Image 1: Impulse response reverbs like Audio Ease’s Altiverb excel at cloning real acoustic spaces.
The entire world of ’verb—from traditional to extreme—really does lie at your fingertips. Here’s how to access it.
This article is for recording guitarists eager to make the most of reverb plug-ins. We’ll explore the various reverb types, decode the controls you’re likely to encounter, and conclude with some suggestions for cool and creative reverb effects.
This is not a buyer’s guide, though you’ll hear many different products. Our focus is common reverb plug-in parameters and how to use them. Nearly all modern DAWs come with good-sounding reverbs. You can also add superb third-party plug-ins. But there are also plenty of free and budget-priced reverbs—just google “free reverb plug-in.”
Reverb = delay. Reverb is merely a delay effect. Sounds traveling through air eventually encounter surfaces. Some sound bounces off these surfaces, producing a complex network of echoes, made even more complex when the initial reflections bounce off secondary surfaces.
The controls on reverb plug-ins define how the software mimics this process. Function names can be confusing, but remember, everything relates to acoustic phenomena that you already understand intuitively. For example:
- The space’s size. (The further a sound travels before hitting a surface, the slower the echoes arrive.)
- The hardness of the reflective surfaces. (The harder the material, the louder, brighter, and more plentiful the echoes.
- The relative angles of the reflective surfaces. (A square room sounds different than a round one, which sounds different than a trapezoidal one.)
- The presence of other objects. (Soft surfaces like carpets, cushions, and acoustic foam diminish the reverb, usually affecting some frequencies more than others.)
- The listener’s location. (The further an ear or microphone from the sound source, the more reverberation is perceived.)
Understanding Reverb Types
By definition, all reverb plug-ins are digital. Most are either algorithmic or convolution-based. Algorithmic reverbs employ delay, feedback, and filters to mimic sounds bouncing around in space. Convolution reverb (also called impulse response or IR reverb) creates “snapshots” of actual sonic spaces and audio devices. In convolution, developers amplify a test tone in the targeted space (or through a target piece of audio gear) and record the results. The software compares the new recording to the dry test tone, and then it applies corresponding adjustments to any audio, making it sound as if it was recorded in the modeled space or through the modeled gear. (That’s how the speaker simulations work in most amp modelers.) Algorithmic and convolution reverbs often perform the same tasks, just via different methods.
But when we make musical choices, we rarely think, “This should be algorithmic and that should be convolution.” We’re usually trying to evoke a particular sound: a place, an old analog device, a freaky sound not found in nature. So, let’s take a whirlwind tour of reverb history, with thoughts about obtaining those sounds via plug-ins.
A Haul-Ass Reverb History
Real spaces. Before the 20th century the only reverbs were actual acoustic environments: caves, castles, temples, tombs. It wasn’t till the 18th century that people began constructing spaces specifically for their sonic properties—the roots of the modern concert hall.
Convolution reverbs excel at conjuring specific places. Most IR reverbs include libraries of such sounds. Some evoke iconic spaces and famed studios. IRs can also mimic small spaces, like a closet or compact car.
Clip 1 — A Guitarist’s Guide to Reverb Plug-ins by premierguitar
In Clip 1, you hear the same acoustic guitar snippet through IRs captured inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, the isolation block at Alcatraz prison, Chartres cathedral, and the interior of a VW Beetle, all using Audio Ease’s Altiverb library. (For demo purposes, reverb is applied rather heavily in all audio examples.)
Echo chambers were the earliest form of artificial reverb, though they aren’t all that artificial. The chamber is usually a room with hard, reflective surfaces. A loudspeaker in the chamber amplifies dry recordings, and a distant microphone records the results. It’s still “real reverb,” only it can be added and controlled independently from the original recording. This process evolved during the 1930s and ’40s. The first popular recording to use the effect was 1947’s “Peg o’ My Heart” by the Harmonicats, produced by audio genius Bill Putnam.
PEG O' MY HEART ~ The Harmonicats (1947)
During a recent recording session at Hollywood’s Sunset Sound, I shot Video 1 in the famed Studio A echo chamber, thanks to house engineer George Janho. You’ve heard this very room countless times. The Doors and Van Halen made most of their records here. You also hear this reverb on “Whole Lotta Love,” the vocal tracks on the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” Prince’s 1999 and Purple Rain, and countless other famous recordings.
