Laughter is perhaps the most auspicious way to start an interview with Dean and Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots. The deaths of their two former lead singers, Scott Weiland and Chester Bennington, who passed in 2015 and 2017, respectively, has been casting a bit of a dark cloud over their every move. But Dean quickly sets an amiable tone for our conversation with a quip he nicked from Cameron Crowe’s liner notes in Led Zeppelin’s 1990 Boxed Set. Upon introducing myself and offering my credentials, he responds with, “I don’t come to you with my problems.” Laughter ensues and the ice is broken.
The line comes from an interaction Crowe witnessed as a young man when he was a journalist on tour with Led Zeppelin. He saw Peter Grant walk up to Bob Dylan and say, “Hi, I’m Peter Grant. I manage Led Zeppelin.” And Dylan responded, “I don’t come to you with my problems.” Dean is clearly bemused by the set up: “How great is that? I use that line for everything and I crack up every time.”
Starting an interview about Stone Temple Pilots’ self-titled new album in this way is pleasantly disarming and illuminates the immense modesty the DeLeo brothers appear to share. It’s a welcome character trait from two bona fide rock stars that literally reshaped the musical landscape in the early ’90s as part of the grunge movement with albums like Core and Purple.
In the ensuing years, STP evolved into one of the most musically diverse alternative-rock bands, growing sonically on albums like Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop and No. 4 by interweaving elements of classic rock, glam, psychedelia, and Motown. The only obstacle that seemed to prevent them from rising to even greater heights was Weiland’s well-documented battle with drug addiction and his resulting departures from the band.
Despite those troubles, Dean and Robert, along with STP drummer Eric Kretz, never appeared to wallow in self-pity, and they certainly don’t seem to dwell on the past—especially when it comes to music. Instead, they’ve opted to escape the tumult by entrenching themselves even more deeply into their music via offshoot projects like Talk Show and Army of Anyone, or beginning the monumental task of rebranding STP with a new front man—first with late Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington and now with Jeff Gutt. They’ve even explored side gigs along the way, performing with Joe Walsh, Hollywood Vampires, Kings of Chaos, Delta Deep, and others. No matter how challenging the circumstances, the DeLeo brothers always seem to stay above the fray by seeking out a good tune … and perhaps a good laugh.
Which isn’t to say they are indifferent to the suicides (accidental or otherwise) of their two former front men. There’s obviously a tremendous amount of reverence for the band’s legacy and the people they’ve collaborated with. They just aren’t overly nostalgic about it. In theory, it would’ve been economically viable for them to hire a Scott Weiland clone, forego making a new album, and go out on tour exploiting STP’s past. They sure have enough hit songs to ride on. “Plush,” “Interstate Love Song,” “Vasoline,” and four others have reached the apex of Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, and 17 more have wedged in its Top 20. But the DeLeos aren’t inclined to rest on their laurels. They are eminently motivated by what they both call the “power of song,” and it is the pursuit of songcraft, and making new music, that ignites their drive. And now, after a year-long online search for a new singer, from which they landed Gutt (a former contestant on The X Factor), it seems STP has firmly embraced the future and delivered what’s arguably their best album in years.
Stone Temple Pilots is an album of immense emotional depth and musical breadth. There are the familiar artistic components that have come to define STP’s sonic blueprint, like Dean’s eclectic guitar tones and stylistic choices, and Robert’s gritty, Motown-inspired bass lines, but the wistfulness of “The Art of Letting Go,” “Thought She’d Be Mine,” and “Finest Hour” demonstrate a peak level of songwriting. The hooks seem smarter than ever, the performances more sensitive and nuanced, and the production value just a smidge tighter than their previous albums.
STP produced their latest album and credits the band’s early producer, Brendan O’Brien, with teaching them the secrets of the studio. “Brendan worked fast and efficient and he got the best out of us, quickly. That’s how we learned to make records,” says Dean.
Gutt is a singer of inspired rhythmic phrasing and melodic sensibility, and he has clearly taken the baton and ran with it. He doesn’t seem intimidated by the role he’s stepping into, and it’s clear that the DeLeos didn’t simply want a singer who could only cover the back catalog. The real criterion for their new singer, they explain, was the ability to write at a very proficient level. “He’s really good,” says Dean. “We’ve been very fortunate to be able to write at a certain level of musicianship in this band. Writing music with Scott was just incredible—so fulfilling, what he brought to a song—and it’s the same with Jeff.”
