Nick McCabe

McCabe's search for new sounds saw him go through a dizzying array of effects for the recording of A Storm In Heaven. "I love buying gadgets, and I go through loads of different setups, so what I use changes constantly," he confessed. "For guitars, my standard Strat is the one I really like, and I also have a Gibson ES-335 for a lot of the feedback stuff. I've got a Jazzmaster which I bought mainly 'cos I liked the shape....and then I found out how shit it was. It was TomVerlaine's fault, as usual." "My main Marshall packed in and started to sound horrible just before we recorded the album so I got hold of a Mesa /Boogie (MkIII) combo. For effects I started off with a Watkins Copicat and I used to have one of those old Roland Space Echoes, but at the moment I 've got a Roland GP-8 that I picked up second-hand. It's pretty reliable, it does the job. But in the studio, it's just a case of using anything I can get my hands on - a GS-6, a Roland Jazz Chorus combo....I hooked those up after the Mesa/Boogie, and it's that which gives the great big sound on The Sun, The Sea. "I come up with new ideas just by dribbling guitars over everything and picking out something that makes some sort of sense," he continued."We sample stuff, loop bits I've played and it's sounds great. John(Leckie) has actually tamed me down a bit, really. But live it's different - we never try and exactly recreate the studio sound and I think all our songs will always take on a different character when we play them live."

"To be honest apart from the Quadraverb+ I wasn't particularly in love with any of the gear. Each album sounds different because of the amps used. They're pretty critical, more so than guitars really and I don't think I really respected them so much then. Combination of reverb and amp can make it sound like it's roaring, or just new age crap. It's a balancing act and I didn't get it quite right most of the time. Have now though. Oops too late!"

In a photo posted on Myspace, Nick McCabe is seen using the Gibson Echoplex, captured during a soundcheck.

In this photo, the Akai S3000XL can be visible below the Sequential Prophet 2002.

Atop the pyramid, the Akai s950 MIDI Digital sampler can be seen.

"IT. Fricken. LIVES!! They tried to kill it. Left it to rot. Gave it up for dead. Like its owner, there is more fight left in this. McCabe 98, world 0."

"Removed while two guys recovered from alcoholic over enthusiasm. Thank you so much guys, that was really helpful :-/ Space echo RE-501, £900 plus £20 shipping. From my eBay listing- "Good condition. Japanese/US power (needs transformer). This is ex Verve circa Forth. Since, with my early work with the Verve, and our T-shirts, featuring my old 201, I'm one of the folks who are responsible for the escalation of the prices of these machines, and also since I've had not one but two Space Echoes stolen, I'm unfortunately joining the trend of Space Echo exploitation."

According to the "Effects" page on the website nickmccabe-kim-2freespirits.co.uk, Nick McCabe uses the Roland RE-201 Space Echo.

So... Nick uses AT LEAST one Gibson/Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro with the CONTROLLER (see image). Why i say AT LEAST, cause in Urban Hymns concerts at Pinkpop and Haigh Hall, the controller is visible, and what appear to be two(? Gibson Echoplexes barely distinguishable (It seems strange to me that he uses two racks and only one controller. I don't really know how he uses the two racks, so it could be, and I know it's not the Korg Tuner unit because that one is on top of one of the two Echoplex units. the other ones are the Roland GP-8 and the Lexicon Jamman). Also used on the 2007 / 2008 Reunion Tour.