Jonny’s Latest Electric Counterpoint Setup

Jonny finger-picking during Reich’sElectric Counterpoint at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on May 16, 2026 (33kbps).

Last week, Jonny performed Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The concert also featured Jonny’s new Violin Concerto. Once again, he’s playing a sunburst Fender Telecaster. But although it displays a similar color to Jonny’s 90s favorites, the guitar differs in some significant ways. In fact, the guitar is quite new: it’s a Fender Player II Modified Telecaster!

This “Modified” variant of Fender’s Player II series was released only last year, and it’s primarily distinguished from the standard “Player II” due to the inclusion of Fender’s “Noiseless” pickups. The guitar is also set apart visually — both from the standard Player II and from the 1990s Plus — by its rosewood fingerboard and white Pearloid pickguard. The sticker on the upper horn is the produce label from a mango.

Jonny’s Telecaster is connected directly to a Boss FV50H volume pedal, which in turn connects to the vibrato channel of a Fender Twin Reverb amplifier. The “H” in the volume pedal’s name indicates that it’s the high impedance version, which provides a more consistent sweep when connected directly to a guitar’s output (the low impedance version is better suited for placement after buffers or with synths). That nothing is connected to the output of Jonny’s Petersen Strobostomp HD tuner, because it’s connected via the tuner output of the Boss FV50H.

Jonny’s setup for Electric Counterpoint at the Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on May 16, 2026 (anne.the.garbage.can).

When Jonny started performing Electric Counterpoint, he mentioned that he re-records the 12 backing guitar parts for each performance (he even once posted a Vine revealing the recording process). As at previous performances of the piece, the backing track is played back from Jonny’s laptop via an audio interface. In this case, it’s a Focusrite Scarlett Solo (Gen4). The interface connects to the concert hall’s sound system. Using an interface provides a balanced output, which is essential for avoiding noise when the signal is amplified to fill a hall.

There’s also an unused Strymon Brigadier delay pedal hidden underneath the amplifier. This is unusual, since Electric Counterpoint doesn’t require any effects (what many assume are loops or delays are in fact the aforementioned pre-recorded backing tracks). Perhaps Jonny was experimenting with the sound of delay in the hall during soundcheck, or perhaps he was testing it out as a source of ambience (in contrast to the more rhythmic delays he’s favored for the past decade).

Left: Jonny playing his new Fender Player II Modified Telecaster during the third movement “Fast” of Electric Counterpoint (karindeg). Note that he has the neck pickup selected.

Right: Jonny removing a headstock tuner from the guitar before the start of the piece (). Presumably he used it while warming up backstage (anne.the.garbage.can).

It’s worth looking a bit more into the new guitar. The instrument’s “Noiseless” pickups are designed by Fender to retain the sound of their traditional single coil pickups while mitigating the hum associated with them. In truth, they’re humbuckers, specifically an intentionally unbalanced form of stacked humbucker — the idea being that the upper coil reproduces the sound of the strings just like a regular single coil, while the lower coil is hidden and only attenuated the hum.

Tonally, the noiseless pickups are much brighter from the Lace Sensors in the Telecaster Plus V1 guitars that Jonny is known for. But spiritually, they’re quite similar. During the 90s, Lace Sensors were Fender’s hum-free option, offered on their modern-oriented guitars. It wasn’t until 1998 that Fender released their “noiseless” pickups, and stopped using Lace’s products (which is the reason modern pickups just say “Lace Sensor”, not “Fender Lace Sensor”). Then as now, Fender puts traditional single coil pickups in their vintage-inspired instruments. But the Telecaster Plus and Player II Modified are both guitars with features, like hum-free pickups, intended for modern players.

Jonny playing his American Professional II Tele during Electric Counterpoint at IRCAM on February 5, 2024. The amplifier is a Fender Tone Master Super Reverb (note the “Tone Master” medallion in the bottom right corner), a digital modeling amplifier with Jensen speakers (unknown).

