With their own literal rulebook, a gnarly sounding Fender Duo-Sonic, and a 3-string bass, siblings Peyton Bighorse and Kelli Mayo blend pop hooks and punk grit on their new album, The Make It All Show.
You won’t find many artists whose entire musical history is posted online. But Skating Polly, an edgy, DIY, punk-ish outfit from Oklahoma City—although now based in Tacoma, Washington—is one of them. Their first gigs, early experiences with instruments, early promos, and even their first airplay on local radio is up on YouTube alongside their current releases, polished videos, and mature output.
Skating Polly started in 2009, when stepsisters Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse were just 9 and 14 years old. “I am the little sister of the group,” Mayo says. “When Peyton was 14, she said, ‘I am going to start a band,’ and I said, ‘I am going to be in your band. Can I be in your band?’ But she said, ‘I don’t know. I think I’m going to start a band with people in high school.’” But Mayo—undeterred and persistent—wrote a few songs and convinced Bighorse to perform with her at a Halloween party (remember, she was just 9 years old). The next year they were playing local clubs (you can watch their first club gig here).
“When we were younger, Kelli’s dad would go on tour with us and take us to shows,” Bighorse says about their early years. “Our parents have always been really supportive. They would let us miss a lot of school to do shows and they would miss work to come to gigs. Now we tour by ourselves and they are still really supportive, but they don’t have to sacrifice as much.”
The sisters were cute—and, over the years of videos and photos, you can see them grow up, get taller, wear braces, master their instruments, and grow into their voices—but Skating Polly was never a novelty act. Many of those early videos are from tours or appearances at major festivals like South by Southwest. They released their first album, Taking Over the World, in 2011, and have released an album nearly every year ever since. They also caught the attention of Exene Cervenka, from the iconic ’70s/’80s punk band X, who produced their second album, Lost Wonderfuls, and co-wrote and appears on “Queen for a Day” from their current release, The Make It All Show.
For most of their history, Skating Polly was an instrument-swapping duo. Mayo plays a mutant 3-string bass/bassitar hybrid and Bighorse plays guitar. They both play drums and take turns on lead vocals. However, last year, following the release of their EP, New Trick—a three-song collaboration with Louise Post and Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt—they recruited their brother, Kurtis Mayo, to join the band as drummer and sometime guitarist.
And with that, Skating Polly is ready to conquer the world. Check out YouTube to chart their progress. They’re mature and confident songwriters. Their live show kicks ass. Their videos rule. And their dynamic, punk-influenced, pop-informed aesthetic continues to evolve.
We spoke with Mayo and Bighorse to discuss their studio experiences and rules-centric approach to songwriting, Mayo’s unusual bass tuning, Bighorse’s new Fender Duo-Sonic, and how their band has changed since becoming a trio.
In your videos, it looks like you’re always switching instruments. Who plays what?
Peyton Bighorse: For the most part, I play guitar, though for a few songs I’ll play either bass or drums. Kelli plays a little guitar, but mostly bass, and Kurt plays some guitar but mostly drums.
Kelli Mayo: It depends on the song. Before Kurt was in the band, I was either playing keyboard, my weird 3-string bass, or drums. But now, with Kurtis in the band, I’ve been mostly sticking to my 3-string bass.
That’s a 3-string bass and not a 2-string bassitar?
Mayo: It’s three. It started out with two, like the bands Morphine and the Presidents of United States of America—the C#, G# tuning—but after the first few months I broke it. While it was broken, I wrote songs on a normal bass, but I only wrote songs on the E string. When we decided to get another one, I got a bass body and decided I wanted to add an E string so I could play that song—it was only one song—that I wrote. I ended up scraping the song and not doing anything with that E string. Later on, I wrote “Alabama Movies,” with all three strings together, which is now a staple of our set.
How do you tune your bass now?
Mayo: E, C#, G#. I took off the A string and the C# and G# are moved up so the C# is where the A string would be and the G# is where the D would be.
Was there always a band vibe in your house growing up?
