Bursts, Benders, and Js, oh my! A pioneer of the new Nashville sound spends a whopping 90 minutes showing off the gear his crew has amassed since our last get-together.
Back in the fall of 2015 PG traveled south to the Tivoli Theatre in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to catch up with Jason Isbell, guitarist Sadler Vaden, and bassist Jimbo Hart. At the time, the band gave us so much time and so much gusto about their piles of gear, the resulting Rundown became the longest ever at 65 minutes.
Fast forward four years and now Perry Bean finds himself onstage, surrounded by even more gear, at the historic Ryman Auditorium in the middle of Isbellās annual October run. This year saw the Alabama native and his bandmates sell out seven consecutive shows at the Mother Church. And before the 4th night, we basically filmed a feature film spotlighting all the new inspiring additions to their arsenal and how it all further propels the 400 Unitās sonic quest.
While Jason Isbell has a treasure trove of calendar-worthy guitars, we have to start with this 1959 GibsonĀ Les Paul. The showstopper earned its nickname āRedeyeā for the original red-mark finish near the pickup selector being preserved by the guitarās price tag hanging down in a music storeās front window protecting it from the UV rays. The āburst was owned and played for many years by Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist/bassist (and creator of the āSweet Home Alabamaā riff) Ed King. After Kingās passing in August 2018, his family put a few of his classic guitars, including this iconic instrument, up for sale at Carter Vintage in Nashville.
At the request of the Cartersā, Isbell was asked to come into the store to demo the guitars to help generate interest in the sale of Ed Kingās collection. As Isbell retells the fateful meeting between he and Redeye, he felt ātrickedā because they had left Jason alone with the āburst, so of course he had to play. And after playing it ⦠he had to have it.
He left Carter Vintage daydreaming about the Les Paul. He lost sleep that night fixated on how it sounded and played. So, the next day he called his accountant and she said you canāt have that guitar. Next, he called his management team, and he jokingly told them he would play any weird birthday parties as long as they werenāt for terrorists or bad people just so he could afford the guitar.
Isbell swapped out the tuners (although still functioning great) and upgraded with a period-correct set to preserve the sanctity of the instrument by saving the originals from harm. The tailpiece has been subbed out for a new Joe Glaser model that allows Isbell to top wrap the strings without worry of dinging the top. And the last notable change is that King had a partial refret up to the 12th position.
Under the metal covers rest a double-white humbucker (bridge) and zebra (neck). Isbell believes the zebra is overwound about 600 turns, but over the last 60 years, itās lost some of its magnetism making it more balanced and creating an impeccable middle-position tone.
All of Jasonās guitars take Ernie Ball Slinkys gauged .010ā.046, he hammers away with Dunlop Tortex 1.14 mm picks, and gets slippery with MagSlide Magnesium Guitar Slides.
āThereās more difference in the price than there is in the tone,ā says Jason Isbell, when referring to this āRedeyeā copy recently built by the Gibson Custom Shop.
āFor about a week, this was my coolest Les Paul,ā says Jason Isbell about his 1953 Gibson goldtop. The aforementioned Ed King-owned āburst would overshadow any guitar in most collections, but this gem actually had the Bigsby and tailpiece put on by longtime Neil Young tech Larry Cragg. He bought the guitar around last Christmas from TR Crandall Guitars.
Since our last Rundown, Isbell has been lucky enough to receive a signature Martin D-18. The goal for this collaboration was to make the loudest-possible dreadnought. The model boasts a pre-aged Vintage Tone System (VTS) Adirondack spruce top, mahogany back and sides, and rear-shifted scalloped bracing which produce more natural volume and a clear powerful tone. It uses hide glue for a stronger resonance and it comes with the pickguard in the case because Martinās Fred Greene discovered that it could decrease the guitarās volume by 5 dB. His flattops take Martin SP Medium (.013ā056) strings.
If you see the Castle Creek Guitars Dobrato come out, get your handkerchief out because itās time for āIf We Were Vampires.ā The Colorado-based company claims the Dobrato to be the worldās first acoustic-electric, round-neck resophonic guitar to include the unique B-bender vibrato. With their proprietary vibrato arm, you can pull it sideways to move the B string to a C#. It has high-quality cones, biscuit, and a Fishman PRO-RES-BIS pickup system.
