The Goo Goo Dolls…if you’re a fan of driving guitars, knock-you-on-your-ass vocal hooks, emotionally sincere lyrics, and stellar singing, you gotta love the Goo Goo Dolls. We dig the Dolls - that’s for sure. So we were totally psyched to get a call a couple of weeks back from Brad Fernquist, the Dolls’ lead guitarist of eight years. Both Brad and John Rzeznik, the band’s singer/songwriter/guitarist, were looking to fine tune their live guitar tones. John, in particular, wasn’t happy with the excessive high end he was hearing with his current set-up. He needed an EQ pedal that could store some EQ presets and output levels and easily recall them via MIDI program change messages. The Source Audio Programmable EQ was the perfect tool for the job.

As luck would have it, the band was rehearsing for the next leg of their 2014 US tour at the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford, Connecticut, just a couple of hours from the Source Audio headquarters in Boston. We jumped in the Source Audio-mobile and barreled down to Connecticut to give John and Brad a quick tutorial on the finer points of the Programmable EQ. After plugging the EQ into John’s rig we cut the 2, 4, and 8k frequency bands and shaved off just enough high-end to warm the tone to his liking. Of course the big advantage with Programmable EQ is its four presets, so we were able to set up dedicated EQ preset for specific guitars, and since John uses a MIDI switching system he is able to recall each EQ preset via the pedal’s 5-pin MIDI input.  Problem solved.

It was an excellent visit, we had great fun meeting the guys, checking out their rigs and talking gear. The Goo Goo Dolls will be touring the U.S. all summer in support of their excellent new record, Magnetic. Get out and see ‘em.