joe satriani

Transcription

joe satriani

16
L I S T E N
VOLUME 4, NUMBER 2 / NOV-DEC 2015
www.gearphoria.com
W I T H
Y O U R
E Y E S
®
a wrightside media publication
ALSO INSIDE: New gear from Collings, Skreddy Pedals and more...
COVER STORY
JOE SATRIANI
Axe veteran shares recording tips, gear list
QUICK TAKE
Aloke’s Paul DeCourcey
on recording with Steve
Albini, Linden Guitars
AMP SHOW
We journey to LA for
prototype-filled fun
LIST-ERIA!
Seven rock docs you
should see
GEAR REVIEWS
JHS Muffuletta
RT ElecTRonix Compressor
Line 6 Helix
Black Cat Pedals
Connecticut-based stompsmith gives us the nickel tour
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Dual Resonant Filter
J . ROCK
ET
UD
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IO DESIG
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16
Blake Wright
Publisher/Editor-In-Chief
Contributing Editor
Holly Wright
Special Contributors
Alison Richter
Adam Grimm
Bart Provoost
James Lebihan
Ian Anderson
Wade Burden
Thom Prevost
Creative
Seatonism - Josh Seaton
Cartoonist
Rytis Daukantas
8
GEARPHORIA NOV/DEC 2015
Contact Gearphoria - [email protected]
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www.gearphoria.com
Gearphoria is a free digital magazine published bimonthly by
WrightSide Media, Kemah, TX.
Mailing Address:
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ATTN: Gearphoria
PO Box 1285
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COVER: @chickenfootjoe (Photo by Larry DiMarzio)
GEARPHORIA is the property of WrightSide Media. All rights reserved. Copyright 2015. No content
of this digital publication can be republished without the express consent of WrightSide Media.
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
GREETINGS from the Sunshine state
of Florida... where it is currently raining. Ah, you can’t win ‘em all. The
Gearphoria Road Trip rolls on as we
rack up the miles and the visits with
music shops and manufacturers in the
Lower 48.
This issue, we chronicle our recent
romp across the northeast US as we
go in-depth with the crew at Black
Cat Pedals from Connecticut. We had
the privilege of hanging out with Tom
Hughes, top cat at the pedal house,
and -- as most of you likely know -the guy the wrote the book on vintage
effects... literally! There is a lot going
on inside the Black Cat den. In fact,
we have the honor of breaking some
exclusive news about a new product
line the company is developing!
On the artist front, our Alison Richter
brings us an exclusive chat with the
excellent Joe Satriani. It is hard to believe that the iconic Surfing With The
Alien album will be celebrating is 30th
anniversary in just two short years!
Joe lets us in on his current gear list,
recording tips and the low down on his
latest record, Shockwave Supernova.
While we were up in New England
we stopped in on guitar everyman
(and bassist) Paul DeCourcey who is
not only celebrating the long-overdue
release of his band Aloke’s second
album Alive, he also is working to
get his latest venture, Division Street
Guitars -- a music shop in Peekskill,
New York -- up and running, as well
as expanding his own brand of classic
electric guitars under the Linden name.
A quick flight out west allowed us
to take in the 11th edition of the LA
Amp Show, which offered more of a
testing ground atmosphere for new MI
prototypes than in previous years. We
were able to lay hands on upcoming
amps from Two-Rock and Todd Sharp
as well as pedals from Tone Freak,
Joe Gore... and more!
In reviews, our man Wade Burden
takes a look at the new JHS Pedal
Muffuletta 6-in-1 Big Muff-inspired
fuzz box as well as the return of Line
6 and the long-awaited Helix guitar
processor. We also have an exclusive
test drive of newcomer RT ElecTRonix’s Multiband Compressor.
All of this, plus our normal raft of
informative columns, a List-eria entry
with some of our favorite rock docs
from recent times, news and more!
So sit back with a tasty beverage and
enjoy. None for me though, thanks...
I’m driving!
Happy reading!
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, Gearphoria
9
Contents
VOLUME 4, NUMBER 2 u NOV-DEC 2015
60 CYCLE HUM
12
POINT TO POINT
18
STRINGS ATTACHED
20
THE WAYBACK MACHINE
22
WORKBENCH CONFIDENTIAL 24
LIST-ERIA!
28
WHAT’S THAT DUDE PLAY?
56
GEAR REVIEWS
58
ALBUM REVIEWS
64
News from EarthQuaker Devices, Collings Guitars, JHS
Pedals, Duesenberg and more...
Just because you can’t make it to a show doesn’t mean
your wares can’t!
A peek into pickups
Guest columnist Soon Park looks at the origins of
the famous Vox Clyde McCoy wah pedal
Batteries included, Pt. 2... Rechargeables
Our look at the best seven rock documentaries of the
past 11 years!
Josue Quiquivix of Struckout
JHS Pedals Muffuletta, RT ElecTRonix Multiband Compressor and the Line 6 Helix
Latest releases from Ian Fletcher Thornley, Tyler
Bryant & The Shakedown and David Ryan Harris and
a Re-Play’d from Super 8.
PHOTO BY LARRY DIMARZIO
DEPARTMENTS
FEATURES
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PAUL DeCOURCEY
Bassist, luthier, guitar store owner...
New York’s Paul DeCourcey and
his band Aloke finally see the release of long-shelved album, Alive.
34
JOE SATRIANI
Guitar hero speaks exclusively
with Gearphoria about his new
album, recording techniques and
the concept of the concept album.
48
BLACK CAT PEDALS
New England-based shop shows us
around their quaint digs, and eyes
entry into the Eurorack market.
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L.A. AMP SHOW
Prototypes abound in the
annual tone party in Van
Nuys. We were there!
Shaking things up...
EarthQuaker Devices moves into bigger digs
AKRON, OHIO-based EarthQuaker
Devices has relocated to a bigger facility within the city with
more storage options and room for
expansion than its previous headquarters. The new building offers a
ground-level open production floor
concept adjacent to an all-new
manufacturing area. Upstairs, the
group now has ample office space
as well as a conference room and
kitchen for employees.
EQD still owns their previous HQ,
which currently is being used as an
‘office furniture graveyard’ and as
a rehearsal space for the shop’s inhouse bands. Ultimately, the space
will likely be converted to a multimedia studio for shooting demo
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videos, recording music, and potentially hosting touring bands that
would like to swing by and check
out the company’s offerings.
The new space has adjacent square
footage off of the manufacturing
area that the company plans to take
on in the future. It currently houses
an automobile collection that is
expected to be relocated once a car
barn that is under construction to
house it is complete.
Once EQD gets the space, it is
contemplated that the company will
use it to jump feet first into amplifier production. The company officially debuted its Sound Projector
25 amplifier at the Summer NAMM
show earlier this year. G
NEWS u
JHS readies volume pedal for NAMM 2016 debut
New See-Saw looks to offer a complete volume control solution
IN THE WORKS since 2012, JHS Pedals is planning to
launch its new See-Saw volume pedal at the 2016 Winter NAMM show in January. According to the builder,
the brain of the See-Saw is an all-analog, studio-grade
active circuit akin to what you would see under the
hood of a studio desk fader. The gain of the circuit is
controlled optically (no strings, no potentiometer), and
the pedal features three user-selectable tapers to adjust
the feel of travel from zero to full volume. The pedal’s
modular design will also allow it to adapt to different
situations. The stock module that comes standard is the
1/4” mono module. This is for standard mono guitar
rigs that only need one 1/4” input and one 1/4” output.
There is an optional 1/4” stereo interface module allowing the user to have a true stereo 1/4” in and out for
stereo effects rigs that require two channels in and out.
A third, optional module is a studio grade direct box/
preamp XLR interface.
JHS has also integrated an ‘always on’ tuner into the
See-Saw. Designed from the ground up specifically for
the pedal, users simply kick the heel down and tune.
The See-Saw measures 8-inches long and 3-inches
wide, a bit more pedalboard friendly than typical
volume pedals without the awkwardness that can come
with micro-sizing. The See-Saw will run off of a standard 9v pedal power supply of 100ma.
Pricing of the See-Saw has yet to be released, but you
can expect that and more, including availability, to be
revealed in Anaheim. G
Duesenberg unveils amp
DUESENBERG has debuted a new 45-watt, single-channel guitar amplifier with an internal boost section allowing
users to extend the amp’s reach further. Dubbed Berlin,
the amp sports a 7025 High Grade combined with a single
12AX7 for the preamp and a pair of 6L6WGC tubes for
the power amp. The lone clean channel boasts Treble,
Mid, Bass and Volume controls while the boost section
can be fine tuned via Gain, Level and Contour controls.
The boost also has two pre-selectable gain levels on the
read panel (Hi/Low Gain). The amp comes with a footswitch for boost operation and an effects loop. The Berlin
is being made in limited numbers and comes with a 1x12
birch, semi-open back speaker cab loaded with a Celestion
G12 Alnico Gold speaker. G
13
NEWS u
Collings releases new 360 model
Austin-based builder teams up with Mastery for release
TEXAS-BASED Collings Guitars
has teamed up with hardware component provider Mastery to create a
new addition to the guitar maker’s
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360 family of offset, solid-body
electrics. The new 360 LT M marries a solid ash (or alder) Collings
360 body and maple neck with the
Mastery offset bridge and offset
vibrato. The 360 LT M also sports
Lollar custom alnico pole piece
P90s that provide a ‘husky’ tone,
according to the guitar builder.
The 360 LT M also comes with a
high gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finish, unbound offset ‘Haircut’ headstock, 15 degree headstock angle,
ebony peghead overlay with inlaid
Collings logo, rosewood fingerboard,
long mortise and tenon neck joint w/
contoured heel, 22 frets (neck joins
the body at the 16th fret), mediumFat ‘C’ neck shape, 12” fingerboard radius, 24-7/8” scale length,
CTS 500K pots and Jupiter Yellow
Vintage Tone capacitors and nickel
Gotoh SG301 tuners. G
NEWS u
Skreddy touts ‘precision’ line of effects
California tonesmith showcases new pedal trio
SKREDDY Pedals guru Marc Ahlfs
has launched a new range of effects
aimed a classic tones at an affordable
price. The Skreddy Precision Series is
a lower-priced offering using surfacemount technology for all resistors and
most smaller capacitors.
The Major overdrive targets ‘70sera British tube amp tones, and
cleans up well with your guitar’s
volume knob. The drive tones will
get you in the neighborhood of
Jimmy Page, SRV, Robin Trower,
AC/DC, and hotter stuff as well.
The Rust Rod is a new take on the
classic Ram’s Head fuzz circuit.
According to the builder, the tone is
huge with no anemic mid scoop.
Lastly, the Rover fuzz is a touch-
sensitive Tone Bender-style dirt
box that can do the wooly, compressed 60’s fuzz tone, but it can
also be tight and articulate and
well-behaved, according to Ahlfs.
Each of the first three entries in
the new line currently is introductory priced at $149. G
Pedalboards
Jacks
Power
Hardware
Cases
Accessories
www.PedalboardShop.com
(863) 940-3156
15
KICKSTARTED
ACPAD – The Electronic Orchestra For Your Guitar
BRANDS ON THE RISE
Line 6
Calabasas, CA
After being purchased by Yamaha (and even before) in 2013, the brand sort of fell out of favor,
but they’ve come roaring back with the Helix
-- an impressive and intuitive floor/rack guitar
processing unit.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/588998327/acpad-the-electronic-orchestrafor-your-guitar
Cocaine To Bain: Inside Story of Guitar Center
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/776391363/cocaine-to-bain-inside-story-ofguitar-center
Clever Fox // boutique tremolo guitar pedal by Crystal Radio
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dmd/clever-fox-boutique-tremolo-guitarpedal-by-crysta
Bookworm Effects Guitar Pedals (SUCCESSFUL)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/129486509/bookworm-effects-guitar-pedals
Fractal Audio Systems
Plaistow, NH
Not to be outdone by its cross-country rivals, the
crew at Fractal debuted its new AX-8 at the recently LA Amp Show -- the amp modeler sibling
to the recently released FX-8 effects unit.
Todd Sharp Amplifiers
Nashville, TN
While not officially launching until 2016, the
Todd Sharp amps that made their way to the LA
Amp Show were an unqualified hit. We couldn’t
find anyone who sampled them that didn’t pick
up what they were laying down.
Thorpy FX
Wiltshire, England
Founded in 2014, the buzz around this UK effects
house has grown steadily since the 2015 release
of its Gunshot and Muffroom Cloud pedals.
Kaden Effects
Lufkin, TX
Remember Kaden? Excellent pedals with bird-inspired names from last decade? They’re coming
back... Check out www.kadeneffects.com to get
in on the ground level of their return!
16
Fusion Guitar: iPhone Integration, Amp & Speakers
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/fusion-guitar-iphone-integration-ampspeakers (SUCCESSFUL)
NEW PEDALS
WEEK 43 of 2015
AnaSounds Bumper - Buffer
AnaSounds Freq Up - Custom Boost
AnaSounds Savage - Centaur Reissue
AnaSounds Utopia - Tape Echo with Modulation
Biyang LiveMaster LM-10
Black Arts Toneworks Crown Of Horns - Distortion
Dubrek Audio Boutique Harmonik
Dubrek Audio Boutique Sonik
Electro-Harmonix Cock Fight - Cocked Talking Wah
Infanem 141G Fuzz
Infanem 141T Fuzz
Pladask Elektrisk Gjengangar - Gated Delay with Effects Loop
Vein-Tap Angel Of Rock - Distortion
Wren and Cuff Suppa Phat Phuk - Germanium/FET Hybrid Boost
SOURCE: www.effectsdatabase.com
Creative conventioneering!
Just because you can’t make the big show doesn’t mean your stuff can’t
OVER THE past several weeks I’ve
run into a handful of small builders
lamenting the fact that they cannot
be at various gear shows for either
personal or financial reasons. It is
all too understandable. Life happens... and some of these shows are
expensive, not to mention a logistical nightmare. So while I wasn’t
shocked to hear that they wouldn’t
be there, I was a little taken aback
when each equated that fact to their
gear not being there either.
With the boutique boom of recent
years, it has become easier (and
almost the norm) for companies to
split spaces between two, sometimes three, companies with com-
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plimentary offerings. For example,
an amp shop sharing space with a
luthier and/or an effects guru. It’s
not only easier on the wallet, it is
just good business.
The practice of ‘placing’ product with others has also picked up
steam: a luthier stationing some
of his builds across several booths
at one of the bigger events, like
Winter NAMM, is not uncommon.
I’ve witness several social media
announcements over the past few
years along the lines of: “I won’t
be at the Tallahassee Tone Tsunami
this weekend, but you can check out
my latest offerings at the Arsenal
Amps booth #338!”
Now, you can’t expect your host
to actively sell your product.
That’s not why he/she is there.
But the right relationship and a
stack of business cards can get
you connected with a new raft of
would-be buyers with minimal
pain on all fronts.
So the next time your kicking the
dirt because family obligations or
the like keep you from making the
trek to the big tone-fest, reach out
to contacts in the business who are
going to be there and try and work
out a deal for a passive presence.
It’s an affordable, guaranteed way
to get your product in front of folks
who otherwise would not see it. G
Electromagnetic alchemy
The perks of a good pickup
THERE IS A continuing debate
about the pickup’s role in guitar
tone. On one hand you have those
who will tell you it’s a cut and
dried affair with the tone being
mainly in the pickups, and on the
other you have the idea the pickups
are merely a microphone for the
guitar. I am here to offer my perspective on the situation, but first
lets discuss the string and pickup
relationship in an oblique manner.
