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Lot Essay
Described as 'crazier than the effects' by Jon Bon Jovi's studio engineer during sessions for the Blaze of Glory soundtrack, with his inimitable technique and total mastery of his instrument, Jeff Beck did not generally rely overly on pedals in his live performances, astounding his audiences with the sounds he could tease out of the simplest of rigs. From a young age, Beck had been fascinated by the 'tricks' employed by his hero Les Paul, and experimented endlessly with the various sounds which could be drawn from the electric guitar, both with and without the addition of sound effects. Beck was an early adopter of many of the new inventions being devised in the mid-1960s, along with his childhood friend Jimmy Page and was feted as among the first to experiment with fuzz and feedback. From the moment 'Heart Full of Soul' hit the radio waves - the unforgettable sound of a 'sitar' achieved with a Sola Sound Tone Bender and prototype fuzz box (designed by Roger Mayer) borrowed from Page, who happened to be recording at the time in the next door studio - the range of sounds and tones that could be achieved with his guitar seemed endless.
The present arrangement of pedals on this board is exactly as it was on Jeff Beck's last tour in 2022. Whilst this particular selection and their combination together is a relatively recent development, the board itself had been in use for several years, and in the early 2000s was controlled behind the amps or backstage by Beck's guitar tech at the time, Steve Prior. Whilst Beck often only had a small selection of pedals on stage which he controlled - often just a Wah pedal (a Snarling Dog) with a channel selector and an overdrive pedal (such as the Klon Centaur) - from the mid-2000s the larger board began to appear on the stage, controlled by Beck himself. When asked by a fan after a show in 2006 what had prompted the change, Jeff replied that he was trying to recreate more of the effects from the records.
Most notably, perhaps, the board includes a pedal which has been in Beck's collection for almost half a century. The Maestro Ring Modulator, made for a short period between 1971-75, came into Jeff's possession in the mid-70s around the time he was touring with keyboard legend Jan Hammer. Whilst Hammer does not recall actually giving Jeff the device, he told us that he 'may have turned him on to it with a prototype I got from Tom Oberheim.' John Dodds, Jeff's guitar tech from the Jan Hammer tour until 1980, remembers using the Ring Modulator for the 1976 tour - and indeed it can be seen perched atop an amp behind Jeff during his performances at the Day on the Green in Oakland, California on 5 and 6 June 1976 (with Dodds hiding behind Fernando Saunders' bass cab). After that tour it took something of a back seat in live performances - returning primarily to studio use.
Used on several recordings throughout his career, the ring modulator was evidently an effect to which Beck kept returning. Speaking to Matt Blackett for Guitar Player, December 2000, following the release of You Had It Coming, Beck revealed that for the track 'Roy's Toy' he used a ring modulator in the solo: The ring modulator is one of my all-time favourite nasty sounds. We used an old Maestro complete with all the cobwebs in it. I spent time tuning it. I knew what key I was in, and if you tune it properly, and stay within certain parameters of the key, it'll go with you. Similarly, discussing his latest album Jeff with Barry Cleveland in September 2003, he described one of the tracks, 'Trouble Man', which 'started out as a barbaric jam. I've got this Maestro ring mod going - one of the '60s ones with a slide on either side that you use to tune in while you're playing. It ripped.'
Underlining the perception that generally Jeff Beck did not use a huge number of different pedals and effects to achieve his inimitable sounds, in June 2010 Beck told Art Thompson of Guitar Player that he 'found that my best friend is the straight-ahead amplifier with very little effect pedal...except for a couple of places where I used a ring modulator - like for two bars on the Joss Stone track 'There's No Other Me'. You know, Jimi Hendrix didn't use too much of that either. He used one effects pedal and a Crybaby wah-wah, and he just cranked the hell out of his amplifiers.'
