There are rules, and then there are exceptions to those rules. In the musical universe, Bill Laswell has cultivated an extraordinary body of work that pretty much breaks the mold.
Whether producing seminal albums like Public Image Ltd’s Album and Mötorhead’s Orgasmatron (both from 1986) or playing bass in bands like the intensely abrasive trio Painkiller, he’s spent most of his career defying convention. For his recent release on his M.O.D. Technologies imprint, The Drawing Center, he teams up with trumpeter Dave Douglas and drummer Hideo Yamaki and delves deeply into a boundless sonic experiment titled “The Science of Imaginary Solutions.” The 45-minute, single-track instrumental was recorded live at New York City venue the Drawing Center in August 2016 and affirms Laswell’s relentless pursuit of momentary creative expression. Not only is The Drawing Center a live record, it’s an improvisatory one. Laswell and his mates didn’t know what they were going to play when they showed up at the gig. They simply dove into the moment, trusted their instincts, and delivered an absolutely blistering set of music that defies categorization.
“The Science of Imaginary Solutions” neither adheres to the popular music format of verse/bridge/chorus/solo nor the jazz tradition of interpreting tunes with a head, motif, and solo. It’s a bold project that combines aspects of world, electronic, dub, jazz, and non-Western traditions. Laswell, Douglas, and Yamaki tap into a vast well of experience that ultimately relies on artful, subtle repetition to undergird the opus. “Repetition is crucial,” Laswell attests. “If you can’t sustain that or sustain interest in it, you’re really just bothering people with sound.”
The Drawing Center reinforces the notion that music is most effective as an in-the-present endeavor. A dialogue emerges on “The Science of Imaginary Solutions,” which evolves intuitively as the trio converse, argue, and debate using a musical language that sounds as elemental and timeless as the universe itself. Laswell seems to be at his best in these situations. His percolating, heavily effected bass lines engage with and react to the overt virtuosity of Douglas and Yamaki. His own virtuosity isn’t as obvious. It sneaks up on you via a vocabulary that is rhythmically astute, harmonically rich, and tonally deep.
Growing up in Albion, Michigan, Laswell started playing bass because he made a conscious decision to “not do all the other stupid things” that were available. “Music was a bit safer and you might even get lucky, so I decided to go that way,” he recalls.
Since almost everyone he knew played either guitar or drums, he chose bass, but literally started with a guitar and took two strings off. “There weren’t a lot of bass players and I realized that that’s the force, the pulse, of the music,” he explains. “And if you develop a sound and a way to communicate with drummers, then you really can make a very significant statement.”
Laswell has gone on to make many significant statements as both a producer and a bassist. His helming of works by Herbie Hancock, Laurie Anderson, Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, Sonny Sharrock, Mick Jagger, and many, many others attests to his diversity and acumen. And his resume as a bass player explodes with unbound expressions of his 4-string artistry. It includes his 1983 debut Baselines, his 1987 collaboration with bass saxophonist Peter Brötzmann called Low Life, 1997’s South Delta Space Age in partnership with guitarist James “Blood” Ulmer under the name Third Rail, any of the uproarious free-improv Last Exit albums, and 2000’s Tala Matrix by Tabla Beat Science with tabla master Zakir Hussain.
Laswell says it’s easier to make a statement with a bass than a guitar: “With guitar, you must constantly redefine yourself and you’re competing with so many people, so I stuck with bass.” Completely self-taught, he gleaned the fundamentals from recordings by R&B players he says were doing “pretty simple music,” like Chuck Rainey and Donald “Duck” Dunn.
Despite his taste for daring music, Laswell is a disciple of the Stax and Muscle Shoals sounds and prefers that vibe to the more fluid Motown bass approach. His reasoning illuminates the basic nature of the axis on which most of his own music rotates, no matter how dense or seemingly complex. “Stax and Muscle Shoals were simple,” he states emphatically. “And it was more feel-oriented. I could relate that to and apply it to dub and reggae. Motown was a lot of jazz musicians who all had their own thing, but they weren’t good enough to be jazz musicians, so they were in Motown. They were great at what they did, but to me it was a little complicated and jazz-oriented compared to something like Stax.”
By the time he was 15 years old, Laswell was playing in R&B bands touring from the urban north to the south and along the East Coast, traveling from Detroit, Michigan, to the Florida Keys. He was in the “Chitlin’ Circuit”—an informal network of venues that catered to African-American music lovers, which were often owned and booked by black promoters, and were safe harbors for black musicians since the days of Jim Crow.