A good way to think of an
electric guitar and its pickup
is to juxtapose it with a record
and turntable. A vinyl record
contains a staggering amount of
information and detail not unlike
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the information contained in the
vibrating strings of a guitar. This
“microscopic” invisible to the eye
and not hearable to the ear detail
can be difficult to comprehend.
The record groove contains information from the instruments to the
soundstage and the equipment to
pick this up is very similar to your
guitar strings and pickup.
There are a few types of magnetic
cartridges used to read the groove
in a record. The moving magnet,
which is a magnet attached to a
cantilever or stylus as it’s called
which moves past the magnet and
coil, and the moving coil, in which
the coil itself is attached to the
GUITAR TALK u
cantilevered stylus. Both share the
same electromagnetic principles
as your guitar with the strings
made of ferrous metal moving
past the coil and magnet turning
that movement into an electrical
signal. Now one can relate to the
amount of information and detail
a string is carrying to the groove
on a record. That information the
string is carrying is influenced by
a myriad of factors in both your
playing and in the instrument
itself. The wood, hardware, setup
on the guitar, anything that can
influence the vibration of the string
creating that complexity and detail
that is mostly unheard by the ear.
The information is all there for the
pickup to pick up.
The pickup’s job is to capture
that information. For the purposes of this article I will say we
are going to want to capture the
natural sound of the guitar and
every nuance in its most pure and
accurate state. A higher gain or
more processed sound can in some
instances benefit from a hotter or
less-vocal and woody-sounding
pickup. A pickup can be used as a
filter, adding or subtracting to and
from the sound but that is a subject
of another article. Making a pickup
suited for a particular style or type
of playing and music on a particular guitar can get a bit deep.
So you have built a guitar that
has fantastic acoustic properties
transmitted through the strings
like a well recorded and mastered
LP. You’ll need a pickup to pick
up all that detailed information
and filter it in a way that is complimentary to the guitar. That’s
the start of the signal chain. The
type and quality of the magnet is
going to influence the strength and
character of that signal and directly related to and affecting that
magnetic field is the metallurgy of
the various pickup components.
For instance in the carbon steels
used in pickups the last two num-
MEASURED SUCCESS: If you don’t get these right from the get-go, you’re lost.
bers refer to the amount of carbon
in the steel and the higher the
carbon content the less magnetic
they will be. On to the coil, the geometry, type of wire, coil pattern,
tension, and other properties have a
dramatic effect in the recipe as we
all know. It truly is a cross between
art and science, or electric alchemy
as I like to call it.
A pickup maker can benefit
greatly by having a bit of the perspective of a guitar builder and
understanding fundamentally what
drives the tone, where it starts and
wrapping ones brain around the
whole philosophy of vibrations and
electromagnetism on that microscopic level, turning string vibrations and the infinite detail into
an equally detailed signal. If we
can go beyond the science we can
really gain control of the way we
carve air and move electrons! G
Ian Anderson is a luthier and owner of Ian A.
Guitars in San Diego, California. See his handiwork at
www.iaguitars.com.
21
The Real McCoy
A brief look at the history of the Vox Clyde McCoy wah
THE MOST iconic wah pedal of all,
the Vox Clyde McCoy Wah-Wah
pedal (‘Clyde McCoy’), is still to
this day the benchmark wah pedal
for many effects aficionados. Forty
years have passed since its birth, and
although the components changed
over time, the basic schematic of the
wah pedal remains the same, indicating the high degree of perfection of
the original Vox Clyde McCoy.
There have been numerous tales
written on the history of the wah
pedal, so let’s briefly summarize
the lineage. The first wah pedal
released came from the Vox brand,
owned by Thomas Organ in the
United States. Brad Plunkett, an
engineer at Thomas Organ invented
the tone-filtering effect, which soon
22
evolved into the wah effect, while
he was working with the MRB
(mid-range boost) circuit embedded in a Thomas Organ transistor
amplifier. Del Casher, who was a
session guitarist involved in a big
band, noticed the tone-filtering
effect, and proposed Brad Plunkett
to put the circuit in a volume pedal
to be controlled by the foot. The
project started out as a very simple,
idea-based project, but soon proved
its commercial appeal as an effect
to emulate the muting effect of the
trumpet on the electric guitar.
Although the wah pedal was invented in California, it was productized by the Italian EME Company
(a joint venture between Thomas
Organ [US], Jennings [UK] and
PEDAL TALK u
EKO [Italy]) from 1967 into the
1970s, starting with the Vox Clyde
McCoy Picture Wah, Vox Clyde McCoy Signature Wah, Vox Clyde McCoy No-Logo Wah and Vox V846 as
well as the famous Cry Baby series.
The Cry Baby series was the name
used by Thomas Organ for the US
market, initially marketed side-byside with the Vox wahs. However,
Thomas Organ failed to register copyrights for the Cry Baby name, and
when Thomas Organ parted ways with
Jen (prior EME) to produce their own
Cry Baby wahs in the US, Italianmade Cry Baby’s were still being
produced by Jen… and continued into
the 1980s. There was also a short run
of the Vox Wah Wah made in the UK
by Sola Sound (a company famous for
its Tone Benders) with a grey hammer
tone, which looks similar to the earlier
Vox volume pedal and famous for its
use in the early Led Zeppelin albums
and latter Beatles songs. G
Soon Park is an avid gear hound and wah pedal
collector. He has done considerable research on the
components that produce the magical tones of early
Vox Clyde McCoy wahs.
23
Batteries included... Part 2
A brief look at rechargeables and their uses
LAST ISSUE we reviewed the pros
and cons of various disposable battery technologies for effects pedals.
This time around we are going to
study rechargeables as an alternative.
The Contenders
Theoretically, rechargeable versions
of the alkaline batteries we discussed
last time would be a good choice for
effects pedals. The chemistry is the
same, but the battery is constructed
so as not to explode when being
recharged! Rechargeable alkalines
are inexpensive to make, and only
require a simple charger. They are
non-toxic, and have a low self-discharge: left unused they have a shelf
life up to 10 years. Unfortunately,
few companies seem to make them
these days and I couldn’t find a 9V
at all. Newer technologies seem to
have pushed them aside.
One limitation to rechargeable alkalines is the high internal resistance
which means they are not suitable for
high current devices. Although this
doesn’t matter for many effects pedals,
24
technology had to evolve to support
the high drain digital products we use
today. New rechargeable chemistries
had to be developed, and one of the
first was Nickel Cadmium (NiCd).
The common chemistry used in the
early days had drawbacks. Recharging a single battery a hundred or
even a thousand times over before
disposal should be much more environmentally friendly, especially if
you have access to domestic power
from renewable sources such as
solar. Unfortunately, the Cadmium
used in NiCd rechargeables is highly
toxic, and requires special processing for disposal, undoing much of
the environmental benefit of recharging. The use of Cadmium is now significantly restricted in the European
Union under the RoHS and REACH
programs, making these pretty much
unusable in Europe.
Early NiCd cells suffered from an
issue where a particular sequence
of charge discharge events could
cause the battery to apparently lose
capacity. The story goes that this
TECH TALK u
behavior was first observed on a
satellite in space, but there was also
a much more down to earth use case.
Imagine you regularly drain a battery
to a particular level, say 50% such
as when using a laptop in a normal
workday. In the evening you plug
in the charger and leave it to charge
slowly overnight. You do this for a
week or so, then one day, you go on
a long trip, you try to use all the batteries capacity: Although apparently
fully charged, it dies at 50%, as if it
‘remembered’ its usual workday. For
this reason it became known as the
‘memory effect’.
In reality what was happening was
the cadmium-hydroxide crystals in
the cells were growing as much as
100 times, increasing the internal resistance and causing voltage depression. The capacity was actually still
there, but could no longer supply the
voltage necessary to drive the device. The issue can be countered by
exercising (discharge /charge) and
reconditioning (slow discharge to below cut off voltage). Recent design
NiCd’s have significantly reduced
this behavior.
Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) is
a good choice for effects pedals.
They can last up to a thousand cycles
with reasonable performance. They
are prone to self-discharge which
means they will lose some of their
charge just sitting unused. However,
advances have been made recently
that improve this and good quality
‘low self-discharge’ 9V batteries
with capacities of around 250mAh
are available for under $10 each. A
charger can be had for around $20.
The new kid on the block for 9v
rechargeable batteries is LithiumIon, using the same chemistry as
the batteries in smart gadgets like
phones and computers, but in a 9V
format. The specifications look
attractive: The batteries are really
light, have capacities up to 600mAh,
and a four-pack with charger can be
had for less than $30. There is not
much choice though. The two big
name battery manufacturers do not
offer Li-Ion rechargeables, and there
is little technical information on the
brands that are available. It’s early
days for these. It will be interesting
to see how they work out.
Pros and Cons
Alkaline
+ Low cost, very low self discharge,
non-toxic
- Unavailable in 9V, high internal
resistance
NiCd
+ High discharge rate, good over
charge discharge tolerance, long
cycle life
- Heavy, toxic, low energy density
NiMH
+ Light, non-toxic, good energy density, wide availability
- High self discharge, low over
charge discharge tolerance
Li-Ion
+ Very light, non-toxic, very high
energy density
- Limited choice, low over charge
discharge tolerance, unproven in
9V form
Conclusions
Charging a rechargeable costs
pennies, and with hundreds of recharges over several years, the extra
initial cost is soon recovered. When
they reach the end of their useful
lives, disposing of one rechargeable versus one hundred alkalines
is always going to be better for the
environment. Music equipment such
as effects pedals, wireless microphones, headphones, and portable
recorders make great candidates for
rechargeable batteries. G
James Lebihan is the owner of Mission Engineering in Petaluma, California. See his handiwork at www.
missionengineering.com.
1.21 GIGAWATTS: You don’t need a trip to the future to realize the usefulness of rechargeable battieries when it comes to music gear.
25
LIST-ERIA! u
Causing gearhead discomfort since 2014
7
THE
BEST ROCK DOCUMENTARIES
.. )
OF THE PAST 11 YEARS (in no par ticular orde r.
It’s Saturday night. No gig. Kids are crashed. The wife is at her weekly Bunko session with her girlfriends. Why not
check out a sweet rock-and-roll documentary? Been out of the loop for a while? We’ve got you covered with our
picks for the best music docs to come along in the past ten years or so. Check ‘em out!
Jeff Feuerzeig’s 2005
look into Texas-based
artist/musician Daniel
Johnson is equal parts
fascinating and heartbreaking. Johnson,
diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar
disorder, is a captivating subject bouncing between sold out
showcases and mental
wards. The film itself does a wonderful job
telling his story of melancholy and madness.
Johnson remains somewhat active in both the
art and music scenes. You can visit his website
by clicking here.
Peter Bogdanovich’s
exhaustive look at
the career of Gainesville, Florida’s Tom
Petty and the Heartbreakers is a origin
story that digs deep
into the foundation
of one of America’s
most successful,
enduring rock-androll bands. Petty and
his bandmates are open and sincere about the
early struggles, the dark days of drug use and
more. Clocking in at around four hours, it’s a
marathon, but well worth the investment for
this kind of access into the creative process.
28
A generationspanning look at
the art and love of
the guitar as seen
through three
very different pro
players, Davis
Guggenheim’s It
Might Get Loud
isn’t a perfect film,
but it is unique.
The best parts of
the film are when White, Edge and Page are
sitting around swapping guitar stories... and
seeing the sincere admiration each man has for
the other and for their instruments. The bits
with Page alone are well worth your time.
Canadian rock stalwarts Rush released
this career-spanning
doc in 2010. Impressive
enough to smartly collect over three decades
of memories and events
into a sub-two hour
film, but the sheer
amount of original
vintage footage is staggering. It will leave you
wondering just how they knew to film some of
this stuff. Beyond The Lighted Stage is a white
paper in the study of ‘band as family’, coping
with success, tragedy and musical challenges
all while having each other’s back.
LIST-ERIA! u
Causing gearhead discomfort since 2014
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry... you’ll shake your damn head at this 2004
rock doc by filmmakers Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger. Some Kind
of Monster takes a personal look into the lives of the band members
in Metallica... one of the most successful rock bands on earth. While
showcasing the making of the band’s St. Anger album, the movie is
much more about the machine that is Metallica LLC and its internal
struggles. The band hires a shrink to help it work its way through
issues that have arisen regarding both personal demons, like singer
James Hetfield’s drug problems, to the business of hiring a new bass
player to fill the shoes of the departed Jason Newsted. It’s part follies
(just look at producer Bob Rock’s face during most of the shenanigans), and part frightening (how could they be that screwed up!),
but damn interesting for the entire two-hour-plus run time.
Searching For Sugar Man is the unbelievable tale of a Detroit-based
construction worker’s rise to pop stardom in South Africa. If you’re
already saying “What?!”, you are not alone. Sixto Rodriguez cut a
pair of records back in the 1970s that spoke to the urban decay and
general hard lives of the inner city poor in his hometown. It was
heady stuff, but both albums were monumental flops. Unbeknownst
to Rodriguez, who had long left his rock star dreams behind for more
practical pursuits, his records were huge in South Africa... anthems
of the Apartheid age. Because the country was basically cut off from
the rest of the world during that period, it took years and a pair of
intrepid musicologists to search the globe, find the man and tell
him he was famous. Director Malik Bendjelloul brings all the pieces
together that would eventually lead to an artist’s second chance.
Muscle Shoals is the unlikely story of a little town in Alabama that was
the launching pad for some of the biggest hit records... ever. The 2013
film tells the story of Rick Hall and Fame Studios, a man with a steely
vision and a room with the magic mojo that spawned hits for Aretha
Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, Percy Sledge and countless
others. It also tells the story of the Swampers, Fame’s house band
and their climb to stardom that would lead them to form their own
Muscle Shoals-based studio and tour with the likes of Traffic... and
recording hit rock records for Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Segar, The Allman Brothers and scores more. The magic of the men and of this
town is on full display, and director Greg “Freddy” Camalier does
an admirable job jumping between the vintage footage of famous
sessions and talking-head interviews with many of those who
were touched by the Muscle Shoals mystique.
29
QUICK TAKE u
Paul DeCourcey
ALOKE
LINDEN
DIVISION
DECOURCEY
Bassist Paul DeCourcey splits time between his band, his brand and his upstate NY store
DOWNTOWN Peekskill, New
York, is busy for a Sunday morning. People are shuffling in and out
of buildings, circling the block in
search of parking while the police
set to cornering off Division Street
and its restaurant row for a nearby
local art show and to be more
pedestrian friendly for the coming lunch hour. Nestled among the
eateries between Central Avenue
and Main Street is Division Street
Guitars, a venture that started out
as a repair workshop, but soon
evolved into a full-service guitar
store. Captaining the Division ship
is Paul DeCourcey, who in addition to his shop duties is a partner
in instrument manufacturer Linden
Guitars as well as bassist in the
30
rock band Aloke, which recently
released a new album produced by
famed Chicago-based noise-smith
Steve Albini.
Linden, where DeCourcey — also a
10-year repairs veteran with Southside Guitars in Brooklyn — partners
with Bill Walker, neighbor and father
of Aloke bandmate Alex Walker,
builds mainly Fender-esque guitars
with emphasis on Tele-style and
Jazzmaster-style body styles, but
usually sporting more unique pickup configurations and neck profiles.
“We also do a baritone, which is
like a Bass VI that is really cool,”
says DeCourcey. “It is one of my
favorite ones. We started building
Lindens in 2011. I’ve been working
on guitars for years and built a lot
of parts-guitars. When I had my first
son I moved out of the city back up
here where I grew up. I happen to
move next door to who is now my
partner in Linden… Bill Walker. We
were both right there and into it so
we decided to start making some
guitars. It took off from there. As for
the name, that’s our street. We live
next door to each other on Linden
Ave. It had a good ring to it.”
