This next installment is about Bruce Cockburn’s guitar pedal effects he uses in his arsenal of sound! Most of these items would be a great present for the guitar player in your life. If it’s good enough for him, then it’s more then perfect for everyone else.
The Boss TU-2 tuner is perfect for tuning on stage where lighting maybe an issue. I never had one, but I’m sure it would be handy to use in these and other situations. Another excellent aspect that the TU-2 has going for it is that while tuning, you can turn off the sound going out. It has a large LCD display that is hard to miss. It’s also perfect for all those open tuning guitarist like myself. It displays to you the name of the note!
The Empress tremolo pedal appears to be a huge success with tons of on line guitarists. A vast majority of the guitarists give item a 9.5 – 10 out of every question asked. This is a well respected guitar forum. It great to see it have a built in boast to the signal because sometimes when you use a pedal like this, the signal tends to be lower coming out of the amp. There are way to many advantages to this pedal to put in this post. I’d probably put some readers here to sleep!
Boss DD-5 delay sounds like a dream to me! It is a BOSS pedal for God sakes! These things are made so tough that I remember one time driving over one with my parents car! I thought that was the end of it, but when I plugged it back it, it worked perfectly!
There is a feature on the DD-5 pedal called Tap Tempo. This is something that really grabs my attention. By tapping the pedal in the right mode, you can tell it when to start and stop the musical pattern that you wish to use. This comes in handy because not all of the parts of a song that you will be performing will be of equal length or note value. It can easily be used for that psychedelic or U2 effect that you might need. It’s essentially an echo effect on steroids!
The above item also has a great stereo effect, but I’ll stand behind my BOSS BF1 Flanger any day!
Next thing he uses is the Line6 MM4. This is a modulation effect pedal that literally make your head spin round and round! I think that this and the Boss CE-2 is the great sound effect pedal for those who are looking for a true chorus feel to add to their musical arsenal. The chorus effect on the Line6 MM4 is just one of a multitude of sounds that comes with this little devil. I goofed around with one at the 12th fret in Toronto and boy was it fun.
The Line6 DL4 is the 2nd last piece of equipment I found out that Bruce Cockburn uses. The reviews equate this bit of hardware to the Roland Space Echo. I’ve only seen one used by Scott Merritt and good God did that guy push it to the limits! The Line6 DL4 also has this weird effect called Reverse Delay? Your guess is as good as mine on that one but I bet it’s fun to good around with! Another good guy to ask about this one is Craig Peeler! Craig if your out there tell us what you think of it?
Now last but not least is the Rack mounted Lexicon Alex reverb. He depends on this one for tunes like Worlds of Wonders. This version is an acoustic version but the one that he plays with his band with is awesome! Holy SHIT that’s a master piece from the great Bruce Cockburn! I’m not all that familiar with rack mount units to be honest with you. I’ve watched people play through them and they looked really cool but do to the high costs of these things, I’ve always stayed away from them, do to the fact that I’ve been in the NSF crowd for a quite a while now. I guess I guy can dream now can’t he, that won’t cost me a cent!
So that’s it for the final installment of what Bruce Cockburn uses and I hope that I broadened your horizons of the topic of guitar foot pedals! So go forth and tell everyone you know about these marvelous inventions and …
Keep on Jammin’
