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Dave Hunter: The Big Buzz – Origins of the Fuzz Box & Tips on Getting Fuzzy

Prior to the transistor revolution and the radical compacting of electronics that it enabled, the only way to achieve the singing expressiveness of a raspy, dirty, fuzzy guitar tone was to crank up a tube amp beyond its intended performance levels, or maybe shred a speaker or play with a busted tube. Then solid-state tech came to town, and suddenly cranking up the gain into distorted mayhem was as easy as ramming your guitar through a couple of small resistors.

Following the accidental discovery of the sound in 1961 and the first prototypes and premarket creations of 1962, the fuzz box became what is commonly conceived as the first genuine solid-state stompbox, and has arguably been the most enduring ever since. But for many players, it’s also among the most misunderstood. Let’s roar through some of the history of this 62-year-old pedal, explore some of the classics referenced in Helix’s extensive collection, then share some tips and tricks for getting the most out of the ubiquitous fuzz box.

Broke, Busted, and … Beautiful

The world’s first commercially produced fuzz box, the Maestro Fuzz-Tone, came as the result of a happy accident in a Nashville studio in late 1960. While recording Marty Robbins’ early-1961 hit “Don’t Worry,” Nashville engineer Glen Snoddy heard an odd yet compelling fuzzy sound coming from the channel of the tube mixer through which Grady Martin was recording his bass solo. The mixer channel was busted, but the take was so vibey that they kept it: voila! Nashville’s first recorded fuzz solo.

The original Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone employs three RCA 2N270 germanium transistors and is powered by two 1.5-volt batteries. This one belongs to Robby Krieger of The Doors.

Snoddy compacted that busted preamp down to a self-contained, solid-state unit, which he then sold to Gibson affiliate Maestro in 1962. Maestro released it to the public soon after as the FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone, a pedal that attained wider fame when Keith Richards used one to record the signature riff of the Rolling Stones’ #1 hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” while the band was on tour in the U.S. in May of 1965.

The U.K.’s first fuzz, the Sola Sound Tone Bender Mk I, arrived a year after the Maestro Fuzz-Tone, which was initially hard to come by overseas. But other industrious Brits had already been finding their own ways to get there. In 1964, Dave Davies sliced up the speaker of a small amp in the studio to achieve the sound for the Kinks’ hit “You Really Got Me.” And that same year guitarist Big Jim Sullivan used a fuzz pedal custom-made for him by Roger Mayer to recorded a notable fuzz part on P.J. Proby’s hit single “Hold Me.”

Not long behind these, Jeff Beck used a Sola Sound Tone Bender (now referred to as a Tone Bender “Mk I”) to record The Yardbirds’ single “Heart Full of Soul,” which was actually released just before the Stones’ “Satisfaction” in 1965, but wasn’t quite as big a hit. Paul McCartney, Mick Ronson, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, and several others plugged into Tone Benders the same year. Fuzz was out of the box, and soon virtually every gear manufacturer in the market was producing their own fuzz pedal, or rebranding one from another maker.

A Factory of Fuzz

Amid the huge selection of both updated and legacy fuzz pedals available in the Helix Distortion block are several undeniable classics. Alongside these are numerous recreations of the quirkier circuits that have grabbed players’ attention with their ability to bend the effect beyond the usual parameters. Given the accuracy of HX modeling technology, it’s worth considering the characteristics of a few of these, whether you’re planning to use originals (or accurate reissues thereof), or their emulations in the digital realm.

Classics

Buzz Saw

Inspired by the Maestro Fuzz-Tone, the Buzz Saw is sharp, a little harsh, and just the right bit of nasty—a razzy-sounding, old-school fuzz with good sustain and surprisingly decent articulation. It screams (operative word) “vintage fuzz tone” in a way that gets you heard in the mix, but is not without a touch of smoothness and sweetness thanks to the character of the germanium transistors at the heart of the circuit.

An original Arbiter Fuzz Face circa 1966, with germanium transistors—very likely NKT275s.

Arbitrator Fuzz

An homage to the Arbiter Fuzz Face often seen beneath the feat of Jimi Hendrix and others, this is another early classic. Raw, spitty, and glitchy by nature, it also has some classic ’60s warmth to help tame the aggression. The Fuzz Face is often considered a very musical and dynamic fuzz circuit that a player can work with pick attack and guitar-volume adjustments to achieve added expressiveness.

Jumbo Fuzz

Focusing on Vox’s Italian-made rebranding of the Sola Sound Tone Bender, this mammoth golden-age fuzz is bright and in-your-face, but with plenty of girth to the tone. It excels at anything from psychedelic pop-rock to proto-metal, with distinctly Brit-leaning influences in a sonic signature that instantly rewinds you to the late ’60s.

Bighorn, Triangle, Dark Dove, Fuzz Pi

Given the extent to which it evolved through the ’70s following its origins at the turn of the decade, there’s no single classic Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi circuit—but several that have each been identified as favorites. The earliest version, dubbed the Triangle for the shape of its three-knob layout, tapped four silicon transistors to produce a fuzz that’s thick, warm, and smooth, yet with good articulation and bags of sustain.

The Bighorn represents the “Ram’s head” unit of around 1973 (so called for the Ram-like graphic), the second incarnation of the Big Muff, which is known to have a somewhat scooped voice with surprisingly good note articulation—a circuit sometimes described as being halfway between a fuzz and a genuine distortion pedal. Representing the start of E-H’s Eastern-bloc reissues, the Dark Dove models the Russian-made Big Muffs of the early ’90s. Helping to power many grunge and alt-rock bands of that decade, it was a meaty fuzz with thick lows and cutting highs.

Pocket Fuzz

Although the original looked like it was made by a company that considered these things toys rather than creative tools, the Jordan Boss Tone is a great-sounding oddball fuzz that many players consider a classic. Little known in musical instrument circles, the Jordan company segued into solid-state pedals and guitar amps in the ’60s after making X-ray machines and Geiger counters in previous decades, and the Boss Tone—a small, plastic, two-control unit that plugged directly into the guitar’s jack—is its best-remembered release. Dialed in just right, it sounds full, rich, and expressively musical, with the capacity to be soft and warm or trebly and harsh. Fun!

Quirks

A super-rare 1965 Sola Sound Tone Bender Mk I. It employs Gary Hurst’s original three-transistor circuit and sports “Kung Fu” lettering.

Jet Fuzz

Inspired by one of the earliest pedals from Japanese electronics legend Roland, the Jet Phaser of 1975, the Jet Fuzz includes an enticing analog-flavored phaser swirl with its fuzz tone, although that can be dialed to minimal impact to let the fuzz aspect breath through more prominently. Make no mistake—the phaser side of this is very cool, too—but with the Rate and Feedback turned down to minimum a warm, thick, rich fuzz emerges with just the slightest slow-churning phasing for added texture. Fun and funky stuff, however you use it.

Bronze Master

Released in 1972 by the originators of the Fuzz-Tone, Maestro, the Bass Brassmaster BB-1 was a new and original fuzz circuit blended with an octave-up effect. Originally intended for bass (and used effectively as such by Chris Squire of Yes, among others) it became a favorite of many guitarists, too, for the synth-like way in which it can crunch a note. Nasty, glitchy, and raw, it freaks out beautifully if you hit it with any two-note intervals it isn’t happy about, but ends up sounding surprisingly expressive and musical when used well.

Tycoctavia Fuzz

The ultimate psychedelic fuzz, this one’s based on the legendary Tycobrahe Octavia, an octave-fuzz in which the two aspects of the effect are eternally linked in a doomy sludge of glitchy mayhem. The original was derived directly from the circuit of Roger Mayer’s Octavia, a pedal custom-built for just a handful of players—Jimi Hendrix included—but not commercially released at the time. The Tycoctavia often does its thing most reliably when hit by a single-coil pickup in the neck position, with the guitar’s tone control rolled down a little to help it track the signal better.

Industrial Fuzz

Based on what might be considered a “modern classic,” though one that’s been with us for nearly three decades, the Industrial is based on the Z.Vex Fuzz Factory, a compact but incredibly versatile pedal designed by Zachary Vex in the mid ’90s. Kind of a five-knob, “all fuzzes in one” creation, it can be about as sweet or as crazy as you want it to be, from warm and fat to sharp and edgy. Add in dying battery and ripped-Velcro shades to taste, and you’re off!

Fuzz Tips and Tricks

Like most overdrive and distortion pedals, you can often simply point each of a fuzz pedal’s controls to noon (or 50% on the HX models’ block parameter sliders) and achieve a usable sound. As archaic as it might seem, though, the humble fuzz pedal can be one of the most dynamic and playable stomp boxes around when used well, and there are several ways in which you can take it beyond the simple plug-and-play approach.

A mid-’70s “Ram’s Head” Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi belonging to J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., with tape markers for his personal settings.

Turn it Down!

The most basic of these techniques, which all of the most fuzz-friendly artists use to their advantage, is lowering the guitar’s volume control to elicit rich cleans from a pedal that would otherwise seem to be made for pure dirt. Achieving a result different from that of simply switching off the pedal, setting an ideal fuzz tone and then dialing down the guitar itself can yield a textured, characterful breed of clean tone that’s different from your straight-to-amp sound, and remarkably expressive.

Then, when full-scale dirt is required for soloing or heavy rhythm work, just roll the guitar volume back up—without ever having to stomp a switch. This is something Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and loads of other great fuzz users knew how to do expertly, and it’s easy to throw into your own repertoire with a little practice.

Lighten Up!

Somewhat akin to turning down the guitar’s volume control, simply lightening up on your pick attack will clean up many good fuzz pedals somewhat. The better of the old-school circuits react very directly to the strength of the signal at the input, and a lighter touch on the strings drops that voltage level down enough to send a cleaner tone all the way to the pedal’s output. The other benefit of working with your picking dynamics in this way is that you can then hit the strings harder for a full-on fuzz assault.

Roll Off

Whereas many drive pedals just sound dull and muffled when you reduce your guitar’s tone control(s), a good fuzz pedal can achieve near-synth-like expressiveness and faux-octave effects when this technique is applied correctly. Many players will be familiar with Eric Clapton’s so-called “woman tone” into a cranked Marshall, but approaching a fuzz pedal the same way often makes an easier means of achieving that flute-y, vocal-like sound.

Try rolling your guitar’s tone control to minimum—and this is generally best achieved on the neck pickup—then playing lead runs higher up the neck, with judicious palm muting of open strings to help individual notes ring out. Fingering notes near the 12th fret while picking close to the end of the fingerboard (near that two-octave node, the position of the would-be 24th fret) often yields a sound not unlike an octave-fuzz, or something reminiscent of the legato of a vintage analog synth.

From its expressivity and musicality to its ability to unleash all-out mayhem, the fuzz box is an extraordinarily creative tool, even if it’s one of the oldest in the pedal lexicon. Explore some of these fuzz-induced sounds, and more, to discover what they can do for your own playing.

Photos courtesy of Eilon Paz. Photos are from his books Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World’s Greatest Guitarists and Vintage & Rarities: 333 Cool, Crazy and Hard to Find Guitar Pedals.

Dave Hunter is the author of The Guitar Amp Handbook, British Amp Invasion, The Gibson Les Paul, Fender 75 Years, and several other books, and is a regular contributor to Guitar Player, Vintage Guitar, and The Guitar Magazine (UK).

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Mike “Puisheen” Adams — Guitar Whisperer, Offset Fanatic, and Atypical Picker

Mike Adams (a.k.a. Puisheen) is perhaps best known for his popular gear review and guitar maintenance videos on YouTube—and in case it isn’t obvious when viewing those videos, Adams is an accomplished player who is genuinely passionate about guitaring and harbors what can only be described as an obsession with Fender Jazzmasters. He also has a very unusual musical background.

“My parents reluctantly bought me my first guitar when I was ten years old, and that same year I became preoccupied with Back to the Future and learned to play ‘Johnny B. Goode’ based on Michael J Fox’s hand movements,” explains Adams. “From there I kept absorbing everything that I could sneak a listen to, because it was a very religious household and I wasn’t allowed to have proper CDs or anything. A lot of what I learned to play came from Weird Al Yankovic, because for some reason comedy was okay, so instead of Aerosmith’s ‘Livin’ on the Edge’ I learned ‘Livin’ in the Fridge,’ and ‘Smells Like Nirvana’ was my first exposure to Nirvana.”

Once no longer constrained by his familial apron strings, Adams was free to explore actual songs by bands such as Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Weezer, and even Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. In time his musical interests broadened to include Sigur Rós and numerous other less-conventional bands—and those more adventurous interests are evident in several performance videos he created utilizing the Helix Floor (see below), one of which showcases his mother’s extensive and somewhat creepy doll collection.

Photo: Vanessa Wheeler

Your playing is rooted in punk and heavy rock, but there are other things going on as well. Who are a few guitarists that were formative in your development as a player?

I listened to a lot of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, so Petty and Mike Campbell were pretty formative. I remember reading an interview with Campbell years ago in which he said some things that really stuck with me, one of which was that when choosing a guitar and amp pairing, he would base his decision on what Tom was playing. So, if Tom picked a bright guitar into a dark amp, he would do the opposite. That got me thinking about pairing and I eventually settled on this bright guitar and dark amp thing, which sort of led to my love of Jazzmasters and other offset guitars. I also listened to a lot of Weezer, MxPx, and punk rock generally.

Then, around 1999, I heard Sigur Rós and they blew my mind and really changed the way I think about music. Same with Jimmy Eat World. Listening to their Clarity album opened me up to what music could actually be, even in the emo alternative rock genre. You’ve got timpani, you’ve got giant string sections—it’s so massive and beautiful. And then, of course, Wilco with Nels Cline. At the time I was playing a Gibson ES-355 with a Lyre Vibrola tailpiece, and I learned to play all of Nels’ trilling vibrato parts as best I could. But then I finally saw a picture of him and I was like, “What the hell is that thing? What is that weird Fender?” And that got me interested in Jazzmasters.

Are you familiar with Nels Cline’s work outside of Wilco?

Oh yeah. He actually gave me a copy of his Lovers album. But yeah, I’m a big Nels Cline Singers fan, and I’m a big fan of albums like Destroy All Nels Cline. Oh, what a record!

Photo: Kurt Clark

What about Sonic Youth and some of the other folks associated with offset guitars?

Of course, but I didn’t come to Sonic Youth until later on. I was playing catch up eternally as far as music was concerned.

What is it about offset guitars that you find so compelling?

As I said, I came up playing Gibson guitars. I had a Les Paul, a 1969 SG, and a 1977 ES-355. The SG and the 355 both had Lyre Vibrolas, and I cut my teeth as a vibrato user on those two guitars. Then, in 2010, I discovered the Jazzmaster. I’d worked on a couple of them previously, but I didn’t get what they were about. It finally struck me that the Jazzmaster was one of the most Gibson-like Fender guitars, with its two pickups, toggle switch, and an additional tone circuit like on a 355. So, it was kind of familiar in that sense, and the offset vibrato is the most dependable, stable, non-locking vibrato out there when it’s set up correctly.

The length of string behind the bridge is also a big factor. Setting up the guitars so that I can pluck back there was a huge revelation to me, and all Jazzmasters are a little different in that regard. They have a 25.5″ scale length, but sometimes it’s a little shorter or a little longer, and there are also slight differences in the vibrato positioning, so you can get different notes out of all of them, and that’s endlessly exciting to me. And then there are the pickups, which have such a wide sonic palette available that they really encourage you to use the Tone control. They can be extraordinarily bright, but they are also capable of a wide range of deep lows. There’s so much about offset guitars that I really love!

Let’s focus on your playing. You play using your fingers, but not exactly fingerstyle in the usual sense, and you combine them with a flat pick in a hybrid style. You don’t see that from most of the players you cited as influences. Where did that come from?

That’s maybe the coolest question anyone’s ever asked me. Thank you for paying attention to my right hand. A few things happened that led to that. First, I discovered Nickel Creek. Listening to and learning some of their music taught me that my left hand didn’t always need to be perfectly synched with my right hand in the way it had to be when playing punk. With punk, when you’re down stroking and switching chords, it feels like a big box. Nickel Creek taught me about what might be called the “separation of hands.”

Then, while I was in college, Iron & Wine became very popular and I spent two weeks sitting on my bed learning to play “Naked as We Came.” It took that long to force my hands to work in that way. I’d get halfway through and just lose my timing altogether, but eventually I got there. And there was also a guy named Matt Hopper that I saw at a show, and he played this quarter-note-based song that was fingerpicked in a very intricate way. I was totally mystified and decided that I had to learn to play like that. It was a little bit Chet Atkins, a little bit Iron & Wine, and a little bit singer-songwriter-y, and again it took me two weeks to be able to play it.

Learning to play those two songs really kicked me out of my downstroke thing and informed my hybrid picking style. I play with the pick, but also pluck other strings, especially when playing octaves, in which case I often pluck them “claw” style. I don’t really think about what I’m doing until I need to hold a bass note, form a chord under that, and play some tinkly things. I’m not sure what the correct terminology is.

Tinkly works. You also do a good bit of rapid tremolo picking. Does that go back to your punk roots?

Definitely, but the first time I recall doing it properly was at a show I played before I’d entered college. I was really frustrated with the sound and so I began intensely digging into the strings on my Les Paul, when it dawned on me it was the sound that I’d been hearing in surf music all the time—and that sent me down another pathway. With the Jazzmaster, in particular, tremolo picking the strings behind the bridge is a very natural part of my repertoire, and tremolo picking generally is something I do quite a lot these days.

Photo: Ryan Molyneaux

Looping is a key element in some of your performance videos. What loopers do you use and how do you use them?

I don’t do much looping currently, but I’ve used the loopers in both Helix and the DL4 in the past. These days, I mostly just use looping to create pads of noise, rather than looping anything rhythmic. I might pick behind the strings and capture some of that, then reverse the loop, or change the speed, but I haven’t done much conventional looping since my singer-songwriter days.

Speaking of Helix and DL4, what’s your history with Line 6 gear?

My first Line 6 pedal, which I still have, was a DL4 that I bought in 1999. I had an Ibanez AD9 analog delay that I’d borrowed from a friend, but the DL4 opened up my whole world and suddenly I understood the tape echo, digital delay, and other delay sounds I’d been hearing on records. It even had an analog delay setting that sounded a little like the AD9. And, of course, there was the looper, which became one of my favorite practice tools. I also had a Flextone amp at one point, which I thought sounded really good, but I suffer from choice paralysis, so I found myself longing for the days of six knobs and I sold it. Much more recently, I’ve had a Helix Floor and also an HX Stomp, and I’ve been really impressed with how natural the amps sound and feel. The Helix user interface is also a lot easier to use than the interfaces on other modelers I’ve tried.

What are a few of the ways that you use your Helix and HX Stomp?

I use them for a number of things, including practicing, songwriting, recording, and creating my YouTube videos. For example, when I’m working out parts for a recording, I can experiment with all sorts of amps and pedals that I don’t actually have, because so many are built in. And when it comes to shooting videos about guitars, I couldn’t do what I do without HX Stomp, because I can’t use physical amps in the place we are living now.

Many people regard you as an “influencer.” Do you identify with that, and whether you do or not, what do you think that role entails in 2023?

That’s a really interesting question. I don’t think of myself chiefly as an influencer. I think of myself as a musician and a guitar technician and a writer. Those are the things that I actually do and that I spend my time thinking about—but when it comes to the social media landscape, I also don’t bristle at the term influencer the way that some people might.

That said, I still do kind of think of an influencer as someone who shares makeup products and tells you to buy stuff, but I like to think that what I put out into the world engages a little bit more critically with the products that I’m working with, and I think of myself more as an educator in that space than just an influencer, because one of my primary goals is for people to not be afraid of their instruments. For example, many guitarists are unnecessarily intimidated by things like truss rod and bridge adjustments, and I would like them to be able to maintain their instruments, because so much of what goes into making a guitar play better has to do with tiny incremental adjustments.

And in terms of gear reviews, I’m careful to disclose my relationships with manufacturers so that it is clear when I have received a product from a company, and I don’t just say, “Here’s a thing you can buy, so you should go buy it” [laughs]. For example, I made a video about the DL4 MkII that was part of the product launch, but it was because I was interested in that product and wanted to answer questions like, “Do we really need a MkII?” and I concluded that we did.

That’s a long-winded way of saying that it’s fine if people want to call me an influencer!

Mike Adams | “Mother’s Doll Collection” Performance

“My mom has had a collection of dolls on display since I was a kid. They’ve always made me feel unnerved with their glassy, unblinking eyes, and I swear I’ve seen some of them move. Musically, I wanted to create something playful yet eerie, and the carnival-like melodies felt like the perfect mate to the creepy display behind me. All of the guitar sounds were created with Helix and a Yamaha Revstar guitar. I used the Placater amp, the Deluxe Comp compressor, the Horizon and Legendary drives for two levels of gain, and the Poly Wham for the early melody. The Glitch Delay also felt appropriate for this weird piece.”

Mike Adams | “Cold As” Performance

I recorded the actual music inside where it was nice and warm, but the video footage was shot on the deck of my parents’ house in Pennsylvania in December, with snow all around. I played my Jazzmaster-shaped “Vader” Crestor baritone guitar that has a Curtis Novak Thunderbird pickup in the bridge and a Novak Historic 1958 pickup in the neck, along with two illuminated pickup selector switches, and a Mastery bridge with a vector drawing of the Death Star in place of the Mastery logo. The sounds were obviously all made using my Helix.

Mike Adams Performs with the NTX3 Nylon-String Guitar

This was my first time using the Helix, and I combined its effects and looping with my bigger performance and recording pedalboard, on which there was also a DL4. Playing acoustic guitar was also somewhat outside my comfort zone, let alone nylon-string, so I initially found it a bit intimidating—but after working with everything for a while I fell into a familiar musical headspace. The bowing was inspired by guitarist Jón Þór “Jónsi” Birgisson, and the bass part by Georg Hólm, both of Sigur Rós. The Poly Wham provided the moaning low-octave sounds.

Main photo: Ryan Molyneaux

Barry Cleveland is a Los Angeles-based guitarist, recordist, composer, music journalist, and editor-in-chief of Model Citizens, as well as the author of Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques and a contributing editor to Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World’s Greatest Guitarists. Cleveland served as an editor at Guitar Player magazine for 12 years and has contributed to Tape Op, Recording, Premier Guitar, Reverb, and other publications. He is currently the Marketing Communications Manager at Yamaha Guitar Group. barrycleveland.com

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Jeff Schroeder: Ambient Sounds Pt. 2 – Attack of the Synths

The inspiration for this post came from listening to Adrian Belew’s 1986 experimental album Desire Caught by the Tail. I’ve had this album in my collection for a while now, but I hadn’t ever explored it in depth. Excitedly, I put the record on and listened to it in one sitting. Entirely instrumental, the album consists of eight tracks that rely heavily on what were at the time state-of-the-art guitar synthesizers. On the back cover of the album there is a wonderful photo of Belew sitting on top of a Roland JC-120 amplifier while plugged into what looks like a Roland GR-300 guitar synthesizer. After doing some research, it seems as though Belew most likely used a few different synths on the album, including the Roland GR-700. The compositions are quintessential Belew, and the sounds he creates with the synths are quite pleasing to my postmodern listening sensibilities. Another great album along similar lines is Bewitched by Robert Fripp and Andy Summers.

When guitar synths arrived on the market in the early 1980s, there was a lot of hope that guitar players would be just as liberated from traditional sound palettes as keyboard players. Guitarists were offered the dream of being flute players, sax players, full orchestras, etc. I remember this quite clearly because I was a young guitar player at the time, who spent countless hours reading guitar magazines cover to cover and viewed all the ads for them. The high prices of these devices, however, put them so far out of my reach that I didn’t really dream of ever getting one. Moreover, the prevailing discourse at the time was that the MIDI pickups didn’t track well enough to capture the nuanced playing of guitarists and that the synths just didn’t sound very good. To this day we’re still struggling with the former, while the latter is more or less debatable depending on your musical tastes. From the vantage point of the present, I find the guitar synth tones on both Desire Caught by the Tail and Bewitched quite charming and off-kilter in just the right way. Not quite your traditional synthesizers, these vintage guitar synths have a sound of their own—and combined with the way guitarists play chord shapes and sequences of notes differently than keyboard players, the guitar synth exists in its own little sector of the musical universe.

Having used Line 6 devices for almost two decades now, I knew I could find some of these vintage guitar synth sounds in the legacy section of the Pitch/Synth models in Helix. There are quite a few them, and most are very good, though the presets I created use the Attack Synth and the Synth String models. The Attack Synth is based on the Korg X-911, which came out in 1979 and did not require the use of a MIDI pickup. Synth String is based on the GR-700, introduced by Roland in late 1984. The GR-700 is also notable for the very futuristic looking guitar that was paired with the synth engine. I recommend spending some time Googling these two synths. It’s quite entertaining. While the models found in Helix do not have anywhere near the features found in either of these units, they do retain some of their flavor. Moreover, with all the other effects found in Helix, it’s actually quite easy to manipulate and reshape the core sound of the synth models to create some really wonderful ambient textures of your own.

Preset 1 A

Preset 1 utilizes the Attack Synth model. I’ve included a screenshot of the signal chain to highlight something that it is necessary to do to get the synth models to track well enough for musical applications. If you look at the top line, you’ll see there are compressors both before and after the synth model. This is because the guitar is a very dynamic instrument and the plucking of a string creates a strong transient. The synth models work best when receiving a loud, even signal, which is what the first compressor provides. The compressor after the Attack Synth evens out the synth model’s output and keeps the level from getting out of hand. After the second compressor, I’ve placed a 10 Band Graphic equalizer for sound-shaping functions and a mono Simple Pitch pitch shifter.

Preset 1 B

If you look at the parameters for the Attack Synth, you’ll see it’s possible to change the pitch of the synth there as well. I included the Simple Pitch block because changing the pitch on the Attack Synth itself also alters the sound to some degree and I didn’t always find this desirable. That being said, you should try both ways of adjusting the pitch. Moving to the second line, all the effects are stereo: Chorus, Elephant Man delay and Ganymede and Shimmer reverbs.

I have heard some people suggest that using your guitar’s neck pickup will help the synth track better, while others say the bridge pickup is superior. In creating these presets, I found both pickups of my 1974 Yamaha SG-90 to work with about same amount of accuracy. I would suggest experimenting and seeing what works best with your particular guitar. Moreover, it’s a good mindset to think about playing guitar synths as its own little world, requiring a slightly different approach than your usual playing style. It does take some time to get used to, but once you understand how the synth responds to your pick attack, hammer-ons, pull-offs, etc., you will find that the response is actually fairly consistent and you’ll find yourself starting to develop techniques specific to playing with synth sounds and textures. One last thing to be aware of is that these synth blocks are all monophonic, which means you can only play single notes—no chords!

