Tim Williams is a guitarist and songwriter who came out of the Louisville, Kentucky music scene of the 1990s. He released the album Sorry, with all 14 songs recorded on his Ibanez semi-hollow body guitar, followed by the Decoys EP, a 6-song release, and the Overblown instrumental EP1.
His pedalboard centers on two Strymon pedals: the blueSky reverb and the El Capistan tape delay. Both were creative drivers behind Sorry, and the blueSky shaped the sound of his song "Blindsided"1.
Guitars
Williams' first electric guitar was an EMG-loaded Lotus Les Paul copy with a Wonderbar tremolo1. On Sorry, he kept to a single instrument throughout: an Ibanez semi-hollow body, used on all 14 songs of the album1.
Pedals and settings
Williams came to Strymon after noticing players he followed online. In his own words:
"Mick and Dan from That Pedal Show, the Andertons crew, and Andy Timmons were all big Strymon disciples, and never thought there would be that big of a difference in what I had and what those could do"
He originally intended to buy the BigSky when switching reverb pedals the day he went to buy it, and he came across the blueSky instead. He says he was staggered at the sound, and the blueSky quickly became part of his writing1. Of its effect on "Blindsided", he says:
"I put it in the board and within an hour or so it became the driving sound(s) of "Blindsided," a song that I had written but was just bland to me."
He acquired the El Capistan after seeing a tape delay segment on That Pedal Show that featured it as one of the delay choices1.
For his song "Savior", which both pedals helped drive, his settings were simple:
- All controls on both the blueSky and El Capistan set at 2 o'clock
- blueSky pre-delay at 9 o'clock
- All switches in their middle positions1
Playing after injury
On October 17, 2012, Williams injured his right hand in a wood joiner, losing the knuckles and 3/4" of length from his middle and ring fingers1. He continued writing and recording, with Sorry arriving as his first full-length solo songwriting effort in 2019.
Sources (1)
- Artist Feature: Tim Williams, Strymon (www.strymon.net), 2020-03-19