The California rockers walk us through how they formulate hip garage-rock tones with some oddball vintage gear.
Paul Reed Smith shaping a guitar neck in his original Annapolis, Maryland garret shop.
You might not be aware of all the precision that goes into building a fine 6-stringās neck, but you can certainly feel it.
I do not consider my first ārealā guitar the one where I only made the body. In my mind, an electric guitar maker makes necks with a body attachedānot the other way around. (In the acoustic world, the body is a physics converter from hand motion to sound, but thatās a different article for a different month.) To me, the neck is deeply important because itās the first thing you feel on a guitar to know if you even want to plug it in. As we say at PRS, the neck should feel like āhome,ā or like an old shirt thatās broken in and is so comfortable you can barely tell itās on.
A couple articles ago, I talked about things on a guitar you canāt see, but are of the utmost importance to the quality of the instrument. Iād now like to go deeper into some of those unseen details in guitar neck making that make a difference. This list is a small percentage of whatās really going on, so please take each one as an example of the craft.
Gluing in the frets. In my old repair shop, there were several instruments that kept returning after gigs because the frets had again become unlevel. If I took a very flat file and started to level the frets, the volume of the squeaking of the frets as I filed was really loud. I realized that these guitars had never had their frets glued in. It seemed clear that the fretshad to be glued into the slots, so when someone sweats into the instrument at a gig, the frets do not change height. I learned, after interviewing Ted McCarty, that the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo in the ā50s glued the frets in with fish glue. I tried it once. It stunk, and I never used it again. But gluing frets in has been important to me since day one. The glue makes a mold around the teeth of the fretwire to hold the frets in place. Another reason to glue the frets in is that on some ā60s Martins, for example, the frets would lift up on the treble side and the high-E string would get caught underneath the fret. So, glue the frets in or youāre going to have a long-term problem. By the way, using a water-based glue is like adding all the water back to the fretboard that you spent months drying out. I like super glue because it doesnāt have any water in it.
āTerry Kath, the great guitar player from Chicago, once told me, āMost guitars wonāt play in tune down near the nut, and I search and search for guitars that will.āā
Fret positions. When I was young, there was an article in Guitar Player that described how to calculate fret positions by using the 12th root of two. The number is 1.0594631. And the reason I remember the number is because calculators didnāt have memory at the time, and I had to keep entering the number over and over again. One day, someone came into my shop and said, āI canāt play in tune with the keyboard player when I am playing lines near the nut.ā I said, āThatās hard for me to believe, but Iāll check it.ā Sure enough, the first few frets were out of tune with the open nut even though I had calculated the 1st fretsā positions perfectly. Turns out the nut needed to be moved so that it would play in tune down there (in the same way you have to adjust the intonation at the bridge end). Terry Kath, the great guitar player from Chicago, once told me, āMost guitars wonāt play in tune down near the nut, and I search and search for guitars that will.ā Getting the frets, the nut, and the bridge in the right positions is incredibly important. Youād be surprised that this is not always a given.
Neck shape. I was once at Daveās Guitar Shop in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in his upstairs guitar museum, and got to compare early ā50s Tele, old Les Paul, and early Strat neck shapes. What was so surprising was how close the neck shapes were, including the thumb round-over (where the side dots are). I was later able to scan a lot of these necks and compare them with a computer, and, damn, they were really close. What was different was the radius of the fretboards. Some of them were more curved than others, and the old Gibsonsā radii were not what the internet says they should be. So, itās pretty hard to understand from the specs alone how a neck is going to feel in your hands. In my mind, thereās a common shape that your hand feels comfortable with, and then all the extensions that make 7-string guitars, 12-strings, acoustic instruments, and modern Ibanez/flat-radius type instruments are other artforms altogether.
At PRS, we often think of guitars in terms of looks, feel, and sound. If it looks good, youāll probably pick it up. If it feels good in your hands and rings for a long time when you strum it acoustically, youāll probably plug it in. If it sounds good plugged in, thereās a good chance youāre hooked.
Amythyst Kiah began learning guitar at the age of 13, then later attended a creative arts high school, where she found her people among all the āmisfits and weirdos.ā
The Americana singer-songwriter, known for supporting her vocals with intricate fingerpicking, found herself simplifying her process for her latest full-length, which, in turn, has led to more personal and artistic growth.
Folk singer-songwriter Amythyst Kiah is a formidable fingerstylist. When asked about her creative process, she explains how sheās come up playing a lot of solo showsāsomething thatās inspired her to bring out the orchestral range of the guitar for her own vocal accompaniment. Over the years, sheās taken her high school classical training and college old-time-string-band experience to evolve her fingerpicking skills, developing three-finger technique and other multi-dimensional patterns influenced by players like Mike Dawes. And for her latest full-length, Still + Bright, sheās only continued to grow in her musicianship, but by stepping back to square one: rhythm.
