Ash Grunwald

"Have to bring my old Gibson 137 out of the woodwork for the Hammer tour!!!"

“I mainly use the V Drums for stage,” he says, “but I am almost thinking right now of going back to an old approach, where I would play like I would live in the studio and use that for the basis of my song ideas. In that case, I think I would use my proper live set up. At various times I have use the V Drums a lot over the years. At the moment I am using the Roland MIDI converter (TMC-6), so it doesn’t have to brain with the drum sounds. It converts your hits on the drums to MIDI, then I trigger them from Ableton Live on the computer. It’s pretty fun!”

“I have two set ups basically at the moment. I have a kick drum with the Roland kick pad, the one with the mesh on it (KD-9), it has a really cool action. Ultimately I like to use a proper kick drum and blend the sounds."

"I just use the Roland kick trigger (KD-7). Then I also have a separate kick set up. It’s like a kick drum but the beater is bent downwards and the pad is on the floor. It doesn’t stand up like a kick pad. I use that for a “Dooo” kind of sound. Then I have a kick trigger on my cajon, which I use to get my snare sound. Sometimes when I can’t travel with my cajon, I just use another Roland kick trigger to get a snare kind of sound. So you’re getting the kick and snare with that added low bass, that 808 “Dooo” sound.”

In this photo, which comes from Grunwald's 2017 performance in Northcote Social Club, Grunwald's pedalboard is seen. One of the pedals is the T-Rex FuelTank Power Supply.

In this photo, which comes from Grunwald's 2017 performance in Northcote Social Club, Grunwald's pedalboard is seen. One of the pedals is the Boss TR-2 Tremolo pedal.

In this photo, which comes from Grunwald's 2017 performance in Northcote Social Club, Grunwald's pedalboard is seen. One of the pedals is the Way Huge Swollen Pickle Jumbo Fuzz pedal.

In this photo, which comes from Grunwald's 2017 performance in Northcote Social Club, Grunwald's pedalboard is seen. One of the pedals is the Boss OC-3 Super Octave pedal.

“I use a Boss phrase looper. It looks pretty much like a normal guitar pedal except it has two pedals, one for record and one to stop. I can layer as many overdubs as I want down. The only tricky bit is that if you stuff up you have to start again because you can’t take a layer away!”

“I started on the OC2 and I know Chris Cheney uses that too. What I really love about the OC3 is that you can choose which strings it is going to be on. That’s amazing! For the majority of the gig I will have it on my low E and A but then I will flick it to a different setting which puts it on all strings like the OC2 used to be."

"Another pedal Ash enjoys experimenting with, and not just for guitar, is the Boss RE-20, which replicates the sounds of the old Space Echo. “I’ve had different set ups at different times but I used to have my distorted vocal running through it,” he explains of the RE-20. “With the tap tempo you could change the way the Space Echo works. Sometimes I’d have it on guitar and vocal and sometimes just vocals. I’ve got this other pedal I have played with too, the Slicer, the Boss SL-20. That’s a weird thing. I got some good sounds out of it, some good weird things but I’m going to have to revisit it as a songwriting tool. But that Space Echo is a classic to me.”

Another pedal Ash enjoys experimenting with, and not just for guitar, is the Boss RE-20, which replicates the sounds of the old Space Echo. “I’ve had different set-ups at different times but I used to have my distorted vocal running through it,” he explains of the RE-20. “With the tap tempo, you could change the way the Space Echo works. Sometimes I’d have it on guitar and vocal and sometimes just vocals. I’ve got this other pedal I have played with too, the Slicer, the Boss SL-20. That’s a weird thing. I got some good sounds out of it, some good weird things but I’m going to have to revisit it as a songwriting tool. But that Space Echo is a classic to me.”