This Week’s Favorite: GIRAFFES? GIRAFFES! featuring Flint, Deco, DIG, and El Capistan

GIRAFFES? GIRAFFES! consists of two very talented members, Joseph Andreoli and Kenneth Topham. Their music engages the listener to be a part of the piece. Their newest album, Memory Lame, features Flint, Deco, El Capistan, and DIG. So we were very excited when Joseph Andreoli agreed to share some of his settings. I’ll let Joseph take it away now:

GIRAFFES? GIRAFFES! is a heavy-pedal band haha! We’re only a guitar/drums duo, so I use a lot of effects and loop pedals to grow our small sound into a weird little orchestra. Our new album Memory Lame has a lot of sections and transitions, and different sounds pop up quite quickly. I’ll try to catch and identify some of my favorite Strymon sounds in our song Hug Of Death.

Gear Used:
Fender American Vintage 1962 Jazzmaster
Guild Newark St. S-100
Digitech Ricochet (x2)
Digitech Whammy V
Boss BD-2W Blues Driver
Fulltone OCD
Eventide ModFactor
Eventide TimeFactor
Montreal Assembly Count To Five
Strymon Deco
Strymon DIG
Strymon El Capistan
Strymon Flint
Boss RC-300
Orange AD-140
Orange OR-120

I pretty much always have the Strymon Flint on. I have to make sure the guitar sounds full and the Flint helps give body to my tone. Though I use the ‘80s setting quite a bit, I like the ‘70s setting the best. My “always on” reverb settings look like this:

On the bouncing guitar line at 1:53, I bumped up the Decay and Mix to give it a dreamier feel. (I often use the MiniSwitch live to toggle between settings):

That part gets looped. Then a simple lead on top blooms into a new section at 2:13. The drums drop out and the El Capistan guitar comes in (Tape Head Multi / Mode A). It’s so hard to pick a favorite pedal, but if I had to, the El Cap would be in the running for sure:

After this section, the song deconstructs at 3:29 and I experiment with some of the other El Capistan settings. I overdubbed a few different takes here: I play the progression while occasionally holding down the Tap Footswitch for infinite repeats, I use Sound On Sound (Tape Head Single / Mode C) to create a drifting pad, and I manipulate the Time and Repeats knobs to drive it into oscillation and pull it back from the chaos.

A fun combination is the melody line that comes in at 5:26. I’m using the Strymon Deco into the DIG. I’ve got the Saturation on the Deco about halfway, the Doubletracker in Flange territory, and the DIG giving a little slapblack delay . It has a cool boxy sound that sits well in the mix with the other loops.

As you can see and hear, I’m a bit of Strymon nerd. And while I like wild and crazy sounding pedals, I like Strymon for the opposite reason. I love how organic and rich they sound, and the aesthetic of their function and design. My pedalboard is always changing, but it will always have Strymon on it.

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