PG caught up with Dean and Robert as they were preparing for Gutt’s inaugural U.S. tour with STP. This summer they embark on the Revolution 3 Tour with fellow ’90s luminaries, Bush and the Cult. The DeLeos are humble, gracious, humorous, and willing to divulge intimate details about the instruments, live rigs, recording techniques, and songwriting and arranging ethos that keep STP humming.
What was the writing process like for Stone Temple Pilots? Did you write with any of the potential singers?
Robert DeLeo: There were a few songs that were around back when Chester left the band, so we put it all down because we knew we had a task ahead of us—getting a new singer. But a lot of these songs really came from the spark of having Jeff’s presence there and getting together in the studio and speaking the conversation of songwriting. I think one of the most important things for finding a new singer was someone who could move forward and write, and Jeff really applied his art to what we were doing.
Did you share files or were you literally writing together, in the studio?
Dean DeLeo: A lot of the stuff was pre-written. Robert would come in with a song completed or I would come in with a song completed. But the song that was written from the ground up, in the moment, and sounds like it would be the last song on the record to be written that way, was “The Art of Letting Go.” We were at Eric’s recording vocals, and I picked up a guitar and that song literally came out in minutes. Jeff heard what I was playing and came in the room and immediately started singing what you hear. I even think he used the “art of letting go” lyric right away—it was immediate. The song was based around that lyric. That is the song that really solidified Jeff’s talent.
Dean DeLeo bends a note the hard way on one of his Gibson Les Paul Standards during a 2015 show at San Francisco’s the Fillmore. DeLeo’s tones come from a fleet of five Pauls, two Paul Reed Smiths, and a group of single-coils that includes T- and S-style Nelson models and a vintage Danelectro. Photo by Ken Settle
It’s amazing how well you two brothers complement each other, weaving in and out of each other’s parts in songs like “Guilty” and “Just a Little Lie.”
Robert: Dean and I complementing one other is really a mutual respect for each other’s talents and playing. I think it’s a matter of when to say something and when not to say something. That comes from years and years of playing together and just trying to put our best foot forward, artistically, with each other.
You’re both able to be interesting, musically and melodically, without ever getting in the way of the vocal melody, like in “Thought She’d Be Mine.”
Dean: Thank you. That is one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever had. I appreciate that because we can easily get in our own way. I think you really need to let the song dictate what it wants or what it needs. It’ll tell you. You just have to listen.
You strike a fine balance between riff-oriented ideas and letting the songs breathe— utilizing space, chord inversions, and chord changes—within the context of the same song, like “Six Eight” or “Never Enough,” for example.
Dean: It’s a concerted effort. What is the song telling you it needs? Once I become willful, in anything I do, once I put my mitts in it, I can fuck it up really quickly. You really have to listen to what the song wants to do. And there are many times where it’s like, “I’m hearing this part here; let me try this.” And I lay it down and it’s played well, there’s a nice tone, but then I’m like, “It’s better without it.” That’s where you really need to put your ego aside, put your ability aside, and ask, “What is the song telling you it needs?”
its own story.” —Dean DeLeo
Dean, do you approach your guitar solos the same way?
Dean: Yeah. Absolutely. And I also want to go very wide. Not only do I not want to repeat what I did on previous records, but I also don’t want to repeat myself on this record. So, the solos are very different from song to song. And not just in tonality, but an entirely different approach—from “Just a Little Lie” to “The Art of Letting Go” to “Reds & Blues.” One of the most beautiful things about guitar is, I have so many different instruments to pick from—from a single-coil Tele or Danelectro or a Strat to a Les Paul with a PAF. Each one tells its own story.
Do you work out your solos in advance or are they improvised?
Dean: If you go back to [2001’s] Shangri-La Dee Da, I approached those solos very differently. I didn’t even pick up a guitar. I didn’t want to get into some kind of pentatonic mode and play a guitar solo per se, so I sat there with the song and I had a little recorder and sang my solos. Then I transposed them to guitar. That’s why the solos on that record are a little more melodic. This record was different. I didn’t have anything really predetermined. I waited to see where Jeff was going to leave off. I’m sort of playing off his vocals.
When tracking, do you go for a basic rhythm sound for the whole record or do you use different sounds from song to song?
Dean: I kind of know, once the song is at its inception, where I want it to go sonically. It’s just about chasing that tone. For me, it’s about getting what’s going on in my bean [head] and making that come out of the speakers. That’s the name of the game. And sometimes it works and comes along quickly—and it’s nice when that happens. But sometimes you stumble upon a different tone, and you’re like, “I kind of like that better.” It’s nice to have the ability to not chase your tail.
