
The Feelies (from left): guitarists Bill Million and Glenn Mercer, drummer Stan Demeski, percussionist Dave Weckerman, and bassist Brenda Sauter.
The legendary indie rockers engage in the ancient art of weaving on Some Kinda Love, a live record of VU songs, and prove themselves to be the only band truly up to the task.
A casual listener might hear the Feelies’ version of “I’m Waiting for the Man,” from their 2023 live record, Some Kinda Love: Performing the Music of the Velvet Underground, as a straight-ahead cover. After all, the legendary New Jersey-based underground rock ’n’ roll band didn’t change the chord structure around. They didn’t really alter the instrumentation. They didn’t give it a profoundly new feel that recontextualizes Lou Reed’s paean to a drug deal. No, they seem to simply convey the song with a svelte, efficient delivery.
But on the song, the Feelies do their thing, subtle though it might be. The band have had a knack for stripping songs to their necessary bits and making them their own since forming in the 1970s. Their slightly warped, minimal, high-speed take on the Beatles’ “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” set the tone on their debut, 1980’s Crazy Rhythms, and they’ve since made covers an integral part of their records and live shows.
The Feelies’ history with the music of the Velvets runs deep, including recording the band’s “What Goes On” for 1988’s Only Life. On Some Kinda Love, they paint a bigger picture as they cover 18 songs from the VU catalog. Throughout, the Feelies, in effect, convey an object lesson in how to approach the music of the Velvet Underground, offering refreshing lessons on how to rock ’n’ roll along the way.
Glenn Mercer's Gear
Glenn Mercer’s live rig consists of a modded Squier Telecaster, a simple pedal chain, and a modern Vox AV30 that he runs through a vintage Guild 1x12.
Photo by Tim Bugbee
Guitars
- Two modified Squier Telecasters
Amps
- Vox AV30
- ’50s Guild cab with JBL 12" speaker
Effects
- Boss Turbo Overdrive
- Boss Super Overdrive
- Boss Chorus
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXL (.010-.046)
- Dean Markley triangle picks .50 mm
- Clayton picks
Let’s get back to “I’m Waiting for the Man” and consider its place in the rock canon with some extracurricular listening:
An early version of “I’m Waiting for the Man” appears on Words & Music, 1965, a collection of 23-year-old Reed’s demos for Pickwick Records, where he was a staff songwriter and session musician. It’s a humble slice of Greenwich Village folk, Reed’s vocal accompaniment a loose but grooving fingerpicked acoustic guitar figure.
In 1967, the song made its official debut on The Velvet Underground & Nico. The song is transformed and has arrived. The guitar figure has been boiled down to a droning two-chord vamp, with the exception of a four-measure turnaround that serves as the chorus. It’s electrified and distorted. Guitars sounds like they’re cutting through the tape. John Cale pounds piano clusters along with Moe Tucker’s propulsive tom and tambourine assault. Meanwhile, Reed coolly raps overtop. This is rock ’n’ roll in its most elemental form. All the energy, all the vibe, none of the frills.
“If you have to talk about stuff and work on stuff, then to me, you kind of lose the essence of what’s good about playing music. It’s all instinctual and telepathic.” —Glenn Mercer
A couple years later, in 1969, the band performed a live rendition of “I’m Waiting for the Man” for what would become 1972’s Live at Max’s Kansas City. By now, original Velvets Reed and guitarist Sterling Morrison were joined by the rhythm section of brothers Doug and Billy Yule, and together they deliver a tight, swaggering shuffle. Morrison reaches for the sky with bluesy bar-rock bends and trills and Lou howls and hollers. It’s loud, it’s alive. It’s also an indication of the Velvets’ evanescence. From folky strums to a pulsating psychedelia to proto-punk, nothing in their orbit remained the same in their short span.
There are other versions of the band playing the song, and the band’s approach varies—no matter what anyone tells you, don’t skip the pseudo-minimalist reading on the band’s 1993 reunion record, Live MCMXCIII. It’s not only great, but worth it for guitar nerds to hear Lou play the song in his headless-guitar phase. After their dissolution, Reed continued to reinvent on live albums; the John Lee Hooker-style approach he takes on Take No Prisoners is worth hearing. Tucker also recorded a delicately strummed, breathy version with moodier chords on I Spent a Week There the Other Night.