In 2024, Jonny also used a recently released Fender Telecaster to perform Electric Counterpoint. That instrument was a Fender American Professional II Telecaster, and Jonny used it at the Hallé and at IRCAM. In terms of Fender’s lineup, the Professional II series is even more similar to the 1990s Plus series than the Player II series. It’s designed as the brand’s flagship modern Telecaster, with features like compensated saddles for better tuning, a push-pull switch for added tones, and 22 frets. It also sits in a similar place price-wise: pricier than the standard/player instruments, but cheaper than the more accurate vintage reissues and custom-shop editions. Of course, the Professional II’s vintage-voiced V-mod pickups definitely sound much brighter than the humbucker-voiced Lace Sensor Red and Blue pickups in a Plus V1. Clearly, Jonny is looking for those brighter tones, because he could just as easily have chosen an American Professional II Deluxe, which features Gibson-style humbuckers (for vintage-style Fender CuNiFe humbuckers, you’ll need to pay extra for the Vintage II Deluxe).

Hugh Brunt, who conducted the Violin Concerto, shared this after the concert (hugh.tieppo.brunt).

Hi

Thanks for the amazing, inspirational site. Please keep it up.

Any thoughts on why Jonny seems to have moved away from the EQD Pyramids flanger?

It’s an amazing pedal (apart from the huge current draw!).

Thanks again

Frazer

For live performance, Jonny tends to prefer pedals with simpler control layouts. If you look at his favorite phasor, tremolo, filter, freeze, and pitch pedals, they all have just two controls (I’m counting the Whammy’s treadle as a control). The Earthquaker Devices Ghost Echo that he used for the last Radiohead tour also fits this trend, providing a more streamlined alternative to the Boss RV-5 pedals he used on the band’s prior tour in 2018. Not only are these pedals faster to adjust between songs (or even by foot during songs), but they also lend themselves to Jonny’s style of stacking pedals to achieve distinctive sounds, rather than relying on all-in-one solutions.

Jonny’s pedalboard before the first show in London, on November 21, 2025 (thegigrig).

Jonny added the Pyramids to his setup during a time of peak pedal experimentation with The Smile. At that time, he tried other control-heavy pedals like the Strymon Timeline and EQD Organizer. Those were eventually replaced by more streamlined alternatives: the Boss DD-200 and Electro-Harmonix Pitchfork. He was also using new styles of pedals on his board. The flanger was one, but compressors, digital delays, and expression pedals were also new to his live boards. The Pyramids actually lasted a while, compared to the others he tried at first. It’s also worth noting that other pedals popped up in his setup during the 2023 recording sessions, but never made it onto his live board, such as the Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress and Eventide H9.

The peak of experimentation: Jonny’s pedalboard for The Smile’s show in Anthem DC on November 23, 2022 (facebook).

By 2024, Jonny had streamline his guitar setup a bit. The Smile had just put out two albums in the span of a year, and so it seems the focus was on performing that material, rather than finding gear to write new songs. In part, it seems he’d found the types of pedals that worked for the band’s recent albums, but his attentions were also being pulled towards synths and cello. That said, he kept switching out pedals to keep things interesting. For example, he frequently had different compressor pedals on his primary and backup pedalboards. The same was true for his flangers. The Moog flanger he used most recently is notable not just for being more streamlined than the Pyramids, but also fully analog (the Pyramids is digital, which enables it to create so many different styles of flanging).

Jonny’s backup board for The Smile’s show in Hamburg on June 8, 2024. His main board for the show was similar, but featured a Moog flanger instead of the Boss.

You may be wondering: why devote so much attention to the question of a musician swapping out one pedal for another? We often get questions like this, and this seemed an educational example to explore. Ultimately, it has little to do with how “amazing” a pedal might be. For touring musicians, gear might be chosen solely for live shows — not just for easier adjustment on stage, but also because some things sound better at huge volumes and in highly reverberant venues. Jonny has spoken at length about the differences between recording and live performance, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that his gear might reflect this, even in a band as performance-focused as The Smile. One should also remember Jonny’s comment that “guitars are like typewriters. It’s technology, it’s not something to be admired or worshipped. Like, oh, a washing machine or something. It does the job.“

Ranjha Updates and Backstory

Jonny (Gibson ES-125), Shye (Vocal, Tanpura), Aamir (trumpet), Nafees (Qawwali Vocal), and Ehtisham (Dholak) playing Shemesh.

We’ve now updated Jonny’s pages to include details from the recent Ranjha and Shemesh music videos. These include updates to his Ebony Frost Tele Plus, Gibson ES-125, Hofner 182, Ampeg PF-50T, Fender Precision, and more.

