Daniel ’ s Backline
Daniel , “ The ” James Duke , & Matt Podesla
I don ’ t sound like them when I play through their stuff !
It ’ s one of the weirdest mysteries of life to me , the way that your hands can sound so different from someone else ’ s . I do try to keep it very simple . Over the years , especially with worship , I ’ ve learned that the more stuff I have at my disposal the more distracted I get . I ’ ll go , “ Oh , maybe I ’ ll try that other overdrive pedal on the next song to see if it sounds better .” If I have five overdrive pedals on my board I might be tempted to do that . The times I ’ ve felt the most inspired are times when I have limited my options pedal wise . Then I ’ m forced to play more melodically or with the band .
So my advice to young guitarists ? I have spent way too much money buying a hundred different overdrive pedals that all are basically doing just a couple different things . One of my favorite guitar players might plug into a little simple Boss pedal or something and get a great sound because he ’ s learned that he
doesn ’ t need a $ 500 hand-wired overdrive to make a good sound . You don ’ t have to spend a ton of money to get a great sound .
I ’ ll see young guys and I ’ ll see their rig and I ’ ll go , “ Oh my gosh your rig costs like $ 5,000 , how on earth are you paying for this ?!” And that ’ s fine , musicians get into gear and I ’ m guilty as much as the next guy . And it ’ s not bad to invest in good gear . But , if you ’ re young and you see other musicians and think you can ’ t sound like them because you don ’ t have an original Klon , an old ’ 60s AC30 , or whatever , you don ’ t need all that .
I ’ d honestly be really happy with what I have for the rest of my life . I ’ ve been playing the same amp for seventeen years , which is an AC30 reissue with Celestion Blue speakers , the English-made one . That ’ s kind of my favorite style of amp , the British AC-30 . I also play a Matchless , which is voiced very similarly .
I always come back to Les Paul and Tele , kind
Daniel Holding the New Full-Drive 1
of my first loves . So for a simple setup it ’ s basically a Les Paul or Tele into a ‘ TS-style ’ ( Tube Screamer ) pedal . For most of my life that ’ s been a Fulltone Full-Drive , which I love . It has boost and you have a couple different options in the pedal as well . It ’ s just been one of those pedals that I could tour with all year and have that as my only gain option . I like to turn the amps up , hit them with that pedal , and I ’ ve got everything I need . There are a lot of pedals that do that same thing well , that ’ s just the one that I use . You can get them used for a hundred bucks or something . It ’ s a killer pedal – you could tour your whole life with just that one pedal .
After that I always have a digital delay of some kind that I can tap the tempo in . For years that was a Boss DD-5 that I couldn ’ t have lived without for the last eighteen years of touring . It ’ s basically always on my pedal board . I ’ ve tried many other delay pedals . Now that you can program the beats per minute into the pedal , whenever that came along , ’ 04 or ’ 05 ,
Meat and Potatoes Pedalboard
Meat and Potatoes Guitars
44 August 2018 WorshipMusician . com