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Superficially, a Stick looks like a wider and longer version of an electric guitar’s fretboard and is home to eight, ten or twelve strings. Unlike the guitar, the Stick is played by tapping or fretting the strings rather than plucking them – both hands sound notes by striking the strings against the fingerboard just behind the appropriate frets. If you were inclined to play the Chapman Stick like a guitar, you would find insufficient string space for standard techniques like plucking. Additionally, because the strings lie so close to the fretboard, normal picking techniques – if possible – would be disproportionately loud. Instead, the intended playing position is with the left hand on the bass side and the right hand controlling the melody, similar to a piano or keyboard. However, either hand can play either side or both hands can play the same side. The instrument’s distinctive arrangement lends itself to playing multiple lines at once, and many Stick players have mastered performing bass lines, chords and melodies simultaneously to amazing effect.
The first production model of the Stick was shipped in 1974. The original sticks were handmade by Emmett himself and featured serial numbers between 0 and 2000. However, it is nearly impossible to tell how many were actually made. After the first 2000 the numbers started again at 0, making for duplicated numbers. To further complicate things, when a piece of wood wasn’t good enough, it was discarded with the serial number still on it, generating many “missing” serial numbers. Sticks are now cut electronically and serial numbers have been continuous for nearly a decade, currently numbering just over 5000.
Over the years, Emmett Chapman has experimented with a variety of materials for his unique instruments to attain the same quality with faster manufacturing and lower costs. The first models were made from “super hardwoods” – mostly ironwood – but Sticks made from ebony and other exotic woods emerged in the early eighties. The early nineties saw the introduction of injection-molded polycarbonate resin models, and today Sticks are made from a litany of materials, including various hardwoods, such as padauk, Indian rosewood, tarara, maple and mahogany; organic materials like bamboo, which is easily dyed for a wide choice of colors; and graphite epoxies and other high-tech composites.
The Chapman Stick finds itself in a constant state of evolution, both in the components of the Stick itself and the accessories. Recent developments include linear fret markers to help the player feel the frets and stainless steel Fret Rails, which impart a cleaner, faster attack. Stick players are also benefiting from improved pickups and amps, such as the GK3A MIDI pickup; the new StepAbout stompbox preamp, produced by BassLab; and the StickAmp, a dedicated amp with onboard mixer.
This uniquely-conceived contraption has always attracted guitarists, whether through genuine interest or out of sheer curiosity. We had the chance to talk to one of the best “stickistas” in the world, Italian player Virginia “Virna” Splendore.
Virna began playing the Chapman Stick more than two decades ago – only ten years after the Stick’s introduction to the music scene. She spent years playing the instrument as her passion and hobby while working for an Italian TV station. During this time, she became a premier Stick player in Italy and throughout the world, doing workshops and demonstrations in addition to performing and recording with her band, SplendoRe. In 2006 she dedicated herself full-time to the instrument and has since been actively touring and recording with multiple bands, as well as playing a significant role in developing products on the forefront of Stick technology.
When did you begin playing music? Did your musical career begin with other instruments before you found the Chapman Stick? Well, when I was very young – like eight years old – I was a “lost wanderer” in the instrument world, looking for one that fit my approach to music. I took classical guitar, piano lessons and even clarinet lessons for a year. I also took lyrical singing, where I was a light soprano with a four octave range. Each of these instruments gave me something, but my real problem was studying – I don’t learn by reading an exercise and then playing it. I have a strong memory and musical ear, so I’m guided more by instinct than rules. If I get trapped into studying rules, I become like a tabula rasa, which means getting stuck on something. So, from age eight to 16, I understood that I wanted to play music but not in the way that I was being taught.
The one instrument that I really wanted to play was the bass. My mother said it was too masculine and encouraged me to pursue more feminine instruments, but when I was 19 I bought my first bass. When I discovered the Chapman Stick, I had to sell all of my other instruments to buy it – my clarinet, classical guitar and bass. Eight years later, I got another fretless bass – my first love – and realized that the techniques I had learned as a Stick player helped me learn more on bass.
What was your first instrument then?
My first instrument was a cheap classical guitar; I learned to play on that and sold it to buy my first Stick, which was a ten-string ironwood model with a passive pickup (now called the Stickup). It was the only model available at the time and I still own it; I rent it to those who’d like to try the instrument but have no idea where to find one.
How exactly did you come around to the Chapman Stick?