Both songs are singles from the album Ranjha, a new collaboration between Jonny, Shye Ben Tzur, and the Rajasthan Express. The title is likely a reference a classical Punjabi folk tragedy. The Rajasthan Express themselves are an expansive group. Aamir Bhiyani primarily plays trumpet in Jazz-influenced wedding bands and parades, and doubled on euphonium and other brass for Ranjha. Zakir Ali Qawwal, Nafees Khan Ajmeri, and Ehtisham Khan Ajmeri are all from the Qawwali tradition, a form of harmonium-driven Sufi Islamic devotional music (the three have also performed together outside of this project). Nathulal Solanki plays Nagara, a large kettle-style drum which he describes as “loud and mostly played in temples”. He comes from a Hindu tradition, and said “we are all one group together, Hindus and Muslims… we are so proud that people know our music. And we are so happy” (indiewire).

Qawwali singers Zakir and Nafees singing on Ranjha. Zakir also plays harmonium. Zakir sings into a Beyerdynamic M88, while Nafees appears to sing into a Shure SM58. The small diaphragm condenser on the Harmonium is harder to identify.

Zakir Ali Qawwal previously sang with his brother, Zaki Ali Qawwal. Sadly, Zaki passed away on November 13, 2021. According to Shye, “[w]hile we were rehearsing, after a meal and a cigarette he departed on to another journey.”

The videos were filmed at Jonny’s home studio in Oxfordshire, which can be seen as a successor to Radiohead’s shared “Butts Furlong” studio (which was sold and converted to a home). Some details inherited from the Radiohead studio include the wooden podiums used for the headphone mixers and the large blue acoustic panels. The Smile’s albums Wall of Eyes and Cutouts were partially recorded at the studio.

The filming most likely took place in April or May of 2022. That was after the Smile’s first live shows at London’s Magazine, but before their first full tour that summer. As such, the photos give added insight into the gear that was likely favored during the recording of The Smile’s albums as well. For example, Jonny didn’t perform with his 1960s Hofner 182 until 2024, but we now know he was recording with it two years prior.

The API 2488 mixing desk at Jonny’s Oxfordshire studio (not Nigel’s API 2488), with an array of Sam Petts-Davies’s polaroids of members of the Rajasthan Express. The monitors are ProAc Studio 100 speakers.

(Left) Another angle of the same scene — this one shared to Sam Petts-Davies’s Instagram account on May 3, 2022. Sam engineered and mixed the sessions, and co-produced the album with Jonny. Junun was one of Sam’s first engineering credits, so its cool to see he’s taken an even greater role in its sequel.

(Right) Aamir Bhiyani, trumpeter of the Rajasthan Express, posted this selfie in front of Jonny’s API 2488 to his Instagram on April 29, 2022. It was part of a series of posts promoting (as you might guess from the caption) a show in London. Presumably, he used the trip to the UK as an opportunity to perform as well.

Aamir gives a cue while playing trumpet on Ranjha. The mic is a very rare Melodium 42B ribbon microphone, made in 1940s France (the recent 42Bn reissue looks similar, but lacks the brass ring on the mic’s mount). Jonny’s Hammond M102 organ can be seen behind him.

A closeup of Zakir playing harmonium on Ranjha.

A closeup of Nathu lal playing a pair of Nagara drums on Ranjha. The microphone is a (likely vintage) Neumann U47.

A shot of Ehtisham Khan Ajmeri playing a Dholak drum on Ranjha. The mic on the left head of the drum looks to be a Neumann U47, while the vocal mic looks like a Beyerdynamic M88 (this one with a grey grill, rather than the black grill on the one used by Zakir). The large shape behind him on the left is the open case of Jonny’s Tanpura.

A photo of Thom reaching down to adjust the “Shift” knob on his Earthquaker Devices Hoof V2 fuzz (Greg Williams).

Last week, Greg Williams made a series of Instagram posts sharing photos from last November. The photos document Radiohead’s visit to Italy, with photos not only of their concert in Bologna but also the lead-up and aftermath. The photos were taken for a cover story in Williams’s magazine Hollywood Authentic.

Although the most surprising images are likely those taken backstage — such as Thom taking a nap post-yoga — the photos from soundcheck at the Unipol Arena provide some interesting gear details too. Though we’ve already covered most of this gear on our 2025 Tour Page, seeing things up close provide some new insights.

Thom’s Guitar Pedalboard

Though we’ve seen photos of Thom’s board on the recent tour (with all pedals listed here), it’s a rare treat to see individual settings!

