Abhinav Chaudhary - The Circus/Ioish

“Bassists don’t use pedals,” the naysayers are quick to retort. Even if that were remotely true, Abhinav Chaudhary, bassist extraordinaire of The Circus and Ioish stands tall as a living testimony of ‘Fuck you’. Known for his groovy sound and energetic playing style, Chaudhary is a force to be reckoned with onstage and has always managed to make music that is as enjoyable, complex and experimental as the various daisy chain knots and wiry loops on his messy pedalboard. Oh and speaking of his rig…

(Photo by Anand Mohapatra)

How many basses do you have? Tell me about all of them and/or how you came to acquire them.

At present I have

- One electric bass which is a Music Man Stingray 5 with single standard Music Man humbucker, an active 3-band preamp and maplewood neck and fingerboard. I bought this about 5 years ago in 2009 at a Guitar Center somewhere close to Indianapolis.

- One acoustic bass, standard 4-string Greg Bennett regency series ab-2 which I bought from Onstage about 2 years ago.

What brand of string and gauge do you prefer?

Ernie ball power slinky custom gauge strings, which 50, 70, 85, 105, 135 bottom to top. In case I can’t find these, which happens a lot, I go for D’Addario’s of similar gauge.

What’s your amplifier of choice? Why?

I use an Ampeg BA115 at home and an Ampeg bass amp tone has got to be my favourite. For recording and live purposes I like to use either Ampeg SVT series or Markbass. Most of the times I go DI straight into the FOH using the amp only for monitoring but these are the amp I prefer if it calls for micing and recording. In my opinion they both give clear and punchy harmonics that sound great to my ears when compared to other amp.

You are quite the pedal collector. Can you take me through the process you go through whilst acquiring a pedal? And what do you look for in a pedal before you buy it?

I’ve been using effects since the very beginning when I bought a Digitech bp200 along with my first bass, since then I’ve discovered that individual pedals (sometimes) sound better and definitely give you more hands on control over the effect parameters in real time. So, mostly I’m on the lookout for replacing effects I’ve heard on a digital platform (processors, vsts, etc.) with their analogue counterparts. Sometimes there are pedals that just sound strange or have cool graphics on them, those are always good to have.

What’s your current signal chain like? Tell me about each pedal in detail if you can.

I am almost 80 % happy with my current pedalboard, its missing a couple of things but this configuration works for pretty much any setup or band I play with.

Guitar > TC Electronic Polytune or Korg Pitchblack, I prefer the Polytune to the Korg because I think it tunes more accurately > Darkglass Electronics Microtubes B7K, this has got to be the single most useful piece of gear I’ve purchased, it’s always on > Blender from This1smyne (T1M) effects, it’s has a send-return loop which can be blended into the dry signal > Send> Proco. Turbo Rat Distortion > Way Huge electronics Swollen Pickle Fuzz > Subdecay Noisebox, this is my oldest pedal which is still around and works as new. It’s a fuzz-on-steroids driven synthy-filter machine > Return > Boss OC-2 with synth mod which when on makes the sound of octave down bitcrushed destruction > Iron Ether Xerograph deluxe, very synth-y, fully analogue low pass filter used with a Moog EP-2 expression pedal controlling the Frequency > Danelectro FAB Flanger or EHX Small Stone nano, i keep swapping these two out > Boss DD-7 delay > EHX Cathedral reverb > DI > FOH and Amp.

Apart from these I have a Devi Ever Ruiner Fuzz, a custom built green muff clone by Royztoyz in Bangalore, a EHX bass microsynth, a Boss Syb-3, A EHX bass big muff, Digitech Hyperphase and a Boss RV-5.

All of these are powered using Daisy chains and a One spot adapter and setup on a pedaltrain PT-1.

The one question I want to ask you is - why do YOU use pedals? What's your reason? A lot of guys in India actually are turning towards digital units – so why do you want to go through the hassle of using pedals?