Laswell says playing those venues “made an impression and gave me a foundation. There’s subtlety. There’s simplicity. There’s no other agenda. You’re just right there with the notes that you’re playing. These days, for young musicians coming up that’s probably impossible because everything is so complicated in every way—technology, career.”
Laswell believes the pressure to wear multiple hats has become detrimental to the growth of young players. “First, you have people setting standards that are pretty low and, again, you’re competing with technology, technique, image, presence. It goes on and on. But very little of that is as simple as someone sitting down and saying, “I think I’m going to play this…”
Despite his lofty conceptual achievements, Laswell is a meat-and-potatoes player at heart. When asked to explain how he runs his beefy Ampeg amp heads, he offered this drawing.
Playing funk, R&B, and other groove-based music on the Chitlin’ Circuit formed Laswell’s understanding of the relationship between a bassist and a drummer—something he feels is missing in a lot of contemporary music he hears. “When it works, it’s one thing,” he relates. “It’s not two people. It really serves as one functioning time machine. You’ll hear it when it works and it’s not always because they’re playing together, necessarily. It’s just the way they interpret space.”
He cites reggae rhythm dream team Sly and Robbie and Stax’s classic bass and drums chair holders, Duck Dunn and Al Jackson Jr., as good examples of rhythm sections that function as one entity. “Rock bands—not so much,” he says. “I don’t ever hear the bass and drum relationship unless you have a bass player who’s totally listening, like the guy in the Who [John Entwistle]. Keith Moon was all over the place, but the bass player managed to listen to it and it created this feeling that they were together. Led Zeppelin was the same. I thought the bass and drums were interesting, but I wasn’t always into the scratchy guitar and high singing. I really thought the bass and drums anchored that band.”
Bill Laswell’s The Drawing Center is a 45-minute, single-track, improv instrumental album recorded live at New York City venue the Drawing Center in August 2016.
Laswell has designed his M.O.D. Technologies umbrella for the musical variety and flexibility that inspires him. One day he might be creating dub music, electronic/ambient sounds the next, and maybe in some kind of African-influenced situation after that—each time with a different cast of musicians.
Though evolving as a musician is important to Laswell, he explains it’s not necessarily the key to everything. “If what you do maintains some value, some point of interest for listeners or fans, then there’s nothing wrong with that kind of fixed format,” he says. “ZZ Top has been around forever and to me they still translate. U2 has been around a long time and they’ve been consistent with their work. There are very few good examples. In most situations people are stuck together out of a sort of desperation or fear or necessity. I’ve steered away from that intuitively.”
Although musical diversity is what keeps Laswell motivated and moving, it’s clear from his R&B background and his production aesthetic that he’s as interested in music that’s raw and immediate as he is in genre-crossing or expressionistic sounds. In addition to coproducing Mick Jagger’s solo debut, 1983’s She’s the Boss, and the aforementioned Mötorhead and Public Image Ltd albums, he’s also cut discs with Iggy Pop and White Zombie, and has a fondness for punk rock.
Bill Laswell's Gear
Bass• 1977 Fender Precision with a modified fretless neck and Leo Quan Badass bridge
Amps
• Ampeg SVT-CL heads
• Ampeg SVT-VR heads
• Ampeg SVT-810E cabs
• Ampeg SVT-215E cabs
Effects
• Aguilar DB 900 Tube Direct Box
• Boss DD-3 Digital Delay
• Boss DD-7 Digital Delay
• DigiTech Bass Synth Wah
• DigiTech Whammy II
• DigiTech EX-7 Expression Factory
• DOD 545 Wah Filter
• Dunlop 105Q Cry Baby Bass Wah
• EBS UniChorus analog bass chorus
• Electro-Harmonix Bass Big Muff Pi
• Ernie Ball 6166 Mono Volume Pedal for passive electronics
• Moogerfooger MF-102 Ring Modulator
• Pigtronix EP2 Envelope Phaser
Strings
• D’Addario ENR72 Half Rounds, medium (.050–.070–.085–.105)
“There is an energy and attitude,” he says, referring to the genre. “A statement is being made, and if you mix that into hardcore and prog, you have something aggressive that will stand up.”
Laswell blended those elements as a member of John Zorn’s Bladerunner, featuring the band’s namesake saxophonist as well as drummer Dave Lombardo from Slayer. In Laswell’s universe, such endeavors are not simply vanity projects meant to bring together his buddies, but a chance to have a cathartic experience that wipes the slate clean for whatever might come next, artistically speaking.
