
Whether you want to tech for a touring band, open a repair shop, or simply maintain your own instruments, there are important things to consider before stepping into the world of 6-string repair.
Okay, you love guitar ... some folks might claim you're obsessed with it. Maybe you're a weekend warrior or even play in a touring band. When you're not gigging, however, the big question arises: How do I parlay my passion for the instrument into an activity that can support me? Of course, one option is to teach guitar independently or through a local music store or institution. Or you can work in music retail. But for those with the requisite skills and determination, there is another path: become a professional guitar tech.
As with any serious undertaking, this takes study, patience, and a lot of experience and expertise. But if you consider how many millions of guitars are out there and the legions of owners who need their instruments set up, repaired, or restored, there's plenty of work for the qualified tech. Whether you hit the road to tech with a band or decide to open up your own shop, caring for guitars and basses can provide you with a way to stay involved with the world of music while making ends meet. And even if you don't want to turn pro, guitar repair can make a great hobby—a way to tend your own instruments and help out your friends.
If you consider how many millions of guitars are out there and the legions of owners who need their instruments set up, repaired, or restored, there's plenty of work for the qualified tech.
Is this right for you? Let's explore 12 things you'll need to understand and master as a guitar tech. After absorbing this overview, you'll be able to answer that question for yourself. I'll describe what to expect if you have a shop where customers come to you for everything from small jobs to major repairs. If you decide to tour as a tech, the basic principles remain the same, though your workbench and tools will have to be streamlined by necessity. On the road, you'd be primarily doing setups backstage before each show, rather than the repairs, mods, and restorations that are the bread-and-butter of a shop.
The Value of Training
Advancing your career as a professional guitar technician requires many different elements, but it begins with having the proper training. For many years, I've taught guitar repair and restoration classes at the Guitar Services Workshop near Nashville, with an emphasis on preparing students for the demands of professional customer service. Some technical two-year colleges offer degree and certificate programs in guitar repair, and there are a handful of private schools across the country—including the Galloup School of Guitar Building and Repair, run by PG's Acoustic Soundboard columnist Bryan Galloup—that provide valuable training. Working as a luthier's apprentice is another time-honored means of acquiring essential skills, but the shortest path to a guitar-tech career is to successfully complete a course offered by a school or workshop that focuses on repair, and in the process earn some type of recognized certification.
Keep in mind that developing your physical skills is just one part of the training: Guitar repair also requires strong analytical abilities. For example, it's critical to know what procedure to do first, based on the construction and physics of the guitar, and how this first step will affect each subsequent one. Correctly evaluating the condition of the guitar involves tuning it, taking measurements, and inspecting it for any damage or defects. For acoustic and hollowbody guitars, you must always examine the braces and other interior components, looking for cracks, separations, and other types of damage. If you find any structural problems, they must be repaired first. Again, understanding how to evaluate a guitar before you begin any work is a fundamental part of your training. A skilled instructor can show you how to do this based on decades of hands-on experience.
Essential Tools and Materials
I always encourage students to write out a "plan of action" before they begin any procedure. Once you've done this, it's time to gather the tools, materials, and supplies necessary to complete the project. Here's a list of what you'll need to have available before starting a repair:
- As you can see, that's a lot of tools, supplies, and materials. One final word of advice: Always be sure you have what you need before jumping into a project. This gives you a much better chance of success than just winging it.
Doing excellent repair work is only part of our job. Providing great customer service is one of the primary keys to success, and a top repair tech also has solid customer service skills. This requires honesty, diplomacy, and having "the heart of a teacher." It's not about scoring a sale just for the sake of a few dollars. Rather, it's about educating your customers and suggesting what is best for them and their instruments. For example, you need to explain the importance of temperature and humidity control to your clients, because they are two of the leading causes of damage to any guitar.
You don't need a big shop to do great work, but you need enough room to accommodate workbenches, equipment, storage, and your customers. Over the years, I've had shops sized from 80 up to 1,000 square feet, but 400 square feet is ample for a repair shop. It may sound small, but you can configure it to handle almost any project. A smaller space gives you the ability to easily control the temperature and humidity. I cannot emphasize enough how critical temperature and humidity control are to doing excellent repairs. If you ignore this in your shop, your work will suffer.
Guitar Setups
A professional guitar tech uses many tools—some common, others highly specialized. This is one of the biggest expenses associated with diving into guitar repair.