What the Velvet Underground did with the song within the band and beyond is one thing, but the perquisite reinvention in the hands of others affirmed its status as a rock ’n’ roll standard.
The Yardbirds seem to have been the first to cover “I’m Waiting for the Man,” not long after its release. Though it’s not on any official releases, it’s easy to find their energetic, rave-up version. Bowie’s popular cover glams it up, makes the turnaround chords a little more bluesy—replacing the dominant III chord that gives that part its doo-wop allure—and Mick Ronson plays some Spiders from Mars-era leads that seem take the song to a swankier part of town than Reed originally intended to describe. The U.K. Subs amplified the song’s punkish roots, Beck made a bachelor pad-friendly version, and Cheap Trick brought the song to arenas, with the histrionics that requires.
The Feelies evoke the VU by playing it straight from the heart. “We weren’t, like, super obsessed about it or anything,” says Mercer.
It’s against these covers that the nuances of the Feelies’ signature are laid bare. While other artists have looked beyond the limits set by the Velvets, on Some Kinda Love, the Feelies return “I’m Waiting for the Man” to its central musical premise. There is no stylistic reinvention. Nor do they kneel at the altar of the VU, copying every -ism of the original recording. They simply play the essential elements of the song.
Bill Million's Gear
Million says his preference for Gibson-style guitars evolved in response to Mercer’s Fenders, as a way to differentiate their sounds. Live, he runs his guitars and board into a Music Man with a vintage Gibson extension cab.
Photo by Matt Condon
Guitars
- 1985 Gibson ES-335
- 1986 Gibson ES-335
- Epiphone Hummingbird
- Epiphone J-160
Amps
- Music Man 112 Sixty-Five (no speaker)
- Gibson GA-100 extension cab with 12" JBL speaker
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinky
- D’Addario Phosphor Bronze
- D’Addario Chromes (Flat)
- Dunlop picks .73 mm
Effects
- MXR Micro Amp
- Fulltone OCD
- Fulltone Fat-Boost
- Boss Chorus
- Maxon Overdrive
- DeArmond Volume Pedal
- Electro-Harmonix Canyon
- Electro-Harmonix Octavix
- Source Audio Vertigo Tremolo
- Ebow
As early as Crazy Rhythms, the band exhibited a kind of jittery, frenetic feel. As they moved from their early funkier art-rock inclinations to a more pastoral sound on 1986’s Peter Buck-co-producedThe Good Earth—on which they cemented their lineup—it stuck with them.
“I’ve never been that comfortable performing,” says Mercer. “I think that we took that nervousness, that stage fright element, and used it to our advantage. It made us appear to be the nervous awkward band or whatever.” Check out their performance in Jonathan Demme’s 1986 film Something Wild to see what the guitarist means as they take David Bowie’s “Fame” for a spin.
The connection between Mercer and Million is at the front and center of the Feelies’ sound. While they don’t shy from the traditional lead/rhythm route, their rhythmic hookup is notable. Together, they’re percussive, with chord stabs often bouncing between the two forming tense, funky interactions. To describe it, Million points to the Velvet Underground, but more so Keith Richards and Ron Wood’s classic “ancient art of weaving” approach to rhythm. “That’s the feeling I get when I’m playing,” he says. “We’ve been playing together so long that there is a lot of that guitar interaction. My approach is to weave between what Glenn’s doing, and what Stan’s doing as well with the drums, so there’s a reaction, little accents here and there. We’ve all become very good listeners over time with each other, so that stuff just falls into the pocket.”
The guitarists have had plenty of time to form their two-guitar thing—they’ve been playing together for about a half century at this point. “Originally, we started playing together in a different band,” Mercer points out. “Bill played bass, and I played guitar, and Dave played drums. So, that was just three instruments with a singer. Then, Bill suggested switching to guitar and getting a bass player. I think right from the start, we were just playing the songs, we didn’t talk about what each one was going to do. It was understood.”
“They had this sort of quiet energy. It’s just as much energy as the Stooges or the MC5, but in a different way.” —Bill Millon on the Velvet Underground
From that, their style coalesced and evolved, and Mercer says they haven’t second-guessed it. “It’s instinctual. I think if it was anything other than that, it wouldn’t have lasted as long. I mean, if you have to talk about stuff and work on stuff, then to me, you kind of lose the essence of what’s good about playing music. It’s all instinctual and telepathic.”
