Before hitting the road, Marshall adopts an intense practice regimen for all the techniques he'll need to cover. "My right hand gets really dialed when it's tour time."
Cardi B's “WAP" may have ruled the airwaves for the last few months, but that hasn't stopped a massive scene of technically advanced, guitar-centric rock from “quietly" enjoying astounding worldwide popularity, too. And Aaron Marshall, the mastermind behind prog heavyweights Intervals, is among those at its forefront. But keeping a band and the genre—which also includes Animals As Leaders, Covet, Polyphia, Chon, and other bands—moving forward is a full-time job. So, in the online-music era, artists have to adapt and become as proficient at business and production as they are at their instruments.
Marshall is a template for this breed of renaissance musician. He is a business owner, composer, producer, and a social-media marketing guru, and he releases his own music without a record label. Plus, he's a mind-blowing guitarist. Even during COVID-related lockdowns and unrest, these skills keep Marshall, his band, and his business busy. While some bands are hunkering down and waiting it out, Intervals is pushing forward with its just-released album, Circadian.
“We decided to move full steam ahead," Marshall says. “Give [the fans] some new music, and we'll see how things progress from there. We're glad we can provide for fans of the music, and we feel that we made the right choice."
This commitment to both fan base and craft is why Intervals has risen to the cream of the boundary-expanding prog-guitar crop in the nine years since Marshall formed the Toronto-based band. It's also evident in the compositional and fretboard theatrics found throughout Circadian's 35 minutes.
To make the album, Marshall and producer Sam Guaiana locked themselves away, exploring and expanding Intervals' trademark rhythmic complexity and harmonic interplay. Factor Guaiana's pop production techniques in with Marshall's low-tuned, aggressive riffing on songs like “Vantablack" and “String Theory," and Circadian takes the band to a very different place than earlier albums.
Also, fleet-fingered guests Marco Sfogli (of Dream Theater singer James LaBrie's band) and Joshua De La Victoria elevate a couple of Marshall's compositions beyond what he thought was possible. You'll even find an inspiring saxophone solo on “D.O.S.E.," as well as the powerhouse rhythms of bandmembers Josh Umansky on bass and drummer Nathan Bulla. Yet even with all of these ingredients, Circadian never comes off as disjointed. According to Marshall, that's because it's all about “this constant striving for balance. It's things that I'm passionate about, conveyed through the music."
Over the last three albums, Intervals has developed a signature sound that's soaring, majestic, and full of rich dynamics, tempo changes, and varied instrumental colors. How do you balance all that while still growing as an artist?
I try to write based on intuition. With each body of work, I'm a different person. I'm always into new things. Perhaps my pencil would be a little sharper if I was constantly composing. But I've never had the luxury. Since the beginning of this journey, it's been a freight train. There's always been deadlines and things.That's what's pretty exciting about right now, honestly: the fact that I have time to compose. I've got the bug to continue writing, and I'm feeling really good about it.
Circadian has some heavier moments. Did you set out to bring more metal to this album?
I did, actually. I'm dipping a toe on taking Intervals back in that direction. I wanted to bring the 7-string back a little bit. One of the 7-string songs is in drop A, and then there's another, “String Theory," that's drop D with a low A. But I didn't want to go, “Okay. Here's a fucking full-tilt 7-string record." I still had things I wanted to say with 6-string. But I think it's a sign of things to come. Part of me is eyeing an 8-string and going, “Maybe that's going to be a vibe at some point." Who knows?
How else did Circadian help you grow?
I'm continuing to grow as a composer, in terms of my attention to detail and arrangement. I'm exploring new production tricks, new ways that we can utilize the guitar. Something I love about vocal production is wide, stereo background vocals. And Sam, the producer and engineer that I worked with, primarily works in the pop-punk world. So he was good at applying those vocal techniques [to guitars]. That's something I'm really, really excited about.Also, we doubled all my guitar harmonies—even if it was a third above, a third below, octaves, or a combination of those. Then we could say, “I want this to have that stereo background vocal vibe." We could pan them harder away from each other, maybe even compress them more, or do something like adding some chorus. It's painstaking—we would have to really scrutinize takes to get them really tight with each other. But I'm excited about what we achieved.
The collaborations with Marco Sfogli and Joshua De La Victoria are impressive.