Guitars
Live
Five ’88 Gibson Les Paul Standards
Two ’60s Fender Telecasters
Two Nelson Guitarwerks T-Classics
Two PRS McCarty Semi-Hollows (with a piezo pickup for acoustic sounds)
’56 Danelectro U2 with lipstick pickups
Two-pickup ’60s Danelectro double-cutaway
Fender ’60s Telecaster with Bigsby
Nelson S-style guitar
’60s Kay
’60s Kustom
’60s Gretsch Country Gentleman
’50 Gibson J-50
’45 Martin 0-18
Amps (live)
Demeter TGP-3 Guitar Pre-Amp
VHT 2100 Classic power amp with EL-34 tubes
Vox AC30 with Celestion Alnico Blues
Two Marshall 4x12 slant cabinets with Celestion Vintage 30s
Effects (live)
Rocktron Intelliverb
MXR MC406 CAE Buffer
Dunlop GCB95F Cry Baby Classic Wah
Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble
SIB Varidrive Tube Overdrive Distortion
RJM Music Mastermind GT/10 MIDI Controller
Strings and Picks
Dunlop DESBN1046 Super Bright strings (.010–.046)
Dunlop Chrome Guitar Slide 318
Dunlop Delrin 500 (heavy pick)
Do either of you have any formal education as a musician?
Robert: None at all. Just being a good listener is an education. Being the youngest of a big family back in the early ’70s, I was very curious about records and I remember some of the first records that I picked up and had the pleasure of listening to were by the Beatles and the Beach Boys. I heard that music back then and it was like the bell ringing. I was so amazed. And I had a very good understanding, at 5 or 6 years old, of rhythm and bass playing and hooks and lines and flavors and arrangements. It really caught, I would say, my ear, but it really caught my soul.
Robert, your bass lines can often be very active, but they only ever seem to enhance the song or melody, like in “Reds & Blues.”
Robert: That goes back to most of the stuff that [Motown bassist] James Jamerson was doing on pop songs. I’m just amazed by what he got away with. If you listen to “It’s a Shame” by the Spinners, I mean, that just blows me away. It’s one of my favorite bass lines. Or “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” [by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell]. Wow! He’s the guy that set the tone for everyone else. He’s the highest up there for me.
I definitely hear his influence in your playing—especially in “Finest Hour.”
Robert: It’s the breath in between the notes, not actually what you’re playing, to me. It’s the breathing of the line that gives it its breadth and that’s what always amazed me—the spaces in between and what people did with that.
Do you ever play with a pick or is it strictly fingerstyle?
Robert: I’ve been doing some outside projects, and one of them is with Matt Sorum from Guns N’ Roses, who has a project called Kings of Chaos. We did some stuff with Billy Idol and that material is all strictly pick. I owe Steve Stevens for saying, “Hey man, can you play that with a pick?” I was like, “I don’t know if I can, but I’ll try.” I really wrapped my head around it. It has a certain kind of percussive, aggressive attack to it that really fits those songs. I had a blast doing it.
Are there any pick players that ever stood out to you when you were growing up?
Robert: There are two, and they’re completely different from each other. One is Chris Squire. I am constantly amazed by what he did with not only his playing, but also his tone. And then, Graham Maby’s playing really stood out to me on the first two Joe Jackson records [Look Sharp! and I’m the Man]. “Sunday Papers” is some good, clever bass playing.
I read somewhere that your goal, as a bassist, has been to combine the feel of James Jamerson with the sound of John Entwistle. I think you achieved that on this album—especially on songs like “Roll Me Under.” What’s your secret?
Robert: With all the records we’ve ever made, I’ve pretty much used the same thing. In the beginning I had a ’61 Fender Bassman head—it was actually Dean’s—with a special-order Bassman cab that had the original JBL 15" in it. Unfortunately, it crapped out after we did the High Rise EP [in 2013] with Chester. So, I was panicking on what to do. I was so used to using that. So, I pulled out a ’67 Ampeg B-15N I own and realized I had more low-end and a different midrange from the Bassman. I liked what it was doing, so I put a vintage Neumann U67 on it and used that.
Although Rob DeLeo is playing a Schecter P-style here, his current stage basses are made by STP guitar tech Bruce Nelson and include a combo of Lollar P and J pickups with individual volume controls and one master tone. Bodies are 1-piece alder with a nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Photo by Ken Settle
Do you ever record multiple tracks for bass or is it just the one track?
