
Isaiah Mitchell onstage with the Black Crowes. He’s been a member of the band since their 2019 reunion tour.
The modern twisted-blues-rock hero and his long-jamming power trio, Earthless, take cues from vintage Japanese psych and folklore to tell the epic musical story of Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.
There’s no lack of instrumental, improv-based guitar music being made these days, but few bands in that niche exude the muscular power, cosmic intrigue, and impressive blues-rock bite of San Diego-based power trio Earthless. The band’s records undulate through melodies and hypnotic grooves that are fresh yet familiar, and breathe new life into many of the rock guitar tropes that have inspired so many players to fall in love with the instrument.
Since forming in the early 2000s, Earthless’ psychedelic-tinged explorations have channeled the energy and fire that made the first wave of English blues-rock such potent stuff, with the same captivating vitality as Cream, Hendrix, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac. At the core of the band’s sound is Isaiah Mitchell, a full-fledged guitar hero whose undeniable chops and creativity are matched only by his penchant for conjuring the kinds of killer tones many of us have spent small fortunes chasing. Bolstered by groove guru Mike Eginton on bass and powerhouse drummer Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket from the Crypt, OFF!, Hot Snakes), Earthless is the ideal vehicle for Mitchell’s unfiltered, incendiary playing. Outside of the band, his work includes the coveted lead guitar slot in the Black Crowes—a gig he landed during the group’s unexpected 2019 revival and perhaps the ultimate testament to his ascending status as one of today’s absolute finest blues-rock players.
Earthless from left: bassist Mike Eginton, drummer Mario Rubalcaba, and guitarist Isaiah Mitchell.
Photo by Marta Estellés Martín
While Mitchell’s commitments with the Crowes have sadly been consistently stymied by complications from the pandemic, Earthless have recently returned to the recorded form with a sprawling, hour-long instrumental adventure: Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. The sinister subject is the musical translation of a story pulled from Japanese folklore about a chaotic night in which the supernatural world collides with our own and a cavalcade of demons runs rampant through the streets of Japan. While the record is entirely instrumental, it’s the band’s first to feature a specific sonic story concept—and it’s one of the most musically intense releases in their discography.
Mitchell explains the album’s unexpected direction: “There’s a darker vibe to it. It could be some frustrations from the pandemic, but we’re pretty light, happy people for the most part. It’s just the music that came out.” The concept came from the band’s bassist. “Mike and his son are really into Japanese folklore and art,” Mitchell explains, “so he brought in the idea of calling it Night Parade of One Hundred Demons and explained the story, and it just made perfect sense with the music we had been writing. Then we were like, ‘Well let’s actually tell that story!’
Night Parade Of One Hundred Demons, Pt. 1
“When we started writing, we noticed that the music was reminiscent of Japanese bands that we loved, like Flower Travellin’ Band, Blues Creation, and Shinki Chen. We just ran with that sound,” explains Mitchell. Those esoteric hard-rock and proto-metal groups that came out of Japan in the late ’60s and early ’70s filtered Western heavy rock through a uniquely Japanese lens, making for music that was fundamentally familiar sounding yet totally exotic, relative to the British and American bands that influenced it. For Mitchell, no one does heavy guitar music quite like the Japanese, and the concept of the album “opened up the possibility of really getting inside of a Japanese scale approach” and guided his note choices in a new direction.
Mitchell says the recording experience “was a fun challenge to try to pay homage to that music” and explains, “a lot of what was going on in my mind—if we can talk in intervals—was like root, flat second, minor third, flat sixes—all of these weird combos that aren’t in your blues scale or your Mixolydian or Dorian things, but more Locrian in nature. It’s a totally different thing.” He adds that he was inspired by traditional Japanese music and instruments like the koto as well.
Night Parade opens with a positively lush six-minute guitar intro that Mitchell says is meant to paint the picture of a Japanese village at sunset. It’s an idyllic, tranquil scene that’s conveyed through passages of delicate, Hendrix-informed clean-toned guitar work. “We paint this pretty picture and then … boom, all hell breaks loose and these demons show up!” Mitchell explains. “The idea was to have more of a direction with it, trying to tell a specific story and putting the music to that story. Nothing else we’ve done has ever had any greater meaning or specific subject attached to it, so this was totally different and was a lot of fun.”
