Adam Schatz's Improvising with Pedals Workshop

I utilize pedals & external effects in my improvisation practice, performance and while working on records as a hired musician or as a producer.

I’ve always believed it’s important to think of the effect device as its own instrument to engage with, rather than a switch you simply flip on to make change. By approaching effects dynamically we can better understand how to use them in real time improvisations and adjustments to make it a fluid extension of your instrument which is a fluid extension of your body which is a fluid extension of your brain, and the brain, well, who knows where that comes from. Braintown probably?

I’ll talk you through my pedalboard work-flow and invite you to bring a pedal of your own. We’ll then create prompts based on setting & adjusting different parameters of the effects and see how that impacts our own playing with the device and with each other as the device breathes life into the room. Well start with one device at a time. Then double it. Then mess around with parallel effects vs. “in-sequence” and what that means in recorded & live environments.

Most importantly we make great amounts of spectacular specific noise together.

THINGS TO BRING

Delays

Reverbs

Synthesizers with external inputs (Most Moogs, for example)

I Don’t Know How This Thing Works But I Bought It And Am Weighing My Regret