Robert: There are three bass tracks on this record: the B-15N, then, on another track, I used the Little Labs Redeye direct box, and I have an Ampeg VT-22, which is essentially a V-4 in combo form. It’s 100 watts. I take the speaker out of that and power the head into a 1970 Marshall 8x10. That’s the growl that you hear. The midrange from the switches on the VT-22 gives you this notched kind of thing. Back in the day, during Tiny Music…, No. 4, and Shangri-La Dee Da, I was using the Bassman with the 8x10, and I was putting a wah in there and cocking it, which you can really hear in the bass tone of “Down” [from No. 4]. That’s what I’m doing now, but with the VT-22 through the 8x10.
What basses did you use on this album?
Robert: I got a chance to use a lot of my basses. I have a very nice vintage collection that I got from a gentleman who’d been storing basses away for 30 years, and some of them hadn’t been opened in 50 years [laughs]. Some are literally mint from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. They don’t leave my house.
Are you cautious about dinging vintage mint condition basses?
Robert: I dare not sweat on them [laughs]. I’m going to invent something new, like the “arm sock” for when you’re playing your vintage basses and you don’t want to scratch them or sweat on them. What was that thing you put on, like a robe, and you watch TV?
—Robert DeLeo
Snuggies?
Robert: Snuggies! Yeah! I’m going to come up with a bass Snuggie. You put that on your arm in case you don’t want to sweat on your vintage instrument [laughs].
What basses are you playing live?
Robert: Dean’s tech and our good friend, Bruce Nelson, is a very, very proficient luthier. We just recently played with Joe Perry and Joe’s been playing some of Bruce’s guitars. I had him build me a couple of basses and they’re just amazing. They feel so comfortable, and he’s building them from scratch. So, I’m using Nelson basses now.
How did you meet Bruce?
Dean: I went to Bruce’s house only because he was setting up a friend’s guitars. Bruce answered the door and within 10 seconds I was like, “Oh my god, I love this guy.” He was so kind and knowledgeable. I was just about to go on tour with Joe Walsh and I said to him, “Hey man, do you ever go on the road? Robert and I are going out with Joe Walsh for a few weeks. Would you want to do it?” And he was like, “What are the dates?” He was working for Tom Anderson at the time, building guitars. So, I gave him the dates and he goes, “Ironically, your dates line up with my vacation.” We’ve been pals ever since. He’s first and foremost a beautiful human being. He’s built me four guitars: three Teles and a Strat. This one Tele has Firebird pickups in it. It’s an incredible guitar.
Basses (live)
Bruce Nelson-built Nelson Guitarwerks hybrid P/J-style basses (These include Lollar P and J pickups with individual volume controls and one master tone. Bodies are 1-piece alder with a nitrocellulose lacquer finish. They have a custom 12-gauge, steel-string, through-body bridge with 3/8" brass saddles and a 1/2" thick recessed steel string block. Nelson’s neck plates are 12-gauge steel with six neck screws, and the necks are quarter-sawn torrified maple with Indian rosewood fretboards, block inlays, and binding. The frets are stainless steel, the nuts are brass, and they employ Hipshot Bass Xtenders.)
(Studio for Stone Temple Pilots)
1965 Fender P Bass with padauk fretboard on “Middle of Nowhere,” “Just a Little Lie,” “Six Eight,” “Roll Me Under,” “Finest Hour,” “Good Shoes,” “Guilty” (with Electro-Harmonix Bass Micro Synth), and “Meadow” (with Maestro BB-1 Bass Brassmaster fuzz)
1976 Rickenbacker 4001 on “Thought She’d Be Mine”
1971 Rickenbacker 4001 fireglo with flatwounds on “Never Enough”
1972 Fender J bass on “The Art of Letting Go”
1974 Fender Telecaster Bass on “Reds & Blues”
Amps
QSC PLX1602 2-channel, 1600-watt power amp (live)
Two Ampeg SVT-810E 800-watt extension cabs (live)
1967 Ampeg B-15N (studio)
Ampeg VT-22 (studio)
Effects
Line 6 Bass POD XT Pro amp modeler
Furman PL-8 Power Conditioner
Shure ULXD4D Dual Channel Digital Wireless Receiver
Strings and Picks
D’Addario EXL160 Nickel Wound Medium (.050–.105)
How important is your tech to your performance each night?
Dean: We’re so in tune with one another. And he knows my guitars. He knows that on the black Les Paul he has to flatten the G string just a hair, and on one particular Tele I need to have the B string a little sharp because it’s tuned to open D minor. He knows the idiosyncrasies of each guitar.
