Source Audio's new Ultrawave Multiband Processor lives where distortion, tremolo, and EQ all intersect. It can generate everything from lo-fi fuzz freakouts to synth-pop pulses and beyond. At first glance, the control interface seems simple enough: a four-knob, one-toggle setup. However, those initial assumptions would grossly underestimate the power that lies underneath the hood, and the complex tone recipes that are possible.
Source Audio's processing-intensive pedals are always pushing the boundaries of control and tweakability. The key to the Ultrawave is its multiband capabilities, which enables the pedal to split a signal into 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, or 10 frequency bands and process each one individually. There are 37 different band-splitting options and 44 types of distortion inside the Ultrawave. By my calculations that means there's just enough combinations to get through a blues jam, a Muse tribute gig, and an after-hours space-psych session in the same night and still have scores of unexplored tones left over.
All clips were recorded with a Fender Stratocaster and a Revv D20 loaded with a Two-Notes virtual 1x12 cab and 57-style microphone.
Playin’ With the Bands
Hooking your stomp up to your computer for deeper editing is essential to getting the most out of the Ultrawave, because there are loads of editable parameters that are not accessible otherwise. When you first open the editor, you face a somewhat imposing array of options. The heart of the editor is the distortion controls section, which allows you to choose distortion type, as well as band-splitting and tremolo options. But as scary as it might look at first, it was big fun simply cycling through the distortion options and moving the sliders up and down looking for happy accidents. And because the Ultrawave allows you to manipulate frequency groups individually, you can, for instance, dirty up your low end while allowing high-end information to ring cleanly. I also loved tones with a cleaner midrange and a filthy low end. The editor even has a very powerful and flexible compressor. The number of possibilities is impressive.
It was big fun simply cycling through the distortion options and moving the sliders up and down looking for happy accidents.
Distortion highlights included the foldback and octave settings. Foldback-style distortion (where the peaks of distorted waveforms are inverted rather than regularly clipped) isn't that common in guitar pedals. It's a cool effect that can lend a throbbing intensity and extra high end to your signal, among other things. Meanwhile, in the octave settings, you can cop subtle vintage-style tones or full-on freakouts with fuzz and feedback. According to Source Audio, the octave effects are created using a proprietary technology rather than traditional full-wave rectification. Determining precisely what affect Source Audio's octave-generating methods have on the output is difficult to determine, but I found the audible results to be unusually smooth and well suited to the complex distortion and tremolo effects.
The multiband tremolo also offers many tweaking options. You can place the tremolo either before or after the dirt and choose between a host of different band styles. For me, the more unsettling the rhythm, the better, and some modulations are intense enough to make you lose your musical lunch—in the very best way! Each band style offered non-traditional options that drove to create stuttering loops.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the Ultrawave also has extensive I/O options for those who want to experiment with the stereo spectrum, utilize the pedal's two independent channels, or alter parameters on the fly with full expression-pedal control. We're used to Source Audio packing a ton of features into their pedals, but kudos are due to the development team for creating such a unique and varied effect in a standard-sized stomp.
The Verdict
Though extreme and unusual effects are plentiful in the Ultrawave, its tone palette is broad. Finding a sound that suits you is just a matter of dedicated tweaking. It's an extremely powerful sound processor, but that power does come with a rather hefty learning curve once you dive into the editor, which is probably more essential to getting the most from the pedal than traditionalists would like. Thankfully Source Audio has a free, easy-to-download collection of Ultrawave presets and an active community of users with their own presets and tips to share. If you live on the bleeding edge of distortion sounds and enjoy mixing modulation, then the Ultrawave might be the best thing going.
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On That’s the Price of Loving Me, “We’re Not Finished Yet” is a love letter to Wareham’s 1968 Gibson ES-335.
The singer-songwriter, 61, has crafted many such moments—most famously during the late ’80s and early ’90s, helping cement the dream-pop genre with cult-favorites Galaxie 500. Take the tenor saxophone, by Ralph Carney, that elevates the back half of “Decomposing Trees” from 1989’s On Fire, or the Mellotron-like atmosphere that bubbles up during “Spook” on This Is Our Music from 1990—both of which, notably, were recorded with journeyman producer Kramer, who’s part of Wareham’s rich sonic universe once again with the songwriter’s new solo album, That’s the Price of Loving Me.
Following This Is Our Music, the final Galaxie 500 album, Wareham and Kramer went their separate ways. The former founded the long-running indie-rock band Luna, formed the duo Dean & Britta with now-wife Britta Phillips, worked on film scores, and released a handful of solo projects. Kramer, meanwhile, grew into a hero of experimental music, playing with and producing everyone from John Zorn to Daniel Johnston. They stayed in touch, even as they drifted apart geographically, and always talked about working together again—but it took the weight of mortality to make it happen.
“[Kramer has] been saying for years, ‘It’s crazy we haven’t made a record together,’” says Wareham over Zoom, his shimmering silver hair flanked in the frame by a wall-hung cherry red Gibson SG and a poster of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1975 drama Faustrecht der Freiheit. “He was living in Florida, and I was living elsewhere and doing other things. But I did lose a couple of friends over the pandemic, and it did occur to me, you can’t just say, ‘I’ll get to it’ forever. Not to be morbid, but we’re not gonna be here forever. We’re not getting any younger, are we?”