Linden’s shop is located in Mamaroneck, New York. That is where
the CNC machine carves the bodies.
All of the other work is done either
at Division Street or on a bench in
DeCourcey’s basement or the one in
Walker’s house. The finishing booth
also is at the shop with the CNC.
Linden has only officially been
QUICK TAKE u
Paul DeCourcey
around for about a year. By De- knows what he likes. He’s pretty
something to happen with that… we
Courcey’s count there are about 30 up-front about it. We got a long rejust ran out of money. At that time,
Linden guitars in circulation, but ally well. The studio is amazing. We
with the scene that was going on,
they do have some folks playing lived upstairs. Growing up we liswe just didn’t fit in with anything
them live, which has helped get the tened to so many bands that he had
popular. I mean The Killers were
word out. DeCourcey’s Aloke band- recorded, it was like a dream being
happening at the time we were really
mate Christian Zucconi plays an there. Especially our drummer… he
pushing it in New York.”
early Linden (which says DeCourc- is known for getting the best drum
Albini told DeCourcey and crew
ey on the headstock) with his other sounds. He was so psyched to go and to bring their own instruments
band Grouplove, best known for
with them to the studio. He
its single ‘Tongue Tied’, which
didn’t want anything to change
also appeared in an Apple iPod
as far what the band sounded
commercial.
like live.
“We’ll probably get to original
“He wanted to capture that…
shapes,” says DeCourcey. “It’s
how we sound,” said DeCourcey.
hard with custom guitars because
“He really pushed us not to mess
if the name is not that well known
around too much with our sound.
people have a hard time spending
He wanted us to sound like we
a lot of money on it because they
sound. For certain songs we
are afraid they won’t be able to
dipped into his gear trove. On
resell it if they need to. If you buy
one song I did used one of his
a Fender, you know you’ll be able
basses through an old Ampeg,
to get some money back out of it.”
just for a more laid back sound.”
Aloke’s new album Alive,
Aloke played a pair of shows
which was recorded in 2007 but
this summer, for the first time in
ultimately shelved, found a home
a very long time — one in Philaat The End Records and was fidelphia and one in Brooklyn.
nally released earlier in 2015. NEW ALBUM: Aloke’s Alive was produced by Steve Albini
“It was a big reunion… a great
DeCourcey fondly recalls the rereaction,” recalls DeCourcey. “In
cording experience in Albini’s Chi- have Steve record his drums.”
the last month, we went out to LA
cago studio.
The album was finished quickly,
and did a show that was really well
“It was awesome,” he says. “One
but the music scene had changed
received, but we have no immediate
of the best experiences of my life.
quite a bit and ultimately cost it a
plans now. Christian’s wife is due
We were there for a little over two
timely release.
to have a baby any day now. Then
weeks. We didn’t take a lot of time.
“We did it on our own,” he says.
Grouplove is recording for the rest
We go in, track to tape with no edits. “We didn’t have any manager or
of the year. There is some talk of a
It was awesome just to be there and
label support of any kind at the time. tour in 2016, but we’re all spread out
watch him work. His style of doing
At that point we were touring all the
all over the country right now so,
things. He’s an interesting guy. He
time and we were going to try to get
we’ll see.” G
LINDEN GUITARS: A few shots of the production process of Linden’s Tele-style guitar.
31
QUICK TAKE u
Paul DeCourcey
AROUND THE SHOP...
Division Street Guitars is a growing mix of vintage and modern equipment, including DeCourcey’s own Linden
Guitars brand. The shop also sports a stage at one end that will likely be retained to host area shows. “We’re
trying to make this like the misfit spot where the area punk bands can come in and play,” says DeCourcey.
32
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SIX STRING SUPERNOVA
INTERVIEW BY ALISON RICHTER
PHOTO BY CHAPMAN BAEHLER
Joe Satriani talks exclusively with Gearphoria about shaking the tree, concept albums and his
multi-decade career as a celebrated facemelter
INTERVIEW u
Joe Satriani
IT’S AN enjoyable experience for some, a necessary evil for others, and the bane of
many beginning musicians’ existence. Practice. It’s the punch line to the generationsold question, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” It’s also what Joe Satriani was doing prior to beginning a day of interviews. “It’s one of those discouraging facts,” he
says. “When I was young, I always thought that I’d practice for a couple of years and
then I’d be good, I’d be set, and I could just go and have fun. But decade after decade it’s like, ‘Man, I’ve got to keep practicing all the time; otherwise my fingers forget what they’re supposed to do and how hard it is to do it.’”
Decade after decade of practice has yielded fifteen studio albums, including Satriani’s latest, Shockwave Supernova, a unique project, a concept album of sorts, in
which he explores the complicated, intertwined relationship between musician and
performer, artist and alter-ego. The album entered at No. 19 on the Billboard Top
200, the highest debut in his 30-year career.
Joe Satriani’s storied career has taken him around the world numerous times. Whether leading his own band, as founder of the all-star G3 tours, or as a member of Chickenfoot, he consistently plays to sold-out crowds. To date, his catalog has sold over
10 million copies worldwide. He has received multiple Grammy nominations, and in
2014 he published Strange Beautiful Music: A Musical Memoir. Through it all, while the
accolades never stop coming, he remains refreshingly unaffected by the fanfare that
accompanies being in the spotlight.
GEARPHORIA: Social media makes it
possible to do things like the behindthe-scenes making of the album and
communicate directly with fans. Why
continue to do so much press?
JOE: It’s a funny analogy, but with
relationships, friends, family, and
people that they love or choose, I
often think that, at some point, people
think I’ve got enough people to deal
with, but I believe everyone is always
surprised at their capacity to add
more people’s love and more friends
in their life. In the same way, if I can
draw an analogy to the interviews,
every once in a while... as a perfect
example, the way this interview is
starting off. It’s different. An interviewer may stimulate you to see your
own art in a new way, from a new angle, perhaps. You never know how the
question is going to hit you. Suddenly
you have a revelation that you hadn’t
thought of before about something
you talked about a hundred times. For
some reason, that one interview gets
you to look at it from a different point
of view. So I enjoy it.
I always think back to the days
when someone said to me, “Hey,
we’ve got to stick a camera in your
face while you’re casually working
on something,” and I would go, “Why
would I show that?” The old phrase
used to be, “The cat’s out of the bag.”
I’m not sure what the new way of
saying that is, but basically there is
no privacy for entertainers anymore.
People are interested in all angles of
an artist’s life, but they don’t grade it
the way they used to.
When I was a kid, I would only
see the 8x10 glossy of a movie star
or pop star. You only would see
approved images and stories were
cleaned up. Press was very limited,
especially for rock and roll, because
it was underground and counterculture. It’s gone through this crazy
process now where it is completely
turned out. Every star, every part of
their life is unearthed, but it doesn’t
have the same meaning as it used to.
In the ’50s and ’60s, and maybe even
the ’70s, if you found out something
personal about an artist, it was a big
deal. Now it’s over in about five minutes. Even the most outrageous things
that happen by accident blow up and
dissolve within minutes. Nobody
cares anymore.
I filter all of these observations in
when I start the day and someone
says, “Oh, by the way, you’ve got six
interviews to do in between practicing, writing, and recording.” I figure,
this could be interesting. I know that,
unfortunately, very few interviews become the definitive interview, which
should make most subjects relax. I’m
a lot more relaxed than I was at the
beginning of my career.
The first time I got interviewed for
Rolling Stone, I was thinking... Wow,
this is the definitive interview for the
definitive rock magazine, and then
about a year later I realized, What
35
INTERVIEW u
Joe Satriani
CHICKENFOOT JOE: Apart from his solo work, Satriani plays in Chickenfoot, an all-star band with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith.
was I thinking? I don’t know if there
are definitive interviews anymore. I
think we should all have fun with it,
because people consume so much.
People in my position should invite
talking about it, because you might
learn something about yourself.
When we spoke two years ago, you
had a new rhythm section and you
said, “It definitely shakes the tree a
little bit.” Is the tree still shaking?
Yes. I chose to include five of the
songs that came from the Unstoppable Momentum sessions that featured
Mike Keneally, who’s still in the
band, and that had Vinnie Colaiuta on
drums and Chris Chaney on bass. We
only replaced the bass and drums on
one of those songs, so there are four
on the new album that are 90 percent
36
from the previous record’s sessions. I
rewrote parts, added some melodies,
shortened, lengthened, did stuff like
that, and worked with what I had,
because — you reminded me of that
phrase “shaking the tree” — what
Chris and Vinnie did for songs like
‘Crazy Joey,’ ‘Keep On Movin’ and
‘In My Pocket’ I found extremely
exciting from a musical point of view,
and they fit so well with the concept
of this alter-ego, Shockwave Supernova, as he’s pleading his case to me,
the real Joe, saying, “Look at what
I’ve done. Look at all this fun we’ve
had because of me.” The playfulness
of that rhythm section helped hold the
concept of the record together.
Of course, the excitement of having
both Vinnie and Marco [Minnemann]
is a real tree-shaker because they’re
so different from each other, but they
are what you would call the ultimate
virtuoso drummers. They’re incredible and they’re incredibly different
as well — different generation, different stylistic upbringing, different
gear, just different in every single
way. Yet they are so important to the
lifeblood of the album. Both of them
play completely differently than the
way I thought the drummer would
have played when I was making
demos at home.
I presented the demos for the
Shockwave record the same way I
did for the Unstoppable record. I
said, “This is a funny demo, I know,
but here’s the concept behind the
song. Give me seven or eight different impressions of how this song
could be fun for you to play.” I love
the fact that they can relax yet bring
all of their frightening technique,
Joe Satriani
PHOTO BY CHRISTIE GOODWIN
INTERVIEW u
CONCEPTUALIZE: For his first full-length record Not Of This Earth, Satriani’s concept was “to be different from everybody.”
if they think it’s going to make the
song work, but very quickly, just like
kids, they will put down one toy and
move on to the next. That’s what you
want, because in the studio, you can
edit for years. There’s no problem.
These days, editing is non-destructible, so the ultimate task, as always,
is to get creative, and that’s the
hardest thing. It’s easy to edit. You
can go to school for that. You can’t
go to school to be creative. So we’re
always trying to work the proverbial
mojo in the studio.
Both Vinnie and Marco are so different, and in a way, Chris Chaney
and Bryan Beller are extremely different. Bryan is playing bass on most
of the record, and both of them play
bass very differently than I do. I make
an appearance on bass on a couple
of songs, but it’s all in support of
the concept, which I was constantly
reminding them of as a way of getting
them to drop their guard a little bit
and have some fun with it.
Aren’t they all concept albums in a
way? You’re telling a story with the
guitar, rather than making sure you
write radio-friendly songs with hooks
and choruses and a good beat that
people can dance to and “I’ll give it
an 85.”
I think you’re mostly right there. I
might exchange the word concept for
the phrase ‘selective parameters’. I’ll
go back to my first full-length solo
record, Not Of This Earth [1986].
The concept was to be different from
everybody. I went to the studio, paid
for the thing on a credit card, I didn’t
bring an amp to the studio — how
stupid is that? It was my idea of being
different. I’m going to use whatever’s
there, because I knew there were
amps in the closet, right? We literally
did that and it worked out. It added
some kind of danger to the sessions.
For Surfing With The Alien [1987],
my only concept was I wanted it to
celebrate all the aspects of guitar that
I write, so I went against the trend
of neo-classical shred and created
a happy-sounding record that had
references to Chuck Berry and Jimi
Hendrix, as well as Allan Holdsworth
and John McLaughlin. That’s kind of
a loose concept. It’s not like a story
or a narrative. With Flying In A Blue
Dream [1989], there was no concept
at all. It was “Let’s do everything I
always wanted to do on a record.”
With The Extremist [1992], the
concept was to make a classic-rock
37
INTERVIEW u
Joe Satriani
SATCH’S GEAR LIST
MAIN GUITARS: Ibanez JS2410MCO, JS2450MCP, JS2400, JS
3-single coil prototypes ADDITIONAL GUITARS: Ibanez JSA10VB and JSA20 acoustics,
various JS models with EverTune bridges, ‘80 Ibanez ST-1200
Doubleneck, ‘66 Fender Electric 12 string, ‘98 Epiphone Les
Paul 12 string, ‘59 Gretsch Chet Atkins, ‘97 Jerry Jones Electric Sitar, ‘72 Fender P-Bass
MAIN AMPS: Marshall JVM410HJS heads, Marshall JS 20 watt
combo prototype, various vintage Marshall 100 watt heads,
new and vintage 4x12 Marshall cabs
ADDITIONAL AMPS: Vintage Fender tweed and blackface
combos, ‘60 Gibson Discoverer Tremolo combo, Two Rock “JS”
head and cab, ‘84 Roland JC-120, vintage Peavey 5150, several
Fargen amps, Wells Amp
PEDALS, ETC...: VOX/JS BBW wah wah, Fractal Axe-Fxll,
D’Addario .010’s, Planet Waves Extra Heavy JS picks, Planet
Waves JS signature straps, Planet Waves glass slide, Honer
Blues Harp with Shure Bullet Mic, John Cuniberti’s “reamp”,
Millennia HV-37 mic pre
RECORDING SPECS: ProTools at 96K, plugins: SansAmp,
Guitar Rig, FM8, Absynth, Kontakt, M-Tron, DB-33, Mini Grand,
Waves and UAD collections
record, and it was the worst concept
ever, because when it was released,
it was the height of grunge. I was
completely out of step with reality, which says a lot about me right
there. I spent about five months in
L.A. working on that record, I’m
in my car, driving home from Bernie Grundman’s mastering lab, I’m
listening to the record, and then I turn
on the radio and I go, “Oh my god,
what have I done? This is the wrong
38
record for 1992!” But it did give us
‘Summer Song,’ which was my most
popular and most successful radio hit
here and internationally. It was freaky
how that record worked, even though
it came out at the wrong time.
Sometimes the records don’t have
concepts as much as they have
parameters where I say to myself,
“You’re not going to sing,” or
“You’re going to sing,” or “You can
show your classic roots,” or “You’re
just going to do all weird stuff on
this record.”
For Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards [2010], my only concept was to
make it sound like a band. It focused
on Allen [Whitman], Jeff [Campitelli],
and Mike, so they did arrangements
where sometimes we just grooved
for a long time and there wasn’t a
whole lot of melody. So I’ll stick to
that phrase: not always a concept, but
definitely a set of parameters.
In this day of six-second attention
spans and people downloading one
song at a time, you made a fifteensong album.
Every time I go to put out a record,
I get together with the social media
people and folks I work with, and
I’m always alarmed at how deep
they are into their world of short
attention spans and sound bites and
social media numbers. That’s not
my life at all. When I quiet myself,
I say, “What does Joe Satriani really
do?” I write music, I record music,
and then I go around the world and
play music for people on stages.
This other stuff happens around me.
When your job is like mine, when
you’re a musician/entertainer, you
have to budget your time and budget very carefully because you don’t
get a paycheck every Friday, and
there’s no pension, no gold watch,
no anything. There’s rarely a reward
in the entertainment industry, so
you have to be vigilant about what
you waste your time doing and what
you spend your good time doing, so
that there’s a proper return.