What amps are you using live?
Dean: I’m using the same stuff I have since day one. The live rig really allows me to cover a lot of real estate. It’s so versatile. I’m able to get so many different tones just by utilizing the volume and tone off the guitar. I can cover all the albums and that’s a lot of material. It’s a VHT amp, run in stereo. I run that at 50 watts, 16 ohms. That goes through two 4x12 slant cabs with 30-watt speakers. That also goes through the Demeter tri-modal preamp, which gives me three channels. I can have a cool kind of semi-clean thing, depending on where the volume is on the guitar, and I can have a big rhythm tone, and I can have the third channel be a big blast-off, lead tone. That’s running stereo, and then I have a Vox AC30 in the middle and it’s set very clean—very chimey. My front-of-house guy runs the Marshalls full hard left and hard right and the AC30 is up the middle. When I’m playing chords I want to hear every string.
Hats off to Ken Andrews for mixing the record. He did an amazing job. Did you bounce mixes back and forth for feedback?
Dean: We felt it would be unfair to be in there, so we let Ken do his thing. We would go in at the end of the day and listen and give him a little direction about what we wanted, but it was mostly, “Do your thing, man.” We would only tweak little things like, “Let’s goose the top of the last chorus,” but it was 98 percent done when Ken had us out there [to listen].
You recorded this album at your home studios. What did your engineer, Ryan Williams, bring to the table?
Robert: Ryan started working with us on our third record, Tiny Music… He was Brendan’s [Brendan O’Brien, producer] assistant going back to ’96. We reconnected with Ryan for this record. It’s like having someone who knows exactly what we want. He’s that bridge between Brendan and us. He really has that thing. I couldn’t imagine working without him. He’s that important.
Speaking of Brendan O’Brien, what affect did working so extensively with him early in your career have on you?
Dean: Let me tell you man, we learned a lot making our first five records with Brendan. He is notorious for working fast. I would want to do five more takes and he’d be like, “We’re done, man. We’re done with that one, we’re moving on. Let’s go. Next part.” That was really instilled in us through five records. Brendan worked fast and efficient and he got the best out of us, quickly. That’s how we learned to make records.
Stone Temple Pilots, with new singer Jeff Gutt, perform a stripped-down version of their classic “Plush” on Los Angeles radio station KROQ. But there’s nothing low key about the shimmering, crunchy tones Dean DeLeo gets from his Les Paul Standard, or the rhythm section’s punch on the choruses and finale. Hang in for Robert DeLeo’s “shave and a haircut, two bits.”
Guitarists are used to coveting cranky, old gear, but if you’re not a rack user, the H3000 might not be for you! If you ever see one of these in a studio, be sure to take some time to check it out, and maybe give the plugin a try.When it debuted in 1987, the H3000 was marketed as an “intelligent pitch-changer” that could generate stereo harmonies in a user-specified key. This was heady stuff in the ’80s! But while diatonic harmonizing grabbed the headlines, subtler uses of this pitch-shifter cemented its legacy. Patch 231 MICROPITCHSHIFT, for example, is a big reason the H3000 persists in racks everywhere. It’s essentially a pair of very short, single-repeat delays: The left side is pitched slightly up while the right side is pitched slightly down (default is ±9 cents). The resulting tripling/thickening effect has long been a mix-engineer staple for pop vocals, and it’s also my first call when I want a stereo chorus for guitar.
The second-gen H3000S, introduced the following year, cemented the device’s guitar bona fides. Early-adopter Steve Vai was such a proponent of the first edition that Eventide asked him to contribute 48 signature sounds for the new model (patches 700-747). Still-later revisions like the H3000B and H3000D/SE added even more functionality, but these days it’s not too important which model you have. Comprehensive EPROM chips containing every patch from all generations of H3000 (plus the later H3500) are readily available for a modest cost, and are a fairly straightforward install.
In addition to pitch-shifting, there are excellent modulation effects and reverbs (like patch 211 CANYON), plus presets inspired by other classic Eventide boxes, like the patch 513 INSTANT PHASER. A comprehensive accounting of the H3000’s capabilities would be tedious, but suffice to say that even the stock presets get deliciously far afield. There are pitch-shifting reverbs that sound like fever-dream ancestors of Strymon’s “shimmer” effect. There are backwards-guitar simulators, multiple extraterrestrial voices, peculiar foreshadows of the EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid and Rainbow Machine (check out patch 208 BIZARRMONIZER), and even button-triggered Foley effects that require no input signal (including a siren, helicopter, tank, submarine, ocean waves, thunder, and wind). If you’re ever without your deck of Oblique Strategies cards, the H3000’s singular knob makes a pretty good substitute. (Spin the big wheel and find out what you’ve won!)