“I try to go into each improvisational section or solo by telling myself, ‘Here’s this moment that is for you. Be very present in it and mean what you’re doing!’”
The arrival of the demons from the Japanese legend is marked by a churning, turbulent, and downright evil-sounding riff fest that puts all of Mitchell’s gifts on full display. On the latter half of “Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, Pt. 1,” his guitar work bridges the chasm between Clapton’s sense of melody and feel and the extreme intensity and hellish string-bending and whammy-bar theatrics of Slayer. Across the album’s three long tracks, the band still has a foot firmly in the blues-rock world, but there’s fuzzed-out mayhem, searing proto-metal lead work, and an element of adventure and danger that is sorely missing from much of today’s improv-based rock ’n’ roll.
Dramatic trem-bar moves haven’t been a calling card for Mitchell in the past, but they’re an important facet of Night Parade’s sonic storytelling. Mitchell explains that aggressive whammy-bar techniques were something he’d avoided in the past, opting to block the bridge of his battered main Strat for years because he could never get the stock trem system to stay in tune. However, for the new record, he says, “We wanted to evoke a feeling, a mood, a sensation—and that required overbearing whammy bar! Totally Jeff Hanneman or Neil Young trying to break his strings at the end of a set, just freaking out! It’s perfect for making a song sound like hell and murder and death and chaos. It’s frantic and it’s anxious and paranoid and a mood of terror.”
Mitchell credits his friend Phil Manley (Trans Am, The Fucking Champs), who recorded the band’s From the Ages album, with changing his attitude. “[He] turned me on to Callaham Guitars, and I got a whole new trem system for my Strat from them. I just slapped that thing on and had it floating a little bit, and all of a sudden I was throwing bigger Hendrix dives into my playing and it wouldn’t go out of tune. I was amazed.” He adds that “it’s like having a totally new guitar. The thing with Earthless is I’m not going to be able to retune in the middle of an hour-long song. You’re fucking out to sea swimming and there’s no stopping.”
Isaiah Mitchell, wielding his go-to Strat, tweaks his Echoplex as Earthless jams.
Photo by Marta Estellés Martín
Night Parade was tracked to tape and a key part of its charm and immediacy is its organic production aesthetic. While the album tells a tale of the spirit world, it still sounds like three humans in a room attempting to blast their way into the void. There’s 60-cycle hum in the clean parts, there’s the obvious sound of air hitting mics, and Mitchell confirms that amps and speakers were indeed harmed in its creation. “We wanted to keep it as real as possible,” he says, “but we also wanted to make it sound great and not deliberately mess it up, but also not over-polish it.”
Rig Rundown - Earthless
As a player who’s spent the lion’s share of his career in improvised music, Mitchell knows how to pull something out of nothing with his guitar. “I try to go into each improvisational section or solo by telling myself, ‘Here’s this moment that is for you, be very present in it, and mean what you’re doing!’” he says. “I don’t want to just shoot notes here and there. I want to really try to play off what everyone else is doing and listen.”
TIDBIT: The concept for Night Parade of One Hundred Demons was inspired by a story that bassist Mike Eginton and his son found in a book of traditional Japanese ghost tales.
It’s no surprise that his inspiration comes from the classics: “What really got me into that approach was listening to Live Cream and Hendrix just taking off forever, really feeling what guys like Clapton and Hendrix, or even Neil Young, had in their phrasing. It’s like they’re breathing, you know? There’s an intention in everything they played. They’re trying to convey something. They want to make you feel something, and it’s just very tasteful and about presence in the moment. That’s the best place to come from when you’re improvising. Building and trying to tell an interesting story melodically—that’s my approach. Tasteful phrasing is about not laying all your cards on the table right away or blowing it all up right out the gate—build it, build tension!”
