Lemuel Gulliver wrote:

Antero wrote:I have heard many tales of the prowess of the Hot Cake, but I have never heard one. Can you point me to something with it?

That's right, Benny. An interview with Malkmus years ago--10?, wtf--tipped me off to it. I heard that that sorta cavernous distortion you sometimes heard with Pavement live was the Hot Cake. E.g., "In the Mouth a Desert." Totally over the top, but still defined. But it does a lot of other things well, to me: It sounds like a very natural overdrive, like it's actually coming from the amp. It compresses nicely for lead type stuff, I think--only a bit enough to make notes carry but not so much that you lose all the dynamics and breathy-ness.

Are you sure he's not using the Big Cheese pedal (the orange one)?

Not sure what Malkmus used on Slanted/Watery, but I doubt it was a Hotcake. That's awfully boutique for that time period and what was then a young band. People weren't so tapped into boxes like that yet. Those things were for rich gearheads, not people who were using Mustangs because they were cheap and plentiful.

They did get some nice gear later.

I have a Hotcake, and if I were to describe it, I'd say "it's a great distortion."
Meaning, it doesn't do anything special, boost any frequencies, make crazy noises, melt your speakers, it just does what it does, perfectly.
Sort of how a really good apple pie is better than Death By Chocolate Explosion Cake. The latter is supposed to be a specialty, but the fact is, the perfect simplicity of the former makes it the winner.

I was 10 feet from Malkmus at Pitchfork and he was using a Big Cheese. I'm pretty sure that's what he was using in the latter days of Pavement too.
The Big Cheese is awesome too, it just costs a lot.

A guy from Split Enz built the Hotcake.
I think a guy from Blancmange built the Big Cheese.
New wave dudes can apparently build some damn stomp boxes.

-A

Malkmus in early pavement used a rat (or maybe two) i think it's the same for spiral stairs. i heard that basically all that fuzz in those records its mostly a rat cranked to hell.

Benny wrote:Malkmus in early pavement used a rat (or maybe two) i think it's the same for spiral stairs. i heard that basically all that fuzz in those records its mostly a rat cranked to hell.

That makes sense. Cheap, good, and often used during that era.

That's what I used in the late 80's. In fact, I had the rack unit that had two of them mounted. The R2DU is what it was called, I believe.

-A

six acre lake wrote:

Big John wrote:I love the zoom ultra fuzz. This company of otherwise shitty products got it right with this pedal for sure.

i used the ultra fuzz 2 alot on our new record... it just distorts in the most noisey wrong way... its great...

Ok I just fried my Peavy Dirty Dog 2 channel distortion... I loved that thing... its the 2nd one I have gone through, and since they haven't been made for a while I have decieded not to try to find anouther...


OK here is what I need, as good reliable distortion, that can do Sonic Youth grimey Full-on distortion freekout, and yet be able to be dial down to Television type clean, this will be my live box, so it needs to be:

1. Fairly Cheep
2. Fairly Reliable
3. Able to be picked up on the road, in other words if mine breaks down I can hit a guitar center and pick it up if I need to (man I hate GC)
4. built like a tank as I put my gear through hell on the road.

proco rat?
for television type clean, just turn off the pedal

Benny wrote:proco rat?
for television type clean, just turn off the pedal

I am leaning that way actually, I have never tried a rat with my reverb rocket, so I have no clue how it would sound...

Benny wrote:proco rat?
for television type clean, just turn off the pedal

+1
You cant go wrong with the Rat. Its cheap. Sounds good. Its easily replaceable if broken. I am able to appoximate the SY tones you speak of with my big (vintage) Rat.

Rat can handle a clean boost as well as doing distortion which it can handle too. Remember on of the bands I think it was the Unsane both the bass and the guitar may have used The Rat. They had one break (unusual) and were near Kalamazoo on tour and the people were great and gave them a tour of the factory and just handed them a new Rat to replace the broken one.

That dual rat mount is very cool.

The Cheese pedal is super but was if I reacal right avalable in New York around late 93 - 94 and only one store had them (sam ash). But at that point Pavement was touring europe so they could get direct access.

But in the early 90's there was not nearly as many choises as today for distotion Boss - Rat - Ibanez - Morley - Maybe MXR - big muffs were hard to come by as were most used old distortions. Arround the time of the Cheese pedal some folks were getting the Expandora it was just the begining of the now crazy world of boxes.