Bighorse: Yeah. Our parents were really into music and they showed us a lot. We had a lot of musical instruments around and we always played around. Me and Kelli decided to start a band when we were 9 and 14.
“Queen for a Day,” on Skating Polly’s new album, was co-written by X’s Exene Cervenka and features Cervenka as a guest vocalist. She also produced the band’s second album, Lost Wonderfuls.
Mayo: My family is just really into all the arts. They were great about having any tools we needed—not “any,” we weren’t rich or something—but we had a bass, a couple of guitars, and a drum set. We had paint, if we got into painting or sculpting, or if we got into acting, we’d rent a bunch of movies and check out books about actors or whatever. The instruments were already there and music was one of the great connectors in my family. It still is. Everything revolved around music. The road trips would be bonding experiences over some new album or playlist. A lot of time, at home, there would be dance parties or watching music videos. When my parents got divorced [Editor’s note: Mayo is from her father’s first marriage, before he married Bighorse’s mother], my favorite activity was sitting in my room, sad girl-ing out to Tegan and Sara’s album So Jealous and Regina Spektor’s Far. I would just sing those records. I loved them so much.
Besides having a band, did you spend time practicing and learning songs?
Bighorse: We didn’t start off learning covers because we didn’t know how to play very well. We wrote our own songs, which were usually simple two- or three-chord songs, and then as we got better at our instruments, we started playing covers.
Mayo: I guess I’ve always been in a band. I have been in a band since I was 9. I loved singing so much—that was my great passion. I liked bass a lot, too, but when we first started, my arms weren’t long enough for a full-scale bass, and I didn’t think those short-scale basses were a thing. I hated guitar, it hurt my fingers, and my dad made me that bassitar. I always assumed I would be in a band.
Peyton Bighorse’s current favorite guitar is a Fender Duo-Sonic. She says her biggest challenge with the instrument is getting it to feed back more easily. Photo by Jason Sievers
What’s your songwriting process? Do you come up with ideas separately or do you spend a lot of time jamming and writing together?
Bighorse: For this record, we wrote a lot of it together. It usually starts out with something simple. We will have it recorded on our phones or show it to the others, and then it goes from there: from something simple, to something with more parts and layers to it—once we’re all working on it together.
Mayo: It is a lot of both. Some songs were complete. “Camelot” started as this really rough, spontaneous phone recording. I had all these different parts to this really discombobulated punk song. That one took me forever to write because there were so many random parts that I came up with on the spot. I really liked it, but also it didn’t flow together. A lot of times I do that: I come up with things … they don’t have words, and it sucks when you have to edit that because it is such a big chore. Other songs, I had a simple structure for that I kept adding layers to. Like with “Queen for a Day,” Exene [Cervenka] sent me lyrics and I quickly whipped out this simple chord progression. To balance out the simplicity of the song, it needed to have leads. I had this weird little melody in my head, and Peyton figured it out. Peyton can figure out anything. If I hum it to her, she can figure it out on guitar. On lots of songs, I have the phone recording and I whistle this thing that I think should be a lead guitar part.
Every time, she asks, “We’re not going to have whistles?” and I’m like, “No. That means the guitar part.” [Laughs.] Peyton obviously writes her own leads, too. Sometimes, something about a melody is not working for me. I will ask Peyton, “Sing it or play it back to me your way. Don’t get too hung up on how I’m doing it and just do what comes naturally to you.” In that small crossover, things can be so different… it wasn’t the note I had going, but it worked a lot better.
Your songs often have a very wide dynamic range. Where does that come from?
Bighorse: I think that’s from the music we listened to growing up. A lot of it was fairly dynamic like that, so it’s how we wrote naturally. We give ourselves little rules when we’re writing, too, like, “Write a completely loud song,” or “Write a completely quiet song.” But really, what is most natural to us is the complexity of the quiet and loud.
What are some other rules you use when writing?
Bighorse: We always try to do something that we’ve never done before in each song we write. That’s a pretty important rule to us for every song. We’ll have a theme we want to stick to or we’ll come up with a story to write to and write out a story in the lyrics.