If you watched our Rundown with Nashville producer Dave Cobb (Isbell, Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson), you may recognize this 1959 Gretsch Jet Firebird. In that episode, Cobb says that Isbell bonded so much with this Jet during the recording of Southeastern and Something More Than Free that he was the rightful owner of it because of how he made it sound. Then Cobb jokes that he told Isbell he would give him the guitar if he sold āxā amount of records. And now while Jason doesnāt confirm or deny if that number was hit, this is the same ā59 Jet that once belonged to Cobb.
Hereās Jason Isbellās sunburst 1960 Fender Strat. That night at the show he used it quite a bit including during the old 400 Unit tune āOverseas.ā
This candy-apple red Tele came out of the Fender factory in April 1965. To Jasonās knowledge, because itās a transition instrument, the only thing that isnāt a true ā64 on the guitar is the pearloid inlays as opposed to clay.
Isbell tweaked this 2014 Fender Custom Shop ā60 Tele Custom (which was built by Master Builder Paul Waller) by adding a black pickguard and a Twisted Tele pickup in the neck position. This and the next two slides (the 1961 ES-335 and the Tom Stadler-built āCooder-casterā) are the only guitars leftover from the 2015 episode.
This 1961 Gibson ES-335 is the first really old and really awesome guitar that Isbell obtained and is mostly original with a few key upgrades. Isbell had famed Nashville luthier Joe Glaser give the guitar a refret and install a TonePros tailpiece along with new tuners because after years of use the originals started to look like āa dead manās toe.ā
āThis guitar will actually get me gigs,ā says Isbell. Itās a āCooder-casterā that was built by Nashville luthier Tom Stadler from Carter Vintage Guitars. The idea behind the guitar came from legendary slide guru Ry Cooderās main guitar. Stadler salvaged the āgold foilā neck pickup from an old Teisco guitar and held onto to for about a year before Isbellās wife commissioned the guitar for his birthday. Stadler also installed a Lollar lap steel pickup thatās based on an old Supro model in the bridge position. Based on a recommendation from Blake Mills, Isbell strings this guitar up with flatwound strings.
In the last Rundown, Jason was running two amps (Magnatone Super Fifty-Nine and Sommatone Roaring 40), and now his setup has doubled to include four combos. The first one is this Magnatone Panoramic Stereo 2x10 with pitch-shifting vibrato. Itās loaded with the companyās ceramic speakers.
Next up in his stable of amps is the Fender '64 Custom Deluxe Reverb handwired reissue. He took out the Jensen C12Q speaker and replaced it with a Weber Ferromax.
To keep power consistent and volume manageable (without sacrificing tone), Isbell employs a Weber MiniMass 50-watt Attenuator for each amp. The Magnatone gets two because it has two power amps for the stereo output.
The top pair that work together starts with this ā64 Fender Vibroverb that has been given the āDiazā mod (named SRVās tech Cesar Diaz), which means they pulled the preamp tube in the vibrato channel. (For what itās worth, this mod can be done to the normal channel, too. You just need to pull the V1 preamp instead.) The impact of the mod is summarized best by new PG columnist Jens Mosbergvik (āSilver and Blackā) on his Fenderguru site: āthe other channelās tube will be hotter biased and offers more gain. The amp will play louder than before given the same volume knob setting. The stronger signal will push the second gain stage (V4 tube) harder and give you increased sustain, compression and harmonics.ā It has a 15" JBL speaker and was a Christmas gift from wife Amanda Shires.
The last of the combos is this 1958 Fender Bassman that Isbell bought at Rudyās in NYC. He believes it was owned or was in the shop of George Alessandro for years, so itās in tip-top shape and purrs real nice.
The top shelf of Jasonās rack includes a trio of Fishman Aura units and a J. Rockett Audio Blue Note OD that is used as an EQ pedal for Jasonās neck humbuckers so they are a little more trebly. These are all juiced up by the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power Digital brick.
Next row is home to a silverface Klon Centuar, Origin Effects SlideRIG, and a trio of Analog Man stompsāa King of Tone, Sun Lion (gift from Marc Ford), and a modded Analog Man Small CompROSSor (with an added mix knob). These are brought to life by the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power Iso-5.
And in the last drawer we have an Analog Man ARDX20 Dual Analog Delay, Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, and a quad of Chase Bliss digital powerhousesāCondor, Gravitas, Tonal Recall, and Dark World. All of these pedals are powered by the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 4x4.
Lastly for Isbell is this Ibanez DML10 Modulation Delay II. The delay function is dialed out and is used as a comb filter with very subtle modulation that mimics a flanger.
