Since this is a computer-based program, it’s important to review the minimum system requirements. For Windows, it’s a Pentium 1Ghz/Athlon XP 1.33 GHz, 512 MB of RAM, Windows XP/Vista or later. For Power PC Mac, it’s an 866 MHz G4, 512 MB of RAM and Mac OSX 10.4 or later. For Intel machines, it’s a 1.5 GHz Intel Core Solo processor with 512 MB of RAM, running Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later.
Have you ever thought about taking your
laptop to a gig loaded up with cool guitar
sounds, but couldn’t figure out how to
control the setup? Well, IK Multimedia may
have a solution for you. StompIO is their
new USB floor controller interface that
packs a lot of power and flexibility for users
of Amplitube 2, Amplitube Jimi Hendrix,
Ampeg SVX and Amplitube Metal.
When first unpacking the unit, I was surprised
at how heavy it was. I thought,
“Wow, this is a lot of beef for just a floor
controller!” But quickly I came to realize
that it’s also a digital and analog recording
interface, Class-A DI and headphone
practice amp.
What you get in the box is the StompIO
hardware, a 3m long USB cable, a power
supply unit with interchangeable international
plugs, an expression pedal with
1/4” cable and all the software installation
discs. They also wisely include a printed
manual for both the StompIO itself, and
the X-Gear software: a nice, simple touch,
considering how many companies cheap
out on a hard-copy manual these days.
The Hardware
Now let’s examine the StompIO itself. It’s
an attractive, black and grey metal steel
enclosed unit with a useful top handle for
easy carrying. Its weight gives it a sturdy
feel and the foot switches all have nice,
easy action. Another smart touch is that
they labeled the inputs, outputs, etc. on
both the top of the StompIO (so you can
see them standing above it), and also
above the actual connections. Again, it’s a
small but important detail that pays off in
the heat of the moment.
Up Top
The top of the controller features
a Volume knob for the Balanced,
Unbalanced and Headphone outputs, a
Tuner button that instantly displays the
tuner both onscreen and on the unit, and
an LCD display for Patch numbers/names
and editing functionality. There are three
input level LED’s—orange signifies LOW,
green (which should light up most of the
time) shows OK, and red is for HI. Below
the LCD display sit six knobs for editing,
and on the right of the LCD are Enter,
Exit, Next and Previous buttons.
As for the footswitches, there are ten of
them. Luckily, the footswitches are spaced
far enough apart for ogres like me with
big feet. The first bank features the Enter,
Exit and Tuner footswitches. Below these
sits another row of seven: the Bank Down in
Play mode, (or Page left in Edit), the Bank
Up (Page right), a Tap footswitch for tempos
(more on that later), and four switches (A-D)
for bank selecting (Play mode) and parameter
selections (Edit mode).
What does it control?
The rear panel of the unit features the
usual power switch and DC power socket.
I wouldn’t mind seeing an internal power
supply instead of a “ground wart,” but
that would have made it even heavier and
brought on more noise possibilities.
There are six external controller jacks, one
of which you use up immediately with the
included expression pedal. Note that you
can also choose to use third-party expression
or footswitch pedals. Then there are
MIDI ins and outs, a USB Host Computer
Connector and an S/PDIF digital out,
which outputs the same signal as the stereo
outputs. There’s also a headphone
jack that doesn’t mute the signal for other
outputs when in use.
There are left and right unbalanced outputs
(-10 dBv) for use in connecting to
guitar amps, as well as left and right balanced
outputs (+4 dBu) for studio output,
powered speakers or monitor and mixing
consoles. Balanced outs are important on
a unit like this because if you’re using it
onstage, you can drive the cables up to 200
feet or so without degrading the signal.
The Direct Out provides a clean, unprocessed
instrument unbalanced signal with
no separate volume control. This is the
output you should use when not using the
StompIO as the audio interface. Last is the
Class-A mono IN, where you of course plug
in your instrument.
Don’t forget that this unit uses A/D (analog
to digital) conversion when plugging in,
as well as D/A conversion on the output.