I met the Stick for the first time in September 1985 at the Milan SIM Trade Show. A friend of mine and I knew about the instrument from an Italian music magazine; when we saw that it would be exhibited at Italy’s biggest music trade show, we went to go see it live. My favorite Stick player at the time, and still my favorite, Jim Lampi, who has since become a great friend, was playing demos at Davoli’s booth, which was the distributor. His playing was amazing; the touch and the style were highly technical, but not intrusive. I felt he was playing from his emotions and I found myself with tears in my eyes! I said to myself, “That’s my instrument.” At the end of the show, I contacted the distributor and bought the Stick right there!
At the time there were really only a few Stick players in Italy: me, my friend who came with me and the late bass player, Stefano Cerri. So my friend and I started to learn together with a couple of Jim Lampi’s lessons on cassette tape, although I mostly just played it with the “Free Hands” manual from Emmett Champman. The next year, my friend and I went back to the trade show and did the demos at Davoli’s booth – it was my first trade show demonstration ever!
Did you set out to be a professional musician?
No, I actually started veterinary school but I never finished. Studying is not my cup of tea and I was stuck with too many books! I had gone to school in Milan, so I left for Rome where I worked with horses for very little money. At one point I had to decide to either become an instructor or leave the horses, and I decided to leave. I took some courses in camera operation and audio/video communications, another love of mine, and entered the real, working world with the national TV channel, RAI. I felt like Mowgli brought into the big city, bending to the "civilizations." I worked as a broadcast assistant for eleven years, all the while playing music in bands as a hobby and growing as a Stick player.
The TV work was month to month with no permanent position and I would sometimes go six months without a job or money. Finally in 2000 I decided to sue RAI for a permanent position and the suit took five years for a final decision. During this time I became the exclusive distributor of the Stick for Italy; I did seminars and taught the Stick, while producing music with SplendoRe and working on compositions and recordings on solo Stick, fretless bass and voice. I won the suit and got a cash settlement rather than the permanent position I had originally asked for, and decided to become a full-time musician. I don''t earn much and I struggle to find gigs, but I like what I do and the dimension of life is more human.
You''ve released a couple CDs under the band name SplendoRe. Tell us about that.
SplendoRe is the name of whatever project I start. The original duo was in 1994 with Roberto Fiorucci, a student of mine. We played together under the name SplendoRe, and made our first CD, Guilty, together. He quit playing for a couple of years for personal reasons in 2000, and the SplendoRe band formed with Raffaele Magrone on clarinet and Andrea Moneta on the drums and MIDI Stick. We recorded the CD, Different Things, with Roberto guesting on some songs. In 2004, Roberto came back to play and we either play as the SplendoRe duo or the SplendoRe band, depending on what is requested.
I recently formed the band Red Magma with Irene Orleansky, a Stick player and singer from Isreal, and Rodney Homes, an American drummer who has worked with Santana, Joe Zawinul and Randy Brecker.
Who have been your most important musical influences? Well, I can say that a lot of people tell me they hear some Genesis influences in my music; others say Pat Metheny and some people say they can hear some Windham Hill [Records] influences. I''ve been listening to Seconds Out for ages, but never had any other Genesis records other than that. I''ve grown up with Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays and Michael Manring, and when I was very young, I used to listen for hours and hours to Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Dvorak, Mussorgsky, Ravel and Tchaikovsky. Then Elvis Presley came and I bought all of his LPs, and after that it was the Beatles, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and the Police. I wore out the holes on those LPs!
Do you currently have any endorsements running?
I am an endorser for an Italian audio system manufacturer, SR Technology. They are great engineers who make really good amps. Around 15 years ago I stopped using amps for the Stick. I used to have a Carlsbro Stingray - a huge, 150-watt amp - a Fender, an Ampeg Gemini II tube amp and a Roland Jazz Chorus 55, which was the last amp I owned. But the Stick is a stereo instrument that needs to be amplified with more expensive amps and 600-watt speakers, which are too expensive and too big for me to transport. For years I''ve been playing live by going from my effect (at the time a ZOOM 9000) to a passive mixer and then directly into the PA system. I was still using the Roland at home.
When I heard SR Technology''s Jam 120, my ears were brought back to life! I said, "This is it, I want this amp." So after ten years without amps, I went back to them. The Stick has a large range, so the lows, mids and highs all need to be well-amplified and have a good response when playing bass and melody at the same time. It''s not easy with a bass or guitar amp unless you split the two sides to two separate amps. The sound on the Jam 120 was perfect - all of the frequencies were reproduced clearly and uncolored. It just sounded like the Stick. So I contacted SR Technology and became a beta tester of their prototypes, and I demo for them now at Musikmesse and the DISMA Music Trade Show in Italy.