Like I said before, most of the time individual pedals sound better than their digital units unless the digital unit is super high end, like an axe fx, but in that case, in my opinion it becomes an issue to have backups and travelling around with such gear. I’ve grown to like having hands on control over all my effects and being able to edit patches on the fly without having to look through menus and tiny screens. I love the modularity of the system.

What are some of your favourite combinations to use – how many pedals do you end up combining in one go?

Top of the list would be a Fuzz + Octave + Filter combination which along with an expression pedal gives very nice long synth swells. Second would be two dd-7 units + Cathedral + RV-5 for ambient drones and what not.

Guitarists have used random things to amplify their sound over the years. Are there some tricks you employ for craziness?

Mostly use my fingers or plectrums. I tried using a violin bow but that did not sound that great on bass, I still need to try an ebow.

Do you usually attach them in front of the amp?

Yes, all my stuff comes before the amp or PA.

What’s your pedal wish list like? What other pedals would you like to include in your arsenal?

I think I’ll be getting the reissued Digitech bass whammy next and possibly an ebow and hope fully a new bass this year.

Lastly, what kind of advice would you like to give to all the fellow pedal players/collectors/hoarders and noisemakers out there?

LOL, best of luck with your GAS folks!

Chaithanya Jade - Until We Last

Overall chilled out guy, Chaithanya Jade, from Bangalore-based post-rock band, Until We Last is known for making beautiful and introspective music through his band. Though I’ve long admired ambient music and was more than elated to witness its recent rise in the Indian underground music scene, I was more interested in finding out from Jade what he prefers when it comes to noodling around in the instrumental realm of things. Read more to find out!

How many guitars do you have? Tell me about all of them and/or how you came to acquire them.

I’ve got two guitars that I use right now, one is an Ibanez AM73B and another one is a Fender Standard American Stratocaster, HSS. I really love both of them, they both have their own characteristic tone and they work well for me. I use the Ibanez at home while I’m practicing parts, recording stuff through my soundcard or simply trying out new effects. The Fender is my main, I use it for jams with Until We Last and when we play live as well. Usually use the single coils for cleaner tones and the humbucker when i want some meat through heavy tones/ distortion patches.

I got the Fender from Detroit about 4 years ago and the Ibanez about 6 years ago in KL. It’s become increasingly easier to get stuff in India now though, with stores like the inventory, Bajaao & Saptaswara. Both the guitars have stock pickups, though I might try swapping out the pickups on the Ibanez someday.

What brand of string and gauge do you prefer?

I usually use D’Addario’s, they are easy to get around here at music stores. Gauge is usually 9s or 9.5s. 9.5’s are nice but if I can’t find them its 9s. Strings are a last minute thing before shows when we’re scared that our strings will snap because they’re too old, so it’s always a hurried purchase.

What’s your amplifier of choice? Why?

I’ve got a Marshall 15W at home, I’ve had it for years and use it for practice. Initially, while playing with UWL, I used to run my setup through stage amps, and I started taking a liking towards the fender tweed sound. However amps can vary a lot from stage to stage, and it’s always a pain getting the right settings because each amp is different and you have to start from scratch. Experience and advice from musician friends made me switch to using amp modelling on stage, so now I use a Sansamp. I had a Behringer tube amp modeler before that though, it was really noisy so I stopped using it.

You are known to be quite the pedal collector, usually replacing and purchasing new things for your pedalboard, can you take me through the process of you acquiring a pedal? What do you look for in a pedal before you buy it?

Haha…I don’t really consider myself a pedal collector…it’s basically been a learning experience…So I had this old Boss ME-50 that I’m quite fond of. It’s a multi - fx, I had been using it for years and I was really used to it. It’s got a lot of nice delays / modulation / distortions if set properly. However, it didn’t have amp modelling so I decided to get a Sansamp for that. Initially I got a loop station so that I can record phrases to practice over at home. After UWL happened, I started experimenting with live looping and it worked out pretty well…I expanded my pedalboard on a need basis…Got another delay & two reverb units eventually…Now I can make some pretty acid sounds! :D

What do I look for in a pedal? Hmm…as I said, it’s a need basis…so I’d be in the jam room working on a patch with the boys and I’d think, “hey, maybe another delay on top of this would sound nice, maybe I should try that out” and the idea would stick…so then I’d look around online for delay units and try to get them for cheap…try them out…two of my pedals are second-hand and they work perfect!