“Every once in a while, it’s a way to blow out all of the dust,” he says. “It’s something more visceral, more aggressive, louder and more dangerous. It wakes us up to the possibilities of shock and impact and how sound can be a real force. Every few years something like that comes around. That’s been inspiring and good—a quick cleansing feeling that blows out all of the things that get stuck.”
As the conversation circles back to The Drawing Center, Laswell divulges that, even though nothing was discussed beforehand, familiarity with each musician’s skill set contributes to meaningful improvisations. “It’s totally improvised, but I was conscious of the other musicians and I know that someone like Dave Douglas, even though he’s a virtuoso player, has an interest in music that’s repetitive—he’s into beats and rhythms. So that’s a given,” Laswell says. “You know you’re not taking someone out into an area they don’t want to play in. You have to take that into consideration.”
He’s also worked with Yamaki for a long time, on improv recordings like Untaken Path and The Stone, as well as straight gigs where they just play “one thing over and over,” so they brought their established relationship to The Drawing Center. “When you do those trios, everybody should bring what they do. It moves in and out because it’s improv, and it could’ve gone a completely different way, but that’s what happened that night.”
There wasn’t even a discussion about tonal center on The Drawing Center. Similarly, Laswell’s best-known improv outfit, Last Exit, which teamed him with Brötzmann, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, and free-jazz guitar icon Sonny Sharrock, never played a note together until they hit the stage for their first gig. That may seem perplexing in that sometimes it’s hard for horn players and string players to find common ground in regard to a comfortable key signature for both parties. “I use all of the open strings, to get the harmonics, so I’m pretty much in this pitch center most of the time, unless it’s atonal,” Laswell explains. “But sometimes it can be a challenge for horn players who are dealing with E-flats and B-flats. So far, most of the people I’ve worked with are evolved, so they know the reason I’m using the open strings.”
Laswell plays a modified 1977 Fender Precision bass about 90 percent of the time. “It travels well and it’s versatile,” he explains. “It can be very warm and do clearer things, too.” He’s been using Ampeg amps since he was 16. “Same setting, same head [see Laswell’s drawing above]. As many of them as possible if it’s a big stage.” As for right-hand technique, Laswell plays mostly with his fingers. “I don’t have any technique with a pick, but I do use it for certain things,” he admits. As a matter of fact, he uses a pick so infrequently, he never knows what he’s using. “I just ask somebody for one if I want to use one.”
Effects make up a large portion of Laswell’s tonal palette. He says the true test for any effect is to use it live. He reasons that the studio is too much of a controlled environment to fully understand how an effect will respond.
Although many pedals circulate in and out of his pedalboard, he relies on a few staples to help achieve his notoriously deep bottom-end bass tone: a DOD 545 Wah Filter with a setting for only bottom end, a Pigtronix Envelope Phaser he uses for back-up bottom end, and a DigiTech Whammy II with detuned settings.
Laswell’s recordings are known for having deeply present bass sounds, but his approach to capturing those tones is as simple as his ideas about feel and repetition. “There are so many variables step by step,” he offers. “It really starts with the bass and how you play it. And then it depends on what strings work well with that bass and how it’s set up, how the action is, etc. A lot of people never even get there. They just start playing without these fundamentals, but if you should get through that, the next thing would be ‘what’s the compatible amplification for that approach?’ And when you get all that done, it’s all about how you interact with the rhythm and the drummer.”
In addition to The Drawing Center, Laswell and M.O.D. Technologies have also released Jajouka with Material—a live pairing of Laswell’s longstanding collective Material with the Master Musicians of Joujouka, who are based in the Sufi tradition—and Inaugural Sound Clash, which captures a quintet that includes Laswell and Yamaki.
The bassist says M.O.D. Technologies and the projects under its umbrella were inspired by a shift in the music industry. “There is less backing in financial terms,” he says. “We did have some help, but there is no connection to any such thing as a major label or any international facility that can make it available in many territories. It’s downsizing, but it’s not my decision to downsize. It’s a collapse. Everything is twice as hard as it was, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it."
For musicians wanting to follow his non-conformist model, Laswell shares this advice: “If someone is trying to do music and start a label and start whatever the word career is supposed to be these days, I think you either must get very lucky very quickly or you work as independently as possible, but you will still need money. And that money is not necessarily going to come from somebody who loves your work—somebody who’s going to give you a publishing advance. That model is already 20 years old. You need to find funds, and that can come from relatives, friends, or it can come from other musicians. Money is with the people who have money, and if you want money, you go to those people.”