Example 1

Example 1 uses sounds found in Preset 1. This is very whimsical and is very much in the spirit of Belew. There’s a heavy dose of modulation on these sounds, so if you find it to be too much, it’s quite easy to dial it back in the preset. The bass line of the example uses Snapshot 1 and the melody over the top uses Snapshot 4. As always, these should just be starting points for your own musical explorations.

Preset 2 A
Preset 2 B

Preset 2 utilizes a similar signal flow as Preset 1 and functions in a similar fashion. Although I did swap out all of the stereo effects on line 2 for different blocks, there’s still quite a bit of space to add additional effects if you desire.

Example 2

Please take a listen to Example 2. To get around the synths being monophonic, I triple-tracked the primary melody of the example. In the middle of the example, there is additional guitar synth part with a slower attack. When composing parts, it will be necessary to adjust the attack time depending on the tempo of what you are playing. Slower and more melodic playing tends to work best, but faster lines can also work.

Preset 3 A
Preset 3 B

Preset 3 is based on a completely different mindset than the previous two. I wanted to create a set or sounds that could be used in both ambient and more rock-leaning situations. The top line is a traditional guitar path that uses the Revv Red amp model. The bottom line is a completely separate signal path that employs the same Synth String block found in Preset 2. The synth is controlled via the volume pedal, and you can mix in as much of the second line as you please. The top line is all mono and the second line is stereo. When you add in the synth, the sound gets much bigger and wider.

Example 3

Example 3 is a quick little E Lydian improvisation where I switch between the three different snapshots included in the preset. In starts off completely dry, then adds a short delay, and finally, a longer delay and bigger reverb are added to the core sound. Throughout the improv, I switch between all three of these sounds.

This only begins to explore what is possible with the synths found in Helix. Personally, I’m looking forward to spending additional time coming up with more sounds and presets. I hope this inspires you to do some exploring, as well, and to come up with sounds that push your own playing and creativity into different spaces!

Main Photo: Travis Shinn

Jeff Schroeder is a guitarist and producer currently living in Los Angeles. Jeff has played with such artists as the Smashing Pumpkins, Night Dreamer, and the Lassie Foundation.

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Eric Klein: At Least Half of Your Modeler’s Sound Is Determined by Your Playback System

When you read the phrase “sound of a Marshall JCM800,” what is the first thing that pops into your head? Are you standing in front of a half stack? Maybe seeing a certain band at a large venue downtown? Listening to a particular recording while on a road trip?

There’s no wrong answer, yet the experience of hearing the JCM800 in each of these environments couldn’t be more different.

Although many of us in the industry loathe the term, in the first example you’re experiencing what is known as the “amp in the room.” (I dislike this term if only because it should be “cab in the room.”)

The guitar speaker and the cabinet it is in vibrate air molecules, which propagate in sound waves that vibrate your eardrums. Chances are the strongest vibrations hit your knees, unless you’re facing a full stack. And if you’re smart, you’re not turning the Master Volume knob past halfway.

In smaller venues, the band may be on a five-foot stage, so the cab is pointing toward your face. Or it could be across stage pointing somewhere completely different. In large venues, the sound of the guitar is mostly coming from a P.A. system, via a microphone pointed at the cab’s speaker and run through the front-of-house console.

When you listen to your favorite records, the room in which the guitar amp was recorded, the microphone used to record it, the placement of the mic, the mic preamp and any other outboard gear used, the analog-to-digital conversion, digital processing, mixing (especially when trying to get the guitar to sit right with the rest of the instruments), and mastering can and do drastically change the sound. What you hear is likely totally different than what the guitarist experienced that day in the session. Now consider the myriad methods of listening to that recording—from cassette decks in older cars to budget Bluetooth earbuds on your morning jog to $100,000 audiophile systems in acoustically neutral listening rooms.

It is also common for session guitarists to place the cab in the tracking room, but play from the studio control room, listening through studio monitors along with the producer and engineer. This lets them crank the amp’s volume to hit its sonic sweet spot while avoiding ear damage. In other cases, they may forego the cab altogether and run the amp (again, with the Master Volume louder than they’d normally play through the cab) into an attenuator/load box and utilize cabinet emulation or IRs (impulse responses).

So, which of these is the “sound of a Marshall JCM800”? All of them. The amplifier hasn’t changed—but the playback systems and environments are completely different.

Your playback system and listening environment account for at least 50% of your tone and well over 50% of your experience.

Okay, so it’s the playback system. Can’t modelers fix bad playback systems?
I’ll answer that question with another question: Can’t turntables convince you your favorite band is actually playing in your house?

A better turntable can’t convince you the drummer is behind you, the singer is in your kitchen, and the bass player is passed out behind the sofa. At the very least, you’d blame your decidedly non-Dolby Atmos home stereo and not your turntable. The point is that all of these pieces of gear—your turntable, your hi-fi amplifier, your surround sound system, their material properties, location in the room, acoustics of the room, playback volume, and others—all perform together as an open system, and a system is only as good as its weakest link.

While modern professional modelers such as Helix Floor can completely nail the sound and feel of end-to-end closed systems like preamps and power amps (to the point where top LA session guitarists and golden ear engineers state they’re indistinguishable from the real thing in double-blind A/B/X listening tests), they have absolutely no clue about—and certainly no control over—what you plug them into. Until the technology exists where we can bypass your ears and tap directly into your brainstem, no amount of digital trickery will ever enable a 1×12″ cabinet to make you believe there’s actually a 4×12″ in the room, much less convince you a plastic P.A. speaker is a wooden cabinet with guitar drivers, or your broken 4″ computer speakers aren’t hot garbage. The laws of physics dictate this, not any lack of DSP sophistication.

So, what’s the right playback system for digital amp modelers?
It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Let’s take a look at your options, in no particular order: FRFR speaker, P.A. speaker, headphones/IEMs, studio monitors, standalone power amp/real cab, and real amp/cab.

FRFR Speaker
FRFR stands for Full Range/Flat Response, and they are typically wooden cabinets that look like real guitar cabs, except that there are often two speakers—a low frequency driver (woofer) and high frequency driver (tweeter). They’re designed to be flat and accurate, almost like a studio monitor you can bring to the stage.
Pros:
• A good balance of sound and feel when amplifying a wide variety of cab models or IRs
• Looks like a real cabinet
• The audience hears what you hear on stage
Cons:
• Still may not respond exactly like that one guitar cabinet you know and love, even if it is the same configuration (1×12″, 2×12″, 4×12″, etc.)
• The high-frequency driver can sometimes sound a bit strident (although this can often be dialed out from the modeler’s global EQ)
• More expensive than other solutions

Best For guitarists who want to embrace the wide variety of amps, cab emulations, and IRs found in modelers but don’t want to sacrifice the look of a wooden cab.

P.A. Speaker
Pros:
• More affordable than FRFR speakers generally
• Robust construction
• Often the most convenient, portable solution
• Flexible orientation—many can be used as a stage wedge, upright speaker, or on a speaker stand
• Can sometimes connect additional sources, such as vocal mics and be used for other things, like, say, DJing a wedding
Cons:
• Sounds less like a real cabinet—frequency response is sometimes “hyped” or “scooped” to sound better for music playback—even those marketed for guitars
• Feels less like a real cabinet
• Looks less like a real cabinet

Best For guitarists who may be on a budget, are weekend warriors, or want their playback system to serve double (or triple) duty.

Headphones/IEMs (In Ear Monitors)
Pros:
• Clearly the most convenient and portable option
• May be easier to hear detail, especially in noisy environments
Proper IEMs are what most large touring acts are using these days
• In larger venues, you hear what the audience hears
Cons:
• Massive range of quality, from excellent (high-impedance over-the-ear open-backed studio headphones) to hot garbage (low-impedance consumer earbuds)
• Sound and feel very little like playing through a real cab

Best For guitarists who want to practice or rehearse on the go, live in apartments or for other reasons can’t play through loud speakers, embrace “silent stage” monitoring, or are comfortable with how recorded guitar sounds (as opposed to how cabs sound in the room).

Studio Monitors
Pros:
• Better studio monitors typically have the flattest, most-accurate frequency response (provided they have enough bass)
• Your writing/rehearsing tones will most closely match your recorded tones, making it easy to transfer sounds from studio to stage and back again
• If you record, you probably already own them!
Cons:
• Unless you splurge for studio monitors with 8″ or larger woofers, the low end may be lacking
• May not be loud enough for practicing with others or gigging (unless you play coffee shops)
• Feels less like a real cabinet
• Not meant for live performance

Best For guitarists who spend most of their playing time in the studio and are comfortable with how recorded guitar sounds (as opposed to how cabs sound in the room).

Standalone Power Amp and Real Cab
A power amp doesn’t need to be a big rackmount affair. There are several compact pedalboard-based power amps that can drive guitar cabinets.
Pros:
• Real cabinet response and feel
• Looks great on stage
Cons:
• Often larger and heavier
• Power amp response may not be exactly what you’re expecting
• More difficult to stray from the inherent sound of that particular cab (which may not be a bad thing)

Best For guitarists who love the sound and feel of their real cabinet, but are looking for a wider variety of preamp and power amp sounds.

Real Amp and Cab
That’s right! There’s absolutely nothing stopping you from using amp modeling with real amps. And depending on how you hook it up, you may be able to use both your amp’s preamp and your modeler’s preamps, even blended together at the same time. (A friend of mine played in a Metallica cover band with Laney amps and they used to rent Roland JC-120s just for the first half of “Nothing Else Matters.” With Helix via 4-cable method, they were able to swap the real Laney preamp for the modeled JC-120 preamp with a single footswitch press.)
Pros:
• Sounds and feels exactly like the amp and cab that you love
• Looks great on stage
• 4-Cable Method setups still allow for instantly swapping out your amp’s preamp section (if and when desired)
Cons:
• Often much larger and heavier—may not fit in your mom’s Prius
• Least variety of distinctly different tones—more difficult to stray from the inherent sound of that particular amp and cab (which may not be a bad thing)

Best For guitarists who embrace one particular amp but would like a bit more flexibility, or care less about modeled amps but love the power and flexibility of digital multi-effects.

There are also Line 6 Powercab active guitar speaker systems, which are different than all of these. They combine a powered wooden guitar cabinet with the ability to virtually swap out different drivers. But just like every other playback system, Powercab 112 Plus or 212 Plus can’t convince you that you are playing through, say, a 4×12 cab—though they can convince you it’s that particular 1×12 or 2×12 cabinet with different speakers. And they can also be set to function as excellent FRFR speaker systems.

What can I do to make my playback system behave more like a real cab?
1. Start out with the model of an amp and cab combination you know well. If you’ve never played through a real Revv Generator 120 or Grammatico GSG100, there’s no baseline from which to compare.
2. An amp model’s default values often have the Master parameter turned up, because that’s where the real amp’s sweet spot is. However, tube amps are loud so if you’re playing at bedroom volumes, of course it won’t sound like a roaring full stack. Turn your playback system up!
3. If you can’t (or aren’t allowed to) play at louder volumes, turn the Master parameter down (if your modeler has one) to approximate your playback system’s level.
4. Try placing your playback system in the same location in the room and point it in the same direction as you would a real cab. Most cabs are mono and point at your legs, they don’t point at your face in stereo.
5. In the cab block, experiment with different microphones at different distances and positions. (Or with IRs, choose one with a different microphone, distance to the speaker, and position.) Condenser microphones at a greater distance tend to sound more amp-in-the-room, whereas a Shure SM57 right up against the grille will more closely approximate what you might hear on a record.
6. Add a touch of ambient reverb to your sound, especially when using headphones. A little goes a long way here.

Lastly, a favor: Whether online or in meatspace, the next time you encounter a new user struggling with amp modeling, before you start rattling off suggestions like adding low-cut filters, downloading different IRs, changing the input buffer, etc., try the following:
1. Ask them what their expectations are. Are they expecting to get the feel of amp-in-the-room or the sound from a particular record? Do they have experience in front of one specific cab and are they chasing that?
2. Ask them what their playback system is. Chances are it is not a real cab. It might be something particularly egregious like a plastic PA speaker, smaller studio monitors, or headphones.
3. Share this post with them!

Eric Klein is Chief Product Design Architect at Yamaha Guitar Group, trolls several gear forums via the handle Digital Igloo, and if you ask nicely, will show you nine thousand pictures of his two dogs, Bill&Ted and Paddles.

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Tom Salta: Mental Fitness for Creatives

It might seem strange that someone with a 30+ year professional career in the music industry is posting about mental health or, as I prefer to say, “mental fitness.” I’ve had an incredible journey that’s still going strong, starting in 1990 when I toured with with the “King of R&B,” Bobby Brown, then into record production, songwriting, a solo album, and eventually composing and scoring AAA Video Games such as Deathloop, the Halo series, the Tom Clancy series, Wolfenstein and many others.

My primary motivation for writing this is that I feel that the topic of mental health and wellness has remained in the shadows for far too long. “Mental health” has carried a stigma in our culture—a culture in which money, power, success, and productivity typically take precedence. Here, I’d like to shift the focus to personal well-being and understanding the true cost of neglecting it or “brushing it under the carpet.”

The 2020s have been challenging for us all, marked by the devastating impacts of the pandemic and the ugly divisions often exacerbated by social media, cable news, and politicians. Despite the hardships, it is possible to maintain mental resilience and find solace. Throughout my journey, I discovered strategies that help me remain centered, focused, and creative daily.

My purpose in writing this post is to share some “tips for the road” that may be of value to you in maintaining balance and positivity throughout your life—no matter what adversities you face.

Root Causes

As I delved into the topic of increasing anxiety and depression in society, I found myself pondering its root causes.

In the past 50 years, institutions such as national and local governments, the legal system, the education system, churches, the military, and even family and marriage have experienced a loss of authority and focus. This disintegration leaves the media and business world to provide a sense of daily meaning for some. Relying solely on these sources is insufficient, leading to fragility and instability.

Scientists have identified various causes of depression, many of which resonate with our current predicament. For example, the disconnection prevalent in our materialistic culture, the pressure to meet unrealistic expectations, and even the impact of our diet and processed foods all affect our mental health. Moreover, the constant sensory overload in today’s hyper-connected world leaves little mental downtime.

Beyond these personal factors, societal elements play a significant role in exacerbating our anxiety. Divisiveness and polarization have intensified, permeating our country and destroying relationships—and the pandemic and the urgency of addressing human-caused climate change further add to our overwhelming challenges.

Amidst these concerns, I find consolation in the power of perspective. As Albert Einstein wisely stated, “The most important decision we can make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” This reminds me that a critical part of the solution lies within ourselves and our point of view, which is precisely that: a view from a point.

What is Your Lens?

We view the world through a lens, and none of our lenses are perfectly clear. It’s important to ask: What perspective do I hold? Do I see the world as a hostile place where survival of the fittest is paramount? Or do I view life as an opportunity to love, help others, and bring light into the world?

One indication of the clarity of our lens is the extent to which we feel universal compassion and acceptance toward more people. Do we believe every human being was created with the same dignity as everyone else? A sense of oneness brings peace and reduces anxiety, in contrast to the constant battle of “us versus them” and the need to dominate or prove the correctness of our beliefs.

Mental Resilience

I once heard a Navy SEAL, who wrote a book on mental resilience, say that he changes his mindset whenever he faces a challenging situation with an uncertain duration. Instead of trying to “hold on” until the crisis ends, he mentally prepares himself for the long haul. He advised not to wait for tough times to pass, but to accept that they may persist. It’s about embracing the long game and adjusting our mindset to fully operate and coexist with difficulties.

I also once heard an insightful interviewer ask a Buddhist monk how he responds when suffering enters his life. His answer was profound: “Welcome.” Accepting that suffering is an inherent part of life enables us to let go of our constant need for control, bringing a profound sense of liberation. This reminds me of Winston Churchill’s famous saying, “If you are going through hell, keep going.” It’s akin to the Serenity Prayer, often attributed to Saint Francis but actually written by Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr in 1932. The prayer says, “God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Sleep is a Superpower

Getting enough sleep has significant benefits. While some boast about functioning on minimal sleep, this argument is losing scientific credibility. The truth is, inadequate sleep catches up with you and can have detrimental effects.

One essential key to managing my work and creativity is prioritizing sufficient sleep. I avoid staying up late or pulling all-nighters as every extra hour I work late steals hours from the next day, resulting in a disproportionate loss of productivity. When I adhere to a schedule, my productivity increases exponentially during focused work periods. Getting enough sleep is paramount for both productivity and creativity, allowing us to perform at our best—physically and mentally.

Recent scientific evidence suggests the minimum sleep requirement is eight hours.  It has also shown that even seven hours of sleep can raise the risk of certain cancers and health issues. For a deeper understanding of this topic, I recommend Dr. Matthew Walker’s enlightening TED Talk titled Sleep Is Your Superpower:

 

Meditation

I found incredible benefits from meditation, backed by science and personal experience. Within a year, I witnessed significant increases in creativity, confidence, elevated mood, energy levels, patience, and memory. Everyone around me noticed the positive changes. I firmly believe if everyone dedicated 20 minutes a day to silent meditation, many of the world’s problems could be solved. There are numerous meditation techniques to choose from, and I personally practice Centering Prayer. In her brief TED Talk How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains, neuroscientist Sara Lazar presents some supporting scientific information:

 

Nutrition

Nutrition plays a vital role in maximizing both physical and mental well-being. Genetically modified foods, excessive pesticide use, and processed food consumption are prevalent in the United States. To enable our bodies to function optimally, we should eat a variety of colorful foods, as they help our bodies heal and eliminate toxins. Eating green leafy vegetables, rich in chlorophyll and disease-fighting properties, is crucial. I even grow my own lettuce indoors using an aeroponic garden, providing a constant supply of fresh, healthy greens.

Exercise

Exercise is an important aspect of overall well-being, both physically and mentally. Personally, I struggle with maintaining consistency with exercise. My brother-in-law shared a valuable tip, greatly improving my consistency during the winter. I set up my recumbent bike in front of a large screen in my basement, allowing me to combine exercise with one of my favorite activities: gaming. This ingenious setup not only makes the time fly by but also lets me catch up on gaming while staying active. The key takeaway here is to find enjoyable ways to exercise so it becomes fun and sustainable.

Cold Showers?!

A surprising little trick for combating anxiety and depression is taking cold showers! Cold showers can stimulate your immune system, boost alertness, prevent colds, and even kick your mind and metabolism. The real superpower here is their ability to stimulate those mood-lifting hormones. Yup, they can help with anxiety and depression. So, why not mix things up a bit? Instead of always going for the steamy hot showers, throw in some cold ones every now and then. Just find a temperature that gives you a refreshing jolt—but no heart attacks, please!

Socializing

The key to keeping my sanity intact during the COVID ordeal was my incredible “Fun Crew.” We made a non-negotiable weekly tradition to gather our small group to share laughter, sip on drinks, and simply enjoy each other’s company. Humans are social beings, even introverted types. Socialization isn’t just a preference—it’s a necessity. A positive outcome of the pandemic has been the normalization of video calls. Today, many scheduled calls become video calls, creating a stronger sense of connection. I’ve enjoyed connecting with my friends, family, colleagues, students, and mentees this way.

Humans Need Consistency

In a world filled with chaos, we crave consistency. I find peace and a sense of control by establishing firm daily routines. Here’s a glimpse:

I make my bed, a habit I learned from a compelling commencement speech by a Navy SEAL. This gives me a sense of accomplishment from the moment I wake up, setting the tone for the day. Then, I meditate for 20 minutes, enjoy a morning coffee while chatting with my spouse, and briefly check my emails for urgent matters. With my 32oz cup of water in hand, I head to my studio, leaving my phone behind. I prioritize work without interruptions until lunchtime, when I take a break to watch an enlightening TED Talk or lighthearted show. Returning to the studio, I continue working until dinnertime.

Evenings are dedicated to quality family time and relaxation. If necessary, I may return to the studio briefly for urgent deadlines. Around 9:00 PM, I start winding down, watching something soothing on my iPad with headphones, engaging in non-fiction reading, and using a brainwave app to induce relaxation and prepare for sleep. I conclude my day with prayer or spiritual reading before going to sleep. This consistent routine trains my brain and body to function like a well-oiled machine, ensuring I start each day at full capacity.

De-Clutter

During the pandemic, I read a book on decluttering: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. A tidy space leads to a clear mind, but Kondo takes it to the next level. She suggests we only keep items that bring us joy. She applies this to everything we own, including our clothes. I gathered all my clothes in a massive pile, categorically sorted through each article, and only kept things that brought me happiness. I even created my own version of Kondo’s method for folding clothes and found genuine pleasure in the process. Now I can open my closet and drawers and see every piece of clothing I own at once.

The audio book is here:

 

Emails

Let’s address the notorious issue of email clutter. It’s a global epidemic, and we all constantly battle our inboxes. We treat them as never-ending to-do lists, struggling to keep up. A big mental switch happened when I realized that top-performing individuals live every moment of their day intentionally, not merely reacting to the needs of others. I like the saying, “The important things are seldomly urgent, and the urgent things are seldomly important.”

I finally developed a system allowing me to start and end each day with a “zero inbox” using a tool called SaneBox. It acts as a powerful filter, leaving me with emails I can swiftly act on, assign to a task list, or “star” for later attention. Removing clutter and the feeling of never catching up is liberating, relieving anxiety and stress.

Schedule Everything

Planning my days in advance using my calendar and tools like Calendly has been invaluable. I live by my calendar, schedule everything, and avoid reactive responses to unexpected events. By organizing my time, I avoid overbooking or “under-booking” myself, ensuring I can efficiently manage my work and meet deadlines. Calendly serves as a virtual personal assistant, allowing others to schedule events based on my availability.

One Thing at a Time

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu wisely said, “There is only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time.” This notion of taking things one step at a time holds profound wisdom. Daunting and overwhelming tasks can be achieved gradually by focusing on small portions. Personally, I dedicate specific time or even entire days to single tasks, combining this approach with pre-planning my schedule in advance. It helps me effectively manage my workload.

Be Kind to Yourself

Making ourselves happy is often a low priority. For some reason, we often feel guilty about self-care or treating ourselves. It’s time to change that. Learn to be your own best friend and listen to your internal dialogue. Treat yourself from time to time simply because you deserve it. Create a space that brings you joy. Learn to say “no” to things that don’t bring happiness. Engage in passion projects that bring you joy. Remember to prioritize your happiness and be kind to yourself. “Yourself” will thank you.

Relax

Discover what relaxes you and takes you to your happy place. During the height of the pandemic, I remember Playing Animal Crossing, which brought me some well-needed relaxing escapism. In recent years, gardening has become an activity that helps me center and connect with nature. Whether painting, reading, or engaging in any other activity you love, prioritize self-care and relaxation. It benefits you and enhances productivity and work quality. Learn to relax and take care of yourself.  It’s essential.

Professional Help

Before I end this post, I’d like to address two important points: Firstly, there’s no shame in seeking professional help, such as speaking to a psychotherapist. It’s not a sign of weakness but rather an opportunity to benefit from someone who can listen and ask the right questions. Secondly, even if we follow all the right practices, chemical imbalances or prolonged anxiety can affect our brain’s functioning. It’s worth discussing this with a doctor to explore potential treatments that might offer short- or long-term solutions. The exciting news is that the brain has the capacity to heal itself, contrary to the belief that once damaged, it remains that way. Remember, you’re not alone—options are available to help you feel like yourself again.

Conclusion

I hope you will find some of the insights and tips here helpful. For me, these practices have been game-changers. Remember, the world needs your authentic self, so please be good to yourself, pursue what you love, and make this world a better place.

Tom Salta is one of the most versatile and prolific music artists/producers working in film, television, advertising, and video games. He has received widespread industry acclaim for his world-class produced hybrid scores featured in film, television, and video games, including the award-winning Arkane Studios’ game, Deathloop

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Devin Townsend – From Extreme Metal to Ambient Explorations with Helix

Devin Townsend’s introduction to the broader public came when the fiery and almost feral-looking 21-year-old phenom was drafted to be the lead singer on Steve Vai’s controversial Sex & Religion album in 1993. Two years later, Townsend established himself as a leader with the critically acclaimed City album by his extreme metal band Strapping Young Lad. Throughout the subsequent years the highly prolific and profoundly gifted guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, singer, engineer, and producer has explored numerous genres on dozens of recordings—from heavy metal to progressive pop to new age. Lightwork, released in 2022, offers Townsend’s now familiar signature blend of those seemingly disparate elements, presented via he and co-producer GGGarth’s meticulously layered wall of sound-style production.

Townsend’s extreme metal origins and lifestyle notwithstanding, the 51-year-old Vancouver-based auteur replaced his former diet of alcohol and psychedelics with sobriety, vegetarianism, and daily meditation long ago. While diving deeper into the calming currents of ambient music, which he both listens to religiously and creates assiduously, Townsend has in recent years turned exclusively to the powerful sound engines in the Helix amp and effects processor as the primary palette for the expansive, searching sound of albums such as 2021’s The Puzzle and Snuggles.

That said, Townsend welcomes motivation anywhere he can get it. “I think fear is a fantastic motivator,” he laughs. “You’ve got kids and you’re in the music biz in 2023? Trust me, panic is great for getting stuff done!”

Preparing for an interview with you is a bit daunting, as there are just so many albums to consider. You mentioned the necessity of supporting your family, but it seems like you have been driven this way for quite some time.

Well, I do think that a lot of the past 15 years or so have been motivated by a relentless need to provide well for the kids. But deeper than that, the stuff that I’ve written and produced that I think is really worthwhile typically comes from a place of being compelled to do it. Just last night, for example, I had no intention of writing music at all, but then this budding idea suddenly grabbed hold of my thoughts, and it just seemed appropriate to follow that voice.

It’s that mechanism, that inner voice that calls you to complete an idea, that is of the greatest value to me. And so, while my circumstances have changed, the objectives have been more or less the same since the beginning, and I can trace that back to when I was six years old. At any given time, I’m trying to hone a particular vision, so that each album becomes a sort of essay of my life during that particular period. It’s that old metaphor of the carrot on the stick. Which I guess means I’m the … donkey, right? [Laughs.]

The Devin Townsend Project performing “Deadhead”live at Royal Albert Hall in 2015.

Your albums also tend to be quite ambitious, layered, heavily arranged. I often wonder how you get players who’ll attach themselves to the task of unpacking this rather complex material, which clearly cannot be fudged. There’s got to be serious work involved in recreating this stuff live.