This is all based on understanding
what it is you do. So if I go back to
“Joe Satriani writes music, plays it on
his guitar, records it, and goes around
the world on tour playing it in front
of people,” everything has to service
that, and if it’s not, then I have to
stop doing it. So when someone says
to me, “Ah, man, no one puts out
records anymore,” right away I know
that they’re bitter and they’re not tell-
INTERVIEW u
ing the truth. They’ve deluded themselves into thinking that. They’ve
decided to look at all the successes in
the last ten years and discount them.
It’s like saying Taylor Swift doesn’t
exist. It’s like someone complaining
that they don’t look right. I say, “Are
you kidding? Look at me. I’m the
worst example of what an entertainer
should look like, yet this is all I do,
and I don’t have an issue with it, nor
do the fans.” So I look at social media
and I say, “If this is going to help in
the writing, recording, and going on
tour, then it’s a good thing to do.”
I thought about the fifteen songs,
and to be totally honest with you, I
second-guessed myself a few times,
thinking... Am I completely out of
my mind? I sat down with my wife
and I said, “Am I completely out of
my mind?” She said, “No, go ahead
and do it. You and your fans are like
one, so if you like it, most likely your
fans are going to dig it too.” The next
thing was to call my manager and
say, “Hey, I’ve got a crazy idea. How
about fifteen songs?” His approach is
always, “Well, which fifteen songs?”
So we got past that idea and I called
John Cuniberti, who was going to be
my engineer and co-producer, and
I invited him to the project. I said,
“Be forewarned: I want the album
to have fifteen songs, and it’s going
to have different drummers and bass
players, and there’s going to be a
crazy concept.” He was all for it, so
the last step was, “Let’s get together
with the record company,” because I
recently theoretically walked across
the hall in the Sony building from
Epic to Legacy. I sent them the demos
and they were so excited. They said,
“Don’t think about people complaining that nobody buys records or they
have six-second attention spans. What
is it that you want to do artistically,
and how can we help you do it?”
I was getting the green light everywhere, which I was happy about
because it confirmed my inner feeling,
which is, I’m a guitarist and I’m a
consumer of music that I find exciting
Joe Satriani
AXE OF CHOICE: Satriani has been an endorsed Ibanez player since 1988.
and love to listen to for long periods
of time. I like album-length projects,
whether it’s vocal-oriented or instrumental. I’m looking for that, so my
fans must be looking for it too. Why
try to sound like somebody that I’ve
seen blowing up on Twitter? Who
cares about that? All those green lights
confirmed my initial feeling, so I was
putting the blinders on, so to speak.
At the same time, you’re shining the
brightest light on what you have, and
suddenly you realize, OK, now that
we’ve got the green light, I’ve got
to deliver the goods. That becomes
the all-consuming fear, anxiety, and
excitement. It’s both positive and a
good dose of negative stress where
you wonder, Now that I’m so excited
about it, can I actually pull it off? I
never look back, so we worked until
the very last moment, the idea of
the concept and making sure that we
achieved what we set out to do with
39
INTERVIEW u
Joe Satriani
the record, never thinking about, as
your question suggested, Who puts
out fifteen songs these days? I do.
The perfect thing is that you give the
audience a lot of music.
As Glyn Johns once said to me, “It’s
not my job to decide what people will
like and what they won’t like.” My
job is simply to play my guitar. Once
you’re free of that, they’re going to
like it or not like it, and I have no
control over that. It’s their prerogative. It’s their right. You go out, tour,
and you find out eventually
what they liked and what
they think is just OK, and
that’s cool. That’s part of
being an artist, an entertainer, and a musician. You
have to let people be themselves and make their own
choices, and you have to
stand behind yours as well.
things can be reinterpreted over and
over sonically. How it relates to
me, I record all of my guitars both
DI and through an amp simultaneously, so that later on — next week,
next month, next year — with a new
drummer and bass player behind
that guitar performance, I might
decide, That Fender amp sound isn’t
cutting it. Let’s reamp that DI guitar
and put it through a Marshall. That
flexibility is fantastic. I’ve really
enjoyed it. Ever since John Cunib-
You can plan on using that device
by recording your guitars DI, just
eschewing an amplifier, and this
way you can reamp everything.
We’ve been doing it to a large degree on the last ten records because
we have so much information to
use that I’ve recorded at home. It
might be a keyboard thing that I
recorded using software synths, or
bass guitar, or in most cases rhythm,
melody, and solo guitars.
If I looked over the song list, I
would say there’s only a
few that were written and
performed on the same
guitar. Very few. The
last song on the album,
‘Goodbye Supernova,’
was one of those. I was
sitting down with one
of my JS2400’s, I was
plugged into a Fractal
Axe-Fx II, and I started
Do you write and record
recording the minute I
with the same guitars?
realized I was writing this
song. I built that song
Home recording plays into
very quickly, and I don’t
that question. Very often
think I ever changed guiI’m sitting down with an
tars. I kept tuning it and
instrument, I’ve written a
decided not to bother with
song, I’m in the moment, I
it. I recorded it DI, so I
turn on Pro Tools, and I rethink the only difference
cord it right then and there.
in that recording in terms
Many times, because of the
of the guitar may have
modern setup of recording,
been in the breakdown.
I am using the guitar that I NEW ONE: Satriani released Shockwave Supernova in July of this year.
That happened because
wrote the song on. That’s
the song had been finished
erti invented the Reamp box back
so different than the old days, when
maybe a year or two before I sent
in 1993, when we were working on
people would write songs, maybe go
it to John Cuniberti for evaluation,
the Time Machine live recordings,
out on tour and play them live, and
and he came back with the funniest
it has been a staple in the studio. He comment. He said, “Sounds great.
when they go to the studio, new gear
shows up and the producer says, “No, figured out a way to take a signal
What’s happening in the middle?” I
play the 12-string. Don’t play the Les off of tape — back then we were
was like, “What do you mean, what’s
working with multi-track tape, but
happening in the middle? It’s the
Paul, play the Tele.” The album gets
coolest breakdown ever.” He goes,
put together brand new, which is very it works the same way with a hard
drive — put it into this box, that
“No, it isn’t.” I went, “Oh, OK.” It’s
different from today. You don’t go to
box sends it back to the front of the
important to have a sounding board,
a place, load in your gear, you’ve got
amp, and the box makes the signal
and John is the perfect one. He never
from four o’clock in the afternoon
minces words. He gets right to the
until midnight, and you’d better get it match exactly the way an instrument would look going into the
point. I listened to it and I thought,
done. That’s a time stress, so you use
amp, so the amp thinks it’s a guitar
Maybe he’s right; there’s nothing
what you’ve got.
or a bass coming at it, not somethere. I thought the nothingness was
With digital recording we’ve
thing that’s already been recorded.
something, but in fact it was nothremoved that time stress, so many
40
INTERVIEW u
ing, or not enough. I plugged in that
Axe-Fx again, only because I knew
it was on the track already, I played
around, and I found something. All
of a sudden it was... Oh my god, I
can’t believe I didn’t write the song
around this part that I’m playing
right now. It was a bit of a revelation
at that particular moment. I think I
had moved on to my 2410 by then,
because that was my main guitar in
the home studio at that moment, but
the chain was pretty much the same.
It was going into the Axe-Fx and
recording it exactly the way it was,
no DI track, unfortunately. We had to
deal with what we got.
You mentioned the days of loading
in the gear, having a certain amount
of time, and having to get it done.
You recorded this album at Skywalker
Sound [Lucas Valley, California]. How
structured were your sessions in
terms of number of hours per day?
Absolutely structured. You have to
be. When you’re spending thousands
of dollars a day, man, that adds up.
Another thing is you’ve only got the
musicians for two days, eight days,
twelve days. In the case of my current
rhythm section, they’re two-thirds of
The Aristocrats, and they tour in and
around my schedule. Mike Keneally is
also busy with his producing schedule
and his own live band, so everything
has to be carefully worked out in
advance. Months before we got to
Skywalker, we knew that I had these
guys for ten days in January and that
was it, so we had to get it done. We
figured we’d just see if we could do
1.3 songs per day. That was our model.
Sometimes we’d get lucky, we’d get
two and we’d be ahead of the game.
We actually finished a little bit early,
which helped because I had a session
with Robin DiMaggio on the last day
to do the finishing touches on a song
called ‘Music Without Words’ that we
were producing for the U.N. General
Assembly [Note: DiMaggio is the
U.N.’s longtime musical director.].
The schedule was usually in the
morning we would listen to songs
and I would say, “We’re going to do
this song. What do we need to do
gear-wise?” After everyone listens
to the music, they go to their corner
and start fiddling with their gear, and
then they resend their ideas to me.
Then we start doing takes, and we
hope to be finished before dinnertime.
Generally, we tried to go from 11 to
7. I decided that eight-hour days were
smart if we were going to work every
day. In the old days we used to work
too long, like twelve hours, and that
always created an enormous amount
of burnout. By the fifth or sixth day,
everyone’s ears were shot and people
weren’t getting along.
I realized that there’s no saving of
money by working people to death,
including yourself, so I started to
think, It’s not like I’m 19 anymore
and I’ve got nothing else to do.
There’s always something. There’s
interviews, writing, the other band
I’m in, something, and the other guys
are doing the same thing. Finally we
said, “Eight hours a day. Let’s make
it normal so that people who have
kids can drive their kids to school,
we can all go to the studio, go home,
and take part in some kind of normal
ritual. Those of us who are playing
like crazy can go home and rest.”
That was also extremely important.
If you are called on to play rigorous
parts for four or five hours, that’s
enough. On tour you only play about
two hours a day. In the studio, what
good is going to come from trying
to work somebody to death for nine
hours? You have to keep it fresh.
So yes, I stay on a tight schedule.
We coordinate notes, we’ve got a
big board, it’s ridiculous. When we
were doing Surfing With The Alien,
I had notes written in Day Runner:
“1:00 - 2:00 — did keyboards, tried
to play guitar for an hour.” When
you bring up tape, there’s nothing on
there. It’s just audio, the track sheets
are limited in their information,
and generally there’s nobody being
Joe Satriani
very secretarial about things. But in
the digital world we’re all sort of
our own secretarial staff, and when
you’re recording in Pro Tools, the
document’s in front of you. There
are places to put comments and everything is time-stamped, so it helps
with organization.
Which miking techniques and placements do you swear by, and how did
you find them? How big a part does
John Cuniberti play?
The closer the mic, the less room
you’re going to hear. That’s so obvious, but sometimes people don’t think
about that if they’ve never done it
before. Since I’m old now, I actually have experience and I can say,
“In the old days …!” Working with
both Andy and Glyn Johns, they were
masters and kind of invented rock and
roll mic technique, but they did things
very differently. Glyn liked using one
mic, perfectly placed, for the sound
that he thought right then and there
was the fucking sound and he didn’t
want to talk about it. Andy would put
seven mics on a cabinet, continually
blend those microphones, and then
sum them all into one track.
I should say both brothers shared
that sense of bravery. They came
from an era when you had to commit,
because there was limited time, it
was analog, and it was limited space.
They learned to record being totally
brave and making these decisions —
“If you want reverb on that guitar,
let’s record it now and then that’s it.
No tweaking it later.” It really helped
with mixing.
When Glyn Johns would mix a record there’d be seven faders, nothing
labeled, so even if you stood over his
shoulder, you had no idea what he
was doing, and he made everything
simple because he made all those
decisions earlier. You fast-forward to
a modern mixer and they’re using 42
channels, and they never stop tweaking the reverb and the compression
because everything is post, every-
41
INTERVIEW u
Joe Satriani
thing you can fiddle with. There’s
a huge benefit to that and there’s a
huge negative to that. I don’t know
how we would ever answer the question “Which is better?” I think it’s a
moot point. It’s simply what people
do at the time and what they have at
their disposal.
Glyn Johns invented the three-mic
drum technique and blew everybody
away. One on the ground by the floor
tom, one above, and one at the kick.
Insane, right? But it works. Sometimes John Cuniberti would use that
when we were recording Jeff Campitelli because Jeff played that way. He
was an old-school drummer. Andy, of
course, loved putting forty mics on
a drum kit and sitting there working
it forever. Mike Fraser is a little bit
more like that, although Mike is also
a good combination, where if he’s
listening to me fiddle with six pedals
and two guitar amps, he’ll say, “I like
that. Let’s record that and be done
with it.” He loves that, as well as
making sure that he has every option
covered in terms of radically changing a mix, because he’s got the kick
drum recorded with six mics, that
kind of thing.
John Cuniberti has the greatest ears
I’ve ever witnessed on any engineer.
He hears depth and distortion when
no one else can hear it, and he can
keep his eye on the prize like nobody else. What I’ve learned when
I’m working with John is that if I’ve
got a guitar strapped around me and
my fingers are touching the strings,
I can no longer truly evaluate what
it sounds like, because I’m getting
too much sensory feedback from my
fingers, and the feel of the thing at
hand is superceding what my ears are
telling me.
It’s a funny thing that you don’t
want to recognize or admit — that
you can’t tell if your guitar sounds
right. I’ve learned to hand that decision-making process over to John. I
tell him what I want: “I want this to
smack you right in the face,” “I want
this to be distant, have some dynam-
42
ics,” “I’m going to keep playing; you
go out there and move it around, tell
me when you think we’ve got it, and
then I’ll go with it.” And he’s always
right. I’ve seen him move a mic
around a centimeter at a time until
he thinks it’s the right sound. I don’t
think we’ve ever used more than two
mics, seriously. Like all the other
great engineers, he loves committing
to a sound if he really believes in it.
He’ll say: “That’s it. Let’s record it.”
However, as proof of this last statement about working with John and
how sensory feedback changes your
ability to hear properly, there were so
many tracks on the new record that
had already been performed, we had
fifteen amps in the studio room, plus
all my Marshall heads in the control
room, and when we went to reamp
everything, I was able to hear it the
way he heard it because I wasn’t
playing anymore. I’m sitting there
with my arms folded and I’m receiving guitar 100 percent through my
ears. Then the two of us could collaborate on which amp sounded better
for this particular guitar part, if it’s a
rhythm part, melody, solo, harmony.
I think that has a lot to do with it. If
you’re actually playing, I don’t think
you can hear it as objectively as the
engineer who doesn’t have his fingers
around the guitar neck.
So, to get back to miking, if you
want biting, you get closer to the
cone. If you’re looking to pick up
some low end, you angle the mic
and push it toward the edge of the
speaker. If you’re looking to record
the environment, you start to pull
back. The first time I had fun with
that, we were recording ‘Satch Boogie,’ and John used a shotgun mic on
the Marshall half-stack. I was running
my guitar into a Marshall 100-watt,
it was pretty loud, we were in Studio
C at Hyde Street, a pretty legendary
room and not very big, on the small
to medium side as far as a music
room goes, parquet floor — I can tell
you everything about it at the time.
It was long and shallow, as opposed
to the way we were setting up. We
were on the shallow side, with the
amp pointing at the control room. It
was one guitar playing that was pretty
complicated on the top, and then all
of a sudden the rhythm guitars would
come in sort of dry and in your face.
John got the idea to get some ambience going, and he used a shotgun
mic. It was the first time anyone
had done that, and I went, “What is
that sound?” He said, “I picked up a
little bit of the room, but I was able
to narrow the spectrum by using
the shotgun mic and getting exactly
the tone I wanted.” When the solo
comes on, it’s the 57 straight, just off
the center of the cone and right up
against the grill. You feel that as the
song progresses — suddenly that solo
guitar is way in your face because the
mic’s closer.
We’ve talked about the studio. What
are you taking on tour?
I’ll probably take two 2410’s and two
2450’s, the muscle car orange and
muscle car purple JS Ibanez guitars.