Here is the brain behind Isbellās entire setup that enables him to make several changes with one kick of a button thanks to the RJM Mastermind GT. Other goodies out front include a TC Electronic PolyTune 2 Noir, Chase Bliss Condor, and a Mission Engineering EP-1 Expression Pedal.
A new addition to Sadler Vadenās vault is this buttescotch, blackguard Tele built by the Fender Custom Shop last year. Itās based on a ā51 Nocaster with a ā60s-style neck profile and Twisted Tele pickups (suggested by Jason).
This is a 1981 Tokai Breezysound T-style outfitted with a classic B-bender.
Here is Sadler Vadenās 1999 Fender Tele Custom ā72 reissue (MIM) that was upgraded with a Lindy Fralin Split-blade in the bridge and a Fralin P-92 in the neck.
400 Unit guitarist Sadler Vaden has been using this ā05 Gibson SG Standard as his main ride. It's loaded with a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates humbucker in the bridge, a '59 in the neck, and is strung with Ernie Ball Regular Slinky strings.
This eye-catching Les Paul VOS is a 2015 model from the Gibson Custom Shop that now has OX4 humbuckers that were custom-wound to approximate those found in Pageyās No. 1.
This 2015 Fender Custom Shop Strat was Sadlerās newest guitar in the 2015 episode. Itās now used for electric material like āLast of My Kindā and always rolls with a Thalia capo in the 4th position.
On the last Rundown Sadler was using a 12-string Dano, but now heās got a fireglo 360/12 Rickenbacker for the job.
If youāre following along at home, youāll recognize this from the last Rundown when it was Isbellās go-to acoustic. Now, this D-18 Authentic 1939 belongs to Sadler and still sees the stage each night.
Sadlerās only semi-hollow 6-string is this 2007 Gibson ES-335 āblockā reissueāand at the behest of Isbell (its former owner), Vaden dropped in OX4 PAF-style pickups, a Duesenberg Tremolo system, and is strung with Ernie Ball Regular Slinky strings, too.
Here is Sadlerās newest guitarāa Gibson Acoustic SJ-200 Deluxe.
Like last time, Sadler is still running his 3rd Power British Dream.
And while heās still using a Vox (last time was a handwired AC30 reissue), heās now rocking through an all-tube 1965 Pacemaker he bought at Emerald City Guitars.
Sadlerās stomp station has grown and tidied up since our last visit. Now heās going with an Eventide H9, Line 6 MM4, Strymon BlueSky, Analog Man ARDX20 Dual Analog Delay, Mad Professor Forest Green Compressor, Greer Amps Lightspeed, Analog Man King of Tone, Walrus Audio 385 drive, and a pair of Dunlop foot pedalsā535Q Cry Baby and a Dunlop DVP3 Volume Pedal. A Korg Pitchblack tuner keeps everything in check, a 3rd Power A/B box controls the amps, and a Walrus Audio Transit 5 wrangles all the pedals.
And for acoustic purposes, Sadler is using a Fishman Platinum Pro EQ and a Radial ToneBone BigShot I/O.
An unlikely pairing of bassists would be the 400 Unitās Jimbo Hart and former-Metallica thumper Jason Newsted. However, as odd as this low-end duo may seem, theyāve actually become fast friends after Newsted attended and introduced himself following an Isbell show in Oakland, California. The friendship has blossomed in such a way that Newsted gifted Hart this Sadowsky Will Lee Bass 4-string that is decked out with a flame-maple top and fretboard with abalone inlays, and a Hipshot D Extender that quickly goes down a whole step.
While this head-turning blue bomber is an onstage backup, Hart loves that this Sadowsky Vintage PJ āalways works in the studioā so it still consistently feels the love.
Hart is running two Ashdown tube heads that can feel like a herd of oncoming buffalo. He normally prefers to run the 300-watt Classic Tube Magnifier (bottom) but will go for the 100-watt model (top) for a brighter sound.
The Hart and soul of his rig lies in this small boxāa handwired Noble DI preamp listed as No. 19.
This Xotic X-Blender sits in the rack and allows Jimbo to intricately control the wet/dry blend in his setup from a night-to-night, room-to-room basis. (You can also see that heās no longer using wooden picks and now plunks away with some custom plectrums from Dunlop.)