I actually came up with an idea for a dedicated StickAmp, inspired by the Jam 120, and later the Jam 150 and Jam 150 Plus. These are combo amps with an onboard mixer that are very compact, with a powerful, punchy, clean, warm sound. I presented the Jam 150 to Emmett Champan, who liked it, and then Greg Howard, the great Stick player from Virginia. He tested the amp and suggested some changes. After two years, I tested the last prototype of the StickAmp. Emmett gave his approval and it is now with Greg for testing. Hopefully it will be in production by the middle of 2008.
What gear do you typically use?
Well, we''ve talked about amps. When it comes to effects, I hate big racks. I am well-known in Chapman Stick circles for my "Virna Sound," and it comes from a simple, small Korg Pandora PX3, designed for guitar. In the beginning I used to have a flanger, an overdrive, a reverb, a loop delay, and all of those little pedals from companies like Boss. When I got the Roland Jazz Chorus, I had all of my effects in the amp so I stopped using the pedals. I later upgraded to a Zoom 9000, which I used for ages. I use the Stick as a whole instrument more than splitting the sides, so a mono input with stereo output was perfect.
In 2000, I met [British pop musician] Nick Beggs at a seminar and he showed me the little blue box from Korg. I''ve tried the PX4 for bass and guitar, but the PX3 for guitar is the one that gave me my sound for five years. Now I''ve switched to a Boss GT-6B multi-effect pedal so I can change the sound whenever I need to during a song. I am also getting used to DigiTech''s JamMan loop station, which is helpful sometimes for solo playing. In the past year, I''ve introduced vocals to my performance, so I use a Proel wireless system.
How many instruments and amps do you have?
I have two old ironwood ten-string Sticks, a "middle-age" oak half-fretless Stick (only fretless on the bass side) with a Stickup, and my main Stick, a 34" laquered rosewood model with an active EMG pickup. I also have one of five prototypes of the XBL [Extended BassLab], which is a resin Stick produced by a German bass luthier named Heiko Hoepfinger. He''s a real genius who makes his instruments like a monocoque, hollow inside with any color you can imagine and unique designs. He received a license from Emmett to make the Stick with this material, which will hopefully be in production soon. I''ve had one of the prototypes since 2004; it sounds great and is very comfortable to play.
Last year I bought a used rosewood Grand Stick 7+5, which has seven melody strings and five bass strings. I''ve always wanted to try one of these models because the twelve strings have all the range of a ten string, plus the extra two low strings on the melody side. I composed a song on this Grand that should be on an upcoming CD I am recording with Red Magma.
I also have a black Yamaha BB350 fretless bass that I''ve had for ages and it still sounds great. I have a custom fretless bass that an Italian luthier named Makassar built for me. I liked his style and needed a fretless bass with a neck fit for my hands that was tuned for groovy riffs, so I asked for a bolt-on neck and four strings tuned BEAD, with a 34 1/2" scale and no high G for melodies. The Yamaha has the classic EADG tuning with a rosewood fretboard, alder body and maple neck, so the two sound very different. I like to call the Makassar bass "Arlequine," as it has so many different woods; spalted maple for the top, Italian alder for the body, a dark green Italian wood for the fretboard and maple and padauk for the neck. It''s a real beauty and the sound comes out deep and thick, depending on what pickup you use. I am also waiting on a fretted bass ordered from Makassar. It will be in standard tuning with an ebony top, mahogany body, maple thru-body neck and reddish cocobolo for the fretboard.
I also have a guitar that''s similar to a Telecaster, from the same luthier, which he calls the Telemaco model. It''s similar in shape to the Telecaster but has a totally non-electric sound - I must confess, I don''t love electric guitars. It sounds warm and the maple neck fits perfectly in my hand. I bought some instruments because I missed the ones I played before I started the Stick - this guitar was the last of those. Now I use them all; on my second CD, Different Things, I played one track using only this guitar.
Finally, I have a beautiful acoustic guitar handmade by Jacaranda, a luthier from Milan. The wood is traditional wood for a classical guitar, and it has RMC piezo pickups for each string. The guitar was designed for the guitar player Gabor Lesko. It has a wonderful rose with the Buddhist lotus design, as requested by Lesko, who is a Buddhist. The rose is positioned on the side of the top shoulder of the instrument, rather than in the center of the top. I got this Lotus guitar in time to use it on my last duet tour with Irene Orleansky; we toured Italy and Switzerland last November, playing all of our instruments and singing. The Lotus guitar was a pearl of sound during the performances.