“If you’re ever without your deck of Oblique Strategies cards, the H3000’s singular knob makes a pretty good substitute.”
But there’s another, more pedestrian reason I tend to reach for the H3000 and its rackmount relatives in the studio: I like to do certain types of processing after the mic. It’s easy to overlook, but guitar speakers are signal processors in their own right. They roll off high and low end, they distort when pushed, and the cabinets in which they’re mounted introduce resonances. While this type of de facto processing often flatters the guitar itself, it isn’t always advantageous for effects.
Effects loops allow time-based effects to be placed after preamp distortion, but I like to go one further. By miking the amp first and then sending signal to effects in parallel, I can get full bandwidth from the airy reverbs and radical pitched-up effects the H3000 can offer—and I can get it in stereo, printed to its own track, allowing the wet/dry balance to be revisited later, if needed. If a sound needs to be reproduced live, that’s a problem for later. (Something evocative enough can usually be extracted from a pedal-form descendant like the Eventide H90.)
Like most vintage gear, the H3000 has some endearing quirks. Even as it knowingly preserves glitches from earlier Eventide harmonizers (patch 217 DUAL H910s), it betrays its age with a few idiosyncrasies of its own. Extreme pitch-shifting exhibits a lot of aliasing (think: bit-crusher sounds), and the analog Murata filter modules impart a hint of warmth that many plug-in versions don’t quite capture. (They also have a habit of leaking black goo all over the motherboard!) It’s all part of the charm of the unit, beloved by its adherents. (Well, maybe not the leaking goo!)
In 2025, many guitarists won’t be eager to care for what is essentially an expensive, cranky, decades-old computer. Even the excitement of occasional tantalum capacitor explosions is unlikely to win them over! Fortunately, some great software emulations exist—Eventide’s own plugin even models the behavior of the Murata filters. But hardware offers the full hands-on experience, so next time you spot an old H3000 in a rack somewhere—and you’ve got the time—fire it up, wait for the distinctive “click” of its relays, spin the knob, and start digging.
You can access your complete TONEX library, including Tone Models, presets and ToneNET, quickly load favorites to audition, and save to a designated hardware slot on IK hardware pedals. This easy-to-use application simplifies workflow, providing a streamlined experience for preparing TONEX pedals for the stage.
Fine-tune and organize your pedal presets in real time for playing live. Fully compatible with all your previous TONEX library settings and presets. Complete control over all pedal preset parameters, including Global setups. Access all Tone Models/IRs in the hardware memory, computer library, and ToneNET Export/Import entire libraries at once to back up and prepare for gigs Redesigned GUI with adaptive resize saves time and screen space Instantly audition any computer Tone Model or preset through the pedal.
Studio to Stage
Edit any onboard Tone Model or preset while hearing changes instantly through the pedal. Save new settings directly to the pedal, including global setup and performance modes (TONEX ONE), making it easy to fine-tune and customize your sound. The updated editor features a new floating window design for better screen organization and seamless browsing of Tone Models, amps, cabs, custom IRs and VIR. You can directly access Tone Models and IRs stored in the hardware memory and computer library, streamlining workflow.
A straightforward drop-down menu provides quick access to hardware-stored Tone Models conveniently sorted by type and character. Additionally, the editor offers complete control over all key parameters, including FX, Tone Model Amps, Tone Model Cabs/IR/VIR, and tempo and global setup options, delivering comprehensive, real-time control over all settings.
A Seamless Ecosystem of Tones
TONEX Editor automatically syncs with the entire TONEX user library within the Librarian tab. It provides quick access to all Tone Models, presets and ToneNET, with advanced filtering and folder organization for easy navigation. At the same time, a dedicated auto-load button lets you preview any Tone Model or preset in a designated hardware slot before committing changes.This streamlined workflow ensures quick edits, precise adjustments and the ultimate flexibility in sculpting your tone.
Get Started Today
TONEX Editor is included with TONEX 1.9.0, which was released today. Download or update the TONEX Mac/PC software from the IK Product Manager to install it. Then, launch TONEX Editor from your applications folder or Explorer.