YouTube It
Laswell’s outfit Last Exit, including guitarist Sonny Sharrock, reed player Peter Brötzmann, and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, comes roaring into a pair of intense improvisations from a mid-’80s performance in Frankfurt, Germany. There’s a rare chance to see Laswell play with a pick at the 90-second mark, and he duets with Brötzmann at about 6:30, leading to passages of slapped and tapped strings.
![Jerry Cantrell Rig Rundown [2024]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/youtube.jpg?id=53714787&width=600&height=600&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C560%2C0)
Thurston Moore is back with some new ideas on his ninth solo release, saying that he feels like a perennial apprentice in the world of music.
“There’s something very elegant to it—the fact that the helmet sort of denotes a sense of military perfection, but that it has tuning forks on it as opposed to any sort of emblem of aggression,” he tells me, Zooming in from his flat in London. “If music is, as Albert Ayler would say, the healing force of the universe, then so is the tuning fork. I thought it was just a thing of beauty.”
It also dovetails with a theme that runs through Flow Critical Lucidity, an album that Moore describes as “an expression of hope.” But characteristic of the Sonic Youth guitar icon, there are additional layers at work here. One would be that Nares is, like Moore, an alumnus of the downtown Manhattan no-wave scene, having played guitar in an early iteration of James Chance and the Contortions. “It felt right to use one of Jamie’s pieces, because we kind of came up together through this musical micro-community in New York City,” Moore says.
Another layer, I suggest, might be that the many tuning forks are a self-referential poke at Moore himself, who has made something of a career out of deploying myriad out-there tunings in the service of some of the most innovative and influential music of the past 40 years. “So, they’re ‘alternative-tuning tuning forks,’” Moore reasons, then smiles. “Maybe I could have written C–G–D–G–C–D on it.” Which is, in fact, the actual primary tuning he employed for his guitar parts throughout Flow Critical Lucidity.
Why this tuning? “I like it,” Moore says, simply. “I find it to be a good one to write in, and I’ve gotten used to it. So it’s been a mainstay for the last six years or so, and on the last couple of albums. I actually feel like I need to put it to rest a bit, because that low string tends to create this kind of droning low C on almost every song now. Maybe I’m getting a little too comfortable.”
You wouldn’t know it from Flow Critical Lucidity. Moore’s ninth solo album overall, the collection is an enchanting, transportive, and deeply creative work: There’s cadenced spoken word over clanging, chiming soundscapes on “New in Town”; gorgeous guitar and piano commingling in “Sans Limites” (with Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier dueting on vocals); feral, percussion-heavy rhythms pulsing through “Rewilding”; a no-wave callback in the jagged four-note guitar stab of “Shadow”; hypnotic, liquid guitar lines punctuating “The Diver.” There are electronics courtesy of Negativland’s Jon Leidecker, lyrics penned largely by Moore’s wife and collaborator, Eva Prinz (working under the pseudonym Radieux Radio), and, on several tracks, extensive use of prepared instruments, such as guitars with objects placed under or on the strings to modulate their tone. It is an album that is varied and vibrant, imaginative and idiosyncratic. It is, Moore has said, one of his “favorite” records in his solo catalog.
On Flow Critical Lucidity, Moore recorded with guitarist James Sedwards, bassist Deb Googe, keyboardist Jon Leidecker, and percussionist Jem Doulton. The record was mixed by Margo Broom.
“If music is the healing force of the universe, then so is the tuning fork. I thought it was just a thing of beauty.”
Though somewhat sprawling in execution, Flow Critical Lucidity came together in a uniquely focused manner, with Moore and Prinz settled at an artist residency near Lake Geneva. “They allow people to stay there for six weeks to six months to sometimes a couple years,” Moore says. “So I asked if I could lock myself away there and write—and specifically to write a new record. I had a couple guitars, a couple small amps, and a little Zoom digital recorder. Eva would throw lyrics in front of me and I would construct pieces around them.”
When it came time to record, Moore assembled his current band—Leidecker, former My Bloody Valentine bassist Deb Googe, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist James Sedwards, and percussionist Jem Doulton—at Total Refreshment Centre (“a funky little studio”) in his adopted home city of London. A key architect at this stage was Margo Broom, who mixed the material. “She was really able to put it in a place that I don’t think anybody else could have so successfully,” Moore says. “For instance, while she was mixing, I was talking to her about how to treat my vocals a bit, because I never liked my vocals so much—I’m kind of key-challenged when I sing. But Margo was able to finesse that. She said to me, ‘I’ve been listening to your vocals since I was 16 years old, so I know what I’m doing here!’ I was impressed by that.”