Do you consider yourself a collector?
I wouldn''t define myself as a collector; I use most of my instruments live and in recordings. I do have love at first sight for certain instruments that I have only recently been able to afford, so they''re like a gift to myself. One is a violin that''s not really worth anything - I just bought it to study it. The other is a 34-string Celtic harp made of European and American cherry by a luthier friend of mine. He came to visit me and showed me his progress - I liked it so much I bought it. I try to play it a little bit and I would like to take lessons, but I just haven''t had the time. So those two instruments are mostly just for display.
How do you like your instruments set up? The Sticks need to have really low action by default to enable tapping. Three of them are in standard tuning - E A D G C F# B E A D - with light gauge strings. I don''t feel comfortable with medium or heavy gauges. My main laquered Stick has an active EMG pickup called the ACTV-2, while the Grand Stick is equipped with a standard pickup. After years of active sound, I needed to go back to a passive pickup for the typical stick sound - it sounds amazing on the lower strings. For the XBL, I am going to try tuning the melody side lower than the standard tuning and try different gauges. For the fretless Stick, I use a fourth tuning on the bass side, while the melody side is standard. Fortunately these tunings manage to stay in the range of a light gauge. Dedicated Stick strings sets are made by D''Addario and distributed by Emmett, and can be arranged in several kinds of tunings.
For the Yamaha bass I use a roundwound 40-95 R. Cocco strings with very low action, but for the Arlequine fretless I use an Elixir set with a big 130 as the B. I may bring the Arlequine back to standard tuning and have Makassar make a new five-string fretless bass, so I will have a low B and high G on one instrument. My fretted bass has 45-105 gauge R. Cocco strings and custom pickups from Mama. The Telemaco has low action as well as thin strings. I don''t tap or hammer on these instruments - I prefer picking on bass and guitar.
Can you share a moment from your career that has stuck with you?
I''ll always remember some magical moments that can only happen during rehearsal. Once I was rehearsing with a fellow Stick player, Roberto Fiorucci, and our drummer, and we just started to play some chords with a volume pedal. One by one we magically started to follow each other into a perfect interplay that seemed eternal. I have a recording of the session that I keep. It was all improvised, but I''ve tried to record it again doing all the parts myself. I played both Stick parts, but I got stuck on the drums - I''ll have to find another drummer who can play it.
What about your downtime - do you also play music at home?
It depends. I have my music room, and it happens that sometimes I pass most of the day inside there, just playing and recording. Sometimes I don''t even touch an instrument unless I have to rehearse for a gig. I have a very strange relation with music. I listen to music depending on my mood and it has to be in certain intimate moments. It''s difficult to explain!
Stick Stuff
Unfortunately, the number of Chapman Sticks out in the wild is small, so the ability to check one out in person remains a long shot. In this case, YouTube is your friend, showcasing some amazing Stick work by such luminaries as Nick Beggs - former Kajagoogoo bassist and current Bass Guitar Magazine scribe - and Emmett Chapman himself.
As far as recorded works, Greg Howard contributed Stick to the Dave Matthews Band''s Before These Crowded Streets album, and Tony Levin spews Stick all over King Crimson''s early eighties output. Any of the three albums from this time period - Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair - deliver amazing Stick rhythms and textures, as well as display the incredible interplay between Levin''s Stick machinations and Belew and Fripp''s idiosyncratic guitar work.
If none of the above sounds appealing, check out the Blue Man Group the next time they''re in town - they''ve been known to rely on the Stick for a portion of their act.
Virna’s Gearbox
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Virna Spendore
myspace.com/virnasplendore
stickist.com/virna
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Thurston Moore is back with some new ideas on his ninth solo release, saying that he feels like a perennial apprentice in the world of music.
“There’s something very elegant to it—the fact that the helmet sort of denotes a sense of military perfection, but that it has tuning forks on it as opposed to any sort of emblem of aggression,” he tells me, Zooming in from his flat in London. “If music is, as Albert Ayler would say, the healing force of the universe, then so is the tuning fork. I thought it was just a thing of beauty.”