Amythyst Kiah - "God's Under the Mountain"
āIāve stayed away from writing songs where Iām just strumming for a really long time,ā she prefaces, ābecause I was worried that it was going to be too boring to not do fingerstyle. But then I realized, thereās so many [strummed] songs that are super powerful, and you can still make it interesting rhythmically.
āI started to listen to more rhythm guitar players, like Cory Wong, and reconfigured how I was viewing rhythm guitar,ā she continues. āIt was a matter of finding a way to do it that was exciting and interesting to me. Now, itās really expanded the songs that I can write.ā
All of the demos for Still + Brightbegan with strumming, says Kiah. When working on ideas, she would āplay rhythmically as much as I could,ā then open GarageBand, choose a tempo she felt comfortable playing to, and add programmed drumsāoften going with a modern R&B pattern. But when she brought her songs to the studio, she discovered that she was struggling to replicate the guitar parts sheād recorded at home.For Kiah, whoās always had a very strong sense of self and vision for her sound, that was a bit discomforting.In the making of Still + Bright, Kiahās fifth full-length album, the songwriter strengthened her skills as both a rhythm guitarist and a vocalist.
āI had a moment of, āI can either spend way too long trying to replay this part that Iāve been playing from muscle memory at this point,āā she shares, or hand it off to her session player, Nashville guitarist (and, coincidentally, Premier Guitarcolumnist) Ellen Angelico, and focus on her lyrics and vocal delivery instead. āI used to be very much like, āI have to be playing guitar on everything.ā But thereās a team of people here that can help, and make things go along more smoothly. My ego shouldnāt be getting in the way.ā
She did, ultimately, play guitarāacoustic or electric, or bothāon five out of 12 tracks, and banjo on two. Angelico performed on each track, alternating between mandolin, dobro, pedal steel, and acoustic, electric, and baritone guitar. (Youāll also hear Billy Strings, with his unmistakable, rapid-fire bluegrass licks, on āI Will Not Go Down.ā)
The finished album exudes a spirit of triumph. It rings as one extended anthem, beginning with āPlay God and Destroy the World,ā a reflection on a childhood rejection of religious hypocrisy, and ending on āPeopleās Prayer,ā an avowal of humanistic compassion. āS P A C E,ā one of the more pensive songs in the collection, features Kiah playing clawhammer banjo. āGodās Under the Mountainā builds and undulates with a communion of syncopated vocal melody, fiddle, pedal steel, dobro, and background vocals by producer Butch Walker and Avi Kaplan. Then, the waltzing āDead Starsā unwinds with simpler, judicious instrumentation supporting a mournful theme, before swelling with Morricone-like eloquence as it closes. āThis is the first album where I really had a concept about everything, from the logo to the color palette, and everything else,ā says Kiah, āand I had an incredible team who was able to really bring to life what I was envisioning.ā
āAmythyst Kiahās Gear
Some of Kiahās building blocks for her fingerpicking abilities came from classical training in high school and old-time studies at East Tennessee State University.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/tinnitus photography
Effects
- L.R. Baggs Para Acoustic DI
- TC Electronic Polytune
Strings, Picks & Accessories
- Acoustic: DāAddario light
- Electric: Ernie Ball medium
- Dunlop .73 mm picks
- Paige capo
Throughout the record, Kiahās propulsive singing voice is the glowing flame to the hearth, acting as a centerpiece to the already luminous, Americana-fueled full-band arrangements. Like rhythm guitar, voice was another essential element that she cultivated while creating Still + Bright.
āI kind of diminished that power of having a voice,ā she admits, explaining how sheās always been preoccupied with measuring up on guitar, and has long held multi-instrumentalists such as Prince in high esteem. But something shifted when a sentiment expressed by her manager, Dolph Ramseur, years ago, finally sunk in. āHe said, āAmythyst, you know, you could just stand in a room and sing a cappella, and people would sit there and listen, and they wouldnāt get up and leave, and they would not be bored.ā And then it really dawned on meāitās a powerful thing, people that can just sing; thereās a power and strength there, too. Itās just understanding where the power lies, and then embracing it, as opposed to feeling inadequate.