The Velvet Underground and Nico hanging on a Vox in 1966 (clockwise from top left): Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, John Cale, Moe Tucker, and Nico.
Their guitar tastes have even evolved around each other, and Million cites his own preference for Gibsons—using a Les Paul early on and switching to ES-335s in the mid ’80s, sticking to them ever since—as a reaction to Mercer’s Fenders, which these days are a pair of modified Squier Telecasters.
The two guitarists also share many influences; they both reference the Stooges, the MC5, the Beatles, and the Stones in our conversations. Mercer points to Ron Asheton as an influence on his leads, which on Some Kinda Love is audible in a simmering-just-before-the-point-of-boiling-over kind of way on “Rock & Roll” and on the tumbling double-guitar tangle-up at the end of “Run Run Run.” Notably, Million talks about being into the Velvet Underground in high school, citing Reed’s vocals, Tucker’s drumming, and how “the guitars were almost approached like drums in a way.”
“We took that nervousness, that stage fright element, and used it to our advantage.” —Glenn Mercer
Mercer, though, took a little longer to come around. “I didn’t like them,” he says. “A couple of songs I thought were pretty good. ‘Waiting for the Man,’” I really liked that. The rest of it just seemed like a hodgepodge of art stuff. I guess by the time the third record [1969’s self-titled album] came along it really sunk in.”
Lou Reed heard something he liked in the Feelies and tapped them to open for his 1989 tour in support of his New York album. He first linked up with the band at a holiday party for Long Island’s WDRE FM. Million remembers the party and says, when the band received their invite to perform, “I think it was me that said, as a joke, ‘If Lou plays a song with us, we’ll do it.’” The next thing they knew they were onstage together. “We were playing those songs at this really incredibly fast tempo! And he just seemed like he really enjoyed himself. Because of that he asked us to go on tour with him.”
Million remembers Reed as “very supportive of the Feelies,” and says they shared dinner with him before most of their concerts together. “There was one show,” the guitarist recalls, “where his soundcheck was running longer. They informed him that they would have to probably skip our soundcheck, and he just said, ‘If the Feelies don’t get a soundcheck, I’m not playing.’ So, that was our relationship with him.”
The young Feelies at Hurrah in New York City on September 11, 1980. From left: Mercer, Weckerman, Million, and drummer Anton Fier.
Photo by Ebet Roberts
It’s by pure kismet that after years of covering the Velvet Underground, and decades after playing the songs alongside Reed, the Feelies have come to pay tribute with Some Kinda Love. They received an invitation from the curators of The Velvet Underground Experience (the 2018 version of the 2016 The Velvet Underground: New York Extravaganza exhibit in Paris), and Mercer explains, “Their idea was to get a bunch of bands that were inspired by or influenced by the Velvet Underground to perform. They contacted us and we thought it would be cool to do.”
But it wasn’t to be. “They were a little bit delayed in moving the exhibit, so that in the interim, they lost their lease and had to find a new venue.” When that venue didn’t have space for a live rock band—though Mercer did end up performing—he says, “We were already kind of semi-rehearsed and getting excited about doing it. So we said, we’ll just do a concert on our own at a different venue.”
On October 13, 2018, the band played the Velvets set that would become Some Kinda Love at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City, New Jersey. (They also played a second set of Feelies songs and delivered three VU-less encores.) The record clocks in at 71 minutes, so it was a long night. And a thrilling one, no doubt. Because the Feelies deliver every song on the record—from their funky “There She Goes Again” to the driving, percussive strums of “Who Loves the Sun” to the droning, gothic “All Tomorrow’s Parties”—with the same natural vibe that they seem to bring to everything they do.
“We kind of use their arrangements as a little bit of a template, basically just to put in enough to evoke the original recordings,” says Mercer. “We weren’t like, super obsessed about it or anything.”
In contrast to every stylistically varied version of “I’m Waiting for the Man” considered here, the Feelies prove the VU’s music, like all truly great rock ’n’ roll, seems to demand nothing more than simplicity and honesty. Nothing more and nothing less.