Front and center is the Earthquaker Devices Hoof V2 fuzz. This pedal found its way onto Thom’s board during the Smile’s summer 2022 tour, and it stuck around for the rest of that band’s tours. Here, Thom is adjusting the Hoof’s “Shift” knob, which adjusts “mid content.” The Hoof is loosely based on the circuit of the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, a pedal known for its huge, mid-scooped sound. The Shift knob makes the circuit more versatile by making those mids adjustable.

Thom’s Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Nano reverb is blocked by his hand, but the settings on the Death By Audio Echo Dream 2 sitting beside it are clear. The Echo Dream 2 also made its way onto Thom’s board during the Smile era, and its chaotic sound is particularly associated with the single You Will Never Work In Television Again. Thom appears to have most of the knobs just shy of noon, giving a sound with equal amounts of fuzz and short, modulated delay.

The Strymon Timeline’s settings can be ignored, since they’re overridden by the currently selected preset, but it looks like that preset is titled “SLAPBACK” (a common term for a short echo with a single repeat). The Boss RE-20 Space Echo is set fairly atmospheric, but from the position of the mode switch it appears that the reverb is disabled (in spite of a label for the reverb level control).

The large, knobless pedal is actually used for Thom’s vocal microphone. It allows him to temporarily send the mic’s signal to a second signal path.

And perhaps the greatest mystery of all has been solved: the shape of the “STREAM/CENT” button and the extra text above it show that Thom is using a Boss TU-3 tuner, not a TU-2.

Jonny’s Modular Synths

As on Radiohead’s 2018 tour, Jonny brought two modular synthesizer racks. Each rack has the same set of modules made by Analogue Systems. On past tours, both racks were used for Idioteque, with one case serving as a backup for the other. On this tour, the rack on the left was configured differently for Sit Down. Stand Up. For more info on the modular, we have a full writeup (including modulargrid mockups) on Jonny’s page.

In the photo of Jonny’s modular, we can see the changes that Jonny made to his “drum machine” patch in order to play Sit Down. Stand Up. A notable difference is that he connected his sequencer’s TRIG 1 output directly to his RS-80 envelope generator to trigger a kick drum. This avoids the need for the RS-50 module, which he uses on Idioteque to convert the control voltages from the sequencer’s knob outputs into triggers of specified length.

We can also see that the TRIG 2 output is used to trigger Snare sounds, with a similar setup to Idioteque. And similarly, the TRIG 3 output (which outputs a trigger on every step) is connected to the clock divider. However, in contrast to Idioteque, the clock divider’s outputs are used to trigger hihats and beeping tones, rather than changing the pitch of the beeps. That’s because the beeps on Sit Down receive pitch CV from the top sequencer row, allowing Jonny to create more varied beeps and bloops.

Thom’s Nylon-String Guitar

Thom playing a classical guitar backstage. The exact instrument is unknown, but it’s different from the Taylor electro-acoustic classical that Thom used for the Smile’s performances in 2024. Perhaps this is the one used for the recording of The Smile’s Bodies Laughing (full analysis of that song here).

Colin’s Keyboards

A photo of Greg taking a photo of Thom with one of his Martin acoustics (Colin Greenwood via Greg Williams). In the foreground, we can see Colin’s two MIDI keyboards for the tour: a Roland PCR-500 (bottom) and an Arturia MiniLab 3 in black (top).

Jonnying playing the stolen Tele during Ful Stop in Madrid on November 4, 2025 (Javi Dieguez).

When it came time to play Ful Stop last Tuesday, Jonny swapped his Honda-stickered Telecaster for one with no stickers at all. Swapping guitars for the song wasn’t new, since it requires a unique two-string capo, plus Jonny generally wears his guitar higher for the tune. But during the A Moon Shaped Pool era, Jonny usually played his “Uchuu Ace” Tele (his other guitar with a prominent 60s anime sticker on the pickguard) for Ful Stop. But in Madrid, he played an instrument with a more complex backstory.

This time, it was Jonny’s Ebony Frost Telecaster Plus, played at a Radiohead gig for the first time in thirty years (plus a month and two days). The guitar, which you’ve doubtless heard on the recording of My Iron Lung, was put in a van after Radiohead’s gig on October 2, 1995. The next day, it was stolen in Denver along with the rest of the band’s gear. Although we call the guitar his old “backup”, it was consistently used during the Bends era. He played it for nearly half the songs on the band’s famous Astoria gig.