Moore, now 66, often records with his tried-and-true alternate tuning, C–G–D–G–C–D.
Guitar-wise, Moore continues, “Margo was able to create a lot of space, which is something that I’ve never really felt has happened so successfully, even all through Sonic Youth, because of the desire to always have a lot of guitar layers happening in the songs. But she was able to find definition there, even where there was a lot of mass information going on.”
To be sure, there’s plenty of characteristic Moore guitar work on Flow Critical Lucidity, particularly in the extended instrumental sections of songs like “The Diver” and the gently chugging “Hypnogram.” But as far as the actual gear he used in the studio, Moore kept things streamlined—one guitar, one amp.
“It was all Fender,” he says. “I used an early, pre-CBS Jazzmaster, a ’62, I think, and a Hot Rod DeVille.” Moore is, of course, a longtime Jazzmaster aficionado—in the early days of Sonic Youth, he says, “We started acquiring Jazzmasters before they became so collectible. You could go to the guitar stores in midtown New York and find one for a few hundred dollars. We had been using Harmonys and Kents and Hagstroms—whatever we could get our hands on—and the Jazzmasters and Jaguars were a step up. I gravitated more towards the Jazzmaster because the neck was slightly longer than a Jaguar’s, and for my height it worked nicely. I also liked other aspects of it, like being able to investigate behind the bridge more readily than with just about any other guitar.”
“I had a couple guitars, a couple small amps, and a little Zoom digital recorder. Eva would throw lyrics in front of me and I would construct pieces around them.”
Moore has many Jazzmasters, including one that he says is “one of the first ’58 production models,” and that Sedwards has been using extensively. But the Jazzmaster that Moore is playing now “has been my go-to for the last couple of albums. And a lot of that was defined by the one I played previously getting stolen. And then one previous to that getting stolen, too. So the record is all this guitar, and it’s all, I believe, in that same [C–G–D–G–C–D] tuning.”
Thurston Moore's Gear
Moore became famous as co-guitarist and one of three vocalists in Sonic Youth, seen here performing in 1991.
Photo by Ken Settle
Guitars
- Circa 1962 Fender Jazzmaster, tuned to C–G–D–G–C–D
- Circa 1958 Fender Jazzmaster (used by James Sedwards)
Amps
- Fender Hot Rod DeVille 410 III
Effects
- Pro Co Turbo RAT
- Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Octave Fuzz
- Xotic EP Booster
- Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff
- Electro-Harmonix Cathedral Stereo Reverb
- TC Electronic Hall of Fame
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXL (.012–.054)
- Dunlop .60 mm
Except for one song, that is. “‘New in Town’—I couldn’t even tell you what the tuning is,” Moore admits. “That song will not be played live, because it just can’t be.” The reason why, he explains, is that he performed it on prepared guitar, altering the Jazzmaster’s sound by placing objects under or between the strings and retuning the instrument in real time.
“The idea of using guitars that are extended with different implements is something that obviously I’ve been working with since the early ’80s,” he says. “But ‘New in Town’ was probably the most expansive effort of it in terms of creating a song where the preparation of the guitar was in a place of improvisation while we were recording. On that song, I’m actually moving the strings around with the tuning pegs to a point where I’m not really notating what I’m doing, and I’m furthering that by putting different implements between the strings—not just under the strings and in front of the fretboard, but actually sort of woven within the strings. Like, maybe sort of midway on the neck and then over the pickup area, and then playing in the middle between the two.”
“I never liked my vocals so much—I’m kind of key-challenged when I sing. But Margo [Broom] was able to finesse that.”
Some of the types of objects he used were “a small, cylindrical antenna; a drumstick,” Moore continues. “And then I’m picking between those two, or on either side of them, and finding a rhythm or a motif. And I’m doing this while James is playing piano and Jon is processing it and moving it around through his electronics. We recorded that, and then I took it and I cut it up and edited it to create the composition. So the actual performance—I don’t think I’d be able to reenact it again.”
For Moore, the structuring of the track was as much a creatively fulfilling endeavor as the actual performance of it. “I find that, for me, a lot of the experimentation that has rigor is in that part of it, rather than in the expanded technique on the guitar,” he says. “I feel like that’s something anybody can do, and that a lot of people do do. I mean, when I was younger and I brought the drumstick out, and I was swiping it across the strings, and it’s going through a distortion box, it sounded really cool, but it also looked really cool. I knew that there was something very performative about it. But the composition has to have value beyond the oddity of what you’re doing.”