Oh, dude, it’s so ambitious, and of course I can’t afford to have choirs and orchestras all the time, so over the years I’ve just ended up learning how to do most of it myself—learning how to do the production, the engineering, the singing, the keyboards, the bass. Man, I’ll do whatever I need to do in order to get this music from point A to point B. Happily, right now I’ve got a core group of players around me that I can trust, and I’m self-sufficient enough to do it myself if I need to.

Does that ever lead to uncomfortable dynamics with the players, who really need to fall in line with your very clear ideas on how you want things executed?

Absolutely. The social interactions are a huge part of this work, how you relate to other people and how you navigate these relationships with band members. It’s really difficult sometimes to manage that side of it when I know exactly what I want. The best course for me—and I’ve known this since I was as young as I can remember—is to try not to hurt people, but to still follow that vision with some intensity. That’s why I’ve often ended up doing everything myself. I don’t want to be a tyrant about it. I certainly don’t want to be a diva about it. But I always know what it is that I want to accomplish. My work ethic is so relentless that oftentimes I’ll end up working with people for a brief time before realizing that it’s just not going to work out. Having said that, I do believe that the primary function of both life and music is learning how to connect with people, because in absence of that, there are no resonant qualities to the work.

The word “resonance” is a good place to begin discussing the sounds you create using Helix. Am I correct that your principal passion with Helix is using it for your ambient music?

Yes, that’s right, though it’s worth mentioning that I go way back with Line 6 equipment. I started in the 1990s with the famous red kidney bean-shaped POD, then the POD XT. When I started working with Line 6 in a more official capacity, though, was when I started using their wireless units on tour, which then led to me using Line 6 amps, as well, like the AMPLIFi 75 and AMPLIFi 30, both of which I’ve beaten to hell on tour for at least the past ten years. I’ve also got a ton of use out of the Line 6 Firehawk FX. But around 2017, I stumbled upon this incredible loop preset with a clean delay in Helix and I’ve used it ever since, on every album, especially for writing, and in particular as a sort of foundation for all the ambient guitar work that I do.

Apart from the quality of the sonics, was there anything else about Helix that inspired you?

Definitely. Oftentimes with gear, when you get to the editing process the controls don’t quite do what you expected them to do, so you keep getting thrown out of the creative mindset into a draggy technical one. As I was working with Helix, I began to notice that every time I hoped a particular control would do what I wanted it do, it actually did it. This told me that Helix was made by musicians who were passionate about getting it right. With the Helix Floor, I was able to really get out of my own way while creating sounds, which implied that the engineering department thought through every control parameter so it that was intuitive and musician friendly. That was super-inspiring to me, and that’s why Helix Floor became the key piece of gear in the ambient guitar work that I do, and why it’s now so integral to my creative process.

How do you configure Helix Floor for ambient recording and live shows?

To set the scene: I sit on the floor, almost meditation-style when I do this, and I’ve actually got two Helix Floors set up—one on either side of me, with an ABY box between them. One of the Helix Floors is slightly panned left, and the other one is slightly panned to the right. Mind you, they’re both doing full stereo, it’s just that one of them is slightly more focused left, and the other to the right. The first Helix is mostly for subby sounds and bass sounds and the other one is mainly for “floating guitar” and midrange- and higher-frequency guitar synth models. I then simply set up the Helix loopers in a way that allows me to spontaneously create these lush pads and textures, then improvise over them.

I know that you’d rather not give away too many details about this, but could you provide an example of the kinds of signal chain you might use in a given ambient preset?

Let’s see. Okay, I’ve just called up this particular preset. It starts with an Autoswell and then goes into a compressor, a Vintage Swell delay, and a Fender-style clean amp. Then I’ve got the Growler and sub synths in the top chain, followed by the Transistor Tape Delay and the Shimmer reverb. From there the signal passes through a String Theory synth, another low synth, and into a looper. After that, there’s Digital delay into a Heliosphere delay and another Vintage Swell delay, with a tremolo set to square wave modulation at the end of the chain. The tremolo is controlled by the expression pedal on the Helix, which I use to fade it in and out. I love being able to combine all these different types of effects with the intent of creating massive clouds of sound.

Close listening reveals a lot of stacked delays, indeed. Those are some very cool and nuanced sounds.

I guess what I’m looking for with delays is more of a sustain rather than a tangible ding-ding-ding sound, y’know? I’m looking for more of a beautiful smear. With these stacked effects, the trick is finding ways for the frequencies in the top and low ends to interact with my dry signal so it doesn’t muddy it up too much, and for the echo repeats to interact with each other so that it doesn’t sound like M&Ms being thrown at a steel wall. [Laughs.] The best way for me to describe it is that I’m looking for a “pad” sound rather than an obvious echo. And I should mention that my dry guitar sound is generally nowhere to be found in most of these Helix presets.

Interesting. Still, I feel like I can definitely hear the “Fender-ness” of many of these sounds.

Well, when using Fender-style amp models with my delay chain in that scenario, I will generally lean toward analog delay—something that has got a lot of roll-off on the top end and that nice bit of modulation that I can then send into a long reverb, perhaps a hall reverb that is maybe set to about 30% of what that first delay is set to. It adds a “tail” to the delay repeats, while hitting it at about the same volume. From there, I’ll often go into a ping-pong delay that also kind of attenuates the high and low ends. This creates something like the effect of a reverb, but without some of those frequency spikes that come with the density of a reverb. It eliminates that kind of bloom in that low midrange that a reverb would typically give you in that application.

“The Puzzle” from The Puzzle.

My sense of you is that you are a kind of futurist. While many of us feel this need to hang on to the kind of vintage guitars and tones and approaches we grew up with, you seem completely unafraid to fly into the future of sound, to keep asking “What if”? Is that fair?

I’ve got a buddy who’s extremely disparaging about technology, and his go-to line is always, “Well, the Beatles didn’t need that.” And my answer is always, “Dude, they didn’t have that.” If they’d had this technology with the extremely forward-thinking nature of what they were doing at the time, how can you imagine for a second that they wouldn’t have utilized it? It’s absurd. People often doggedly hold onto the aesthetics of gear that they love because it’s got much more to do with their memories of it than it does with any sort of practical, contemporary application. It’s easy to be a purist about amplifiers and guitars if it’s got some emotional connection to your childhood.

For me, what it really comes down to is do you like the sound you’re getting right now? And if you do, there you go. If you don’t, then you can identify what it is that you don’t like about it, and then start to deconstruct that. But it’s no good to start from a place of trying to avoid doing things wrong. Instead, try going into the creative process with an almost child-like mind, with an attitude of “Let’s just have some fun with this.”

Going back to the Helix, that’s the thing I love about it: it’s freaking fun! At first that may sound like a sort of condescending compliment, as if Helix is some kind of toy. I can assure you, it’s definitely not a toy. But what we’re trying to do in the creative process is to get out of our own way, get out of the way of our judgments and preconceptions, so that we can play guitar with a certain sense of freedom and joy. So, yeah, if I’m going to play with a piece of equipment, I absolutely want it to be fun. That’s it.

Main photo: Will Ireland/Getty Images
Live photo: Christian Bertrand

Guitarist and writer James Rotondi has been a Senior Editor at Guitar Player and Guitar World, a contributor to Rolling StoneJazzTimesAcoustic GuitarMojo, and Spin, and has toured with the acclaimed bands Mr. Bungle, Humble Pie, and French electro-rock group Air. He currently performs over 140 dates a year channeling Jimmy Page for the acclaimed Led Zeppelin tribute band ZOSO. He lives in Nashville. 

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Jas Obrecht: Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Texas Flood” Sessions

During the early 1980s, blues music was in the doldrums. Record sales were down. Even established artists such as B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, and Buddy Guy saw drops in their audiences. Then, with the release of Texas Flood during the summer of 1983, Stevie Ray Vaughan brought blues and blues-rock roaring back to life. In the process, he helped resurrect the careers of many bluesmen. As Buddy Guy reported a few years later, “I owe the biggest thanks in the world to Stevie, because he was sellin’ records and I wasn’t. He opened the door for many of us.”

Vaughan co-produced Texas Flood with his Double Trouble bandmates–bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton–and Richard Mullen, who also engineered the sessions. I met up with Mullen at Austin’s Arlyn Studios in 1996, while he was engineering and co-producing Eric Johnson’s Venus Isle album. During a break, we spoke about the Texas Flood sessions. “Ninety-eight percent of all of Stevie’s records were done straight live,” Mullen explained. “Stevie was relatively fearless in the studio. He was a real performer in the sense that he didn’t think too much about the technical things. Once he got out there and started playing, he was just enveloped in the music. You could see that when he played live, and he wasn’t any different in the studio. If he was into it, you’d see him do his little dance steps all over the studio, just like he was playing for 10,000 people. There were hardly any overdubs at all. Just about the only overdubs were vocals and an occasional rhythm part over a lead, but the basic guitar parts on the studio records were all done live. And they were almost always judged on Stevie’s performance. If someone in the band made a bonk but Stevie played great, we’d say, ‘Well, that’s it. Let’s just go with that.’

“My first record with Stevie, Texas Flood, took us only two hours to record. That’s all we did on that record. It was basically him playing his live set two times straight through. We got in the studio, we set it up, and I said, ‘Just play it like a gig.’ They went through about 12 songs, took a break, and a half-hour later did the whole set again. We basically chose the best of the two cuts, and that was the first record.”

The sessions took place at Jackson Browne’s rehearsal studio in Los Angeles. Browne and Vaughan had met in August 1982, when they’d both played the Montreux Jazz Festival. For Browne, the moment of revelation came when he joined Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble in an after-hours jam session in the Casino bar. “Stevie Ray was just blowing the roof off this small, smoky, after-hours club,” Browne recalls in the Texas Flood liner notes. “It was really exciting. We jammed a little bit, them and the guys in my band. When I heard them play that night, one of the things I said was, ‘If you come to L.A., I’ve got a place set up in a warehouse and you can record.’ It wasn’t even a studio–just a warehouse with a bunch of home equipment. In a way it was a perfect environment because there was no traffic in and out of the place, in a very rough part of the city, and there was kind of a rent-a-cop standing by the elevator so nobody unauthorized would come up into this building.”

That Thanksgiving, Vaughan, Double Trouble, and Richard Mullen loaded up a van in Austin, drove to Los Angeles, and commenced setting up for the sessions. In his 1984 Guitar Player interview with Dan Forte, Vaughan recalled, “The first record, we pretty much set up like we do onstage, but we did have a few baffles between us. We went ahead and used headphones like on one ear. We couldn’t see the control room–it was at the other end of the place with a bunch of stuff in between, and no window. I like it a lot that way.”

Richard Mullen described how they handled the guitar amplification: “I would just have Stevie play and set the amps up myself. We never went through and dinked on the amps like Eric Johnson does. We were more like, ‘Well, this amp either works or doesn’t.’ There wasn’t as much science in it–it was mike it with a 57 [Shure SM-57], turn it on 10, and go. Stevie would usually use as many as three or four amps at the same time. He’d usually have four or five different Dumble Steel-String Singers on hand and six or seven Fender Vibroverbs. On every record, his sound came from a combination of the Fender and Dumble amps–it wasn’t specifically one or the other. We pretty much did all of Stevie’s miking pretty close–within two or three inches of the cone, usually a little off-center. We never did a lot of room miking. We’d usually just add effects afterwards to do whatever room sounds we wanted.” Vaughan reportedly used Jackson Browne’s Howard Dumble-built Dumbleland 300 SL amp for the majority of the Texas Flood session.

In the Forte interview, Vaughan elaborated on his Dumble amps: “Right now, I use a Howard Dumble 150-watt. He calls it the Steel String Singer, I call it the King Tone Consoul–that’s ‘s-o-u-l.’ It’s like an overgrown Fender tube amp.” In those days, between his guitar and amps Vaughan typically had an original first-issue Ibanez Tube Screamer, used for distortion, and three vintage 1960s effects: a Vox wah-wah, a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, and a Tycobrahe Octavia.

For the beautiful instrumental “Lenny,” dedicated to his wife, Vaughan played the brown, maple-neck Fender Stratocaster that he called “Lenny.” His wife Lenny had given him the instrument, which has been variously described as a 1963 or ’64. But for most of Texas Flood, he used his trademark guitar, “Number One.” In interviews, Vaughan often referred to this beat-up, alder-bodied Fender Stratocaster as “a ’59,” but in fact it was manufactured a few years later. In the liner notes to the Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble box set, guitar tech Rene Martinez explains, “For the record, Stevie always referred to Number One as a ’59. When I opened it up, I discovered ‘1962’ was stamped on the neck and ‘1962’ was written on the body cavity. I thought, ‘Why does Stevie call this a ’59?’ Stevie later told me, ‘If you look on the back of the pickups, ‘1959’ is hand-written on there.’ Ever since he saw ‘1959,’ he started calling it a ’59. The fretboard is a veneer board [curved on the underside], though all of Stevie’s other rosewood-board guitars were slab boards [flat on the underside].”

Except for its 5-way toggle switch and lefty tremolo arm, Vaughan kept Number One stock. Rene remembers Number One’s neck, a Fender D-style, as being the largest he’d ever seen on a Strat. Vaughan used Gibson jumbo frets to help accommodate his heavy guitar strings: “I use a .013, a .015 or .016 depending on what shape my fingers are in, .019 plain, .028, .038, .060 or .056. If I go down to an .018 on the G string, it feels like a rubber band to me.” Like Jimi Hendrix, he typically tuned down a half-step. As Vaughan once explained, “I use heavy strings, tune low, play hard and floor it. Floor it–that’s technical talk.”

In the CD’s liner notes, Tommy Shannon remembers the Texas Flood sessions as being relaxed and spontaneous: “One of the great things about playing with Stevie is he didn’t sit there and tell you, ‘Well, no, play this and play that. Lay out here and . . . .’ You know? Each of us played what he felt, that’s all. And if Stevie heard something and liked it, he could sit down and play it. I think he could hear deeper than anyone else could and it just kind of poured out like water. We knew the songs that we wanted to do when we went into the studio, but no, we didn’t sit down and write out a song list or anything like that. And that’s something we really wanted, to get a live sound on our record.”

Vaughan himself wrote most of Texas Flood: “Love Struck Baby,” “Pride and Joy,” “Rude Mood,” “Lenny,” “I’m Crying,” and “Dirty Pool,” co-written with Doyle Bramhall. He also covered “Testify” (author unknown), Buddy Guy’s “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and Howlin’ Wolf’s “Tell Me.” The most interesting cover of all, though, is surely the title track, “Texas Flood.” Texas blues singer Larry Davis recorded his original version in November 1958 with Fenton Robinson on electric guitar. Issued on Duke, this original version bears an uncanny resemblance to Vaughan’s, both in the arrangement and especially the vocals:

Following the completion of the Los Angeles sessions, Vaughan and crew headed back to Austin. They added a few vocal overdubs and began shopping the tape. It eventually came to the attention of Columbia Records producer John Hammond, who, having signed Billie Holiday, Charlie Christian, Bob Dylan, and many other musical giants, had one of the most glorious records in the history of recorded music. Hammond, the father of bluesman John Hammond, forwarded the tape to Gregg Geller, A&R man for Epic Records.

In the Texas Flood liner notes, Geller takes up the story: “Over the years John would forward all manner of acts to me. The very last one was Stevie Ray, and that was a no-brainer. I didn’t have to think real hard. What really appealed to me about him was not his guitar playing, which was undeniably brilliant, but his singing was totally natural and believable, not blackface. It wasn’t someone trying to sound real. My decision also had to do with what was going on in music at the time. The idea of electric blues was so unfashionable, but I felt there was a need for what he was doing. There was a need for a guitar hero–the old ones were inactive or doing pop records. I signed Stevie in the spring of ’83. John booked them into Media Sound on 57th Street, and we sat and listened to those original tapes to decide if anything needed to be done, but the gist of our approach was to do as little as possible. There were maybe a handful of overdubs and a slight bit of remixing, and the record came out in June.” Vaughan recalled Hammond being there for the mixdown and remastering.

With the album’s release, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble began touring North America and Europe. October 20, 1983, found them at Ripley’s Music Hall in Philadelphia. Barely 150 people showed up for the gig, but Vaughan and band pulled out the stops, delivering a scorching set of Texas Flood tracks, as well as Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” and an encore medley of Hendrix’s “Little Wing/Third Stone From the Sun.” The show was broadcast live over Philadelphia’s WMMR-FM radio station and later rebroadcast on the nationally syndicated King Biscuit Flower Hour. This set became a welcome addition to Legacy’s Texas Flood reissue.

To those who knew him, one of Vaughan’s endearing qualities was his habit of crediting those who inspired him. In return, many of the musicians he helped bring back into the spotlight expressed their gratitude toward him. As John Lee Hooker said after Vaughan’s death in August 1990, “To me, Stevie’s one of the greatest blues singers there ever was. I am very sad because I wish he were here. But his music will never die. He’s one of the greatest blues musicians that ever picked up a guitar.”

Photo: Larry Marano, Getty Images/Hulton Archive

A longtime editor for Guitar Player magazine, Jas Obrecht has written extensively about blues and rock guitarists. His books about music include Rollin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists, Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar, Talking Guitar, and Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London. For more of Jas’ writing, check out https://jasobrecht.substack.com.

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Peter Hook—Revisiting Joy Division and Factory Records

Few labels are as storied as Manchester-based Factory Records. Founded in 1978 by media host Tony Wilson, actor Alan Erasmus, and band manager Rob Gretton, Factory Records was the early home of an eclectic assortment of bands that included The Durutti Column, Cabaret Voltaire, and Joy Division. Although these bands had little in common stylistically, the label’s early releases were produced by recording iconoclast Martin Hannett and sported distinctive artwork by graphic designer Peter Saville, resulting in a de facto label sound and image. The label debuted with the release of A Factory Sample in late December 1978—a double EP that included two Joy Division tracks—and ended in 1992 (though other Factory-related businesses appeared and disappeared for at least another decade). The 2002 film 24 Hour Party People provides a glimpse of at least part of the story.

Joy Division are arguably the most historically significant band associated with Factory Records. Vocalist/lyricist/guitarist Ian Curtis, guitarist/keyboardist Bernard Sumner, drummer Stephen Morris, and bassist/backing vocalist Peter Hook originally formed to play unadorned punk, as attested to by their earliest recordings—but in the hands of Martin Hannett they crafted two albums that largely defined the post-punk sound. With their dark, moody ambience and unprecedented use of digital effects, Unknown Pleasures and Closer remain highly influential nearly half-a-century later. Joy Division came to an early end with the tragic death of Ian Curtis on May 18, 1980.

Here, on the occasion of Record Store Day, we speak with Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook about Joy Division, the early days of Factory Records, Martin Hannett, his unique bass playing style and sound, and how he uses his Line 6 HX Effects processor when performing live with his current group Peter Hook and the Light.

Peter Saville (left) with Factory Records founders Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus outside the Russell Club circa 1979. The club was also known as The Factory on club nights run by Wilson and Erasmus.

What distinguished Joy Division’s relationship with Factory Records?

Well, the truth is that we were all really young and naive and none of us actually knew what we were doing so we were in very good company. One of the things I liked about Tony in particular was that he never did anything for money. It was all for his art or his interpretation of art. For example, it was his idea to split the money 50/50, which was unheard of, and he was very hands off when it came to our music, leaving us to our own devices, which is a fairly anarchic way to run a record label. We also all believed that the music should speak for itself and were essentially anti-promotion. We didn’t put our names on the record covers, we didn’t put the singles on the LPs—our attitude to selling records was terrible. Nonetheless, Factory had at least ten fantastic years with the success of Joy Division and New Order, apart from the hiccup in the middle.

Was it also a matter of being in a certain place during a certain period of time?

That punk and post-punk period was a fantastic time for music in England and the world. There was a great acceptance and an opening of being able and willing to listen and take a chance on anything that was unparalleled.

Because the early Factory releases were recorded by Martin Hannett and featured artwork by Peter Saville there’s a sense of continuity and label identity—but in reality, the bands actually all sounded very different from one another. How did bands get signed to Factory?

Honestly, it was mostly a matter of who came up to Tony and what they said to him. It was that free. Famously, Ian Curtis was absolutely horrific to Tony the first time we met, but Tony remembered him. Tony seemed to thrive on things that weren’t normal and that were difficult and ornery. I mean, he famously turned down the Smiths because he thought they were boring and he turned down the Stone Roses because he thought they were too Manchester.

Unless someone saw Joy Division perform live during the short time that you were together, when they think of the band’s sound they mostly think of the recordings—but didn’t the live band sound quite different?

Well, even in that brief time our sound changed quite a bit. When we first started out all we wanted to do was rip peoples’ heads off like the Clash or the Sex Pistols, and Martin didn’t actually change our sound that much when we recorded “Glass” and “Digital” for A Factory Sample. That was very much how Joy Division played and sang and sounded. But when we recorded our first album, Unknown Pleasures, Martin realized that there was something else that he could do with the group, and as long as he didn’t listen to us and we didn’t get in the way he would be able to do it, which is exactly what happened. Martin made the music deep and meaningful, with the ability to influence generation after generation, and Bernie and I wouldn’t have done that. We were actually very unhappy with the album at the time, though Ian and Stephen liked it.

Though by the time you were recording Closer didn’t you already know what Martin was up to in terms of the processing and production techniques?

Yes, and Bernie and I fought with him constantly. We’d sit on either side of him at the mixing desk and take turns demanding things and most of the time he would just freeze up and say something like, “Just let me get on with it, you idiots.” His attitude was that musicians should neither be seen nor heard, which was quite odd given that he himself was a musician. Though, again, he was absolutely right not to listen to us.

Would it be fair to call him the fifth member of Joy Division, as some have done?

No. He didn’t write any of the songs or even particularly change any of the music. He just had his very idiosyncratic recording techniques, which changed the sound of the music.

Martin Hannett in Strawberry Studios.

What are a few examples of those techniques?

One of his big things was clarity. Everything had to be recorded as cleanly, clearly, and separately as possible, which involved putting microphones really close to amps and instruments and recording DI signals in addition to using mics. That’s all absolutely correct, but it meant that if we had tried to remix it ourselves, we would have listened to the unprocessed tracks and thought, “Oh my God, this sounds terrible.” He had the vision and the experience to be able to imagine how it was going to sound once he had added all of his effects and mixing tricks and we didn’t.

Those effects included the AMS DMX 15-80S Digital Stereo Delay, the Marshall 5402 Time Modulator, a Melos Echo Chamber tape delay, and EMT plate reverbs. Do you recall any specifics as to how he used them?

Well, although he worked with AMS on the development of their delays and reverbs, what he actually used the most were the EMT plates. Strawberry Studios had two huge EMT plates that sounded absolutely wonderful and he used them to build up his own Phil Spector-style wall of sound. But his biggest influence as a producer was Tamla Motown. They had an acoustic echo chamber in the attic above the studio at Hitsville USA that they used to get all those great echo and reverb sounds and that was what inspired Martin’s trademark sound more than anything else.

Your bass sound on Closer is bigger, fuller, and clearer sounding than on Unknown Pleasures. It was a different studio and I believe you used a different amp, but didn’t you also play a different bass?

Yes, I played a Shergold Marathon 6-string bass on the majority of the songs, which was the main difference. But I also didn’t use my own effects on Unknown Pleasures, whereas on Closer I used an Electro-Harmonix Clone Theory analog chorus and a Yamaha delay unit set to 80 milliseconds to fatten things up. Of course, Martin also added his own effects sometimes, or used them instead of mine. The 6-string bass sounded really different than the 4-string and a lot of people thought some of the bass lines were guitar lines.

Is the Marathon tuned like a guitar with E as the lowest string?

Yes, it’s tuned E, A, D, G, B, E, low to high.

Do you ever play with your fingers instead of a pick?

I’ve always played with a pick and I’ve always hit the strings as hard as I could [laughs].

Did you always play through an amp when recording with Joy Division or did you ever plug directly into the board?

Martin recorded my amp, but he also used to record a DI signal, though I really had no idea why at the time.

What is an example of another recording technique used when recording your bass?

Because my parts often included an open string used as a sort of rhythmic drone, we would record the open-string part on one track, and the other parts on another. For example, on “She’s Lost Control” we recorded the rhythmic open D part on one track and the melodic G-string part on another track, and then combined them. That way we could put more bottom end EQ on the open string without muddying up the higher, melodic part. And I continued to use that technique with New Order.

Much is made of your playing high on the neck, but your use of open-string pedal points and chordal figures combined with melodies is mentioned less frequently. Is there anything else that you feel gets overlooked in your playing?

My playing is actually a lot simpler than most people think. For example, people argue with me about how the bass part on “Love Will Tear Us Apart” is played [laughs]. I always go for the simple thing, but maybe in some cases because of the recording techniques the parts sound more complex than they really are? Also, the vast majority of Joy Division’s songs were written from jams. We weren’t actually playing “songs,” like in a studio format, we were playing in a group format, jamming together—and to me that was the strength of Joy Division.

Hook performing with Peter Hook and the Light.

Is that why most Joy Division songs don’t follow typical songwriting structures and more or less stick to a single tonal base with only minimal changes?

Yes, we’d start with jams and then build over them. If you look at a song like “Transmission,” the bass hardly changes throughout it and you might say, “Oh, that’s dead simple, that.” But nobody else has written a song that sounds like it. “At a Later Date,” “Novelty,” they all have a bass riff that goes all the way through and hardly changes. That leaves room for the guitar to put different parts on it. If we would have made the bass more complicated, we wouldn’t have achieved what we were trying to do. It was a formula: Ian would sing and I would do the backing vocals with him, Bernie would play guitar and sometimes keyboard, and the bass and drums would carry the song.

What do you make of the resurgence of vinyl in the last 10 years or so?

It doesn’t surprise me at all. As sad and old-fashioned as it may sound, nothing gives me more joy than getting a record out of its sleeve, putting it on the turntable, and hearing those first few little scratches at the start before the music comes in. It’s a fantastic way to listen to music and as much as I have embraced digital, it’s still wonderful to have something so tangible. It’s the perfect medium to listen to music on. The size of the sleeve, and the fact that you can hold it in your hands.

The concept of albums is rapidly being replaced by individual tracks and personal playlists. Do you have any thoughts about that?

Many musicians, especially older musicians, are so used to working in that format that it’s the only way they can do it. That said, in the early days of Joy Division we weren’t writing tracks for an LP, we were writing songs we could play live, and we needed about ten or so to play our first gigs.

Sure, but by the time you recorded Closer you were thinking in terms of a collection of songs that comprised an album, right?

Yes, very much so, though the problem with Closer is that we had only completed four or five songs in the studio before Ian died, and the others were completed posthumously. Joy Division had never actually played most of the songs live.