Dean Wareham's Gear
Wareham was a member of the early indie dream-pop trio Galaxie 500. After their split, he formed indie rock stalwarts Luna as well as Dean & Britta, with wife and Luna bandmate Britta Phillips.
Photo by Laura Moreau
Guitars
Amps
- Lazy J 20
- Mesa/Boogie California Tweed
Effects
- EAE Hypersleep reverb
- EAE Sending analog delay
- Dr Scientist Frazz Dazzler fuzz
- Danelectro Back Talk
- Joe Parker Raydeen overdrive
Strings, Picks, and Accessories
- Curtis Mangan nickel wounds (.010–.046)
- Dunlop Nylon .88 mm picks
- Truetone 1 Spot Pro CS12
In 2020, Dean & Britta recorded a covers album, Quarantine Tapes—the perfect opportunity, amid the agony of lockdown, to finally get Kramer involved. The producer mixed their hazy version of the Seekers’ “The Carnival Is Over,” which planted the seeds for a bigger collaboration on That’s the Price of Loving Me. At first, though, Wareham didn’t have any songs, so he gave himself a hard deadline by booking some time at L.A. studio Lucy’s Meat Market.
“What is it in a song that makes people cry? What is it that moves you? It’s something unexpected.”
“I don’t write songs every day—sometimes I don’t write songs for a whole year or something,” he says with a laugh. “The only thing that gets me to do it is booking studio time. Then I have to write some songs because it’ll be embarrassing if I show up with nothing.”
The space itself—decked out with a jaw-dropping amount of vintage guitars and amplifiers and keyboards—helped animate his sleepy-eyed and gently psychedelic songs. “I thought I had a few nice instruments,” Wareham says, “but I showed up, like, ‘Oh, your Les Paul’s from 1955? I think I’ll play this one. Your Martin is from the ’40s?’” Speed and spontaneity were essential: They worked six full days, with Kramer guiding him to capture every performance without overthinking it.
Wareham’s latest was produced by Kramer, a former member of Shockabilly, Bongwater, and the Butthole Surfers who owns the legendary underground label Shimmy-Disc. He produced all three Galaxie 500 LPs.
“[That’s] how I worked with Kramer back in the day too,” he recalls. “Maybe it kinda spoiled me—he was always like, ‘Yep, that’s it. Next!’ I got lazy about going back and redoing things. We’d make the decision and move on: keep that drum track and bass track. Maybe Britta [bass, backing vocals] would change a few things. Sometimes you’re with people who think every single thing should be replaced and made perfect, and you don’t actually have to do that. When it came time for me to overdub a guitar solo or something, Kramer would just allow me two takes generally: ‘Do it again a little differently. That’s it. That’s good.’”
“I thought I had a few nice instruments, but I showed up, like, ‘Oh, your Les Paul’s from 1955? I think I’ll play this one.’”
The material itself allowed for such malleability, with ringing chord progressions and gentle melodies often influenced by the musicians who happened to be gathered around him that day. “You Were the Ones I Had to Betray” has the baroque-pop sweetness of late-’60s Beatles, partly due to the sawing cellos of L.A. session player Gabe Noel, who also added some boomy bass harmonica to the climax. “It’s an instrument you’d mostly associate with the Beach Boys, I guess,” Wareham says. “It kinda sounds like a saxophone or something.”
Wareham, his 335, and Mesa/Boogie California Tweed at a recent Luna show, with bassist Britta Phillips in the background.
Photo by Mario Heller
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the warm hug of these arrangements, but it’s also worth highlighting Wareham’s lyrics—whether it’s the clever but subtle acrostic poetry of “The Mystery Guest” (“I’d never done that before, and it’s not that hard to do actually. Sometimes it’s just to give yourself a strange assignment to get yourself thinking in a different way”) or the hilarity of “We’re Not Finished Yet,” which scans as carnal but is actually a love letter to his semi-recently acquired 1968 Gibson ES-335.
“Sometimes it’s just to give yourself a strange assignment to get yourself thinking in a different way.”
“I read this poem about a guy polishing an antique wooden cabinet or something,” Wareham explains. “I thought, ‘That’s funny—it’s vaguely sexual, how he’s like rubbing this thing.’ I thought it would be funny if I wrote a song not about a piece of furniture but about the guitar—the experience of buying this. The lyrics in there: ‘I waxed you; I rubbed you; I reamed you.’ It all sounds like a dirty song, but it’s like, ‘No, I had to get the peg holes reamed!’ It works kind of as a love song, but that’s what it’s really about.”
Which brings us back to that idea of the unexpected. The most beautiful touches on Loving Me, crafted with his ol’ producer pal, are the ones that appear out of nowhere—like the blossoming guitar overdubs of “New World Julie” and “Dear Pretty Baby.” Kramer, he says, liked to “run two or three guitar tracks at once, where it becomes a symphony of guitars.”
These surprises, indeed, are the moments that stick with you.
YouTube It
Luna’s four-song performance on KEXP showcases Dean Wareham’s sparse, low-key indie rock vibe as well as his simple and sweet guitar embellishments.