āItās just understanding where the power lies, and then embracing it, as opposed to feeling inadequate.ā
āI have this ongoing obsession in the back of my mind that Iām never doing enough,ā she continues. āSo, anytime I remove something from the equation, I worry. That stems from social anxiety, and being overly concerned with, like, āAm I making the right decision?ā But it doesnāt matter how long I agonize or rethink or redo something; at the end of the day, the decision I make is still going to be spontaneous. Because thereās only ever ānow.āā She adds, laughing, āIām a big Alan Watts fan.ā
Now, sheās started doing vocal warmups before shows, āand through that, Iāve expanded my range and Iāve also been able to gain even more control over my voice. It also means that I can write more challenging songs. Those two thingsāexpanding [rhythm] guitar and expanding voiceāhave let me open a whole new side to my sound.ā
Spiritual themes appear frequently on Still + Bright, in both Kiahās song titles and lyrics. The opening lines of āEmpire of Loveā include, āMy religion is none at all / I build my own cathedrals and let āem fall.ā On āLetās See Ourselves Out,ā she sings, āSo many matrices we create to escape / Sometimes I wonder if weāre just a mistake.ā And, on more than one song, thereās mention of how āweāre all made from stars from above,ā alluding to the scientific evidence that the elements of the human body were created by stars that went supernova.
Kiah was raised in a predominantly white, Christian suburb in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as part of a Black family who didnāt attend church. She identified as an āalternativeā kid, vacillating between agnosticism and atheism, shopping at Hot Topic, and drawing inspiration from The Matrixās theme of breaking free from societal constraints. (She remarks on her younger selfās ācognitive dissonanceā of buying āāalternative clothesā at the mall.ā) As a self-proclaimed introvert, she dealt with social anxiety, and spent a lot of her time at home alone on the computer. But when she began learning guitar at 13, and later started attending a creative arts high school, she finally felt like she fit in: āācause everybody there was misfits and weirdos.ā
Spirituality is a common theme in Kiahās music. Her current beliefs draw mainly on principles of Zen Buddhism and Taoism.
Photo by Kevin King
Though still adamantly individualistic, her spiritual views evolved when she took courses in both Western humanities and Eastern religion in college: āI realized that people have created narratives about how to live our lives for thousands of years. So, this idea that only one group of people got it right and everyone else is wrong; that threw all of that out the window.ā Today, she says that Zen Buddhism probably best captures her personal belief system, but, āI hesitate to call myself a Zen Buddhist because I feel like I still have more to learn,ā she says. She also rereads the Tao Te Ching by Laozi āpretty regularly,ā lauding the principles of Taoism as another strong influence on her philosophies.
At the beginning of our 1 p.m. Zoom call, Kiah shares that she typically spends her mornings alone and in silence, meditating, writing, and reading, and lightheartedly apologizes for enthusiastically āgoing onāāsaying sheās had a lot of time to think before speaking to another person. When I ask her about what modern artists sheās listening to lately, she has more to say about what sheās been reading. One of the books in her current rotation is The Lost Art of Silence by Sarah Anderson.
Growing up, Kiah identified as an āalternativeā kid, and was something of an āanime mall gothā who often shopped at Hot Topic.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/tinnitus photography
āIt goes along really well with meditation and learning to live in the present,ā Kiah says. āItās been interesting to explore those different perspectives on silence, and make more of an effort to find time in my life to be quiet. I find that Iām getting more and more comfortable with myself and my thoughts, and I feel less like I always have to block out anxious thoughts. Or, if I have anxiety about something, I can come up with an idea of, āOkay, well, how can I alleviate this? Can I do anything about it?ā, and solve the problem as opposed to starting the spiral.
āImpostor syndrome was the big driver for my social anxiety, and now, I feel like Iām on the other side of being an impostor,ā she reflects. āIām doing what Iāve been wanting to do for the past 12 years, making a living doing this. Thereās stressful things that happen, but you have to decide, what are you willing to be stressed out about? To try to seek a perfect, happy life where nothing ever upsets youāthatās called emotional repression and itās really unhealthy. Itās just about accepting the fact that, hey, some days, some weeks are gonna be shit, and to find ways to take care of yourself that are as least self-destructive as humanly possible.ā
āIt doesnāt matter how long I agonize or rethink or redo something; at the end of the day, the decision I make is still going to be spontaneous. Because thereās only ever ānow.āā
And while sheās outgrown a lot of her social anxiety, she says itās been a challenge adapting to the stress that comes with the unpredictability of touring. āWhen I would be at home, I would establish this really tight routine, and then I got completely knocked on my feet when I would leave,ā she explains. āI had to get to this point where I would just be focusing more on the present and less on trying to micromanage how my dayās going to be, because itās not gonna always go the way that I want things to go.
