There seem to be two different schools of surf guitarist.

• The people who immediately start wondering which pedals they should use.

• The people who might concede the utility a chromatic tuner, and certainly a spring reverb unit somewhere, but anything more makes them cringe inwardly.

I think Sancho Pansen's recent blind test shows this is not simply a matter of moral judgement. There seem definitely to be people around who like the "effects" based sound as well as the more familar group (here anyway) who feel it should be all strings, springs and tubes.

I look at this, of course, from the perspective of the groundlings. I like the traditional sound, but I'm not always sure what I'm hearing and tend to judge what I like song by song.

I'm definitely not a pedal fan. In the words of the great Wilko Johnson: "Pedals? Listen, you have pedals on bicycle".

I've always ben of the school of though that you plug your guitar into the amp, the amp into the wall, and that's it. For surf music I have a reverb tank in between the guitar and the amp, and that's it.

I did recently buy a Peterson tuner. So far I've inadvertently stepped on it at least once a gig and silenced my own guitar. I'm not sure how long it's going to last in my signal chain!

I like surf music for it simplicity. Guitar, amp, reverb. That's it. Maybe I'm suffering from pedalphobia?

http://thewaterboarders.bandcamp.com/

My take is that everyone should chase the sound they have in their head, imagination, and whatever it takes to get that, gadgets or none who are we to question or concern?
I don't believe that there is a righteous path.
If the player digs the sound and is creating music with it that they enjoy. envision and better yet find others who enjoy then job done.

Cheers,
Jeff

http://www.facebook.com/CrazyAcesMusic
http://www.youtube.com/user/crazyacesrock
http://www.reverbnation.com/crazyacesmusic

I think auxiliary devices with tubes and physical devices in them are considered OK. A pan or the tape player. If you had a speaker and mic in an nearby stairwell that would be OK, too, I suppose.

I don't want people to think I'm necessarily a purist here. I'm not even a reverb-only sort of guy. I don't mind ancient instruments at all, and I turned out to prefer the tanks in Sancho Pansen's test, but I might well flunk a blind test. I definitely don't do well at telling what kind of guitar or amp is involved, and I'm pretty sure the players count for more than the gear, as far as that goes.

Last edited: Feb 12, 2015 17:01:32

I can't help but thinking that if what we have was available to those guys in the sixties, they would have used it. Surf music itself was a hybrid before it became its own genre. The equipment they used was new to the era they lived in.

I happen to think a guitar sounds its best when plugged straight into an amp but, pedals are fun. If its done tastefully then why not?

JakeDobner wrote:

CrazyAces wrote:

My take is that everyone should chase the sound they have in their head, imagination, and whatever it takes to get that, gadgets or none who are we to question or concern?

Jeff speaks for me now.

These dudes.

In surf I've found that effects can be very useful in many circumstances. One of my favorite surf sounds I've ever managed to achieve involved a tele into a tank, into a strymon flint with light tremolo and minimal hall reverb settings, and straight into an ampeg reverberocket. Take "surf" out of the picture, and there is so much I use pedals for in achieving the sounds I want.

Basically, there are no rules. There are so many sounds that can be achieved with nothing but a telecaster and a Princeton reverb, from surf to jazz to rock. Throw in a simple overdrive, and your possibilities expand. Same story when it comes to reverb, delay, etc. It's all about what you think sounds good, and what helps you to make your music.

IMO.

driptone wrote:

I can't help but thinking that if what we have was available to those guys in the sixties, they would have used it. Surf music itself was a hybrid before it became its own genre. The equipment they used was new to the era they lived in.

I happen to think a guitar sounds its best when plugged straight into an amp but, pedals are fun. If its done tastefully then why not?

I think that pretty much nails it. Reverb, tape echo and (as soon as they were around) fuzz pedals; instro bands used all of that brand new stuff.

"Tastefully" is the key word here. From my experience there is a certain temptation to overuse pedals and keep adding them to the chain and that can directly effect songwriting in a negative way. In the worst case you end up with having a different effect for every section of a tune and the pedals become a substitute for the actual songwriting, meaning that, when you play the song without the effects it suddenly falls apart to nothing.

Sure, it doesn't have to happen, but I have developed the notion of keeping the possibilites down to a few (traditional) sounds like reverb, tremolo and echo. Whether these come from pedals or bigger devices doesn't matter at all to me as long as it sounds good.

Los Apollos - cinematic surf music trio (Berlin)
"Postcards from the Scrapyard" Vol. 1, 2 & 3 NOW available on various platforms!
"Chaos at the Lobster Lounge" available as LP and download on Surf Cookie Records!

Morality? I thought we were making a bunch of noise...

I follow the Muse. Mine's always pedalin pedals.

You'll know her. She's the one with the Big Muff Pi.

Da Vinci Flinglestein,
The quest for the Tone, the tone of the Quest

The Syndicate of Surf on YouTube

http://www.syndicateofsurf.com/

http://sharawaji.com/

http://surfrockradio.com/

Syndicateofsurf wrote:

Morality? I thought we were making a bunch of noise...

I follow the Muse. Mine's always pedalin pedals.

You'll know her. She's the one with the Big Muff Pi.

(Caveat lector: Art-damaged writer at work below)

Moral-ethical choices are the material of aesthetics, how we describe ways of experiencing a phenomenon. The complexity of the experience which involves playing informed by heavy listening across half a century of musical history, begs for discussion, not to lay down rules but to begin to describe the musical values which are most salient. Purism versus 'pedal sluttishness' describes a gradient negotiated by players balancing two impulses toward authenticity: what sounded good (on vinyl in the 1st wave) and what sounds/feels good to play now.

Trends in guitar sounds used to change yearly until a certain saturation point occurred with perhaps cheap high-powered PA systems in clubs and home digital studios - when the problems of sound fidelity and volume had been pretty much solved. Guitarists now also have available in pedal form most effects that had been achieved previously in studios since Les Paul invented multitracking and tape echo. This leaves us at a sort of 'omega-point' where every sound ever played can now more-or-less be rendered, even affordably.
Atterntion to the aesthetics of surf demands focus on a very narrow slice of music history when the drip became possible. 1st Wave players explored that sound with aplomb and then abandoned it when the tide shifted a few years later. Here we are decades later, showing an enthusiasm for spring reverb drip that has already extended far beyond the original impulse's duration. But we players are heirs of the intervening decades post-1st Wave and have to sort out our impulses between purism - a return to sources, (perhaps informed by an anxiety of losing touch with that primal impulse) and a less stringent approach to guitar playing that purposely incorporates musical discoveries post-1st Wave. Of course, both are as valid as the player's ability to synthesize and execute what he hears in his head onto the fretboard, through the gear and out the speakers to the listener. But it may be helpful to think about the whole thing and make choices conscious of all the sound choices, as a way to decide what is relevant to the art in the present moment.

Squink Out!

I really don't think it's a question of morality, if you use pedals or not. Btw, surf music is NOT a religion...it's art!

Basically it's about getting sounds you have in your head out of your guitar and play some interesting music / write interesting songs with them.

A lot of modern day pedals emulate sounds of turned up amps and old analogue effects in a more convenient way and at a lower volume....cranking up Marshalls and Showmans in a 40 people bar is not very pleasant for anybody.

I think a lot of people wouldn't know exactly, if a pedal is used or not (apart from some very processed sounds) , if they just listen to a recording without seeing a pedal board / effect rack. A recorded guitar sound is always a combination of instrument, amp, microphone, studio eqiupment and maybe a pedal.

I get inspired by new sounds and pedals although to most people my sound is always the same