Guitars
Blue-green Hamer XT
Orange Fender Duo-Sonic
Amps
’59 Fender Bassman reissue
Effects
Keeley Fuzz Head
Way Huge Swollen Pickle
Boss CH-1 Super Chorus
EarthQuaker Devices Organizer
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff
TC Electronic PolyTune
Strings and Picks
.008 string sets, any brand
Medium gauge picks, any brand
Mayo: On our records, I used to want every single song to sound wildly different. I used to think that on an album, every song should live on a different planet. Like on a White Stripes record or the White Album by the Beatles. I had rules like: This will be the back-and-forth song, this is the song that is completely loud throughout, this is the piano song, this is the darker piano song… whatever. But on this record, I was okay with the songs living on the same planet, but just living in different countries. I still have rules though. It’s a Skating Polly record, so there has to be that one song that I step on the distortion pedal and I don’t take my foot off, which is “Camelot.” There has to be a piano song. We hadn’t played piano in a long time—we don’t tour with a keyboard or anything—and when Peyton brought me this pretty acoustic song [“Don’t Leave Me Gravity”], I wanted it to have a Prince piano song vibe.
But you’re not married to an idea and if a song evolves and becomes something else, you’re cool with that, too.
Mayo: Yeah, definitely. A friend of mine told me—and it might be a Neil Young quote, but I’m not sure—but someone once said, “Every time I play a song live, it is a new song.” It’s that moment. It’s not nailed down to a tempo, it’s not necessarily down to a lyric, it’s that moment. I still think that’s so fucking cool. I like the unpredictable. I love bands like X, where Exene will completely change her vocal melodies from night to night. It’s still the same song and people know it and love it, but it’s wildly different. It’s its own song in that moment. And that’s really cool.
Sisters Kelli Mayo (middle) and Peyton Bighorse (right) formed Skating Polly when they were just 14 and 9, respectively, in 2009. Their brother, Kurtis Mayo (left), was recruited in 2017 to play drums. Photo by Angel Ceballos
How has your songwriting changed now that Kurtis is in the band?
Mayo: When I would write a part on guitar or bass, I would cram so many notes in. I thought that’s how I had to mature as a songwriter: make the songs move more and evolve. That made these songs stuffy. But when you have two string instruments, a bass and a guitar, they can do parts and you can have layers. It’s more subtle and I can just keep a groove on bass. Kurtis joined and I could start writing in a totally different way. It was a revelation.
Are the songs finished by the time you get to the studio?
Bighorse: We try to have them done for the most part. We do end up making changes on a lot of the songs, after we get the opinion of the producer or ideas that come into our heads while we’re listening back to the song. But for the most part, we have the structure done and the melody and the lyrics are ready to go.
Basses
Black Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay
Ibanez soda blue TMB100
White Fender Mustang PJ
Amps
Ampeg PF-500 head
Ampeg PF-410HLF cab
Effects
Boss F-Z2 Hyper Fuzz
Fulltone OCD
EarthQuaker Devices Levitation
Strings and Picks
Any brand mixed hybrid string set
Clayton or Fender .88 mm equilateral-triangle-shaped picks
Do you track live?
Bighorse: We track kind of live. We usually do guitar and bass overdubs, but we have the live track there also. We just add things with the overdubs.
Mayo: We do a little bit of overdubbing here and there, and then the vocals are always overdubbed. I’m really particular about my vocal takes. On this record, we worked with Brad Wood, who also did the New Trick EP, and he is so great at finding tones. I don’t always have the right vocabulary to convey what kind of song I want. I’m like, “It was inspired by Tom Petty and Queens of the Stone Age. What can you do with that?” He would dig out records—parts of the song reminded him of the Cramps and other parts reminded him of AC/DC—he’d pull up Back in Black and compare the tone. He would line it up perfectly. It’s so crazy what an ear he has for that stuff. There were little things, too, that I’d never done before, like writing the bass part and the lead guitar part. I couldn’t always tell if it worked—if it jelled together or if they rubbed against each other and didn’t fit. Sometimes he’d be like, “This is brilliant.” But sometimes he would say, “Whoa. What is that?” He showed me little tricks that I didn’t know.