The Feelies live in that world. It’s not complicated. And it’s not intellectual. It’s elemental. And once you tap into it, it’s inescapable.
And as Some Kinda Love proves, that attitude, that approach, might just make the Feelies the greatest interpreter of the Velvet Underground anyone could wish for.
YouTube It
The Feelies perform their groovy, percussive cover of “Run Run Run” that appears on Some Kinda Love.
Day 9 of Stompboxtober is live! Win today's featured pedal from EBS Sweden. Enter now and return tomorrow for more!
EBS BassIQ Blue Label Triple Envelope Filter Pedal
The EBS BassIQ produces sounds ranging from classic auto-wah effects to spaced-out "Funkadelic" and synth-bass sounds. It is for everyone looking for a fun, fat-sounding, and responsive envelope filter that reacts to how you play in a musical way.
In our annual pedal report, we review 20 new devices from the labs of large and boutique builders.
Overall, they encompass the historic arc of stompbox technology from fuzz and overdrives, to loopers and samplers, to tools that warp the audio end of the space-time continuum. Click on each one to get the full review as well as audio and video demos.
DigiTech JamMan Solo HD Review
Maybe every guitarist’s first pedal should be a looper. There are few more engaging ways to learn than playing along to your own ideas—or programmed rhythms, for that matter, which are a component of the new DigiTech JamMan Solo HD’s makeup. Beyond practicing, though, the Solo HD facilitates creation and fuels the rush that comes from instant composition and arrangement or jamming with a very like-minded partner in a two-man band.
Click here to read the review.
Warm Audio Warm Bender Review
In his excellent videoFuzz Detective, my former Premier Guitar colleague and pedal designer Joe Gore put forth the proposition that theSola Sound Tone Bender MkII marked the birth of metal. TakeWarm Audio’s Warm Bender for a spin and it’s easy to hear what he means. It’s nasty and it’s heavy—electrically awake with the high-mid buzz you associate with mid-’60s psych-punk, but supported with bottom-end ballast that can knock you flat (which may be where the metal bit comes in).
Click here to read the review.
Walrus Monumental Harmonic Stereo Tremolo Review
Among fellow psychedelic music-making chums in the ’90s, few tools were quite as essential as a Boss PN-2 Tremolo Pan. Few of us had two amplifiers with which we could make use of one. But if you could borrow an amp, you could make even the lamest riff sound mind-bending.
Click here to read the review.
MXR Layers Review
It’s unclear whether the unfortunate term “shoegaze” was coined to describe a certain English indie subculture’s proclivity for staring at pedals, or their sometimes embarrassed-at-performing demeanor. The MXR Layers will, no doubt, find favor among players that might make up this sect, as well as other ambience-oriented stylists. But it will probably leave players of all stripes staring floorward, too, at least while they learn the ropes with this addictive mashup of delay, modulation, harmonizer, and sustain effects.
Click here to read the review.
Wampler Mofetta Review
Wampler’s new Mofetta is a riff on Ibanez’s MT10 Mostortion, a long-ago discontinued pedal that’s now an in-demand cult classic. If you look at online listings for the MT10, you’ll see that asking prices have climbed up to $1k in extreme cases.
Click here to read the review.
Catalinbread StarCrash Fuzz Review
Although inspired by the classic Fuzz Face, this stomp brings more to the hair-growth game with wide-ranging bias and low-cut controls.
Red Panda Radius Review
Intrepid knob-tweakers can blend between ring mod and frequency shifting and shoot for the stars.
Electro-Harmonix LPB-3 Linear Power Booster and EQ Review
Descended from the first Electro-Harmonix pedal ever released, the LPB-1 Linear Power Booster, the new LPB-3 has come a long way from the simple, one-knob unit in a folded-metal enclosure that plugged straight into your amplifier. Now living in Electro-Harmonix’s compact Nano chassis, the LPB-3 Linear Power Booster and EQ boasts six control knobs, two switches, and more gain than ever before.
JFX Pedals Deluxe Modulation Ensemble Review
This four-in-one effects box is a one-stop shop for Frusciante fans, but it’s also loaded with classic-rock swagger.
Origin Effects Cali76 FET Review
The latest version of this popular boutique pedal adds improved metering and increased headroom for a more organic sound.