According to IK, they have used extremely
high-end components not only on the converters,
but also throughout the unit.
Hooking up
The basic StompIO setup is shown below
The main objective of StompIO, besides
changing patches and outputting sound
from the IK software, is to provide players
the ability to modify any software parameter
without the need for a mouse, monitor,
or keyboard. However, it can also be used
as an ASIO or CoreAudio class-A DI to a
DAW program.
The StompIO itself features several basic
modes. Play Mode is the default start up
setting, which lets you step through any of
the 4,000 patches (yes, you read that right).
Patches run from 000 to 999 with four
programs per (A thru D). When turning the
unit on, it will also automatically call up the
last patch you were playing—something I
grew to like very much.
Selecting or switching patches is simple.
Use the Bank Up/Down switches to select a
preset. You’ll see the bank number change
and begin flashing. Then press the footswitch
(A – D) to load the chosen patch,
and you’re in business. To set a Patch’s
delay-based Tempo, simply hit the TAP
footswitch four times (or more) at a quarter-
note rate. This is a great feature to have
when playing live.
Go to Page 2 for the rest of the review and rating.
Edit Mode is where you do the tweaking.
To put the unit into Edit Mode, simply step
on the Enter switch. From there, you use
the various buttons to navigate through
the menus, offering the ability to change
anything from cabinets and amps to Global
input levels. Yes, it certainly takes some
getting used to, and at first, I often found
myself just going to the mouse and doing
it manually like I’ve always done. But the
objective was to learn how to use it on the
floor, so I persisted.
It does become quite simple to stomp
through a variety of sounds until coming
across one to build upon. From there,
selecting the various cabinets, mics and
effects is what makes this product so useful.
However, even after learning how to
control the parameters with my feet, I still
found it easier to combine that technique
with a mouse. Maybe you can’t teach an
old dog too many new tricks, but that’s
how I feel.
Aside from simply tweaking amps, you can
also dig into the control menu, which is
where you assign any of the expression pedals,
knobs and switches. This unit can also
go quite deep. Certain things, like Sequence
patch switching mode, are critical to understand
if you’re playing live, as you don’t
want to stomp up to patch 2,344 during a
show. Once things are in place, you can easily
setup up to 16 custom-ordered sequences,
with up to 999 patches in each.
The X-Men
StompIO is truly about the integration
of software and hardware. The core software
provided with the package is called
Amplitube X-Gear. X-Gear is essentially a
shell that houses Amplitube 2, Jimi Hendrix,
SVX and Metal (and future realeases).
All these software programs live within a
single interface, which means you can mix
and match anything (amps, cabinets, mics,
stomp boxes, etc) within the bundle.
The number of choices available borders
on overwhelming. There are over 150 modeled
pieces of gear in total. There are two
separate software pedalboards available,
with up to six pedals on each. You can
actually run them all together into a single
amp; 12 pedals can be strung together
for a massive chain. There are 26 different
amps, 26 EQ stages and 11 different
power amps. Any of these can be mixed
and matched to make custom sounds.
As for cabinets, there are 33 different models,
and a variety of microphones. There
are also two separate rack systems available,
with up to four modules in each (and
they can be ganged into a chain of eight).
Like anything else, some sounds are better
than others (even after tweaking), but you
can really get some killer tones with this unit.
Another great feature in X-Gear is what
they call the Speed Trainer. It’s a playback
device that lets you drag and drop songs
into it and alter their pitch and tempo.
You can also set loop points, and I found it
great to drag in drum loops to practice to.
It makes you want to play, which is always
good in my book.
StompIO, in conjunction with the
Amplitube software, is a powerful combo.
The variety of sounds that can be achieved
and controlled from the floor is impressive.
Whether you are comfortable having
a laptop run your rig in a live situation or
not is a personal issue, but this package is
certainly up for the task. Aside from its live
application, it can be a powerful tool for
studio-based DAW recording—with both
guitar and bass. The fact that you can use
it with Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, live and in
many other ways makes it far more than a
one trick pony.
Buy if...
you want a flexible, powerful controller
interface that effortlessly integrates
hardware and software.