Would he suggest trying different gear?
Mayo: Sometimes. I played my Ibanez for all my bass parts on the record except for the last two measures at the end of “Queen for a Day.” It’s this simple bass line on the E string and my intonation was a little wack. Whenever I would go too high on the E string, it would get out of tune. So for that one line we switched basses to a P bass. I fucking love P basses, but they are just too heavy, so I will probably never play one. The last two measures of “Queen for a Day” are overdubbed on P bass. I played a cool electric hollowbody guitar on “Camelot” and “Flatwound Strings.” It had a whammy bar on it and I’ve never used a whammy before. I can’t remember the name of. It wasn’t a Gretsch, but it was supposed to look and sound like a Gretsch.
Peyton, are you still using your Hamer?
Bighorse: I got it a few years ago when we still lived in Oklahoma City. It’s got a really dirty, dark, messy sound to it. It fits well with all of our songs. It’s hard to get it to sound exactly how I want it to sound sometimes, but whenever I can get it just right, it’s my favorite guitar. But recently I’ve been playing with a Fender Duo-Sonic—we just got some new guitars—so I left the Hamer in Oklahoma and I’ve been playing with the Duo-Sonic, which is also really cool. It’s a bit brighter sounding and it’s taking some time to figure out, but it’s probably one of the coolest guitars I’ve ever owned.
Here’s a close-up of Whitehorse’s Duo-Sonic and Mayo’s PJ. Both Fenders are recent models.
Are those single-coils giving you trouble with feedback or noise?
Bighorse: I’m actually trying to figure out how to get enough feedback from it [laughs].
Kelli, when you play guitar, do you just use one of Peyton’s?
Mayo: Yeah. We share all the guitars. I play her Hamer. Sometimes I play Kurt’s Gibson.
Bighorse: We have Kurt’s guitar with us for backup and for him to play. It’s a Gibson Les Paul he won years ago on a MySpace raffle. I don’t really play it unless I break a string, but I don’t break strings that often. Kurtis breaks strings almost every night, so it is definitely good for him to have his own guitar.
Skating Polly’s live session for the Audiotree online network features plenty of abrasive guitar tone from Peyton Bighorse and her Fender Duo-Sonic, and Kelli Mayo pummeling her 3-string Fender PJ.
MayFly Le Habanero Review
Great versatility in combined EQ controls. Tasty low-gain boost voice. Muscular Fuzz Face-like fuzz voice.
Can be noisy without a lot of treble attenuation. Boost and fuzz order can only be reversed with the internal DIP switch.
$171
May Fly Le Habanero
A fuzz/boost combo that’s as hot as the name suggests, but which offers plenty of smoky, subdued gain shades, too.
Generally speaking, I avoid combo effects. If I fall out of love with one thing, I don’t want to have to ditch another that’s working fine. But recent fixations with spatial economy find me rethinking that relationship. MayFly’s Le Habanero (yes, the Franco/Spanish article/noun mash-up is deliberate) consolidates boost and fuzz in a single pedal. That’s far from an original concept. But the characteristics of both effects make it a particularly effective one here, and the relative flexibility and utility of each gives this combination a lot more potential staying power for the fickle.
“Le Habanero’s fuzz circuit has a deep switch that adds a little extra desert-rock woof.”
The fuzz section has a familiar Fuzz Face-like tone profile—a little bit boomy and very present in that buzzy mid-’60s, midrangey kind of way. But Le Habanero’s fuzz circuit has a deep switch that adds a little extra desert-rock woof (especially with humbuckers) and an effective filter switch that enhances the fuzz’s flexibility—especially when used with the boost. The boost is a fairly low-gain affair. Even at maximum settings, it really seems to excite desirable high-mid harmonics more than it churns out dirt. That’s a good thing, particularly when you introduce hotter settings from the boost’s treble and bass controls, which extend the boost’s voice from thick and smoky to lacerating. Together, the boost and fuzz can be pushed to screaming extremes. But the interactivity between the tone and filter controls means you can cook up many nuanced fuzz shades spanning Jimi scorch and Sabbath chug with tons of cool overtone and feedback colors.
