Nick McCabe: Pedalboards With Verve

The Verve are a difficult band to pigeon-hole. The band's first album, A Storm in Heaven, features a wide variety of guitar tones ranging from the ethereal and feedback sounds heard on "Star Sail" and "Already There", to the overdriven rhythm tones on "Slide Away". While the later Urban Hymns album featured McCabe's signature delay-laden tones, the vast majority of the songs on this album are centered around orchestral arrangements and McCabe's acoustic tones. A self-confessed PedalNut, the only consistent aspect of McCabe's playing on the A Storm in Heaven, A Northern Soul and Urban Hymns albums is his willingness to explore the sonic capabilities of his effects, amplifiers and guitars. As a result, we thought it would be helpful to provide you with an album-by-album summary of the equipment used by McCabe on The Verves classic albums.

1. A Storm In Heaven:

• Pedalboard:
  
• a Boss OD-2 Turbo Overdrive pedal;
• an MXR Phase 100 pedal.

• Rack-mounted effects:
• a Watkins Copicat Echo Unit;
• a Roland RE-201 Space Echo Unit;
• an Alesis QuadraVerb+;
• a Roland GP-8 Guitar Effects Processor;
• a Roland GS-6 Guitar System; and
• an Eventide H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer - used during the recording of the A Storm in Heaven album.

• Amplifiers:
• a Mesa/Boogie Mark III combo amplifier; and
• a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus amplifier.

2. A Northern Soul:

• Pedalboard:
• a Boss OD-2 Turbo Overdrive pedal - often replaced with the Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive pedal; and
• an MXR Phase 100 pedal.

• Rack-mounted effects:
• a Watkins Copicat Echo Unit;
• a Roland RE-201 Space Echo Unit;
• an Alesis QuadraVerb+;
• a Roland GP-8 Guitar Effects Processor; and
• a Roland GS-6 Guitar System unit.

• Amplifiers:
• a Marshall JCM 800 100W Head;
• a pair of Marshall 4X12 Speaker Cabinets; and
• a vintage Vox AC30 2X12 amplifier.

3. Urban Hymns:

• Pedalboard:
• a Boss OD-2 Turbo Overdrive pedal;
• a Marshall Drive Master pedal;
• a MXR Phase 100 pedal;
• a Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer pedal;
• a Jim Dunlop Wah-Wah pedal - used on the song "Weeping Willow"; and
• a Boss FV-300L volume pedal.

• Rack-mounted effects:
• a Watkins Copicat Echo Unit;
• a Roland RE-201 Space Echo Unit;
• a Lexicon JamMan sampling and looping unit;
• an Alesis QuadraVerb+;
• a Roland GP-8 Guitar Effects Processor; and
• a Roland GS-6 Guitar System.

• Amplifiers:
• a Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier Head;
• a Marshall 4X12 Speaker Cabinet; and
• a vintage Vox AC100 Super Deluxe amplifier.

Comments and corrections welcome.