I’ve got to bring out two more, one
Drop D and one probably without a
Sustainiac. Most of those guitars I
mentioned have Sustainiac pickups
put in the neck position. I’ve used
that on so many songs over the last
three albums that it seems like every
three-song segment we do, there’s
one song that needs the Sustainiac,
so I’ve had to put them in most of
my live guitars. Those other two
I haven’t picked out yet. I hope to
bring one or two of my ART guitars.
I hand-painted around fifty guitars
for Ibanez last year and I managed to
grab a few of them for myself. The
wood was picked to be able to be
finished properly and to draw on, so it
wasn’t the usual alderwood that I’ve
been using for the past three or four
years. It’s basswood. I might change
the necks and see if I can get them to
sound a little bit more like the 2410’s
or 2450’s.
I’ll bring out a bunch of pedals on the
INTERVIEW u
Joe Satriani
ground. I’m a real fan of having con- erything I just talked about stays the it, and then he can push that sound
sumer-grade pedals, that’s what I like same. I don’t change guitars or amps, right to the top of the mix. Because
to call them. All my stuff is consum- so my rig sounds the same. The other my guitar has to sit there like a lead
er grade. I don’t bring out 1950s-era thing is we take the direct out from vocalist sound, it’s got to be on top
vintage guitars or specialized amps. I the back of the Marshall amp, which of the band, and so that’s the key.
bring out all the gear that I’ve been de- basically has all my pedals, the pre- That helps with the consistency.
signing and putting my name on. I still amp, and whatever is going through
Probably the last element and
have some Vox pedals that I really like the effects loop, and that gets sent to the most important is the sound
more than the others, even though Vox the monitor engineer. Everybody in engineer. Ace Baker is usually out
doesn’t make them anymore. I use my the band is hearing that, and that’s with us, and he’s got his fingers
Marshall JBM 410 HJS heads. I gener- coming through my wedges — I still on those faders. He loves to rock.
ally just use one head into two 4x12 use old-school wedges on the ground He’s a great guitar player and singer
cabinets. When you look at the stage it — so that sound is always the same. himself, so he’s got that sensibility.
looks like three half-stacks, but there’s
I’m not using the microphone on He picks the microphones, and if he
always a backup head and another the cabinet and then being sent back doesn’t like a microphone during
half-stack in case a guest shows up. into the monitor system. This helps soundcheck, he gets rid of it. He’s
We want to make sure we have a head ensure more consistency. It also out there placing everything. We’ve
and a cabinet for them. It’s a very sim- eliminates any leakage into that mi- got little markers on the speaker
ple system. Very few things are
cabinets that tell the local
in my effects loop. There’s one
crew exactly where to place
song from The Extremist record
the microphones. Besides the
“If I was playing in Guns N’ Roses,
called ‘Why’ that requires an
57, there’s a change of mics
old piece of gear called a Digigoing on quite often, so I
or something like that, it would be
tech Super Harmony Machine
don’t even get involved in it.
very normal to get a Les Paul, a guitar Every once in a while I turn
33B. I’ve been using a comwith a big chunk of wood, and put
bination of Digitech, Ibanez,
around and I go, “Oh, what is
MXR, Electro-Harmonix, Boss,
that microphone?” But I know
it into a Marshall, with maybe a wah
and Voodoo Labs. Those pedals
it’s because Ace was feeling
wah pedal, and the Marshall... set up
have been collecting on the floor
that the last set wasn’t workand staying recently. I’m still
ing as good and he’s trying
for just rock-and-roll.”
something out. Between the
using my Vox Big Bad Wah and
57 and the direct out we’ve
Vox Time Machine digital dealways got it covered, and
lay pedals. They have the most
beautiful volume ramp. When you hit crophone, because sometimes the that keeps us very consistent.
a note, there’s a volume of that first re- drums are closer, or there might
peat, and then there’s a volume of the be a low-end frequency that’s very What was the process for finding the
second, third, and fourth, and when prominent onstage, and that will get sound you want onstage?
you’re designing the thing, you can go into your guitar mic. So just about
in and create that cascading volume... everybody is hearing each other DI, What I realized early on was that the
the ramp. My issue with most digital with the exception of the drums, of sound that I would get that would feel
delays is that the first repeat is way course, which have to be miked. normal in a band that had, let’s say,
two guitar players and a singer and
too loud, and then the rest of them are
My front of house engineer has
every song had vocals was very difway too soft, so we worked on a way that at his disposal. If, for any
to make that ramp much more gradual reason, microphones go down or get ferent than what I needed as a soloist.
It had to do with gain and dynamso that you can create more of an envi- moved or something, he always has
ics out of the amp. If I was playing
ronment, as opposed to a slap-you-in- that direct out option available to
the-face repeat that’s always in your him, and it sounds amazing. I like to with... Chickenfoot isn’t a good example because it’s such a crazy band.
way. I wish they were still making that call it the kitchen sink. It’s got evIf I was playing in Guns N’ Roses,
device. It’s a really great delay pedal. erything in it, so you’ve got to trim
or something like that, it would be
it. You might want to start duckvery normal to get a Les Paul, a
How do you keep your sound consising low-end frequencies starting
guitar with a big chunk of wood, and
tent night after night?
at 60 Hz just a slight trim, and on
put it into a Marshall, with maybe
top start rolling off at 6k, or maybe
a wah-wah pedal, and the Marshall
There are three elements. Mainly, ev- put a three-to-one compression on
43
INTERVIEW u
Joe Satriani
maybe not set up for shredding, but
set up for just rock and roll. It’s very
live, very dynamic, half the amount
of gain that I would use in my solo
gig, but that’s because 99 percent of
the time I’m playing chords and I’m
using my volume control to clean up
the sound of the amp, so you can use
a vintage Marshall or Fender. For the
time that I do solo, it’s casual and it’s
only lasts, like, eight bars.
Another example would be Aerosmith: two great guitar players, really
good rock and roll sounds, but half
or three-quarters the amount of gain
that I use, because of the nature of the
music and the fact that they’ve got
these great vocals happening all the
time, and the songs are built around
Steven Tyler singing.
So imagine what happens when all
of a sudden there’s no vocals, and the
sound of your guitar is the loudest
thing in the mix for two hours. That’s
when I realized you can’t have that
stinging, rude, razor-blade guitar
sound. After two songs, people’s ears
are bleeding. In order to have your
guitar soar and be beautifully melodic
and have all these different textures,
but at the same time be the loudest
thing in the mix, it’s got to be softer
in a way. I slowly gravitated, first using a distortion box that reduced the
dynamics quite a bit and at the same
time eliminated a lot of noise because
there were no tubes, and then finally,
in working with Marshall, we created
an amp that could do both because
it’s got four channels and three gain
stages per channel.
If you wanted to revert to nasty
rock and roll, you could, but most of
the time I’m occupying the channels
that give me an enormous amount of
saturation but a lot of gain. I can play
a melody high on the guitar neck, but
it’s not poking a stick in your eye.
Think about the guitar sound in
something like ‘Flying In A Blue
Dream,’ which is played way up the
neck. That’s normally scary territory.
That’s like Keith Richards’ ‘Sympathy For The Devil.’ You know how
44
nasty that guitar solo is. It’s great in
that song because it comes right at the
end. He starts wailing and it adds the
drama to it.
You could never play ‘Always With
Me, Always With You,’ or ‘Flying In
A Blue Dream,’ or any of the songs
off the new record with that sound.
It would be painful for the audience
to endure such a dynamic, stinging
guitar tone. I don’t think it would tell
the story properly, and that’s ultimately the way we look at it live and
in the studio: How does the guitar
need to sound in order to tell the story
of ‘Shockwave Supernova,’ ‘Butterfly
and Zebra,’ ‘Crazy Joey,’ or ‘Goodbye Supernova’? They’re all different
guitar sounds through different amps.
It’s an important element, and it’s
part of my main toolbox: Is my guitar
sound serving the story? Is it being
ultimately perfectly descriptive of the
subject matter? In that way I approach
my guitar sound so differently than
had I been in a band like Aerosmith.
When and how did you refine your
needs — wood, neck, action, pickups? Was it a process? Was it trial
and error?
That could take hours! I do like alder
and a longer scale length, a Fender
scale length, 25.5 inches, for expressive melody playing. I love the
Gibson scale. I use my various Les
Pauls and other Gibson-scale guitars
as elements in the mix now and then,
but the Fender length and the alder
body have a unique voice that’s more
vocal-like and tends to bring itself
into that area of melody, which is really important.
Working with my local luthier,
Gary Brawer, we came up with a
realization that was a little counterintuitive, which is that if you can
maintain low action from the first
fret all the way to the 24th, there’s
a balance that occurs that will allow you to do traditional playing as
well as two-hand tapping and legato
playing, and the volume coming out
of the guitar gets evened out in an
analog fashion.
We’re using basically wire and
wood, and their distance from each
other, to create a certain level of
dynamics that’s non-electronic. It’s
purely analog. It’s just the way that
the instrument is reacting because of
the height of the strings.
Then we perfected the kind of frets
we were going to use. That was very
important, because when I picked
up, let’s say, a Les Paul that was
great for playing blues, the low end
strings were way too loud and the
high strings would peter out when
you’re doing two-hand tapping and
stuff. Bringing the action down
neuters a bit of the energy in those
wound strings.
Keeping the action even all the
way up past the 12th fret allows you
again to play passages in what were
traditionally called the dusty areas of
the neck all the way, and they would
make sense with stuff you’re playing in the first position — also very
important for someone like myself,
who is playing passages up and
down the neck. Evening this thing
out, this way again, this level of
volume is hitting your signal chain
and going to your amp, so you don’t
want your high strings to sound
wimpy but your low strings to be really loud, so this helps tremendously.
As far as the radius of the neck, this
was a really big problem because I
prefer an early ’60s Fender neck with
a decent radius on it, whereas on
most modern guitars these days they
flatten it out. It’s like a 16 or something, really flat. I think, and this is
my own theory, that flat necks make
everybody’s vibrato sound the same,
and radius necks somehow bring out
the individuality in people’s vibrato.
I don’t know if this is scientifically
provable! But it has been my theory
for a very long time.
It’s disconcerting when I see a
player drop their vintage radius neck
and go for something wide and flat. I
notice it right away, and I mourn the
INTERVIEW u
loss of that 10 percent of their personality, but other things come from
it and you never know what they’re
trying to do with their sound. If
you’re playing an eight- or ten-string
guitar and you’re playing incredibly
complicated stuff, like Meshuggah or
Animals As Leaders, you can’t deal
with radius. That thing’s got to be flat
because they’ve got a very difficult
job to do. The music they’re creating
is so intense that it needs to be part
of their setup to make that music happen, and I’m cool with that.
Pickup-wise, I worked a lot with
Steve Blucher to get a lot of thumpy
low end out of the neck pickups and
boost a little bit of that vocal midrange in the bridge pickup, but at the
same time keeping the pickups midoutput. I find that if the pickups are
really hot, they rob you of the ability
to create dynamics with your picking. If the pickups are too weak, then
of course you do get more sustain,
but the gain thing seems like it’s
detrimental, like you’re not feeding
your pedals and your amp enough
output. So we’ve settled on that
middle range, which, coincidentally,
is like that brand new Strat pickup or
beautifully aged humbucker from the
late ’50s.
That’s where we’ve landed with the
Joe Satriani line of DiMarzio pickups.
You describe yourself as an aggressive player. How do you control your
technique to not hit the strings too
hard, and how does that translate to
your acoustic playing?
Oh god. I probably spend more time
trying to figure out how hard to hit
a string, one note, for a song. I go
over that thing a million times. I’ve
driven my engineers crazy by doing
that, by saying, “I’ve got to hit this
note differently. Should I hit it on
the first string, the second, the third,
or the fourth?” I’ll do take after take
after take, and I keep playing the
melody on the different strings, no
vibrato, a little vibrato, vibrato first,
or I hit it with no vibrato and then
add vibrato later.
To me, that’s like the way a lyricist
keeps going over the lyrics and figures out a better way to deliver a line.
I spend a lot of time doing that, and
I have no secret other than to keep
working until you feel like you’ve
done it, and never overdo it. If you
overdo it, then you’ve lost the audience. It’s OK to be a little subtle, but
you don’t want to be overbearing.
When it comes to acoustic, that’s a
whole other thing. It’s such a different instrument, and if you’re recording it, that’s a whole other ballgame
because a recorded acoustic guitar
has to get wrestled under control.
You’re sitting there, playing it, and
your head is above the guitar. It is
not on the receiving end of its projection. Only the people standing in
front of you are on the receiving end
of the way the guitar is designed to
project through a soundhole.
Generally, when they mic an acoustic guitar, they point the microphone
at the fret area; they avoid the
soundhole. It’s such a tricky thing.
But if you listen to all your acoustic
guitar recordings, you realize that’s
not really how it sounds. That’s just
how it has to be recorded. You have
to do so much filtering on an acoustic guitar to get you to think that’s
the way it sounds in person. It’s like
a piano. If you stand in front of a
grand piano when a great piano player plays, you will be overwhelmed
with the amount of dynamics and
subtleties and harmonics, but recording simply can’t capture it, certainly
not if there’s going to be other musicians playing around them. So it has
to be somewhat limited, maybe even
compressed at times, and certain frequencies have to be dealt with. The
human ears hear things differently
than the way a microphone does.
They’re completely different worlds.
You are loyal to traditional sounds
and a fan of vintage sounds. Is it fair
to say that you have one foot in the
Joe Satriani
past, one foot in the present, and an
eye on the future?
That’s a good phrase. Yes, I think
so. We record at 96k. This record
probably has the least amount of
mastering and limiting that we’ve
ever put on a record, in order to
preserve the actual, true sound of the
performances as they went down.
There’s a song called ‘San Francisco
Blue’ on the album that has quite a
few guitars on it, maybe six guitars
or so, and all the guitars are spread
out. They were recorded DI but
reamped using my collection of ’50s
and ’60s Fender Tweed Brown and
Blackface amps and Gibson amps.
Santiago Alvarez from Marshall is
making me a 20-watt combo; we had
the prototype in the studio and used
it for the main guitar. So we do go
after those vintage sounds quite a bit.
There’s a bit right at the end of the
song ‘Crazy Joey.’ The main guitar
sound is my Marshall JBM, so it’s a
modern sound, but we put the bridge
at the end of the song and you hear
this solo in the middle. It’s got a bit
of a woody tone to it, and it’s a 1959
Fender Champ. It’s funny sometimes
how you’re looking for a guitar
sound, and at that moment in the mix
there’s some heavy guitars playing bass lines, there’s some spacey
guitars out in the distance, I think
we were using a SansAmp software
plug-in and they’re drenched in delay,
so it’s a bit of a dreamy moment, but
then there’s this dry vintage guitar in
the middle and it helps the whole moment happen. You never know when
that vintage sound is going to make
the song work.
It’s often surprising to me that when
you start to assemble a song in the
studio, you finally realize... Wow, that
broken-down Wurlitzer keyboard —
that’s the sound we want. But you
pair it with something totally modern.
There’s a very melodic, easygoing
piece on the record called ‘All Of My
Life,’ and it’s got an old Wurlitzer
that Mike Keneally is playing. We
45
INTERVIEW u
Joe Satriani
plugged it into a Roland Chorus Echo
that, if it wasn’t about to die, it was
going to die tomorrow. This thing
sounded so funny because it was
struggling to keep working. We put
the keyboard through that and used it
100 percent in the mix because it was
so unusual.