Significantly smaller and lighter than original TAE. Easy to configure and operate. Great value. Streamlined control set.
Air Feel Level control takes the place of more surgical and realistic resonance controls. Seventy watts less power in onboard power amp. No Bluetooth connectivity with desktop app.
$699
Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander Core
Boss streamlines the size, features, and price of the already excellent Waza Tube Expander with little sacrifice in functionality.
Many of our younger selves would struggle to understand the urge—indeed, the need—to play quieter. My first real confrontation with this ever-more-present reality arrived when Covid came to town. For many months, I could only sneak into my studio space late at night to jam or review anything loud. Ultimately, the thing that made it possible to create and do my job in my little apartment was a reactive load box (in this case, a Universal Audio OX). I set up a Bassman head next to my desk and, with the help of the OX, did the work of a gear editor as well as recorded several very cathartic heavy jams, with the Bassman up to 10, that left my neighbors none the wiser.
Boss’ firstWaza Tube Amp Expander, built with an integrated power amp that enables boosted signal as well as attenuated sounds, was and remains the OX’s main competition. Both products have copious merits but, at $1,299 (Boss) and $1,499 (Universal Audio), each is expensive. And while both units are relatively compact, they aren’t gear most folks casually toss in a backpack on the way out the door. The new Waza Tube Expander Core, however, just might be. And though it sacrifices some refinements for smaller size, its much-more accessible price and strong, streamlined fundamental capabilities make it a load-box alternative that could sway skeptics.
Micro Manager
The TAE Core is around 7 1/2" wide, just over 7 " long, and fewer than 4 " tall, including the rubber feet. That’s about half the width of an original TAE or OX. The practical upside of this size reduction is obvious and will probably compel a lot of players to use the unit in situations in which they’d leave a full-size TAE at home. The streamlined design is another source of comfort. With just five knobs on its face, the TAE Core has fewer controls and is easier to use than many stompboxes. In fact, the most complicated part of integrating the TAE Core to your rig might be downloading the necessary drivers and related apps.
Connectivity is straightforward, though there are some limitations. You can use TAE Core wirelessly with an iOS or Windows tablet or smartphone, as long as you have the BT-DUAL adaptor (which is not included and sets you back around 40 bucks). However, while desktop computers recognize the TAE Core as a Bluetooth-enabled device, you cannot use the unit wirelessly with those machines. Instead, you have to connect the TAE Core via USB. In a perfectly ordered world, that’s not a big problem. But if you use the TAE Core in a small studio—where one less cable is one less headache—or you prefer to interface with the TAE Core app on a desktop where you can toggle fast and easily between large, multi-track sessions and the app, the inability to work wirelessly on a desktop can be a distraction. The upside is that the TAE Core app itself is, functionally and visually, almost identical in mobile and desktop versions, enabling you to select and drag and drop virtual microphones into position, add delay, reverb, compression, and EQ effects, choose various cabinets with different speaker configurations and sizes, and introduce new rigs and impulse responses to a tone recipe in a flash. And though the TAE Core app lacks some of the photorealistic panache and configuration options in the OX app, the TAE Core’s app is just as intuitive.Less Is More
One nice thing about the TAE Core’s more approachable $699 price is that you don’t have to feel too bad on nights that you “underutilize” the unit and employ it as an attenuator alone. In this role, the TAE Core excels. Even significantly attenuated sounds retain the color and essence of the source tone. Like any attenuator-type device, you will sacrifice touch sensitivity and dynamics at a certain volume level, yielding a sense of disconnection between fingers, gut, guitar, and amp. But if you’re tracking “big” sounds in a small space, you can generate massive-sounding ones without interfacing with an amp modeler and flat-response monitors, which is a joy in my book. And again, there’s the TAE Core’s ability to “expand” as well as attenuate, which means you can use the TAE Core’s 30-watt onboard power amp to amplify the signal from, say, a 5-watt Fender Champion 600 with a 6" speaker, route it to a 2x12, 4x12, or virtual equivalent in the app, and leave your bandmate with the Twin Reverb and bad attitude utterly perplexed.