For more information and videos about TONEX Editor, TONEX Pedal, TONEX ONE, and TONEX Cab, visit:
www.ikmultimedia.com/tonexeditor
Valerie June’s songs, thanks to her distinctive vocal timbre and phrasing, and the cosmology of her lyrics, are part of her desire to “co-create a beautiful life” with the world at large.
YouTube
If you’re familiar with June’s sound, you know how effortlessly she stands out from the singer-songwriter pack. Her equal-parts warm, reedy, softly Macy Gray-tinged singing voice imprints on her as many facets as a radiant-cut emerald—and it possesses the trademark sincerity heard in the most distinctive of singer/songwriters. Her music, overall, brilliantly shines with a spirited, contagiously uplifting glow.
Owls, Omens, and Oracles opens with “Joy, Joy!” with producer M. Ward rocking lead guitar over strings (June plays acoustic on nearly all of the tracks and banjo on one). It then recurringly dips into ’50s doo-wop chord changes, blends chugging, at times funky rock rhythms with saxophones and horns, bursts with New Orleans-style brass on “Changed” (which features gospel legends the Blind Boys of Alabama), and explores a slow soul groove with electronic guest DJ Cavem Moetavation on “Superpower.” Bright Eyes’ multi-instrumentalist Nate Walcott helmed the arrangements with guidance from Ward and June, and frequently appears on piano and Hammond organ, while Norah Jones supports with backing vocals on the folk lullaby “Sweet Things Just for You.” The entire album was recorded live to tape, which was a new experience for June.
June shares her perspective on the album and her work, overall. “It’s not ever complete or finished, your study of art,” she offers. “It’s an adventure, and it keeps getting prettier as you walk through the meadow of creating or learning new things. Every artist that you bring in has a different way of performing with you, or the audience might be really talkative or super quiet. And all of that shapes the art—so it’s ever-expansive. It’s pretty infinite [laughs], where art can take you and where it goes.... I kinda got lost there a little bit,” she muses, laughing.
June’s favored acoustic guitar is this Martin 000-15M, with mahogany top, back, and sides.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
June didn’t connect with guitar in the beginning, but discovered her passion for it later, when the instrument became a vehicle for her self-empowerment. She took lessons as a teenager but was a distracted student, preferring to listen to her teacher share the history of blues guitarists like Big Bill Broonzy and Mississippi John Hurt. “I didn’t pick it up again until I was in my early 20s, and my band that I was in with my ex fell apart,” she says. “I still was singing and I still was hearing these beautiful voices sing me these songs, and I didn’t want to never be able to perform them. It was a terrible feeling, to be … musically stranded.
“And I was like, ‘Now, I could go get a new band and get some more accompaniment, but how ’bout I get my tail in there and keep my promise to my granddad who gave me that first guitar and actually learn how to play it, so I’ll never feel like this again.’ The goal was that I would never be musically stranded again.”
She became a solo performer, learning lap steel and banjo along with guitar, and called her style “organic moonshine roots music.” Today, she eschews picks for fingers, even when strumming chords, and is a vital blues-and-folk based stylist when she lays into her playing–especially in a live,solo setting. After two self-released albums, 2006’s The Way of the Weeping Willow and 2008’s Mountain of Rose Quartz, she connected with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who recorded and produced her 2013 album, Pushin’ Against Stone, at Nashville’s Easy Eye Sound, which helped launch her now-flourishing career.
Valerie June’s Gear
Guitars
Amps
- Fender Deluxe Reverb
Effects
- TC Electronic Hall of Fame
- MXR X Third Man Hardware Double Down booster
- J. Rockett Audio Archer boost/overdrive
Strings
- D’Addario XL Nickel Regular Light (.010–.046)
- Martin Marquis Silked Phosphor Bronze (.012–.054
Photo by Travys Owen
As we talk about art being a shared experience, June says she can be a bit of a hermit at times, but “when it’s time to share the art, then there you are. Even if you’re a painter and you just put your painting on a wall and walk away, that’s an interaction that brings you out of your studio or your bedroom to understand this whole act of co-creating—which to me is a spiritual act anyway. That’s why we’re here, to really understand those rules and layers to life. How do we co-create together?
“And I think it’s so fun,” she enthuses. “I enjoy learning, even when it’s hard. I’m like, ‘Okay, this chord is killing me right now, or this phrase.... but I’ma stick with it. And then that likens to something that I might face when I go out into the world. I’m like, ‘All right, I can get through this.’”
I suggest, “When you say ‘co-creating,’ it sounds like you mean something bigger.”