Whats your current signal chain like? Tell me about each pedal in detail if you can.

ME-50 -> RC3 -> DD7 -> 63’ Fender Reverb -> Sansamp GT2 -> Strymon BlueSky

So I use the ME-50 to store patches, primary delay tones, distortion, maybe some modulation & tone shaping. RC3 for looping stuff & playing loops live. DD7 for additional delays, and delay effects on loops. 63’ reverb gives me that nice fender tone, it brings out a nice Strat tone that I like. It’s also interesting to have a reverb before the amp modeller, because the tail gets cut by the amp settings. The BlueSky is a sweet pedal, its end of the chain because I like to let it breathe. It’s got ridiculous clarity.

The one important question I want to ask you is - why do YOU use pedals? What's your reason? A lot of guys in India actually are turning towards digital units - so why do you want to go through the hassle of using pedals?

That’s a really good question. I think it’s a matter of personal preference. I was comfortable with the ME-50 and I knew how it works so I just got additional stuff to work with it. Ketan (Bahirat, guitar player #2 of UWL) runs through a Pod HD500 and he knows it inside out - it works for him. I don’t have any preference between digital and analogue and I’m vary of those arguments…They really don’t serve any purpose. 

Technically speaking, all of my pedals except the Sansamp are digital pedals. digital as in they use DSPs. the only difference is that in a digital multi-fx, all these pedals are using the computing power of a single DSP (or multiple, depending on which multi-fx) built into the same unit and in my setup I’ve got one DSP on the ME-50, one on the Strymon, one on the DD7…etc but essentially it’s the same. Actually multi-fx digital units are more economical with computing power but sometimes having a dedicated DSP for a single effect can be nice. You can especially tell the difference with the BlueSky. So it all comes down to what you are comfortable working with, digital or not!

What are some of your favourite combinations to use - how many pedals do you end up combining in one go?

Hmm…I guess it’s always fun to swap stuff around and see how it sounds. i love experimenting with sounds that way. But combining too many pedals can lead to signal loss and noise, so it’s best to keep it at a minimum I suppose. But there really are no rules!

It’s good to know what your guitar signal is actually going through, I mean, every time you have a new pedal in the chain, unless it’s not buffered, your signal is passed through an ADC, then effected in some way, then again through a DAC…So the question is, how many times do you want this done? Is it really worth it? 

But with tones it’s always fun to keep experimenting! You never know :)

Hair dryers, violin bow - guitarists have used random things to amplify their sound over the years. Are there some tricks you employ for craziness?

Haha, not really…I just really like using my ebow through different patches & looping parts really quick to make up ambience! But maybe I’ll try a hair dryer next time! 

Do you usually attach them in front of the amp?

You mean attach pedals in front of the amp? No, I’ve never tried that but I’ve heard of amps having fx loops and they are good to use with certain effects I suppose. Like a reverb.

(Jade in action. Photo by Himanshu Rohilla)

Whats your pedal wishlist like? What other pedals would you like to include in your arsenal?

I’m pretty happy with my current setup for now…I think it does everything I want…I’m swapping out the Sansamp GT-2 for a Character series Blonde, that I’m getting end of the month so…pretty excited about that!

Lastly, what kind of advice would you like to give to all the fellow pedal players/collectors/hoarders and noisemakers out there?

Hmm…keep making noise, use whatever you are comfortable with, don’t be misled by people telling you what to do if you don’t want to do it, take help & advice to research on your own,  be non-conformist & do your thing! Music is ultimately about expression, so express yourself! :)

P.S. – You can buy Until We Last’s debut album, Earthgazing, here