How long have you been using Line 6 gear?

A long time, starting with both the walnut-shaped red guitar and grey bass PODs, which we used in the studio all the time. And later I got a DL4 delay pedal, and eventually had about seven of them! I still have some of those units.

What Line 6 gear are you using currently?

I use an HX Effects pedal in conjunction with the Clone Theory chorus when performing live. I also have several Helix Floor units, which my son is valiantly teaching me how to use. To be honest, I’m a bit of a traditionalist and I like my echo to be an echo and my chorus to be a chorus and my fuzz box to be a fuzz box—but I have to be realistic when touring because I can’t take all that stuff with me. HX Effects does a wonderful job of putting everything together and it sounds great.



Which effects do you use the most?

I use the 70s Chorus as a backup to the Clone Theory, the Wringer Fuzz for slight distortion, the Kinky Boost for some solos, short and long delays, and the 10 Band Graphic EQ. The EQ is just used to boost the volume of the Shergold 6-string bass, which has passive pickups, to the match the level of my Yamaha BB bass, which has active pickups. I find that with a little bit of effort and work the HX Effects can do everything that I want and need—and it’s also very reliable. Mine comes with me all around the world and it’s never let me down once. So that’s something that can’t be said for the old stuff, sadly.

Any thoughts on Record Store Day?

Supporting Record Store Day is an absolute pleasure. I have the same reverence for vinyl that I did when I was a kid walking down the street with, say, my Black Sabbath album so everybody could see that I had it. It was so important to me then and I’m still very much tied to that!

Joy Division, Factory, and Martin Hannett photos: Kevin Cummins, Getty Images
Peter Hook live photo: Travis Shinn

More information on Martin Hannett may be found in Chris Hewitt’s book Martin Hannett – Pleasures of the Unknown.

Barry Cleveland is a Los Angeles-based guitarist, recordist, composer, music journalist, and editor-in-chief of Model Citizens and The Lodge, as well as the author of Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques and a contributing author to Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World’s Greatest Guitarists. Cleveland also served as an editor at Guitar Player magazine for 12 years and is currently the Marketing Communications Manager at Yamaha Guitar Group. barrycleveland.com

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Dr. Molly Miller: Four of My Favorite Contemporary Women Guitarists

Last year I wrote an article for Women’s History Month that highlighted some of the pioneering women of the guitar: Memphis Minnie, Maybelle Carter, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Those women were innovators, playing historic roles in the development of guitar and the evolution of their respective genres. This all took place during the first half of the 20th century.

Today, vital members of the guitar community who also happen to be women continue to push the envelope with their unique techniques and sounds. And most importantly, just like Minnie, Maybelle, and Rosetta, they make you feel things. Here are four of my favorites.

Arianna Powell

Pennsylvania native Arianna Powell has a magical touch on the guitar. I first became familiar with her as a stellar pop guitarist supporting big-name artists and I was struck by her guitar playing in that context. To put it lightly, she can shred. You may have seen her on TV playing jaw-dropping solos with Olivia Rodrigo or Black Eyed Peas. Or maybe you saw her at a stadium with the Jonas Brothers or Halsey, putting her personal touch on guitar parts. Arianna does not just play what is on the record, she composes guitar parts that add color, texture, and melody, like a great arranger would do. Arianna is also a beast of tone, rocking big driven lead sounds, heavenly reverbs, and interesting modulations, while putting her own spin on them all. And all of these things that I appreciate so much about her playing when she is supporting an artist really come alive when I hear her solo guitar arrangements.

Arianna is one of my favorite solo guitar players because of her incredibly inventive, virtuosic, and musical arrangements. You can hear her influences from greats like Johnny Smith and Joe Pass, but she blends them with classical contrapuntal movements and harmony, pop sensibilities, and R&B flourishes to create her own sound. Some of her more virtuosic playing is made possible because of her atypical right-hand technique: she rests her pinky on the guitar pickup and almost brushes the strings with her thumb and first, second, and third fingers. I’ve never seen it before. This unconventional technique allows her to seamlessly go between dashing arpeggiated lines and sweet chordal melodies, all while maintaining a big round sound. You can hear it on her arrangements of traditional songs like “Virginia Is for Lovers (Shenandoah)” and Brian Wilson’s classic “God Only Knows.” Arianna’s ability to draw from so many styles and techniques in her arrangements makes them highly compelling and unlike anyone else’s. She will be releasing a record of solo guitar music in July.

Emily Elbert

Emily Elbert is the queen of the pocket. Her groove is solid, her voice is mesmerizing, her melodies are soothing, and her songs are powerful. Emily is a woman who can do so much, so well. Her talents have led to a wide range of gigs, playing for artists such as Sara Bareilles, Jacob Collier, Lorde, and Leon Bridges. Emily is also quite accomplished as an artist herself. She finished her first record Bright Side (2006) while still in high school back in her home town Dallas, Texas. Since then, she has released four more albums filled with groovy guitars and heartfelt lyrics.

Emily’s songs have sentiments of love, existential thoughts, and hopes for a better world. She poetically demands that we live in a place without corrupt politics and with more respect for both Mother Earth and humanity. You can hear the Civil Rights lineage that she is holding the torch for and is pushing forward, drawing inspiration from Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, and Joan Baez. Emily walks the walk: all proceeds from her composition, “True Power,” a protest song about Donald Trump, benefited the American Civil Liberties Union. Her last record Woven Together (2022) is filled with thoughtful and introspective poetry that makes you feel less alone in your fears. She addresses that there are no guarantees in love on “Inside Your Heart” and the heaviness of loneliness on “Not Alone.” While I get lost in Emily’s lyrics, her guitar playing is deep and something to be noted.  

Emily delicately weaves her vocal lines and guitar parts together. Her playing is always perfectly in the pocket, pushing the music forward with sweetly arpeggiated lines, pretty melodies, and soulful licks. Emily jumps between electric and acoustic, but her strong voice on the guitar is consistent throughout. You can hear an eclectic mix of genres coming together—jazzy harmonies, folksy elements, and soul grooves—and there is a soothing quality that is timeless, tying together the past with the present, while looking to the future. Keep an ear out for new solo releases by Emily. You can also catch her on tour with Jacob Collier.

Carmen Vandenberg

Carmen Vandenberg oozes with cool. She will make you turn your head with her wailing blues and rock licks. Her playing stems from the greats like B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Jimi Hendrix—but she fuses those influences with modern rock and funk guitar styles to create the Carmen Vandenberg sound.

Carmen moved from Europe to LA to pursue music with her band Bones UK—a good decision as they were nominated for the “Best Rock Performance” Grammy Award in 2019. Seeing her perform is something else. Her stage presence combined with complete badassery on her instrument makes it hard not to stare. I had a chance to see her play with Bones UK a few years ago and they played “Girls Can’t Play Guitar,” which is filled with Carmen’s soulful and heavy lines. Each time her bandmate Rosie Bones sings the hook “girls can’t play guitar,” Carmen responds with dripping rock leads that prove quite the opposite. I laughed and thrilled with joy and inspiration every time. I’ve had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Carmen on numerous occasions. She sings with her instrument in a way that elevates every performance and her energy pushes everyone to the next level.

Outside of Bones UK, Carmen has enjoyed many impressive pairings. She caught the attention of Jeff Beck and helped cowrite his 2016 record Loud Hailer. She then got to tour and record with Jeff, playing side-by-side onstage with him for many years. She also toured and recorded with Kate Nash, Cheryl Lloyd, and Smashing Pumpkins. Carmen’s sound has received attention from many, including Blackstar Amplification, who created the CV30 in collaboration with her.

Carmen is a powerhouse that uplifts any stage or record she graces. Stay tuned for a new record from Bones UK, as well as some long-awaited solo releases.

Madison Cunningham

You can’t talk about new guitarists without bringing up singer-songwriter and guitar hero Madison Cunningham. Madison’s music is spellbinding. Her honest and angelic voice draws you in, her guitar playing stuns you, and her songs melt you. This beast of a musician has developed her own sound, with guitar as its centerpiece, and performing is clearly a natural state for her.

This Southern California native grew up writing songs on the guitar and singing in church. Her album Revealer (2022) won “Best Folk Album” at the Grammy’s this year, a well-deserved feat. Madison’s music is grounded in folk, with heavy tendencies towards rock’n’roll and roots, but she also incorporates unexpected harmonic movements more typically associated with jazz and classical music.

Madison’s guitar playing is deep, with her intense, extremely catchy, and unique lines providing the driving force behind many of her songs. There is a toughness in her playing—a total conviction and clarity that comes through when she performs her intricate guitar parts. And she can also seamlessly shift stylistic gears, for example one moment playing chords reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, then suddenly jumping to a Queen-like melodic line.

Madison typically plays electric guitar in alternate tunings, which is a part of her distinctive sound. Her chord voicings are atypical—incorporating beautiful extensions and unusual intervals—some with a big low end. Her rocking yet melodic lead lines are also refreshing, eschewing clichéd pentatonic licks while featuring lots of chromaticism and open strings, and she often echoes those lines with her voice. Madison’s guitar tone is distinct, as well, rocking effects such as overdrives, modulations, and vibratos, including her new JHS Artificial Blonde signature vibrato pedal.

Madison most often performs with a band of two or three musicians, but she also rocks hard as a solo performer, commanding the stage. Like her guitar playing, her songs are thoughtful, compelling, and exceptional.

Do yourself a favor and dig into these four guitarists. Memphis Minnie, Maybelle Carter, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe helped establish new genres and reimagine the guitar in the last century—and Arianna, Emily, Carmen, and Madison are doing that today.

Read Dr. Molly Miller: Pioneering Women of the Guitar

Arianna Powell photo: Chris McKay, Getty Images
Emily Elbert photo: Harmony Gerber, Getty Images
Carmen Vandenberg photo: Mat Hayward, Getty Images
Madison Cunningham photo: Frank Hoensch, Getty Images

Dr. Molly Miller records and tours with artists such as Jason Mraz and Black Eyed Peas in addition to leading the Molly Miller Trio. She is also a professor at USC Thornton School of Music.

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Dave Hunter: Tone in a Box Part 2 – Tone Tweaking Via Speaker Swapping

A quick speaker swap can yield one of the most dramatic sonic refreshes achievable with any rig. It stands to reason, then, that tailoring your speakers to suit your tonal needs can be a highly rewarding means of dialing in the most expressive, dynamic, and genre-appropriate sounds for your music. It’s often said that the amplifier accounts for at least 50% of the sound of any guitar rig; those who really know their amps will tell you that the speakers and the cabinet they’re mounted in are responsible for a good half of that part of the equation, and that you can’t really get your rig sounding just right for you without putting some thought into the performance and characteristics of these seemingly simple devices.

One of the quickest ways to discover any speaker’s impact on the entire signal chain—from pick plucking string to amplified soundwaves hitting the air—is to swap amps and speakers against type, mixing and matching a few rigs you’re familiar with. For example, swap the two Celestion Alnico Blues paired with your Vox-voiced amp or model for the quad of Celestion G12M Greenbacks normally paired with a Plexi, or swap out the four 10″ Jensen P10Rs that complement your tweed Bassman for the single EVM 12L your Boogie Mark IIC+ roars through and you’ll likely think you’re playing an entirely different amp.

At times, such mismatches might make it difficult to achieve the expected tones from the amps on the other side of the speakers, but on occasion they can provide the ideal adjustment to help your sound sit perfectly in a mix, or in the live environment. In the analog world you need to account for amp output and speaker input impedances and power handling ratings and follow the manufacturer’s instructions on these to avoid causing any damage—but the exercise is still often doable. In the digital world, however, you can taste test these things at will without the least concern.

Whether you’re swapping physical speakers to suit your sound and playing style or applying the same variables as an icing-on-the-cake parameter in your Helix rig, it pays dividends to learn in advance what many of the classic vintage and modern speaker types will do for your tone. Let’s examine some of the main archetypes to discover what they contribute, and after discussing several speaker types we’ll also touch on the part played by the cabinets they are commonly mounted in (covered more fully in Tone in a Box Part 1 – Tone Tweaking Via Cab Swapping).

 

 

The folks at Rivera Amplification compare 15 guitar speakers.

Low-Powered and Vintage-Style Speakers

As with amplifiers themselves, the trend toward speakers capable of handling higher and higher output levels has generally tended to be chronological. So, somewhat related to this, one of the easiest (though not the only) delineating points between vintage and modern speakers is power handling capability.

In the 1940s, ’50s, and early ’60s, guitar amps typically carried speakers rated between 15 and 30 watts, although a few rare exceptions existed. Indeed, earlier guitar amps themselves rarely put out much more than the upper of these ratings, until the arrival of the “high powered” 80-watt Fender Twin of the late 1950s and others that followed. These speakers of the ’50s and early ’60s were fine used singly in lower-powered combos suitable for small venues or recording studios, or in multi-speaker cabs at dance-hall volumes. Push them hard, however, and they started to “break up,” in sonic terms, adding a degree of speaker distortion to the amp’s own distortion when played near the peak of their operating capacity.

As guitarists found themselves in bigger and bigger venues, requiring higher clean volume levels, amp makers sought out more robust speaker designs. Those they found, however, cost more than the lower-rated drivers, so even when available they weren’t universally employed. And that’s probably a good thing. A lot of players who weren’t seeking absolute “clean clean” tones enjoyed the added grit, bite, edge, and compression that a touch of speaker distortion adds to the sonic brew. Lower-powered speakers, therefore, with all their gorgeous inherent “flaws,” became a big part of rock ’n’ roll and blues tones, and have been sought out for these characteristics ever since. (Please note that when discussing “vintage” speakers here, I’m also referring to many of the newer makes that seek to re-create similar specifications, sounds, and performance.)

American Vintage

Jensen was the big name in speakers in the United States in the 1950s and early ’60s, and several of the company’s seminal Alnico designs account for our concept of the “American sound” from that era. Jensen’s P10R and P12R (15-watt Alnico speakers, 10″ and 12″ respectively), P10Q and P12Q (20-watt), P12N (30-watt) and a few others played a big part in the signature sounds of great American-made ’50s amps from Fender, Gibson, Ampeg, Magnatone, Premier, Supro/Valco, Silvertone, Danelectro and others. Their respective ceramic-magnet descendants—which carried a “C” prefix in place of the “P”—were likewise the voice of many ’60s classics.

Each of these models has its own distinct personality, but they broadly share some common characteristics. These include bell-like highs, and woody, sometimes papery, mids that exhibit good clarity with cleaner amp settings and a raspier, grittier voice when pushed harder. They also produce relatively soft, saturated lows—to the point of flapping, farting, and all-out low-frequency freak out in the lower-rated units when driven hard. The classic Jensen R, Q, and N models also tend to deliver a little more clarity and punch and relatively firmer low end as you run up the alphabet, which also comes with higher power-handling capabilities (another way of looking at it might be to say that the C12N, for example, is the more modern sounding of the classic vintage Americans). But whatever adjectives we apply to them, in general these performance properties combine to yield sweet, tactile clean sounds when driven a little, and gorgeous, rich, chewy overdrive when driven a lot.

As Jensen speakers became more costly or harder to acquire in quantity moving into the mid ’60s, many of the same amp manufacturers also used speakers from Utah, Oxford, CTS, and others, which usually shared some of the vintage Jensens’ properties, but are generally not as revered by players. The original Jensen company has long been out of business, but Recoton of Italy manufactures a Jensen Vintage range based on the most popular alnico and ceramic models of the ’50s and ’60s. These capture at least some of the originals’ tonal characteristics, although materials are not 100% precise matches between the new and old units. Major American manufacturer Eminence, which evolved out of the CTS company, also makes a number of vintage-American-voiced drivers, many of which are adapted to higher power-handling requirements, and other smaller makers have followed suit.

The archetypal cabinet into which these American vintage speakers of the ’50s and ’60s were mounted was the open-back cab made from solid, finger-jointed pine, as featured in most Fender and Gibson combos of the era, and this also played a part in the overall sonic signatures of these setups. Some of the larger piggyback amps introduced in the early ’60s did have extension cabs with a closed-back configuration, though, and we’ll touch on both of these later.

British Vintage

In England, Elac, Goodmands, and Celestion were manufacturing speakers in the 1950s that had broadly similar characteristics to their American cousins, though often to quite different sonic effect. These generally used pulp paper cones, paper voice-coil formers, and Alnico ring magnets to achieve power handling conservatively rated in the 12- to 20-watt ballpark, as most famously presented by the Goodmans Audiom 60 and, more famously, the Vox Blue, a Celestion G12 relabeled by the amp manufacturer. The Celestion, still available today in an excellent reissue in the form of the Alnico Blue, is famous for its sweet, rich, and musical mids and appealing highs, coupled with a slightly rounded low-end response, plus excellent detail enhanced by sweetly accentuated harmonic overtones, and plenty of aggression when pushed.

The “Blue” has always been a highly efficient speaker, too, which is to say it translates a relatively higher proportion of the wattage pumped into it into volume than did many of its American counterparts of the day. The G12 has a sensitivity rating of 100dB (measured at one watt, from a distance of one meter), compared to figures of 90dB to around 97dB for similarly styled vintage Jensen speakers and many others.

This heightened sensitivity means, for example, that a pair in a 2×12″ Vox AC30 combo cabinet can produce a lot of sound from the amp’s 30-plus-watt output, even making it sound as loud as a 50- or even 100-watt amp with less efficient speakers. Higher efficiency might sound like a good thing, and for some players it is—but louder isn’t always better, and in some circumstances, you might want to tame a little volume in the name of dynamics and easy break up, or to suit your overall decibel production to the limitations of a given studio or venue.

In the mid 1960s Celestion evolved its cornerstone guitar driver into the ceramic-magnet G12M “Greenback” (rated 20 to 25 watts). Typically found in multiples of four inside the archetypal closed-back Marshall cabs, these helped to set the early standard for the rock guitar “amp stack” sound. The Greenback is warm, gritty, and edgy, with a bottom that isn’t particularly firm, but which can still pack plenty of oomph when doing its thing in groups of four or eight in a closed-back cab or two. This speaker, as much as any amplifier, typifies the “British sound” sought by so many classic rock and blues-rock players: at the edge of breakup, it’s warm and crisp, with enough “fur” around it to enhance the midrange body; at full overdrive it’s juicy, thick, and thumping, with sizzle in the highs contributing a creamy liquidity to lead lines.

In the late ’60s the slightly higher-rated G12H took on a heavier magnet and a more efficient design to offer a bigger, tighter low end, enhanced articulation in the highs, and a little more volume and punch overall. Celestion today produces two variations of the G12M Greenback and G12H, one each in the British-made Heritage Series and Chinese-made Classic range, as well as several other speakers based on these archetypes. Eminence covers both sides of the Atlantic by also offering a wide range of Brit-voiced drivers in its Red Coat line, and makers like Fane, Scumback, Weber, WGS, and others also work to fulfil the demand for these classic British-voiced speakers.

 

 

Johan Segeborn compares the five most recorded guitar speakers.

Modern or High-Powered Speakers

The evolution of bigger, more powerful guitar amps to suit the demands of the larger and larger venues that rock and pop bands were playing in the 1960s and into the ’70s also necessitated a supply of speakers built to handle the increased wattage. Along with any design changes aimed at enabling great power-handling capabilities, however, came parallel changes in the sound and performance of the newer generation of speakers. We can broadly characterize “modern” speakers not only as being able to take more of a beating wattage-wise, but also as having a tighter, clearer voice, which is usually accompanied by firmer lows than the typical vintage speaker offers and often a little less coloration throughout their entire frequency range.

The arrival of the “modern speaker” in the United States arguably came when the vintage speakers discussed above were still very much the norm. During the R&D efforts to suit the powerful new Showman amps to the high-decibel demands of early ’60s surf guitar sensation Dick Dale, Fender sought out a sturdy, efficient driver, and came up with the JBL D120F and D130F (12″ and 15″ speakers respectively). Based on the JBL D120 and D130 models used in the hi-fi audio industry—with “F” added to denote Fender OEM units—these speakers had enormous Alnico magnets, sturdy cast-metal frames, large voice coils and, as a result, power-handling capabilities like nearly nothing else available in the world of guitar amps.

They succeeded in making Showmans incredibly loud amps, and when added as an option to Twin Reverb combos a few years later, also helped to make these amps both unfathomably loud and excruciatingly heavy. JBLs classically present firm lows, a rounded midrange with an edge of bark and slightly nasal honk, and ringing, occasionally piercing highs. They have become a classic speaker to use when you need to play loud, and really want to cut through.

Two other makers of advanced, modern-styled American speakers, Electro-Voice (EV) and Altec, started popping up in guitar amps in the 1960s. Among the earlier EVs used for guitar was the SRO with its huge Alnico “coffee can” magnet and heavy cast frame, a unit considered by some players to be among the best-sounding guitar speakers of all time. More commonly seen, and still very much available on the market both used and new, is the EVM-12L. This ceramic-magnet speaker with cast frame was often paired with Mesa/Boogie Mark Series amps and other big American rock amps of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. Rated at 200 watts, it is famed for its ability to stand up to incredible punishment and keep pumping out pristine clean tones and rich, detailed overdrive (a Zack Wylde signature Black Label EVM-12L currently available is rated at a mighty 300 watts).

Altec’s most popular rock speaker was the 417-8H, no longer available. These were also optional equipment in Mesa/Boogie amps and a key ingredient in the mid-period Santana tone, as well as being favored by the likes of Randy Rhodes and other big stadium rockers. These 100-watt drivers are known for their powerful, full-throated clean tones and their ability to translate cranked-amp overdrive tones with a minimum of speaker distortion, all of which makes them another contender for “best rock speaker ever” in the eyes—and ears—of some players.

Many big names in vintage speakers survived to produce designs that fit more easily into the modern category. Celestion, for example, also offers the much-loved G12-65, G12T-75, Vintage 30, G12H-100, Classic Lead 80, and others, all powerful rock drivers with big voices and serious power-handling capabilities—although some of these, the G12-65 in particular, still make a sonic nod to the original Greenback.

Meanwhile, many latter-day speakers blur the lines between vintage and modern; Eminence carries robust speakers in its Legend, Patriot, Red Coat, and Signature ranges that have impressive power-handling specs, but achieve tones that fall more into the vintage-voicing camp. Look to the Legend V128 (120 watts), Swamp Thang (150 watts), Man O War (120 watts), or Copperhead (a 75-watt 10″) for examples of what we might call “modernized-vintage” tones, while the CV-75 and DV-77 give a robust modern-rock twist to the original English-made Vintage 30 template.

Even one of Celestion’s most popular speakers of the past couple of decades, the Vintage 30, was developed in an effort to capture the vintage-styled British tones of an AC30 in a more contemporary package that’s able to handle 60 watts, and by playing against type it has become a longstanding favorite of many heavier rock players as a result. Similarly, several Celestions released over the past decade or so aim to deliver modern performance capabilities with a semblance of vintage-inspired tone. The Alnico Ruby, Gold, and Cream take the Blue’s 15-watt power handling up to 30, 50, and 90 watts respectively, while the ceramic G12M-65 and G12H-75 Creambacks can tackle 65 watts and 75 watts. Another British manufacturer, the oft-overlooked Fane (whose speakers powered many a Hiwatt in the late 1960s and ’70s), still manufactures a range of robust and great-sounding Alnico and ceramic-magnet speakers to suit both higher and lower power-handling needs.

In the physical world, extensive speaker swapping can obviously become costly and also requires some basic DIY skills—but it can still pay dividends in dialing in your sound. In the digital realm, on the other hand, Helix makes it a breeze, yielding an even easier and more immediate means of crafting your ultimate sonic expression.

Read Dave Hunter: Tone in a Box Part 1 – Tone Tweaking Via Cab Swapping

Main image collage: Alex Lagault

Dave Hunter is the author of The Guitar Amp Handbook, British Amp Invasion, The Gibson Les Paul, Fender 75 Years, and several other books, and is a regular contributor to Guitar Player, Vintage Guitar, and The Guitar Magazine (UK).

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Dave Hunter: Tone in a Box Part 1 – Tone Tweaking Via Cab Swapping

Capturing sound from a Sunn 4×12 closed-back plywood cab with finger-jointed corners.

Whether you’re playing a tube amp live in the room or working with your Helix or other modeler on stage or in the studio—changing your speaker cab can provide one of the most dramatic tonal refreshes available to any rig. Tailoring cabs to suit your sonic needs can be a highly rewarding means of dialing in the most expressive, dynamic, and genre-appropriate sounds for your music, while working against type can sometimes provide surprisingly inspiring results.

Devoted tonehounds have long declared that the amplifier accounts for at least 50% of the sound of any guitar rig (many of us might put this proportion higher), and those who know amps will tell you that the speaker cabinet connected to that amp is responsible for a good half of that part of the equation. Obviously, the speakers themselves play a major role in the sound, feel, and overall response of your rig—and we’ll dive into that in Part 2—but the mere wooden box into which they’re mounted adds a stunning amount of character to the overall brew.

Line 6 has long recognized the colossal impact of the speaker cabinet upon amp tone, and Helix 3.50 “The Cab Update” fully acknowledges this with a varied and effective selection of classic and modern cabs capable of providing myriad sonic transformations. To get further under the skin of what different cabs provide, let’s explore the characteristics of the classic archetypes and work toward building an understanding of their basic personalities.

The Influence of Cabinet Type and Construction
In addition to any speaker having the potential to considerably revoice your amp, the box into which it is mounted also plays a big part in forming the soundstage that presents your tone to the public. Obviously, cabinet construction and dimensions can vary tremendously, but let’s dive into a few factors that present relatively consistent and quantifiable sonic results that you can apply to your own palette.

Open vs Closed Back
As simple as this change between cabinet types may be, the design choice whether to close off the back of the box entirely or to leave it partially open is one of the single greatest sound-influencing factors in speaker cabinet construction. Open-back cabinets accentuate the higher frequencies, and present a wider, more “surround-sound” dispersion. They tend to offer a broad, round, and fairly realistic frequency response, partly because the sound waves escaping from the back of the cab blend with the sound waves escaping from the front—but in reverse phase, being produced from the rear of a speaker cone pumping backwards, rather than the front of a cone pumping forwards—and as such help to tame any low-end boominess or woofiness the cab might produce otherwise. The overall result is generally heard as a well-balanced performance.

A 1971 Marshall 1960A 4×12 closed-back cab constructed of plywood with finger-jointed corners.