“Both in the creation of our art, but also in the creation of a life,” June replies. “’Cause how can a life be something this artistic? You get to the end of it and you’re like, ‘Wow, look at what I co-created! With all these other people, with animals, with nature, with sound that’s all around....‘ All of my life has been a piece of art or a collective creation. I imagine them like books: different lives on a shelf. And you go pick one—‘Whoa! I created a pretty fun one there!’ or, ‘Oh, man, I had no hand in that....’ Close the book, next one!” she concludes, laughing as she illustrates the metaphor with her hands.
“So does that make all of your inspirations your co-creators?” I ask.
Valerie June at one of her several Newport Folk Festival appearances, with her trusty Gold Tone banjo
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
“Yeah! Even if they’ve gone before,” says June. “I was listening to some beautiful classical music the other day, and I was like, ‘Man, I don’t know who any of these artists are; they’re all dead and gone, but I’m just enjoying it and it’s putting me in a zone that I need to be in right now.‘ So, we’re always leaving these little seeds for even those who are coming after us to be inspired by.”
Some of her current non-musical co-creators are poets and authors, such as the poet Hafez, the philosopher Audre Lorde, poet Mary Oliver, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Potawatomi botanist whose works include Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses.
“It’s not ever complete or finished, your study of art. It’s an adventure, and it keeps getting prettier as you walk through the meadow of creating or learning new things.”
“These books are so beautiful and show the relationship of humanity with nature and the way trees speak with each other; the way moss communicates to itself,” June explains. “Those ways of being can help humans, who always think we know so much, to learn how to work together better.”
As she’s sharing, I see her glance out her window. “Right now, I just saw a muskrat go across the pond,” she continues. “It’s about this big [holds hands about three feet apart] and it digs holes in the yard. It’s having such a great time and I’m just like, ‘Okay, you are huge, and I’m walking through the yard and falling in holes because of you [laughs]. I’m just watching you live your best life!’ And then there was a blue heron that came yesterday, and I watched it eat fish.... They’re my friends!” she exclaims, with more laughter.
Valerie June believes in the power of flowers–and all living thing–as her creative collaborators.
It might seem like we’re getting a bit off subject, but it’s residents of nature like these who are important in her creative process.
I share how, in my own approach to art, I feel as though we can always access creativity and our ideals, as long as we stay receptive to experiencing and sharing in them. June agrees, but comments that sometimes her best self only wants to sit and focus: “No more information; no more downloads, please.”
An encounter with Memphis-based blues guitarist Robert Belfour, who June frequently saw perform, expanded that perspective for her. She shares about a time she went up to him after a show: “I was like, ‘Hey, I would love to work with you on some music and maybe we could co-write a song or something.’ He was like, ‘Nope! I don’t wanna do it.’ And I said, ‘Whaaat?’ And he’s like, ‘No. I do what I do, and I do not do what anybody else does; I just do what I do.’”
Sometimes, she says, “I think that’s just as much of an outlook to have with creating as anything. It’s like, ‘Okay, I’m there, I’m where I wanna be. I don’t want to be anywhere else.’”
“That’s why we’re here, to really understand those rules and layers to life. How do we co-create together?”
Part of what’s so enjoyable about speaking with June is realizing that she truly exists on her own plane. She has no pretense, and in that, doesn’t hide some of the fears that weigh on her mind at times. But she doesn’t let those define her. It’s her easy, exuberant optimism that sparks a feeling of friendship between us, without having known each other before that afternoon. What are some of her guiding principles as an artist, I wonder?
“I sit with the idea of, ‘Who am I creating this for?’” she says, “and returning to the fact that I’m doing this for me, and, as Gillian Welch said, ‘I’m gonna do it anyway even if it doesn’t pay.’ This is what I wanna do. And reflecting on that and letting that kind of be my guiding force. It’s just something that I enjoy, that I really wanna do.”
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From there, the conversation meanders in other directions, and June even generously asks me a few questions about my own artistic beliefs. We share about trusting your gut instinct, and walking away from situations and people who don’t serve us. This reminds her of a bigger feeling.
“With everything that these times hold for us as humans,” she shares, “from the inequality that we face to the environmental change, the political climate, and all the things that could lead us to fear or negativity.... I started to think about it, and I’m like, ‘Okay, well, maybe we are fucked! Maybe the planet is going to eject us and all of the other things are gonna come true! Well, if that’s what’s gonna happen, who do I wanna be?’
“I want to go out in a way that’s sweet or kind to other people, enjoying this experience, these last moments, and building togetherness through music. I want to co-create a beautiful life even in the face of all of that. That’s what I want to do.”