JAM Fuzz Phrase Si Review
Everyone has records and artists they indelibly associate with a specific stompbox. But if the subject is the silicon Fuzz Face, my first thought is always of David Gilmour and the Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii film. What you hear in Live at Pompeii is probably shaped by a little studio sweetening. Even still, the fuzz you hear in “Echoes” and “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”—well, that is how a fuzz blaring through a wall of WEM cabinets in an ancient amphitheater should sound, like the sky shredded by the wail of banshees.
Fishman EchoBack Mini Delay Review
As someone who was primarily an acoustic guitarist for the first 16 out of 17 years that I’ve been playing, I’m relatively new to the pedal game. That’s not saying I’m new to effects—I’ve employed a squadron of them generously on acoustic tracks in post-production, but rarely in performance. But I’m discovering that a pedalboard, particularly for my acoustic, offers the amenities and comforts of the hobbit hole I dream of architecting for myself one day in the distant future.
RJM Full English Programmable Overdrive Review
Programmability and preset storage aren’t generally concerns for the average overdrive user. But if expansive digital control for true analog drive pedals becomes commonplace, it will be because pedals like the Full English Programmable Overdrive from RJM Music Technology make it fun and musically satisfying.
Strymon BigSky MX Review
Strymon calls the BigSky MX pedal “one reverb to rule them all.” Yep, that’s a riff on something we’ve heard before, but in this case it might be hard to argue. In updating what was already one of the market’s most comprehensive and versatile reverbs, Strymon has created a reverb pedal that will take some players a lifetime to fully explore. That process is likely to be tons of fun, too.
JHS Hard Drive Review
JHS makes many great and varied overdrive stomps. Their Pack Rat is a staple on one of my boards, and I can personally attest to the quality of their builds. The new Hard Drive has been in the works since as far back as 2016, when Josh Scott and his staff were finishing off workdays by jamming on ’90s hard rock riffs.
Keeley I Get Around Review
A highly controllable, mid-priced rotary speaker simulator inspired by the Beach Boys that nails the essential character of a Leslie—in stereo.
Cusack Project 34 Selenium Rectifier Pre/Drive
The term “selenium rectifier” might be Greek to most guitarists, but if it rings a bell with any vintage-amp enthusiasts that’s likely because you pulled one of these green, sugar-cube-sized components out of your amp’s tube-biasing network to replace it with a silicon diode.
Vox Real McCoy VRM-1 Review
Some pedals are more fun than others. And on the fun spectrum, a new Vox wah is like getting a bike for Christmas. There’s gleaming chrome. It comes in a cool vinyl pouch that’s hipper than a stocking. Put the pedal on the floor and you feel the freedom of a marauding BMX delinquent off the leash, or a funk dandy cool-stepping through the hot New York City summertime. It’s musical motion. It’s one of the most stylish effects ever built. A good one will be among the coolest-sounding, too.
A 26 1/4" scale length, beastly pickups, and buttery playability provoke deep overtone exploration and riotous drop-tuning sounds.
A smooth, easy player that makes exploring extra scale length a breeze. Pickups have great capacity for overtone detail. Sounds massive with mid-scooped fuzz devices.
Hot pickups can obscure some nuance that the wealth of overtones begs for.
$1,499
Reverend Billy Corgan Drop Z
reverendguitars.com
No matter how strong your love for the guitar, there are days when you stare at your 6-string and mutter under your breath, “Ugh … you again?” There are many ways to rekindle affection for our favorite instruments. You can disappear to Mexico for six months, noodle on modular synths, or maybe buy a crappy vintage car that leaves you longing for the relative economy of replacing strings instead of carburetors. But if you don’t want to stray too far, there are also many variations on the 6-string theme to explore. You can poke around on a baritone, or a 6-string bass, or multiply your strings by two until you reach jingle-jangle ecstasy.
Or you can check out the Reverend Billy Corgan Drop Z. At a glance, the Drop Z may not look like much of a cure for the 6-string doldrums. But pick it up and you’ll feel the difference fast. The Drop Z is built around a 26 1/4" scale and a 24-fret neck that makes this Reverend feel like a very different instrument. Designed and optimized for use with drop tunings, it opens the doors to whole palace ballrooms full of new musical possibilities.