This blending of reverse-phase sound waves also lightens up an open-back cab’s low end a little, so these boxes don’t sound as full, chunky, and gut-thumping as closed-back cabs typically do. Classic open-back cabs in the Helix 3.50 Update include the 1×10 US Princess, 1×12 Grammatico, 1×12 US Deluxe, 1×12 Cali EXT, 2×12 Blue Bell, 2×12 Double, 2×12 Mail, 2×12 Jazz Rivet, and 4×10 Tweed cabs. All of the 4×12 cabs in the pack are closed-back, is the 2×12 Mandarin.

Along with fuller lows, closed-back cabs have slightly attenuated highs, and a more directional sound projection, beaming the sound waves out from the front, while sounding pretty subdued from the sides and considerably muffled from behind. This in itself can be desirable in some situations (if, for example, your drummer doesn’t want to hear too much direct sound from a cab placed in front of him or her on stage); conversely, in live performance, the open back can be a boon in situations where you want to be able to monitor the amp sound on stage from positions other than directly in front of the cab.

Cabinet Size
When we consider that speakers do their thing by pumping vibrations through air to create sound waves, it stands to reason that the size of the box they’re mounted in, and the amount of air space around them, plays a part in how they sound in any given rig. The most obvious factor of size, perhaps, is that smaller cabs generally project less bass, and larger cabs more. That said, any cabinet needs to provide enough internal airspace to give sound waves produced by the speaker(s) in it—depending upon their size—enough room to develop and, therefore, to present a realistic sonic picture.

Cabs that are too big can yield a bass response that is boomy and overwhelming, swamping the rest of the frequency range, so there’s no hard-and-fast “bigger is better” rule to apply here. Cabs that are too small, on the other hand, will often sound boxy and lightweight, with underdeveloped lows in particular. For most amp and cab designers, finding the sweet spot involves a lot of trial and error, and a hit-and-miss process of working toward a size that’s somewhere in between.

A 1960 Vox AC30 (Fawn Blue) 2×12 combo. It’s open-back plywood cab has finger-jointed corners and additional internal bracing.

Wood Types
We can think of the response of the wood used to construct any speaker cabinet as roughly paralleling that of the wood used in a guitar’s construction: broadly speaking, plywood and chipboard offer less cabinet resonance than do solid woods, while pine and cedar (the most common solid woods used in guitar cab construction) add more of their own resonance. This resonance is usually described as contributing “warmth” or “texture” to the overall tone, but it also produces a slight blurring of notes. Where there’s resonance there’s also absorption of sound, so while a solid-pine cab might sound full and round, it also usually won’t project quite as much as a well-built cab made from quality plywood, nor will it sound quite as punchy and articulate.

The top choice for high-end plywood cabs is 11-ply Baltic birch, which offers a tight, muscular performance while still sounding fairly musical, though less resonance than solid wood. What resonance does occur in a non-solid-wood cab made of lesser, more affordable materials such as chipboard or MDF—and there’s always some resonance—will sometimes sound dead or atonal, although this might be the perfect solution for a more “hi-fi”-sounding cabinet, where you want to hear more of the speaker than the cabinet it’s mounted in. To that end, with some closed-back cabs makers will add soft insulating materials to dampen internal soundwaves and help eliminate standing waves that can emphasize unflattering portions of the frequency spectrum.

Cabinet Density and Rigidity
Akin to the variables of Wood Types, above, several overlapping factors contribute to the variables of density and rigidity, and many of these are sometimes one and the same. Among the key parameters here are:

• The type of wood used to build the cabinet walls
• The thickness of that wood
• General details of the build, such as the sturdiness (or lack thereof) of corner joints and any other internal bracing applied.

As a general rule, a denser and more rigid cabinet—achieved with thicker and less-resonant woods and/or a more heavily braced build—will enhance a higher fidelity performance, providing tighter bass response, crisper mids, and less “woodiness” overall. This type of construction leans toward the way that hi-fi and studio monitor speaker cabinets are designed and built, to the end of more accurately reproducing the signal fed into them and minimizing the box’s own contribution of sonic artifacts—what we might hear as the “character” or “personality” of any cab type (though a minimizing of cabinet resonance and enhanced character might itself be considered a “characteristic” of these cabs).

A 1964 Fender Deluxe Reverb 1×12 combo with an open-back finger-jointed solid-pine cab.

This more rigid and rugged cabinet design also typically involves thicker side walls and increased weight. This might be considered a characteristic of more modern 4×12 and 2×12 cabs in general, though manufacturers including Orange, Hiwatt, and Sunn were building such cabs back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and the classic Marshall 4×12 isn’t far off the mark either, if not quite as dense on the whole. In the Helix 3.50 Update, you’ll find such construction represented in cabs like the 1×12 Cali EXT and 4×12 Cali, 4×12 Mandarin, 4×12 Moo))n, both 4×12 Uber cabs, and the 4×12 XXL—which is to say, there’s a lot of punchy rock power in this cab pack.

On the other hand, cabinets built with thinner walls, less-rigid woods, and more flexible corner joints—or all of the above—will tend to sing along with the speakers a little more, adding their own resonance and vibration to the overall tone. This can be a beautiful thing when it works right, adding what we hear as a lively woodiness in the speakers’ response and an appealing enhancement of certain frequencies. When a more loosely-built cabinet isn’t quite jibing with your tone, this added resonance and vibration can also be distracting, detracting from certain frequencies that need to stand out more clearly for your sound to really be cooking.

As an example of such a conflict, consider the tweed Fender Deluxe or Bassman cabinet, as represented in the Helix 3.50 Update’s 1×12 Grammatico LaGrange or 4×10 Tweed cabinets, respectively—built from light, aged, solid pine and relatively loosely constructed—when it’s pushed hard by the amp. For blues, garage rock, or other lo-fi rock ‘n’ roll stylings this might sound fantastic—but if you’re trying to crank out tight metal or crisp country chicken-pickin’, it’s likely to mush out and prove frustrating.

Naturally, cabs don’t lean entirely loose or rigid, either, and many classic types are pitched somewhere in between. By the ’60s, Fender’s combo and extension cabs were more rigidly built, though not as heavy duty as more modern-styled boxes. You can try examples of these in the 1×10 US Princess, 1×12 US Deluxe, and 2×12 Double. The Vox AC30 also sported a well-constructed cab, but one that isn’t overly ruggedized, enabling a good blend of tightness, clarity, and woody character as heard in the 2×12 Blue Bell, while classic Marshall-inspired 4x12s (think 4×12 Greenback and 4×12 Brit in the 3.50 Update’s selection) likewise blend vintage and modern characteristics. For many styles, these “in between” cab types offer a best-of-both-worlds sound that’s perfect for anything from classic rock, to roots, to more contemporary blues.

Sound Design Manager Ben Adrian (left) and Sound Designer Sam Hwang.

Baffle Construction
The board at the front of the cab to which the speaker(s) is affixed is called the “baffle.” As with every other factor so far, baffle type and construction can vary widely. A firmly affixed baffle made of relatively thick plywood (baffles are rarely made of solid wood)—say 3/4-inch 11-ply Baltic birch—makes for extended punch and projection. Akin to the characteristics of a plywood cab, it also gives you more of the speaker sound and less of the cab itself.

A thinner baffle, which might be dimensioned right down to 3/8-inch thick on some vintage amps, naturally vibrates more and therefore produces its own soundwaves that blend in with those of the speaker cone, not unlike the vibrating soundboard of an acoustic guitar. When such a baffle is also less firmly affixed to the front of the cab, such as with just one bolt or screw in each corner—as in the so-called “floating baffles” used in many tweed amps of the 1950s—they really get moving when the amp is cranked and roaring. Moving from the thicker, more rigid, and more firmly affixed baffle to the thinner and looser as described here in the tweed “floating” model takes us progressively closer to a cabinet which itself acts more as a resonant instrument in partnership with the guitar and amp—which might be highly desirable for some playing styles, but not at all desirable for others.

The highly resonant cab might add character and dimension to semi-clean and edge-of-breakup tones, while also being part of the vintage-overdrive tone, which is characteristically a little hairy and out of control in and of itself. But it might contribute a muddy, blurry quality to efforts at attaining a crisp attack and clear high-gain overdrive, at higher volume levels in particular.

Ultimately, there’s no good-better-best continuum regarding your own personal cabinet choices. By playing with the variables, though, and trying as many types as possible, you can develop a second sense for what is likely to work best for any given musical setting, and also obtain a major tone-tweaking tool in the bargain.

Marshall, Vox, Fender, and group photos: Barry Cleveland
Main image and Sunn photos: Sam Hwang

Dave Hunter is the author of The Guitar Amp Handbook, British Amp Invasion, The Gibson Les Paul, Fender 75 Years, and several other books, and is a regular contributor to Guitar Player, Vintage Guitar, and The Guitar Magazine (UK).

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Jas Obrecht: Jeff Beck the Fusion Years, Part 2 – Keep Your Ears Wide Open or Music Will Pass You By

Update 1/11/23: We at Line 6 are deeply saddened at the passing of Jeff Beck. He was a hero to many of us, as well as a source of endless inspiration—and we hope that these articles spotlighting a critical period in his musical journey, posted just weeks before his passing, will contribute to the appreciation of his singular legacy. RIP Geoffrey Arnold Beck!

The cover of guitarist Jeff Beck's Wired album.

Wired
Beck changed his studio lineup for 1976’s Wired, bringing in Wilbur Bascomb on bass, Max Middleton on clavinet and Fender Rhodes, Jan Hammer on Minimoog synthesizer, and Narada Michael Walden, Richard Bailey, and Ed Green on drums. “I’d listened a lot to Jan with the previous Mahavishnu Orchestra,” Beck explained during our 1980 Guitar Player cover story interview. “He also used to be with Billy Cobham and had played on Billy’s [1973] Spectrum album. That gave me a new, exciting look into the future. He plays the Moog a lot like a guitar, and his sound went straight into me. So, I started playing a lot like him. I mean, I don’t sound like him, but his phrases influenced me immensely. Sometimes I think he plays better guitar than I do! The way Jan used technology really turned my head around and opened up a new world for me. He made me realize that things are always changing and you can’t sit still. You have to keep your ears wide open to hear what’s going on or the music will pass you by.”

Once again, the feedback and distortion that were trademarks of Beck’s early career were largely missing. Instead, he emphasized technical virtuosity and harmonic variety on the eight instrumentals. The group’s jazzy leanings were evident in the funky rhythms and complex chord sequences, but when the tempo and volume cranked up, Beck showcased his blues-rock virtuosity.

 

The album kicked off with the Max Middleton’s high-energy “Led Boots,” reportedly composed as an homage to Led Zeppelin. Narada Michael Walden wrote four of the LP’s other seven songs: the groove-heavy “Come Dancing”; “Sophie,” which takes listeners on an epic 6:30 journey; the winsome “Play With Me”; and the let’s-chill “Love Is Green,” which featured Walden on piano. On his sole contribution to Wired, Wilbur Bascomb soloed on bass through the first half of “Head for Backstage Pass.”

 

For most listeners, yours truly included, Wired’s standout track was Jeff’s heart-rending reading of Charlie Mingus’ jazz standard, “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.” Other tracks featured Jan Hammer’s synthesizer. Some guitar-obsessed critics faulted Wired for the expanded role of the keyboards, which Beck later confessed was accurate: “I probably subconsciously played the keyboards up in order to rule out any accusations that I might be stealing any limelight.” Nevertheless, Hammer’s soaring synthesizer lines and drumming on “Blue Wind” (the only Wired track composed by Hammer and not produced by George Martin) hinted at the direction Beck would take on his upcoming world tour, during which he engaged in nightly solo-swapping with Jan Hammer.

 

George Martin remembered the Wired sessions as being more challenging than Blow By Blow: “Our first album together, Blow By Blow, was such a big success that in a way it made life difficult for Jeff because he’s not the most secure of people, and he thought, ‘Well, having done that one, how can I follow it up?’ So, Wired became a much more difficult album. Jeff became much more introspective and concerned about it and worried all the time.” Beck acknowledged this conflict in the liner notes to the Beckology box set: “George Martin was a gentleman in every sense of the word. And he was a middleman to stop the musicians from wrangling. It worked really well on Blow By Blow. But by Wired I’d gotten the power bug back again. I wanted more vicious power, but with more concise playing—the way Jan plays, that spitfire thing, a million notes but concise. I wanted to take a chance with Mahavishnu-type blasts. I just lost George with that. ‘I don’t know where the hell you’re going,’ he’d say.”

During a 1978 interview, George Martin was asked about his recording techniques with Beck. Martin responded, “I’m essentially a simple person when it comes to recording, which is not what people believe, but it’s true. I really didn’t do anything special. I think that the sounds that you get are 99% of what you get in the studio rather than what you get in the control room. Of course, you have to use good mikes and good EQ and good studio techniques, but that’s something I kind of take for granted. And with Jeff Beck in particular, the sounds on his guitar had to be up to him, you know? At the outset, I said, ‘I’m not going to give you any magic, if you’re thinking of that. I’m not going to give you sounds that you’ve never had before. The sounds are going to have to come from your guitar and you’re going to have to work on them.’ And we worked on them together, you know. He would make the sounds himself in the studio, and then we would translate them into recording. And, of course, then we would add a little gloss here and there, but there were no particular tricks on the album. The tracks were fairly straightforward.

“I did find that Jeff is an extraordinary person because he seems to have an awful contempt for his guitars. His greatest hobby in life is hot rod cars, and he’s got quite a few of them in his large house down in Kent. And there’s nothing he likes better than to get under his car and change the oil and get himself all greasy. He loves playing about with mechanics and things. And he tends to look upon his guitars like a lump of old iron. It’s amazing to me how he brings in a battered old Fender, says, ‘This bloody thing is no good,’ and I say, ‘Well, haven’t you got another one?’ And he says, ‘No, it’s all I’ve got.’ And then he proceeds to pick it up and make the most incredible, beautiful, heavenly sounds imaginable.”

In his November 1975 Guitar Player interview, Jeff was asked about his amplification and effects during this period: “I’m still using the same wattage output—200 watts. Two Fender speaker cabinets and two Marshall tops. I have the amp miked, though. I used to use Sunn amps with Beck, Bogert & Appice, , but the Marshall tops give you the right sort of gritty sound. The Sunn is a bit too clean. The Fender speakers are a bit more reliable than the Marshall speakers, but the Marshall top is better, I think. I also have a booster and wah-wah. It’s an overdrive booster. It’s just a preamp that distorts, not a fuzz box. It gives you instant power, sustain, and distortion.”

 

Beck’s 1977 live album was titled Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group. During our first Guitar Player cover story interview, in 1980, I asked Jeff how his views on soloing had changed over the years. He centered his response on the 1977 tour: “Playing with Jan Hammer sort of knocked all the soloing out of me. I mean, a three-week tour, taking exchange solos with a person like Jan can take you to your limit on soloing, so I’ve got no particular desire to play ten-minute solos. Those were never valid anyway, in my book—never! It was just a cheap way of building up a tension in the audience. A solo should do something; it shouldn’t just be there as a cosmetic. It should have some aim, take the tune somewhere. I’m not saying I can do it, but I try and take the tune somewhere. You know, you never get people saying any more, ‘Ah, listen to this guitar solo! Wait till this part comes!’ They talk over it.”

I asked Beck about using the guitar in dialog, such as he did with Rod Stewart’s voice in the 1960s and with Jan Hammer on tour. “That just comes naturally,” he responded. “Sounds corny, but it’s just sort of like putting icing on a cake or holding a conversation with somebody. Really, that’s all you’re doing. You’re saying something through the guitar or whatever it is you’re playing. I just try to say it as clearly as possible, because there’s no prizes for speaking double-Dutch. Nobody can understand you. There’s nothing worse than a boring sermon that you know already, or you don’t know and aren’t interested in. It’s as simple as that, really.”

After his tour with Jan Hammer, Beck stayed out of the public eye and mostly devoted himself to working on his cars. As he explained, “I like the studio because it’s delicate; you’re working for sound. I like the garage because chopping up lumps of steel is the exact opposite of delicate. The garage is a more dangerous place, though. I’ve never almost been crushed by a guitar, but I can’t say the same about one of my Corvettes.

There and Back
Jeff Beck returned to the studio in 1980 for his final pure fusion outing of the era. The core studio band on There and Back consisted of bassist Mo Foster and drummer Simon Philips. Beck was joined on “Star Cycle,” “Too Much to Lose,” and “You Never Know” by Jan Hammer, their musical symbiosis still intact. With one musician pressing notes on a keyboard synth and the other pushing and pulling electric guitar strings, they reached a level in their tradeoffs where their instruments become nearly indistinguishable in shared attacks, bent notes, and tone. During our interview a few weeks before the album’s release, I mentioned this to Jeff. “Oh, great!” he responded. “That’s a compliment. I suppose it’s a similarity in approach, but only mentally. I haven’t got anything like the same setup Jan has. Plus, his is purely electronic, and mine’s guitar. But there is a certain attack on bending the notes and certain basic understandings of the way the tone is. There was no concerted effort on any part to sound the same or dial in any trick thing and make it sound the same.”

 

The other half of There and Back featured keyboardist Tony Hymas. In “The Pump,” Beck explored his guitar’s vocal qualities, while “El Becko” journeyed from acoustic piano-guitar interplay into a metallic rocker with stellar slidework. “The Golden Road” captured Beck at his most ethereal, and “Space Boogie” provided him the opportunity to push his playing to its screaming limits. “The Final Peace,” the only track composed by Beck, surrounded his bluesy, sensitive Strat lines with Hymas’ lush synth orchestrations.

 

Asked how he worked out the material for the album, Beck said, “I ripped myself apart, and I ripped Tony Hymas apart. I tried to get him to understand where I was at because Tony came in as an emergency player back in ’78 when we had a tour of Japan lined up and had a problem with another keyboard player. And Tony picked up so quickly and had such a good ear and his musical training and understanding was so superb, I couldn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be a good idea to start schooling him in my ways. Sounds insulting to say ‘school him’ when he knows more about music than I do, but that doesn’t mean what I’m doing is not valid. In the first two weeks he had already begun to see what I wanted without me saying anything. So, most of the music on There and Back evolved through our playing together. Tony writes everything down. He just scribbles on the backs of pieces of paper. And then when we run through it, I say, ‘Well, here I can’t get along with this framework that I’ve got to solo over. Let’s change that—take this chord out of there and put it somewhere else.’ It’s just custom-building music between us. Of course, if it’s his song to start with, whatever happens to it, it’s still his song. I’ve reached the point where I need to be led somewhere—on a melody level, not so much on the technique or guitar trickery level. The stuff pours out of me when I’ve got the right tune. I can’t help it—it just pours out! But if the tune isn’t right, then I’ve got to push it a bit. If it’s totally wrong, I’ve got to drag it.”

Autographed promo photo for guitarist Jeff Beck's There and Back album.
A Jeff Beck-autographed There and Back promo photo.

By the time of the There and Back sessions, Beck had pretty much retired his Gibson Les Paul. “You just wind up sounding like someone else with a Les Paul,” he explained. “I think I can sound more like me with a Strat. In fact, I think my Strat was the only guitar I used on the new album. It’s a ’50s Strat. It’s just terrible, but it looks at me and challenges me every day, and I challenge it back. It has the vibrato, and it’s difficult to play. It goes out of tune and all that, but when you use it properly, it sings to you. I’ve had it for two years.”

I asked Beck if he did anything special to stay in tune while using a stock Fender whammy. “I don’t use any special bridge or tailpiece,” he responded. “I like the way Fender makes them. I’ve got it pretty much sewn up now by using a very light graphite on the bridge and on the nut. When the strings rock backwards and forwards and slide lengthwise along the neck, you minimize the chance of a string hang-up over the nut, which is the killer. This can leave you sharp or flat, according to where you’ve left the bar or how you’ve bent the strings. I kept breaking first and second string every single night, and I wouldn’t have it—I just thought there was something wrong here. The string was chafing backwards and forwards back inside the tremolo setup, where it comes out through the block. So, I took a piece of piping—plastic stripped off a piece of wire—and slid the outer casing down the string and put it behind the bridge so that the string was resting in plastic. I never break a string now unless I really, really wind it up. And my action’s pretty high. It has to be because if you have it too low on a Strat, it plunks like a banjo.”

Asked about the rest of his There and Back sound chain, Beck responded, “I’ve got a booster—a modified tiny yellow box that was made by Ibanez. This gives me the same sound on the guitar, but louder. I don’t like to have the tone changed too much because, hey, the guitar sounds great clean! But you want it to sustain and sound the same with a little more volume to it. And I have a Tychobrahe Paraflanger. It’s amazing—I’ve still got basically the same top to the Marshall amp that I had with Rod Stewart. It’s the same chassis, same valves. One or two things may have blown up, but it’s basically the same thing. In fact, some of the valves [tubes] have rusted into their sockets and you can’t take them out!”

Ultimately, I asked Beck, how much does equipment really matter? “It doesn’t really matter. Sometimes you might pick up someone else’s guitar and play a lot more inspired on that because it’s just nice. And yet, having just said that, if you play it long enough and go back on your own guitar, you might be inspired by that. It’s change—variety—that keeps things from kicking over.” Beck, of all people, would know.

Aftermath
Jeff Beck has returned to the instrumental format many times during the ensuing years, such as on Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop, Who Else, and You Had It Coming. But nowhere does he come closer to the heart of fusion than on Blow By Blow, Wired, and There and Back. In the process, he shattered preconceptions about what rock guitar is supposed to sound like. As Jeff’s website, jeffbeck.com, pointed out, “By merging the attitude and complexity of progressive rock and improvisatory freedom of jazz with intergalactic guitar tones and a sense of humor, Beck opened up the horizon for future guitar instrumentalists like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani.”

Read Jeff Beck: The Fusion Years Part 1.

Thanks to Joe Holesworth for his help with identifying Beck’s fusion-era gear.

Main photo: Robert Knight Archive/Redferns, Getty Images.
Autographed promo photo courtesy of Jas Obrecht.

A longtime editor for Guitar Player magazine, Jas Obrecht has written extensively about blues and rock guitarists. His books about music include Rollin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists, Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar, Talking Guitar, and Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London. For more of Jas’ writing, check out https://jasobrecht.substack.com.

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Jas Obrecht: Jeff Beck the Fusion Years, Part 1 – A Guitar Hero Reinvents Himself

Update 1/11/23: We at Line 6 are deeply saddened at the passing of Jeff Beck. He was a hero to many of us, as well as a source of endless inspiration—and we hope that these articles spotlighting a critical period in his musical journey, posted just weeks before his passing, will contribute to the appreciation of his singular legacy. RIP Geoffrey Arnold Beck!

When it came to 1960s blues-rock guitar playing, England’s “big three” were Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck. They had all come to prominence with the Yardbirds, with Beck making his first indelible imprint on pop music with the sitar-like hook of “Heart Full of Soul.” Clapton, who preceded him in the band, went on to play in Cream and have a stellar career as a solo artist. Page used his blues-rock savvy, sonic inventiveness, and uncanny sense of the riff and guitar orchestration to fuel Led Zeppelin. While Clapton and Page found wealth and fame by staying close to their blues-rock roots, Beck has continually pushed boundaries, recording everything from bluesy rock and psychedelia to fusion, rockabilly, metal, pop, techno, and electronica.

Besides his stylistic interests, another factor that sets Jeff Beck apart from his peers—then and now—is his unabashed approach to the guitar. From the beginning, Beck has emphasized manual dexterity over the use of sound-shaping devices. As Eric Clapton once quipped, “With Jeff, it’s all in his hands.” Calloused from years of working on car engines, Beck’s workingman hands are capable of precise and powerful string bends far beyond the skill of most players. For greater control of his tone and speed, he typically uses his fingers instead of a pick and continually reshapes his sound by twisting his guitar’s volume and tone knobs. He has an unparalleled approach to the whammy. “I play the way I do because it allows me to come up with the sickest sounds possible—that’s the point now isn’t it?” Beck explained. “I don’t care about the rules. In fact, if I don’t break the rules at least ten times in every song, then I’m not doing my job properly. Emotion is much more important than making mistakes, so be prepared to look like a chump. If you become too guarded and too processed, the music loses its spontaneity and gut feeling.”

Jeff Beck began his celebrated foray into fusion with the magnificent Blow By Blow album. While this LP routinely makes it onto lists of “The Greatest Guitar Albums,” it was controversial when first released, as was the genre which it represented.

The Birth of Fusion
Exhilarating and innovative instrumental music, fusion first emerged in the United States. Originally, the style was termed “jazz-rock,” since it fused jazz’s improvisational freedom with rock’s rhythms, tones, and energy. As with swing music decades earlier, fusion bands emphasized the soloing prowess of each instrumentalist. Some historians claim its moment of birth occurred in 1959, when Ray Charles played the jazzy Wurlitzer electric piano line in his hit “What’d I Say.” Others point to 1966, when Larry Coryell shook up the jazz world with his band Free Spirits and subsequent work with Gary Burton’s quartet. The Charles Lloyd Quartet, featuring drummer Jack DeJohnette and pianist Chick Corea, was soon playing an exploratory mix of jazz and rock to hippie crowds. Across the Atlantic, Brian Auger was forging jazz-rock hybrids with his band Trinity.

By decade’s end, Miles Davis had become a key influence in fusion, due to his groundbreaking albums Miles in the Sky, Filles de Kilimanjaro, and especially 1969’s In a Silent Way. John McLaughlin, whose spiritual, spidery, spectacular solos were highlights of this landmark album, recalled in Guitar Player magazine, “One would normally think of ‘style’ as something someone picks up and uses, but Miles is the originator of that style. I loved his simplicity, his directness, the authority of his music from a rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic point of view. His conceptualizations were revolutionary. Everything I could see in Miles touched me.” McLaughlin was soon playing clubs with Tony Williams’ Lifetime and recording his first solo albums. He was invited back to play on Miles Davis’ classic fusion albums Bitches Brew, Live-Evil, and A Tribute to Jack Johnson. “Miles was amazing to work with,” McLaughlin recalls, “because he’d never say, ‘I don’t really want that.’ He’d just say, ‘play long,’ or ‘play short.’ Once he told me, ‘Play like you don’t know how to play guitar.’ That’s Miles, and you just go along with it.”

McLaughlin launched the era’s most successful fusion band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra. The original—and, arguably, best—lineup featured Billy Cobham, Jerry Goodman, electric bassist Rick Laird, and Jan Hammer, who was at the forefront of keyboard synthesizer technique in a rock setting. With its furious energy, Indian influences, and mystical jazz, the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s 1971 Inner Mounting Flame album was an immediate success. Their follow-up, Birds of Fire, was even more inventive, with its precise, rapid-fire solos and explosions of musical creativity. The album reached #15 on the charts, but the Mahavishnu Orchestra soon imploded, due in part to disagreements over composer credits. After recording Love Devotion Surrender with Carlos Santana, McLaughlin re-emerged with a new Mahavishnu Orchestra featuring violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. The group’s 1974 Apocalypse album was produced by former Beatles producer George Martin, who’d soon be back in the studio recording Jeff Beck.