Sunset Sound Chamber
Echo chambers are well represented in most IR reverb libraries. Most algorithmic reverbs do chambers as well, replicating the general effect without modeling a particular space. You can even find plug-ins dedicated to a specific chamber, like Universal Audio’s Capitol Chambers, which models the Hollywood chamber famously used by Frank Sinatra.
Spring reverbs. These were the first truly artificial reverbs. They initially appeared in pre-WWII Hammond organs, and by 1960 or so they had migrated to guitar amps. Fender wasn’t the first company to make reverb-equipped amps, but their early-’60s reverb units still define the effect for many guitarists.
The reverb effect is produced by routing the dry signal through actual springs, with a microphone capturing the clangorous results and blending them with the original tone. Springs generally sound splashy, trashy, and lo-fi, often in glorious ways. It’s an anarchic sound, best captured in a plug-in via IRs. Most of the spring reverb sounds in guitar modelers are IR-based. Meanwhile, reverb stompboxes—usually algorithmic—mimic the sound with varying degrees of success.
Plate reverb appeared in the late 1950s, initially in the Elektromesstechnik EMT-140, which remains a sonic gold standard. Plate reverb works similarly to spring reverb, but a massive metal sheet replaces the springs. It’s generally a smooth, sensuous sound relative to a spring.
Clip 2 — A Guitarist’s Guide to Reverb Plug-ins by premierguitar
In Clip 2, you hear the same acoustic guitar snippet through impulse responses of a Fender spring reverb unit and a vintage EMT-140 plate.
There are countless plate clones among today’s reverb plug-ins. Some are convolutions based on analog gear. But algorithmic reverbs also excel at faux-plate sounds. In fact, one of the initial goals of early digital reverb was to replace cumbersome mechanical plates. Speaking of which.…
Digital reverb (the algorithmic kind) arrived in 1976 via the EMT-250, also from Elektromesstechnik. Lexicon and AMS produced popular rivals. They focused largely on mimicking rooms, chambers, and plates. Sound quality has improved over the decades thanks to increased processing power and clever programming.
Today you can get far “better” algorithmic reverb from plug-ins. But ironically, those primitive digital ’verbs are trendy again in pop production. You can find precise clones of retro-digital hardware in plug-in form.
Convolution reverb debuted at the end of the century, popularized by Sony’s DRE S777 unit. Convolution reverbs often have fewer controls than their algorithmic cousins because most of the process is baked into the impulse response.
Most convolution reverbs have similar sound quality. The free ones can sound as good as the pricy ones. Higher prices are often based on the size and quality of the included IR libraries. Google free reverb impulse responses for gratis goodies.
Recent wrinkles. There are always interesting new reverb developments. For example, Things — Texture from AudioThings and Silo from Unfiltered Audio are anarchic granular reverbs that loop and manipulate tiny slices of the reverb signal to create otherworldly effects ranging from the brutal to the beautiful.
Clip 3 — A Guitarist’s Guide to Reverb Plug-ins by premierguitar
Clip 3 includes several granular reverb examples.
Image 2: Zynaptiq’s innovative Adaptiverb generates reverb via pitch-tracking oscillators rather than delays and feedback loops.
Some newer reverbs employ artificial intelligence to modify the effect in real time based on the audio input. iZotope’s Neoverb automatically filters out frequencies that can muddy your mix or add unwanted artifacts. And Zynaptiq’s Adaptiverb generates reverb in a novel way: Instead of echoing the dry signal, it employs pitch-tracking oscillators that generate reverb tails based on the dry signal. It, too, excels at radical reverbs suitable for sound design.
Clip 4 — A Guitarist’s Guide to Reverb Plug-ins by premierguitar
Clip 4 demonstrates a few of its possibilities.
Common Reverb Plug-in Controls
The knob names on a reverb plug-in can get confusing, but remember that they control variables that you already understand intuitively. Also, not all controls are equally important. The most essential ones are the wet/dry balance and the reverb decay time (how long it continues to sound). By all means learn the subtler functions, but don’t be surprised if you use them only rarely.