Jonny playing the Ebony Frost Tele during Vegetable at the Astoria on May 27, 1994. Note the wear to the guitar’s upper horn.

After the theft, there was no sign of the guitar for almost 20 years. Then, in 2014, someone was browsing this very site and recognized the guitar as one they’d purchased in Denver during the 1990s. After we directed them to Radiohead’s guitar tech Plank, Jonny was reunited with the instrument.

Soon after, Jonny broke out the guitar for a couple of solo shows in Oxford and Geneva in February, 2015. But since then, it’s disappeared from view as Jonny’s love for Les Paul guitars deepened during his solo work on Junun and The Smile. This tour is the first time that Jonny’s playing it with Radiohead, once again using it as a “backup” for his main Tele.

Jonny playing the Ebony Frost Tele during the fourth Madrid show on November 8, 2025 (raphph).

From Everything In Its Right Place: Jonny sampling Thom’s voice with the Korg Kaoss Pad, Thom playing chords on the Rhodes (romeocrank).

Despite the fact that Nigel shared some incontrovertible evidence of Thom playing a vintage Prophet 5 on the recording of Everything In Its Right Place, it’s a common misconception that Thom played it on a Rhodes electric piano. But you can’t completely blame people for thinking it was the Rhodes, because Thom did perform the song on the vintage electric piano at Radiohead shows from 2001 to 2012.

However, for Radiohead’s shows from 2016-2018, the band switched to a new arrangement. Thom played the band’s Prophet ‘08 synthesizer, and the song’s outro was extended with a dance-y new bass-line from Colin.

This year, the band is back to the old arrangement! You can get a great view of Thom playing the Rhodes in this video. Perhaps Thom got all of his synth energies out in the past year, between his solo Everything tour and the release of his collaborative album Tall Tales with Mark Pritchard.

Ondomo on Present Tense

A small but notable update to the arrangement of Present Tense: Jonny now briefly switches from guitar to ondes Martenot. He plays it during the third verse, when Thom sings “I won’t turn around or the penny drops”. He switches back to tremolo picking on his Tele just before Thom returns to the refrain “in you I’m lost”.

Jonny taking a break from guitar during Present Tense to play some Ondomo (radioheadcommunity). Though the Ondomo is blocked by the Rhodes piano, we can see it on the screen above.

We plan to have dedicated posts on specific bits of gear throughout the tour. But we thought it’d be useful to have a list of everything in one place. You can find it here.

A photo of Jonny’s backup pedalboard in its flight case, from during the June 2024 tour.

Radiohead’s first tour in seven years begins today! We’ve already covered both Ed’s and Colin’s new boards for the upcoming tour (and we’ll have more info as the tour carries on). But we haven’t yet seen Jonny’s board, so we figured now would be a good time to share his most recent The Smile board. It’ll be interesting to see if his Radiohead board will be influenced by the pedals he tried with his newer band.

For The Smile’s initial shows, Jonny used the smaller of the two flight case style pedalboards that he’d previously used with Radiohead. However, for the fall 2022 tour, Thom and Jonny had matching custom wooden boards made for each of them. The boards are painted black, and feature risers for the back row of pedals.

Jonny had two of these custom boards for his guitar setup. They were kept nearly identical, allowing the crew to swap out the entire board if there was any issue. This was a lot easier than trying to troubleshoot the pedals and connections one-by-one as the entire audience waits, as they’d done in the past. However, there were always some small differences between the boards. Most often, it was a difference of a compressor, such as an MXR Dyna Comp on one board and a Telenordia Kompressor on the other.

Jonny also had separate, smaller boards for his bass guitar and cello. And that doesn’t include the Studiologic MP-117 MIDI pedals that he used to control various synths (initially an Oberheim SEM Pro module, later a Sequential Prophet 5 too), or the Blackstar Live Logic MIDI controllers used to trigger a Max patch that recorded and play back samples of Thom’s voice on A Hairdryer. Needless to say, there was a lot going on on the floor at those shows!

Jonny during The Smile’s show at Eventim Apollo on March 10, 2024 (Arend Kuester). Note that Jonny is already using the Moog Minifooger MF Flange pedal here. Also note the labelled outputs.

