Fennesz "The Master Distortion"
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:29 am
Ok so Fennesz has this really great distortion/fuzz box that some German guy made for him. I found out about it via this thread on the gearpage.
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showth ... p?t=829228
He talks about it in this article form tiny mix tapes.
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/christian-fennesz
When we were talking a moment ago about the pedals you use, I wanted to bring up the Siemens Telefunken box that you've been using.
You mean the distortion box? The custom made box? That's a very weird story actually! A couple of years ago... no, it must have been five or six years ago already, a guy from Germany drove down to Austria and came by our studio. I didn't know him and he introduced himself and said he had been building this box for me. I was really surprised, so I checked it out and it just sounded amazing. He called it the Master Distortion. It's really incredible. I think he built three or four of them; one for John McEntire (of Tortoise/Sea and Cake/Gastr Del Sol), one for Kraftwerk, and one for me. So I was really lucky to get that thing. It came completely out of nowhere, and it was completely unexpected. I've been using it ever since, and it's a fantastic box. It is built from old Siemens Telefunken transistors from the '60s and '70s.
What exactly does it do? Does it just randomize the kind of distortion produced?
It does. It does things that are completely unexpected sometimes. It's really weird and kind of hard to describe. Sometimes the effect is very small. For example, the track on Venice with David Sylvian (“Transit”) has this kind of broken guitar sound that came from this distortion box.
I was reading that you had some trouble transporting it when you were touring, so I take it you no longer use it when you play live?
That's changed now, because I've had someone build a smaller, lighter box that is transportable. I think I'll take this one on the road. The larger version looked like a bomb. I had so much trouble with airport security. It was so heavy; it was this iron box that was about 15 kilos or so. It was impossible to transport. Now it's smaller, so I can actually tour with it again.
I am wondering if any builders would find it interesting to try to come up with a pedal that could come close to replicating the sound of this thing. I am sure a schematic would be very hard to come by if possible to get at all but I wonder if listening to some Fennesz tracks where he uses it could give an idea of what sort of circuitry might allow similar sounds.
Fennesz w/ David Sylvain.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XYZsLwZruE[/youtube]
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showth ... p?t=829228
He talks about it in this article form tiny mix tapes.
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/christian-fennesz
When we were talking a moment ago about the pedals you use, I wanted to bring up the Siemens Telefunken box that you've been using.
You mean the distortion box? The custom made box? That's a very weird story actually! A couple of years ago... no, it must have been five or six years ago already, a guy from Germany drove down to Austria and came by our studio. I didn't know him and he introduced himself and said he had been building this box for me. I was really surprised, so I checked it out and it just sounded amazing. He called it the Master Distortion. It's really incredible. I think he built three or four of them; one for John McEntire (of Tortoise/Sea and Cake/Gastr Del Sol), one for Kraftwerk, and one for me. So I was really lucky to get that thing. It came completely out of nowhere, and it was completely unexpected. I've been using it ever since, and it's a fantastic box. It is built from old Siemens Telefunken transistors from the '60s and '70s.
What exactly does it do? Does it just randomize the kind of distortion produced?
It does. It does things that are completely unexpected sometimes. It's really weird and kind of hard to describe. Sometimes the effect is very small. For example, the track on Venice with David Sylvian (“Transit”) has this kind of broken guitar sound that came from this distortion box.
I was reading that you had some trouble transporting it when you were touring, so I take it you no longer use it when you play live?
That's changed now, because I've had someone build a smaller, lighter box that is transportable. I think I'll take this one on the road. The larger version looked like a bomb. I had so much trouble with airport security. It was so heavy; it was this iron box that was about 15 kilos or so. It was impossible to transport. Now it's smaller, so I can actually tour with it again.
I am wondering if any builders would find it interesting to try to come up with a pedal that could come close to replicating the sound of this thing. I am sure a schematic would be very hard to come by if possible to get at all but I wonder if listening to some Fennesz tracks where he uses it could give an idea of what sort of circuitry might allow similar sounds.
Fennesz w/ David Sylvain.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XYZsLwZruE[/youtube]
He used a df-2 a lot before. But you're not going to gett anything close without lloopp or something similair....