It also dovetails with a theme that runs through Flow Critical Lucidity, an album that Moore describes as “an expression of hope.” But characteristic of the Sonic Youth guitar icon, there are additional layers at work here. One would be that Nares is, like Moore, an alumnus of the downtown Manhattan no-wave scene, having played guitar in an early iteration of James Chance and the Contortions. “It felt right to use one of Jamie’s pieces, because we kind of came up together through this musical micro-community in New York City,” Moore says.
Another layer, I suggest, might be that the many tuning forks are a self-referential poke at Moore himself, who has made something of a career out of deploying myriad out-there tunings in the service of some of the most innovative and influential music of the past 40 years. “So, they’re ‘alternative-tuning tuning forks,’” Moore reasons, then smiles. “Maybe I could have written C–G–D–G–C–D on it.” Which is, in fact, the actual primary tuning he employed for his guitar parts throughout Flow Critical Lucidity.
Why this tuning? “I like it,” Moore says, simply. “I find it to be a good one to write in, and I’ve gotten used to it. So it’s been a mainstay for the last six years or so, and on the last couple of albums. I actually feel like I need to put it to rest a bit, because that low string tends to create this kind of droning low C on almost every song now. Maybe I’m getting a little too comfortable.”
You wouldn’t know it from Flow Critical Lucidity. Moore’s ninth solo album overall, the collection is an enchanting, transportive, and deeply creative work: There’s cadenced spoken word over clanging, chiming soundscapes on “New in Town”; gorgeous guitar and piano commingling in “Sans Limites” (with Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier dueting on vocals); feral, percussion-heavy rhythms pulsing through “Rewilding”; a no-wave callback in the jagged four-note guitar stab of “Shadow”; hypnotic, liquid guitar lines punctuating “The Diver.” There are electronics courtesy of Negativland’s Jon Leidecker, lyrics penned largely by Moore’s wife and collaborator, Eva Prinz (working under the pseudonym Radieux Radio), and, on several tracks, extensive use of prepared instruments, such as guitars with objects placed under or on the strings to modulate their tone. It is an album that is varied and vibrant, imaginative and idiosyncratic. It is, Moore has said, one of his “favorite” records in his solo catalog.
On Flow Critical Lucidity, Moore recorded with guitarist James Sedwards, bassist Deb Googe, keyboardist Jon Leidecker, and percussionist Jem Doulton. The record was mixed by Margo Broom.
“If music is the healing force of the universe, then so is the tuning fork. I thought it was just a thing of beauty.”
Though somewhat sprawling in execution, Flow Critical Lucidity came together in a uniquely focused manner, with Moore and Prinz settled at an artist residency near Lake Geneva. “They allow people to stay there for six weeks to six months to sometimes a couple years,” Moore says. “So I asked if I could lock myself away there and write—and specifically to write a new record. I had a couple guitars, a couple small amps, and a little Zoom digital recorder. Eva would throw lyrics in front of me and I would construct pieces around them.”
When it came time to record, Moore assembled his current band—Leidecker, former My Bloody Valentine bassist Deb Googe, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist James Sedwards, and percussionist Jem Doulton—at Total Refreshment Centre (“a funky little studio”) in his adopted home city of London. A key architect at this stage was Margo Broom, who mixed the material. “She was really able to put it in a place that I don’t think anybody else could have so successfully,” Moore says. “For instance, while she was mixing, I was talking to her about how to treat my vocals a bit, because I never liked my vocals so much—I’m kind of key-challenged when I sing. But Margo was able to finesse that. She said to me, ‘I’ve been listening to your vocals since I was 16 years old, so I know what I’m doing here!’ I was impressed by that.”
Moore, now 66, often records with his tried-and-true alternate tuning, C–G–D–G–C–D.
Guitar-wise, Moore continues, “Margo was able to create a lot of space, which is something that I’ve never really felt has happened so successfully, even all through Sonic Youth, because of the desire to always have a lot of guitar layers happening in the songs. But she was able to find definition there, even where there was a lot of mass information going on.”
To be sure, there’s plenty of characteristic Moore guitar work on Flow Critical Lucidity, particularly in the extended instrumental sections of songs like “The Diver” and the gently chugging “Hypnogram.” But as far as the actual gear he used in the studio, Moore kept things streamlined—one guitar, one amp.