Video 2 walks you through most of the controls you’re likely to encounter on an algorithmic reverb plug-in. I used ChromaVerb from Apple’s Logic Pro DAW for the demo, but you’ll encounter similar parameters on most algorithmic reverb plug-ins.
Digital Reverb Walkthrough
Creative Reverb Ideas
Spring things. The single reverb knob on vintage amps is simply a wet/dry blend control. Some spring reverbs add a dwell control to set the amount of reverb input. Higher settings mean louder, longer reverberation.
But in the digital realm, you can deploy old-fashioned spring reverb in newfangled ways. For example:
- Pan the dry signal and spring sound apart for a broad stereo effect. (Traditional spring reverb is strictly mono.)
- Add predelay, inserting space between the dry and wet signals. (If the plug-in has no predelay control, just add the effect to an effect bus with a 100 percent wet, no-feedback delay upstream.)
- Route a guitar signal to two different spring reverb sounds, panned apart.
- Assign the reverb to an effect send, add a compressor to the effect channel, and then sidechain the compressor to the dry guitar sound. That way, the reverb is ducked when the guitar is loud, but swells to full volume during quiet passages.
- Apply digital modulation to the wet signal for detuned or pulsating effects.
Clip 5 — A Guitarist’s Guide to Reverb Plug-ins by premierguitar
Clip 5 starts with a straightforward spring sound before demonstrating the above options in order.
Fender-style reverb is so ubiquitous that simply using less familiar spring sounds can be startling.
Clip 6 — A Guitarist’s Guide to Reverb Plug-ins by premierguitar
Clip 6 is a smorgasbord of relatively obscure spring sounds from AudioThing’s Springs and Amp Designer, Logic Pro’s amp modeler.
Finally, it can be exciting to use springs on tracks that don’t usually get processed that way. For example, spring reverb is often considered too quirky and lo-fi to use on acoustic guitar or vocals.
Clip 7 — A Guitarist’s Guide to Reverb Plug-ins by premierguitar
But Clip 7 shows how attractive springs can sound on voice and acoustic. (You hear the dry sounds first.)
Unclean plates. In contrast to a spring’s lo-fi clank, simulated plate reverb is smooth and warm. Even if your track already has spring reverb, you might apply some plate ’verb to integrate it into a mix.
One creative avenue is deploying smooth plate reverb in relatively lo-fi ways. For example:
- Try placing the reverb before an amp modeler on a track to mimic a reverb stompbox. That way, the reverb is colored by both amp and speaker.
- Imagine a guitar amp with a huge metal plate inside instead of springs. If your amp modeler lets you use pure amp sounds without speaker modeling and vice-versa, try sandwiching a plate sound between two instances of amp modeler on the same track. Turn off the speaker sound on the first amp sim and use only the speaker sound on the second one. This way, only the speaker colors the reverb.
- Plate reverb also sounds great panned separately from the dry sound.
Clip 8 — A Guitarist’s Guide to Reverb Plug-ins by premierguitar
Clip 8 starts with a conventional plate sound before demoing the above ideas.
Liquid reverb. Reverb plug-ins have one big advantage over hardware: Everything can be automated within your DAW.
Automated Reverb
In Video 3 I’ve written automation for both the decay time and reverb damping for an evolving effect that would have been difficult on hardware.
Oh, the places you’ll go. Convolution reverbs usually have fewer controls than their algorithmic cousins. You might do no more than adjust the wet/dry or fine-tune the decay time. But IR reverbs don’t have to be “plug and play”—especially if you create your own reverbs. It’s a surprisingly simple process. (Some IR reverbs, like Altiverb and Logic Pro’s Space Designer, come with an app to generate the needed signals and process the recordings for use.)
Image 3: You can get cool, if unpredictable, results by dropping random audio files into an impulse response reverb like Logic Pro’s Space Designer.
Theoretically, you need a hi-fi PA system to amplify the needed tones in the target space, and good microphones to capture the results. But not always! I’ve captured cool IRs in my travels with nothing more than an iPhone and a spring-loaded clipboard in lieu of the traditional starter pistol. I’ve even obtained decent results by clacking a couple of stones together.