Jimboās pedal playground includes a Peterson Strobostomp Classic, a Dunlop DVP3 Volume, a Greer Amps Soma, a Malekko Spring, Walrus Audio Voyager and Janus, an Ampeg Classic Analog Bass Preamp, EBS OctaBass, and everything is controlled by a Walrus Audio Transit 5.
Click below to listen wherever you get your podcasts:
D'Addario XT Strings:https://www.daddario.com/XTRR
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The legendary Louisville rockers brought tons of vintage tone tools on the road this year.
My Morning Jacketās Is, their 10th album, released on March 21, and as we reported in our feature on the band in our May print issue, it showcased a band exercising their classic strengths as well as newfound vision and curiosity. Helmed by superstar producer Brendan OāBrien, Is finds MMJ at their anthemic, psychedelic best.
We caught up with Carl Broemel for a Rig Rundown back in 2015, but on this yearās tour, PGās John Bohlinger checked in with all three axemenāJim James, Broemel, and bassist Tom Blankenshipāto hear about their road rigs. In Broemelās estimation, theyāre lazyāthey just like to bring everything.
Brought to you by DāAddario.
Three's a Crowd
This gorgeous Gibson Jimi Hendrix 1967 SG Custom, aged by Murphy Labs, initially had three humbuckers, but James kept hitting his pick on the middle pickup, so it got the yankāas did the hefty bridge and Maestro Vibrola system, which were replaced with a simple stopbar tailpiece.
Mirror Image
James picked up this 1998 Gibson Flying V right around when My Morning Jacket got started. He traced and ordered the flashy mirror pickguard himself. Itās got Gibson pickups, though James isnāt sure of the models.
Jim James' Jimmy
James plucked this one-of-a-kind from Scott Baxendaleās collection of restored vintage guitars. He guesses itās either an old Kay or Harmony guitar, but the decorations, including the custom plastic headstock plaque, make exact identification difficult. But it was clear this one was meant for James, since it has his name on it.
Elsewhere backstage is Jamesā Epiphone Jim James ES-335, a custom shop FenderĀ Telecaster and Strat, a 1967 Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman, and a Gibson Barney Kessel.
Make Love, Not War
James loves repurposing old military equipment for creative, peaceful purposes, which is how this old radar system came to be a part of his live amplification kit. Along with the old tech, James runs two 3 Monkeys Orangutan heads through a 3 Monkeys cab.
Jim James' Pedalboard
Jamesā board is built around a pair of GigRig QuarterMaster switching systems, which lets him navigate the stomps you see here: a Devi Ever US Fuzz, Boss BD-2w, SoloDallas Schaffer Boost, Boss OC-2, EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery, Strymon blueSky, EQD Ghost Echo, Malekko Spring Chicken, ISP Deci-Mate, Electro-Harmonix Mel9, UA Starlight Echo Station, and UA Astra Modulation Machine. A DāAddario Chromatic Pedal Tuner duo keep things on pitch, a Strymon Zuma and Ojai pair handle the power, and a Radial SGI-44 line driver maintains clarity.
Arts and Crafts Night
One night while a bit tipsy, Broemel took out his paint pens and set to work on this Gibson Les Paul Standard Faded, resulting in this masterpiece. He also removed the pickup selector switch; even though the neck pickup remains, it never gets used.
Relic By Broemel
This 1988 Les Paul Standard predates the band, and Broemel has given it its aged finish over the yearsāon one occasion, it fell out of a truck. Itās been treated to a Seymour Duncan pickup upgrade and occasional refrets when required.
Carl's Creston
This Creston Lea offset has two Novak lipstick pickups in the neck, with a switch to engage just one or both, plus a low-end roll-off control. Itās finished in the same blue-black color as Broemelās house and sports a basil leaf on the headstock in tribute to Broemelās son, Basil.
Also in the wardrobe are a shiny new Duesenberg tuned to open G, and a custom shop Fender Telecaster with a fattened neck and Bigsby to swing it closer to Broemelās beloved LPs.
Milk Route
Broemel routes his GFI Ultra pedal steel, which is tuned to E9, through a board which includes a Milkman The Amp, which is projected through the speaker of a Fender Princeton Reissue combo. Operated with another GigRig QuarterMaster, the board also includes an Eventide H9, Moog MF Delay, Fender The Pelt, MXR Phase 90, EHX Nano POG, Xotic Effects EP Booster, Source Audio C4, and a Peterson StroboStomp HD.
