
A clever triple-delay offers infinite avenues to echo bliss.
Mysterious, hazy, and uncommon echo colors. A cool break from the same-old-delay blues. Streamlined design.
Clock noise could turn off some users. Limited numbers available—so far.
$225
Death By Audio Exploding Head
deathbyaudio.com
If you don’t follow the many-splendored musical world of noisy psychedelia, you might be surprised to know that Oliver Ackermann, co-founder of the sometimes psychotic but often thrilling stompbox concern Death By Audio, also helms the equally psychotic and thrilling band A Place to Bury Strangers. If you’ve seen APTBS live, you’ll understand much about what makes Death By Audio pedals unconventional. APTBS is generally a sensory overload experience. They are loud, sonically confrontational, and capable of oscillating between chaos and dark beauty. Last year marked the 13th anniversary of the band’s breakthrough LP, Exploding Head, and,in typically perverse fashion, Ackermann elected to celebrate that most unlucky of anniversaries with a triple delay named in the LP’s honor.
In very relative terms, the Exploding Head seems normal compared to many DBA pedals. It’s three identical delays run in series. Simple, right? But that simplicity belies great range and a deep capacity for weirdness and subtlety. Exploding Head creates washy reverbs, percussive multi-head delay effects, and mutant delays that chatter like rogue tremolos. It can feel quirky and tricky to handle as you get to know it’s weird ways. But mastering just a few simple tricks makes the Exploding Head an engaging, painterly, and even practical effect.
Honed To Honor the Head
Delays arranged in series are one of the coolest ways to mangle and massage sound and time. I often prefer the texture and complexity of two simple delays to traditional delay-and-reverb setups because fewer overtones and harmonics go missing in the wash. In fact, a two-delay setup can actually enhance certain overtones as echoes intertwine and collide. The Exploding Head expands on this concept and enables deep exploration of those interrelationships.
The Exploding Head is effectively an evolution of DBA’s own extinct and much-coveted Ghost Delay—an effect instrumental in creating the blown out, industrial, Jesus and Mary Chain-meets-Isn’t Anything haze of Exploding Head. The Ghost Delay utilized three cascading delays as well, but featured preset wet/dry blends instead of the three independent blend controls on the Exploding Head. That design change, however, makes a big difference.
”The bright, rhythmic underpinning of the echoes makes individual delay lines more distinct as you add in others.“
Controls are superficially simple. There are delay time, feedback, and wet/dry blend knobs, just as you’d see on any delay. But like an analog synthesizer, the interactivity between the three cascading sets of controls makes it hard to replicate sounds precisely, and there are no presets or digital control. Practice and tuning your ear to the pedal’s quirks and tendencies helps you engineer roughly identical setups pretty readily. Still, I was inclined to snap pictures of settings that made my favorite sounds—just in case.
Exploding Head’s infinity switch is another treat that distinguishes it from the Ghost Delay. Engaging it feeds the output from the third delay in the sequence (red) into the first (black), which enables momentary self-oscillation effects. The addition of this option—on top of a delay array that already lives happily at the edge of feedback and creates blurry washes of polyrhythms—makes the Exploding Head a delightful chaos engine if you choose to take it there.
Willows and Hurricanes
The Exploding Head’s chaotic side is a big part of the pedal’s personality. But it can be civilized and subdued, too. It happily generates trad delay textures. And when you get a feel for how Exploding Head works as an organism, you’ll find a varied lot of echo colors that are as familiar as they are freaked out.
While digital, the basic tonality of a single Exploding Head delay line is not worlds apart from a bright analog echo. It’s a touch trebly. There is also perceptible clock noise at many settings, just like an analog unit. This can be jarring at first if you like your delay lush and dreamy, but the bright, rhythmic underpinning of the echoes make individual delay lines more distinct as you add in others, which also has a thickening and darkening effect that blunts the clock noise.
A good place to start exploration of the Exploding Head is to turn all the blend controls to completely dry settings, set the time and feedback controls to near-identical levels (each at high noon is a good place to start,) and then advance the blend of the first delay until it sounds right. As you slowly, incrementally elevate the blend levels of the other delays and shift the other parameters, you’ll hear the signal get thicker and wider. And, depending on your time and blend settings, the pedal will generate wild multi-head patterns or subtler variations that have the quality of tremolo or chorusing.
Like any delay, you can use short delay times, dry blends, and long feedback levels to approximate reverb textures. These are a great addition to composite delay images in any position. But I found that situating reverb-like textures in the middle position enables the most ambient colors. The middle delay can also be critical in creating polyrhythmic echoes. Mating a delay-forward blend setting to an odd subdivision of the first delay generates complex percolating repeats that vary in volume. It sounds a little like a multi-head delay arranged via William Burroughs cut-up method—disorienting but also a source of sound poetry that shifts your perspective dramatically.