I'm in love with Josh's project called Victoria, which has Matt Garstka, the drummer from Animals As Leaders. He's like 22 or 23. It's kind of scary, he's so good, and I really love providing a platform to show him off. I was sending him bounces and asked what he thought. Usually, a [guest-artist] feature is within the context of the solo section. But we tossed some ideas back and forth, and I was like, “Oh, this is money." That's why that song ended up being called “Lock & Key." It's synergistic. One [player's part] completes the other.
As far as Marco on “String Theory," he is probably my favorite guitar player of all time. I've been stealing his approach to melodic, top-line guitar for years. I had a solo spot open up, and I figured I'd shoot my shot. He got back to me and said that he'd be really excited to do it, and 48 hours later I had a completely finished solo in my inbox. I was like, “Dude, are you kidding me?!" I completely lost my shit. I told my parents because they know how much of a fan I am. I was telling everybody I know! The part has my jaw on the floor every time I hear it.
Despite being recorded during the pandemic, tracking for the new album “didn't feel too far from what I'm used to," says Marshall. It's “largely dependent on guitars. So we don't usually have anyone else around anyway."
During 2015's The Shape of Color, you were with PRS. With The Way Forward, in 2017, you played a lot of Suhr and Aristides guitars. Now, you're using Mayones. What inspired these changes?
Really, at the end of the day, it's about listening to my intuition. And it's about exploring and finding what speaks to me, what works, and feeling that I'm in the correct company.It's never about being unhappy with the guitars. It also has nothing to do with the end goal of slapping my name on an instrument. Sometimes people think that can be the case, but I can assure you it's not.The Mayones guys have always been very kind to me. The opportunity was there to spend some time in Gdańsk, at their shop in Poland, and check everything out. I had a blast. I was very impressed by the guitars and the operation.Then they sent some instruments to try to see if they suit my tastes. Those first two Mayones Regius Core models are amazing—they're absolutely phenomenal, road-worthy instruments. They sound great, and they're all over the record. Those are the guitars that I showed on our Rig Rundown with you guys. That was my first tour with them. Now we're playing around with some ideas and experimenting with stuff. People like to take guesses at what those things are, because they see guitars and they go, “Oh, this must be it" ... “That must be it." I can assure everybody that I'm going to throw a curveball with what we're working on. I'm really excited about it.
So there's going to be an Aaron Marshall signature Mayones guitar?
Well, I'm being very cryptic. But we are working on an instrument that doesn't exist in the catalog. It has specs that are extremely particular to me. If that's not being explicit, then I don't know what is [laughs].
What other guitars did you play on the album?
I used a Martin that was borrowed from a good buddy, Rob Cappelletto. He's faculty at York University (in Toronto), for the jazz program. He's also my tech, a guru, and somebody that I really look up to. I can't remember exactly what model it was.The meat-and-potatoes 6-strings were my Tele and the jade-green Regius Core from Mayones with Bare Knuckle Silos. We also used my gunmetal Suhr Custom Modern with the roasted neck, the reversed headstock, and a Floyd for some overdubs. The 7-string stuff is probably equal parts my Abasi J Larada 7, with a wenge neck, and my Regius Core 7 from Mayones. It's the purple one with the ash body. That one has Silos in it, as well. We really liked how that guitar sounds, because it has a Schaller Hannes bridge on it, which is a very particular sound.
Be sure to watch our in-depth Rig Rundown with Intervals:
Intervals leader Aaron Marshall plays 6- and 7-string Mayones Regius Core guitars with Bare Knuckle Silo pickups, and is currently collaborating with the Polish company on a signature model. Photo by Mike DeMellia
You've been a big proponent of amp modeling, but the studio can be very different. Do you use live amps and pedals while recording?
Actually, funny enough, I'm pacing around my studio right now, staring at a wall of amps and pedals. But no analog equipment was harmed in the making of this record. The album is 100 percent Neural DSP plug-ins. Isn't that terrifying? It's terrifying.It's the Fortin Cali Suite plug-in on all of the rhythms. It's amp three from the Archetype: Nolly on the majority of leads. Some stylized cleans are from Archetype: Abasi. And we used the 800-type amp two from Archetype: Nolly for some split-coil pushed mid-gain type vibes and textural-type things.
The even crazier part was that every single tone that made it into the mix was the exact tone that we dialed in to track with. I literally sat there with a cable plugged into a Radial DI that went into some sort of outboard compressor scenario. The bass was probably 90 percent Parallax, maybe a little bit of the Darkglass plug-in at times. That's it. Funny enough, while all of the guitars are completely digital, there is zero sample replacement or reinforcement on the drum kit. The drums are more natural than the fucking guitars, which is insane!