Clip 9 — A Guitarist’s Guide to Reverb Plug-ins by premierguitar
Clip 9 includes quick and dirty IRs that I captured in a Neolithic cave painting site in France, a thousand-year-old ancient Anasazi ball court in Arizona, an ancient Greek stone quarry, a 19th-century limestone kiln in Death Valley, and the inside of an acoustic guitar.
You can also get interesting, if unpredictable, results loading random audio files into the IR reverb.
Clip 10 — A Guitarist’s Guide to Reverb Plug-ins by premierguitar
Clip 10 features a dry guitar snippet, followed by bizarre reverb effects generated by drum loops, synth tones, and noises.
New sounds, new spaces. Using reverb plug-ins can be incredibly simple. Often it’s just a matter of scrolling through factory presets, or making basic balance and decay time adjustments. You can also use them in endlessly creative ways. Whatever your goals, I hope this article helps you find exactly the sounds you seek.
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OM-balance and comfort suited for the fingerstylist on a budget.
Comfortably, agreeably playable. Balanced dimensions. Nice fretwork.
Lighter mahogany top looks less classically mahogany-like. Some compressed sounds in heavy-strumming settings.
$299
Guild OM-320
guildguitars.com
The Premier Guitar crew is spoiled when it comes to hanging out with nice flattops. But while those too-brief encounters with acoustics we can’t afford teach us a lot about the flattop at its most refined, they also underscore a disconnect between the cost and the acoustic guitar’s status as a true folk instrument of the people.
Guild’s OM-320, from the company’s new 300 series, sells for $299, which isn’t much more than a good-quality, entry-level flattop cost in the 1980s. Strikingly, there’s a lot of competition in this price class. Even so, the OM-320’s nice build quality and pretty tone in fingerpicking applications stand out in a very crowded price segment.
The United Guild of Deal-Seeking Pickers
Though Guild, in all its incarnations, has always made accessible guitars a part of their offerings, a $300 instrument with the company’s logo might give pause to players familiar with guitars from their various U.S. factories. Quality can be hit-or-miss on any guitar from any brand at the entry level. What’s more, a lot of guitars with different brand names come from just a few OEM facilities—lending a certain sameness on top of irregular quality. But the recent acquisition of Guild by Yamaha, who has a reputation for solid entry-level instruments, inspires confidence as far as these concerns go.
So, too, does the integrity of the OM-320 at the nuts-and-bolts level. I couldn’t find any overt lapses in quality control. And in many spots where that really counts, like the fretwork, the execution is especially good. Little details like the Guild logo overlay (rather than a simple decal) add a soupçon of luxury. So do the Guild-branded, Grover Sta-Tite-style butterbean tuners, which look stylish and feel sensitive and accurate.
“The neck inhabits a comfortable zone between C and D shapes that’s super agreeable and, at least in my case, a nice antidote for hand fatigue.”
Though the body is built from layered mahogany on the back and sides and a solid mahogany top, the latter is much lighter and amber- or honey-toned than the rich cocoa-hued mahogany tops you’d associate with a vintage Guild M-20, or, for that matter, theM-120 from the company’s contemporary Westerly line. As a result, you see a little more contrast in the grain and a little dimpling in certain sections of the wood. The lighter wood isn’t unattractive, it just looks less trad, if you’re chasing Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter style. If that’s important, you should adjust the “design/build” score appropriately.
Sit and Stay Awhile
Barring being covered in porcupine spines, almost any OM or 000 will qualify as a pure-comfort title finalist. It’s not too thick, too wide, nor too petite—a size and profile that also pays unique, civilized sonic dividends. Here, the OM body is complimented by a neck that feels like an especially natural match. I don’t have a bunch of inexpensive OMs on hand to compare, and there isn’t anything wildly unique about the shape, but the neck profile feels very proportionate to the body. It also, depending on your own sense of such things, inhabits a comfortable zone between C and D shapes that’s super agreeable and, at least in my case, a nice antidote for hand fatigue. The neck is not classically OM-like in terms of nut width. The M-320’s nut measures 1 13/16", which is typical of a 000, rather than the 1 3/4" associated with OMs. The extra width, of course, would make the guitar more appealing to some fingerstylists that need the space. At no point, however, did I feel anything close to cramped; it’s just very comfortable.