The Verdict
Opting for the simpler, thriftier TAE Core requires a few sacrifices. Power users that grew accustomed to the original TAE’s super-tunable “resonance-Z” and “presence-Z” controls, which aped signal-chain impedance relationships with sharp precision, will have to make do with the simpler but still very effective stack and combo options and the “air feel level” spatial ambience control.The DC power jack is less robust. It features only MIDI-in rather than MIDI-in/-through/-out jacks, and, significantly, 70 watts less power in the onboard power amp. But from my perspective, the Core is no less “professional” in terms of what it can achieve on a stage or in a studio of any size. Its more modest feature set and dimensions are, in my estimation, utility enhancements as much as limitations. If greater power and MIDI connectivity are essentials, then the extra 600 bones for the original TAE will be worth the price. For many of us, though, the mix of value, operational efficiencies, and the less-encumbered path to sound creation built into the TAE Core will represent a welcome sweet spot that makes dabbling in this very useful technology an appealing, practical proposition.
IK Multimedia is pleased to announce the release of new premium content for all TONEX users, available today through the IK Product Manager.
The latest TONEX Factory Content v2 expands the creative arsenal with a brand-new collection of Tone Models captured at the highest quality and presets optimized for live performance. TONEX Tone Models are unique captures of rigs dialed into a specific sweet spot. TONEX presets are used for performance and recording, combining Tone Models with added TONEX FX, EQ, and compression.
Who Gets What:
TONEX Pedal
- 150 crafted presets matched to 150 Premium Tone Models
- A/B/C layout for instant access to clean, drive, and lead tones
- 30 Banks: Amp & cab presets from classic cleans to crushing high-gain
- 5 Banks: FX-driven presets featuring the 8 new TONEX FX
- 5 Banks: Amp-only presets for integrating external IRs, VIR™, or amps
- 5 Banks: Stompbox presets of new overdrive/distortion pedals
- 5 Banks: Bass amp & pedal presets to cover and bass style
TONEX Mac/PC
- 106 new Premium Tone Models + 9 refined classics for TONEX MAX
- 20 new Premium Tone Models for TONEX and TONEX SE
TONEX ONE
- A selection of 20 expertly crafted presets from the list above
- Easy to explore and customize with the new TONEX Editor
Gig-ready Tones
For the TONEX Pedal, the first 30 banks deliver an expansive range of amp & cab tones, covering everything from dynamic cleans to brutal high-gain distortion. Each bank features legendary amplifiers paired with cabs such as a Marshall 1960, ENGL E412V, EVH 412ST and MESA Boogie 4x12 4FB, ensuring a diverse tonal palette. For some extremely high-gain tones, these amps have been boosted with classic pedals like the Ibanez TS9, MXR Timmy, ProCo RAT, and more, pushing them into new sonic territories.
Combined with New FX
The following 5 banks of 15 presets explore the depth of TONEX's latest effects. There's everything from the rich tremolo on a tweed amp to the surf tones of the new Spring 4 reverb. Users can also enjoy warm tape slapback with dotted 8th delays or push boundaries with LCR delay configurations for immersive, stereo-spanning echoes. Further, presets include iconic flanger sweeps, dynamic modulation, expansive chorus, stereo panning, and ambient reverbs to create cinematic soundscapes.