Will you be programming those tones into your Axe-Fx III for live performance, or will you be using the Neural DSP stuff onstage?
The live rig hasn't changed at all since we did that Rig Rundown. It went from that tour into storage, because life is a cruel joke in 2020 [laughs]. I'm already so stressed out about a laptop running in conjunction with the show. I only want it to be tasked with sequencing and the clicks, and when we have an automated light show, MIDI changes, and stuff like that.
The Axe-Fx III is my favorite modeler. It's the crown jewel of the modeling world and I'm extremely comfortable with it. I have no doubt that I could recreate everything that I've achieved in the box with the Axe-Fx. And I love the AX8. It's what we use for international touring. We run them with the smaller Seymour Duncan PowerStage power-amp setup. But the AX8 was discontinued, and they moved over to the FM3. So I am going to be checking out the Neural DSP Quad Cortex.
This might be a ways off, but how do you prepare new material for a tour?
I have to admit that, lately, I'm not doing the regimented one- or two-hour divided practice and covering all my bases. I don't have the time anymore, especially with being an independent artist and having a life outside of the guitar. However, when it's live time I cover more bases in maintaining and oiling up the various aspects of [my playing].I'll be playing a wider breadth of material, because “this song has a shit-ton of picking, this song has a lot of legato, this song has got tapping stuff, this song's extremely rhythmic.…" My right hand gets really dialed when it's tour time.But I might not be as creative then. It depends on what you're reserving your bandwidth for. I might not have all the techniques or all these different fields completely dialed in when I'm doing the studio stuff. But my brain is switched on. I'm curating the things that I need to serve ideas as they arrive.
Speaking of that creative space, not only is Circadian full of great playing but there's a narrative running throughout the album. What's the premise?
One of the things I love about instrumental music is that you're going to elicit a response—whether it's the one that you plant in the listener's head, or maybe you open the door a crack and let them figure the rest out. I've sort of been doing that a little bit more with each release.Circadian is a metaphor for balance. It's the concept of a circadian rhythm or the cyclical connection we have to the environment, the planet, the sun, and the moon cycle. It's about this idea of the human journey and constantly striving for balance.
Guitars
Mayones Regius Core 6-string with Bare Knuckle Silo pickups
Mayones Regius Core 7-string with Bare Knuckle Silos and Schaller Hannes bridge Abasi J Larada 7-string
Suhr Custom Modern
Martin acoustic
Amps & Effects
Seymour Duncan PowerStage 700
Seymour Duncan PowerStage 170
Custom Mesa/Boogie 4x12
Fractal Audio Axe-Fx III
Fractal Audio AX8
Neural DSP plug-ins
Strings and Picks
D'Addario NYXL strings (.009–.046, .009–.064 for 7-string)
Custom Dunlop Tortex picks
It can be a difficult time to find balance. What was it like recording the album remotely, with Jacob recording his bass parts from the U.S., and with everything that's going on in the world?
Well, it honestly didn't feel too far from what I'm used to. Recording an Intervals album is largely dependent on guitars. So we don't usually have anyone else around anyway. I mean, I was driving to the studio every day and spending 8 to 10 hours tracking with Sam. Remembering to grab your mask before you go out and get lunch is probably the weirdest thing about each day [laughs].
Many bands are choosing to wait on album releases. Why release Circadian in the middle of this crisis?
Well, the plan was always to take 2020 to write the new record. But, obviously, with the way things unfolded this year, it made the logistical part very challenging. We decided to book recording time regardless, because we wanted to continue moving towards our goals. We actually surveyed my Instagram via a story post. We posed the question, “How important is it for you that your favorite artist is immediately touring off the back of a release?" It was really interesting. This music is so popular in a lot of international territories, where people are lucky if they get one show an album cycle. They see live opportunities as just that, opportunities. It's a bonus for them. So we decided, “You know what? It would probably be best for us to go ahead and actually drop this year and see. Yes, it might get knee-capped by the inability to tour, but we owe it to our fans. Maybe it could be a shining light for them in a dark time."
Speaking of international markets, highly technical guitar bands like Intervals, Yvette Young and Covet, Animals As Leaders, Plini, Scale the Summit, CHON, and Polyphia are growing in popularity throughout the world. What unites your bands, and why is there such demand for this kind of guitar music?