Mitchell’s dedication to his craft as a player and tone-shaper naturally helped him land his high-profile spot with the brothers Robinson in the revived Black Crowes, and he’s still drinking the experience in. “I was a fan growing up and watched their music videos on MTV, so it’s a really surreal experience,” he ruminates. “I’ve been friends with Chris [Robinson, Black Crowes frontman] for maybe 10 years now, but it’s so cool to be brought into the fold and to play with people that love music like they do. The whole band is fantastic and getting to hear Rich [Robinson, Black Crowes guitarist] and Chris together is a sound and it’s powerful. It’s a wonderful experience musically and getting to play those songs that I grew up with—and being able to put my stamp on it and still honor the song—is important to me.”
“We paint this pretty picture and then … boom, all hell breaks loose and these demons show up!”
He approaches his position in the Black Crowes with the same level of care he brings to his own band. “The fans are used to a certain thing,” he explains, “and you can do too much to bring yourself into it. I don’t think that’s always the right choice.” Contrary to Earthless, which is built around his own creative instincts, Mitchell points out that in such a classic, established band, it’s of utmost importance to know “where and when to be yourself.” And while Earthless calls for a more maximal, up-front guitar sound, playing in the Black Crowes alongside another guitarist and keyboardist is “a totally different way of filling musical space. I love being in different places and playing different roles and trying to be as selfless as possible for the sake of what the music needs.”
As both the longtime lead voice in Earthless and now the guitarist in the Black Crowes, Mitchell has risen from unsung underground guitar hero status into the mainstream. It’s a position he revels in, but he brings respect for the history of the band’s guitar chair. “My favorite part about the Crowes growing up is that the songs were fantastic,” he says, exclaiming, “but I really fucking loved Marc Ford’s playing. He was one of my dudes, growing up!”
The Gear Behind Isaiah Mitchell’s Heroic Tone
Mitchell performs with Earthless in Berkeley, California, at the Cornerstone on February 20, 2022.
Photo by Samuel Cuevas-Coria
Guitars
- ’50s-style Fender Stratocaster
- Gibson Custom Shop 1956 Les Paul Goldtop reissue
- Prisma Guitars custom build (made from recycled skateboard decks)
- Ian Anderson T-Style
Amps
- 1971 100-watt Marshall Super Lead
- 1979 Marshall 2203 JMP
- 1968/1969 Fender Super Reverb
- Vox AC15 head
- Orange Custom Shop 50 head
- Satellite Amps 2x12
- Orange vertical open-back 2x12 with Celestion Creambacks
Effects
- Strymon Flint
- Make Sounds Loudly Klon clone
- Make Sounds Loudly Tone Bender clone
- Make Sounds Loudly Night Witch
- Carlin compressor/distortion clone
- ’90s Fender brown-panel Reverb unit
- Tym Guitars Seaweed Isaiah Mitchell Signature Fuzz
- Maestro Echoplex EP-3
- Dunlop Cry Baby
- Vox wah
- Xotic EP Boost
Strings & Picks
- Dunlop (.010-.046)
- Dunlop .88 mm Tortex
Mitchell has some of the best tones in rock ’n’ roll. On Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, he kept things relatively simple and turned to some classic pieces.
For a clean tone, Mitchell relied upon a Fender Super Reverb from ’68 or ’69, which he sometimes mixed with a Vox AC15 head played through a Satellite Amplifiers 2x12 cab, paired with an Xotic Effects EP boost. He embraced his rig’s natural hum: “That tone just sounds so good and there’s something about hearing that hum that feels organic, and it doesn’t take away anything from the music for me. If you listen to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Little Wing,’ you can hear his amps humming. It’s organic and I think there’s something beautiful in keeping the recording what it is. You’re getting this beautiful tone and hearing that hum is a piece of that tone.”
To create the record’s burly-but-dynamic distorted sounds—the “full-blown stuff,” as Mitchell calls it—he used his primary 1971 100-watt Marshall Super Lead until it released the magic smoke that all tube amps run on and was placed on the injured list. “It sounded fantastic until it blew up!” the guitarist exclaims. “I’m not sure what happened, but luckily the transformers were fine.” He borrowed a friend’s ’79 JMP 2203 as a replacement. He also occasionally used an Orange Custom Shop 50 through an Orange 2x12 vertical open-back cab loaded with Celestion Creambacks.
