Ben Vehorn

Ben Vehorn is an audio engineer and one of the early EarthQuaker Devices employees, with the company since its days as what EarthQuaker Devices' Bradley Thorla calls "a fledgling basement operation." He now works for the company as a hired hand for trade shows and holiday pedal building¹. His main instrument is not the guitar but the synthesizer, alongside microphones, a mixing console and outboard effects in his engineering work¹.

Credits and gear

Vehorn's studio is built around a late-70s Auditronics 501 console, the "Son of 36 Grand," and he says "everything runs through my late-70s Auditronics 501 'Son of 36 Grand' console"¹. His favorite instruments are the Roland Jupiter 4 and a Polyfusion Modular system¹.

His favorite signal chains pair synthesizers and drum machines with EarthQuaker Devices pedals:

• Roland Jupiter 4 through the EQD Avalanche Run¹
• Korg Mono/Poly into the EQD Space Spiral¹
• Drum machines, usually an Oberheim DX or Eurorack TR-808 clone modules by Falafular, into the EQD Pitch Bay and/or Rainbow Machine¹

On the guitar side, the pedal he would replace first is the EQD Tone Job, which he says "gets used on pretty much every electric guitar recording I do." A close second is the Pigtronix Keymaster, which he calls "an essential utility for interfacing pedals in audio post-production"¹.

Asked about favorite pedals, he names the EQD Space Spiral and the Montreal Assembly Count to Five, and as perennial non-EQD favorites the Strymon El Capistan, the Electro-Harmonix HOG and Superego, the Vesta-Kozo DIG-420 and the Boss RSD-10¹. His favorite pedal makers outside EarthQuaker Devices are Electro-Harmonix and Strymon¹.