Look, there are so many legends that have done [instrumental guitar music] before. But it was executed differently—not to take away from anybody. They all paved the way for us. But there wasn't as much attention to the overall compositions. Some of the early iterations of this music did feel self-indulgent, where it's like a backing track and then room to rip on top. What I think creates this entire new universe is the prerequisite that you have to be a skilled composer and make interesting music. It's inclusive of the entire band. It makes every person in this world feel more like a composer than a guitar player. If you look at all of the top people in this new wave, I think that's one of the most congruent things.
And yet, people still say that the electric guitar is dying.
Well, anyone who thinks the death of the electric guitar is upon us is very out of touch. You can't hold its head underwater. The electric guitar is iconic. It's not going anywhere.You still have young people that are really interested in music for music's sake. And there is this wave of online instrumental guitar music that is the best it's ever been. And for us to be able to go to places like Southeast Asia or South Africa or more obscure places and have hundreds of kids at shows or a large festival billing … it flies in the face of the argument that the electric guitar is dying. I make a living every day playing the electric guitar. My identity is built around this thing. I've been my own boss since 2015. I don't really think you can tell me that my instrument or my craft is dying. This entire thing is bigger and better than it ever has been.
In his first play-through video for Circadian, Aaron Marshall gives a guided fretboard tour of “5-HTP." He's using the MayonesRegius Core 6-string that accompanied him on the band's most recent tour.
- Rig Rundown: Intervals - Premier Guitar ›
- First Look: Neural Quad Cortex - Premier Guitar ›
- Rig Rundown: Dance Gavin Dance's Will Swan - Premier Guitar ›
- Nita Strauss Conquers the World - Premier Guitar ›
- Polyphia’s Guitarists are Ready for their Big Moment - Premier Guitar ›
- Animals as Leaders’ Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes Rediscover “Real” Amps - Premier Guitar ›
Pickup screws with latex tubing.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to eliminate most of these issues. And if you haven’t faced such problems on your Tele, you can still give these a try, and chances are good that you never will. These procedures will not alter the tone of your Telecaster in any way, so it’s better to have it and not need rather than to need it and not have it.
Checking the Pickups
Over the years, I have seen the wildest things coming stock from the factory, especially on budget pickups: unbent metal tabs on neck pickups, loose metal base plates on bridge pickups, bridge pickups only held by the springs, and other crazy stuff.
Let’s start with the neck pickup. Make sure the cover is installed tightly and is not loose in any way. The metal cover is only held by three metal tabs that are bent around the bottom of the pickup, one of them usually connected to the pickup’s ground. Make sure they are tight, holding the metal cover firmly in place. If not, they need to be re-bent. Be careful to not break them.
“Often, these small metal springs can cause feedback, and I’m sure Leo Fender had his reasons for choosing latex tubing instead.”
On the bridge pickup, the metal base plate on the bottom needs to be attached firmly. Check with your fingers to see if it can move. If so, even in only one spot, you need to re-glue it to isolate vibration. Otherwise, it will squeal at high volumes. This is easy to do, and the easiest and best way is to completely take the base plate off, clean it, and re-glue it with a thin layer of silicone from your local Home Depot.
While you are in there, it’s always a good idea to convert both pickups to 3-conductor wiring by breaking the ground connection of the metal cover (neck pickup) and the base plate (bridge pickup). Attach a third wire to one of the lugs of the metal cover and another one to the metal base plate, and solder both to a grounding point of your choice, e.g. the casing of one of the pots. This can be helpful for future mods, like any 4-way switch mod, where this is a mandatory requirem
Un-springing the Pickup Attachment
If your pickups are attached with metal springs to enable height-adjustment, you should replace them with some latex tubing. Often, these small metal springs can cause feedback, and I’m sure Leo Fender had his reasons for choosing latex tubing instead of metal springs. This is cheap, fast, and easy to do; you can get latex tubing from any guitar store or online for only a few cents. (See photo at top.)
Cushioning the Pickups
On a Tele, there’s usually a gap between the bottom of the pickups and the inside of the guitar’s body. This open space can exacerbate feedback issues. Luckily, it’s easy to solve with a piece of foam.
Using a piece of white paper, outline the routing for each pickup. Cut them out as a template for the foam. Then, trim the foam to shape. Place the foam on the bottom of both pickup routings, and you are done. There is no need to glue or attach the foam in any way.