For the guitars I wound up using
my original performance that was
recorded DI. We used the SansAmp
plug-in because the adaptive settings
allow what I would call a bloom of
thick gain, but then it would decay
like an amp that didn’t have a lot of
gain. One of the cool characteristics
of SansAmp is that it can give you
that bloom of sound, but then dry up
and be not noisy. It’s very hard to get
tube amps to do that. They generally
don’t have enough transient response.
As you push up the gain, the transient decays and you get noise. I did
find just by accident that the SansAmp had a great way of emulating
it, but in fact they did a better job
and it makes the guitar come right up
into your face, like you’re standing
in front of the guitar player. It was
the perfect foil, in a way, to Mike’s
old Wurlitzer going into the old
Chorus Echo. I thought it was really
cool. They also set off the twang
guitar, which is playing off to the
right, which is an Ibanez guitar into
a SansAmp plug-in. I don’t think
we reamped that one. I think we left
it alone. So that’s a good example
of how you can blend vintage and
funky with completely digital.
What does your practice consist of?
You recommend 45 minutes to an
hour a day, especially for young players, in order to avoid burnout. You’ve
also said that when you’re getting
ready for a tour, you practice the set,
and practice it more than once a day.
How do you avoid burnout?
I never get bored with the set. I love
playing guitar. The struggle adds to
the excitement. I’m always slightly
nervous about that — am I going to
46
be able to play good tonight? Every
day, I wake up and I think, Can I
play as good today as I did yesterday? I’m always holding out the
hope that I’ve unlocked the key for
this particular passage in a difficult
song and it’s going to be so much
easier for me to play.
My advice about practicing is aimed
at the student who has a regular life.
Very few people have my job, so
my situation is quite unique, but I
remember when I had a straight job,
or I had to go to school, or both, and I
was trying to become a guitar player.
It’s like, how do you get better when
you have important responsibilities?
One of the things I did when I was in
high school is I’d wake up an hour
earlier before school and I would run
through all my scales and exercises.
It would be about forty minutes, and
then I’d go about doing the school
thing. If I came home and had to take
care of any kind of job, I would do
that, and then homework, and then
I would go back to playing music
for an hour or so late at night. I had
already done all the damned exercises
and scales and all the things you hate
doing, so I worked on writing music
or learning stuff off of records, things
like that. Somewhere within that
week there would be a rehearsal for a
band, maybe if I was lucky enough a
show on the weekend, but that’s how
I worked that into the playing.
During my years of teaching I
realized that people really do get
stressed-out practicing, especially if
the other parts of their life are taking
them away from playing. When they
pick up that guitar, there’s a lot of
anxiety about getting better. I would
see that stress, that negativity, pushed
into their hands, and they would wind
up with repetitive stress injuries. I
started thinking, Is anybody benefiting from three hours of playing some
finger exercise? If you ask anybody
on the street, they’d say, “I’m never
going to pay to watch somebody do
a finger exercise,” so why are you
doing it? This is where conventional
wisdom can sometimes help the
dedicated musician. They have to
realize: the exercise — what’s it for?
What are the scales actually for? If
I ever whip out this scale, the way I
practiced it, at a gig or on TV, people
will say, “Hey, stop practicing!” In
the real world, people want music
that sounds good, that makes them
feel good. That’s the goal. The idea of
practicing scales is to teach your ear
what the scale is about, what are the
attributes of the scale, and where is it.
After that, if you’re not in an orchestra where you’re called on to do repertoire of the last 400 years, I’m not
sure why you need to practice scales,
other than to teach your ear what they
sound like and how to use them. So
I started to develop a routine where
they could warm up very quickly and
then go over scales, so they would
learn music at that practicing session
and then save their fingers and tendons and muscles for when they had
to actually memorize music, which is
kind of like my gig.
When I practice twice a day for two
hours for each session, I’m memorizing a show, but I’m a professional.
I don’t have a day job that I have to
go to. I’m not stressed out because I
don’t have time to practice. I make
time to practice, so it’s different for
me. However, I am probably more
vigilant than anybody in monitoring
the signs of any physical stress. If
I feel pain, I stop. There’s so many
things I’ve got to work on in my job
as the guitarist in the Joe Satriani
Band that it’s easy for me to go, “I’m
going to rest my left hand, and I’m
going to help Mike work on the set
list, or help Mike program the keyboards, or design the show with the
LD, or go over the hotels.” It’s endless, the stuff I have to do. Or I could
put down the guitar and start writing
on the piano. That’s what I do half the
time anyway. So I have alternatives.
The student, however, is stuck with
only an hour or two to practice. How
do they make the most of it? I would
say don’t do it all at once. Break it
INTERVIEW u
up, and after a couple of weeks you’ll
see more benefits and less stress.
You’ve been called “The world’s most
commercially successful solo guitar
performer” … you’re laughing. Some
people would parade around with
that title, but you remain humble.
Where does that come from? Is it
your upbringing?
I guess so. I know who I am and
where I come from. I started playing
guitar because my hero, Jimi Hendrix,
died tragically. The lesson of his life
was part of that original inspiration.
I loved his music and I was devastated when he died, but I realized
that things got out of control around
him. His life got out of control. All
he wanted to do was be a respected
musician. I thought, I’ll do my best
to try to be anywhere near as good as
Jimi Hendrix, but I will learn from
the mistake that he fell into, which
was, he let a part of his stage persona
take over his life and he couldn’t find
a way out of it. That started to inform
every part of my musicianship. It’s
coincidental, I just put out a concept
record based on a fictional struggle
between an alter ego and the real you,
but I’d like to think that would never
happen with me, because I started out
with the realization that that’s what
kind of killed Hendrix. The internal
battle drove him nuts and he didn’t
have a support group to help him
work it out. His manager should have
said, “You know what? You don’t
have to burn your guitar or play with
your teeth. We can set it up so that
you can have a long career.” He never
got that advice. He got the opposite
and it drove him crazy.
I remember early on I was in a
band and I told my friends, “I just
want to go out with the jeans and Tshirt. I’ve seen other performers get
caught up in the costumes and they
lose track of who they are. If I’m
ever lucky enough to have a career,
I want people to see the real person
up there.” I’ll get some nice boots,
or a shirt with a cool graphic on it or
whatever, or I’ll wear some funnylooking glasses or something, but
that’s it. I draw the line there. There
were guys who didn’t get caught up
in the show business aspect of it.
They got their audience to appreciate
them for what they actually did and
who they actually were. I thought,
Man, if you can do that...
I’d see classical or jazz performers
on TV, totally respectable, they walk
onstage wearing decent clothes, they
do their music, and people go, “Oh
my god, that’s beautiful.” I thought,
Why are rock and roll performers
going through this ring of fire every
night and it’s driving them crazy?
What is it? How do I avoid that?
I made a conscious effort to just be
myself as much as possible. But when
you go down that path you have to be
prepared to take it on the chin now
and then because people will say...
“What’s so special about you? You
just look like some bald guy onstage
playing guitar.” You have to learn to
say, “Thank you. That’s who I am.”
But it also helps you focus on your
music. All of it’s in the music. I’m
not going to be burning my guitar and
it’s not going to be the headline. It’s
going to be “What did he play?” That
makes me focus on what it is I’m
playing. It makes me focus on practicing, staying healthy, writing material that I think is the best I can write,
and record the best I can record.
That got its start by sitting there
reading the story of Hendrix’s death.
I remember it like it was yesterday,
sitting in my parents’ living room,
looking at the local paper and thinking, This is surreal. They’re talking
about my hero and they’re describing
his drug problem and this problem
and that problem.
I don’t want those problems. I just
want to rock.
You made a statement during our
previous interview that resonated
with quite a few readers: “Ultimately, the fans gift you your career” Is
Joe Satriani
that attitude part of the reason for
your longevity?
Well, it’s absolutely true that the
artist is gifted their career, without
a doubt. Nothing happens without
the attention, the love, whatever you
want to call it, from the fans. I think
that’s a universal truth, and musicians
and artists alike have to understand
that they need to grasp that and fully
embrace it. But, on the other side of
it, I only say these things when you
prod me to think!
I often think that a lot of that “looking in the mirror” kind of thing and
saying “I am successful” is really
dangerous. The last thing I would
ever do is go over my attributes and
pat myself on the back. I think that
would be the death of my artistic nature. I think it’s better that I’m always
tortured and always trying, rather
than me saying, “I’m so accomplished, and it’s because I eat oatmeal
in the morning, and I only have one
drink at night, and I answer my fans
on Twitter.” That’s all bullshit, really,
because it goes back to the first thing,
which is the fans are gifting you your
career, so don’t take credit for it. That
would be really rude.
The interview process can be so
painful because you’re asked to analyze yourself. I love talking about the
gear, that’s fine, but as soon as you
start to circle in on the inner personality part … I don’t think it’s good for
an artist to be thinking like that.
We’re not motivational speakers,
we’re not selling self-help books, we
are certainly not role models, so I’m
very happy being the out-of-control,
crazy artist-musician. I’ve come to
terms with the fact that sometimes
people will like what I do and sometimes they won’t at all, and that’s
OK. That’s as far as my introspection
will go. The rest of it is all based
on how I channel the introspection
toward music. That path, that’s my
daily operating procedure: How do
I feel about this, and how do I turn
that feeling into music. G
47
T H E C AT ’S D E N
Squirreled away in a non-descript office park in East Haven,
Connecticut is the global headquarters of Black Cat Pedals.
Black Cat is run by Tom Hughes, and if you’re a gear fan and
you think you know that name... you do. During his time with
Analogman he wrote the book ‘Analog Man’s Guide to Vintage
Effects’ -- the decades-spanning, definitive look at vintage
effects units. A few years back, he secured the rights to ressurect the Black Cat brand and while he’d be the first to tell
you it hasn’t been 100% smooth sailing, you get the sense from
speaking with him that he wouldn’t change a thing. Hughes
invited us to take peek inside the cat’s den and chat about new
happenings at the company.
FEATURE u
TOM HUGHES loves gear. He isn’t
shy about it. So stoked are the flames
of his passion for the lineage of
vintage noisemakers, that back in the
early 2000s he set out to compile a
book that would be become the go-to
tome for those seeking knowledge
regarding old school pedals… Analog Man’s Guide to Vintage Effects.
Color us unsurprised to find when
we visited the Black Cat Pedals shop
in New England that a pair of glass
cases full of top-flight stomps was
there to greet us, including a Mike
Beigel-signed Mu-Tron III, a Bob
Sweet-autographed Mojo Vibe, a Hot
Chili Tubester, big-boxed Gainster,
a gold Klon Centaur and a variety of
wood-boxed Electro-Harmonix pedals
among others. Atop one of the cases is
a Black Cat-loaded Pedaltrain complete with a spanking new Ring Mod
prototype. The board was destined
for the New York Stompbox Exhibit
scheduled for the day after our visit. The cases break up the room into
part museum, part shipping station for
both Black Cats array of pedals, and
Hughes’ For Musicians Only website
where he sells copies of the book as
well as used effects. Beyond the shipping area is a half-open room done in
a fiery pink and adorned with accent
rope lighting and retro furniture. A bit
out of place in a workshop, but inviting nonetheless.
“This started out as a lounge but
turned into a pedal testing room,”
confesses Hughes. “This is where
most of the testing happens. When we
first moved in it was pretty ritzy. Now
it’s more lived-in. We’ve been here
coming up in seven years. I love our
space. East Haven is… well, there is
not much happening here.”
Black Cat has been in this building
since Hughes struck a deal with former
top cat Fred Bonte to acquire and resurrect the classic brand. Bonte started
Black Cat in 1993 and built pedals in
Black Cat Pedals
Texas, but ceased production in 2007.
When the deal was made between
the pair, Hughes recalls meeting up
with Bonte to transfer the company’s
resources… drawings, files, etc… and
was greeted with ‘It’s all in here!’ and
Fred pointing to his head. There were
no drawings… a fact not much good to
a newly-minted owner trying to build
his first run of Black Cat MkII pedals… and teach others to do that same.
Over the years of the original Black
Cat, Bonte would tweak pedals in runs
resulting in various versions of single
effects. To guarantee he would get the
best Black Cat circuits for the rebirth,
Hughes resorted to buying the different versions off of eBay, getting under
the hood and reverse engineering the
best sounding version to be the Black
Cat MkII model. Beyond the testing room/lounge,
the room opens up into a workshop
with a handful of workstations.
Hughes currently employs three oth-
IN CASE OF TONE EMERGENCY: Hughes’ love of effects carries over into several genres and brands. He even has a few autographed by the creators.
49
FEATURE u
Black Cat Pedals
MEN AT WORK: Hughes, Donato Biceglia II and Radawich (clockwise from top). Hughes holds
the prototype overdrive of Radawich’s design that is expected to debut in 2016.
50
ers, including chief pedal guru Greg
Radawich. Hughes calls Radawich
a master technician and gear builder
who “cranks out pedals like you’ve
never seen.”
Around a half-wall corner, Hughes
eagerly shows us the ‘next thing’ for
Black Cat — entry into the Eurorack
market. He holds up a prototype rack
version of the company’s K-Fuzz.
Already in a nearby rack is a prototype of the new Ring Mod as well as
another prototype of an all-new effect.
“I think you’re going to see, basically
Eurorack modular is kind of where the
boutique guitar pedal scene was 15
years ago,” says Hughes. “It is going
to get bigger and I’ve always really
been into synth stuff. This is coming
up. It is going to be a big thing and
I want to do this. It has been in the
works for a while. With the K-Fuzz
module, we just worked out all of the
kinks so this is going to be our production board that we just got yesterday…
the quantity of them. I still need a
graphic for the panel. That’s the only
hold up. After that, we are in the
Eurorack business. K-Fuzz will be followed by the Ring Mod. I’m working
with another engineer separately on
the modular stuff.”
The K-Fuzz module is slated for
release prior to year-end.
At the rear of the shop is an unassuming parts storage area… that is
until you start taking a good look
around the shelves. Beyond the caps
and transistors there is a minty Binson
Echorec, a Klemt Echolette, Ludwig
Phase II and an Echorec that has had
a transplant into a custom wood case.
In a box on the floor is what appears to
be keyboard shrapnel.
“This is a Rhodes that I didn’t finish restoring,” says Hughes. “I took
off the damper felts, but I never got
around to putting the new ones on.
One of these days, or I’ll hand it off.”
It turns out the Rhodes is just the
beginning of Hughes’ love for keyboards. In the shop’s final and perhaps
largest room is an impressive collection of vintage synths and other
FEATURE u
keyboards including an Optigan, Vox
Continental, Roland JC120, Mellotron
and a Rhodes Chroma among others.
“The original plan was to have a
vintage keyboard studio with one of
all the major pieces from decades
past,” explains Hughes. “Most studios
between Boston and NYC will have a
Rhodes or a Hammond B3, but they
won’t have everything… like this
Baldwin Harpsichord. It was cool,
but this is a workshop that’s trying
to do something completely different
and we kind of need this room, so it
didn’t make sense. Then there’s time
and finances. Ideally, it would have
been a tracking studio.”
Back in the lounge/testing room,
Hughes lets us listen to an overdrive
prototype… the brain-child of Radawich. While it is not firmly on the release schedule, Hughes is undoubtedly
excited about its versatility and overall
sonic landscape.
“We haven’t actually settled on a
name for the prototype dirt pedal yet,
but I’ve been thinking of calling it
‘Really Great Dirt Pedal’,” confesses
Hughes. “It sort of fits the old Black
Cat tradition of naming products in the
most plain and literal way possible.
Possible bonus, that name lends itself
to developing an acronym (RGDP) in
the online guitar forums (e.g. “NPD!
