Board to Death Ep. 15: Elle Puckett (Eisley, Maggie Rogers)
Aaron Rogers
“It’s a lot of fun. Growly. Nice. Like it. Love it. Awesome.”
Elle Puckett of Eisley and Maggie Rogers’ touring band calls upon a carefully selected collection of boutique stompboxes (and Altoids tins) to craft the ambient tones for which she is known.
To keep her oscillating time-based effects in check, Puckett sandwiches them between two compressors. A Walrus Audio Deep Six squashes the input while the Xotic SP strapped across the output enhances her reverb and delay trails without blowing out her amp when she cranks the feedback.
Between the compressors, Puckett uses a Walrus 385 for “a drive that doesn’t breakup when playing softly,” a Dunlop Volume X for swells, a Matthews Effects the Chemist for octaves and chorus tones, and the Spatial Delivery for its “super unique drippy cave-type” sample and hold setting.
From there, an Eventide H9 provides multi-tap delays, the Chase Bliss Total Recall delivers dark analog delays, and she uses the Avalanche Run’s swell and reverse modes to layer extra ambience atop delicate fingerpicked passages. “It’s perfect the type of music I play,” she says. “I love to play ambient stuff.” For shimmery reverb sounds, Puckett uses the Walrus Audio Fathom. Finally, the pedal she gets the most questions about isn’t a pedal at all, but an Altoids case. It’s for picks.