Side-Carr
This time out, Broemel is running two Carr Slant 6V heads in stereo.
Carl Broemel's Pedalboard
Broemel commissioned XAct Tone Solutions to build this double-decker board, which depends on a GigRig G3S switching system. From top to bottom (literally), it includes a Boss TU-3, Durham Electronics Sex Drive, JAM Pedals Tubedreamer, Source Audio Spectrum, JAM Retrovibe, MXR Phase 100, Fender The Pelt, Origin Effects SlideRIG, 29 Pedals EUNA, two Eventide H9s, Kingsley Harlot V3, JAM Delay Llama, Merix LVX, Hologram Chroma Console, and EHX POGIII. A wah and Mission Engineering expression pedal sit on the left side, while a Lehle volume pedal and Gamechanger Audio Plus hold down the right edge.
Utility units include two SGI TX interfaces, two Strymon Ojais and a Strymon Zuma, and a Cioks Crux.
More From the Creston Crew
Blankenship, too, has brought along a few guitars from Lea, including these Precision-bass and Jazz-bass models. The dark-sparkle P-style rocks with GHS flatwound strings, while the natural-finish J-style has roundwounds.
Emperor's New Groove
Blankenship just got these brand-new Emperor cabinets, through which he cranks his Mesa Boogie WD-800 Subway heads.
Tom Blankenshipās Pedalboard
Like James, Blankenship uses a GigRig QuarterMaster to jump between his effects. After his Boss TU-3, that includes an Origin Effects Cali76, DigiTech Whammy Ricochet, Pepersā Pedals Humongous Fuzz, MXR Bass Octave Deluxe, Tronographic Rusty Box, and EHX Bassballs Nano. A Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus lights things up, and a Radial SGI TX keeps the signal squeaky clean.
Shop My Morning Jacket's Rig
EarthQuaker Devices host Echo Reverb Pedal
ISP Technologies DECI-MATE Micro Noise Reduction Pedal
Electro-Harmonix Mel9 Tape Replay Machine Pedal
EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery Envelope Filter Pedal
Universal Audio UAFX Starlight Echo Station Delay Pedal
Universal Audio UAFX Astra Modulation Machine Pedal
Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster
Experience the pinnacle of Taylor playing comfort and tone with the Builderās Edition 514ce, 514ce Kona Burst, and 524ce. These models feature solid Shamel ash back and sides, uniquely voiced V-Class bracing, Gotoh 510 tuners, ES2 electronics, and a Deluxe Hardshell Case.
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Refined, comfort-enhancing features include a beveled armrest and cutaway, chamfered body edges and a smoothly contoured Curve Wing bridge. Italian acrylic āCompassā inlays and a vibrant firestripe pickguard add tasteful aesthetic accents.
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Expansive range of subtle thickening and focusing tones to fuzz. Great alternative to run-of-the-mill overdrive and fuzz. Enables surgical shaping of guitar sounds within a mix.
Interactive, sometimes sensitive controls make certain tones elusive and lend the pedal a twitchy feel.
$179
Catalinbread Airstrip
With the preamp from a Trident A-Range console as their target, Catalinbread conjures up a varied gain device that can massage or mangle your guitar tone.
Replicating a recording console preamp in a pedal is a pretty elementary idea, but itās inspired stompboxes as varied as theJHS Colour Box andHudson Broadcast. All recording desksāand the pedals that imitate themāhave their own color. Catalinbreadās Airstrip chases the sound of a Trident A-Range channel strip. (Search āTrident Studiosā to get a handle on the kind of clientele the place attracted back in the ā60s and ā70s).
Presently, a new Trident A-Range channel strip costs thousands of dollars. An original? Well, only 13 desks were made, so you can probably get a nice used Rolls Royce for lessāif you can find one. Rightly then, one should temper expectations about how well a $179 pedal can ape a priceless console. But like many preamps in a box, the Airstrip excels at a wide range of gain-shaping tasks, from surgical boost and EQ shadings to fuzzy, filtered, ready-to-rip-through-a-mix Jimmy Page/Beatles/Neil Young-style direct-to-desk tones. Even at extremes, the Airstrip is sensitive to touch, volume, and tone dynamics, enabling pivots from light (if very focused) overdrive to ā60s germanium-fuzz-like sounds with changes in guitar volume and tone. And though itās dynamic and responsive, at many settings it also exhibits lovely compression tendencies, softening transients before giving way to wide-vista tone bloomsāa great recipe for spare, lyrical, melodic leads with a ā60s biker-flick-soundtrack edge. Without any of its market-leading competitors around for comparison, itās hard to say exactly how the Airstrip aligns with their EQ biases and core tones. What is certain is that there are scores of mellow to unconventionally aggressive colors here to explore.