It’s important that the bottom of the pickup is touching the foam so there is no more open gap. I usually use foam that is a little bit thicker than necessary, so the pickup will press on it slightly, making a perfect connection. The type of foam is not important as long as the gap is closed. I prefer to use foam rubber that is easily available in a variety of thicknesses.
Closing Support Routings
On a lot of Telecasters, you can find open support routings from the neck pickup routing towards the electronic compartment. This is for easier access when running the wires of the neck pickup through the body.
Note the various cavities in this typical Telecaster body.
Photo courtesy of Singlecoil (https://singlecoil.com)
There are two ways of routing the wires of the neck pickup through the body: from the neck pickup routing directly into the electronic compartment or into the routing of the bridge pickup, and from there into the electronic compartment, which is the traditional way. In the latter case, make sure all the wires are running underneath the additional piece of foam. If you have any open support routings on your Telecaster body, put some foam in to close them. You don’t need to attach the foam; the pickguard will hold it in place. The kind of foam doesn’t matter, and you can also use things like a small piece of cotton cloth, cotton wool, Styrofoam, etc. in there.
Addressing Bridge Plate Flaws
One of the most common reasons for unwanted feedback is the typical Telecaster bridge plate. The Telecaster bridge system was designed in the ’40s by Leo Fender himself and is crude at best. Its function was simply positioning the strings and providing a rough, easy adjustment of the intonation and the string-height settings. It wasn’t long before Fender released the much-improved bridge design found on the Stratocaster.
The current production Fender vintage bridge plate, as well as most budget aftermarket bridge plates, is made from thin hot-rolled steel in a deep-drawn process. Using this manufacturing process, parts can be made very quickly and cheaply, but at severe cost in quality. The steel used must be very soft and thin to allow it to fold and bend in the corners.
A classic Telcaster bridge plate.
Photo courtesy of Singlecoil (https://singlecoil.com)
Unfortunately, this process creates unusual internal stress in the steel, which can bow the plate so it can’t sit flat on the wooden body. This is a common reason for unwanted feedback on so many Teles. Interestingly, the early vintage bridge plates Fender made used a cold-rolled steel procedure to relieve stress in the material and to avoid this problem. Long live modern mass production!
If you have a Tele with a bowed bridge plate, there are three possible things you can do:
• Change the bowed bridge plate for a straight and even one. (This is the easiest way to avoid any troubles.) There are excellent replacement bridge plates on the market, so you’ll have plenty of choices for materials, designs, finishes, etc.
• Get the bowed bridge plate to a metal fabricator or tool maker so they can try to solve the problem for you. This process will probably cost you more than a new bridge, so this is only an option if it’s a special bridge you want to keep, no matter the cost.
• Drill two small additional holes on the front of the bridge plate, shown as red dots in the picture. After re-installing the bridge plate on the guitar, tightly drill two wood screws through these holes. Often, modern replacement bridges already have these two additional holes. In many cases, this will do the trick, so you don´t have to buy a new bridge.
If you have gone through this entire list and still have problems with feedback, it’s very likely that the pickup itself needs to be re-potted, which a pickup builder can do for you.
Next month, we will stay on the Telecaster subject, taking a close look at the famous Andy Summers Telecaster wiring, so stay tuned!
Until then ... keep on modding!
Andy Powers has been working with electric guitars his whole life, and he’s been slowly collecting all the ideas that could go into his own “solo project,” waiting for the right time to strike.
As CEO, president, and chief guitar designer of Taylor Guitars, Andy Powers has an unimaginable amount of experience sifting through his ideas and, with a large production mechanism at hand, efficiently and effectively realizing them. He knows that there are great ideas that need more time, and rethinking electric guitar design—from the neck to the pickups to how its hollow body is constructed—doesn’t come quickly. His A-Type—which has appeared in Premier Guitarin the hands of guitarists Andy Summers and Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard—is the innovative flagship model of his new brand, Powers Electric. And it’s the culmination of a lifetime of thought, experience, and influences.
“Southern California is a birthplace of a lot of different things. I think of it as the epicenter of electric guitar.”
“I’ve got a lot of musician friends who write songs and have notebooks of ideas,” explains Powers. “They go, ‘I’ve got these three great verses and a bridge, but no chorus. I’ll just put it on the shelf; I’ll come back to it.’ Or ‘I’ve got this cool hook,’ or ‘I’ve got this cool set of chord changes,’ or whatever it might be—they’re half-finished ideas. And once in a while, you take them off the shelf, blow the dust off, and go, ‘That’s a really nice chorus. Maybe I should write a couple of verses for it someday. But not today.’ And they put it back.”
