![]() Aaron was the perfect translator between Robert’s methodology and what I was going for.” ![]() Even if I couldn’t articulate to Robert what I was hearing, Aaron was able to do it, because he could hear it and put it into words in a way that Robert could act on. It was so important to have his ears in the room. “I can’t stress enough: Aaron was really the third side in the triangle. Timmons greatly appreciates what Pierce brought to the undertaking. We had learned a lot about his preferences during the HALO development.” So, we were working on ideas for at least a few months before getting Andy back into the process. “During the two years that we were working on the HALO,” says Pierce, “we were always talking with Andy about what he was looking for in an overdrive. Pierce was deeply involved in the Timmons/Keeley collaboration right from the beginning, and he helped jump-start the process of designing the Super AT MOD. “The initial inspiration for the Super AT MOD came from Timmons’ love of a classic Keeley mod for the Boss BD-2.”Ī key member of the creative team was Aaron Pierce, artist relations guru at Keeley Electronics. That’s the blessing of them being just a few hours away.” “Because we were all in the same room, we were able to go beyond what we had ever envisioned. “You’ve really got to be able to be in a room together and feel what’s happening,” Timmons says. That proximity allowed for frequent visits to the Keeley shop and made it easier for Timmons and the Keeley team to work together on the successive HALO and AT MOD prototypes. Timmons is based in McKinney, Texas, about a three-hour drive from Keeley headquarters in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Timmons/Keeley partnership is a testament to technology-and to a friendship that blossomed during the long, sometimes grueling playing/listening sessions that punctuated the development process. They’re the closest thing we have to tubes.” “The Super AT MOD gives Andy that nice chimey top end and that tube-amp-type growl and distortion because it uses JFET transistors. “We also tried to get a more tube-like sound, with the diodes and asymmetrical clipping,” Keeley adds. We also added a little bit of sparkle-some high frequency response from letting the natural stuff go through. It takes out some of the bass tones, so it clears up that range and makes humbuckers less bloated. With that in mind, the AT mode changes the tone control and what it allows to pass through. “You can take away some of the excess and it leaves you with something more natural. “To me, the subtractive approach is a great way to arrive at a better tone,” Keeley says. That flexibility is due, in large part, to the aforementioned tone-shaping method that Timmons encouraged Keeley to employ. We enjoy the process and hopefully that comes through in the final product.” “I’m lucky to find these cohorts in tone. But the final version of the pedal offers an expansive versatility that makes it a fine companion for just about any rig. Andy was approaching this from the opposite direction, playing with a pickup that’s much more akin to a humbucker, with a bigger dynamic range, so it doesn’t need that push on the low- and mid-bass.”ĭuring the development and testing phase, Timmons relied primarily on his main guitar–his Ibanez ATZ100 signature model with three humbucking pickups–and his beloved Mesa/Boogie Lonestar 2x12 combo. “But Andy pointed out that if we carve away some of the frequencies, his guitar will stand out more. “The original phat mod was designed to push up the bridge pickup of a Strat or Tele and give it a bit more girth,” Keeley explains. In contrast to his normal modus operandi of boosting certain frequencies, this pedal’s “modded modded” AT Mode is based on a subtractive method for sculpting the pedal’s tone. Keeley took a different angle in designing the Super AT MOD. It resonates so much with our customers that the Halo has become 25 percent of our business. We couldn’t have imagined how it would resonate with so many people.” Keeley adds with a laugh “I have found that my customers like what Andy’s ears like. “We spent more than a year-and-a-half really fine-tuning that pedal,” says Timmons. (More on that later.) They began working together in early 2020, when Timmons and Keeley teamed up on the wildly successful HALO dual echo pedal. In a collaboration spanning more than three years, Timmons and Keeley have become great friends, mutual provocateurs, and culinary kindred spirits. The versatile pedal is the latest creative partnership between ace guitarist Andy Timmons (known for his solo work and touring/recording with Danger Danger, Olivia Newton-John, Kip Winger, and many more) and Robert Keeley, a pioneer and leading presence in the realm of guitar effects. While the new Super AT MOD looks like a classic 3-knob overdrive, the mode toggle is the pedal’s secret sauce, and the AT setting adds a particularly shimmering quality to the harmonically rich overdrive.
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