RGDP in the house!”). Again, this is
just a tentative idea, we haven’t actually settled on that yet. Though I have
to admit I’d really enjoy seeing thread
titles like “RGDP vs HBOD vs KOT”
and the like.”
A cursory look at the ‘ready to ship’
pedal rack, which sits mostly full,
reminds Hughes that he needs to get
on the phone and hustle a few sales.
Like most small builders, supplier issues have plagued the company over
the years and has caused enough
consternation to force Hughes into
mulling over a different career path,
but those rough spots were ultimately resolved and the brand has
continued to grow, albeit at a slow,
deliberate pace.
“I love gear,” he exclaims with a smile. G
Black Cat Pedals
NEW AND OLD: The new Black Cat Ring Mod prototype, K-Fuzz rack module prototype and a
Mellotron topped with a Moog synth a la Rick Wakeman.
51
WRAP-UP u
LA Amp Show
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’
Tone party in the valley attracts old rockers, new builders
The 11th annual L.A. Amp Show drew
both a healthy crowd of attendees as
well as a larger-than-normal volume
of fresh gear to the Airtel Plaza Hotel
in Van Nuys. While typically builders
like to showcase their latest and greatest, this year’s event hosted a high
number of debuts as well as not quite
ready for primetime prototype builds.
Some of the show newcomers in-
52
cluded Canada’s Revv Amplification,
California-based Ventura Valve Amps,
Nashville-based Todd Sharp Amps and
more. Other amp brands in the house
included Xits Amps, Supro, Blackstar,
Friedman, Metropoulos, Bogner, Randall, Quilter, Redplate and others.
Pedal builders making the trek to
the West Coast included JHS Pedals,
Wampler Pedals, EarthQuaker De-
vices, as well as locals Tone Freak,
Neunaber Audio and Oddfellow Effects among others.
The performance showcase was
headlined by former The Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger and his band cranking out classics like ‘Peace Frog’.
Check out the next few pages for our
personal highlights from the show,
including some gear debuts. G
WRAP-UP u
LA Amp Show
PROTOTYPES
more!
and
PREMIER Builders Guild was showing off a pair
of prototypes from its Two-Rock amp brand.
Lovingly labeled ‘Ginger’ and ‘Mary Ann’,
the former is a Vox-inspired speaker cranker,
while the latter has its roots in vintage Tweed
country. No firm word on either’s timeline for
production, but keep your eyes peeled around
Winter NAMM.
Club Amps debuted its Challenger prototype
at the show. The Challenger is a ‘60s era rock
tone machine that is due out later this fall.
Also hitting the shelves soon is the Fryette
Valvulator GP/DI. Not a prototype per se, but
an early production model of a direct recording amp built be Steven Fryette on the back
of a successful crowd-funding campaign on
Kickstarter. Fryette was looking for $60,000 to
bring the amp to market and received almost
$73,000 during the campaign. Backers of the
unit should see it showing up on their doorsteps around Christmas time.
One pedal prototype we came across was a
new overdrive from the folks at Tone Freak. A
lighter drive than the company’s flagship Abunai, the as-yet-unnamed pedal should emerge,
along with a new, versatile boost pedal later in
the year. G
53
WRAP-UP u
LA Amp Show
GORE PEDALS
Tone veteran Joe Gore showcased his new line of effects pedals at the LA Amp Show in October. While
the Duh single knob fuzz is available now through Vintage King, the rest of the line will likely emerge in
2016. The range consists of the Duh, Filth, Gross and Cult pedals. The Duh Remedial Fuzz is a single knob
blast of aggressive yet expressive tones. The Cult Primitive germanium-transistor overdrive is equal parts
dynamic and destructive offering good touch responsive over a wide range of drive, distortion and fuzzy
tones. The Cult Germanium Channel is a derivative of the Cult Primitive boasting both pre- and post-drive
tone shapers. The Filth joystick fuzz is referred to as the ‘Fuzz of 1,000 Faces’. A joystick control sets the
fuzz ‘color’ by altering transistor voltages. The goal here was a useable fuzz with enough sonic weirdness
to make it stand out from the crowd. Lastly, the Gross distortion is loaded with an active EQ and a hefty
158 possible clipping-diode options. The bulk of the Gore Pedal range is due out during Q1 of 2016.
BE SURE AND CHECK OUT OUR INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK FEEDS FOR MORE GOODIES FROM THE 20
FRACTAL AX8
The new floor-based unit from Fractal Audio was
a big hit. The AX8 infuses Fractal’s coveted amp
models into an attractive floor controller similar to
its popular FX8 effects unit.
THE CRAYON
JHS Pedals debuted its new Crayon pedal at
the show. The Crayon is a stand-alone ‘red’
channel of the company’s popular Colour
Box stomp, and should be available soon.
54
WRAP-UP u
LA Amp Show
VVA
TODD SHARP
Ventura Valve Amps has been in business since
2009 and the company’s flagship 50-watt amp
boasts a four-stage cascading gain design
that can take 6L6s or EL34 power tubes. Front
panel controls include two Gain knobs, Bass,
Mid, Treble, Presence, and Master Volume. The
head starts at $1299, while the 1x12 combo
starts at $1399.
Set for its official debut in early 2016, Todd Sharp
brought the first of its JOAT (Jack of All Tones)
range to the L.A. Amp Show as a bit of a sneak preview for tone lovers. The JOAT 20RT boasts a 20watt punch with onboard reverb and tremolo. Front
panel controls include Volume, Attitude, Low Cut
and High Cut knobs. Reverb controls include Drive,
Tone and Level. Tremolo controls are the traditional
Speed and Depth. Both 30-watt and 45-watt JOATs
are due later in 2016.
015 L.A. AMP SHOW... INSTAGRAM: @gearphoria FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/gearphoria
REVV AMPS
Fresh from just outside Winnepeg, Manitoba, Revv
Amps showcased its line of Generator amps as well
as its latest model -- the two-channel Dynamis. The
Generator family of amps comes in 40w, 100w and
120w varieties. The 120w is a four channel amp,
while the other two are two channel amps.
The 40w sports a variable wattage control that
can bring the amp down to around 7w. The Generator 7-40 boasts four 6V6GTs, four 12AX7s and a
single 12AT7. The higher wattage Generators carry
four 6L6GCs, five 12AX7s and a single 12AT7. The
Dynamis 7-40’s tube complement is the same as
the Generator 7-40, but the Dynamis has reverb
onboard as well as rear bias test points for adjustments to the power tube pair. All Revvs come with
programmable multi-button foot controllers.
Price points for the Revv amp family runs roughly
between $1,600 and $2,700.
55
)
e
i
d
n
i
(
with TOMMY HORCHATA
JOSUE QUIQUIVIX
of
JOSUE Quiquivix is the newest
member of Long Beach, California’s own Struckout. Josue is a
guitar teacher by trade, and studied at GIT. His tone choices are
very creative from jagged rhythm
tones to ethereal textures. The
band is propelled by James Goldmann on drums, and fronted by
Daniel Spears who handles bass
duties as well. Their live show is
frenetic, energetic, and engaging.
56
STRUCKOUT
The backbone of Josue’s rig is a Mesa
Boogie Single Rectifier Solo head
played through a deep 2x12 Mesa cab.
His guitars of choice are a 2000 Gibson
Les Paul standard that he modified
himself with a Seymour Duncan JB
pickup in the bridge, and a ‘59 in the
neck position. A pure classic choice.
He also plays a Vintage Modified
Fender Jazzmaster. He says the only
modification made was the addition of
a Mastery bridge.
His pedal signal chain goes: Boss
TU-2, EarthQuaker Devices (EQD)
Arrows, EQD Hoof, RMC Wizard
Wah, Empress SuperDelay, EQD
Ghost Echo into a Line 6 DL4.
Struckout’s new album What You
Deserve will be released November
21st with a special limited cassette
to be released by Funeral Sounds.
The first single, ‘Everyone’s Watching, Nobody Cares’ can be streamed
at www.funeralsounds.com.
t BRAND SPOTLIGHT u
䈀䔀䰀䰀圀䔀吀䠀䔀刀
䄀一䄀䰀伀䜀䐀䔀䰀䄀夀
眀椀琀栀䄀渀愀氀漀最䌀栀漀爀甀猀䔀渀最椀渀攀
圀䄀䰀刀唀匀䄀唀䐀䤀伀⸀䌀伀䴀
57
GEAR REVIEWS u
JHS Pedals Muffuletta
A tasty, generation-spanning fuzz sammich
JHS Pedals’ Muffuletta offers up an affordable alternative for Big Muff fans
BY WADE BURDEN
WHEN I WAS 14 and managed to
get ahold of a guitar I only knew two
things: I needed a wah, and I needed
a Big Muff. I made three dollars an
hour working in a bait store, and I
mowed lawns. It took awhile, but
I managed to save up enough for a
used guitar pedal -- now all I had to
do was wait till I could catch a ride
the nearest town with a music store. I
needed a Big Muff, and I didn’t know
why. But the minute I’d seen that
used Sovtek, I knew what I had to do.
I had to clean a lot of fish tanks and
mow a lot of yards.
I gave up on my love for EHX/
Sovtek pedals years ago. As great as
a Russian muff sounds, the Russians,
with all their newfound early nineties
freedom, couldn’t be bothered to build
a buffered bypass that didn’t affect
your tone more than when the pedal
was turned on. I’ve played a lot of Big
Muff clones, and most don’t live up to
the original. In an effort to fix the Big
Muff, they usually lose what made it
great: that smoky scooped mid range.
58
So when the JHS Muffuletta showed
up at my door, I was skeptical. I’m
happy to say, though, that the Muffuletta does what no other Big Muff
clone does: nails the tone. No improvements. No efforts to fix the flaws
that inevitably lead to you losing the
thing you were chasing -- the thing
that makes it a Big Muff.
What makes this remarkable is
that you have five classic Big Muffs
crammed into one tiny box, plus a
JHS update. I’m not an engineer, but I
know that Josh Scott (JHS) called up
Jon Cusack (old school pedal genius
and the man behind Cusack Music)
and they put their heads together
until the kinks were worked out. The
controls are simple: Tone, Volume,
Sustain, and Muff Selector.
Tone, from about zero to noon is
classic Big Muff. From noon on, you
get more high end than you would
on most muffs, but paired with the
Sustain and Volume controls you
have a lot of control over that sweet
spot where the even order harmonic
distortion happens -- the place where
the tone seems to thicken up, smooth
out and become more musical than it
does in other positions.
Volume does exactly what volume
controls have always done, and the
Sustain knob dials in the amount of
fuzz. The key to really nailing a lot
of those classic Muff sounds is the
interaction between the sustain and the
tone. Hint: Keep the tone low. Another
hint: nothing pairs with a delay for
beautiful solos like the warm, dark,
scooped mids of a Big Muff.
The Selector is a rotary knob with six
positions. Each turn of the knob tells
a series of internal switches to turn on
or off, re-routing your signal through
the appropriate parts of the circuit for
the position you have chosen. Every
satisfying click on that rotary knob is
changing up to 20 components inside
to emulate the circuit of a classic Big
Muff. Obviously, the controls are
digital, but your signal is completely
analog, just like with the original Muff.
Have you been looking lustfully at
GEAR REVIEWS u
classic Big Muffs on eBay, knowing that $700 for a Ram’s Head is
too much? Knowing that your wife
will beat you to death with that giant
grey and blue Civil War Big Muff
if you pull the trigger? Do you just
have to hear a Triangle Muff once in
your life? You know it’s too big and
finicky to be on your pedal board, but
surely just south of a grand is fair for
an original V1 Big Muff in excellent
shape! Try not to think about the fact
that they were inconsistent, and that if
it’s in great shape, it probably wasn’t
played because it didn’t sound that
awesome… You can risk buying one
of these classic behemoths, or you can
get a Muffuletta: Civil War, Russian,
70’s Pi, Triangle, Ram’s Head, and
a modern JHS version of the classic
circuit, all in one box. Ever wonder
what the differences were? Click right
through them and hear the circuit
open up or compress, get brighter or
darker with every version.
JHS Pedals Muffuletta
JHS PEDALS
MUFFULETTA FUZZ
Controls: Volume, Sustain, Tone
and 6-way rotary Fuzz knobs
Dimensions: W: 2.2” H: 1.5 ” D: 4.3”
Weight: 9 oz.
Price: $229
Do you love the way the Russian
Muff sounds for slow heavy parts, but
want something more articulate for
solos? That’s cool, two simple clicks
over is the famed Triangle Muff that
can nail those Gilmour-ish solos.
One click back, and you’re covering Smashing Pumpkins to perfection. If you love the dark, booming,
fuzzy nastiness of vintage Big Muffs,
foibles and all, the Muffuletta is for
you. It’s a history lesson, and a guitar
effect all in one. And it’s made in
Kansas City, so the Russians can focus on bigger problems than how your
pedal sounds when it’s turned off. G
Wade Burden was raised by wolves in the woods
of Southeastern Oklahoma. The beard behind www.
beardtone.com, he is good at beards and ok at guitar.
He writes songs and yells a little bit in his band The
Born To Kills, and he runs a very blue collar business
in LA. He also thinks you should trust your own ears;
you’ll be happier than if you just take someone’s word
for it. You can follow Wade on Instagram: @beardtone.
59
GEAR REVIEWS u
RT ElecTRonix Multiband Compressor
E
IV
EXCLUS
The perfect squeeze?
RT ElecTRonix aims to bring studio-grade compression to your pedalboard
BY BLAKE WRIGHT
THIS MUST be what having lasik
eyesurgery is like. A series of tiny
adjustments creating a whole new experience once complete. The beauty
of the RT ElecTRonix Multiband
Compressor, unlike lasik, is that the
end game is a moving target suited
to taste, not a scientific constant like
20/20 vision.
Historically a studio tool used for
audio mastering and record production,
the goal of the Multiband Compressor,
a VCA-based analog unit, is to give an
artist the power to slice up his/her overall tone into five audio bands that can
be squished and stretched as desired via
five independent compressors.
The bands concentrate on frequencies: Low, Low Mid, Mid, High Mid
60
and High. Each band has dedicated
Comp and Trim (+/- 15dB) knobs for a
sort of mix of compression and equalization controls. A solo button on each
band allows the user to isolate that
frequency to better hear what manipulations of the knob controls is doing
to the sound. This allows the user to
set up for punchy lows, boosted mids
and singing highs independently, then
blend them together, some or all, accordingly. The GR (gain reduction)
light indicator lets the user know if
the level of compression is high (red),
moderate (yellow) or light (green).
The Multiband Compressor also
sports a Solo Clear button, which
brings all of the bands back online
with a single control, a Output knob
for overall volume and a Push switch
mounted between the input/output
jacks that intensifies compression for
a fatter, punchier sound.
Sitting down with the Multiband
Compressor, the first thought you
might have is “Man, that’s a lot of
knobs for a comp!” Don’t let that
be intimidating. The pedal is a very
straight-forward tool once you drill
down into its capabilities. Want to
dial down the low frequency and
bring a mid-hump in? Want to kill
the highs all together? Experimentation is key here. Being able to isolate
the bands is a great feature. Once
you’ve got the levels where you
want them and bring all of the bands
online, you might find additional
GEAR REVIEWS u
tweaking is in order... and it’s a snap
to do. Simply isolate, adjust and reengage. Don’t like what’s happening
in the Lo Mids band? Simply remove
it by blending the Solo channels
of the four other bands. The compression engine itself is solid and
responsive whether the change you
are after is subtle or dramatic.
Overall, the Multiband Compressor is a very interesting guitar tool
designed to compete with studio units
like the UA 1176 and DBX 160. In
pedal form, there are other excellent
compressors, but not one with the
sheer amount of flexibility on tap as
the Multiband Compressor.