That’s how his electric guitar design spent decades collecting in Powers’ head. There were influences that he wanted to play with that fell far afield from his acoustic work at Taylor, and he saw room to look at some technical aspects of the instrument a little differently, with his own flair.
The Powers Electric A-Type draws from Powers’ lifelong influences of cars, surfing, and skateboarding.
Over the course of Powers’ “long personal history” with the instrument, he’s built, played, restored, and repaired electric guitars. And, having grown up in Southern California, surrounded by custom-car culture, skateboarding, and surfing—all things he loves—he sees the instrument as part of his design DNA.
“Southern California is a birthplace of a lot of different things,” Powers explains. “I think of it as the epicenter of electric guitar. Post-World War II, you had Leo Fender and Paul Bigsby and Les Paul—all these guys living within just a couple of miles of each other. And I grew up in those same sorts of surroundings.”
Those influences and the ideas about what to do with them kept collecting without a plan to take action. “At some point,” he says, “you need the catalyst to go, ‘Hey, you know what? I actually have the entire guitar’s worth of ideas sitting right in front of me, and they all go together. I would want to play that guitar if it existed. Now is a good time to build that guitar.’”
“I started thinking, ‘If I had been alive then, what would I have made?’ It’s kind of an open-ended question, because at that point, well, there’s no parts catalogs to buy stuff from. A lot of these things hadn’t been invented yet. How would you interpret this?”
The pandemic ultimately served as the catalyst Powers’ electric guitars needed, and that local history proved to be a jumping-off point necessary for focusing his long-marinating ideas. “I started thinking, ‘If I had been alive then, what would I have made?’ It’s kind of an open-ended question, because at that point, well, there’s no parts catalogs to buy stuff from. A lot of these things hadn’t been invented yet. How would you interpret this? As a designer, I think that’s really interesting. Overlay that with understanding what happens to electric guitars and how people want to use them, as well as some acoustic engineering. Well, that’s pretty fascinating. That’s an interesting mix.”
Tucked away in his home workshop, Powers set about designing a guitar, building “literally every little bit other than a couple screws” including handmade and hand-polished knobs. Soon, the prototype for the Powers Electric A-Type was born. “I played this guitar and went, ‘I’ve been waiting a long time to play this guitar.’ A friend played it and went, ‘I want one, too.’ Okay, I’ll make another one. Made two more. Made three more….”
The A-Type—seen here with both vibrato and hardtail—is a fully hollow guitar that is built in what Powers calls a “hot-rod shop” on the Taylor Guitars campus.
From there, Powers recalls that he started bringing his ideas back to his shop on Taylor’s campus, where he set up “essentially a small hot-rod shop” to build these new guitars. “It’s a real small-scale operation,” he explains. “It exists here at Taylor Guitars, but in its own lane.”
The A-Type—currently the only planned Powers Electric model—has the retro appeal of classic SoCal electrics. Its single-cut body style is unique but points to the curvature of midcentury car designs, and the wide range of vibrant color options help drive that home. Conceptually, the idea of reinventing each piece of the guitar’s hardware points toward the instrument’s creators. That might get a vintage guitar enthusiast’s motor running, but it’s in the slick precision of those parts—from the bridge and saddle to the pickup components—where the A-Type’s modernism shines.
“It’s a real small-scale operation. It exists here at Taylor Guitars, but in its own lane.”
Grabbing hold of the guitar, it’s clearly an instrument living on the contemporary cutting edge. The A-Type’s neck gives the clearest indication that it’s a high-performance machine; it’s remarkably easy to fret, with low action but just enough bite across the board. Powers put a lot of thought into the fretboard dynamics that make that so, and he decided to create a hybrid radius. “You have about a 9 1/2" radius, which is really what your hand feels, but then under the plain strings, it’s a bit flatter at 14, 15-ish—it’s so subtle, it’s really tough to measure.” Without reading the specs and talking to Powers, I don’t know that I would detect the difference—and I certainly didn’t upon first try. It just felt easy to play precisely without losing character or veering into “shredder guitar” territory.
The A-Type looks like a solidbody, but you’ll know it’s hollow by its light, balanced weight. That makes it comfortable to hold, whether standing or sitting. But its hollow-ness is no inhibitor to style: I’ve yet to provoke any unintended feedback from any of my amps. Powers explains that’s part of the design, which uses V-class bracing, similar to what you’ll find on a modern Taylor acoustic.