“That song will not be played live, because it just can’t be.”
He laughs. “You know, I’ve seen comments on social media, like, ‘Playing guitar with drumsticks is stupid!’ Which I thought was a really great comment. Somebody was just not down with the program on that one. I was like, ‘Right on!’”
Which brings up a question: Does Moore immerse himself at all in the online guitar world? Is he, like the rest of us, endlessly scrolling through 30-second clips of bedroom guitarists performing jaw-dropping feats of 6-string technical facility?
The answer is, sort of.
After producing several albums with Sonic Youth, Moore began releasing solo works in 1995 with Psychic Hearts. This photo was taken in 2010.
Photo by Mike White
“I’m in that algorithm, so I will get these interesting tutorials from, like, hyper-tapping kinds of players,” he says. “And I will sometimes watch them, because I’m actually very enamored with high-technique guitar players. Even though I don’t really consider myself a high-technique guitar player—I find myself to be a very personalized-technique guitar player. And I’m okay with that.
“But I do like it,” he continues. “Whether it’s Hendrix or some guy sitting on his bed and shredding. Or someone in front of their laptop decoding a Zeppelin thing, like, ‘This is how you play “Misty Mountain Hop” correctly.’ To me that’s really interesting to see, because I love Jimmy Page. I’m never going to play like Jimmy Page, but to have someone decode it and then share that with the world, it’s like, ‘Thank you.’ If I had more time on my hands, I would tune a guitar to traditional tuning and sit down and learn it.”
“I knew that there was something very performative about it. But the composition has to have value beyond the oddity of what you’re doing.”
Most people, of course, don’t usually have to first tune their guitar to standard before they play. But then, Moore is not most people. “I don’t think I have a single guitar in that tuning,” he admits. “And it’s funny, because [Dinosaur Jr. singer and guitarist] J Mascis used to come over, and he’d tune all my guitars to traditional tuning. And it was like, ‘Stop doing that!’ you know? Would drive me crazy.”
At the end of the day, Moore’s intention is to remain creatively open. Even while he is in the throes of the album cycle around Flow Critical Lucidity—“I’m still coming to terms with what we did on this record,” he says—he’s already looking forward to what might be next. “I have it in mind, but I couldn’t say what it is. Sometimes I think I want to make a brutal, harsh, noise-wall record. Or maybe something that’s a super, super-dark metal record. Because I love that kind of stuff.”
There’s still a lot of ground, and music, to explore. “It’s all live and learn,” Moore says. “Even at 66 years old, I still feel like I’m in some place of apprenticeship with a lot of this. I don’t really feel settled. But I do feel more confident, that’s for sure.”
YouTube It
Thurston Moore, with Jazzmaster and Hot Rod DeVille, performs the Flow Critical Lucidity track “Hypnogram” live in Munich in 2023 in this fan-captured DIY video.
As long as humans have been creating art, they have also been inventing new tools for expressing that art. From the paintbrush to the synthesizer, new technologies have driven paradigm shifts, providing artists with fresh creative avenues. Technology drives the art, as they say.
That’s certainly been the case with Line 6’s DL4 Delay Modeler. Originally conceived as a humble digital delay, the Big Green Monster has created a niche of its own, serving as ground zero for entire new genres of indie and experimental music. Since its release 25 years ago, the DL4 has enhanced the creative palettes of artists ranging from Joe Perry, Mike Campbell, Dave Grohl, and Joe Satriani to Bill Frisell, Thom Yorke, and Ed O’Brien.
Nearly a quarter century later, Line 6 has introduced the DL4 MkII. The updated version features a smaller footprint, as well as increased delay time, sampling and recording via built-in micro-SD card reader, MIDI functionality, and a host of new effects algorithms from Line 6’s legendary HX family of amp and effects processors.
Inauspicious Beginnings
In the late 1990s, fresh from making a disruptive splash with their eye-catching POD amp modeler, the fledgling startup Line 6 set their sights on creating a series of pedals that would further extend their reach into digital emulations of effects. Plans called for the DM4 distortion modeler, the MM4 modulation modeler, the FM4 filter modeler, and the DL4 delay modeler.
The DL4 would include models of classic delays like the Echoplex and Roland Space Echo, as well as Line 6’s own innovative delay algorithms. But it was the DL4’s other features that would pique the interest of adventurous musicians, including a first-of-its-kind tap-tempo function and, of course, its now-legendary looper.