A pro setup consists of a series of adjustments to make an instrument play its best for your customer. There are five key elements to a setup:
- Adjusting the truss rod.
- Adjusting the action at the bridge.
- Adjusting the action at the string nut.
- Adjusting the pickups on electric guitars and basses.
- Adjusting the intonation.
If you decide to open up a repair shop, you don't need a huge space. But a mastery of organization and workflow is crucial for success.
This is the order for setting up a guitar correctly. If you make these adjustments in the wrong order, you'll probably have to start over—and perhaps even replace some components.
A guitarist's playing style determines how you adjust the above elements. We all play differently and not all guitars are designed to play the same. To assess our customers' needs, we have to ask them many questions; their answers help us optimize each setup. Here are some of the questions to ask:
- What tuning do you play in?
- What gauge strings do you use?
- What style of music do you play?
- Do you use picks or fingers? What size pick? Fingernails or fingertips?
- Do you use a capo? What kind and how far up the fretboard?
- How do you strum?
- Do you play lead, rhythm, or both?
- Do you use a slide?
- How would you describe your touch?
- Do you control the humidity and temperature where you keep your instrument?
The more you know about an individual's playing style, the easier it is to set up or repair the guitar to match it. And it's worth the extra effort: Once you've mastered bespoke setups, your customers are likely to bring you more guitars to work on.
Whether you deal with the public or tour with a band, you need to be personable. No one wants to hand over their beloved instrument to a grouch.
Fretwork
Excellent fretwork demands quality tools, steady hands, and attention to detail. Much like professional musicians rely on ear training, we guitar techs rely on "eye training." Every aspect of refretting a neck requires training your eyes to recognize fine details. A mistake of as little as 1/1000" can sour a great refret.
The first step is to identify any defects in the fretboard. I recommend evaluating the guitar both with and without string tension. Look for inconsistencies along the fretboard, such as:
- Excessive forward bow with the truss rod tightened.
- Excessive backward bow with the truss rod loose.
- A twisted fretboard with the truss rod both tight and loose.
- Separation between the fretboard and neck, especially near the string nut.
- Kick-up at the end of the fretboard, which is typically caused by the pickguard, exposure to extreme temperatures or humidity, an incorrect shim, or a manufacturing defect.
An excellent refret always begins with a true fretboard. When the fretboard is sanded correctly, it will be straight and consistent, and its radius will be accurate. If you skip this stage of the process, chances are the frets will be inconsistent.
If you know how to expertly refret a guitar and make it play like butter, you'll soon have a loyal customer base.
Installing the new frets correctly will also save time and materials. Always measure the tang and barbs on the new and old frets to avoid forcing a backward bow or installing loose frets. Whether you press or hammer in the frets, make sure they're seated flush to the 'board. Watch for any part of the fret popping up, either at the ends or in the middle. This will happen if the fret slots are not cut deep enough or if the tang on the new frets is too narrow. Consider sealing in the frets with ultra-thin super glue, especially if the guitar will be exposed to fluctuations in temperature and humidity.
Dressing the frets is the final stage of a refret. This is where eye training is critical: The goal is to remove the least amount of fretwire while making the frets smooth, polished, and perfectly level. Here's the process:
- Bevel the fret ends to keep them tight and flush to the end of the fretboard or binding.
- Round and corner the fret ends to eliminate any sharp edges.
- Level the frets to each other by sanding or filing them to prevent any high or low spots.
- Recrown the frets with a special file to create a very narrow point of contact between the top of the fretwire and the strings.
- Scrape the fretboard to remove any excess glue and tool marks in the wood.
- Polish the frets to remove any tool marks and make them shine.
One of the most common tasks a guitar tech will be expected to execute: correctly shaping string slots in the nut to control the height of open strings and avoid binding and buzzing.
The goal is to have frets that feel smooth and provide accurate intonation with no string rattle or dead spots. For a detailed description of fret dressing, read " Squeezing More Life Out of Worn Frets."
Guitar Electronics
Wiring guitars is an essential guitar-tech service. To qualify as a pro, you must:
- Understand how all types of pickups work, including under-saddle piezos, passive and active magnetic single-coils and humbuckers, soundboard transducers, and onboard microphone systems.
- Know the color codes for each brand of pickup and how to handle 2-, 3-, and 4-lead harnesses.