For guitars, a thrashed but beloved Fender Strat (with its new Callaham trem and the ’50s style deep-V neck it came with) that Mitchell bought from a friend’s father as a teenager did the heavy lifting. That guitar now sports a set of signature Stratocaster pickups Mitchell concocted with Australian builder Mick Brierley. While Mitchell says the process of arriving at the desired sound involved many prototype sets with too many different spec recipes to recall, he says the pickups they ultimately arrived at are “dialed-in to have a lot more midrange than most Strat sets and are very clear, clean up nicely, and add a lot of warmth to the sound.”
“We wanted to evoke a feeling, a mood, a sensation, and that required overbearing whammy bar!”
Backing up the Strat was a recent ’56 Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Goldtop reissue loaded with P-90s, which Mitchell used for the album’s beefier riffs. For some of the cleaner sounds, the guitarist also employed a custom build from Prisma Guitars that was made from recycled skateboard decks.
Mitchell shaped his tone with a stash of effects that included a tried-and-true Echoplex EP-3, a standard Vox wah, a Cry Baby wah, a crew of overdrives and fuzzes by Make Sounds Loudly, Mitchell’s signature Tym Effects Seaweed fuzz—based on a Triangle Big Muff circuit—and a reissue of a little-known compressor made by Carlin in the ’60s. “Reine Fiske of Dungen is probably the top dude for me right now. He’s an amazing guitar player and his tone is just impeccable. I was reading interviews with him, and he spoke about the Carlin compressor, so I got a remake of one of those. That’s a really cool pedal that’s noisy and kind of shitty, but in a vintage way that isn’t trying to clean up a bunch of stuff, and you can overdrive it like a fuzz.”
To represent the sound of demons “swirling around each other,” as he puts it, on “Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, Pt. 2,” “I used a Leslie cab to be the sound of one of the demons and then the regular guitar rig to represent the human. Creating a different personality with the Leslie was a fun way to get there.”
EARTHLESS Los Angeles, CA. 2-25-2022
In February, Earthless ripped a blistering set for nearly two hours at the Echo in L.A., presented here in all its psychedelic glory.
- Rig Rundown: The Black Crowes' Rich Robinson - Premier Guitar ›
- Rig Rundown: Earthless - Premier Guitar ›
- 17 Guitar & Bass Heroes Hail Their Heroes - Premier Guitar ›
- Southern Rock's the Black Crowes, Revisited ›
This Japan-made Guyatone brings back memories of hitchin’ rides around the U.S.
This oddball vintage Guyatone has a streak of Jack Kerouac’s adventurous, thumbing spirit.
The other day, I saw something I hadn’t noticed in quite some time. Driving home from work, I saw an interesting-looking fellow hitchhiking. When I was a kid, “hitchers” seemed much more common, but, then again, the world didn’t seem as dangerous as today. Heck, I can remember hitching to my uncle’s cabin in Bradford, Pennsylvania—home of Zippo lighters—and riding almost 200 miles while I sat in a spare tire in the open bed of a pickup truck! Yes, safety wasn’t a big concern for kids back in the day.
So, as I’m prone to do, I started digging around hitchhiking culture and stories. Surprisingly, there are organized groups that embrace the hitching life, but the practice remains on the fringe in the U.S. Back in the 1950s, writer Jack Kerouac wrote the novel On the Road, which celebrated hitchhiking and exposed readers to the thrill of maverick travel. Heck, even Mike Dugan (the guitarist in all my videos) hitched his way to California in the 1960s. But seeing that fellow on the side of the road also sparked another image in my brain: Yep, it always comes back to guitars.
Let me present to you a guitar that’s ready to go hitching: the Guyatone LG-180T, hailing from 1966. The “thumbs-up” headstock and the big “thumb” on the upper bout always made me think of thumbing a ride, and I bought and sold this guitar so long ago that I had forgotten about it, until I saw that hitchhiking dude. Guyatone was an interesting Japanese company because they were primarily an electronics company, and most of their guitars had their wooden parts produced by other factories. In the case of the LG-180T, the bodies were made by Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Japan. At that time, Yamaha was arguably making the finest Japanese guitars, and the wood on this Guyatone model is outstanding. We don’t often see Guyatone-branded guitars here in the U.S., but a lot of players recognize the early ’60s label Kent—a brand name used by an American importer for Guyatone guitars.
