Sound the A-lister pedalboard klaxon. Noel Gallagher has shared details of his touring rig for Oasis’s long-awaited reunion shows, and in the parlance of our times, it is biblical.
Gallagher’s ’board features some stompboxes any of us might own. Heck, hands up who’s got a TC Electronic Polytune 3 guitar tuner. There’s a Keeley Electronics Compressor, aka, the industry standard, and a Dunlop Cry Baby Mini wah pedal.
Okay, there’s a strip of masking tape across this Boss digital delay pedal but that looks like the high-functioning but readily available DD-7, and it is good to see the hard-working Boss RV-3 Digital Reverb Delay in a top pro’s signal chain, too.
But Gallagher has sold some records, and a whole bunch of concert tickets; he's flush at the moment. So of course there are some museum pieces here, too. Pedals that you can’t buy anymore. Like the BSM Finest Treble Booster Model OR 2004. David Gilmour fans might recognize this one. It is based on the Orange Treble & Bass booster that he used with Pink Floyd back in the day. It’s a connoisseur’s pick.
Sadly, the mastermind behind BSM pedals, Bernd C. Meiser, died last year, and the company has since closed.
There are some other high-end units. Gallagher could pare this setup down to just his Strymon TimeLine multi-delay, Strymon El Capistan tape echo pedal, the Empress Echo System and the reverb, he’d have the makings of a seaworthy worship guitar rig. That would be biblical.
But the pedal we’d kick a hole in a stained glass window for is the SIB Echodrive. The big yellow tape reads 117V, and that is because this thing isn’t working off his pedalboard power supply; it’s a tube-driven, powered by the mains, echo/delay that changes hands for ridiculous money and sounds incredible [just listen to it below].
Designed by Rick Hamel, it has a 12AX7 preamp tube in the circuit, a heap of controls, a tone of mojo, and you’ll have to part with a grand – easy – if you find one second hand. Reverb recently did a segment on it, ‘Is this the best delay pedal? There was a lot of evidence in the affirmative.
Gallagher, however, is said to use it for its preamp mojo – that's one very expensive tone-sweetener, if true, but then given the amount of money (and time) we put into tone seeking, maybe it works out in the long run.
Okay, what else is here? Gallagher likes his boosts and tastefully structured gain stages (and the custom switching system to keep all of this in order). There is a Kingsley Amplifiers Page boost pedal, another stompbox driven by a 12AX7 tube. Another mainstay of Gallagher’s live sound is his Pete Cornish Soft Sustain 2 – he has been leaning into his guitar solos for these shows, and this drive pedal will give them serious oomph. Again, nothing too high-gain.
He also has a trio of ZVEX Lo-Fi Loop Junkies, which judging by the masking tape across them are pinch-hitters, each set up for Champagne Supernova, Rock and Roll Star and Do You Know What I Mean. And that completes a serious board.
His backline comprises four tube amp combos, with a pair of Marshall JTM45s, and a pair of Hiwatt Custom 50s. That's a pretty good time right there.
Noel Gallagher's guitar rig isn't the only thing that has caught our attention this early on in the Oasis reunion – he's also re-embracing his role as a lead guitar player.
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