- Learn various wiring configurations for magnetic single-coil and humbucker pickups, such as coil-tap, reverse wind/reverse polarity (RWRP), in/out of phase, and series/parallel.
- Anticipate potential problems when mixing different brands of pickups, and know how to solve them.
- Be able to identify output jacks—mono, stereo, switching, and TRS.
- Know how switches work—toggle, blade, push/pull, push/push, rotary, and slide.
- Understand potentiometer types and the appropriate values for volume and tone controls.
- Know capacitor types, values, and applications.
- Have professional soldering skills and the ability to neatly organize and secure wires to prevent them from being damaged or interfering with other components.
Tip: Never blow on a hot solder joint. It's always tempting to speed up the cooling process, but the moisture in your breath can enter the joint and cause it to fail. For more details on soldering, read "Tips for Replacing a Strat-Style 5-Way Switch" and "Soldering 101: A Step-by-Step Guide."
Knowing what types of glues are available—and when to use each one—is a fundamental guitar-tech skill.
Neck Resets
Neck joints are under constant pressure, compression, and draw. As a result, eventually the angle of the neck needs to be reset for the guitar to play well. This can be as easy as changing shims on a bolt-on or as complex as removing a set neck and re-carving its heel and tenon. Understanding the physics of the guitar you're working on is the key to planning the project. There are different categories of neck joints. Here are six types you'll typically encounter:
- Bolt-on, no glue.
- Bolt-on with glued mortise and tenon.
- Glued mortise and tenon without bolts.
- Dovetail with shims and glue.
- Bayoneted with glue.
- Neck through body.
Neck resets are a common repair that all professional guitar techs should learn and master. Not only is it part of restoring a guitar, but it's a critical factor that determines whether the guitar will be playable or merely a wall hanger. To get a sense of what's involved in a basic reset, check out my Guitar Shop 101 column " How to Shim a Bolt-On Neck."
To assess our customers' needs, we have to ask them many questions; their answers help us optimize each setup.
Repairing Body Cracks
In an acoustic, body cracks are typically caused by low humidity or impact. Unfortunately, body cracks diminish an instrument's value. However, you can limit the amount it's devalued if you treat the crack correctly.
To repair top cracks, techs use deep throat clamps and specialized cauls to ensure the crack closes flush when glued. Repairing side cracks involves powerful rare-earth magnets, spool clamps, and cauls. Back cracks are little more complicated because you can't use any clamps. In this case, you'd use rare-earth magnets and cauls to close up the crack.
Mastering soldering is an essential skill, as is knowing how to interpret a wiring schematic.
When repairing top and back cracks, you need to be aware of the braces. If the crack crosses a brace, it's best to reglue the brace at the same time. You'll need some custom cauls to do this, especially for the back.
Tip: Never rub a bare finger on a crack. This will allow dirt, oil, and sweat to discolor the wood, which can result in poor glue joints and an ugly stain.
Bridges and Bridge Plates
Bridge repairs are another bread-and-butter job for the qualified tech. Often you can address a playability issue with a good setup, but in some cases a bridge has to be replaced. With electric guitars, this typically involves putting new saddles on a fixed or tremolo-style bridge, or replacing a Tune-o-matic-style bridge that has collapsed from years of downward pressure. I describe the latter in " How to Install a New Tune-o-matic Bridge."
For acoustic instruments, you either reglue the original bridge—if it's not cracked or warped—or carve a new one. Carving a bridge is complicated because it involves matching the height, outline, and string spacing of the original, and matching the new bridge's base to the contours of the top. This process takes several hours when you begin with a raw piece of wood. For details on this operation, read John Brown's " Replacing the Bridge on a '74 Gibson Flattop."
The bridge plate plays an important role in the structural integrity of the guitar's top. Over time it wears out and eventually cracks. If the plate is simply worn out, there are ways to restore it. However, if the plate is cracked, it must be replaced. Otherwise, it will eventually crack the bridge and cause braces to fail.
Many repairs, such as regluing a bridge that has lifted on a flattop, requires an intimate knowledge of the guitar's interior, the principles of intonation, and advanced woodworking techniques.
Replacing the bridge plate can take hours, and just removing it requires several specialized tools, cauls, and equipment. Bridges and bridge plate repairs are fairly common in vintage guitars. I recommend you practice these repairs on several inexpensive guitars to develop your skills before attempting to work on a customer's prized instrument.