With a bit of imagination, the LG-180T’s “thumbs up” headstock seems to be looking for a roadside ride.
Kent guitars were extremely popular from the early ’60s until around 1966. The U.S. importer B&J fed the American need for electric guitars with several nice Kent models, but when the Guyatone contract ended, so did most of the Kent guitars. After that, Guyatone primarily sold guitars in Japan, so this example is a rare model in the U.S.
“Unless you are a master at guitar setups, this would be a difficult player.”
This headstock is either the ugliest or the coolest of the Guyatone designs. I can’t decide which. I will say, no other Japanese guitar company ever put out anything like this. You have to give the Guyatone designers a thumbs up for trying to stand out in the crowd! Guyatone decided to forgo an adjustable truss rod in this model, opting instead for a light alloy non-adjustable core to reinforce the neck. Speaking of the neck, this instrument features the most odd-feeling neck. It’s very thin but has a deep shoulder (if that makes any sense). Totally strange!
Another strange feature is the bridge, which offers very little adjustment because of the three large saddles, which sort of rock back and forth with the tremolo. It’s a shame because these pickups sound great! They’re very crisp and have plenty of zing, but unless you are a master at guitar set-ups, this would be a difficult player.
This could be why the LG-180T only appeared in the 1966 and 1967 catalogs. After that, it disappeared along with all the other Yamaha-made Guyatone electrics. By 1969, Guyatone had gone bankrupt for the first time, and thus ended guitar production for a few decades. At least we were blessed with some wacky guitar designs we can marvel at while remembering the days when you could play in the back end of an explosive 1973 AMC Gremlin while your mom raced around town. Two thumbs up for surviving our childhoods! PG
Fifteen watts that sits in a unique tone space and offers modern signal routing options.
A distinct alternative to the most popular 1x10 combos. Muscular and thick for a 1x10 at many settings. Pairs easily with single-coils and humbuckers. Cool looks.
Tone stack could be more rangeful.
$999
Supro Montauk
supro.com
When you imagine an ideal creative space, what do you see? A loft? A barn? A cabin far from distraction? Reveling in such visions is inspiration and a beautiful escape. Reality for most of us, though, is different. We’re lucky to have a corner in the kitchen or a converted closet to make music in. Still, there’s a romance and sense of possibility in these modest spaces, and the 15-watt, 1x10, all-tubeSupro Montauk is an amplifier well suited to this kind of place. It enlivens cramped corners with its classy, colorful appearance. It’s compact. It’s also potent enough to sound and respond like a bigger amp in a small room.
The Montauk works in tight quarters for reasons other than size, though—with three pre-power-section outputs that can route dry signal, all-wet signal from the amp’s spring reverb, or a mixture of both to a DAW or power amplifier.
Different Stripes and Spacious Places
Vintage Supro amps are modestly lovely things. The China-made Montauk doesn’t adhere toold Supro style motifs in the strictest sense. Its white skunk stripe is more commonly seen on black Supro combos from the late 1950s, while the blue “rhino hide” vinyl evokes Supros from the following decade. But the Montauk’s handsome looks make a cramped corner look a lot less dour. It looks pretty cool on a stage, too, but the Montauk attribute most likely to please performing guitarists is the small size (17.75" x 16.5" x 7.5") and light weight (29 pounds), which, if you tote your guitar in a gig bag and keep your other stuff to a minimum, facilitates magical one-trip load ins.
Keen-eyed Supro-spotters noting the Montauk’s weight and dimensions might spy the similarities to another 1x10 Supro combo,the Amulet. A casual comparison of the two amps might suggest that the Montauk is, more-or-less, an Amulet without tremolo and power scaling. They share the same tube complement, including a relatively uncommon 1x6L6 power section. But while the Montauk lacks the Amulet’s tremolo, the Montauk’s spring reverb features level and dwell controls rather than the Amulet’s single reverb-level knob.
“High reverb levels and low dwell settings evoke a small, reflective room with metallic overtones from the spring sprinkled on top—leaving ghostly ambience in the wake of strong, defined transient tones.”