A late-1960s promotional photograph.

Enter Jeff Beck
The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s success set the stage for Jeff Beck’s 1974 Blow By Blow album. Its release surprised many of his fans, since most of Beck’s post-Yardbirds records had been pop and rock oriented. He had briefly tried being a singer on the 1967 single “Hi-Ho Silver Lining,” and then recruited Rod Stewart, drummer Mickey Waller, and bassist Ronnie Wood for the first Jeff Beck Group. “When Rod said he was interested in singing with me,” Beck recalled, “I was genuinely thrilled. I loved his voice. I loved the idea of him singing for my band.” Their chemistry proved electrifying on record and stage, but after the acclaimed Truth and Beck-Ola albums, the group disintegrated in 1969 due to clashing temperaments. While Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood formed the Faces, Beck put in motion plans to form a new group with former Vanilla Fudge bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice. These plans were scrapped when Beck suffered a fractured skull in a car crash.

In 1971, Beck was ready to play again. Bogert and Appice, though, were committed to a new band, Cactus. Beck formed a second incarnation of the Jeff Beck Group with keyboardist Max Middleton, drummer Cozy Powell, bassist Clive Chaman, and singer Bobby Tench. Lacing Memphis funk with traces of metal and blues, they issued Rough and Ready in 1971 and the Steve Cropper-produced The Jeff Beck Group in 1972. Middleton, in particular, had a profound impact on Beck’s playing. “Max was the first musician I had played with who didn’t make me feel embarrassed that I didn’t know the names of the chords he was playing,” Beck recalled. “He would go through the notes in the chords and I would learn them. That period simmered me down because when you become musically aware to that degree, it’s harder to make a wild rock and roll sound!” Between tours, Beck made a guest appearance on Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book album, playing a brief, jazzy solo on “Lookin’ for Another Pure Love.” His admiration for Stevie’s songwriting would lead him to cover two Wonder songs on Blow By Blow, but first Beck had to express himself in the heaviest band of his career.

With the breakup of Cactus in late 1972, Beck disbanded his group and formed Beck, Bogert & Appice. The power trio first recorded its self-titled album in England, but deemed the sound unsatisfactory and re-recorded it at Chess Studios in Chicago. They then embarked on a much-hyped international tour, which produced the tracks issued on Live in Japan. Attending the trio’s concert in Cleveland, Ohio, I, like many others in the audience, was shocked by the band’s extraordinary volume. My ears rang for days afterward, and I was disappointed by Beck’s reliance on Bogert for many of the solos. It later came out that BB&A’s onstage volume was the start of the serious tinnitus that has plagued Beck for decades.

In an interview during the 1973 tour, Beck expressed his admiration for the Mahavishnu Orchestra: “I try to incorporate dazzling playing into something that at the same time can be commercial. But I can understand Mahavishnu because they’ve already done what I wanted to do, really. McLaughlin is far more technically knowledgeable than me—I mean, I don’t know half of what he knows. I just never had to worry about those kinds of chords, though, because they weren’t usable in what I was playing. McLaughlin wouldn’t come and watch me with the group I have now—let me tell you that!”

Ultimately, Beck says, he was frustrated by the BB&A experience: “I know that Carmen and Tim were frustrated guys, and they wanted me to lead them to new pastures. But we were existing in the wake of bands like Cream and Jimi Hendrix, which made it difficult to find those pastures. We overextended ourselves—we were the answer to the question, ‘What kind of music would these crazed guys make without any chastisement?’” After folding the band in early 1974, Beck went into seclusion for several months. His only major studio appearance—on jazz saxophonist Eddie Harris’ In the U.K. album—hinted at his upcoming move to jazz-rock fusion.

An advertisement for Blow by Blow.

Beck Goes Fusion
During the summer of 1974, Led Zeppelin seemed omnipresent on the FM airwaves. After BB&A, most fans expected Beck to work in a similar hard rock/heavy metal format. The success of his old Yardbirds bandmate Jimmy Page frustrated Beck: “When Led Zeppelin started doing huge concerts, I was just sitting in my garage listening to the radio. I was like, ‘What’s going on? I started this shit and look at me!’” Consciously deciding not to complete with Led Zeppelin, Beck delved instead into an all-instrumental format. This risky decision paid off with the best-selling and highest-charting Beck album of his career, Blow By Blow.

For the October 1974 sessions at London’s AIR Studios, Beck assembled a stripped-down band with Max Middleton, bassist Phil Chenn, and drummer Richard Bailey. To produce, he chose George Martin, who’d manned the helm for all of the Beatles albums. Martin recalls being surprised when he got the invitation from Jeff: “I’d never worked with him before,” Martin said in a 1978 interview posted on the Gibson company’s website, “but I’d always admired his playing enormously, and I knew his work well. He was always very much a sort of heavy rock, heavy metal guy, but a hip guy—he wasn’t just a basher. But I was quite surprised he approached me because I’d been doing much more soft work, like the group America, than the kind of things he was used to. And for that reason, I thought it was a surprising choice on his behalf. When he did approach me, I was very excited about it. I thought it was a great idea and I looked forward to working with him. In fact, it did work out extremely well.

“Of course, when we started talking about it, the material still had not been formed. And one of the good things about our relationship was meeting up with Max Middleton, who was the keyboard man in the group. He wrote a lot of the tunes with Jeff and a lot of the tunes by himself. It was kind of a three-way partnership, really, because Max had the patience to spend a long time with Jeff, which I couldn’t do, and he was able to translate my thoughts into Jeff’s medium. He was a good go-between between Jeff Beck and myself. The surprising thing for me was that Jeff sort of put up with everything I had to say; there were no arguments at all. He accepted direction extremely well. The idea of putting strings behind his playing was a fairly radical one, and I thought he’ll probably blow his top when he hears it. But he sort of smiled and said, ‘Well, if you say so, it should be alright.’ And when I finished the stuff, he was knocked out with it. He was really thrilled. So, I was quite chuffed about that.”

Beck, in turn, appreciated Martin’s to-the-point input on his playing: “George Martin brought a certain Beatles-like lightheartedness which made it easier to play in the studio. I would be trying to do these really difficult bits and he would say, ‘Jeff, you played like an angel this morning but now you suck. Just take a break!’ I love that because I hate to be patronized about my playing. I like to have input from Joe Public or from someone I respect if they can explain what they don’t like about what I’m doing. What’s lacking in a lot of musicians is that they live in a vacuum in their own little world and eventually the door slams shut and they freeze to death.”

 

With Blow By Blow, Beck delivered a fusion masterpiece. Asked to describe the music, he said, “It crosses the gap between white rock and Mahavishnu, or jazz-rock. It bridges a lot of gaps. It’s more digestible, the rhythms are easier to understand than Mahavishnu’s. It’s more on the fringe.” With its clipped guitar chords, Herbie Hancock-inspired piano, and multi-tracked guitars, the album’s opener, the Jeff Beck-Max Middleton composition “You Know What I Mean,” clearly announced that Beck was exploring new territory. During his cover of “She’s a Woman,” Beck used a voice box—an invention that had only recently been applied to electric guitar—to approximate the Beatles’ lyrics. “Constipated Duck,” the only track credited solely by Beck, owed as much to Miles Davis’ funkier side as it did to Mahavishnu, and Beck made innovative use of chords during his solos. With its fiery guitar-keyboard lines and high-drama soloing, the Beck-Middleton composition “Scatterbrain” and band-composed “Air Blower” paid tribute to the early Mahavishnu Orchestra. (In retrospect, both of these tracks sound similar to Todd Rundgren’s recordings with Utopia around the same time.)

 

Beck described the album’s achingly beautiful cover of Stevie Wonder’s “’Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers” as “one of the most beautiful tunes I’ve ever played.” Soloing with warm sustain above Max Middleton’s sparse electric piano, Beck infused the song with volume swells, dramatic bends, and side-of-the-pick harmonics reminiscent of Roy Buchanan, to whom he dedicated the song. With its flurry of trills and raw emotion, the song’s climax was Jeff Beck at his best. Beck followed with another Stevie Wonder composition, “Thelonious,” once again using a voice box. The high drama of “Freeway Jam” provided Beck an on-ramp for whammy-and-Octavia-infused soloing, and brought him an enduring concert staple. (Listening to this track, it’s easy to hear where Steve Morse and the Dixie Dregs derived inspiration.) Beck concluded the album with the lyrical “Diamond Dust,” its orchestral score courtesy of George Martin.

Jeff described his guitar lineup during the Blow By Blow sessions as “late-model” Fender Stratocasters and a 1954 Les Paul Standard with two humbuckers. In this 1974 video, Jeff demonstrates the Les Paul, as well as his effects devices, voice box, Ampeg stage amp, and techniques. (As near as I can tell, the pedals are a Cry Baby wah-wah, ZB Custom volume pedal, and Color Sound Power Boost.)

 

With its cover painting of a heroic-looking Beck playing the Les Paul, Blow By Blow reached #14 in the pop album charts in April 1975 and went on to become one of the best-selling instrumental albums in history. “Blow By Blow was a major change in my life, really,” Beck told me six years later, “but that was an accident. The album was sort of put together naturally.” In another interview, he described it as “the best guitar playing I’ve done since Truth.”

Jeff took his show on the road, sharing a double-bill with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. John McLaughlin spoke about the tour soon after its completion: “Jeff Beck is number one in that style, a killer. He plays that guitar, man, like nobody I know. We had a lot of gigs together. I had a quartet with Narada Michael Walden, Ralphe Armstrong, and Stu Goldberg, and Jeff had a great band with Bernard Purdie, Wilbur Bascomb, and Max Middleton. And every night we’d get the two bands to finish the gig, and it was great.” Beck welcomed the freedom of fusion, telling an interviewer, “I love jazzing around onstage. There’s no sense in restricting yourself in music. It’s supposed to be there to give you freedom.” On the road, Beck hauled along a box of cassettes and immersed himself in the music of Billy Cobham and Stanley Clarke. He was thrilled when bassist Clarke invited him to Electric Ladyland Studios to play on his Journey to Love album, including on a track affectionately called “Hello Jeff.”

 

Read Jeff Beck: The Fusion Years, Part 2

Main photo: Robert Knight Archives, Getty Images Redfern Collection
Additional photos courtesy of Jas Obrecht

A longtime editor for Guitar Player magazine, Jas Obrecht has written extensively about blues and rock guitarists. His books about music include Rollin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists, Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar, Talking Guitar, and Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London. For more of Jas’ writing, check out https://jasobrecht.substack.com.

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Sarah Lipstate – Crafting Cinematic Soundscapes with Guitars, Bows, and Pedals Galore

Sarah Lipstate—whose nom de plume is Noveller when performing solo—describes her music as “cinematic guitar soundscapes.” In concert, she conjures those soundscapes from a vast array of effects pedals and a multi-channel looper, with the aid of a cello bow, various other bowing devices, and extended playing techniques. In the studio, Lipstate taps the magic of modern recording and sound design capabilities to further enhance her sonic creations.

In addition to releasing more than a dozen albums of her own music and scoring several films, Lipstate has toured as the opening act for luminaries such as St. Vincent and Iggy Pop, as well as being a member of Pop’s band and collaborating with the legendary vocalist on three pieces from his Free album. She also performed in guitar ensembles led by avant-garde composers Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham while still in school, where she studied filmmaking.

Lipstate’s primary instrument is a Fender American Professional Series Jazzmaster with Chicago Special pickups and a Mastery bridge, but she also plays numerous other guitars including a Fender Ed O’Brien Sustainer Stratocaster fitted with a Gizmotron mechanical bowing device, Yamaha Revstars, and a custom Bilt Relevator + Effects with onboard fuzz, reverb, and delay. Her expansive stompbox collection boasts everything from ultra-rare vintage pedals to bleeding-edge modern masterpieces. Lipstate’s artwork graces the Keeley Sarah Lipstate Loomer fuzz/reverb pedal and she co-designed the handcrafted Moon Canyon overdrive/reverb/delay pedal with Dutch pedal builder Dr. No.

Lipstate also crafted a unique Artist Preset for the Line 6 HX Effects processor (also compatible with HX Stomp and Helix amp and effects processors), featuring multiple distortions, multiple delays, and the Searchlights reverb. Download the preset below.

Lipstate performing with Iggy Pop at the EFG London Jazz Festival, November 21, 2019.

What’s the story behind the name Noveller?

While in college I had a duo project called One Umbrella and my partner thought it would be great if we performed using aliases; he became “Quebron” and I became “Novella,” a short novel. I chose it just because I thought it was a beautiful word and it spoke to me. Then, when I needed a name for a solo project I thought, “Well, I’m Novella in this project, so I can be Noveller.” There was not a lot of thought put into it other than that. So now, years and years later, I’m living with that [laughs]. People don’t know how to pronounce it because although novella is an actual word, noveller is not.

What did you take away from your experience playing with Glenn Branca?

I was 20 years old and still in college when I was accepted to play in the Branca Ensemble and it was a life-changing experience. Instead of preparing for my semester work I was entirely focused on studying the score and working on the music. Then, flying out and being part of the rehearsals was amazing, and the performance itself felt really beautiful and transcendent. The experience also helped me dial in to the way my brain is wired, and to understand that sonic qualities such as dissonance and tension really appeal to me and go straight to my heart.

Shortly after that you also had the opportunity to play with Rhys Chatham.

Yes, with a sextet at the Table of Elements Festival in Atlanta, performing Guitar Trio. It was a very different experience because the group was so much smaller, and the music was also quite different than Branca’s Symphony No. 13. I asked for a copy of the score to study and they laughed and said that I would basically just be playing an E chord the entire time. The focus was on the harmonic overtones and everything that comes out of the repetition and the rhythmic changes that occur while playing essentially a single chord. One difference between that experience and playing with Glenn was that I didn’t really have one-on-one time with him given the size of the ensemble, whereas I did with Rhys, and I went on to perform with him four or five more times after that and to develop a relationship.

Noveller performing “Gathering the Elements” at Royal Albert Hall May 13th, 2016.

Sonic Youth was a big early influence as well.

I got my first guitar while I was in high school and at that time I was really steeped in Sonic Youth’s music. I had the Goo music video, the 1991 – The Year Punk Broke documentary, the Screaming Fields of Sonic Love compilation album and other records, and I watched and listened to them over and over. I think the thing that most interested me was that they played in lots of alternate tunings, so when I got my first guitar, I just moved the tuners around until I found tunings that sounded cool to me, which meant they had a kind of dissonant sound. I had a cheap Dan Electro guitar and a Dan Electro Dirty Thirty practice amp, but no pedals, and I was frustrated that they were able to create all of this beautiful feedback and I wasn’t, so I wanted to learn how to do that. The tunings helped me approximate the same feel to the extent that I was able to, and they are what I wrote all of my music in until a few years ago when I began playing in standard tuning.

Also, I had spent many years of my life studying piano and trombone and being successful at those, but there was so much pressure associated with piano competitions and being the first chair trombonist that it kind of sucked the life and joy out of music for me. Sonic Youth had this punk attitude and it seemed like they were playing music that made them feel happy and excited—and that’s what I wanted for myself. I wasn’t trying to play their songs, I just wanted to follow that approach to my instrument.

Though you had studied music and music theory previously, which also informed your musical approach?

Yes, but I really tried to throw all that out the window with guitar. I didn’t want those structures to be imposed on this new instrument. With the guitar I’m very much an intuitive player. If I start feeling excited or inspired or joy or sadness or any kind of strong emotion, it’s just like, “Yes, more of that, I’m going down the right path.” With piano and trombone, it was always getting to a point where I could competently play some great master’s composition. And that’s great. But that’s entirely different from what I’m trying to do for myself. I want to make my own music and I want it to be something that feels true to me.

When did your fascination with effects pedals begin?

My very first pedal was an Ibanez TS7 Tube Screamer, and then later I had a board that also included a Boss DD-6 Digital Delay, a Moogerfooger MF-2 Ring Modulator, and a Line 6 DL4. I’m pretty sure that I sold my trombone and used the money to buy three or four of those additional pedals, as well as a Theremin. I kind of transferred from one musical reality to what I wanted my future musical reality to be. But my first experience of being in awe of technology that enabled me to view the guitar as something that could exist on its own was a Fostex multitrack cassette recorder that my parents got me for Christmas while I was still in high school. In a sense that was my first looper, because I was able to record layers and layers of guitar, and it really opened my mind to the possibilities of making satisfying music with just that one instrument.

You currently have dozens of both new and vintage pedals. How do they serve as catalysts in your creative process?

I can count on one hand the times that an idea for a song has been generated by my just picking up a guitar and playing. Nearly every creative idea I have begins with pedals. I’ll put a board together and then plug in and start tweaking knobs just to see what happens. So many beautiful melodies and other ideas have come from random combinations of pedals and happy accidents. I’ll usually just loop something and continue experimenting and through that process I will hone and refine and edit based on that.

The Sarah “Noveller” Lipstate preset for HX/Helix processors.

Describe your tools and your approach to looping.

For a number of years, I used an Akai E1 Headrush and two Line 6 DL4 Delay Modelers in combination, which allowed me to have three independent, unsynchronized loops. I eventually replaced those pedals with a Boomerang III Phrase Sampler, which lets me record three loops using a single pedal, and the loops can either be unsynchronized in Free mode or synchronized if I want to have parts that lock together. I mostly used Free mode because I think it is so beautiful to have three loops of whatever length I want, interacting with each other in constantly changing ways. That always felt so amazing because I never wanted my music to sound stagnant. But having three synchronized loops is also really exciting to me because I’m still free to have loops of different lengths, as long as the lengths of loops two and three are some multiple or subdivision of the length of the master loop. So, as I have evolved, I’ve also become interested in writing music that is more rhythmic and structured than ambient.

It appears that you have the pedal dance pretty well choreographed in your live performances. To what extent does improvisation figure into the music?

Largely, everything is structured and there is kind of a choreography aspect as you put it. There are so many things going on that there has to be that overall structure for it to work. Of course, I’m constantly changing my pedalboards and so if I want to play a song that I originally did on an album from several years ago, I may not have the same pedals that I used for it available. For example, I just played my first Noveller show since 2019 and I decided to do a song from my Glacial Glow album that was released more than ten years ago. I had to find new ways to approach it using my current setup, and I also changed some aspects of the arrangement. The beginning was very structured and rehearsed, and the transition to the following song also has to be planned—but between those things it might veer off or morph into something different each time, so there is also space for improvisation.

When you perform live do you play through an amp?

Yes. The front of house engineer just mics it up.

A single amp or do you have two for stereo?

Sometimes stereo, but lately it’s been mono.

“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” from Iggy Pop’s Free album.

Is your creative process when recording different than when you are composing generally. Specifically, do you use the looper or just record performances directly?

I use the looper sometimes, but most often I just try to play the “looped” parts all the way through because I like the variation that inevitably happens and it also just sounds better. With the looper you are hearing the same cadence over and over again.

That also allows you to introduce intentional variations as well.

Exactly. I don’t record to a click and my playing isn’t perfect, so there are subtle tempo changes and other inconsistencies that make the music sound more alive. The looper is fine when I’m demoing things out, but I will go back and rerecord that stuff when I’m working on an album.

What is the single most important power tip you can offer to would-be loopists?

Oh man. I’d say they should give a lot of thought to what it is that they are hoping to achieve with a looper, because that will determine which one will be right for them. For example, when I am recording ambient loops, I really need to have the reverb tails and delay repeats continue when I close a loop, so they aren’t just chopped off abruptly. That involves pre-enabling overdubbing, which is apparently not something most manufacturers consider. I was able to program the Boomerang III to do it, but only after calling the company and asking whether it was possible.

You created an Artist Preset for the HX Effects pedal and you have also been using an HX Stomp amp and effects pedal. How have you integrated the HX Stomp into your work?

In two ways. I sometimes use it as a complete world unto itself when I’m recording and composing, including using the amp models. It’s really amazing to have so many possibilities in a single box. Live, because I have so much else in my signal chain, it just gets worked in as a multi-effects pedal and not so much for the amp modeling and stuff like that.

Lipstate loops then rocks out with Iggy Pop live at La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris, October 13, 2019.

You opened for Iggy Pop on his Post Pop Depression tour and then were invited to be a member of his band. But you also collaborated with him on three pieces that appear on his Free album, including the extraordinary “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” in which he recites the Dylan Thomas poem of the same name. How did that happen to come about?

Iggy’s manger emailed me a rough recording of Iggy reciting the poem, and said something like “I wanted to send you this recording, this is for your ears only and if you’re interested and available, maybe you can build one of your guitar soundscapes around this, the spoken word track.” I launched myself completely into it and recorded what I thought was a really good cinematic soundscape to accompany the poem. I sent it to Iggy’s manager, who immediately responded, “This is wonderful, thank you,” and then nothing happened for months. Eventually I got another email saying that Iggy really loved the piece and asking whether I could do another one for what became “The Dawn.” His manager said, “Iggy particularly loved the guitar cover that you did of the theme music for John Carpenter’s The Thing, so maybe something in that vein?” I said alright, took that as my inspiration, composed a piece, and sent it off. Again, it was like I was just emailing music into the void. Then, many months later, his manager writes and tells me that not only is the record coming out, but that I have a producer credit, and I’m like, “Wait, what?” It was always presented as just something Iggy’s manger was doing on the down low, so it was a huge surprise and obviously really exciting to me to discover that they were using those pieces on an Iggy Pop record. So, that’s how it happened!

Main photo: Travis Shinn
Sarah with Iggy photo: Jim Dyson/Getty Images
Sarah surrounded by pedals photo: Priscilla C. Scott

Barry Cleveland is a Los Angeles-based guitarist, recordist, composer, music journalist, and editor-in-chief of Model Citizens and The Lodge, as well as the author of Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques and a contributing author to Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World’s Greatest Guitarists. Cleveland also served as an editor at Guitar Player magazine for 12 years and is currently the Marketing Communications Manager at Yamaha Guitar Group. barrycleveland.com

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Jeff Schroeder: Ambient Sounds Pt. 1 – “Frippertronics”

In his foreword to Mark Prendergast’s sprawling book, The Ambient Century (2000), Brian Eno argues that recording and electronic technology transformed the musical experience in terms of how we perceive space in both its physical and psychological dimensions. He writes:

Recording and electronics also allowed composers to work with impossible perspectives and relationships. Producers and musicians discovered that tiny sounds could be made huge and huge ones compacted. And, using echoes and reverberations, those sounds could seem to be located in a virtual space which was entirely imaginary

Another important thread in the story of ambient music is film soundtracks—music made to support something else, an evocation of a psychological space within which something is intended to happen, a sense of music which presented a climate but left out the action.

With a never-ending supply of pedal, rackmount, and plugin effects at our disposal, more and more guitarists are creating new and exciting ways to defamiliarize the instrument and generate sounds that inhabit these virtual and psychological spaces. From the vantage point of the ambient guitarist, the effects and what they can do to shape and transform sound are very much part of the creative process. In a recent conversation with Anne Sulikowski, she expressed how she views pedals and effects as instruments in-and-of themselves. Hence, in the creation of ambient sounds, there is a slightly shifted relationship between the player, the guitar, and the effects in terms of how we respond to the information sent to our ears as the vibrations flow through these three different positions. Often, as Sulikowski suggests, we end up playing the effects—knob twisting or with expression pedals—as much as we play the guitar. Anne is an amazing musician, composer, and multimedia artist. I highly encourage you to explore her work.

For the last few months, I have been working on a soundtrack for a summer camp slasher film. While discussing the direction of the music with the director, we found we both liked the sounds, feelings, and textures created by vintage synthesizers. However, I thought it would be more original to try and do as much as possible using the guitar. Being my primary instrument, I felt I would be able to be more expressive on the guitar than when playing keyboards. Once I decided that was the direction I wanted to go in, I plugged a guitar into my Helix and began creating patches that would pull me out of my routinized playing process. Being the massive Eno disciple that I am, I decided to employ a variation on the so-called “Frippertronics” method of creating sound and ended up with some great results. But what is Frippertronics?

The first 6:17 of the “The Heavenly Music Corporation” from No Pussyfooting.

In 1972, King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp was invited to dinner at Eno’s home in London. When he arrived, he found that Eno had assembled a tape-loop system using two Revox reel-to-reel recorders, with the feed reel on one machine, the take-up reel on the other, and the output signal of the second machine fed back to the input of the first (a technique pioneered by composers Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros). Fripp played a 21-minute guitar improvisation using the looping system, then overdubbed an accompanying solo, and that performance became the A side of Fripp & Eno’s No Pussyfooting album, released in 1973.

In the past, I’ve set up Helix presets to do a simplified version of what Eno’s tape machines accomplished. However, I figured there had to be a better way to create Frippertronics-style presets, which is when I came across Bill Vencil’s YouTube channel, Chords of Orion, a treasure trove of information about all aspects of ambient guitar technique and sound shaping. The presets I am sharing with you today are highly indebted to Vencil’s approach to simulating Frippertronics within the modeling realm. I recommend this video in which he shares two presets for HX Stomp:

Bill Vencil: Line 6 HX Stomp Frippertronics: I Show You 2 Patches!

My first preset, Frippertronics 1, is a scaled-down version of the preset I use most of the time and is similar to Vencil’s.

I think it’s best to start with this simpler preset and get used to playing with the long delays and repeats. The sound is also a clean amp, which will allow you to hear more of what’s happening with the notes you are playing. I learned from Vencil’s video that the Helix Looper can be used for fading repeats by turning the Overdub level down.

For this preset, I have the level at -1.7db, which means that each repeat will be 1.7db quieter than the previous one until it becomes inaudible. By lowering the level, you lessen the buildup of repeats. If the Overdub control is set to 0db, you will be in infinite-loop territory, which is a very different sound.

Setting the delay time is fairly easy once you wrap your head around how to do it. Enter into Stomp mode and press the 6 Switch Looper footswitch. Next, press the Record footswitch and count out the length of time you want the delay to be. You can count in your head, use a timer, or even a metronome. I would suggest starting with some shorter times, such as 3-to-4 seconds. Once you’ve decided upon the amount of time, press the Stop/Play footswitch and then the Record footswitch again (which will then be in overdub mode). Now you’re ready to perform some Frippertronics.

From here, I usually like to exit out of the Looper and return to Stomp mode. I also added the Retro Reel block towards the end of the signal chain to add some of that vintage tape machine sound to the preset.

I made two sound examples using this preset, one with Ebow and one without.

