A few months ago I shared a post about the Maestro drum machine used by the Beastie Boys on their Check Your Head album. Recently I read Brain Coleman's interviews in Check The Technique with those involved in producing that album and there's a bit more information about the band's use of Maestro:
Adrock: The main story about that song is about the effects pedal called the Maestro. There was an old used-gear spot in LA on Larchmont, and we used to go there, and that's where I first learned about Maestro gear. It was a brand of sixties adn seventies guitar pedals.Here's some photos of Maestro gear I found on Matrix Synth:
MCA: Maestro pedals are crazy because they're kind of shitty, but they're also really unique and intense. You could set it so that it sounds like the guitar is playing percusion -- or with the one we used on that song, it's playing the guitar effect but it's also playing that bass line. A lot of jazz guys used that effect, running saxophones through it.
Money Mark: There's a Maestro box on the cover of Eddie Harris' Plug Me In album, so that always gave it some extra weight to us. I think I had the first Maestro of all of us. There are different models -- for percussion, for woodwinds, and for guitar.
Mario Caldato Jr.: The original concept of that song was about the Gibson Maestro effects box, but then we started applying it to people who acted like they were the shit. "The Maestro" is just about the attitude, like that kid on the phone message at the beginning of the song.
The Maestro gear designed by Bob Moog is quite amazing too