Powers says the A-Type that is now being produced is no different than the prototype he built in his home workshop: “I have the blueprint, still, that I hand drew. I can hold the guitar that we’re making up against that drawing, and it would be like I traced over it.”
“Coupling the back and the top of the guitar matter a lot,” he asserts. “When you do that, you can make them move in parallel so that they are not prone to feeding back on stage. You don’t actually have that same Helmholtz resonance going on that makes a hollowbody guitar feedback. It’s still moving.”
On a traditional hollowbody, he points out, the top and back move independently, compressing the air inside the body. “It’ll make one start to run away by re-amplifying its own sound,” he explains. “But if I can make them touch each other, then they move together as a unit. When they do that, you’re not compressing the air inside the body. But it’s still moving. So, you get this dynamic resonance that you want out of a hollowbody guitar; it’s just not prone to feedback.”
What I hear from the A-Type is a rich, dynamic tone, full of resonance, sustain, and volume. I found it to be surprisingly loud and vibrant when unplugged. Powers tells me that’s in part due to the “stressed spherical top” and explains, “I take this piece of wood and I stress it into a sphere, which unnaturally raises its resonant frequency well above what the piece of wood normally could. It’s kind of sprung, ready to set in motion as soon as you strike the string. So, it becomes a mechanical amplifier.” The bridge then sits in two soundposts, which Powers says makes it “almost like a cello.”
“Literally every little bit other than a couple screws” on the A-Type is custom made.
The single-coil pickups take it from there. They’re available in two variations, Full Faraday and Partial Faraday, the latter of which were in my demo model, and Powers tells me they are the brighter option. Their design, he says, has been in progress for about seven or eight years. The concept behind the pickups is to use the “paramagnetic quality of aluminum”—found in the pickup housing—“to shape the magnetic field … which functions almost like a Faraday cage.” And he complements them with a simple circuit on the way out.
I found them to run quietly, as promised, and offer a transparent tone with plenty of headroom. They paired excellently with the ultra-responsive playability and feel of the guitar, so I could play as dynamically as I desired. If a standard solidbody with single-coils offers the performance of a practical sedan, this combo gave the A-Type the feel of a well-tuned racecar. At low volumes and with no pedals, it felt like I was simply amplifying the guitar’s acoustic sound, and I had full control with nothing but my pick. (Powers explains that the pickups have a wide resonance peak, which plays out to my ear.) Add pedals to the mix, including distortion and fuzz, and that translates to an articulated, hi-fi sound.
Now up to serial number XXX, the Powers Electric team has refined their production process. I wonder about that first guitar, the dream guitar Powers built in his house. How similar is the guitar I’m holding to his original vision? “It’s very, very, very close,” Powers tells me. “Literally, this guitar outline is a tracing. It’s an exact duplicate of what I first drew on paper with a pencil. I have the blueprint, still, that I hand drew. I can hold the guitar that we’re making up against that drawing, and it would be like I traced over it.”
“It’s one of those things you do because you just really want to do it. It puts some spark in your life.”
Playing the guitar and, later, talking through its features, I’m left with few questions. But one that remains has to do with branding and marketing, not the instrument: Why go to all the effort to create a new brand for the A-Type, which is to say, why isn’t this a Taylor? For Powers, it’s about design. “As guitar players,” he explains, “we know what Taylor guitars are, we know what it stands for, and we know what we do. The design language of a Taylor guitar is a very specific thing. When I look at a Taylor acoustic guitar, I go, ‘I need curves like this, I need colors like this, I need shapes like this.’”
Those aren’t the same curves, colors, and shapes as the Powers Electric design, nor do they mine the same influences. “There’s a look and a feel to what a Taylor is. And that is different from this. I look at this and go, ‘It’s not the same.’”
Of course, adding the A-Type to the well-established Taylor catalog would probably be easier in lots of ways, but Powers’ positioning of the brand is a sign of his dedication to the project. It feels like a labor of love. “They’re guitars that I really wanted to make,” he tells me enthusiastically. “And I’m excited that they get to exist. It’s one of those things you do because you just really want to do it. It puts some spark in your life.”
“It’s like a solo project,” he continues. “As musicians, you front this band, you do this thing, and you also like these other kinds of music and you’ve got other musician friends, and you want to do something that’s a different flavor. You try to make some space to do that, too.”
