Ronnie Montrose: Gamma Pedalboard

In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine took up the daunting task of selecting the top 100 greatest guitarists of all-time. If you haven't already scanned the final list, here's a link to Rolling Stone's Top 100 Greatest Guitarists of All-Time article. At first glance, the list is quite comprehensive. The obvious 60s rockers made there way onto the list, including Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. Seventies alternative guitarists Ron Asheton, D. Boon, and Robert Fripp were included as well. Since the publication of the Rolling Stone article, discussions boards have popped up across the Internet drawing attention to the fact that many notable guitarists were omitted, including Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani and Lenny Breau. In our review of these discussions boards, we were surprised that one notable omission was not mentioned: Ronnie Montrose of Edgar Winter Group, Montrose and Gamma fame. His solo self-titled Montrose (1973) album and the instrumental album The Speed of Sound (1988) laid down some of the finest rock rhythms and guitar tones heard in the past 30 years. Check out the following live performance clips of Ronnie Montrose at his best: "Bad Motor Scooter" clip and "Space Station #5" clip. Montrose may not have made the Rolling Stone's Top 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time list, but he certainly deserves to make PedalNuts short list of guitarists with effects pedal set-ups. Be prepared to "Rock the Nation" with the Montrose's original rig (with some recent additions):

• Amp: Gallien-Krueger 200RG pre-amp;

• Cabinet: Harbinger Iso-Box - extremely rare cabinet designed with a built-in microphone;

• Rack-Mounted Effects:
• a Roland SDE-2000 Digital Delay;
• two Lexicon PCM-42 Digital Delays - one for each of the direct (clean) and distorted lines from the Gallien-Krueger pre-amp;
• two Lexicon Super Prime Time Model 97s - programmable digital delay processors, commonly used in studios for voice doubling; and
  
• a Urei 546 Dual Parametric Equalizer - four band equalizer having Low, Mid-Low, Mid-High and High control knobs.

• Pedal Effects and Controllers:
• a Maestro PS-1A Phase Shifter;
• a Fox Electronics (Fox Rox) Captain Coconuts pedal;
• a Goodrich L120 volume pedal;
• five Ernie Ball Mono pedals used to control the number of repeats from the Lexicon PCM-42 Digital Delays (much like the Expression Pedal used with the Line 6 DL-4 Delay Modeler) and to trigger delay settings programmed into the Lexicon Super Prime Time Model 97s.

Comments and corrections welcome.