The Verdict
It seems preposterous to try to assign ratings to the Exploding Head. Some players will find great utility in the pedal, readily encounter beauty in theintermingled echoes, and get blissfully lost exploring the interactive controls. Other players will be baffled. Given that, a prospective customer should be prepared to round up or down—particularly where the tone and ease of use scores are concerned.
One thing all users will agree on, though, is that the Exploding Head sounds colossal. And with a loud amplifier, it sounds wonderfully alive. In the absence of presets, you’ll have to be pretty fearless to make changes to the controls on the fly. But perhaps a chain of Exploding Heads is the answer? That would be an expensive proposition. But it might actually result in few exploding heads, too.
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Positive Grid's Spark NEO offers guitarists a wireless guitar rig built into premium headphones, with AI-powered tone customization, exceptional sound quality, and versatile connectivity.
Positive Grid announces Spark NEO, a groundbreaking wireless guitar rig built directly into premium over-ear headphones. Designed to deliver a seamless, personal guitar experience, Spark NEO combines Positive Grid’s award-winning guitar amp technology with true wireless connectivity and AI-powered guitar tone customization.
Spark NEO offers a seamless solution for guitarists seeking exceptional sound quality, advanced tone-shaping tools, and the freedom to play anywhere. Built with custom-designed 40mm drivers and an ultra-lightweight bio-fiber diaphragm, Spark NEO ensures rich, balanced sound for every style of music. The included wireless transmitter instantly pairs any guitar with the headphones for plug-and-play convenience, while Spark NEO’s built-in 1/4" input can also support traditional guitar cables, for added versatility.
With four onboard, customizable guitar presets, Spark NEO enables private playing anywhere, free from space limitations or noise constraints. For even more variety, connecting to the free Spark app unlocks additional presets, amps & effects, and advanced tone controls. Spark NEO also doubles as premium Bluetooth® headphones, offering exceptional clarity for music, podcasts, and more.
Key Features:
- Optimized for Guitarists: Spark NEO integrates Positive Grid’s renowned tone engine, delivering precise sound tailored to electric, acoustic, and bass guitars.
- True Wireless Freedom: A proprietary 2.4GHz system provides reliable, ultra-low latency connectivity between Spark NEO and the user’s guitar, for a smooth and stable playing experience.
- AI-Powered Guitar Tone Customization: Create and refine tones effortlessly with AI-driven tools that adapt to every playing style.
- Exceptional Sound Quality: Precision-engineered drivers deliver clarity and balance for both guitar playing and music listening.
- Portable Design: Spark NEO’s compact, foldable build and rechargeable battery with up to six hours of play time make it easy to take anywhere.
Built for Guitarists
Spark NEO bridges the gap between traditional guitar setups and modern technology. Unlike using generic headphones with a guitar amp, Spark NEO’s integrated design ensures every element—from app to drivers—delivers unparalleled performance.
Noise Isolating Design
Spark NEO’s ultra-soft, durable ear cups ensure a comfortable fit. With advanced damping materials, tuned venting, and precise port adjustments, Spark NEO provides passive noise isolation, letting every musical detail shine without external interference. Jam with backing tracks or favorite songs without disturbing a soul.
Enhanced Creativity with Spark App
The Spark App expands Spark NEO’s capabilities with access to 33 amps and 43 effects, plus over 100,000 tones on Positive Grid's online ToneCloud. Auto Chords helps players learn and jam along with any song by displaying its chords in real time as the song plays, while customizable presets offer endless creative possibilities. Play with backing tracks or along with favorite songs. Whether practicing, playing, or experimenting, Spark NEO delivers unmatched flexibility for guitar players at every level.
Availability and Pricing
Spark NEO is priced at USD $199, including the headphones, wireless transmitter, and full access to the Spark App. It will be available soon on Positive Grid’s website, Amazon, and select retailers.
For more info, please visit positivegrid.com.
This Japan-made Guyatone brings back memories of hitchin’ rides around the U.S.
This oddball vintage Guyatone has a streak of Jack Kerouac’s adventurous, thumbing spirit.
The other day, I saw something I hadn’t noticed in quite some time. Driving home from work, I saw an interesting-looking fellow hitchhiking. When I was a kid, “hitchers” seemed much more common, but, then again, the world didn’t seem as dangerous as today. Heck, I can remember hitching to my uncle’s cabin in Bradford, Pennsylvania—home of Zippo lighters—and riding almost 200 miles while I sat in a spare tire in the open bed of a pickup truck! Yes, safety wasn’t a big concern for kids back in the day.