Example 1: Clean1
Example 2: Ebow1

In both examples, I’m constantly riding the volume pedal to ease into notes and take some of the immediate attack away.

The next preset, Frippertronics 2, is an expanded and slightly modified version of the Frippertronics 1 preset.

I added a pitch shifter, two modulation effects, and the Shimmer reverb in lieu of the Ganymede. If you take a close look at the Looper settings, you’ll see the Overdub level is slightly lower (-2.7dB), resulting in fewer repeats.

Because of the added effects, the “guitar as a traditional guitar” becomes more defamiliarized and we get into semi-synthesizer territory sonically.

Example 3: Frippertronics2

The final preset, Frippertronics 3, has a whole lot more going on within the signal chain.

The biggest changes from the two previous presets are this one uses a distorted tone and in place of the Looper I used the Simple Delay. Again, inspired by Bill Vencil’s preset, this is another way to achieve the long gradually fading delays.

The mono Simple Delay will give you up to 8 seconds of delay time if you desire to create really long loops. I’ve also turned on the Trails for this delay. If you increase the Feedback, you can turn the delay off without killing the repeats. This is essentially like turning off a tape machine’s record head temporarily and will allow you to play without recording.

Once you hear the delay repeats starting to fade, just turn the delay back on and continue creating ambience. If you have another expression pedal, try regulating the amount of feedback with it to allow the repeats to hangout longer when you’re out of record mode. You’ll also notice I added a Whammy effect placed on a momentary footswitch instead of an expression pedal.

And finally, I’ve created some Snapshots with this preset that add in some of the modulation effects. That being said, I like to keep this preset on the Normal snapshot and manually add and subtract the effects while playing. In the last sound example, you’ll hear me engaging many of the different effects located in this preset.

Example 4: Frippertronics3

To create these presets and sound examples, I used my Yamaha SG1802 with Black Cat mini humbuckers. As always, play around and modify the presets to suit your guitar and playing style.

Main Photo: Travis Shinn

Jeff Schroeder is a musician based in Los Angeles. He currently plays guitar in the Smashing Pumpkins and Night Dreamer. Besides guitar, Jeff is obsessed with coffee and 20th century experimental literature.

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Jas Obrecht: How Jimi Learned to Play Guitar Pt. 3 – Becoming “The Most Compulsive Player Ever”

Soon after his arrival at 101st’s paratrooper jump school in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, that November, Jimi met another serviceman, Billy Cox, who would become his lifelong friend and post-Experience bandmate. “I was coming from a theater,” Billy told me in 1988, “and it was raining. We all ran and wound up on the doorstep of Service Club No. 1, where you could rent instruments and go to little practice rooms. I heard this guy playing a guitar with a sound I had never heard before. It was in its embryonic stage, but I knew that sound was destined to be developed into something great. I’d describe it as a mixture of John Lee Hooker and Beethoven. I went in and introduced myself, told him I played bass. I checked out a bass and we started jamming, and that relationship lasted for a long time.”

By this time, Cox recalled, Jimi’s playing was firmly rooted in the blues: “When we first started playing, the only songs we basically jammed on from the very, very beginning were blues songs, because musically we were limited at that particular time as far as repertoire goes. Basically, he was an R&B player—a rhythm and blues player.” Billy recalls that besides Chuck Berry, Jimi’s favorite players to listen to were contemporary bluesmen: “Slim Harpo, especially. Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, B.B. King. He said they were great bluesmen. A lot of songs we initially started playing were by those guys. That was point A. Then we graduated into the Top-40 rhythm and blues, and then into a lot of pop numbers.” In December, Jimi asked Al to send him his red Danelectro Shorthorn. Billy details, “He used that all through the service, up to a year after we got out. When we were making a little bit more money, I co-signed for him and he traded that in and got an Epiphone.” According to Cox, the “Betty Jean” guitar was subsequently destroyed in a house fire.

Billy Cox performing with the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Isle of Wight Festival, August 1970.

Military life did not suit Jimi Hendrix. After his 1962 discharge, he sought work as a professional musician, gigging in small clubs around Nashville. Cox and Hendrix became roommates and formed a band, the King Kasuals. At home in Nashville, Billy recalls, they’d often play along to blues records: “We’d sit around, pass the Jell-O or strawberry upside-down cake, and pull out an Albert King or B.B. King record and get a lick or two. I remember those facial expressions Jimi did, because Albert, he just gets out of sight with some of his licks. Jimi really liked that. Albert King was a very, very powerful influence on him. At that time people liked to hear stuff that was current, and Bobbie Blue Bland, Albert King, and B.B. King were very fashionable and popular. Jimi had a lot of influences guitar-wise, but what the world heard of Jimi Hendrix—he evolved into that area because he wanted to break out of all that. You know, we played behind shake dancers and different groups that came to town. Jimi could play ‘Misty’ in the original key, ‘Moonlight in Vermont,’ ‘Harlem Nocturne,’ and stuff like that. So, he basically knew where he was going and how he was going to get there. The other music bored him to a degree, and he wanted to be adventurous and reach for his own individuality in music.”

Jimi’s unwavering dedication to his instrument had its price, socially speaking: “Around this time people nicknamed Jimi ‘Marbles,’” Billy explained, “because he walked up the street with an electric guitar, playing it. He’d play it in the show, he’d play it coming back from the gig. I saw him put 25 years into the guitar in five years, because it was a constant, everyday occurrence with him. People called him Marbles because they thought he was crazy. They couldn’t understand why a man would basically be playing the guitar all the time. But basically, he knew that he had to make this instrument an extension of his body. It was like how people learn to whistle. He learned to play a guitar like a person would whistle, and you have your lips with you all the time, so you can whistle. I remember mornings waking Jimi up, knocking on his door, and there he was laying on the bed with the same clothes he had on the night before, his guitar laying across his stomach or alongside him. He was practicing all night long.”

Jimi’s obsessive devotion to the guitar remained constant for the rest of his life. Michael Bloomfield, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of the blues and had played in Chicago clubs alongside giants such as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, was among those who witnessed this first-hand. They first met in New York City a few weeks before Jimi left for England to form the Experience. “I remember going to his hotel room,” Bloomfield recounted. “He had a little Kay amp against the wall, and he had his guitar out—immediately he was getting new sounds out of it. He never stopped playing. His guitar was the first thing he reached for when he woke up. We were bopping around New York once, and I said, ‘Let’s find some girls.’ He said, ‘That can wait, there’s always time for that. Let’s play, man.’ He was the most compulsive player I’ve ever run into. That’s why he was so good.

“Hendrix was by far the greatest expert I’ve ever heard at playing rhythm and blues, the style of playing developed by Bobby Womack, Curtis Mayfield, Eric Gale, and others. I got the feeling there was no guitaring of any kind that he hadn’t heard or studied, including steel guitar, Hawaiian, and dobro. In his playing I can really hear Curtis Mayfield, Wes Montgomery, Albert King, B.B. King, and Muddy Waters. And Jimi was the Blackest guitarist I ever heard. His music was deeply rooted in pre-blues, the oldest musical forms, like field hollers and gospel melodies. From what I can garner, there was no form of Black music that he hadn’t listened to or studied, but he especially loved the real old Black music forms, and they poured out in his playing. We often talked about Son House and the old blues guys.

The cover of My Son Jimi, by James A. Hendrix as told to Jas Obrecht.

“But what really did it to him was early Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker records—that early electric music where the guitar was hugely amplified and boosted by the studio to give it the effect of more presence than it really had. He knew that stuff backwards—you can hear every old John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters thing that ever was on that one long version of ‘Voodoo Chile’ [on Electric Ladyland]. He was extremely interested in form—in a few seconds of playing, he’d let you know about the entire structure. That’s why he liked rhythm guitar playing so much—the rhythm guitar could lay out the structure for the whole song. He would say, ‘There is a world of lead guitar players, but the most essential thing to learn is the time, the rhythm.’”

Like Al and Leon Hendrix, Billy Cox, and Mike Bloomfield, Chas Chandler also witnessed Jimi’s extraordinary dedication to his instrument. It was Chandler who’d “discovered” Jimi playing in a seedy New York club, arranged his passage to London in September 1966, and helped orchestrate the meteoric rise of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. While rooming together in London, Chandler recalled, “Jimi used to get up in the morning to go and fry himself a breakfast, and he’d be frying bacon and eggs with the guitar on. That lad never had a guitar off less than eight hours every day, plus the gig at night. He’d take the guitar to the loo with him because he liked the sound of the echo in there. He’d sit in there for hours, just playing a Fender guitar—not plugged in—because he liked the sound coming off the tiles in the loo. He had a guitar on all the time, all the time. He was the best guitarist in the world because he wanted to be the best, and he was prepared to work at it.”

The most savvy music-related advice Jimi Hendrix ever received could well have come from his dad just before he left for boot camp at Fort Ord, California: “It was a Friday afternoon after work,” Al said, “and Jimi told me he was going to make it in music. He was saying, ‘Yeah, dad, I’m gonna be famous one of these days.’ I felt that following the same trend in music that everybody else was doing is a hard trail, so I told him, ‘When you get into the music business, do something original. And if you do come out with something extraordinary, people will take note: “Hey, here’s something different.”’ And that’s sure what he did. After Jimi became famous, I remembered that conversation and thought to myself, ‘Yeah!’”

Jas Obrecht: How Jimi Learned to Play Guitar Pt. 1 – Earliest Music, First Guitars

Jas Obrecht: How Jimi Learned to Play Guitar Pt. 2 – Seattle Bands, Betty Jean, and The Blues

Jimi Hendrix photo: David Redfern, Getty Images Redfern Collection
Billy Cox photo: Chris Walter/WireImage, Getty Images

A longtime editor for Guitar Player magazine, Jas Obrecht has written extensively about blues and rock guitarists. His books about music include Rollin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists, Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar, Talking Guitar, and Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London. For more of Jas’ writing, check out https://jasobrecht.substack.com.

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Jas Obrecht: How Jimi Learned to Play Guitar Pt. 2 – Seattle Bands, Betty Jean, and The Blues

When Jimi Hendrix launched his first band, one of the first musicians he turned to was his childhood friend Pernell Alexander, who played guitar. They named their fledging lineup the Vibertones, then quickly changed it to the Velvetones. Pernell remembered that “Walter Jones was the drummer, Robert Green played the piano, Luther Rabb played tenor and baritone sax, Anthony Atherton played alto sax, and Jimi and I played the guitar. I think Terry Johnson played with us a couple of times. My dad was our manager. We played all over—at Polish Hall, Washington Hall, the Boys’ Club, and the YMCA.” Robert Green recalled that Jimi and Pernell both played through Pernell’s amp: “They had it down. They got a lot of their fingerwork by listening to Chuck Berry. Jimi and Pernell loved Chuck Berry. We did three of four Chuck Berry numbers—like ‘[Little] Queenie.’ We also played ‘Lucille’ by Little Richard and Fats Domino’s ‘Blueberry Hill.’ We’d play blues for grown-ups and whatever was jamming at that particular time for the youngsters. We played all the pop tunes. We landed a gig at the Yesler Terrace gym and for a couple of months we played there every Friday and Saturday night for teenage dances.”

A friendly rivalry developed between the Velvetones and another local band, the Rocking Teens. “The Velvetones lived in Madison Valley,” Pernell explained. “The Rocking Teens lived up in the Terrace. We all knew each other. In fact, later on Jimi joined the Rocking Teens. Anyway, we were having a North Side/South Side feud. Actually, it was about girls, but the Battle of the Bands was really a serious thing. It would be the Velvetones and the Rocking Kings. We didn’t know about bass guitars back then. Jimi and I would tune our guitars to a low C for the bass part.”

Pernell Alexander pointed to another young Seattle guitarist, Randy Snipes, as the original inspiration for Jimi’s over-the-top showmanship. “We called him Butch. The kid was amazing. He was phenomenal. He had great showmanship. He taught Jimi the stunts. Butch was the first one here to play the guitar behind his back and with his teeth. Jimi learned those tricks from him. Butch taught us both a lot.” Anthony Atherton confirmed this account: “Pernell Alexander and Butch Snipes were the ones who taught Jimi how to play the guitar.” “Jimmy learned a lot from Butch Snipes,” added Luther Rabb. “Sometimes Butch would loosen his strings to play bass. He was fluid. I was amazed by his playing. And if you listened to Jimi and then listened to Butch, you’d hear them playing each other’s licks.”

The next lineup Jimi joined, the Rocking Teens, was renamed the Rocking Kings when some of its older members graduated from high school. They specialized in covers of Top-40 hits: Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba,” Bobby Day’s “Rockin’ Robin,” the Coasters’ “Yakety Yak,” Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Wanna Dance,” Danny & The Juniors’ “At the Hop,” Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” and Ray Anthony’s “Peter Gunn.” “This was a typical, ordinary, real young teenager band,” Jimi’s dad, Al Hendrix, recalled. “I saw them play, and they made good music.” Looking at a photograph taken of the Rocking Kings at Washington Hall on February 20, 1960, Al identified the lineup as drummer Lester Exkano, sax players Webb Lofton and Walter Harris, and pianist Robert Green. Jimi, wearing the band uniform of white shirt, dark tie, peg-style pants, and powder-blue sports jacket, holds his white Supro Ozark guitar.

Although he doesn’t appear in the photo, Junior Heath also played guitar with the Rocking Kings. “With two guitar players,” Heath explained, “one had to tune his guitar down like a bass, while the other played lead. We’d take turns, going back and forth.” Both guitarists played through Heath’s amp. For a while, Sam Johnson, who lived across the street from the Hendrixes, sat in on electric bass. Walter Harris recalls that the Rocking Kings “played at PTA dances and teenage sock hops, after football games, in the gym, and at the Garfield Funfest. All the schools knew us. We played a lot at Birdland, in the Central District. It was open for kids with no alcohol served until 11:30, when the kids left and the adults came. During the school year we played there on Friday and Saturday nights, but during the summer it was open Wednesday through Sunday.

Jimi Hendrix – A History of his Guitars – Part 1

“There was something unusual about Jimi,” Harris continued. “I felt sorry for him sometimes, like during the summer when he’d be working landscaping with his dad all day and come to practice wearing the same clothes. But, as poor people, we were all in the same situation, trying to express our feelings through our music. It’s just Jimi wasn’t as fortunate in some ways as the rest of us. The first time I went to Jimi’s house, he was living with Al in a little flophouse/hotel on East Terrace. I saw he had a little radio. It turned out that Jimi could play whatever was on the radio. Any number that came on the radio, he could play it. The same key. And he practiced a lot, because the radio was all the company he had. He didn’t have a TV. Most of us were fortunate to have a TV, but all Jimi had was that radio. We’d go to practice and pick Jimi up. He’d leave a note on the table: ‘Dad, I’ve had dinner.’ A cinnamon roll and glass of milk. It was sad, you know. Jimi had no one to cook dinner for him.”

Several other people interviewed in Mary Willix’s Jimi Hendrix: Voices From Home described how Jimi often had to rely on the kindness of others for his meals. All the while, Harris insisted, Jimi kept his cool: “Jimi was a square, like most young kids. Jimi didn’t smoke and he didn’t drink. Jimi was not a fighter. I saw him take verbal abuse, but I never saw Jimi get angry or aggressive toward anybody. Jimi was just a cool, non-violent, lovable guy.”

Another of Jimi’s musical endeavors in 1960 was playing with James Thomas & His Tomcats. Al explained, “Jimi started telling me about James Thomas, who had drums and all kinds of instruments in his home. James was a grown man, but he wasn’t as old as me. He’d get the kids together—ten or fifteen of them—and they’d all play instruments. James was always searching around trying to find music deals, and he also got gigs for the guys at army bases.” According to Al, Thomas would promise to pay his musicians—$15 apiece was the going rate—but that seldom happened. “The guys in the band would always end up with a zero, or maybe even owing James something.” Al laughed at the memory of Jimi accompanying Thomas to a gig in Vancouver and the young musicians having to push the car after it broke down enroute. “After a whole lot of problems, Jimi just said, ‘Man, I’m so disgusted, I ain’t gonna play with these guys no more.’ But each time a chance to play came around, he just couldn’t turn it down. He’d say, ‘Well, maybe this time’s gonna be better.’ Jimi had all kinds of hassles, but he always went back for more.” One of the places Jimi performed at was the Spanish Castle, which Al described as “a roadside stop down on old Highway 99 on the way to Tacoma. Jimi used to go out there and want to jam with some of the groups. I imagine that’s where he got the song title for ‘Spanish Castle Magic.’ I don’t know what the lyrics mean, though—it don’t take a day to get there!”

Al, continually on his son’s case about being responsible, noticed that Jimi started coming home without his guitar. At first Jimi claimed that he’d left it at James Thomas’ house, so Al insisted he go retrieve it. Finally, Jimi confessed that it had been stolen during an intermission at the Birdland. “I got mad because he lied about it,” Al said, “but he was afraid I’d blow up if he told me it got stolen. I said, ‘You’re just going to have to wait to get another one.’ For a few days Jimi was going around with nothing to do, his hands in his pockets, missing the guitar.” Jimi’s Aunt Mary, Al’s sister-in-law, bought him another guitar at Myers Empire Music Exchange, but Al insisted he give it back to her. “I just felt that if I couldn’t get a guitar for him, there wasn’t going to be one. I don’t remember how long it took me to get him another electric guitar—maybe a month or so—but that second electric guitar I got him was the same one I sent to him while he was in the service.” Jimi treasured this red Danelectro Shorthorn, which had a single lipstick-tube pickup. He named the guitar “Betty Jean” in honor of his high school sweetheart, Betty Jean Morgan.

During the summer of 1960, Al began dating Willeen Stringer. Eventually Al and Jimi joined Willeen and her young daughter, Willette, in their house at 2606 Yesler Way. Jimi’s playing reportedly took a quantum leap when Al brought home a stereo record player with detachable satellite speakers. “Jimi would split the speakers apart, put my 45s on the turntable, and play along on his guitar,” Al remembered. “He’d try to copy what he’d heard, and he’d make up stuff too. He lived on blues around the house. I had a lot of records by B.B. King and Louis Jordan and some of the downhome guys like Muddy Waters. Jimi was real excited by B.B. King and Chuck Berry, and he was a fan of Albert King too. He liked all them blues guitarists. We also had a radio and a television on Yesler. I didn’t see Jimi pay too much attention to the radio, but he liked to lay on the floor or sit on the couch and watch TV. Usually when I came home from work, he’d be sitting there with the TV on, and then he’d be playing along to the stereo during commercials. When the program would come on again, he would watch that again.” (Jimi’s passion for records continued throughout his life. At the height of his fame with the Experience, he had a collection of close to a hundred albums, including several each by Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Mayall, and Bob Dylan.)

Two of Al’s Muddy Waters 45s—“I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” and “Rollin’ Stone,” both issued by Chess Records—left such a lasting impression that Jimi played the songs throughout his career:

—–

In addition to Muddy’s virile, no-notes-wasted approach to the guitar, Jimi was influenced by the Chicago blues great’s singing style, perfectly exemplified by “Mannish Boy”:

A half-dozen years later, as the Jimi Hendrix Experience played their first gigs in London, British blues fans were quick to notice the similarities. As John McLaughlin noted, “Jimi was singing like Muddy Waters. Jimi had that thing, had the sound. It was almost part talking, part chanting. And he had the timbre, that sound that Muddy’s voice had. So, by the time he hit, people were just like, ‘Wow, Jimi, beautiful!’” The Experience recorded live versions of “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “Rollin’ Stone” (renamed “Catfish Blues” in a nod to its opening line) for the BBC. In concert, Jimi easily displayed his mastery of the stop-time pacing of “Rollin’ Stone,” and then rocketed into space, figuratively speaking, with jaw-dropping extended solos highlighted by perfect string bends and machine-gunning chordal passages:

Jimi spent his final months in Seattle living with his dad and the Stringers on Yesler Way. After he dropped out of high school, he was unable to find work in a grocery store or hotel, so Al put him to work mowing lawns and doing other landscaping tasks. In May 1961 Jimi wound up in Seattle’s juvenile hall. According to Al, Jimi had been arrested for joyriding in a stolen car. Upon his release, Jimi enlisted in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne, a.k.a. the Screaming Eagles.

Jas Obrecht: How Jimi Learned to Play Guitar Pt. 3 – Becoming “The Most Compulsive Player Ever”

Jas Obrecht: How Jimi Learned to Play Guitar Pt. 1 – Earliest Music, First Guitars

Jimi Hendrix photo: David Redfern, Getty Images Redfern Collection

A longtime editor for Guitar Player magazine, Jas Obrecht has written extensively about blues and rock guitarists. His books about music include Rollin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists, Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar, Talking Guitar, and Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London. For more of Jas’ writing, check out https://jasobrecht.substack.com.

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Jas Obrecht: How Jimi Learned to Play Guitar Pt. 1 – Earliest Music, First Guitars

Jimi Hendrix never took formal lessons, learned to read music, or cracked open an instruction book. Yet in the course of four years beginning in September 1966, he established himself as a rock’s most iconic guitarist. What accounted for this phenomenal flowering of talent? Of course, only Jimi himself could have provided the full answer to this question, since much of the essence of creativity comes from within. But through the recollections of those who knew him best, we can uncover the origins of his interest in the instrument and the steps that led to his becoming a transformational musician.

Like Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Bob Marley, and many other musical luminaries, Jimi Hendrix grew up in acute poverty. Born in Seattle on November 27, 1942, he spent most of World War II living with a foster family in Oakland, California, while his father, James “Al” Hendrix, served in the Pacific. Upon his discharge from the Army, Al brought Jimi back to Seattle. He reunited with his wife, Lucille Jeter Hendrix, who’d given Jimi up soon after he was born. For a while the three of them lived together in the Rainer Vista housing project. Jimi slept in the closet. “He’d go in there while Lucille and I were fighting too,” Al recalled in the book we co-wrote, My Son Jimi. “When it came to tempers, Lucille and I were about equalized, and she’d get mad and bang things around. He was old enough to see all the hassles we were having.” Jimi, who hid behind his mother’s skirt when introduced to others, developed a stutter and invented an imaginary friend he named “Sessa.”

Al’s mother, Zenora Hendrix, with whom Jimi was close, had danced in Black vaudeville reviews before World War I. Al, a skilled tap dancer and jitterbugger, had a good singing voice and enjoyed singing at home. Jimi’s interest in music showed up early in life: “He would usually pat his foot to music or bang on pans,” his dad remembered. “Then I got him a couple of sticks and a box to beat on instead of the pans, because he’d knock dents in them. I also made him a little guitar-like instrument out of a cigar box. I cut a hole in the top and sealed the lid to keep it from flopping open, and then I pasted on a wood neck and used elastic bands for strings. He couldn’t get a whole lot of music out of it, but it was a great imaginary piece, and he played a lot with it.” Jimi also had a harmonica, but apparently never learned any songs on it. His next stringed instrument was a ukulele Al found while clearing out someone’s basement.

Jimi’s mother, plagued by alcoholism and other demons, began disappearing for days at a time, sometimes in the company of another man. “I’m quite sure that Jimi was aware Lucille was running around,” Al confessed with sadness, “and it must have affected him. The situation with Lucille always felt like a time bomb.” Al filed for divorce in 1950, and Lucille had four more children with other men. The first of these, Leon, six years younger than Jimi, was the only one to grow up around Jimi. During the 1950s, Al’s financial situation was so dire he occasionally had to leave Jimi and Leon in the care of relatives.

Jas Obrecht and James “Al” Hendrix in 1998.

Jimi Hendrix attended Leschi Elementary School in Seattle. His grade school classmates remember that he wore hand-me-down clothes and shoes with holes in them. He was pigeon-toed, mumbled when he spoke, and was so shy he could scarcely look anyone in the eye. To save money, Al cut Jimi’s hair and fed him horsemeat. Since Jimi never mentioned his mother, even his closest friends assumed she was dead. On Sundays, his grandmother regularly took him to the Church of God in Christ. “I don’t know if Jimi did any singing in church,” Al recalled, “and he was never in the choir that I know of. I don’t know how Jimi did in music at school, either, but I know he didn’t have a voice. He probably couldn’t sing the scales.”

Jimi’s main expressions of creativity before he took up the guitar came in the form of speaking in funny voices and creating artwork. He sketched and painted dozens of scenes of sports events, horses, dragons, cars, World War II battles, knights in armor, abstracts, landscapes, and images of 1950s rock bands performing onstage. Among the artworks Al saved was a notebook-paper sketch Jimi made while staying with his Uncle Frank, Aunt Pearl, and cousins Diane and Bobby Hendrix. Surrounding the image of a young Elvis Presley, acoustic guitar in hand, were song titles in Jimi’s handwriting and spelling: “Rip It Up,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “My Baby Left Me,” “Love Me Tender,” “Heart Break Hotel,” “Peace in the Valley,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Hound Dog,” “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You,” “Parilized,” “Honey Don’t,” “I’m Playing for Keeps,” “Be Bop a Lu-La,” “I Need Your Lovin’,” and “Too Much.” “They had a record player,” Al recalled, “and Bobby remembers that’s when Jimi became really interested in music. Jimi liked to listen to a 45 of Elvis Presley’s ‘Hound Dog,’ and he liked Little Richard’s 45s. When he was around 14, Jimi went to an Elvis concert to see what it was all about. Jimi liked Elvis, so he sketched a picture or two of him.” Elvis’ first appearance in Seattle, the concert Jimi attended, took place on September 1, 1957.

According to Al, Jimi showed no interest in playing the guitar until after his mother’s death on February 2, 1958. At the time, Al and Jimi were sharing a room in a boarding house on 29th Avenue. The most heartrending of all Jimi’s surviving artwork is a drawing of Al, reclining on a couch with his arm over his eyes. Jimi captioned it “Daddy Sleeping” and dated it February 7, 1958, which was on or near the day of Lucille’s funeral. Neither Al nor Jimi attended the funeral, and it’s a profoundly sad work of art. “Oh, Jimi felt sorrow over his mother’s death, and he cried,” Al said as he examined the drawing. “I know her death affected him deeply, but I don’t know what went on in his mind. He might have been a little mad at his mother for living the kind of life she led. Lucille just cut her life short. Who knows—playing guitar could have been his way of working through some of his feelings about his mother.”