Versatile Control
The TONEX Pedal's A, B, and C footswitches make navigating these presets easy. Slot A delivers clean, smooth tones, Slot B adds crunch and drive, and Slot C pushes into high-gain or lead territory. Five dedicated amp-only banks provide a rich foundation of tones for players looking to integrate external IRs or run directly into a power amp. These amp-only captures span clean, drive, and high-gain categories, offering flexibility to sculpt the sound further with IRs or a real cab.
Must-have Stompboxes
TONEX Pedals are ideal for adding classic effects to any pedalboard. The next 5 banks focus on stompbox captures, showcasing 15 legendary overdrive, distortion, and fuzz pedals. This collection includes iconic models based on the Fulltone Full-Drive 2, Marshall DriveMaster, Maxon OD808, Klon Centaur, ProCo RAT, and more.
For Bass Players, Too
The last 5 banks are reserved for bass players, including a selection of amp & cab Tone Models alongside a few iconic pedals. Specifically, there are Tone Models based on the Ampeg SVT-2 PRO, Gallien-Krueger 800RB, and Aguilar DB750, alongside essential bass pedals based on the Tech21 SansAmp, Darkglass B7K and EHX Big Muff. Whether it's warm vintage thump, modern punch, or extreme grit, these presets ensure that bassists have the depth, clarity and power they need for any playing style.For more information and instructions on how to get the new Factory
Content v2 for TONEX, please visit:
www.ikmultimedia.com/products/tonex
Alongside Nicolas Jaar’s electronics, Harrington creates epic sagas of sound with a team of fine-tuned pedalboards.
Guitarist Dave Harrington concedes that while there are a few mile markers in the music that he and musician Nicolas Jaar create as Darkside, improvisation has been the rule from day one. The experimental electronic trio’s latest record, Nothing, which released in February on Matador, was the first to feature new percussionist Tlacael Esparza.
Taking the record on tour this year, Darkside stopped in at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl, where Harrington broke down his complex signal chains for PG’s Chris Kies.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Express Yourself
Harrington bought this mid-2000s Gibson SG at 30th Street Guitars in New York, a shop he used to visit as a kid. The headstock had already been broken and repaired, and Harrington switched the neck pickup to a Seymour Duncan model used by Derek Trucks. Harrington runs it with D’Addario NYXL .010s, which he prefers for their stretch and stability.
The standout feature is a round knob installed by his tech behind the bridge, which operates like an expression pedal for the Line 6 DL4. Harrington has extras on hand in case one breaks.
Triple Threat
Harrington’s backline setup in Nashville included two Fender Twin Reverbs and one Fender Hot Rod DeVille. He likes the reissue Fender amps for their reliability and clean headroom. Each amp handles an individual signal, including loops that Harrington creates and plays over; with each amp handling just one signal rather than one handling all loops and live playing, there’s less loss of definition and competition for frequency space.
Dave Harrington’s Pedalboards
Harrington says he never gives up on a pedal, which could explain why he’s got so many. You’re going to have to tune in to the full Rundown to get the proper scoop on how Harrington conducts his three-section orchestra of stomps, but at his feet, he runs a board with a Chase Bliss Habit, Mu-Tron Micro-Tron IV, Eventide PitchFactor, Eventide H90, Hologram Microcosm, Hologram Chroma Console, Walrus Monument, Chase Bliss Thermae, Chase Bliss Brothers AM, JHS NOTAKLÖN, two HexeFX reVOLVERs, and an Amped Innovations JJJ Special Harmonics Extender. A Strymon Ojai provides power.
At hip-level sits a board with a ZVEX Mastotron, Electro-Harmonix Cathedral, EHX Pitch Fork, Xotic EP Booster, two EHX 45000 multi-track looping recorders, Walrus Slöer, Expedition Electronics 60 Second Deluxe, and another Hologram Microcosm. A Live Wire Solutions ABY Box and MXR DC Brick are among the utility tools on deck.
Under that board rest Harrington’s beloved Line 6 DL4—his desert-island, must-have pedal—along with a controller for the EHX 45000, Boss FV-50H volume pedal, Dunlop expression pedal, Boss RT-20, a Radial ProD2, and another MXR DC Brick.