āThatās been also helpful in my creative process, because then Iām not as anxious and worried about all these other things that I donāt have control over, and Iām able to just ⦠enjoy the process of living.ā
Ellen Angelico's Gear
Guitars
- Dismal Ax Barnstormer
- Cervantes Telecaster
- GFI Expo S-10
- 1980s Kentucky KM-250S mandolin
Amp
- 3rd Power Dream 50 Plexi
Effects
- Peterson StroboStomp HD tuner
- Line 6 HX Stomp
- 1981 DRV
- MXR Timmy Overdrive Mini
- Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Boy
- Strymon Flint
Strings & Picks
- DāAddario NYXL
- Wegen picks
YouTube It
On WDVXās Blue Plate Special, recorded in Knoxville, Tennessee, Kiah performs an evocative, stripped-down version of āEmpire of Loveā from Still + Bright.
Designed with versatility and innovation at its core, the St. James 100 features four channels and six modes, alongside a suite of cutting-edge connectivity options
Blackstar Amplification has introduced the St. James 100 Head and Combo, the companyās flagship series in valve amplifier technology.
These include a built-in reactive load, CabRig IR-based speaker simulation, MIDI control, and USB-C connectivity making it the ultimate tool for the gigging professional and studio player alike.
Continuing the legacy of the acclaimed St. James series, Blackstarās St. James 100 Head is the worldās lightest 100 Watt valve head, while the St. James 100 Combo claims the title of the lightest 100 Watt2x12ā valve combo. By blending traditional craftsmanship with modern technology, these amplifiers set a new standard in high-performance amplification.
The St. James 100 introduces a suite of groundbreaking features that distinguish it from the competition. At its core is the innovative switchable and mixable power valve configuration, which incorporates two distinct power valve types, 2x 6L6 and 2x EL34. These can be toggled between or combined using a front-panel switch, allowing players to select 50-watt operation for specific tonal flavors or engage all four valves for the full 100-watt experience, unlocking a wide range of tonal possibilities.
The amplifier also features continuously variable power reduction, enabling the output to scale down to 5% of its maximum while preserving the signature valve tone, feel, distortion, and compression, making it ideal for any environment. Adding further versatility, the patent-applied-for āCutā selector offers a 3-position toggle to fine-tune the highest octave audio range (10kHzā20kHz) at the speaker outputs adjusting high-end frequencies for anything from aggressive clarity to warm, vintage tones.
The effects loop is equally flexible, switchable between +4dBu and -10dBV for compatibility with professional or stompbox-level devices, and offers both series and parallel routing options.
Additionally, a rear-mounted potentiometer provides fine control of the foot-switchable Solo Boost, adjustable between +2dB and +6dB, ensuring you get the kick that you need for standout lead moments.
The St. James 100 is a testament to Blackstarās dedication to pushing the boundaries of amplification. With one patent secured and another pending, this amplifier showcases the ingenuity of Blackstarāsengineering team and delivers groundbreaking solutions for guitarists worldwide.
Pricing for the new amps:
- St. James 100 head - $1999
- St. James 100 combo - $2499
For more information, please visit blackstaramps.com.
Strapped with the ā51 Fender āNocasterā that he used to record the solo on āTumbleweed,ā Urban walks Shifty through some of his guitar secrets, like how he came to own Waylon Jenningsā iconic, leatherbound 1950 Fender Broadcaster.
Next up on this action-packed season of Shred With Shifty, country superstar Keith Urban joins Chris Shiflett to walk through some of his most iconic solos and unpack some fine details behind his successful music career.
Strapped with the ā51 Fender āNocasterā that he used to record the solo on āTumbleweed,ā Urban walks Shifty through some of his guitar secrets, like how he came to own Waylon Jenningsā iconic, leatherbound 1950 Fender Broadcaster (hats off to his wife, Nicole Kidman, for that one). Urban tells avid surfer Shiflett why he never got into surfing while growing up in Australia, and remembers his earliest influences in the countryās music scene.
Low-gain players like Mark Knopfler, Ray Flacke, and Lindsay Buckingham helped shape Urbanās lead-guitar tastes, imprints you can hear in the capoed, drop-D solo on āStupid Boy.ā (Urban says his new solo record, High, features more of these theatrics.) Amid the fretboard analysis, Urban talks about his ālove-hate relationshipā with his Fractal amp-modeling unit, which he still leaves at home when he plays liveāa 100-watt Marshall Super Lead and PRS J-MOD 100 still reign supreme for Urbanās concerts.
Tune in to learn how Urbanās unique pick grip gave his solos some extra percussive edge, how he keeps his chops up, and which artist heād want to āgunslingā for.
Credits
Producer: Jason Shadrick
Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis
Engineering Support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudion
Video Editor: Addison Sauvan
Graphic Design: Megan Pralle
Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.