Skip if...
emailing and web surfing stretches
your computer skills to their limit. Rating...
Johnny Marr’s latest LP spans influences from New Order to the Staple Singers while staying rooted in his clockwork timing and copious talents as arranger and melodicist.
When the great Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes passed away earlier this year, I thought a lot about Johnny Marr. Marr was moved deeply by the girl groups of the ’60s—their positivity, energy, and the convergence of ecstasy and melancholy in the music. He was even fired up by the audaciousness of their style: The impressive beehive hairdo worn by Spector’s bandmate Estelle Bennett famously inspired the jet-black pile Marr wore at the height of Smiths fame.
But the most lasting influence of the girl groups on Marr is probably the musical playground that Ronnie once made her own: the wall of sound. In the decades since Phil Spector concocted the wall of sound from an orchestra of guitars, strings, drums, pianos, chimes, castanets, and whatever else was gathering dust in the closets of Gold Star Studios, scores of musicians—from Brian Wilson to the Beatles to Bruce Springsteen—have chased its elusive, ineffable magic.
Johnny Marr - Spirit Power and Soul (Live)
Johnny Marr’s versions of the wall of sound, however, are highly original and distinctive. They are marked by deep resourcefulness and a gift for achieving wall-of-sound grandeur and scale through the humble medium of multitracked guitar. And from the Smiths’ first LPs to his latest release, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, Marr achieved this wizardry by mining a seemingly endless vein of riffs and through his penchant for guitar arrangement—talents cultivated through intuition, passionate listening, and a boundless, post-modern knack for tastefully blending influences.
As formidable as Marr’s arranging abilities, melodic instincts, and sense of musical recall are, they all find realization in hands driven by Swiss-watch timing, economy, and percussive potency. And though he’ll be the first to tell you he’s not a musical technician, he is, in many ways, as complete a musician as you could ever know.
Johnny Marr with his closest comrade, the Fender Jaguar, at L.A.’s Teragram Ballroom.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
I was really struck by the bigness of Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. I pictured you making this record, amid lockdown, making music for the clubs we hoped to return to again. Even the picture of you on the cover—you next to the Fender Showman—seemed like a totemic suggestion of longing for big sounds. I think that was subconscious. I say subconscious because I started writing it before Covid and had this idea that I wanted to do a double LP, and because it was going to be a double, I thought it could be expansive. I just had this idea that (the double LP format) would give me a lot of space. But, of course, with the way things turned out, I ended up—and I must confess, illegally—going alone into my studio space, which is the top floor of an old factory, staring out at my Mini, which was the only car in this vast parking lot, and working like that for weeks.
So, I ended up very aware of all this idea of space, which is even why the sky is so blue on the cover. I took all the equipment in the space out for that shoot to signify the way I was feeling about all that. There were also these nocturnal themes that emerged. I think a lot of people were lying awake wondering if they still had a job and worrying about their businesses. So, a lot of the songs reference those feelings—like “Lightning People:” “I can’t sleep/static sheets/cries that put me on my knees”—that idea of a storm coming.
I made the assumption that the part of my audience that listens most closely and that I’ve built up over the last 40 years or whatever, that they are living similar lives to what I was talking about. So, I didn’t have a concept, but I did have a sort of nagging agenda—that the album would be expansive and that I would tackle feelings about the psychology and predicaments of being a modern person.
“You know that concept of work/life balance? I don’t really have that concept. I hear good things about it and maybe I should try it out.”
The rhythmic drive and dance feel of many of the tunes also struck me as nocturnal. Was that a conscious thing? Well, it’s funny how some things turn out. I started writing the album and just a few weeks into it, got the call to work on the Bond film [No Time to Die]. There’s a lot of downtime in that kind of situation, so I started working on the song “Receiver.” And as you said, it sounded to me like the atmosphere of being in a nightclub—like those I used to go to in [London neighborhood] Euston at the end of the ’80s—finding myself, you know, still there at 5:40 in the morning. So that song is about transmitting and receiving erotic signals.