Braces
When a brace fails in an acoustic guitar, it can cause significant damage. Loose or cracked braces can create body cracks, bridge and bridge plate failure, and a dramatic change in the action. In many cases, this can give the false impression that the guitar has a poor neck angle, when the real issue is brace failure that's causing the top to either collapse or belly up. A loose brace can be reglued, but a cracked brace may have to be replaced. Repairing top braces requires deep throat clamps with brace and top cauls. Never over-clamp a brace. This can damage both it and the soundboard.
Headstock Repair
Broken headstocks are a sad reality. Usually they can be repaired, but occasionally it's a lost cause. If there's enough wood to reglue the headstock, it can be a very successful project. But if the break is too shear, the project may not be cost-effective. When repairing a broken headstock, you need to have enough wood on both the headstock and the neck to hold them together.
Guitarists have a knack for breaking headstocks. If you know how to undo the damage done, word will travel.
At my shop, we first saturate the wood with a 50/50 mix of TiteBond II and water. After cleaning up any excess, we then apply full-strength TiteBond II and clamp the two pieces together. This repair requires custom cauls to prevent damaging the finish and to ensure a solid glue joint. To let the glue completely dry, you'll need to wait 24 to 72 hours before stringing up the guitar.
Build or Repair?
I'll leave you with one final thought. In the world of lutherie, there are two directions you can follow: guitar building and guitar repair. I can tell you from personal experience that it's very difficult to do both. Building requires a lot of equipment, tools, materials, and money. Repair and restoration doesn't require nearly as much to get started. Building guitars can be very satisfying, but it's tough to make a living, especially given the competition. However, as I mentioned at the start of this article, repair and restoration are always in demand. Well-trained professional guitar technicians can make a great living if they work efficiently, effectively, and intelligently. If the idea of becoming a guitar tech resonates with you, your first step is to acquire hands-on training. Tools and materials will flow from there. Good luck!
[Updated 8/18/21]
- Rig Rundown: Queen's Brian May - Premier Guitar ›
- Why the Hell Is My Guitar Repair Taking So Long? - Premier Guitar ›
- 10 Things All Guitarists Should Be Able to Do - Premier Guitar ›
- Acoustic Soundboard: When Cracks Happen - Premier Guitar ›
- Guitar Shop 101: Using Super Glue in Guitar Repair - Premier Guitar ›
- Spend More Time Playing Your Dang Guitars and Less Time Fixing ’Em - Premier Guitar ›
- Watch a ’59 Strat & a ’59 ES-335 Get Refretted in Under 10 Minutes - Premier Guitar ›
- Behind Every Great Guitarist Is Probably a Great Tech - Premier Guitar ›
- Restoring an Acoustic with Ties to the U.S. Presidency - Premier Guitar ›
- World’s Worst Guitar Repairman? - Premier Guitar ›
In challenging times, sometimes elemental music, like the late Jessie Mae Hemphill’s raucous Mississippi hill country blues, is the best salve. It reminds us of what’s truly essential––musically, culturally, and emotionally. And provides a restorative and safe place, where we can open up, listen, and experience without judgement. And smile.
I’ve been prowling the backroads, juke joints, urban canyons, and VFW halls for more than 40 years, in search of the rawest, most powerful and authentic American music. And among the many things I’ve learned is that what’s more interesting than the music itself is the people who make it.
One of the most interesting people I’ve met is the late Jessie Mae Hemphill. By the time my wife, Laurie Hoffma, and I met Jessie Mae, on a visit to her trailer in Senatobia, Mississippi, she’d had a stroke and retired from performing, but we’d been fortunate to see her years before at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival, where she brought a blues style that was like quiet thunder, rumbling with portent and joy and ache, and all the other stuff that makes us human, sung to her own droning, rocking accompaniment on an old Gibson ES-120T.
To say she was from a musical family is an understatement. Her grandfather, Sid, was twice recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. While Sid played fiddle, banjo, guitar, harmonica, keyboards, and more, he was best known as the leader of a fife-and-drum band that made music that spilled directly from Africa’s main artery. Sid was Jessie Mae’s teacher, and she learned well. In fact, you can see her leading her own fife-and-drum group in Robert Mugge’s wonderful documentary Deep Blues(with the late musician and journalist Robert Palmer as on-screen narrator), where she also performs a mournful-but-hypnotic song about betrayal—solo, on guitar—in Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint.