The combination of layered back and sides, OM/000 dimensions, and mahogany mean the OM-320 feels and sounds less than super-widescreen in terms of tone spectrum and power. Nevertheless, it sounds balanced and pretty—particularly with a droning, dropped 6th string and other more-elastic tunings where the guitar can exercise the lower extremes of its voice. Tuning to standard has the effect of highlighting midrange emphasis, which can get boxy and render the 3rd and 4th strings a bit less potent and present. That said, it’s still balanced and almost never collapses into a distorted harmonic blur. The bottom end maintains an appealing growl and, as long as you use a gentler picking approach, you can use the highest four strings in very dynamic ways. Using a capo emphasizes other cool, high-mid-focused voices in the guitar that coexist well with most strumming approaches.
The Verdict
Inexpensive guitars that feel great can make up for a lot of shortcomings in tone. But the OM-320’s deficiencies in the latter regard are few, and some perceived limitations, like midrange emphasis, are intrinsic to guitars with OM dimensions. So, while forceful strumming is not the OM-320’s strength, the comfortable playability might just lead you to those places anyway. And if you compensate accordingly with touch dynamics, you can conjure many sweetly chiming tones that might sound extra sweet given the bargain price
Barry Little’s onstage rig.
How you want to sound and what makes you happy are both highly subjective. When it comes to packing and playing gear for shows, let those considerations be your guide.
I was recently corresponding with Barry Little, aPG reader from Indiana, Pennsylvania, about “the One”—that special guitar that lets us play, and even feel, better when it’s in our hands. We got talking about the gear we bring to gigs, and Barry sent me the photo that appears with this column.
“I’m mostly old school and take quite the amp rig, and usually two or three Strats or ‘super strats,’ plus some Teles,” he wrote. “Some are in different tunings.” Barry also has a rack, built with famed guitar-rig designer Bob Bradshaw’s help, that he says holds a Bad Cat preamp bearing serial number one. For his ’70s/’80s rock outfit and his country band, this covers the waterfront.
I love Barry’s rig; it looks awesome! So … why do I feel guilty about the substantial amount of gear I take to gigs where my five-piece band will be playing a concert-length set? Onstage, my setup looks fantastic—at least to me. It’s the gear I’ve always wanted. But packed inside cases and ready to load into the Honda Odyssey with a rooftop carrier that all five of us and our instruments travel in for away dates … it seems excessive. Currently, I take three guitars: my customized reissue Fender Esquire “Dollycaster,” my Zuzu one-off Green Monster, and a Supro Conquistador, plus a 1-string electric diddley bow made from a crawfish-boiling pot. They start every show in open G octave (D–G–D–G–D–G), open D, standard tuning, and A, respectively. There’s also a Sony GLXD6+ wireless, and a pedalboard with 13 effects stomps, a tuner, and two power boxes, along with a Brown Box. That board is the launchpad for the stereo signal that runs into two Carr 1x12 combos: a Vincent and a Telstar. In addition, there’s a big black bag with spare cables, fuses, capos, strings, extension cords, microphones, straps, duct tape, and just about anything else you might need. After all that, miraculously, there is also room for my bandmates–another guitarist, bass, drums, and theremin—and their gear, plus light luggage.
I admit that’s a lot, but it used to be more—at least by the pound. In the late ’90s and early 2000s, I often played through two Marshall 4x12s with a Mesa/Boogie Duel Rectifier Trem-O-Verb on one and a ’72 Marshall Super Lead atop the other. And before that, it was the Marshall with a 4x12 plus a ’66 Fender Twin Reverb. I kept a waist back-support belt in the van, but spent a decent chunk of that era living with regular back pain.
“I admit that’s a lot, but it used to be more—at least by the pound.”
Where am I going with this? Besides a desire for you to absolve me of my guilt, I feel like all of this gear is … um … necessary? It’s the recipe for the sound I want to hear, for the versatility of the material, and for me to play from my happiest place—onstage in the middle of a glorious stereo field of my own making. It’s not really about gear and it’s not about somebody else’s definition of practicality. It’s about joy. Ideally, you should be able to bring whatever gives you joy to a gig. Period.