That’s the beauty of songwriting. Sometimes you mix and match images or sometimes a concept comes first. The same thing happened with “Lightning People.” I had that title, which to me sounded like a Staple Singers song or something, so it ended up with a sort of choir/gospel feel. Musically, you can still tell that it’s coming from an indie rocker from Manchester, but the whole idea started from just that title. Lots of stuff still comes via the way people probably expect I write songs, too, which is to just sit down with a guitar. The last song, “Human,” is like that.
All the way back to the Smiths, you’ve always evoked feelings vividly through purely instrumental means—particularly those feelings that that cross sadness and positivity. But you really went after it lyrically here. Well, in working with lyricists and paying attention to the ones I haven’t worked with, I’ve noticed that as a lyricist you have to be very self-aware and ask yourself, “Well, what am I really saying?” And in the case of this album, I was asking myself how I was going to top an album that was really well-liked among my fans. I know what that feeling is like. I don’t like to call that “pressure,” but that’s what it is.
Johnny Marr’s Gear
Marr never tires of the guitar. “If for some reason I was going to move to Bali and retire,” he says, “it would be to play for eight or nine hours a day and really expand my vocabulary.”
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Guitars
Signature Fender Jaguar
1973 Les Paul Custom
Gibson EDS-1275 doubleneck
Yamaha SG-1000
Yamaha SG-700
1963 Fender Jazzmaster
Martin D12-28
Auden acoustics, 6-string and 12-string
1984 or ’85 Gibson Les Paul with Bigsby
Gretsch 6120
Strings & Picks
Ernie Ball Power Slinky strings (.011–.048)
D’Addario acoustic strings (.012–.053)
Ernie Ball Medium picks
Amps
1969 Marshall plexi
HH Electronics transistor combo
Roland JC-120
1965 Deluxe Reverb
Fender Twin Reverb (black panel)
Kemper Profiler
Fender Bassman
Effects
MXR Flanger
Carl Martin AC-Tone
Carl Martin Plexitone
Carl Martin HeadRoom Reverb
Carl Martin Delayla
Carl Martin Chorus XII
Boss RT-20 Rotary Ensemble
You’ve experienced that pressure before: Trying to top Meat Is Murder with The Queen Is Dead. Before The Queen Is Dead, I remember a moment where I was walking through my kitchen and stopped in my tracks, just literally frozen, realizing what it was going to take to do that. And when I was doing Dusk with The The, I remember the feeling when Matt Johnson and I realized the record was going to completely dominate our lives for two years. And with this record, in particular, I probably was feeling the pressure of following Call the Comet, because I was literally writing 48 hours after the last show to support that record.
Was the decision to background guitars in some cases on this album also a response to that record? Deciding where guitars should sit in more electronic music is a balancing act. It’s very easy to get it wrong. One way I’ve done it wrong in the past is by not putting enough guitar on. Like with Electronic’s second album, I was trying to make my guitar sound like a synth. But at the time, that was part of my agenda—taking guitars out, seeing what filters did, things like that.
But honestly, I don’t really like a lot of music that blends electronic music and guitars. So, when I do it, it has to be appropriate and really capture a feeling. I think I know enough to do that well now. A song like “Ariel”—a lot of people hear that as very ’80s, and the riff is built on a sequencer. But I made the riff really loud and it’s a very ’80s, Roland Jazz Chorus riff. So, there I really doubled down on the contrast between the electronic and guitar elements. On “Spirit Power and Soul,” if you take the guitar out, it’s a totally different kind of track, and the guitar is backgrounded. So, I think I know how to find the right blend better these days.
Given that newfound freedom, did you write a lot more of these tracks from rhythmic underpinnings? It seems like working alone may have forced your hand in that respect. Yeah. I don’t mean to take any credit away from my amazing band, which has been with me for more than 10 years now. But the entire record was demo’d and programmed with me playing everything on it. Then the band came in to make it sound more like “us” as a band. But things like “Spirit Power and Soul,” I was hearing that sequencer pattern in my head long before I wrote the song, and I knew I wanted very much for it to sound like Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk, or Cabaret Voltaire but with guitars on it.
For Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, Johnny Marr worked alone in his studio, on the top floor of an old factory.
When I was in my teens, I had a tape player that I could overdub on—this was before I had a Portastudio—and I’d get into obsessively layering. This album is really the grown-up version of that. It’s that same guy, but he’s now been in The The, Modest Mouse, and all that stuff. And again, because I knew it was going to be a double album, I allowed myself to do whatever the hell I wanted. So, something like “Lightning People” and that gospel vibe—I never would’ve done that on The Messenger or Playland because on those records I had these very specific and deliberate parameters I was trying to work within. Which can be a very good thing.
When you’re a writer, and particularly when you’re very young, things often become very much about what you’re not. But in this day and age, when you have a universe of plug-ins, instruments, and directions at your fingertips—not only can you get option fatigue, but your music can become a stylistic hodgepodge. So usually, with the band I impose some restrictions that limit that. On this LP, though, I just stripped them away.
What did that feel like to embrace that freedom? Honestly, I didn’t even know I was doing it until much later. Because of the lockdown I was usually alone in the studio, so I thought, “Well, let’s see what all these virtual keyboards and synths and machines that I’ve been buying for the past five years do.” First, I had to spend a week getting really frustrated doing all the updates to the point where I don’t even really want to make music. But then I’d wake up after three hours of sleep with a song in my head and be ready to go.
You’re a writer that famously goes on hot streaks and creative runs. Do you still experience that zombie-like sense of creative possession? And how readily are you able to tap into it? What tools do you use when you can’t tap into it? This thing you’re talking about—finding inspiration and hopefully, some otherworldly place—finding that place is something that has driven me since I was a kid. But you know that concept of work/life balance? I don’t really have that concept. I hear good things about it and maybe I should try it out.
But without mythologizing things too much, when I make records, I tend to lock myself out of the house, or forget where I’ve left the car. I develop very odd sleeping patterns if I sleep at all. I decided many years ago that drugs, particularly cocaine, don’t do any good, and alcohol isn’t really good for my creative process—maybe when you’re younger.
So, it gets back to that quote of Picasso’s: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” In my own process, that means I’ll work on a song—and for it to snag me, the initial feeling has to be something like, “This is the greatest thing that no one has ever heard.” That’s entirely subjective, but that energy will keep you locked in for a couple hours and if you’re really lucky you’ll get on a real roll and you’ll end up with something inspired. Sometimes you do something for a couple hours and you realize, “Ah, this isn’t so great,” and you have to drop it. Emotionally, that can take you down. Especially when you work with a band and spend a few weeks on something and decide, “Nope, this isn’t cutting it.” But things don’t always have to start out as esoteric to become esoteric. And as my friend Nick Cave says, “Just do the fucking work.”
“You still have to get in and do the work. This idea that a songwriter is walking in a supermarket one day, and someone in the next aisle says something and it instantly turns into a whole song…well, yeah, well that might work if you’re Smokey Robinson!”
And alchemy can come from any stage of the creative process—writing, mixing…. Yeah. One of the positive things that comes of being around and doing this for so long is you can look back and say, “Oh, okay, that’s a song people still really like that I’m still playing in my set.” And I’ll realize that it came about from fucking about on a bass line for 20 minutes. But then there are songs like “The Headmaster Ritual” where I carried around a bit of it for a couple years, and then one day we needed a song, and I sped the fucking thing up and I heard it in a totally different way.
Neil Finn, who is a masterful songwriter, nailed it when he said: “There is no formula for writing a song. It’s a mystery. Embrace the mystery.” But you still have to get in and do the work. This idea that a songwriter is walking in a supermarket one day, and someone in the next aisle says something and it instantly turns into a whole song … well, yeah, that might work if you’re Smokey Robinson!
But in my case, and certainly in the case of something like “Spirit Power and Soul,” I really had to craft that one over weeks and weeks. So that one is an example of tenacity and staying true to a vision. If you get caught up too much in divine intervention, you’ll wander around forever waiting for some melody that no one’s ever heard before. It’s in doing the work that you get there. Loads of great artists just write and write. I mentioned Nick Cave, he does it. Thom Yorke, he does it. Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse—he would write an amazing string of lyrics and then just rinse it and start again.
