“Xotic Effects distils
the smoking sparkling
tonal magic into a
tiny little bullet-proof
box called the
EP Booster.”
XoticEffectsEPBooster
Growing up with East Bay Ray, Johnny
Ramone, and The Ventures as my big
three guitar influences only really left me
with one gig rig to rule them all. The pedal
thing hadn’t really happened for me yet;
I hated the nasally Tubescreamers and
cheap Dano stompers that seemed to be
the only pedals around Knoxville in the
mid-to-late ‘90s, so I opted for a thenaffordable knackered old Echoplex on top
of a 100-watt ‘79 Marshall JMP half-stack.
Luckily, everyone was into Mesa Boogies
and Rocktron rack effects at the time, so
this stuff was obtainable. I bought a Smurfblue Mosrite Ventures II—just like the one
on the back of the B-52s’s first album—and
was in total surf-punk heaven. One thing
I noticed was that even when the echoes
were turned off, the tone of my Mosrite
and Marshall was smoother, smokier, and
richer with the Echoplex in between. I
later learned that the Echoplex preamp
was a secret sonic sauce for Page, Van
Halen, and indeed my own hero East Bay
Ray. It was like magic, and of course, it was
always on. Fast forward many years and a
little company called Xotic Effects distilled
the smoking sparkling tonal magic into a
tiny bulletproof box called the EP Booster.
Though my old Echoplex was regretfully
sold to fund my big move overseas years
ago, when I want to catch my old wave
of surf punk, my pipeline is an EP Booster
into my Strymon El Capistan. It gets me
99 percent there with 100 percent less
maintenance.
ToneReport.com
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