Beastly Blue and Easy To Use
If the feel of the Drop Z alone doesn’t dislodge you from a guitar rut, there’s a good chance that its pretty profile would compel you to pick it up and play. It’s a handsome instrument. The conservatively chambered alder body (it’s routed at the bass and treble horns) is clad in a very pretty twilight-blue-meets-ocean-turquoise glossy finish, which is complimented perfectly by the brushed-aluminum pickguard. The chambered body definitely helps with the weight; the Drop Z is a little less than eight pounds. It also helps the guitar feel very balanced. There’s not a hint of neck dive. And if it weren’t for the discernibly longer stretch you make to reach the first fret, it would feel as familiar and comfortable as a nice Stratocaster.
The medium-oval neck, which is satin-finished maple with a maple fretboard, is a pleasure. It feels substantial and fast, and getting around its expanse is facilitated by a perfect setup. The 12" fretboard radius and jumbo frets also add to the Drop Z’s easy-breezy feel. Big bends require little more effort than they would on a normal scale, and I never felt the urge to squeeze a note to compensate for the weird intonation issues big frets and long scales can cause. From first fret to 24th, playing the Drop Z is an easy glide.
The Drop-Z pickups are a modified version of the Railhammer Billy Corgan Z-One pickups in his other Billy Corgan signature Reverends. The pickups’ impedance is rated at 14.5 ohms, which suggests a pretty hot unit. In this incarnation, the Z-One pickups are tuned for even more output and smoother treble. That’s a good idea for a pickup designed with heavy musical settings in mind.
Fangs on Cue, but Mellon Collie, Too
Though the Drop Z is easy to play in a getting-around-the-fretboard sense, plugging and turning up may take adjustments in approach and attitude. As the pickups’ impedance rating suggests, the Railhammer Z-Ones have a lot of hop, and as the expansive lengths of string resonate impressively, you’ll hear a lot of very present treble overtones. I spent most of my time with the instrument in a C# modal tuning or C–G–D–G–B–B, and in each tuning the Drop Z rumbled impressively (particularly through a late-’60s Fender Bassman head, which is a beautiful, burly match for this instrument). But unless I wanted to linger among the peaky resonances of the highest two strings (and I often did), I needed to attenuate both tone controls.
The good thing is that each of these controls has a very nice range. And while the guitar can start to feel stripped of its essence with too much tone or volume attenuation, there is wiggle room for softening transients and taming unwanted overtone blooms. These pronounced peaks are easy to hear in both the neck and bridge pickup, depending on your approach. I worked a lot more with open strings and drones than Billy Corgan might on songs like “Zero,” which the guitar was tailored for. But for those keen to explore the mellower side of the Drop Z’s personality, the combined pickup setting is a magic bullet. It’s airy, open, and makes it easy and rewarding to navigate slow-moving chord changes with strong bass foundations. It’s also fun to take advantage of the fretboard’s whole expanse in this setting—darting and dashing from toppy treble-note clusters to growling bass harmony notes—and enjoying the detail and string-to-string balance. By the way, the Drop Z, as you might guess, sounds positively massive with distortion, though you should be careful to choose your gain device carefully. The pickup’s midrange emphasis will make a similarly mid-heavy distortion sound harsh. A Sovtek-style Big Muff, with its scooped midrange and round low-end resonance, is an ideal fit if you want to get extra large.
The Verdict
The Korea-made Drop Z is a beautifully crafted instrument and a silky, easy, balanced player that will make you forget, in moments, about the expansive fretboard and extra scale length. It feels completely natural and effortless. How you relate to the tones here will depend on your musical mission. The hot pickups make it a perfect fit for outsized, aggressive tones. I, for one, would prefer to explore the wealth of overtones this well-constructed instrument generates via less aggressive pickups. But players like me will still find much to love in the combined pickup settings and the pickups’ impressive capacity for detail, which, depending on the tuning you use, can highlight harmonic interplay between notes and chords that would be much less prominent and less fun to explore in a more conventional guitar.
Reverend Billy Corgan Drop Z Signature Electric Guitar - Pearl White
Billy Corgan Drop Z, Pearl WhtA familiar-feeling looper occupies a sweet spot between intuitive and capable.