We’ve talked a lot about how your songs have been part hard work, and part unexpected sources of inspiration. Do you find you have to sometimes pull away from the guitar to reignite your relationship with the instrument? Do you ever get alienated from the guitar? No. If anything, if for some reason I was going to move to Bali and retire, it would be to play for eight or nine hours a day and really expand my vocabulary. Generally, I’ll put a guitar [on a record] wherever I can. Because y’know, when I was a kid, if you bought a Thin Lizzy record, when you dropped the needle on that record, you expected to hear guitar. But because I’m also a producer, I have to find where that guitar fits appropriately. I learned guitar at the same time that I was learning about production. I also learned how to play guitar by playing along with 45s. I never had a lesson and never bought books. So I think of myself as someone who makes records, and the way I make records is to write songs. But I love guitar records. So while I’ll try other things, I’ve also been known to turn to my band while we’re working on something and say, “This needs a new intro, because we’re a guitar band.”
The Smiths - Live The Tube Studio 1984 HD (Full Show)
At the height of their creative and performa- tive powers, Johnny Marr and the Smiths could effortlessly span mutated folk-rock jangle and deep indie-dance funk, as Marr does here with his legendary 1959 ES-355—a gift from Sire Records boss Seymour Stein.
Do you think the idiosyncrasies and individuality in your playing comes from being self-taught? What about your natural proclivities as an arranger? As a boy, a few of my pals were into playing guitar. They were really focused on “Voodoo Chile” or on what Steve Howe was doing. But I would listen to, say, the Patti Smith Group’s Radio Ethiopia, something like “Ask the Angels,” a song that’s really simple and straightforward—just an A minor and an F—and I’d think: “That’s a really cool song, it starts with power chords, okay, that’s a little like the Who. Cool I get that.” But all of the sudden I’d notice there’s a piano playing eighth-notes that sounds like the Velvet Underground or the Stooges, so I’d end up trying to play the whole record—the guitar sand the piano—rather than just the guitar part.
I was also very into Sparks, which isn’t guitar music per se, but the way the guitar is integrated is very, “Okay, now were going to use a fucking guitar!” I was just really into the sound of records as a whole. So I thought a lot about layering and when I got a machine I could overdub on, I started layering 18 guitars. By the time I got the Smiths together I had it down to 15 while trying to make it sound like just eight.
Part of that ability to layer and not create a complete mess seems related to your acute sense of rhythm and timing. That’s especially apparent in some of the Smiths’ licks—in a single part I can sometimes hear not only Keith Richards, but Keith Richards and Brian Jones, with some Steve Cropper sixths on top and Leo Nocentelli’s right hand in the same song. Was that skill cultivated from the intellectual process of breaking down how a record works? I found around 14 that the Rolling Stones records from the ’60s, in particular, really blew my mind. Back then, that was unusual. Because my friends were jumping around to the British pop groups—things like the English Beat. But I’d hear records like “The Last Time,” and even though I knew it was old, I just thought, “Wow, this sounds better than anything around now.” So I really studied that—really getting into those singles, how they were put together, and the sound of them. I realized that Keith and Brian were doing this meshing thing. “The Last Time” is a good example; so is “It’s All Over Now.” I really picked up the soul stuff from those guys. But a lot of the rhythmic drive you’re talking about is just my personality and plain exuberance—hyperactivity really. There’s a song on The Messenger, “Generate, Generate.” I mean, that’s really a tribute to my hyperactivity (laughs). I was quite into being hyper!