If you use reverb a lot and in varying levels of intensity, you’ll appreciate the extra flexibility. High reverb levels and low dwell settings evoke a small, reflective room with metallic overtones from the spring sprinkled on top—leaving ghostly ambience in the wake of strong, defined transient tones. There are many shades of this subtle texture to explore, and it’s a great sound and solution for those who find the spring reverbs in Fender amps (which feature no dwell control) an all-or-nothing proposition. For those who like to get deep in the pipeline, though, the dwell offers room to roam. Mixing high level and dwell settings blunts the amp’s touch sensitivity a bit, and at 15 watts you trade headroom for natural compression, compounding the fogginess of these aggressive settings. A Twin Reverb it ain’t. But there is texture aplenty to play with.
A Long, Wide Strand
Admirably, the Montauk speaks in many voices when paired with a guitar alone. The EQ sits most naturally and alive with treble and bass in the noon-to-2-o’clock region, and a slight midrange lean adds welcome punch. Even the amp’s trebliest realms afford you a lot of expressive headroom if you have enough range and sensitivity in your guitar volume and tone pots. Interactions between the gain and master output controls yield scads of different tone color, too. Generally, I preferred high gain settings, which add a firecracker edge to maximum guitar volume settings and preserve touch and pick response at attenuated guitar volume and tone levels.
If working with the Montauk in this fashion feels natural, you’ll need very few pedals. But it’s a good fit for many effects. A Fuzz Face sounded nasty without collapsing into spitty junk, and the Klon-ish Electro-Harmonix Soul Food added muscle and character in its clean-boost guise and at grittier gain levels. There’s plenty of headroom for exploring nuance and complexity in delays and modulations. It also pairs happily with a wide range of guitars and pickups: Every time I thought a Telecaster was a perfect fit, I’d plug in an SG with PAFs and drift away in Mick Taylor/Stones bliss.
The Verdict
Because the gain, master, tone, and reverb controls are fairly interactive, it took me a minute to suss out the Montauk’s best and sweetest tones. But by the time I was through with this review, I found many sweet spots that fill the spaces between Vox and Fender templates. There’s also raunch in abundance when you turn it up. It’s tempting to view the Montauk as a competitor to the Fender Princeton and Vox AC15. At a thousand bucks, it’s $400 dollars less than the Mexico-made Princeton ’68 Custom and $170 more than the AC15, also made in China. In purely tone terms, though, it represents a real alternative to those stalwarts. I’d be more than happy to see one in a backline, provided I wasn’t trying to rise above a Geezer Butler/Bill Ward rhythm section. And with its capacity for routing to other amps and recording consoles in many intriguing configurations, it succeeds in being a genuinely interesting combination of vintage style and sound and home-studio utility—all without adding a single digital or solid-state component to the mix.
Watch the official video documenting the sold-out event at House of Blues in Anaheim. Join Paul Reed Smith and special guests as they toast to quality and excellence in guitar craftsmanship.
PRS Guitars today released the official video documenting the full night of performances at their 40th Anniversary celebration, held January 24th in conjunction with the 2025 NAMM (The National Association of Music Merchants) Show. The sold-out, private event took place at House of Blues in Anaheim, California and featured performances by PRS artists Randy Bowland, Curt Chambers, David Grissom, Jon Jourdan, Howard Leese, Mark Lettieri Group, Herman Li, John Mayer, Orianthi, Tim Pierce, Noah Robertson, Shantaia, Philip Sayce, and Dany Villarreal, along with Paul Reed Smith and his Eightlock band.
“What a night! Big thanks to everyone who came out to support us: retailers, distributors, vendors, content creators, industry friends, and especially the artists. I loved every second. We are so pleased to share the whole night now on this video,” said Paul Reed Smith, Founder & Managing General Partner of PRS Guitars. “I couldn’t be more proud to still be here 40 years later.”
With nearly 1,400 of the who’s who in the musical instrument industry in attendance, the night ended with a thoughtful toast from PRS Signature Artist John Mayer, who reflected on 40 years of PRS Guitars and the quality that sets the brand apart. “The guitars are great. You can’t last 40 years if the guitars aren’t great,” said Mayer. “Many of you started hearing about PRS the same way I did, which is you would talk about PRS and someone would say ‘They’re too nice.’ What’s too nice for a guitar? What, you want that special vibe that only tuning every song can give you on stage? You want that grit just like your heroes … bad intonation? The product is incredible.”