Main Signal Flow

Guitar ->

• Peterson StroboStomp HD tuner
• Origin Effects Cali76 Compact Deluxe
• Electro-Harmonix Pitchfork pitch shifter
• Earthquaker Devices Hizumitas fuzz
• Moog Minifooger MF Flange (Backup: Boss BF-3 flanger)
• Earthquaker Devices Astral Destiny reverb
• Gamechanger Audio Plus sound sustainer
• Earthquaker Devices Blumes overdrive
• Boss DD-200 delay
• Boss RE-202 Space Echo delay/reverb
• Lehle P-Split III signal splitter

-> Fender ‘65 Reissue Super Reverb amplifier

Lehle Iso output -> 

• Strymon Iridium amp modeler
• Radial Engineering JDI Stereo direct box

-> FOH Mixer

All pedals are powered by a Strymon Zuma (top right) and Ojai (under the Astral Destiny).

The Nitty Gritty

The ToadWorks True-Bypass is used as a send/return for Jonny’s laptop audio interface (a Focusrite Clarett+ 8pre). This allows Jonny to process his signal with custom Cycling ‘74 Max/MSP patches running on his laptop. During the tour, he also used the his Max patches to process the sound of Thom’s vocal and of Robert Stillman’s clarinet and saxophone.

On early The Smile tours, as on Radiohead tours, Jonny brought a second amplifier as a backup. However, when he switched to the new custom pedalboards, he also started to use a Strymon Iridium as a backup amplifier. Presumably he’s using the Iridium’s “round” mode, a Fender Deluxe Reverb emulation, to capture the sound of his Fender '63 Reissue Super Reverb. To avoid ground loops and other issues, the Iridium is fed from the isolated output on a Lehle P-Split III.

Jonny generally has a direct box before his amp, which sends a copy of his signal to the FOH mixer. This functions both as a backup and as a way to get more mixing options. However, in this case the the Radial JDI Stereo is used to send both the left and right outputs of his Strymon Iridium to the mixer (note the “left” and “right” labels on his board in the Eventim Apollo photo).

In this shot of Jonny’s main board at a show in Prague’s Forum Karlin, we can just make out the Moog MF Flange pedal.

Radiohead’s upcoming tour is fast approaching, and preparations are well under way! Last week, Daniel Steinhardt from TheGigRig shared details of Colin’s new pedalboard! The board features all the classics, plus several cool additions! (Is that too many exclamation marks? It’s hard not to use them with all this exciting news!)

Read our full analysis with details and history on each pedal, or skip to the end for a list of everything…

Colin’s latest pedalboard! Photo shared by Daniel Steinhardton Sep 19.

Last month, we made a full analysis of Ed’s board for the upcoming tour. That board was shared on the main TheGigRig account, but Colin’s board was posted on Dan’s personal Instagram account. Dan seems to have really enjoyed building a board for Colin, saying:

“Amidst all the stress of running a business, looking after staff, planning, designing, imagineering, and the day to day grind, I do need to remind myself, I get to do some really cool stuff. Building this board has been so much fun and such an honour 🤓🙏”

Returning Giants

The mainstays of Colin’s pedalboard are back! Most prominent is the bright orange Lovetone Big Cheese. Acquired in circa-1999, it’s responsible for the fuzzy tone on live versions of The National Anthem, Packt like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box, and Myxomatosis. Partly hidden beneath the Cheese is Colin’s other fuzz pedal: the Shin-ei FY-2 he acquired in the mid-1990s. Colin uses its huge, scooped sound sparingly, saving it for a gut-punch at the end of Exit Music (for a film). Both fuzz pedals were part of Colin’s setup before he even had a pedalboard. Instead, they sat on top of his rack setup.

At the fore of the board is Colin’s SansAmp Programmable Bass Driver DI. He’s used the Sansamp since circa-2005, when he abandoned rack preamps and Gallien-Krueger heads in favor of Ampeg SVT heads. Colin uses the SansAmp for an overdriven tone on live performances of Ful Stop, and probably a few others too.

A big-box Electro-Harmonix Micro Synth appeared in a couple Radiohead gear photos over the years. It eventually landed on Colin’s touring pedalboard for the A Moon Shaped Pool era. This time, he’s using the more recent Electro-Harmonix Bass Micro Synth XO, which is a lot more micro than the original!

The Boss TU2 tuner is certainly less dramatic than the other returning favorites, but it makes up for that in its huge reputation as a standard on touring pedalboards. The paler orange color and the circular LEDs on the display show that it is indeed a TU2, not the more recent TU3. Colin has used a Boss tuner pedal since circa-2005, when he abandoned his massive Korg ToneWorks rack tuner.