Soon after Lucille’s funeral, Al came home and found broom straws on the floor of the single room he and Jimi shared in the boarding house. When asked about them, Jimi replied, “I was sitting there making believe the broom was a guitar.” James McKay, the grown-up son of their landlady, often sat on the porch and played blues on an acoustic guitar, with Jimi listening in. When Jimi told his father he wanted to learn to play, Al purchased McKay’s guitar for five dollars. A lefty, Jimi tried playing the guitar right-handed, then restrung it and flipped it over. Al, who’d insisted that Jimi eat and write right-handed, asked him about it: “Jimi said, ‘I find I can play left-handed easier than I can right-handed.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘do your own thing.’ I didn’t even question it. I just let it go on.” From the start, Al said, Jimi concentrated on teaching himself easy riffs, “just like a person plunking away with one finger on the piano. One of the first things that he learned how to play was the theme song from Peter Gunn, so even when he was just starting, he could make music out of the guitar.”

With its easy-to-play, hard-driving hook, Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn Theme” was a natural starting place for a beginner guitarist in the late 1950s. Studio guitarist Bob Bain had played the part on a Fender Telecaster he’d modified by installing a humbucker pickup in the neck position and adding a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece:

Even before he began playing, though, Jimi was drawn to blues records featuring heavily amplified electric guitar. During a 1968 interview with Rolling Stone, he revealed that “the first guitarist I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I heard one of his old records when I was a little boy and it scared me to death, because I heard all of those sounds. Wow, what is that all about? It was great.” Jimi picked up other musical influences by tuning in Seattle’s R&B and rock radio stations and from his small circle of friends. “Jimi would pick up a little bit here and there,” his dad remembered, “and he learned a lot of stuff on his own. I never did get him a guitar book or lessons. He liked to play his guitar out in the yard. Sometimes a kid up the street would come down and they’d play music out in the back yard together. He played guitar behind his friend James Williams too, because James wanted to be a crooner. One time before Jimi got a guitar, he and James Williams performed together at a talent show the school put on for parents. They were practicing around the house, working out what they were going to sing – it might have been an Ink Spots tune. They were laughing, because Jimi had taken after his mother when it came to his voice—when Lucille would try to sing, she’d hit all those sour notes.”

Jimi’s former high school classmate, Mary Willix, interviewed dozens of people who knew him during his youth in Seattle. Published in her 1995 book Jimi Hendrix: Voices From Home, an essential reference, these interviews provide a wealth of details about Jimi’s earliest explorations on guitar. Terry Johnson, who was learning the piano and had been friends with Jimi since third grade, described their approach during the months after Jimi got his acoustic guitar: “In the back of our house is a room we call the playroom, where my mom has an old upright piano with a few keys missing. For me and Jimi, it was our sanctuary when we were kids. Jimi had a little turquoise guitar that he’d restrung. Since he was left-handed, he turned the strings around in the opposite direction. He’d tune it up, and we’d start playing. Neither of us could sing, but we’d howl and get enough words out to make the song go along. We played by ear, listening to 45s on that old record player.

“First of all, we learned how to figure out what key the song was in. Then we’d let it play for a while, and then we’d take it off and start all over again. Jimi would listen to the guitar part until he had it figured out and memorized. As rock and roll progressed, Jimi and I started picking out our favorite recording artists. We listened to James Brown, Fats Domino, Little Anthony, and Little Richard. Little Richard was one of the best at that time. He had a lot of piano in his songs, like Jerry Lee Lewis, and a lot of guitar lines, which was the big thing in rock and roll then. So, some of our favorite artists were piano players with guitar backgrounds, or guitar players with piano backgrounds. One of the songs we’d play back in those days was ‘What’d I Say,’ by Ray Charles. Other favorites that we did were ‘Lucille,’ ‘Good Golly Miss Molly,’ ‘Slippin’ and Slidin’,’ ‘Blueberry Hill,’ ‘Long Tall Sally,’ ‘Johnny B. Goode,’ ‘I’m Walking,’ ‘Doin’ the Stroll,’ and ‘Walkin’ to New Orleans.’ Jimi was trying, even then, to find sounds to express what he was feeling. He identified with rhythm and blues guitar players, especially Albert King, Freddie King, B.B. King, and Bobby Blue Bland.

“One of our favorite songs was ‘Let the Good Times Roll’—Earl King, I think—because it had a really neat guitar part in there where Jimi could do the lead and I would come in and do the background. We worked really hard on that one. Later on, I heard that song on one of his albums and I couldn’t help but think it was like a tribute to when we were young kids playing that song. In fact, we would sing it all the way home from school. I’d do the piano with my mouth on the way home, and he’d simulate the guitar part until we got home and did it on our instruments.” Released by King Records as a two-part 45, Earl King’s original version of “Let the Good Times Roll” straddled blues and R&B:

King’s 45 had a lasting influence on Jimi. On August 27, 1968, needing a final track for Electric Ladyland, the Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded fourteen takes of “Let the Good Times Roll” at the Record Plant in New York City. Bassist Noel Redding recalled that they did not rehearse the song in advance, and at least six of the takes were marred by false starts: “Jimi said, ‘It’s in E,’ and we just recorded it. We just played it live and they took it, thank you.” The final take was chosen for Electric Ladyland, where it was retitled “Come On (Let the Good Times Roll).” In this outtake from the session, Jimi extended his solo:

Around 1959 Al found steady employment, and he and Jimi moved to 1314 East Terrace. Their two-room apartment was infested with mice and cockroaches, their neighbors often got drunk, and prostitutes plied their trade in front of the building. “There was very little of anything right about that ramshackle old apartment,” Al said. “There wasn’t any use in complaining about it, though. We just said, ‘Well, we’ll have to live here. This is the best we can do right now.’” Jimi’s beloved dog, Prince, disappeared while they were staying there.

But one fortuitous event did occur while the Hendrixes were living on East Terrace: Jimi Hendrix got his first electric guitar. Al purchased the white, right-handed Supro Ozark solidbody at Myers Empire Music Exchange on 1st Avenue. He also bought himself a used C-melody saxophone. Since the neighborhood was so loud, no one complained when he and Jimi began playing with the windows open. “I didn’t know anything about a sax,” Al explained, “so I was just tootin’ around trying to find the scale. Jimi would tease me that I was playing the same way you’d see a person trying to play piano with one finger—ding, ding. That’s the way we both would do it. We were blasting, though Jimi didn’t have an amplifier. I never did get him an amplifier, although I’d planned on it. But he got music out of his guitar as it was. When he went over to some of those friends’ places, he’d use their amps. He didn’t complain about it.” When Al fell behind in his monthly payments, Myers asked him to return one of the instruments. Al figured Jimi would do more with the guitar, so he brought back the sax.

His Supro Ozark in hand, Jimi began practicing almost to the point of obsession. “Once he got that electric guitar, every day he would be plunking on it,” Al said. “Jimi tried playing lead guitar right away, and he always said, ‘Oh, boy, if I could get to doing it like So-and-so on the guitar,’ and he just worked at it and worked at it, practicing night and day. He played the guitar every day. He carried it around with him at all times, although I don’t believe Jimi ever took it to high school, like some people have claimed, unless they had some special class or event where he needed it.” Leon, who occasionally stayed with Jimi and Al during this time, had similar memories of Jimi’s devotion to his instrument: “He’d wake up in the morning with a guitar on his chest. So, the first thing he’d do in his bedroom, before he’d brush his teeth or take a piss, he’d be playing licks. So, it was inevitable that he would become a master and a maestro one day.”

To hear his guitar amplified, Jimi began visiting the local Rotary Boys’ Club. “They had an amplifier that you could check out,” Terry Johnson recalled. “So Jimi would check it out, plug in his guitar, and hear what he sounded like amplified. Jimi would fool around with amplifiers to create new sounds. In the late ’50s amplifiers had two devices for altering the timbre and tempo of songs—an echo chamber, or reverb, and a tremolo switch. Jimi liked to use the reverb to get a faraway effect.” Overhearing Jimi and Terry practicing, the Boys’ Club supervisors encouraged them to form a band.

Jas Obrecht: How Jimi Learned to Play Guitar Pt. 2 – Seattle Bands, Betty Jean, and The Blues

Jimi Hendrix photo: David Redfern, Getty Images Redfern Collection
Jas Obrecht and James “Al” Hendrix photo: Saroyan Humphrey

A longtime editor for Guitar Player magazine, Jas Obrecht has written extensively about blues and rock guitarists. His books about music include Rollin’ and Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists, Early Blues: The First Stars of Blues Guitar, Talking Guitar, and Stone Free: Jimi Hendrix in London. For more of Jas’ writing, check out https://jasobrecht.substack.com.

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Paul Richards – Guitar Craftiness, Shepard Tones, and Echoes (plus free Helix/HX presets!)

Guitarist Paul Richards is primarily known as a founding member of the California Guitar Trio, but he has also been a member of King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp’s League of Crafty Guitarists and the Robert Fripp String Quintet, touring extensively with both ensembles. In fact, the California Guitar Trio is rooted in Fripp’s Guitar Craft community, as that is where the three original members first crossed paths in 1987, before forming CGT in 1991, and many of the techniques and principles they acquired there remain fundamental to their approach to their instruments. Most significantly, Richards, Bert Lams, and Hideyo Moriya (replaced by Chapman Stick player Tom Griesgraber in the current lineup) employ Fripp’s New Standard Tuning—C, G, E, A, D, G, low to high—which extends the range of their guitars significantly.

The California Guitar Trio’s music, however, is far from esoteric. Whether performing original compositions or reworking classics from “Walk Don’t Run” to “Bohemian Rhapsody” to “The William Tell Overture,” and more recently Pink Floyd’s “Echoes,” the group exudes crowd-pleasing wit and charm along with its abundant virtuosity.

CGT expanded its vision in 2018 by teaming up with The Montreal Guitar Trio to form a sort of super sextet, playing a series of shows and releasing In a Landscape in 2019. The California Guitar Trio’s 25th and latest release is the 2021 EP Live In Scottsdale On Tour With King Crimson, recorded during a 13-date run with what was likely the legendary band’s final tour. Given that CGT first gained international exposure playing 130 shows with King Crimson in 1995 and 1996, the 2021 shows served as fitting bookends.

Richards with his custom Ervin Somogyi guitar.

Did you always primarily play acoustic guitar or did you play electric guitar as well?

I’ve always played acoustic, but in my early formative years I was primarily an electric guitarist and I also played bass. My dad helped me buy a used 1970s Les Paul when I was 13, which was my first good electric, and I also had an inexpensive Ovation acoustic. So, I’ve always played both, but after I became super involved with Guitar Craft I began to focus primarily on acoustic.

How did you come to use effects with acoustic guitar?

Electric guitar has always been a passion and something that’s been very inspiring, and I began using effects with electric—but I also wanted to use them with acoustic and I’ve had at least a basic pedalboard going all the way back to the founding of CGT in 1991. At that point I had an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi, a DigiTech Echo Plus 8 Second Delay, and a few other pedals. I also had an EBow that Robert Fripp gave me, which he had gotten from Chris Stein of Blondie. He handed it to me and said, “Here, see what you can do with this.” I loved the sound it made with acoustic guitar, which is mellower than with an electric, so I got one of my own and returned his to him.

When did you begin using Line 6 effects?

My first delay pedal was a DL4 Delay Modeler that I purchased about 15 years ago and have used in many different ways. At the moment I use it primarily for looping, but there are also a few presets that I’ve programmed for specific pieces over the years. Recently, I used the looper to create textures and half-speed textures on our version of “Echoes.” There are lots of great effects in that pedal, my favorite probably being Tape Echo, which sounds a lot like the Roland Space Echo I had access to for a while. I also use the Rhythm Delay, the Reverse Delay, and sometimes the Digital Delay w/Mod. Of course, since that time I’ve also used a lot of other Line 6 gear.

Paul Richards, Tom Griesgraber, and Bert Lams (left to right)

Including?

I have a Helix Floor that I use at home, an HX Effects that I used on tour for a while, and both the HX Stomp and HX Stomp XL pedals. I also have a Spider V 120 combo amp that I use mostly with my Stratocaster, and StageSource powered speakers that I occasionally use for solo performances and CGT rehearsals when they are held here in LA.

What acoustic guitars are you playing currently?

One is a Martin SC-13E, which is a brand new model featuring the Sure Align neck system that lets you adjust the intonation by moving the neck forward or backward in addition to adjusting the angle. That’s made a huge difference for me, as nearly all acoustic guitars have at least some slight intonation issues. It comes with a Fishman MX preamp and a Sonicore undersaddle piezo pickup. I also have a Breedlove A 15 concert model and a custom built Jason Kostal. As for pickups, one that I’ve been experimenting a lot with is the Mojotone Quiet Coil NC-1. It’s an in-hole magnetic pickup, but it has some microphone-like qualities to it that make it interesting.

You have an atypical signal chain. Take us through it briefly.

First comes an Audio Sprockets ToneDexter preamplifier. It has the basic features you would expect in an acoustic instrument preamp, but it also lets you create “WaveMaps” by plugging in a studio microphone and sampling the acoustic sound of your guitar as captured by that particular mic. The WaveMap is stored as a preset, and you blend that sound with the sound of the undersaddle pickup connected to the preamp. The ToneDexter also has an effects loop, and that’s where I patch in the DL4 and either the HX Stomp or the HX Stomp XL.

So the preamp tone is routed to the effects rather than the effects sound being routed to the preamp input?

Yes. That’s what works best with the ToneDexter.

“ECHOES”
One of the highlights of CGT performances is the group’s reworking of Pink Floyd’s 23:34 “Echoes” into an arrangement half that long. Richards plays David Gilmour’s electric guitar parts, as well as Richard Wright’s keyboard parts, on his acoustic guitar—including mimicking Gilmour’s iconic “whale” sounds using a slide. He coaxes all of the sounds from his DL4 and the amp and effects models in his HX Stomp. Richards performs the piece live using variations on four of his custom HX presets: Whale, EchoesDrive, Rotary Fuzz, and EchoesOctSwell.

The CGT version of “Echoes” begins a little differently than the original. What’s going on there?

Using my Whale preset and beginning up around the 17th fret I move the slide slowly down the fretboard while also rubbing the strings with my hand. About a quarter of the way down I loop the sound with the DL4 and then switch to overdub mode as I continue descending, so that the parts overlap. Then, at the end, I drop everything down an octave by switching the loop to half-speed playback. What’s interesting is that I’m creating an aural illusion known as a Shepard Tone, which gives the impression that a sound is continually descending or ascending. Pink Floyd used the effect on “Echoes” and it has also been used by several film composers. Basically, it involves overlapping a shifting tone with the same tone an octave above and an octave below, which I’m sort of approximating by moving along the full range of the fretboard. At the end of the piece I reverse the loop and bring the Shepard Tone back in so that it ascends instead of descending, like it does at the end of the album track.

That’s followed by the melodic introduction, which you also play with a slide.

Yes. I think Gilmour is just bending strings in that section, but on the acoustic guitar I recreate it using a slide. For that part I switch to the EchoesDrive preset, which includes several of the effects that he actually used, such as a Colorsound preamp (Colordrive) and the Binson Echorec (Echo Platter), as well as the Hiwatt DR103 (WhoWatt 100) amp that he played through. There’s also a Rat (Classic Dist) in the signal path following the Colorsound preamp, which gets used on solos later on, though obviously that isn’t a pedal Gilmour used on the song. Reportedly, the Binson was set for about 300ms of delay time, so I set the Echo Platter delay to 310ms.

How are you approximating Richard Wright’s keyboard sounds in various sections?

My Rotary Fuzz preset combines a Leslie 145 (145 Rotary) rotary speaker cabinet with a Fuzz Face (Facial Fuzz) to emulate his distorted Hammond organ sound, and I use the Pitch Vibrato model to approximate the sound of his Fender Rhodes piano. I use my EchoesOctSwell preset, which combines several of the effects already mentioned, with the Plateaux reverb to emulate some of Wright’s synth-like sounds, especially on the buildup coming out of the middle section. Plateaux includes an octave above and an octave below, and by using volume swells I can get pretty close to the original synth sound. That preset is one I’m actually quite proud of because after shows people often ask me if I’m using some kind of guitar synth but I’m not. It’s just the HX Stomp.

How you are emulating the “whale” or “seagull” sounds during the spacey middle section?

David Gilmour got those sounds by plugging his wah pedal in backwards, causing it to squeal, and using the controls on his Stratocaster to produce different effects. I use a slide and the effects in the Whale preset to mimic those sounds, but I also wanted to do my own thing, so I listened to a lot of recordings of actual whale sounds and I try to mimic those as well.

To wrap up, what advice would you give acoustic guitarists who are using effects pedals?

Most effects pedals are designed for use with electric guitar, of course, and their typical settings and especially their presets don’t always translate so well to acoustic, so you need to discover which ones work for you. Often it is surprising what works and what doesn’t. For example, I wouldn’t have expected some of the classic fuzz sounds like the Fuzz Face and the Big Muff to work very well, and although I do have to EQ them to keep them from feeding back, they actually sound great. On the other hand, some of my favorite vintage and modern amps don’t work all that well with acoustic. My advice is to take the time to become really familiar with all of your individual effects—learn what they can do and how they sound in different combinations—so that you can create the very best sounds for your music and the instrument you play.

Photos: Rick Pauline

Barry Cleveland is a Los Angeles-based guitarist, recordist, composer, music journalist, and editor-in-chief of Model Citizens and The Lodge, as well as the author of Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques and a contributing author to Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World’s Greatest Guitarists. Barry also served as an editor at Guitar Player magazine for 12 years and is currently the Marketing Communications Manager at Yamaha Guitar Group. barrycleveland.com

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Dave Hunter: What’s Behind the Sag, Bias, and Bias X Controls in Helix Amps?

Even when we’re getting our precious tone via digital alternatives, the baseline for that sound remains the great tube amps of both yesterday and today—and some of the lesser-known parameters of these creations can have a surprisingly appreciable effect on their overall sound and performance. Two of the Helix processor’s controls that are frequently overlooked or at least misunderstood are Sag and Bias—and while the results of adjusting these parameters may be subtle at times, they can play a significant part in dialing in your tone to perfection. Let’s explore how these parameters work in good old-fashioned analog tube amps, to the end of understanding how they might impact your Helix amp settings.

Sag By Name, Sag by Nature

Sag is a quality that is also sometimes described as “compression” or “squash” or sometimes “swell” or “bloom” as applied to tube amps. Put simply, this is the amount of time that the tubes—those in the rectifier and output stage in particular—take to recover and return to full power when hit with a heavy demand while running at higher output levels.

Along with their dip in peak performance when rectifier-supplied voltages dip due to a sagging power supply stage, output tubes can induce some juicy, compression-like sag into the sonic brew when struggling to keep up with the demand for amplification at the top of their operating level—even when voltage supplies remain steady—as can preamp tubes when driven hard. In both cases this usually blends with tube distortion, inducing a sponginess at the front of the note in amps that experience it, versus the tight, sharp attack of an amp with a big and efficient power supply and little difficulty responding at high volumes. In the smaller amps that are notorious for heavy sag, in fact, the sensation is often a combination of rectifier sag and tube sag—when the things are pushed particularly hard, at least.

Sag is usually spoken of in reference to a tube rectifier. When these components are asked to function near the top of their capabilities—for example, when the amp is turned up loud, and/or you hit it with chunky power chords or a lot of fast riffing or a heavy pick attack—the DC voltage it provides to the tubes in the rest of the circuit can dip lower for a time as it struggles to keep up with demand. The result is generally heard and felt as a compression-like softness on the attack of the note or chord, with a swell and bloom of sorts as the system ramps back up to full voltage. On most occasions all of this happens relatively quickly, even in particularly “saggy” amps, but it’s enough to affect the playing feel and the overall sound, sometimes subtly, but sometimes rather dramatically.

Discussions of sag usually bring to mind smaller tweed amps first and foremost. The Fender 5E3 Deluxe of the ’50s (and earlier models) are certainly legendary for their toothsome, player-friendly sag, as are smaller Champ and Princeton models. Many higher-powered vintage amps of the ’50s and ’60s will also sag considerably when pushed hard, as will any amps of later eras that are based on similar circuits.

Amps don’t have to have tube rectifiers to sag, however. Even solid-state rectifiers can sag slightly when the demand for more power comes hot and heavy. But on top of that, the tubes in other stages can sag in and of themselves when working hard, and the output tubes in particular.

Screen shot from HX Edit showing the Sag, Bias, and Bias X controls for a US Double Nrm amp model.

To Sag or Not to Sag

As interesting as all of this may or may not be, what really matters is whether sag is right for you and your playing style, and being able to dial it in or out accordingly. Fans of smaller to medium-sized vintage amps—and blues and classic-rock players in particular—often talk so glowingly of tube and rectifier sag that we might assume it’s universally a good thing, and indeed this parameter can add a delectably touchy-feely element to many types of playing. Several styles of music, however, come across better with little to no sag induced at the amp. Anything from speedy country picking to tight modern metal and shred will likely feel and sound more satisfying played through an amp with minimal sag, as sag can slur the notes and power chords and lead to a frustrating sludge as the amplified sound lags behind your fingers.

The trick with dialing in the degree of sag in traditional tube amps is that for the most part … you can’t. Some modern amps have functions that enable a governable range or a switch between hard and soft, but generally you’re stuck with what the circuit design, power stage, and age and condition of the amp will give you. And that’s where the Sag control in Helix comes in. Say you’re enamored with the sound of a big, tight, bold Twin Reverb-inspired model, for example, but would prefer a juicier, more forgiving playing feel—scroll down to that Sag control, slide it up to a higher setting, and go.

Taking it the other direction, if you’re in love with the tone of a tweed or other lower-wattage amp model but need a tighter, faster response for some high-BPM chicken pickin’ or precise chord work, dial down that model’s Sag control and it will magically take on some of the efficiency and response of an amp with a bigger, swifter power stage.

Experiment with this capability within several models—both working with type, and against type—and you’ll quickly discover that this seemingly subtle parameter can actually play a big part in dialing in your ideal degree of touch sensitivity, along with the perfect sound for your song.

Los Angeles-based amp tech Mike Franceschini adjusting the bias on a tube amplifier.

A Matter of Bias

A tube amp’s bias is the means by which the output tubes are set to function optimally according to the DC voltage level that is being supplied to them by the power stage. Unavoidable variables in the manufacturing process mean that all tubes coming off the line operate at slightly different levels of efficiency, performing slightly differently according to the voltage delivered to them by different amplifier circuits. Good dealers will usually match these tubes into pairs and quads that at least operate together at something very close to the same efficiency and performance levels, but the inevitable differences between different new sets of output tubes means that for fixed-bias, Class AB amps it’s impossible to set a one-time operating level that will work optimally with all possible tubes that might be used throughout its lifetime.

For this reason, most such amps include an adjustable bias circuit that enables the user—or their tech—to dial in each set of tubes after a change to ensure they are functioning their best according to the high levels of DC voltage they are seeing. (Some vintage amps were made with a set, non-adjustable bias network that gave a “good enough” performance with different sets of tubes, and the quality of tubes used in the 1950s when these amps proliferated meant they often didn’t vary too widely within acceptable parameters.)

In addition to getting the output tubes to function optimally, however, bias can be used to tweak them into slightly atypical, but potentially sonically-preferable, states. Biasing an amp’s output tubes “hot” means they will work harder (and potentially burn out sooner) while sounding warmer and softer with an easier onset of distortion. Biasing them “cold” results in a tighter, punchier sound and a little more headroom, but what can sometimes be described as “brittle” or “harsh” sounding, especially at the onset of distortion.

Note that all of this applies to so-called “fixed-bias” amps, the Class AB amps that include adjustable bias networks. The terms can be confusing, because—although it’s not worth going into the further deep-dive of the tube-amp tech here—this “fixed” term applies to most adjustable-bias amps. On the other hand, the cathode-biased amps that require no bias adjustment when tubes are replaced have a set resistor and capacitor than cannot be adjusted (think Vox AC30, Fender 5E3 tweed Deluxe, etc.).

The beauty of the inclusion of the Bias control in the Helix amp models is that you can fine-tune each amp’s output stage to lean toward that warmer/softer or tighter/harder performance that hot or cold bias, respectively, gives a real tube amp. What is more, you can do so without the premature-burn-out risk that this presents to physical tubes in the analog world. This control also allows you to adjust models of cathode-biased amps in this regard, achieving tonal tweaks that would be impossible in a genuine tube amp without firing up the soldering iron and making some invasive changes inside the circuit. Playing an amp that you’d like to sound just a little firmer and tighter? Slide that Bias control to make it a little colder. Looking for a slightly warmer and looser sound with quicker onset of distortion? Try making it hotter.

Bias X: Your Gateway to Bias Excursion

Another factor affecting any genuine tube amp’s performance is the way the bias of the output tubes reacts when hit with a high input level and distortion in the power amp. While this bias remains relatively stable throughout the range of clean playing, a heavy load from aggressive playing with the amp cranked up will send a hotter signal from the phase inverter to the grids of the output tubes, inducing something called “bias excursion.” This excursion reduces the bias level momentarily, sometimes just a little, but sometimes by as much as half or even twice the standard bias level when things are really working hard.

There will usually be a little bias excursion under normal conditions when an amp is working hard at higher volumes, but until it gets extreme the sonic results are often relatively subtle. When noticeable, it’s usually heard as increased crossover distortion—scientifically referred to as distortion that’s a little “gnarlier” and “rattier” than the smoother distortion that tubes segue toward when overdriving naturally. In a sense, bias excursion can be somewhat akin to sag in an amplifier—as discussed above—but it’s happening in a different part of the tube. And, in truth, when you’re pushing an amp hard enough for these things to occur, they are usually presenting themselves as parts of a greater sonic whole, with each parameter affecting the others as the many ingredients in an overall tonal stew.

Helix amp models included a Bias X control to govern the amount of bias excursion experienced in the output stage under high-input conditions. Push this one higher and your model will experience greater excursion within any given bias setting, inducing more of the crossover distortion heard in a tube amp when driven towards its limits. In most instances the results of changes in the Bias X control will be relatively subtle—the majority of players can probably ignore this control entirely and remain entirely happy with their Helix tones—but it’s another way in which Line 6 is drilling ever deeper into the nuances of realistic tube-amp performance.

Sliding Home

Put them all together, and the Sag, Bias, and Bias X controls enable control over fundamental tube amp parameters that can greatly affect the sound and playing feel of Helix amp models. The beauty of adjusting these controls in the Helix world is that they are entirely non-invasive, instantly accessible, and immediately reversible. What’s more, they can quickly personalize your sound, and make any amp model all the more ideal for your playing. So dive in, give those sliders some action, and see what they can do for your tone!

More on Helix.

Main image: Alex Legault
Photo of Mike Franceschini: Dan Boul

Dave Hunter is the author of The Guitar Amp Handbook, British Amp Invasion, The Gibson Les Paul, Fender 75 Years, and several other books, and is a regular contributor to Guitar Player, Vintage Guitar, and The Guitar Magazine (UK).

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