Sure, naysayers will yap that after a guitar, a cable, and an amp, nothing else is necessary. And on a certain misguided, intolerant level, they are right. We can all play a show with just the basics, but I, for one, don’t want to—unless maybe it’s a solo gig. Neither did Jimi Hendrix. There is a universe of tones out there waiting to be discovered and explored. There are improvisational paths that only a pedalboard can suggest. (Of course, if you’re playing a small stage, traveling in too tight quarters, or claiming turf that impinges on bandmates, those considerations apply. “Be kind” is a good rule of thumb for life, including band life.)
Remember, the naysayers are not in your bones, and onlyyour bones know what you need and want. Don’t let the voices—even in your own head—nag you. (I, too, must take this advice to heart.) Bring whatever you want to bring to gigs, as long as you can get it there. Do it guiltlessly. Have fun. And listen to your bones.Kim Deal on Failure: “There’s a Sweetness to Seeing Somebody Get Their Ass Kicked"
While creating her new solo record, Kim Deal was drawn to exploring the idea of failure.
The veteran musician and songwriter steps into the spotlight with Nobody Loves You More, a long-in-the-making solo record driven by loss, defeat, and friendship.
While Kim Deal was making her new album, she was intrigued with the idea of failure. Deal found the work of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader, who disappeared at sea in 1975 while attempting to sail by himself from the U.S. to England in a 13-foot sailboat. His boat was discovered wrecked off the southern coast of Ireland in April 1976, 10 months after Ader departed the Massachusetts coast. Ader’s wife took one of the last photos of him as he set off on the doomed journey from Chatham Harbor: Ader, wearing a blue tracksuit and a bright orange life jacket cinched around his neck, is beaming.
Deal isn’t smiling on the cover of Nobody Loves You More, her new album, but the art bears some similarities: Deal is floating on a platform in an expanse of gentle, dark blue waves, accompanied only by a few pastel-colored amps, her guitar, a stool, and a flamingo. It’s an unmistakably lonely image, but for Deal, failure doesn’t mean loneliness. It’s not even necessarily a bad thing.
“I mean, at least something magnificent was tried, you know?” says Deal. “At least there was something to fail. That’s an endearing thing. I think there’s a sweetness to seeing somebody get their ass kicked, because they were in it. It warms my heart to see that, just people getting out there. Maybe it gives me the courage and confidence to try something. It’s okay if I get my butt kicked. At least you’re trying something.”
“I think there’s a sweetness to seeing somebody get their fucking ass kicked, because they were fucking in it.”
Nobody Loves You More feels at least a little like Van Ader’s journey: an artistic project so long in the making and so precious to its creator that they’re willing to break from all conventions and face the abject terror of being judged by the world. That might seem like nothing new for Deal, who’s played music professionally for over 35 years, first with Pixies, then with the Breeders. But this LP marks her first proper solo album under her own name—a thought that mortified her for a long time. (“I like rock bands,” she says.) Even when she recorded and released what could be called “solo” music, she released it under a pseudonym. Initially, it was to be Tammy and the Amps. “I still was so uncomfortable, so I created Tammy and the Amps,” explains Deal. “I’m Tammy, who are my band? It’s the amplifiers downstairs in my basement. But the Tammy thing sort of got on my nerves so I just dropped it, so it was called the Amps.” She also assembled a band around that concept and released Pacer under the Amps’ name in 1995.
The cover art for Nobody Loves You More echoes the doomed last voyage of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader.
This new record hums with the soft-loud energetic alchemy that defines much of Deal’s previous works. The opening title track is a slow, romantic strummer with string arrangements, while “Coast” is faintly ska-indebted with horns and a ragged Blondie chord progression. “Crystal Breath” gets weirder, with distorted drums, synthy bass, and a detuned, spidery guitar lead. “Disobedience” and “Big Ben Beat” continue the darker and heavier trajectories with fuzzy stompers interspersed with ambient, affective interlude tracks like “Bats in the Afternoon Sky.” It’s a patient, sensitive, and unmistakably scrappy record.
Some of the songs on Nobody Loves You More are as up-close and personal as solo records get. One in particular that’s drawn attention is “Are You Mine?,” a sleepy-eyed, lullaby ballad. At first listen, it could be taken for a love song. (In fact, Deal encourages this interpretation.) But it’s a song about her mother, for whom Deal cared in her home while she died from Alzheimer’s. The song title comes from a gut-wrenching moment.
