PG’s Chris Kies visits Nashville’s Diamond Sound Studios before Julien Baker ventured on her joint tour performing as a solo act and with her songwriting compatriots Phoebes Bridgers and Lucy Dacus who all compromise boygenuis. Before launching the tour at the Ryman, Baker walks us through her sparse rig, before getting colorful and spacey with a plentiful pedalboard of modulation and ’verbs.
Julien Baker favors T-style guitars because of their breadth of tonal varieties, how easily they can be modded, and their dependability. She has a blue Fender Tele that has a wiring mod that unlocks both series and parallel modes, but the above butterscotch model has its stock wiring intact. It has been upgraded with a G&L ASAT pickups with a P-90 in the neck and a MFD in the bridge. She goes with Ernie Ball Slinky .010 –.046 strings and digs in with Dunlop 44P88 Nylon Standard .88 mm picks.
While Julien Baker does run two amps, she doesn’t use them in a true stereo format. She uses this Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 1x12 for the main, midrange-heavy tone.
Here are Julien Baker’s settings on the Blues Deluxe.
The second part to Julien Baker’s one-two punch is this Fender ’68 Custom Twin Reverb combo that adds top-end sparkle and added stage volume when it’s needed.
While boygenius performs as a trio (occasionally with a backing band), Julien Baker is the sole performer onstage for her set. For looping and amp-switching duties, she employs the Morley George Lynch Tripler, Boss RC-3 Looper, and Morley ABC 3-Button Switcher. The real fun begins with the Electro-Harmonix MEL9, Strymon blueSky, a trio of Walrus Audio pedals—Fathom, Bellwether, and Descent—a ZVEX Fuzz Factory, Emerson Custom Paramount Overdrive, and a pair of Old Blood Noise Endeavors—Excess and Dweller. And her guitar is kept in check thanks to the TC Electronic PolyTune 2 Mini.
And to aid in the building of her organic, nightly loops, Julien Baker has this Boss RC-300 Loop Station loaded with some presets ready to help provide a bed for her solo tunes.
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Chris Kies has degrees in Journalism and History from the University of Iowa and has been with PG dating back to his days as an intern in 2007. He's now the multimedia manager maintaining the website and social media accounts, coordinating Rig Rundown shoots (also hosting and/or filming them) and product demos, and occasionally writing an artist feature, all while still shooting/editing video for NAMM-show coverage. Other than that, he spends time with his pitbull and enjoys non-guitar-related hobbies.
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