Dodds recounted to us that during his time in the late 1970s, the pedals which Jeff mainly used for live performances were a 'Colorsound overdrive, a Tychobrahe ParaFlanger, a Crybaby Wah and a D’Armond swell. There was also a Colorsound Octivider, which was at some point replaced with a small yellow Boss (Roland) Overdrive. He did have the Echoplex for many years, but it was replaced later by a Roland RE101 tape delay.' To avoid ending up in a tangled mess between sets and venues, Dodds built Beck's first pedalboard - 'Just a piece of plywood, with various templates that the pedals slotted into, and [I] built a kind of harness with the cables.' Whilst these pedals no longer survive in Beck's collection, the selection on the present pedalboard reveals both an affection for the sounds that vintage pedals could produce and a continued openness to trying out the latest technology, allowing him to continually push the sonic boundaries of what was possible in his performances.
The present arrangement of pedals on this board is exactly as it was on Jeff Beck's last tour in 2022. Whilst this particular selection and their combination together is a relatively recent development, the board itself had been in use for several years, and in the early 2000s was controlled behind the amps or backstage by Beck's guitar tech at the time, Steve Prior. Whilst Beck often only had a small selection of pedals on stage which he controlled - often just a Wah pedal (a Snarling Dog) with a channel selector and an overdrive pedal (such as the Klon Centaur) - from the mid-2000s the larger board began to appear on the stage, controlled by Beck himself. When asked by a fan after a show in 2006 what had prompted the change, Jeff replied that he was trying to recreate more of the effects from the records.
Most notably, perhaps, the board includes a pedal which has been in Beck's collection for almost half a century. The Maestro Ring Modulator, made for a short period between 1971-75, came into Jeff's possession in the mid-70s around the time he was touring with keyboard legend Jan Hammer. Whilst Hammer does not recall actually giving Jeff the device, he told us that he 'may have turned him on to it with a prototype I got from Tom Oberheim.' John Dodds, Jeff's guitar tech from the Jan Hammer tour until 1980, remembers using the Ring Modulator for the 1976 tour - and indeed it can be seen perched atop an amp behind Jeff during his performances at the Day on the Green in Oakland, California on 5 and 6 June 1976 (with Dodds hiding behind Fernando Saunders' bass cab). After that tour it took something of a back seat in live performances - returning primarily to studio use.
Used on several recordings throughout his career, the ring modulator was evidently an effect to which Beck kept returning. Speaking to Matt Blackett for Guitar Player, December 2000, following the release of You Had It Coming, Beck revealed that for the track 'Roy's Toy' he used a ring modulator in the solo: The ring modulator is one of my all-time favourite nasty sounds. We used an old Maestro complete with all the cobwebs in it. I spent time tuning it. I knew what key I was in, and if you tune it properly, and stay within certain parameters of the key, it'll go with you. Similarly, discussing his latest album Jeff with Barry Cleveland in September 2003, he described one of the tracks, 'Trouble Man', which 'started out as a barbaric jam. I've got this Maestro ring mod going - one of the '60s ones with a slide on either side that you use to tune in while you're playing. It ripped.'
Underlining the perception that generally Jeff Beck did not use a huge number of different pedals and effects to achieve his inimitable sounds, in June 2010 Beck told Art Thompson of Guitar Player that he 'found that my best friend is the straight-ahead amplifier with very little effect pedal...except for a couple of places where I used a ring modulator - like for two bars on the Joss Stone track 'There's No Other Me'. You know, Jimi Hendrix didn't use too much of that either. He used one effects pedal and a Crybaby wah-wah, and he just cranked the hell out of his amplifiers.'
Dodds recounted to us that during his time in the late 1970s, the pedals which Jeff mainly used for live performances were a 'Colorsound overdrive, a Tychobrahe ParaFlanger, a Crybaby Wah and a D’Armond swell. There was also a Colorsound Octivider, which was at some point replaced with a small yellow Boss (Roland) Overdrive. He did have the Echoplex for many years, but it was replaced later by a Roland RE101 tape delay.' To avoid ending up in a tangled mess between sets and venues, Dodds built Beck's first pedalboard - 'Just a piece of plywood, with various templates that the pedals slotted into, and [I] built a kind of harness with the cables.' Whilst these pedals no longer survive in Beck's collection, the selection on the present pedalboard reveals both an affection for the sounds that vintage pedals could produce and a continued openness to trying out the latest technology, allowing him to continually push the sonic boundaries of what was possible in his performances.