AI, which generated this image in seconds, can obviously do amazing things. But can it actually replace human creativity?
Technology has always disrupted the music biz, but weāve never seen anything like this.
AI has me deeply thinking: Is guitar (or any instrument) still valid? Are musicians still valid? I donāt think the answer is as obvious as Iād like it to be.
As a professional musician, Iāve spent the vast majority of my days immersed in the tones of tube amps, the resistance of steel strings under my fingers, and the endless pursuit of musical expression. Each day, I strive to tap into the Source, channel something new into the world (however small), and share it. Yet, lately, a new presence has entered the roomāartificial intelligence. It is an interloper unlike any Iāve ever encountered. If youāre thinking that AI is something off in the ānot-too-distant future,ā youāre exponentially wrong. So, this month Iām going to ask that we sit and meditate on this technology, and hopefully gain some insight into how we are just beginning to use it.
AI: Friend or Foe?
In the last 12 months, Iāve heard quite a bit of AI-generated music. Algorithms can now ācompose,ā āperformā (with vocals of your choosing), and āproduceā entire songs in minutes, with prompts as flippant as, āWrite a song about__in the style of__.ā AI never misses a note and can mimic the finer details of almost any genre with unnerving precision. For those who are merely curious about music, or those easily distracted by novelty, this might seem exciting ⦠a shortcut to creating āprofessionalā sounding music without years of practice. But for those of us who are deeply passionate about music, it raises some profound existential questions.
When you play an instrument, you engage in something deeply human. Each musician carries their life experiences into their playing. The pain of heartbreak, the joy of new beginnings, or the struggle to find a voice in an increasingly noisy and artificial online world dominated by algorithms. Sweat, tears, and callouses develop from your efforts and repetition. Your mistakes can lead to new creative vistas and shape the evolution of your style.
Emotions shape the music we create. While an algorithm can only infer and assign a āvalueā to the vast variety of our experience, it is ruthlessly proficient at analyzing and recording the entire corpus of human existence, and further, cataloging every known human behavioral action and response in mere fractions of a second.
Pardon the Disruption
Technology has always disrupted the music industry. The invention of musical notation provided unprecedented access to compositions. The advent of records allowed performances of music to be captured and shared. When radio brought music into every home, there was fear that no one would buy records. Television added visual spectacle, sparking fears that it would kill live performance. MIDI revolutionized music production but raised concerns about replacing human players. The internet, paired with the MP3 format, democratized music distribution, shattered traditional revenue models, and shifted power from labels to artists. Each of these innovations was met with resistance and uncertainty, but ultimately, they expanded the ways music could be created, shared, and experienced.
Every revolution in art and technology forces us to rediscover what is uniquely human about creativity. To me, though, this is different. AI isnāt a tool that requires a significant amount of human input in order to work. Itās already analyzed the minutia of all of humanityās greatest creationsāfrom the most esoteric to the ubiquitous, and it is wholly capable of creating entire works of art that are as commercially competitive as anything youāve ever heard. This will force us to recalibrate our definition of art and push us to dig deeper into our personal truths.
āIn an age where performed perfection is casually synthesized into existence, does our human expression still hold value? Especially if the average listener canāt tell the difference?ā
Advantage: Humans
What if we donāt want to, though? In an age where performed perfection is casually synthesized into existence, does our human expression still hold value? Especially if the average listener canāt tell the difference?
Of course, the answer is still emphatically āYes!ā But caveat emptor. I believe that the value of the tool depends entirely on the way in which it is usedāand this one in particular is a very, very powerful tool. We all need to read the manual and handle with care.
AI cannot replicate the experience of creating music in the moment. It cannot capture the energy of a living room jam session with friends or the adrenaline of playing a less-than-perfect set in front of a crowd who cheers because they feel your passion. It cannot replace the personal journey you take each time you push through frustration to master a riff that once seemed impossible. So, my fellow musicians, I say this: Your music is valid. Your guitar is valid. What you create with your hands and heart will always stand apart from what an algorithm can generate.
Our audience, on the other hand, is quite a different matter. And thatās the subject for next monthās Dojo. Until then, namaste.