Reba Meyers reveals how she crafts some of modern metal's most innovative tones in new in-depth pedalboard tour

If you heard Code Orange's seismic 2020 album Underneath, you're probably dying to discover how some of its guitar tones were achieved.

Well, today, you're in luck. In the latest episode of EarthQuaker Devices' Board To Death YouTube series, guitarist Reba Meyers walks us through her vast pedalboard, and explains how she went about creating some of the album's killer sonics.

Wielding her signature ESP LTD RM-600 electric guitar through an EVH 5150 III 100W EL34 amp, Meyers sets to work explaining both her touring pedalboard, and the 'board she uses for recording, writing and “messing around”.

Her touring 'board consists of an ISP Technologies Decimator [noise gate], Ibanez Tube Screamer [overdrive], AMT WH-1 Wah, Boss PS-6 Harmonist [pitch shifter and harmonizer] and Moog Minifooger MF Ring [ring modulator].

“I absolutely love [the AMT Wah],” she explains, “I use it on pretty much every lead that I can. I just love the expressiveness of it. When I think about pedals I think about how expressive they can be.“

On the MF Ring, Meyers says: “I have a lot of trouble finding pedals that can cut through the insane amount of shit going on in our band, [but] that cuts through... You don't even know where it's really coming from, it just sounds like a blast of noise.”

Meyers' second pedalboard consists of a selection of EarthQuaker pedals – a Sea Machine chorus, Afterneath reverb, Grand Orbiter phaser, Disaster Transport Sr delay and Astral Destiny octave/reverb – as well as an Abominable Hellmouth overdrive, Bananana Mandala glitch pedal and Z.Vex Sonar tremolo.

Finally, a third rig consists of a laptop running Ableton Live, which is used as a writing tool, employing Soundtoys EchoBoy, Crystallizer and Phase Mistress plugins.

“Pedals are similar to the lyrics in a song,” Meyers says. “If you hear someone's lyrics, you can interpret them in whatever way you hear them in your life, [even if] that isn't the way the creator intended them to be [heard]...

“I see pedals in a very similar way... Hopefully I'm using [these pedals] in a way that is personal.”