This week, we updated the manuals for all four of our pedals. The manuals are written in a similar style to our site, and should have some helpful info on topics like signal placement even if you don’t own any of our pedals. If you do own a pedal, the manual for the Mini Glitch should be particularly helpful, as it now explains the calibration process for V1.3 pedals in detail. Links can be found found on the pages for each pedal (see the sidebar), or at the links below: Mini Glitch: Manual PDF Oxford Drive: Manual PDF EQ-201 Preamp: Manual PDF Pitch Magpie: Manual PDF ..read more

A shot of the guitar on one of the band’s overhead screens show the three control knobs for the electronics near the neck on the side of the upper bout. Fan footage from the Smile’s show at 3arena in Dublin has provided some clarity on the classical guitar that we first mentioned in our analysis of the band’s rehearsal setup. The guitar appears to be a Taylor 312ce-N, which is a single-cutaway electro-acoustic nylon-string guitar. Thom used the guitar for finger-strumming on the song Wall of Eyes. It’s possible that Thom used the Taylor on the album recording. But it seems more likely that he ..read more

On March 5 and March 6, The Smile shared photos taken by Ade B during rehearsals for the band’s 2024 tour dates. In the photos, the band are set up in Air Studios’ Lyndhurst Hall. It’s a space where Jonny has frequently recorded orchestras, including for the Phantom Thread soundtrack. A photo from circa-2014 revealed that Radiohead’s string arrangements for Spectre (and possibly Man of War) were also recorded in the room. The Smile’s live setup largely resembles the one they used for their tour dates last year. This isn’t a surprise, since many songs from the band’s latest album were written ..read more

Earlier today, The Smile shared this photo of Jonny by Sam Petts-Davies on their official social media. Jonny is seen with his late-70s natural finish Gibson Les Paul Standard, a guitar he’s used extensively for work outside of Radiohead. The photo is quite similar to two others taken by Sam in the same room, as we’ve discussed previously. However, this one differs because it shows a few pedals. From right-to-left, we see the following: Death by Audio Interstellar Overdriver Boss DD-200 delay Electro-Harmonix Stereo Electric Mistress XO flanger The Interstellar Overdrive is a favorite of Th ..read more

A couple shots from The Smile’s rehearsal at RAK Studio 1 in January 2022, in preparation for their three live-streamed Magazine shows. Thom’s phone, resting on the music stand, has an Intellijel sticker on its case. The photo below, from Intellijel’s facebook, shows a closeup of the sticker design. According to Intellijel, these stickers were new in 2019, so Thom must’ve bought some new Intellijel modules in 2019-2021 ..read more

Jonny dramatically muting the strings of his late-70s natural finish Les Paul Standard during a performance of Read The Room in Cleveland on July 11, 2023 (Ryan J). Verse Read The Room starts with just a guitar through a single-repeat delay. Well, technically two guitars: the same guitar part is recorded twice, with one recording panned hard left and the other panned hard right. Each one has its own delay. Jonny almost certainly used his Boss DD200, given the clarity of the delay sound (a Space Echo would be too warm in the highs). If we count quarters at ~61.5bpm, we can hear that the delay ..read more

You can find each of their signal chains explained in great detail on the pedalboard sub-pages for each artist (also found in the right sidebar): Thom Yorke's Pedalboards Jonny Greenwood's Pedalboards Ed O'Brien's Pedalboards You can also find an in-depth look at Jonny's 1997 signal chain in this article (his basic chain has remained identical since 1996, with just the occasional pedal addition or swap). For Ed's signal chain, our article on creating an Ed O’Brien Starter Pedalboard is a good place to start. But short answer: Jonny's Whammy is before both his SD1 and his Shredmaster, each o ..read more

This photo of Jonny playing a Fender dreadnought acoustic was taken by his son Tamir. To help publicize their upcoming Steve Reich Festival, The Hallé recently shared this photo of Jonny playing a Fender dreadnought acoustic guitar. Jonny will be playing Reich’s Electric Counterpoint on the third (and final) day of the festival. Back in November 2012, Jonny answered fan and celebrity questions in an article for Uncut magazine. Nicolas Gauna from Buenos Aires asked Jonny about his first guitar and the first song he learned, and this was Jonny’s reply: I bought a Fender acoustic for £40 from ..read more

Just get a used ProCo Rat (standard version) and focus in your playing. Jonny didn't use one, but there's a reason so many people think he did: with the filter knob set right, the Rat has a similarly focused tone to the Shredmaster in the mids and highs. The Shredmaster and Rat both use opamp hard-clipping followed by diode soft-clipping, so it's not a surprise they're similar (however, the Shredmaster has two stages of opamp clipping). The Rat lacks the post-clipping bass boost of the Shredmaster, but you can compensate for that with amp settings. Obviously, the Rat is less versatile than the ..read more

Here’s the first teaser for our new Pitch Magpie pedal, a pitch shifter that aims to capture the best of the weirdest pitch shifters from the 90s… Background For the past couple years, we’ve been trying to make a delay-based pitch shifter that sounds good. It hasn’t been easy. There’s a reason that most pitch shifters have switched to FFT-based algorithms: latency. There’s a reason the monophonic Whammy is more popular than the delay-based PS3. Usually, to make a delay-based shifter sound decent, you need to use long delay times, which creates some serious latency. That’s fine for organ ..read more