everywhere to modify the Bigsby. I did
a record with Bill Nelson and played
the Gibson ES-345 that he used with
Bebop Deluxe. While the guitar was
old and had some tuning issues, the
spring had broken-in to the extent that
you could do dive bombs. A friend
referred to it as the hillbilly Floyd
Rose. You could even do extreme pullups without the spring falling out. I got
springs from everywhere from
motorcycle repair shops to home
improvement stores and finally found
one that wasn’t the right diameter but
worked great. I sent it to Joe and
asked if he could duplicate it and he
did. So that’s what Reverend is calling
the soft-touch spring. And now there’s
nothing you can do with a Strat or
Jazzmaster style tremolo that you
can’t do with that Bigsby.
PHILLIP: The Cure records always had
a lot of chorus and flange sounds.
What are you using for modulation?
REEVES: I’m using everything from an
old purple Boss Dimension C or D, to
an Alexander Effects Flanger. Those
guys were nice enough to come up to
me at NAMM and say “We’re huge
Cure fans and one of the reasons we
make a flanger is because of them.
Can I give you this?” He didn’t give me
a card or anything so I had to find him
through his website to thank him and
it really is the most amazing [F.13]
Flanger I’ve used. And then I’m also
using a TC Electronic Chorus, a
modded Line 6 DL4, and a TC
Electronics Flashback x4 and
sometimes the TC Electronic Alter Ego.
“WITH THE CURE, WE’RE
LOOKING AT 30 YEARS OF
MUSIC AND MAYBE 100
ACTIVE SONGS. ANY NIGHT,
WE COULD BE PULLING
SONGS FROM THROUGHOUT
THE BAND’S HISTORY SO MY
PEDALBOARD HAS TO GIVE
ME A BIG ENOUGH PALETTE
SO I CAN DO THAT.”
For amps, I’m primarily using Hiwatts
or in the trio a Hiwatt-based amp built
by a company called Reeves,
coincidentally enough. For my main
amp wth The Cure, I’m using two
Audio Kitchen custom heads. I’ve
always wanted a Class-A amp that
could get loud but stay clean and so
he built an all-Class-A amp based
around three KT88 tubes that are
rated (modestly) at 50 watts. And I’m
playing those through Hiwatt cabs
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