So, as I’m prone to do, I started digging around hitchhiking culture and stories. Surprisingly, there are organized groups that embrace the hitching life, but the practice remains on the fringe in the U.S. Back in the 1950s, writer Jack Kerouac wrote the novel On the Road, which celebrated hitchhiking and exposed readers to the thrill of maverick travel. Heck, even Mike Dugan (the guitarist in all my videos) hitched his way to California in the 1960s. But seeing that fellow on the side of the road also sparked another image in my brain: Yep, it always comes back to guitars.
Let me present to you a guitar that’s ready to go hitching: the Guyatone LG-180T, hailing from 1966. The “thumbs-up” headstock and the big “thumb” on the upper bout always made me think of thumbing a ride, and I bought and sold this guitar so long ago that I had forgotten about it, until I saw that hitchhiking dude. Guyatone was an interesting Japanese company because they were primarily an electronics company, and most of their guitars had their wooden parts produced by other factories. In the case of the LG-180T, the bodies were made by Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Japan. At that time, Yamaha was arguably making the finest Japanese guitars, and the wood on this Guyatone model is outstanding. We don’t often see Guyatone-branded guitars here in the U.S., but a lot of players recognize the early ’60s label Kent—a brand name used by an American importer for Guyatone guitars.
With a bit of imagination, the LG-180T’s “thumbs up” headstock seems to be looking for a roadside ride.
Kent guitars were extremely popular from the early ’60s until around 1966. The U.S. importer B&J fed the American need for electric guitars with several nice Kent models, but when the Guyatone contract ended, so did most of the Kent guitars. After that, Guyatone primarily sold guitars in Japan, so this example is a rare model in the U.S.
“Unless you are a master at guitar setups, this would be a difficult player.”
This headstock is either the ugliest or the coolest of the Guyatone designs. I can’t decide which. I will say, no other Japanese guitar company ever put out anything like this. You have to give the Guyatone designers a thumbs up for trying to stand out in the crowd! Guyatone decided to forgo an adjustable truss rod in this model, opting instead for a light alloy non-adjustable core to reinforce the neck. Speaking of the neck, this instrument features the most odd-feeling neck. It’s very thin but has a deep shoulder (if that makes any sense). Totally strange!
Another strange feature is the bridge, which offers very little adjustment because of the three large saddles, which sort of rock back and forth with the tremolo. It’s a shame because these pickups sound great! They’re very crisp and have plenty of zing, but unless you are a master at guitar set-ups, this would be a difficult player.
This could be why the LG-180T only appeared in the 1966 and 1967 catalogs. After that, it disappeared along with all the other Yamaha-made Guyatone electrics. By 1969, Guyatone had gone bankrupt for the first time, and thus ended guitar production for a few decades. At least we were blessed with some wacky guitar designs we can marvel at while remembering the days when you could play in the back end of an explosive 1973 AMC Gremlin while your mom raced around town. Two thumbs up for surviving our childhoods! PG
There's a lot of musical gold inside the scales.
Intermediate
Intermediate
• Develop a deeper improvisational vocabulary.
• Combine pentatonic scales to create new colors.
• Understand the beauty of diatonic harmony.Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.
The following is the first improvisational device I ever came across. I want to say I got it from a Frank Gambale book. The idea is that there are three minor pentatonic scales "hiding" in any given major scale. If we're in the key of C (C–D–E–F–G–A–B) we can pluck out the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. If we frame them over a Dm7 chord, they give us different five-note combinations of the D Dorian mode. In short, we are building minor pentatonic scales off the 2, 3, and 6 of the C major scale.
Viewing this through the lens of D minor (a sibling of C major and the tonal center for this lesson), D minor pentatonic gives us the 1–b3–4–5–b7, E minor pentatonic gives us 2–4–5–6–1, and A minor pentatonic gives us 5–b7–1–2–4. This means you can use your favorite pentatonic licks in three different locations and there are three different sounds we can tap into from the same structure.
If you smashed all of them together, you would get the D Dorian scale (D–E–F–G–A–B–C) with notes in common between the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. Ex. 1 uses all three scales, so you can hear the different colors each one creates over the chord.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2 is how I improvise with them, usually weaving in and out using different positional shapes.
Ex. 2
The next idea is one I stole from a guitarist who often came into a music store I worked at. On the surface, it's very easy: Just take two triads (in our example it will be Dm and C) and ping-pong between them. The D minor triad (D–F–A) gives us 1–b3–5, which is very much rooted in the chord, and the C major triad (C–E–G) gives us the b7–9–4, which is much floatier. Also, if you smash these two triads together, you get 1–2–b3–4–5–b7, which is a minor pentatonic scale with an added 2 (or 9). Eric Johnson uses this sound all the time. Ex. 3 is the lick I stole years ago.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is how I would improvise with this concept. Many different fingerings work with these, so experiment until you find a layout that's comfortable for your own playing.