You’ve always valued art and seem to have derived a lot of your energy from the notion of a bohemian life. I was always moved by your relationship and loyalty to Manchester and what that place meant as sort of a creative organism and catalyst to your development. If you’ve got an artistic temperament, you can find inspiration in almost any place. But yeah, Manchester being so urban and musically orientated—there was a lot to rally around. When my kids were teens, me and their mother brainwashed them into having weekend jobs in Manchester, so they knew what it was to finish their shift in the city on a summer’s night, just before the clubs were opening, when all the shop workers are starting to go to the bars and exchange ideas, and all the fashionistas are lurking around. It’s really magical. Urban life is changing and subterranean life is changing. But young eyes—they don’t know different. They don’t know that a place isn’t Cleveland in the ’70s or New York in the ’60s. They’ll make the best of it. There are always great bands coming out. Right now, as we speak, there’s some band of girls and boys getting together in Williamsburg, finding their voice—and it will be great.
The Deep Cuts: Johnny Marr’s Gear in His Own Words
Anyone that’s followed Johnny Marr’s career knows the man is a certifiable guitar addict, with a Fort Knox worth of killer vintage instruments to utilize at the turn of a whim. Marr rather religiously used his signature Fender Jaguar over the last several years, but he reached deeper into his collection for the many less quintessentially Marr sounds on Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. Marr explains what he used in great detail below.
“A lot of my gear for this record was really deliberately selected, and I really honed in on a few things. I’ve got two 1973 Les Paul Customs I used for some of the darker sounds. You hear that on ‘Receiver.’ I ran those through my old MXR Flanger and either my Marshall Plexi or my HH transistor combo. Those things were part of the stylistic structure I wanted to maintain.
I played my signature Jaguar quite a lot. But since I got more into the movie soundtrack work, I’ve used a lot more 12-string, and for that I’ve been playing a Gibson EDS-1275 doubleneck because it’s the best 12-string sound. With all that mass, and the humbuckers—and if you can get it together right—all the extra resonance from the 6-string pickups, you get all kinds of overtones. There’s a couple Yamaha SG-1000s and an SG-700 on the record, which all have the Spinex pickups but sound pretty different. I used my ’63 Jazzmaster, too.
For acoustics, I played a few guitars by Auden, a company here in the UK—a 12- and 6-string—as well as the Martin D12-28 I’ve used since the Smiths. I also used the guitar that I’ve probably played more than any guitar in my life—the red 1984 or ’85 Les Paul with a Bigsby that I played a lot with the Smiths. I got that around the Meat Is Murder album. It’s great for clean stuff. A lot of stuff that folks think is a Rickenbacker is the Les Paul tracked with my Jaguar or tracked with itself in coil (split) mode. If I want to get a little natural chorus, that guitar is perfect because I’ll put a part down with both pickups on one side of the stereo image then put a split-coil track on the other side. The effect of the same guitar with these slightly different tones helps create that sound. For whammy-stuff and dive bombs, I’ll often use a Gretsch 6120 from the Smiths days. Another big part of this album, and the movie stuff, is one of my signature Jags with a Fernandes sustainer pickup in it.
Amp-wise, apart from the HH, I used a lot of the same amps I’ve had since the Smiths: my Roland JC-120, a ’65 Deluxe Reverb, a black-panel Fender Twin Reverb that I use with the Gretsch. Occasionally I’ll use the Kemper for overdubs or a Bassman or the ’69 Marshall Plexi and Super Reverb amps I used with Modest Mouse. Effects-wise, I use a lot of Carl Martin stuff: The AC-Tone, Plexitone, HeadRoom Reverb, Delayla, and Chorus XII are all great. And I’ll use the Boss RT-20 Rotary Sound a lot, too.
I’ve gone down the weird road before. But if I can’t use all this stuff and my fingers to squeeze out the right sound, I’m either not trying hard enough, or what I’m looking for is wrong. Someday I’d like to find something that will replicate the weirdness of Johnny Thunders’ 2-string bends. But I’m always looking for something that will walk the line between musical and radical.” —Johnny Marr
How does a legacy artist stay on top of his game? The pianist, hit singer-songwriter, producer, and composer talks about the importance of musical growth and positive affirmation; his love for angular melodicism; playing jazz, pop, classical, bluegrass, jam, and soundtrack music; and collaborating with his favorite guitarists, including Pat Metheny and Jerry Garcia.
