A deep-dive into the amps, pedals, and guitars that birthed Rett Smith’s upcoming album ‘A Weighted Remorse’.
As we’ve seen from his recent string of singles, Rett Smith is somewhat of a musical chameleon.
The Austin-based musician’s most recent single ‘Sunsets’ dips into both moody shoegaze and bluesy undertones, while its predecessor ‘7 Train’ is an all-out, shred-heavy rock anthem. For its part, ‘Cabin Song’ is a noirish slice of Americana featuring Jessica Lea Mayfield.
The versatility of these singles will no-doubt inform the broader tracklist of ‘A Weighted Remorse’, Smith’s upcoming album set for release in September.
Bringing such a diverse and rich sonic palette to life requires its fair share of tools, so we caught up with Smith for a rundown of the instruments and go-to gear used during the creation of ‘A Weighted Remorse’.
Catch Rett Smith’s full gear rundown below, and scroll down to listen to his latest single ‘Sunsets’.
When I began recording my upcoming record, ‘A Weighted Remorse’, I had a clear guitar sound in my head that I wanted to pursue.
I wanted an extremely clear signal path with vintage, high-quality gear that was completely analog without any tricks or modernity to hide behind.
Through Covid, I was able to trade gear relentlessly and with the help of some friends of friends and quite a bit of luck, I secured what I believe is a pretty epic rig for this record.
For the electric, I was using one of three guitars: I have an amazing vintage Gibson Les Paul Sunburst, a custom shop Black Guard Telecaster and a newer Gretsch White Falcon that’s fully hollow.
The Gibson and Fender both have Ron Ellis pickups in them (check him out if you haven’t already; they are incredible pickups) and the Gretsch has the T.V. Jones filtertrons that are original to the guitar.
Next in the signal path after the guitars, was a vintage “Fuzz Face” Replica made at Dominion Electric Effects in Canada by an amazing builder named Aaron.
He uses only the best NOS components, but it’s his fine tuning of the circuits by ear that really separates his build from others.
The next effect used was an Orion Spring Reverb pedal by Spaceman Effects. This pedal has an actual analog spring reverb built into the enclosure.
I have no idea how they pulled this off, but they are clearly an amazing company always pushing boundaries. Now for the amps, which for me are the holy grails of what I could ever want.
For the record I ran 2 amplifiers simultaneously, duel mono. The first amp being an original year 1967 Marshall JTM50 “Blackflag” Plexi into an original 1968 Marshall 8×10 basketweave speaker cabinet.
The amp was essentially dimed with the bass control all the way off. The 2 nd amp is an original Matchless SC-30 from 1992.
This amp is like an old Vox on steroids and has been a not-so-secret weapon on Nashville sessions since it came out. This particular amp is one of the first ever made, but I have a great relationship with Matchless and love their recent builds as well.
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I hope y’all enjoyed this little rundown of what I used for “A Weighted Remorse” and look forward to seeing y’all out at a show!