Jeorge Tripps was running his own boutique pedal company, Way Huge, when he was invited to consult with Line 6 on modeling vintage pedals. A few months into the project he was offered a position with the company. “Line 6 was like college for me,” Tripps recounts. “I had worked on things on my own, but developing a product with a team was really an education. Ideas are easy, but bringing a product to fruition as a team was a whole different experience.”
The team comprised the cream of the Line 6 brain trust, including co-founders Michel Doidic and Marcus Ryle, as well as product developers Greg Westall, Jeff Slingluff, and Patrick O’Connor, engineers Nigel Redmon and Kevin Duca, industrial designer Lucien Tu, and numerous other contributors. As Tripps observes, the input of those different perspectives was critical to the project.
“Most of us were also players, and that made a difference. You can create a product that’s great from an engineer’s perspective, but when you put it the hands of an artist, they might see something completely different in it.”
Keep It Simple
Simplicity was part of the design goal of the DL4. “The idea was to create a digital pedal with analog functionality,” explains Tripps, adding that he had limited input into the design. “Much of it was already planned out by the time I joined the project. The industrial design was there. I had to figure out how to map functions to the existing hardware.”
The interface was straightforward: a 16-position mode selector knob, five knobs to adjust parameters, and four analog-style footswitches: Record/Overdub, Play/Stop, Play Once, and 1/2 Speed/Reverse. It was Tripps who suggested the fourth button be used for tap-tempo function.
The DL4 also incorporated stereo outputs, which was something of a last-minute addition. “When the DL4 first came out, very few guitarists were playing stereo rigs,” Tripps reports. “We put it in there just because it was cheap and easy to implement. Only after it was out for a while did people start discovering it.”
Tripps also played a key role in promoting the looper, which was in some ways almost an afterthought. Of course, looping itself was nothing new. The Echoplex and other tape-based delays had been around for decades. But analog delays were expensive and unwieldy for live work, and the early digital pedals didn’t have a lot of memory—certainly not enough for looping.
In fact, it was digital’s limitations that contributed to another of the DL4’s characteristic sonic features. “Technically, we couldn’t get quite 15 seconds of loop time; it was like 14 and change,” Tripps recalls. “So we decided to take that remaining few hundred milliseconds of delay time and run that through the looper.”
A Slow Build
Despite Line 6’s aggressive advertising, the DL4 and its siblings were not an immediate hit. “People didn’t really know what it was at first,” says Tripps. “It didn’t really explode until a handful of people started doing stuff with it.” Slowly and steadily, artists as varied as Dimebag Darryl, Ed O’Brien, The Edge, and Thom Yorke started squeezing whole new sonic landscapes from the diminutive box.
Minus the Bear’s David Knudson made the DL4 an integral part of the band’s sound. “At first I was mesmerized by the rad stereo sounds. Playing in a hardcore/metal band at the time, in the beginning I was using one half-stack amp. At some point down the line, I realized that as the only guitar player I should get another half-stack for the other side of the stage. Once I plugged in the DL4 to each half-stack and found the Ping Pong delay, my mind was instantly blown. The melodic guitar parts had never sounded so huge and epic. It was the beginning of an epic journey to discover what all the delays were about.”
For Joff Oddie of indie rockers Wolf Alice, the experience was equally liberating. “I actually don’t think I’d even used a delay pedal before and it blew my mind. There were sounds that I expected, and then other settings like the Sweep delay and reverse sounds, which to me sounded so otherworldly yet at the same time organic. I never gave my manager the pedal back. I hope he doesn’t read this.”
As Knudson notes, it was many years later and a happy accident in the studio that led to his discovering the DL4’s looping function. “We were recording some demos after our first LP came out and I think out of boredom I played a little tapping lead into the looper. That song would become “Fine +2 Points,” which features a re-triggered loop section in the bridge that really opened the door for me. After that little successful experiment, for our next record, Menos El Oso, I was in full-on loop and sampler mode. I realized that with multiple DL4s I could emulate some of my favorite cut-up and glitchy sounds coming out of artists like Four Tet, DJ Shadow, Caribou, and other early EDM pioneers. The one-shot function allowed me to re-trigger samples and create riffs that sounded like they should have originated on an MPC. Eight of the 11 songs on that record have sampled riffs and re-defined what guitar playing meant for me.”
Of course, looping was only part of the DL4’s broader appeal, which also offered sounds and tactile control previously unavailable on most effects pedals. “I loved how cranking the feedback knob made it go crazy,” opines Oddie, “how the time knob sounded when you wiggled it and the delays pitch shifted. Part of its charm is how incredibly tactile it is.”