Ex. 4
If two triads work, why not seven? This next approach will take all the triads in the key of C (C–Dm–Em–F–G–Am–Bdim) and use them over a Dm7 chord (Ex. 5). Each triad highlights different three-note combinations from the Dorian scale, and all of them sound different. Triads are clear structures that sound strong to our ears, and they can generate nice linear interest when played over one chord. Once again, all of this is 100% inside the scale. Ex. 5 is how each triad sounds over the track, and Ex. 6 is my attempt to improvise with them.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
If we could find all these possibilities with triads, it's logical to make the structure a little bigger and take a similar approach with 7 chords, or in this case, arpeggios. Naturally, all the diatonic chords will work, but I'll limit this next idea to just Dm7, Fmaj7, Am7, and Cmaj7. I love this approach because as you move further away from the Dm7 shape, each new structure takes out a chord tone and replaces it with an extension. I notice that I usually come up with different lines when I'm thinking about different chord shapes, and this approach is a decent way to facilitate that. Ex. 7 is a good way to get these under your fingers. Just ascend one shape, shift into the next shape on the highest string, then descend and shift to the next on the lowest string.
Ex. 7
Ex. 8 is my improvisation using all four shapes and sounds, but I lean pretty heavily on the Am7.
Ex. 8
This last concept has kept me busy on the fretboard for the last five years or so. Check it out: You can take any idea that works over Dm7 and move the other diatonic chords. The result is six variations of your original lick. In Ex. 9 I play a line that is 4–1–b3–5 over Dm7 and then walk it through the other chords in the key. These notes are still in the key of C, but it sounds drastically different from playing a scale.
Ex. 9
In Ex. 10, I try to think about the shapes from the previous example, but I break up the note order in a random but fun way. The ending line is random but felt good, so I left it in.
Ex. 10
While all these concepts have been presented over a minor chord, you can just as easily apply them to any chord quality, and they work just as well in harmonic or melodic minor. Rewarding sounds are available right inside the harmony, and I am still discovering new ideas through these concepts after many years.
Though the above ideas won't necessarily be appropriate for every style or situation, they will work in quite a few. Developing any approach to the point that it becomes a natural extension of your playing takes considerable work and patience, so just enjoy the process, experiment, and let your ear guide you to the sounds you like. Even over just one chord, there is always something new to find.
Building upon the foundation of the beloved Core Collection H-535, this versatile instrument is designed to serve as a masterpiece in tone.
The new model features striking aesthetic updates and refined tonal enhancements. Crafted at the iconic 225 Parsons Street factory, home to other world-famous models like the H-150, H-157, and H-575 - the H-555 continues to exemplify the very best of American craftsmanship.
The Core Collection H-555 features a set of Custom Shop 225 Hot Classic Humbuckers, meticulously wound in-house with carefully selected components, and voiced to deliver added punch and richness while preserving exceptional dynamics and touch sensitivity. Seamlessly complementing the H-555’s semi-hollow construction, they blend warmth and woodiness with refined, articulate clarity.
The Core Collection H-555’s aesthetic has been elevated with multi-ply binding on the body, headstock, and pickguard. Its neck, sculpted in a classic ’50s profile, delivers effortless comfort and is adorned with elegant block inlays, seamlessly blending style with playability. Gold hardware complements the aesthetic, exuding elegance while presenting the H-555 as a truly premium and versatile instrument for the discerning player.
Available in Ebony and Trans Cherry, each Core Collection H-555 is beautifully finished with a nitrocellulose vintage gloss that features a subtle shine and gracefully ages over time. An Artisan Aged option is also available for those seeking an authentically well-loved look and feel, achieved through a meticulous, entirely hand-finished aging process. The new Core Collection continues Heritage’s tradition of world-class craftsmanship, offering a true masterpiece in tone and design for discerning players. Each guitar is shipped in a premium Heritage Custom Shop hard case.
Key Features
- Finest Tonewoods: Laminated highly figured Curly Maple (Top & Back) with solid Curly Maple sides
- Heritage Custom Shop 225 Hot Classic Humbuckers: Designed and wound in-house
- Headstock: Multi-ply bound headstock, featuring a Kite inlay, 3×3 tuners laser-etched with Heritage graphics
- Neck Profile: Comfortable ’50s C-shape for a vintage feel
- Bridge: Tune-O-Matic with aluminum stopbar tailpiece for enhanced sustain
- Made in the USA: Crafted at 225 Parsons Street
For more information, please visit heritageguitars.com.