Johnny Hiland Memphis Sun

The Johnny Hiland Memphis Sun is a “vintage studio” pedal for guitar players, in a box. Johnny uses it to get that Danny Gatton sound. Small room reverb and slap back with the perfect double tracked harmony.

Head into the Memphis Sun and bask in the tones of the 1950’s studios!  What does the Johnny Hiland Memphis Sun do best?  It gives you that intimate small room feel where two of you are playing together.  Get a hint of modulation with some syrupy slapback echo…and you’ve arrived at Johnny Hiland’s Memphis Sun.  The Johnny Hiland Memphis Sun is in vintage sea foam green with a white and gold racing theme!

“I think the Memphis Sun is one of the best pedals on the planet today! If you are a Danny Gatton fan, or just love the tones of good ole Rockabilly guitar, then the Memphis Sun is a “must have” on your pedalboard! Keeley Electronics hit it out of the park with this amazing pedal, so get your Johnny Hiland Limited Memphis Sun pedal TODAY” – Johnny Hiland

“I am SO proud that Keeley Electronics has allowed me to cosmetically redesign the Memphis Sun for this limited run! This pedal is one of my all time favorites for that good ole Rockabilly tone! You just can’t beat the Memphis Sun! It will change your playing for the better and provide hours and hours of fun!” – Johnny Hiland

SLAPBACK 600

Rock and Roll is the Devil’s music, right? So of course we made the delay time up to 666ms to simulate some unearthly echo machine that never really existed. Filtering in the Slackback mode is done in stages. First, we heavily filter the response at 1 kHz then compress the thing. Remember the concept: pack a bunch of sound in a small room and it compresses. Next, we filter it again at 1 kHz !  Sounds like Rock and Roll, right? Aaron Tackett is our Rock and Roll Doctor of DSP here at Keeley. Not only is he devilishly good looking, he has a way of making waves look good — adding curves so to speak. He has added 2nd and 3rd order harmonics to this mix to simulate tape response and equipment distortions. Waves folded back on themselves.  You’re gonna love his curves.

Time 30-666ms m/ m/
Regen  As Jack White says: “Three.”  Up to three repeats. Or sometimes six….
Reverb Old Rock-and-Roll Room Reverb.

Sun Mode

Let’s Do it Twice Mama, It’s Alright!  Automatic Double Tracking (ADT) was not available in the 1950s, but we sneak it in here because it makes a wonderful sound. And, if you lengthen the time, it goes right into slapback territory which is at the heart of Country and Rock and Roll guitar sounds.  Like our Keeley 30ms, this pedal will do ADT.  The Memphis Sun creates a vintage-voiced double-track in mono.  Your guitar-playin’ “Gemini-Twin” has a very warmed-up tone.  Adjusting the Time Control lets you easily create anything from Double Tracking to Slapback with up to 180ms of delay time.

Time   Delay Time is 0-180ms.  For Automatic Double-Tracking set this control at the second mark or lower, 0-30ms. For slapback echo 30-180ms sounds great. The knob markers notate 0,30,60, 90, 120, 150, and 180ms
Regen Modulation for the ADT. Set to OFF for NO Rate or Depth.  Increasing this control increases both the Rate and Depth of “Tape” modulation.
Reverb It’s Still Rock-and-Roll Room Reverb to Me

Room

The Room Reverb simulates a small 33′ by 18′ asbestos-tiled room so filled with music the sounds actually get compressed.  We take into account the frequency response of the mics used back then. The RCA 77 is loosely simulated by a group of filters including a HPF = 300 Hz and LPF = 8 kHz. Many artifacts are incorporated in our room reverb. And second and third order harmonics are added to make sure it sounds just right.

Time is the Pre-Delay amount: 0-150ms of pre-delay. This allows for a slapback sound as the first reflections come into focus.
Regen is the Tone control: this is an active filter +/- 10 dB and is centered around 1.1 kHz.
Reverb is the Depth control for the reverberations.

That’s What I Say Rockin’ Robbin!

NeoVintage – Low Fidelity. That’s right. That’s what I say. This doesn’t sounds like some merry band of pixie nymphs playing digital fiddles in your ear. It sounds freaking great!!  If this pedal had a smell it would be too intoxicating to play.

The Keeley Memphis Sun – Lo-Fi Reverb, Echo and Double-Tracker

Pete Anderson!

Mike Hermans First Video of the Memphis.

See what I mean? Awesome Sauce in a Bottle!