That movie, a 1982 episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (on YouTube) where she appears as part of Othar Turner’s Gravel Springs fife-and-drum band, and worldwide festival appearances are as close as Jessie Mae ever got to fame, although that was enough to make her important and influential to Bonnie Raitt, Cat Power, and others. And she made two exceptional albums during her lifetime: 1981’s She-Wolf and 1990’s Feelin’ Good. If you’re unfamiliar with North Mississippi blues, their sound will be a revelation. The style, as Jessie Mae essayed it, is a droning, hypnotic joy that bumps along like a freight train full of happily rattling box cars populated by carefree hobos. Often the songs ride on one chord, but that chord is the only one that’s needed to put the music’s joy and conviction across. Feelin’ Good, in particular, is essential Jessie Mae. Even the songs about heartbreak, like “Go Back To Your Used To Be” and “Shame on You,” have a propulsion dappled with little bends and other 6-string inflections that wrap the listener in a hypnotic web. Listening to Feelin’ Good, it’s easy to disappear in the music and to have all your troubles vanish as well—for at least as long as its 14 songs last.“She made it clear that she had a gun—a .44 with a pearl handle that took up the entire length of her handbag.”
The challenge I’ve long issued to people unfamiliar with Jessie Mae’s music is: “Listen to Feelin’ Good and then tell me if you’re not feeling happier, more cheerful, and relaxed.” It truly does, as the old cliché would have it, make your backbone slip and your troubles along with it. Especially uptempo songs like the scrappy title track and the charging “Streamline Train.” There’s also an appealing live 1984 performance of the latter on YouTube, with Jessie Mae decked out in leopard-print pants and vest, playing a tambourine wedged onto her left high-heel shoe––one of her stylish signatures.
Jessie Mae was a complex person, caught between the old-school dilemma of playing “the Devil’s music” and yearning for a spiritual life, sweet as pecan pie with extra molasses but quick to turn mean at any perceived slight. She also spent much of her later years in poverty, in a small trailer with a hole in the floor where mice and other critters got in. And she was as mistrustful of strangers as she was warm once she accepted you into her heart. But watch your step before she did. On our first visit to her home, she made it clear that she had a gun—a .44 with a pearl handle that took up the entire length of her handbag and would make Dirty Harry envious.
Happily, she took us into her heart and we took her into ours, helping as much as we could and talking often. She was inspiring, and I wrote a song about her, and even got to perform it for her in her trailer, which was just a little terrifying, since I knew she would not hold back her criticism if she didn't like it. Instead, she giggled like a kid and blushed, and asked if I’d write one more verse about the artifacts she’d gathered while touring around the world.
Jessie Mae died in 2006, at age 82, and, as happens when every great folk artist dies, we lost many songs and stories, and the wisdom of her experience. But you can still get a whiff of all that––if you listen to Feelin’ Good.
This legendary vintage rack unit will inspire you to think about effects with a new perspective.
When guitarists think of effects, we usually jump straight to stompboxes—they’re part of the culture! And besides, footswitches have real benefits when your hands are otherwise occupied. But real-time toggling isn’t always important. In the recording studio, where we’re often crafting sounds for each section of a song individually, there’s little reason to avoid rack gear and its possibilities. Enter the iconic Eventide H3000 (and its massive creative potential).
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.
A live editor and browser for customizing Tone Models and presets.
IK Multimedia is pleased to release the TONEX Editor, a free update for TONEX Pedal and TONEX ONE users, available today through the IK Product Manager. This standalone application organizes the hardware library and enables real-time edits to Tone Models and presets with a connected TONEX pedal.
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.
The world-traveling cosmic roots rocker calls herself a homebody, but her open-hearted singing and songwriting––in rich display on her new album Owls, Omens, and Oracles––welcomes and embraces inspiration from everything … including the muskrat in her yard.
I don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun in an interview as I did speaking with roots-rock artist Valerie June about her new release, Owls, Omens, and Oracles. At the end of our conversation, after going over schedule by about 15 minutes, her publicist curbed us with a gentle reminder. In fairness, maybe we did spend a bit too much time talking about non-musical things, such as Seinfeld, spirituality, and the fauna around her home in Humboldt, Tennessee.
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.”
YouTube It
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.”