“I’ve yet to find another sampler pedal that works as well as the DL4,” adds Knudson. “It’s super easy to use and so straightforward that it’s perfect for the live setting. I don’t want a bank of digital menus to scroll through, and the fact that it can get everything I need done with four buttons is perfect. If it were any more complicated I don’t think it would have been nearly as successful as it has become.”
Like most legends, the DL4 has spawned a host of imitators. Looping and sampling have become powerful tools for guitarists and other musicians, and while the DL4 may not have been the first, it’s largely seen as the big daddy of the art form.
“The DL4 didn’t really break any new ground, yet it was a major leap,” observes Tripps. “It didn’t improve on existing delays as much as it created a whole new instrument. It put a lot of power on the floor for guitarists, along with a really intuitive interface. Almost by accident, it made looping accessible for live performance.”
It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 25 years since the DL4 made its debut. Technology has obviously come a long way since then, and Line 6 has recently unveiled a new commemorative 25th Anniversary edition of the iconic pedal. The Mk II version adds to the legend without taking away the features that made it what it is. “The MkII just improves upon an already great pedal,” Knudson observes. “Honestly, one of the best things is just the smaller footprint on the pedalboard. As we know, boards are increasingly becoming competitive as to how much stuff you can squeeze on there! But I love the additional delays and reverbs. The classics are obviously my go-to choices, but I love how it has evolved and elevated with current trends with guitarists but still stayed true to form in what made it so wonderful in the first place.”
The quiet impact of the DL4 is something no one would have foreseen. Much like a band making a record, all the best laid plans won’t predict the public’s response. Will it thud like a tree in an empty forest, or be gone tomorrow like a flash in the pan? Like a hit single, only time will tell if it has the staying power to become a legend. As Tripps concludes, “It was the right combination of great minds, great ideas, and great execution, at the right time.”
Celebrating 10 years of Revv & 5 years since the release of the G2, Revv is debuting V2 circuit revisions of the G2, G3, & G4, implementing new designs for more tone in 3 little pedals, in a limited edition colorway.
The Revv Amplification 5th Anniversary G-Series V2 Lineup features:
- 3 Fresh Flavors of Boutique Canadian Tone - G-Series pedals are sonic recreations of 3 of Revv’s boutique amp channels used by Nashville session stars & metal touring artists alike.
- The Standard, Redefined - V2 circuit revisions are based on the Generator 120 MK3 Rev. B & incorporate new design elements for the most tube-like response & tone ever.
- Limited Edition - Exclusive new colorway featuring a black enclosure w/ custom graphics, embossed Revv badge, & color-coded knobs.
- Find Your Sound - The G2 is a powerful & versatile overdrive capable of everything from touch-sensitive boost to organic vintage stack tones, taken from Revv’s Green Channel.
- High Gain Clarity - The G3 utilizes Revv’s legendary Purple Channel, a tight & responsive high gain tone perfect for drop tuning & cutting through any mix.
- Fat Solo Tones - The G4 is based on Revv’s thick & saturated Red Channel, the ideal sound for chewy crunch, modern rock wall of sound, & liquid sustaining solos.
- Made in Canada - 100% analog circuit w/ top jacks, true bypass, & 2 year warranty.
Revv’s G-Series pedals have a street price of $229 & can be ordered immediately through many fine dealers worldwide.
For more information, please visit revvamplification.com.
Revv G3 Purple Channel Preamp/Overdrive/Distortion Pedal - Anniversary Edition
Huge shocker incoming: Zach Broyles made a Tube Screamer. The Mythos Envy Pro Overdrive is Zach’s take on the green apple of his eye, with some special tweaks including increased output, more drive sounds, and a low-end boost option. Does this mean he can clear out his collection of TS-9s? Of course not.
This time on Dipped in Tone, Rhett and Zach welcome Tyler Bryant, the Texas-bred and Nashville-based rocker who has made waves with his band the Shakedown, who Rhett credits as one of his favorite groups. Bryant, it turns out, is a TS-head himself, having learned to love the pedal thanks to its being found everywhere in Texas guitar circles.Bryant shares how he scraped together a band after dropping out of high school and moving to Nashville, including the rigors of 15-hour drives for 30-minute sets in a trusty Ford Expedition. He’s lived the dream (or nightmare, depending on the day) and has the wisdom to show it.
Throughout the chat, the gang covers modeling amps and why modern rock bands still need amps on stage; the ins and outs of recording-gear rabbit holes and getting great sounds; and the differences between American and European audiences. Tune in to hear it all.