Intuitive operation. Forgiving footswitch feel. Extra features on top of basic looping feel like creative assets instead of overkill.
Embedded rhythm tracks can sneak up on you if you’re not careful about the rhythm level.
$249
DigiTech JamMan Solo HD
digitech.com
Maybe every guitarist’s first pedal should be a looper. There are few more engaging ways to learn than playing along to your own ideas—or programmed rhythms, for that matter, which are a component of the new DigiTech JamMan Solo HD’s makeup. Beyond practicing, though, the Solo HD facilitates creation and fuels the rush that comes from instant composition and arrangement or jamming with a very like-minded partner in a two-man band.
Loopers can be complex enough to make beginners cry. They are fun if you have time to venture for whole weeks down a rabbit hole. But a looper that bridges the functionality and ease-of-use gap between the simplest and most maniacal ones can be a sweet spot for newbies and seasoned performers both. The JamMan Solo HD lives squarely in that zone. It also offers super-high sound quality and storage options, and capacity that would fit the needs of most pros—all in a stomp just millimeters larger than a Boss pedal.
Fast Out of the Blocks
Assuming you’ve used some kind of rudimentary looper before, there’s pretty decent odds you’ll sort out the basic functionality of this one with a couple of exploratory clicks of the footswitch. That’s unless you’ve failed to turn down the rhythm-level knob, in which case you’ll be scrambling for the quick start guide to figure out why there is a drum machine blaring from your amp. The Solo HD comes loaded with rhythm tracks that are actually really fun to use and invaluable for practice. In the course of casually exploring these, I found them engaging and vibey enough to be lured into crafting expansive dub reggae jams, thrashing punk riffs, and lo-fi cumbias. Removing these tracks from a given loop is just a matter of turning the rhythm volume to zero. You can also create your own guide rhythms with various percussion sounds.
Backing tracks aside, creating loops on the Solo HD involves a common single-click-to-record, double-click-to-stop footswitch sequence. Recording an overdub takes another single click, and you hold the footswitch down to erase a loop. Storing a loop requires a simple press-and-hold of the store switch. The sizable latching footswitch, which looks and feels quite like those on Boss pedals, is forgiving and accurate. This has always been a strength of JamMan loopers, and though I’m not completely certain why, it means I screw up the timing of my loops a lot less.
Many players will be satisfied with how easy this functionality is and explore little more of the Solo HD’s capabilities. And why not? The storage capacity—up to 35 minutes of loops and 10 minutes for individual loops—is enough that you can craft a minor prog-rock suite from these humble beginnings. Depending on how economical your loops are, you can use all or most of the 200 available memory locations built into the Solo HD. But you can also add another 200 with an SD/SDHC card.Deeper into Dubs
Loopers have always been more than performance and practice tools for me. I have old multitrack demos that still live in the memory banks of my oldest loopers. And just as with any demos, the sounds you create with the Solo HD may be tough to top or duplicate, which can mean a loop becomes the foundation of a whole recorded song. The Solo HD’s tempo and reverse features, which can completely mutate a loop, make this situation even more likely. The tempo function raises or lowers the BPM without changing the pitch of the loop. As a practice tool, this is invaluable for learning a solo at a slower clip. But drastically altered tempos can also help create entirely new moods for a musical passage without altering a favorite key to sing or play in. Some of these alterations reveal riffs and hooks within riffs and hooks, from which I would happily build a whole finished work. The reverse function is similarly inspiring and a source of unusual textures that can be the foundation for a more complex piece.
HD, of course, stands for high definition. And the Solo HD’s capacity for accurate, dense, and detail-rich stacks of loops means you can build complex musical weaves highlighting the interaction between overtones or timbre differences among other effects in your chain. I can’t remember the last time I felt like a looper’s audio resolution was really lacking. But the improved quality here lends itself to using the Solo HD as a song-arranging tool—and, again, as a recording asset, if you want a looped idea to form the backbone of a recording.
The Verdict
With a looper, smooth workflow is everything. And though it takes practice and some concentration in the early going to extract the most from the Solo HD’s substantial feature set, it is, ultimately, a very intuitive instrument that will not just smooth the use of loops in performance, but extend and enhance its ability as a right-brain-oriented driver of composition and creation.