A
s I was getting to know the
new Boss ES-8 Effects
Switching System, NASA’s
New Horizons spacecraft was
getting to know Pluto. I’m sure you are
thinking “What does a spacecraft have to
do with an effects switcher?” The answer:
everything.
First, I happen to live just a few miles from
the Johns Hopkins University Applied
Physics Laboratory where the New
Horizons spacecraft was developed. And I
have a few friends and even a bandmate
that work there. So I had the mission on my
mind and my mind on the mission (so to
speak). Second, the weekend after the
New Horizons rendezvous with Pluto, a
certain Dr. Brian May (yes, the guitaristcum-astrophysicist with the wall of cranked
AC30s) visited the Applied Physics
Laboratory to talk about the New Horizons
Pluto mission. Immediately, my brain made
a connection between kick-ass guitar tones
and advanced aerospace technology. And it
reminded me just how lucky we as
guitarists are to benefit from technological
advances fostered through unrelated fields.
Sure, it’s tubes and transistors that put a
man on the moon and created all of the
great classic guitar tones. But it’s digital
technology and zeroes and ones that allows
a mission crew to communicate with a
spacecraft that is 2.66 billion miles from
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