“The highs became
silkier and frothed over
in a tasty bubbling head
of harmonics like a
perfectly pulled pint.”
12
TONE TALK //
PaulCochrane
Timmy Overdrive
When talking about anything
Tennessee homegrown, a few things
come to mind, but Paul Cochrane’s
legendary Timmy pedal always pops
in there. I remember the first time I
injected a Timmy into the front end of
my Swart SST-30—an amp that needs
no help in the signal sweetening
department. Suddenly, the Lollar
P-90-loaded Reverend Slingshot I
was strumming started chiming and
sparkling like it never had. The highs
became silkier and frothed over in
a tasty bubbling head of harmonics
like a perfectly pulled pint. Notes
bloomed and sustained without any
perceivable compression squash,
while managing to never interrupt or
change the character of the Swart’s
sweet voice. To me, the Timmy is
like a high fidelity, yet transparent,
harmonic enhancer that functions
best as a “blanket lifter” or subtler
treble booster. I remember using
the Timmy to tonally match Richard
Lloyd and Tom Verlaine’s twin towers
of clean tone. I used it for that
gorgeous guitar tapestry of an intro
to “Days” off the second Television
album Adventure.
5 Stompboxes Too Good to Turn Off