
  • Analogman Sun Face NKT275 - Very smooth; "smokey" sounding fuzz.
  • Analogman Peppermint Fuzz - Germanium (high gain). Over-the-top fuzz that's cool for some stuff.
  • Analogman Bi-Comprossor - Ross and Dan Armstrong compressor clones in one box. Really nice with single coils for getting twangy and funky.
  • Boss GE-7 EQ - Does the job but a little noisy. I don't know exactly when I bought it new, but it's probably around 15-20 years old by now.
  • Boss Metal Zone - Kind of cool for the scooped, death-from-above thing but I don't use it much.
  • Blackstone Overdrive - I've had this one for three or four years and never really warmed up to it. Sounds pretty good at moderate settings but the low end craps out at higher settings.
  • Catalinbread Super Chili Picoso - Mucho boosto. More boost than I've ever found in any other pedal.
  • DOD Supra Distortion - No comment. It hasn't left a milk crate in around 15 years.
  • Dunlop Cry Baby - Haven't used it a very long time since I got the Teese wah.
  • Dunlop MXR Phase 90 - Not terribly remarkable. No remark.
  • Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man - Old one. Fairly noisy and a drop in volume when switched on.
  • Foxrox Paradox TZF Flanger - Completely over the top flanging with envelope control. Lots of fun!
  • Foxrox Hot Silicon - Silicon transistors that are usually snubbed by real traditionalists but I find it cuts through a mix much better than germanium fuzzes.
  • Foxrox Captain Coconut 2 - Multieffects box with Octavia, Fuzz Face and Univibe clones built into one package. Foxrox builds the best sounding Univibe clones I've ever heard and that makes this pedal worth the price of admission alone. I have several of the fuzz cards - stock hybrid, Analogman NKT275 and vintage germanium.
  • Foxrox Octron 2 - Octave up and down, fully switchable and blendable. Think of having "Fire," "Fool In The Rain" and various combinations of analog octave dividing in one box.
  • Foxrox Provibe rackmount (link is actually to prototypes; couldn't find anything more on it) - Provibe that sounds identical to the one in the Captain Coconut 2
  • Foxrox Provibe pedal - Another Provibe; speed doesn't go as fast or as slow as on the others. Later version circa 92 or 93. Bought from Chris Poland, formerly of Megadeth.
  • Foxrox "Mervin" fuzz - One-of-a-kind prototype with germanium transistors. My favorite; not as much gain as most, but it has a nice hump in the mids to help it cut through nicely in a band setting.
  • Fulltone Fat-Boost - 2000 model with different control layout than the current model. Aptly named, it fills out single coils very nicely if a little tubby.
  • Ibanez Sonic Distortion - (don't recall what year, but I've had it since the 80's) - I'm not sure why I still own this other than feeling sentimental about it. There are very fine lines between getting a good sound of it and it sounding like crap. Tends to get thin and piercing sounding at higher settings and no amount of adjustment to the tone control tames it. Someone once said that there's no such thing as a bad tone, just finding a place to use it. One of these days...
  • Ibanez Digital Delay - I don't know much about it except that it's green. Not great, not bad.
  • Ibanez LA Metal - Possibly the worst sounding distortion pedal ever made; very trashy (not in a good way). Some day, I WILL find a use for it!
  • Keeley Compressor - Another Ross clone. Slightly darker and softer sounding than the Analogman, it sounds best at lighter compression settings.
  • Lovepedal Magicboy - Univibe vibe at a great price. Sounds too over the top in an effects loop, but very nice before the amp.
  • MXR Distortion + - 1979 model with block logo modified by Analogman for true bypass. This link goes to a Jim Dunlop reissue. I like it for it's fuzzy tone at lower settings; great stuff with a Strat.
  • ProCo Rat - 1986 model. Main staple of many hair bands in the '80s. A little too over the top at higher settings but still good for early Metallica grind.
  • Red Witch Moon Phaser - Really nice sounding and versatile phaser. Favorite settings are one that sounds a LOT like an old MXR Phase 100 (think of the Stone's "Shattered") and "tremophase" which is tremolo sync'd with the phase sweep.
  • Roland Jet Phaser - "Who's That Lady?"
  • Systech Phase Shifter (PDF) - 70's phaser; built like a tank.
  • Teese RMC3 wah - Who knew a wah could be so tweaky? You can get some really great "mouthy" wah out of the RMC3. I have mine set to a variation of the "Wheels of Fire" settings.
  • Univox Super Fuzz (ancient) - Does the octave thing well but definitely a specialty pedal. Cool for Hendrix style leads and other forms of chaos.
  • Zvex Fuzz Factory - Germanium. Crazy pedal that has a very aggressive fuzz tone and can even oscillate on it's own if you go too wild with it. Gate control is a nice feature.