Of course, all of that flexibility
comes at a price. The five-band stomp
retails at $749. Too rich? RT also
makes a three-band version for $399.
The Multiband Compressor is an
investment in precision tone shaping.
You will need to determine how much
is that worth to you. G
2 Levels
No Velcro
RT ElecTRonix Multiband Compressor
RT ELECTRONIX
MULTIBAND COMPRESSOR
Controls: Comp and Trim knob for Low/Low Mid/
Mid/High Mid/High frequencies, Output knob,
Solo buttons, Solo Clear button, Push switch
Dimensions: W: 5.5” H: 1.5 ” D: 4.75 ”
Weight: 1.1 lbs
Price: $749
Curved Deck
Quick.Tight.Better.
Lifetime Warranty
Patents Applied For
The New Holeyboard Std. MKII
SeaFoam Green
www.chemistrydesignwerks.com
61
GEAR REVIEWS u
Line 6 Helix
Taking Line 6’s new building block for a spin
The Helix lays a rich tonal toolkit... right at your feet.
BY WADE BURDEN
RECENTLY a producer decided
to drag me kicking and screaming
into the digital age with the Line 6
Helix. It took him months to do it. I
fought every step of the way. What
you should probably know about
me is that I didn’t have a cell phone
until like 2006 and I didn’t want
one. I’m not a big fan of change, or
things that make doing things easier.
I have at times in my life had a Steve
Albini-like dedication to analog.
Over time though, brands like Strymon have convinced me that digital
tape emulation is not a sin worthy of
excommunication. But we all know
digital sounds terrible for distortion. Flat, sterile, lifeless -- don’t
believe me? Go listen to the (admittedly horribly recorded) AC/DC
track ‘Live Wire’. Crank the volume.
If you don’t get chills hearing that
mostly clean, gained to hell and back
Marshall when Angus holds that
62
one feeding back note forever in the
middle of the song while the band
drops out and then comes back in...
quit guitar. Now listen to Nickelback
- that’s all rack-mount amp/effect
sims you’re hearing. Again, if that’s
not an easy choice... quit guitar.
Sure, the tracks I was working
on were recorded to ProTools, and
carried here on a hard drive. Sure,
it’s gonna end up as an mp3 played
through crappy headphones. Sure it’s
just a doubled guitar track mixed in
with real amps. Sure the audience
can’t tell the difference... but I’ll
know. And I have principles!
I’ve played all of the systems. I’ve
had Fractal and Kemper employees
dial in their products for me while I
played. It’s not for me. Digital feels
lifeless to me. It lacks the balls. And
the worst offender of all the digital
modeling companies to me has always been Line 6. If you must, give
me a Boss DS1 and a cheap Chinese
Fender, I’ll find a way to make it
work, but keep your Line 6 amp
modeling away from me.
My insistence on “120 Watts Of
Awesome” meant studio time and an
engineer, and waiting our turn after
things were lined up. Digital meant
pick a Saturday; dial in sounds;
bang it out. Still I stuck to my guns.
Or at least I tried. Quickly I realized
I was standing in the way of just
getting this thing done, and there
was no end in sight. My stubbornness was the problem. Finally, the
producer appealed to my vanity -- I
was the first guitar player outside of
Line 6 to play a Helix. How could I
say no to that? I agreed to give it a
try. I assumed it would be a terrible
flop in my book, but if it will speed
things along, I’ll man up and give it
a fair shot.
I spent two days with the Helix.
GEAR REVIEWS u
The first day was before the release,
and it wasn’t fully loaded yet. I
used the first day just to familiarize
myself with it, dial in sounds and
hear how it would sound mixed with
my recordings. The second day I got
ahold of the Helix was just after the
release, and this time it was loaded
for bear with effects and presets. The
Helix can store over 1,000 presets,
which are easy to navigate and edit
using its full color screen, simple
menus and either a joystick control
or touch sensitive foot switches. You
have 12 foot switches that respond
to the differences in pressure applied
to them. So stomp away to select
bank up, bank down, menu mode, or
one of nine multifunction switches.
When editing an effect, touch lightly
and you can easily navigate between
the different parameters on the
screen - this, combined with the solid aluminum constructed foot pedal,
makes editing on the fly a breeze.
The amp models and onboard
effects are controlled by a row of
six knobs beneath the screen that
act just like a more precise version
of the knobs on any other amp or
pedal. On page one of the editing
menu, they tweak settings like gain
and treble; on page two you start to
get into rarer, more nuanced settings like that weird hum that Voxs
make when run on incorrect power
while you’re on tour in Europe...
The Helix is all about control and
functionality. Tweak to your heart’s
content, eschew the presets and edit
all the available parameters to create that sound in your head, or just
plug in and go.
The back of the Helix has midi
inputs, USB inputs, Variax, a headphone out, ¼” out, XLR out, four
separate effects loops, an onboard
mic preamp with phantom power,
aux in, guitar in, two expression
pedal ins, CV in, and amp switching,
in case you want to use the unit to
control your existing setup. The Helix
can be a standalone all-in-one unit, or
you can run your pedal board into it
and use it to control your entire rig.
How did it sound? It sounded awesome. Not passable, but freaking
great. It felt like a real amp plugged
into a real cab. Better than the tracks
I was doubling in a lot of places. I
couldn’t stop noodling, peeling off
pinch harmonics and poorly executed
ZZ Top riffs. I found it very easy
to dial in a classic dimed JCM800
sound that was face-meltingly good.
The Tweed and blackface sounds
were also great. Not every preset
was to my liking, but none sounded
bad for what they were. It’s obvious a ton of time has been put into
crafting each amp and speaker cab
to make them not only sound right,
but feel right under your fingers. I
didn’t spend a ton of time dialing
in the onboard effects -- just like
their analog counterparts, I didn’t
find the dirt effects as impressive
as the amp breakups, and it was so
easy to dial in what I needed from
the amps I didn’t see much need for
the dirt box emulation. The modulation effects did seem a little flat to
me, but I’m picky when it comes to
modulation, and instead of focusing
on dialing those in, I brought my
own effects, a delay and two fuzz
pedals, and ran them in front of the
Helix. It performed just like an amp
should. The bass amps models were
also great, with the one caveat being
that the SUNN amp model didn’t
really nail that ratty distorted beauty
of a pushed SUNN with a P-Bass.
But unlike all my tubes amps... that
can be fixed with a simple download
as soon as they get to it. The other
thing I felt is missing is a chromatic
tuner. It has a great tuner, but a
chromatic tuner is such a useful tool
and would be so easy to add that I’m
surprised it was left off.
So here is the thing... the truth of
the matter: Does it sound better than
a perfect tube amp, under perfect
conditions? No. But it does sound
great and your audience will never
know - seriously, most of them don’t
even know what types of sounds
Line 6 Helix
LINE 6
HELIX
Controls: 12 footswitches, Volume,
Phones, Preset knobs and more...
Dimensions: W: 22.05” H: 3.58” D: 11.85 ”
Weight: 14.6 lbs.
Price: $1,499
are coming out of what instrument
in general. Also your sound guy
will love you. And it’s far easier to
dial in and capture those “perfect”
sounds with the Helix than it is with
a dimed 120 watt Marshall.
Does it look cooler than an amp
on stage? Nope. Not at all. But unless you’re rocking a 4x12 you are
already compromising in that area.
And it is weirdly beautiful, with its
black brushed aluminum, “HELIX”
ghosted in black-on-black right
on the front, and easy to read full
color display.
The bottom line - don’t be stubborn. Technology, paired with someone who has a great ear and actually
cares about what musicians want,
can do some amazing things. It’s a
tool, and life is easier when you use
the right tool for the job.
That all being said...Tubes por vida.
I still have my principles. G
Wade Burden was raised by wolves in the woods
of Southeastern Oklahoma. The beard behind www.
beardtone.com, he is good at beards and ok at guitar.
He writes songs and yells a little bit in his band The
Born To Kills, and he runs a very blue collar business
in LA. He also thinks you should trust your own ears;
you’ll be happier than if you just take someone’s word
for it. You can follow Wade on Instagram: @beardtone.
63
ALBUM REVIEWS u
ARTIST: Ian Fletcher Thornley
ALBUM: Secrets
LABEL: Anthem Records
VERDICT:
ARTIST: Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown
ALBUM: The Wayside
LABEL: Republic Records
Big Wreck frontman steps out for a slow burn
THE DRIVING force behind the
criminally underrated Canadian rock
quintet Big Wreck, Ian Thornley picks
up an acoustic and sits the dense, layered, electric thump of his band aside
for the moment on what is being called
his first, true solo effort, Secrets.
Thornley resurrected Big Wreck in
2011 after a near decade hiatus and
a couple of records under the band
name Thornley. Since the second
coming, Big Wreck has made three
albums, but seeking different sonic
pastures, Thornley recruited some
friends and producer Mark Howard
(Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Daniel Lanois) for a 13-song platter that floats
somewhere between heartfelt blues
and heart-stung balladry.
The album kicks off with ‘How
Long’, a Dobro-driven stomp accented with hints of Chris Whitley
and leading into ‘Frozen Pond’, a
very different, Spanish-tinged bit of
minimalist melody.
‘Feel’ blossoms with sonic artifacts
dancing slowly in the background of
a tribal beat and Wreck-ian progressions as Thornley’s asks “Did you
feel? Did you feel so loved?”
The bright arpeggiated lead riff
of ‘Stay’ fuels a tale of changing
relationships, while ‘Just To Know I
Can’ and ‘Fool’ materialize in a slow
rumble, then go down like a smooth
64
dose of syrup with little aftertaste.
The reverb-drenched electric strum
of ‘Elouise’ is contrasted nicely by
the more upbeat acoustic and mandolin peppered ‘On My Way’.
Subtile, yet on-point slide work
propels one of the benchmark songs
on the record in the form of ‘Stop
and Think’ where Thornley croons
“I’ve seen submarines sink, and
watched a blind girl wink. From time
to time we all get weak, and it still
makes me stop and think.”
The title track is another highlight
-- a bouncy acoustic number with a
banjo-flavored foundation.
The album wraps with a cover of
Big Wreck’s ‘Blown Wide Open’ -- a
standout track off the band’s stellar
debut In Loving Memory Of...
Here Thornley takes a decidedly
electric piece of bombast and condenses it down to its bare bones only
to reconstruct it as a more understated, yet still a powerful piece of
ear candy.
At its most simplistic, the album showcases Thornley’s ability
to strip back the sonics and still
delivery a mesmerizing collection of headphone-worthy musical
moments, but moreover the record
shapes a potentially more diverse
and adventurous path ahead for one
of rock’s best kept secrets. G
VERDICT: Mojo
AT AUSTIN’s SXSW music conference several years back, I
remember stumbling into a 6th
Street dive just in time to catch
the tail-end of a set by a teenaged
kid wielding a pink Stratocaster
and banging out Stevie Rayinspired licks. My thoughts then?
Chops, but no identity. The kid?
Texas-born Tyler Bryant.
Today, Bryant and his band, The
Shakedown, have a new EP, The
Wayside, that finds the axe slinger,
now 24, eschewing the SRV blues
for a more aggressive, fuzzed-out
rock sound. The EP’s first two cuts -‘Criminal Imagination’ and ‘Loaded
Dice & Buried Money’ -- start with
thumping, fuzzy intros before a
more modern rock crunch settles in.
‘Devil’s Keep’ is an acoustic-driven
campfire ghost story, and is followed
by a forgettable, yet forgiveable,
cover of Preston Foster’s (Got My)
‘Mojo Workin’. The EP wraps up with
ominous ‘Stitch It Up’ and the more
delicate title track.
It’d be easy for Bryant to recycle
the same old blues licks from his
younger days. It’s good to hear
that kid from SXSW is still in
exploration mode. G
ALBUM REVIEWS u
ARTIST: David Ryan Harris
ALBUM: Lightyears
LABEL: Peace Pourage
VERDICT:
Whether its from his stint as
sideman for John Mayer or his
‘90s-era rock band Follow For
Now, you have probably heard
David Ryan Harris, even if you
don’t know him. Eight years after
his last solo album, the excellent
The Bittersweet, DRH is back
with Lightyears -- a 11-track collection of acoustic balladry and
electric groove.
RE-LIC’’D
ARTIST: Super 8
ALBUM: Super 8
RELEASED: 1996
VERDICT:
From the excellent ‘Which Way
Home’, where Harris debates
distance in relationships and the
deliberately more funky ‘Junky’
(“I’m a 24-hour, seven-day-aweek junky, junky for your love”)
to the soul-oozing ‘Shelter’ (a
Tedeschi Trucks Band cover) and
the stompin’ blues of ‘The One
You Love’, Harris shows he’s not
afraid of mixing things up and
Musical chameleon Bronx Style Bob took a break
from the east coast rap/hiphop scene during the
mid-1990s to form Super 8, a short-lived alt-rock
band that released one of the best debuts of
the period. The 14-track, self-titled effort is an
aggressive, yet melodic buzzsaw of emotion and
raw power fueled by seering guitars and Bob’s
soulful and passionate vocals.
The lead track ‘Pain’ slinks to life with a
modulated guitar arpeggio before exploding
into the descending crunch of John O’Brien’s
guitar during the song’s chorus and Bob’s
signature howl.
‘Nothing’ is a punchy, up-tempo head-bobber,
while ‘King of the World’ continues the aggressive stance of the band highlighted by a blistering wah solo from O’Brien.
‘Pills’ is a thumping anthem of detuned power
chords and Bob’s soulful fury while pleading the
subject to “Fight for my love!”
‘April 19th’ has elements of funk sprinkled
across a more serious landscape of the song’s
subject: child abuse, while ‘Going Nowhere’
marches a repetitive riff across a battle and
eventual rebellion against hopelessness.
stepping away from the sort of
acoustic-driven melancholy that he
seemed most associated with from
his previous releases.
Harris made the record with just
a handful of musicians... no label,
and no management. Like so many
others looking to make their way
through the muddying waters that
is the recording industry these
days, Harris turned to crowdfunding to assist in the release of Lightyears. A campaign on PledgeMusic
was supported by just shy of 1,000
fans and helped the artist achieve
173% of his financial goal.
Kudos to him for taking the endaround approach (which is all but
necessary these days) and making an uncompromised record that
expands on his sonic palette and
challenges his fan base, all while retaining his established identity. G
The ballad ‘Heavens Don’t Cry’ speaks
delicately on the topic of loss, and ‘Natural’
stretches the univesal theme of love across a
radio-ready groove.
‘Washed Away’ is another slow smoulder of
swirling guitar, tribal percussion and urgency as
Bob sings “She’s been beaten like a weathered
path. She’s so beautiful, but her spirit is so black
and blue’.
“Here We Go Again’ offers up some gritty bass
chords and megaphoned vocals with minimal
percussion, but lacking none of the impact.
The album closes with the lumbering ‘Fly
Away’... a near spoken-word delivery clap-along
that plods along until exploding into a Lenny
Kravitz-esque chorus (song title, no relation) and
a slide-infused solo.
The Super 8 line-up was rounded out by bassist
Heming Borthoe, guitarist Joel Shearer and
drummer John Steward, and though the debut
was strong, staying power was fleeting and the
band dissolved with little fanfare.
Bob went on to form/join bands like Khaleel
and Contact. He also had a stint as a staff writer
for EMI Publishing. G
65
Gearphoria Magazine is wholly owned by WrightSide Media Group, Kemah, TX. All rights reserved. Published November 2015.

joe satriani

Transcription

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