Be sure to locate your sample library where it can be quickly referenced on your DAW.
Improve your recordings using your own samples. Bryan Clark, house producer at Nashville’s Blackbird Studio, tells you how to take the final steps in building your own sample library.
Mastering the sample import process in your chosen DAW can significantly enhance your creativity and streamline your workflow. With a clear understanding of the tools and techniques available, you will be better equipped to bring your musical ideas to life and make your productions stand out.
This month, we finish up a three-part series on creating your own sample libraries. In this final installment, I’m going to give you the basic ways to import your samples into various popular DAWs. Each one has its unique workflow and user interface, but the fundamental process remains very similar. This Dojo guide will cover how to import samples into Ableton Live, LUNA, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, and Studio One.
Ableton Live
Steps to Import Samples
Drag and Drop: Simply locate the sample file in your computer’s file explorer, then drag and drop it directly into an audio track in the session or arrangement view.
Browser Window: Use Ableton’s built-in browser (on the left-hand side). Navigate to the sample’s location on your hard drive, then drag it into the workspace.
Create a Simpler or Sampler Instrument: Drag the sample into a MIDI track with Simpler or Sampler loaded. This allows you to trigger the sample using MIDI notes.
Tips: Use the warp feature for time-stretching and syncing samples to your project’s tempo.
Organize your samples into collections using the “Add Folder” option in the browser.
LUNA
Steps to Import Samples
Drag and Drop: Drag the sample from your file explorer directly into the timeline. Then hold the CTRL key down, click on the end of the loop, and drag it to the length it needs to be.
Browser/Workspace: Use the media browser to navigate to your sample’s location on your hard drive. Drag it into an audio track in your session.
Audio Track Import: Right-click on an empty area in the timeline or a track and select “Import Audio” to locate and add your sample.
Tips: Use LUNA’s built-in varispeed capabilities to match your sample to the session’s tempo.Logic Pro
Steps to Import Samples
Drag and Drop: Drag the sample from the Finder directly into an audio track in the workspace.
File Browser: Use the file browser (accessible via the media sidebar or “F” key) to locate and drag samples into the timeline.
Quick Sampler: Drag your sample onto a MIDI track with the Quick Sampler plugin loaded. This lets you play the sample chromatically.
Tips: Use Logic’s flex time feature to sync samples to your project’s tempo. Organize samples into Logic’s library for quick access.Pro Tools
Steps to Import Samples
Import Audio Dialog: Go to File > Import > Audio; then locate your sample and click “Convert” or “Add” to bring it into the session.
Drag and Drop: Drag the sample directly from your file explorer into an audio track.
Workspace Browser: Use the workspace (accessible via Window > New Workspace) to locate your sample. Drag it into your session.
Tips: Use the elastic audio feature for tempo matching and pitch adjustments.
Place your samples into playlists for efficient access during editing.
Studio One
Steps to Import Samples
Drag and Drop: Drag your sample directly from your file explorer into the timeline or browser.
Browser: Open Studio One’s browser (on the right-hand side), navigate to the folder containing your sample, and drag it into your project.
Sampler Track: Drag the sample onto a MIDI track, and use the Sample One sampler for additional manipulation.
Tips: Enable the “Stretch Audio Files to Song Tempo” option in the browser for automatic tempo synchronization. Create sample folders within Studio One’s browser for quick access.General Best Practices
Regardless of the DAW you use, it is important to maintain a smooth and efficient workflow. Organize your sample library with clear folder names and categories to make locating files easy (see last month’s installment for detailed strategies). Where possible, learn DAW-specific shortcuts for importing and editing samples to save time. Always check if your DAW offers a feature to sync the sample’s tempo to your project to ensure seamless integration. Finally, regularly back up your sample collection to avoid losing important audio files and preserve your creative assets! Seriously. Do it now.
Next month, we’re off to “console” land and I’ll be investigating console emulations (hype or not?), summing bus processors, and more to give you a more “studio” sound. Until then, blessings and namaste.