Mood I 2005 had one “shining diamond” for me…and that was a guitarist from a band called Access Denied. On first meeting he’s a shy, sweet, ever smiling, unassuming guy. You’d never think he could blow you away with his guitar work…but then again if you saw Gilmour (David) in his DVD concert you’d think he was a fat bum off the street. So it’s not about the looks…that’s for sure! What counts is talent and boy does this guy have a lot of it. I don’t mean Gilmour… that is understood… I’m talking about the guy who’s answered a few of my questions here. These are actually questions on the minds of a lot of people I’m sure… so go on… read the first and exclusive interview of the new rockstar on the block…Ashish Bhat!

Mihir: What instruments do you use and which band do you play it in? Were you in any bands before the present one?
Ashish: I play guitar in the band called “Access Denied”. It’s a classic rock band.
I play a Samick LJS-35 guitar. Soon I’ll be moving on to a better guitar
Earlier I used to play keyboard for another classic rock band called “Pages Black”.

Mihir: When did you first take up the guitar?
Ashish: I first took up guitar in my 2nd year in IIT, about 2 ½ years back.

Mihir: Which was your first instrument?
Ashish: The first instrument I played was Tabla. I have had Hindustani Classical Tabla training for over 10 years.

Mihir: What other instruments do you play?
Ashish: I have played keyboard for a few years. I play a bit of drums too.

Mihir: Why were you drawn to the guitar?
Ashish: As I said, I used to play keys before. I just picked up the guitar seeing some of my friends play it. And then got totally into it! It was not just the musical side of that instrument but also the electronics related side of it that interested me! I developed as a guitarist, a big thanks to my friend Deepak (drummer in our band). This guy’s got a very good ear and too good a musical sense.

Mihir: What are the accessories you’re using with the guitar?
Ashish: The main thing is my self-made distortion unit
I also have made a pre-amp for my guitar. This thing is installed inside my guitar (the red-button in the photo is the on/off switch). This pre-amp takes care of the buzz and tone-sucking (that’s a technical term!) when using long cables (or if your cable is near a power line). This is very important when using high distortions; otherwise you generally end up getting a nagging buzz in the guitar sound.
I don’t use any digital processor right now. Had tried a few and found them to be sick.
The only place that a digital processor will find in my setup would be for delay and pedal volume control.
Also someday I would like to check out valve distortions also!

Mihir: Tell everyone about your processor man. Everyone’s dying to hear about it.
Ashish: I started by making a Tube Screamer clone about a year back. I later modified that pedal to suit my needs. That pedal really rocked! This pedal was my standard when checking out various digital processors. No processor was analog enough! The only processor that got close was GT-6 but was too damn costly (good I didn’t have the money to buy it). I then decided to make my own distortion unit.

Since then I’ve been experimenting a lot. EQ (Equalizer) before distortion, EQ after distortion stage, using different types of diodes for clipping and many different things to get the sound I want. Almost all the processors (and analog pedals) that I have seen don’t have a pre-distortion EQ, but I think that really sets the color of the distortion. I finally have a design of a distortion module that has a 3-band pre-distortion EQ, a 3-band post-distortion EQ, two distortion types (overdrive and distortion) gain/volume controls etc. and I can get almost any kind of sound I want from that! Some technical information about what distortion is and my old distortion unit can be found at my webpage at (though this page is a bit old now)

The biggest problem is to use these analog pedals on stage as switching between sounds is not easy (anyone who has used analog pedals would realize this). Digital processors are the best in this regard, just press a button and you get an altogether different sound. So I designed a system to allow me to use up to sixteen different distortion units and the ability to switch between them on the fly! I designed all my distortion units in form of modules that can be plugged into a large motherboard. This motherboard is very versatile and supports connecting up to four modules in series e.g. Overdrive > EQ > Overdrive > EQ (this makes it easy to get valve-amp like multi-stage distortions – imagination and experimentation is the limit). Finally there is a microcontroller controlling this motherboard. It saves all the settings, and lets me easily switch between any of the modules just by the press of a button, exactly like a digital processor. This is what my current processor is like (it will always keep getting better!).
The distortion module that I use in Time’s lead is a Big Muff with my modifications (same as what Gilmour uses in the original song, though he uses it with tube overdrive). All other modules are my own design.

Mihir: Is this your ideal guitar? If not, what would you do to modify it?
Ashish: Well, I still have to try out a few guitars before deciding what suits me best. This Samick was the best I could get from the prize money I got on winning a Robotics Competition!
And I would definitely love to have a Fender Strat and a Les Paul in my arsenal backed by a Marshall JCM900 Amp

Mihir: Any suggestions for all the young and new folks out there who're picking up a guitar?
Ashish: I myself am not very experienced, but anyways here are a few suggestions:
It’s very important to develop a good ear. Not just what you play, but how it sounds is also very important. Spend some time on getting your sound right. Use effects to the minimum when you start. And use only analog pedals (he says with his trademark smile)

- Mihir