One of the most ubiquitous debates in the guitar world is whether digital effects can live up to the tonal quality and standard of analog pedals.
According to Phish's Trey Anastasio, the answer is simple: “There isn't a person on Earth – if I put you in a blindfold – who could hear the fucking difference between those two things,” he tells Cory Wong on the Wong Notes podcast.
As Anastasio explains, his opinion was formed after an extensive testing period.
“I was able to collect, over the years, a real vintage Uni-Vibe, a real vintage Mu-Tron, because I'm in a big, famous band, and I can afford it," he quips.
“Bob Bradshaw, inventor of the modern-day pedalboard, was the one who was like, ‘Hey, dude, you ever check out one of these [Line 6] M5s?’ ‘No.’ And he's like, ‘They're kind of cool.’ So I brought one home. This thing, it's 165 bucks. Line 6 does a good job [of] modeling every classic effect.
“I sat in my room for hours with my rack and with my Line 6 modeler, tweaking the knobs on the Line 6 with the actual Uni-Vibe,” he continues. “This was four or five years ago.
“My pedalboard now... I have two Line 6 M5s, one at the front and one at the back. And that's 90 percent of the effects that I use,” he reveals.
As for whether he'd ever opt for a slightly more complicated modeler, Anastasio is quick to reply, “I can't function with little, teeny windows and complicated things. The reason they're [the Line 6 M Series pedals] awesome is because they're for morons. They're really moronically simple.
“You can store 22 effects in them. Through that big sound system, I don't believe that anyone can hear the difference. That's what you're hearing. That's what I use.”
Speaking of hot takes, Anastasio recently revealed that, in an effort to push compositional boundaries, he's favoring writing his guitar parts on piano first.