“I was in the house, she doesn’t know my name,” explains Deal. “She’s still walking, she can form words, but she doesn’t know what a daughter is or anything. She passes me in the hallway, stops, grabs my arm and says, ‘Are you mine?’ She doesn’t know my name, she doesn’t know who I am, but there was a connection. I knew she was asking if I was her baby. I said, ‘Yeah, mama, I’m yours.’ I’m sure five seconds later, she forgot that conversation even happened. It was just a flicker, but it was so sweet. To have her not see me in so long, and then for one brief second, be recognized in some capacity…. She was such a sweet lady.”
Deal’s mother wasn’t the only loss that went into this collection of songs. Her father passed, too, after a prolonged illness. “My dad was this big bravado sort of personality and watching them get extinguished a little bit every day… I don’t know,” she says. “They both died at home. I’m very proud of that.” But writing “Are You Mine?” wasn’t painful for Deal; she says it was a comforting experience writing the gentle arpeggio on her Candelas nylon-string acoustic.
Deal assembled the bulk of Nobody Loves You More in her Dayton, Ohio, basement, recording with Pro Tools and a particularly pleasing Electrodyne microphone preamp. (Some of the songs date back more than a decade—versions of “Are You Mine?” and “Wish I Was” were initially recorded in 2011 and released as part of a series of 7" singles.) Deal recorded a good part of the record’s drums, bass, and guitar from home, but other contributions came in fits and spurts over the years, from old faces and new. Her Breeders bandmates, including Mando Lopez, Jim MacPherson, Britt Walford, and sister Kelley Deal, all pitched in, as did Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan from British post-punk band Savages, and the Raconteurs’ Jack Lawrence.
Kim Deal cared for her parents in their Dayton, Ohio, home until their passing, an experience that colors the music on her new solo record.
Photo by Steve Gullick
Kim Deal's Gear
Guitars
- '90s Fender Stratocaster
- '70s goldtop Gibson Les Paul
- Candelas nylon-string acoustic
Amps
- Marshall JCM900
- 4x12 cabinet
- Kalamazoo combo
Strings & Picks
- .011-gauge strings
- Dunlop Tortex Standard .60 mm
One day, ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer stopped by the studio to see what Deal was working on. He listened to “Wish I Was,” and scrambled together a lead idea. Deal kept the part and expanded it over time, leading to Klinghoffer’s writing credit on the record.
Deal used her trademark red ’90s Fender Stratocaster HSS along with a ’70s goldtop Gibson Les Paul for most of the electric work, pumped through either her long-time Marshall JCM900 or a tiny vintage Kalamazoo combo. Deal has never been a gearhead—at one point on our video call, she uses a tooth flosser as a pick to demonstrate some parts on her Candelas. “Kelley is a pedal person,” she says. “I’m not doing leads. I’m just doing a rhythm that needs to sound good.”
“I don’t think I’m taking it very well still, actually, or I’m a sociopath because I don’t even talk about [Steve Albini] in the past tense.”Over the years, Deal’s sonic thumbprint has been tied up in the work of her good friend and frequent collaborator Steve Albini, the producer, engineer, and musician who died unexpectedly in May 2024. (Deal quips, “Steve’s the lead character in my own life.”) Albini and Deal began working together in 1988, on Pixies’ debut LP Surfer Rosa. Their friendship continued over decades—Deal even performed at Albini’s wedding in Hawaii, for which he gifted her a ukulele—and the final sessions for Nobody Loves You More were under Albini’s watch. His parting hasn’t been easy.
“I got a text: ‘Call me,’” remembers Deal. It was a mutual friend, telling Deal that Albini had passed. “He told me and I just said, ‘You’re absolutely wrong. That didn’t happen.’ I don’t think I’m taking it very well still, actually. I don’t even talk about him in the past tense. I say, ‘What he likes to do is this.’ I never think, ‘What Steve used to like to do.’ My head never goes there. I wanted to record a song that wasn’t working and I said, ‘I need to do it from top to bottom at Albini’s.’ That’s not going to happen.”
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Along with Rob Bochnik and Spencer Tweedy, Kim Deal plays two tracks from Nobody Loves You More for a holiday fundraiser in November 2024 in Chicago.
The Georgia-based sludge slingers rely on a Tele-to-Marshall combination for their punishing performances.
