We are pleased to have Frank Rohles’ new CD “Time” available on our webshop. In 2004 Frank Rohles was chosen by Brian May to be guitarist in the We Will Rock You theatrical production in Cologne, Germany. The Cologne production was extremely successful and played thousands of shows running from 2004 until 2008. Brian also asked Frank to be guitar supervisor for the Zurich and Toronto WWRY productions when those shows were being set up.
Please click here for Frank Rohles’ website and more info about his guitars, equipment, WWRY, recordings and musical projects etc
Frank has used the Brian May Fryer Treble Boosters and the Fryer 1 Watt Amp extensively throughout the recording of “Time”, and has also used the new prototype Treble Booster Special and Vari-Booster pedals.
Frank has sent a list of the gear he has used:
“On this record only one thing stayed constant: every electric guitar track was played with my guitar Pearly.
Through the recording I’ve been mixing lots of different sounds and amps, guitar settings, picks (have used simply everything), to get the different textures on the songs. To get the ‘wall of guitars’ rich and fat rhythm sounds on these songs I have used my Vox AC30 TBX amp being driven by the Fryer Treble Booster 2002 going into a Damage Control ‘Liquid Blues’ overdrive pedal.
(** See below for 2002 Treble Booster and Damage Control ‘Liquid Blues’ info).
The Normal Channel of the AC30 is used with its volume level set around 1/3 level.
You can hear that on songs like ‘Time’ (track 04) on the last choruses, when everybody thinks this is it, it can’t get any fatter….sure it can and it does! This combination of equipment allows you to still get even more fatness but to keep the detail of everything and get it sitting properly in the mix which sometimes is hard to do with fat layered guitar sounds. Listen to the additional rhythm guitars coming in at 03:42 on this track ‘Time’. To me it blows everything away!
You can find similar rhythmical fatness on tracks like ‘Best of men’ (track 08) and in the choruses of ‘High and Low’ (track 9) plus other examples on the record.
There are many sonic examples that I can mention for lead guitar: a nice rich solo humbucking sounds on ‘Best of Men’ (track 8), ‘Go Your Own Way’ (track 01), ‘She is my Life” (track 05). Also great singing neck single coil sounds on ‘Now That We’ve Made It’ (track 03), ‘Here’ (track 07) and ‘Too Late This Time’ (track 10).
And nice crisp crunch/nearly clean (but with good headroom) rhythm sounds on ‘Too Late This Time’ (track 10).
Examples of playing with a titanium pick (sounds metallic like Brian May’s sixpence) and some May-ish rhythm sounds for ‘The Centre Of My Life’ (track 11) and ‘Desert Of Love’ (track 12).
I’ve also been using the Fryer 2002 Booster in combination with some other preamps like the Hughes and Kettner Attax or Tubeman. With this combination I’m able to get more American sounds without losing the richness or dynamics of the booster. I love these kind of sounds on songs like ‘Honesty’ (track 02 Choruses) where you can hear it as a complement to the ‘Rectifier’ type sounds. It pops up nice mids in an otherwise hard tight sounding mix…also the solo of this same song using a wah pedal with the 2002 booster.
Other songs that show the versatility of using this treble booster in combination with different amps are the rhythm guitars for ‘Pressure’ (track 06), same sound is used for rhythm guitars on the funky sounding ‘High and Low’ (track 09) verses. This uses Bridge & Middle Single Coil > Fryer Booster > Univibe > Attax Preamp > AC30. ‘High and Low’ choruses use Bridge and Middle humbucking > Fryer Booster > Attax preamp > AC30.
Last but not least are the 2 ’secret weapons’ which have helped me create some unique sounds here:
* The Fryer 1 Watt Amp is used for solo sounds on ‘Pressure’ (track 06), Guitar Orchestra sounds on ‘High and Low’ (track 09) and again on ‘Pressure’. Spanish trumpet ‘Deacy-like’ sounds use the 1 Watt Amp on ‘Desert of Love’ (track 12).
* The Vari-Booster prototype pedal is used on solos for ‘Centre of My Life’ (track 11) and ‘Desert of Love’.
Acoustic guitars used are: Takamine 6 string western EN-10C, an Ovation 12 string western, a Takamine Spanish guitar, and a Bruko Ukelele. A Sandberg 5 string bass played through an Axe FX Ultra. The Axe FX Ultra has also been used a lot on the whole production.
Most used electric guitar sounds from my homemade ‘Pearly’:
Rhythm guitars use mainly either bridge humbucker or bridge & middle humbuckers together.
For soloing: bridge & middle humbucking together, neck as single coil and as humbucker, neck & middle out of phase, neck & bridge out of phase, and for some ad libs: bridge pickup as single coil and bridge & middle out of phase.
I love experimenting by using a lot of little effects on each song for some surprises over short moments. For this I’ve been using (among others) effects like Univibe, Chorus, Delay, Tremolo, some Wah pedals, Leslie and a lot of incredible pitch and space sounds.
Thanks and I hope you enjoy listening to my new recording!
Cheers,
Frank Rohles July 2009 “
*Footnote: Frank’s 2002 Treble Booster is a standard light blue colour Brian May Fryer treble booster featuring a level control. In 2008 Greg re-created this particular booster for Frank featuring the same components that he was using at the time in 2002 but instead housed it in a bare aluminium enclosure featuring a battery box on the side and no level control. This booster is very similar in its circuit and components to the Fryer Treble Booster Touring pedal.
Please see Frank’s Vari-Booster pics below to view the 2002 version booster which is on top of the Vox AC30 at the right hand side of pic.
Please click here for info about Damage Control’s “Liquid Blues” preamp
To buy Frank Rohles’ CD “Time” and to hear mp3 samples please click here to visit our webshop
Mp3 music tracks from Frank Rohles on the webshop:
1. “Appetizer” is a medley of several tracks from “Time”.
2. “Desert Of Love” is a new instrumental version of his album track which Frank has kindly done for our website.
Frank tells us that he has used the following guitars and pedals for this instrumental:
“The additional guitar is again Pearly played through the “Treble Booster Special” prototype with the Vari-Booster pedal kicked in at times. I have also brought up the volume of the 1 Watt Amp’s “spanish trumpets” so that now without the vocals of the album track they are much more prominent. I hope you like this version. Cheers, Frank”