A closeup of the SansAmp. Note the “FULSTOP” label under the LED for the SansAmp’s preset #1. Since the pedal uses presets, the knob positions can be ignored.

New Kids

Probably the most interesting new pedal on Colin’s board is an Origin Effects Bassrig ‘64. The Bassrig is an amp-in-a-box, replicating the circuit of vintage Fenders using transistors instead of tubes. It blends those with some bass-oriented features, like filters for the main output and a a dry blend control. It covers a lot of ground with Colin’s SansAmp, but perhaps the pedals cover different. Colin has the black panel version of the Bassrig, which is internally identical to the regular silver version.

The Origin Effects Cali76 Bass isn’t too much of a surprise—even Colin’s Boss-loving brother is using one of the boutique compressors on his The Smile board! And it makes sense: the Cali76 is based on the vintage UREI 1176 rack compressor that Nigel’s used countless times on Radiohead recordings. Colin’s Cali76 replaces the Diamond Compressor that he used during the A Moon Shaped Pool era. It’s a funny contrast with Ed, who went back to a Diamond after using a Cali76 on his Earth touring board. Like the Bassrig, Colin has the black panel version, which is internally identical to the regular silver version.

The Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor might seem pretty innocuous, but it’s an a pretty interesting addition! Not only is it the first time Colin’s had a noise gate on his pedalboard, it’s the first time any member of Radiohead has had one! In the past, a noise gate was doubtless applied to Colin’s mic’d and DI signals at the FOH mixer. However, using a pedal reduces the noise at the source, meaning there’s less need to process all of the later signals as heavily. Removing the noise before Colin’s amp also means that there’s less noise on stage. However, it’s also possible that the NS-2 is only being used in combination with one particularly noisy pedal, perhaps the Shin-ei fuzz.

A closeup of Colin’s board, from a video shared by Dan, highlighting the QMX-2 switcher. Note patchbay on the right edge of the board.

True Bypass Switchers

Another new addition for Colin are true bypass loops. These keep the extra cables for each pedal out of the signal chain when not needed. They also just make it easier to turn pedals on and off. Each pedal gets a dedicated footswitch, in contrast to the controllers used by Ed (where each footswitch can be programmed to switch multiple loops simultaneously).

Colin is using a pair of TheGigRig’s Quartermaster bypass switchers. The one at the front of the board is a four-channel Quartermaster QMX-4. The smaller one, hidden under the riser, is a two-channel Quartermaster QMX-2.

A closeup of Colin’s board, from a video shared by Dan, highlighting the QMX-4 switcher. Note the individual labels for each effect.

More about the Board

All pedals are powered by a TheGigRig GENX14 DC power supply, which is mounted to the underside of the riser to keep it out of the way!

In a reply to his post, Dan also stated that the board itself is one of TheGigRig’s Large Single Tier boards.

Although most of the details of the board were shared on Dan’s personal page, one photo was stealthily shared on the main account too. The post only talks about the customizable rear panels on TheGigRig’s boards, but Colin’s Lovetone Meatball and the knobs of his Shin-ei Fuzz make it clear that this could be no one else’s board!

A photo of the back of Colin’s board, shared to the TheGigRig page on Sep 22. None of the pedals have a power cable connected, so this photo must’ve been taken partway through the build.

You might’ve noticed a stray, unplugged XLR cable in the other photos. It goes to the XLR connector on the back of the board. It’s a little surprising that the cable isn’t connected to the SansAmp, given how close together they are. But there’s also a couple of unplugged ¼" cables too. Perhaps the Radiohead crew are planning to stick a DI box in there?

The cables are all custom made for the build, each kept as short as possible. The right angle ¼" connectors are Eminence x TheGigRig Tiny Plugs. The straight ¼" connectors are Squareplug SPS connectors in black.

With the riser lifted up, we can see the GENX14 velcro’d to its underside (in the upper left corner of this image).

Pedal chain:

• TheGigRig Patchbay
• Boss TU2
• Origin Effects Cali76 (QMX-4 #1)
• Lovetone Big Cheese (QMX-4 #2)
• Shin-ei FY-2 (QMX-4 #3)
• Electro-Harmonix Bass Micro Synth (QMX-4 #4)
• Boss NS-2
• SansAmp Programmable Bass Driver DI (QMX-2 #2)
• Origin Effects Bassrig '64 (QMX-2 #2)
• TheGigRig Patchbay