Since forming in 2010, Atlanta noise rockers Whores had only released one LP, 2016’s Gold.—until this year. Eight long years later, their new full-length, WAR., dropped in April, and Whores celebrated by tearing across the country and blasting audiences with their maelstrom of massive, sledge-hammering rock ’n’ roll.
The day after their gig at Cobra Nashville, Whores frontman Christian Lembach, dressed in his Nashville best, met up with PG’s Chris Kies at Eastside Music Supply to run through his brutal road rig.
Brought to you by D’Addario.Earthy Esquire
When vocalist and guitarist Christian Lembach got sober over 20 years ago, he bought a Fender Telecaster off of a friend, then picked up an Esquire shortly after. That original Esquire stays home, but he brings this pine-body Earth Guitars Esquire out on the road. (It’s the lightest he’s ever played.) It’s loaded with a German-made reproduction of Schecter’s F520T pickup—aka the “Walk of Life” pickup intended to reproduce Mark Knopfler’s sound. (Lembach buys them in batches of five at a time to make sure he’s got plenty of backups.)
It’s equipped with a 3-way selector switch. At right, it bypasses the tone circuit; in the middle position, it’s a regular bridge-pickup configuration, with volume and tone activated; and at left, the tone is bypassed again, but an extra capacitor adds a bass boost.
Lembach installed six brass saddles in lieu of the traditional 3-saddle bridge. He often plays barre chords higher up the neck, and the six saddles allow for more accurate intonation.
All of Lembach’s guitars are tuned to drop C, and he plays with D’Addario Duralin .70 mm picks. They’re strung with heavy D’Addario NYXL sets, .013–.056 with a wound G. The 30-foot Bullet Cable coil cable attenuates some of the guitar’s top end.
Tuned-Up Tele
Lembach had this black Fender Telecaster—the one he bought from his friend—modified to his preferred Esquire specs, with a single bridge pickup and the same 3-way selector configuration as his other weapon. He prefers the 6-saddle bridge to this rusty 3-saddle version, but this one holds a special place in his heart all the same.
Favor From Furlan
When John Furlan of Furlan Guitars reached out to Lembach about building him a custom guitar, it was an easy sell. The two worked together on this beauty, based on a non-reverse Gibson Firebird body with a Fender-style scale length, roasted maple neck, and rosewood fretboard.
It’s got a bridge and locking tuners from Hipshot, and it’s loaded with Greenville Beauty Parlor P-90s. A typical Gibson-style toggle switches between neck, bridge, and both configurations, while another Esquire-style 3-way switch on the lower bout handles Lembach’s preferred bridge-pickup wirings: no tone, tone and volume, or bass boost.
No Logo
Lembach stays loyal to his twin Marshall Super Leads, with taped-over logos—an aesthetic Lembach picked up from Nirvana. A tech in Atlanta figured out that the one on the left is a 1973, which runs at eight ohms, or half power (Lembach removed two of the power tubes), into a 16-ohm cabinet. The power drop allows Lembach to coax feedback at lower volumes. The original preamp tubes from Yugoslavia—no longer a country, mind you—are still working in the amp.
The one on the right is a reissue 1959SLP from 2002 or 2003, which Lembach finds brighter than his vintage model. He goes into the lower-input second channel to dampen the edge.
Both amps run through Marshall JCM800 cabinets with Celestion G12T-75s.
Christian Lembach's Board
A Loop-Master Pedals Clean/Dirty Effects Switcher manages Lembach’s signal. Its A loop is used for verses, bridges, intros, and outros, and has the majority of the pedals in it. The first thing in the A loop is the ZVEX Fuzz Factory made specially for the band, followed by a Devi Ever Soda Meiser, Beetronics Swarm, Keeley Nova Wah, Spiral Electric FX Yellow Spiral, Boss NF-1, and Alexander Pedals Radical II Delay.
The B loop has a clone of the Electro-Harmonix Green Russian Big Muff, an EHX POG, and a ZVEX Super Hard On. The A loop is already pretty loud; B somehow gets even louder. An EHX Superego+ is a new addition that Lembach’s planning to integrate.
A CIOKS DC10 powers the board, and a Lehle device under the board cleans up unwanted hum and noise.