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Russian Circles - When The Mountain Comes To Muhammad
- Thread starter SBF
- Start date
Well I know he uses a Way Huge Swollen Pickle so it might be that. I don't know for sure. He uses a ProCo Rat also but I don't think it's that.
I can tell you that live Brian employed a Little Big Muff, A rat and an OCD which was on most of the time. Although recently with These Arms are Snakes he has been using a Swollen Pickle and no Rat or Muff. Also a lot of his fuzzy moments he uses his whammy in oct dwn/ oct up mode.
In September when my band opened for These Arms are Snakes he told me that he was still experimenting with his dirty sound. I told him to stop because I thought it was perfect.
In September when my band opened for These Arms are Snakes he told me that he was still experimenting with his dirty sound. I told him to stop because I thought it was perfect.
Sounds a lot like an octave down effect + fuzz to me. Well done. I'm not a big fan of this band but I'll admit Brian Cook is full of tone flavor on every recording he plays on.
There are so many awesome dirt and dirt + octave sounds on this album that it makes me weep. Brian Cook is truly a god among men. I think something muff-y and an octave are going to feature quite prominently in my immediate future too...
That's one of the coolest tones I've ever heard out of Brian. He's so much more prominant on this newest album than on Station, which is awesome.
I'm willing to bet that sound is whichever Muff he used in the studio plus the octave down on his Whammy, but I'd be happy to ask him myself when I see them December 11.
I'm willing to bet that sound is whichever Muff he used in the studio plus the octave down on his Whammy, but I'd be happy to ask him myself when I see them December 11.
That thought has crossed my mind as well.
Not with Russian Circles, at least not to my knowledge. I'm pretty sure that's only with TAAS.
Okay. When I saw them Dec. 11 he had the pretty much the same pedal setup as he did when I saw them in early 09, only without the LPB-1 and slightly rearranged.
Just for good measure:
There was no sign of the Swollen Pickle. He still had the LBM at the end of the chain and the Rat was still his primary fuzz. The end of WTMCTM was the Rat and the Whammy, mostly on one octave down, but on the Oct Up/Oct Down Whammy setting, rather than Oct Down harmony, so he could shoot to the Oct Up for on-the-fly riffage.
Really the only difference in the arrangement was the placement of the VPJr., which was after the Whammy and distortions but before the Headrush, where before it was the first in the chain. This allowed him to mute noise from the OCD/Whammy while letting a loop or a trail of delays to keep going.
The real deal was the new bass. He didn't even bring along his original Grabber, just a new Grabber II and his First Act, which he didn't touch at all. He used the Grabber II through the whole set, and just threw it into new tunings between songs. Without having been there, I wouldn't have believed it, but it made a huge difference. His tone was simply massive, even compared to the other times I've seen them, and he was definitely more audible. It seemed to push the distortions a little harder, too.
Also interesting was that he brought along the MICROKorg, which I had never actually seen him use with Russian Circles. He used the Korg for the highly speculated-upon Fuzz "swells" at the beginning of Harper Lewis, and after the show confirmed that he did indeed use that on the recording. When I last saw them he just turned the tone knob on the LBM to cop the sound, but since it's featured several places on the new album he can now justify bringing the Korg along.
Just for good measure:
Russian Circles:
There was no sign of the Swollen Pickle. He still had the LBM at the end of the chain and the Rat was still his primary fuzz. The end of WTMCTM was the Rat and the Whammy, mostly on one octave down, but on the Oct Up/Oct Down Whammy setting, rather than Oct Down harmony, so he could shoot to the Oct Up for on-the-fly riffage.
Really the only difference in the arrangement was the placement of the VPJr., which was after the Whammy and distortions but before the Headrush, where before it was the first in the chain. This allowed him to mute noise from the OCD/Whammy while letting a loop or a trail of delays to keep going.
The real deal was the new bass. He didn't even bring along his original Grabber, just a new Grabber II and his First Act, which he didn't touch at all. He used the Grabber II through the whole set, and just threw it into new tunings between songs. Without having been there, I wouldn't have believed it, but it made a huge difference. His tone was simply massive, even compared to the other times I've seen them, and he was definitely more audible. It seemed to push the distortions a little harder, too.
Also interesting was that he brought along the MICROKorg, which I had never actually seen him use with Russian Circles. He used the Korg for the highly speculated-upon Fuzz "swells" at the beginning of Harper Lewis, and after the show confirmed that he did indeed use that on the recording. When I last saw them he just turned the tone knob on the LBM to cop the sound, but since it's featured several places on the new album he can now justify bringing the Korg along.