“It was all Fender,” he says. “I used an early, pre-CBS Jazzmaster, a ’62, I think, and a Hot Rod DeVille.” Moore is, of course, a longtime Jazzmaster aficionado—in the early days of Sonic Youth, he says, “We started acquiring Jazzmasters before they became so collectible. You could go to the guitar stores in midtown New York and find one for a few hundred dollars. We had been using Harmonys and Kents and Hagstroms—whatever we could get our hands on—and the Jazzmasters and Jaguars were a step up. I gravitated more towards the Jazzmaster because the neck was slightly longer than a Jaguar’s, and for my height it worked nicely. I also liked other aspects of it, like being able to investigate behind the bridge more readily than with just about any other guitar.”
“I had a couple guitars, a couple small amps, and a little Zoom digital recorder. Eva would throw lyrics in front of me and I would construct pieces around them.”
Moore has many Jazzmasters, including one that he says is “one of the first ’58 production models,” and that Sedwards has been using extensively. But the Jazzmaster that Moore is playing now “has been my go-to for the last couple of albums. And a lot of that was defined by the one I played previously getting stolen. And then one previous to that getting stolen, too. So the record is all this guitar, and it’s all, I believe, in that same [C–G–D–G–C–D] tuning.”
Thurston Moore's Gear
Moore became famous as co-guitarist and one of three vocalists in Sonic Youth, seen here performing in 1991.
Photo by Ken Settle
Guitars
- Circa 1962 Fender Jazzmaster, tuned to C–G–D–G–C–D
- Circa 1958 Fender Jazzmaster (used by James Sedwards)
Amps
- Fender Hot Rod DeVille 410 III
Effects
- Pro Co Turbo RAT
- Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Octave Fuzz
- Xotic EP Booster
- Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff
- Electro-Harmonix Cathedral Stereo Reverb
- TC Electronic Hall of Fame
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario NYXL (.012–.054)
- Dunlop .60 mm
Except for one song, that is. “‘New in Town’—I couldn’t even tell you what the tuning is,” Moore admits. “That song will not be played live, because it just can’t be.” The reason why, he explains, is that he performed it on prepared guitar, altering the Jazzmaster’s sound by placing objects under or between the strings and retuning the instrument in real time.
“The idea of using guitars that are extended with different implements is something that obviously I’ve been working with since the early ’80s,” he says. “But ‘New in Town’ was probably the most expansive effort of it in terms of creating a song where the preparation of the guitar was in a place of improvisation while we were recording. On that song, I’m actually moving the strings around with the tuning pegs to a point where I’m not really notating what I’m doing, and I’m furthering that by putting different implements between the strings—not just under the strings and in front of the fretboard, but actually sort of woven within the strings. Like, maybe sort of midway on the neck and then over the pickup area, and then playing in the middle between the two.”
“I never liked my vocals so much—I’m kind of key-challenged when I sing. But Margo [Broom] was able to finesse that.”
Some of the types of objects he used were “a small, cylindrical antenna; a drumstick,” Moore continues. “And then I’m picking between those two, or on either side of them, and finding a rhythm or a motif. And I’m doing this while James is playing piano and Jon is processing it and moving it around through his electronics. We recorded that, and then I took it and I cut it up and edited it to create the composition. So the actual performance—I don’t think I’d be able to reenact it again.”
For Moore, the structuring of the track was as much a creatively fulfilling endeavor as the actual performance of it. “I find that, for me, a lot of the experimentation that has rigor is in that part of it, rather than in the expanded technique on the guitar,” he says. “I feel like that’s something anybody can do, and that a lot of people do do. I mean, when I was younger and I brought the drumstick out, and I was swiping it across the strings, and it’s going through a distortion box, it sounded really cool, but it also looked really cool. I knew that there was something very performative about it. But the composition has to have value beyond the oddity of what you’re doing.”
“That song will not be played live, because it just can’t be.”
He laughs. “You know, I’ve seen comments on social media, like, ‘Playing guitar with drumsticks is stupid!’ Which I thought was a really great comment. Somebody was just not down with the program on that one. I was like, ‘Right on!’”
Which brings up a question: Does Moore immerse himself at all in the online guitar world? Is he, like the rest of us, endlessly scrolling through 30-second clips of bedroom guitarists performing jaw-dropping feats of 6-string technical facility?
The answer is, sort of.
After producing several albums with Sonic Youth, Moore began releasing solo works in 1995 with Psychic Hearts. This photo was taken in 2010.
Photo by Mike White
“I’m in that algorithm, so I will get these interesting tutorials from, like, hyper-tapping kinds of players,” he says. “And I will sometimes watch them, because I’m actually very enamored with high-technique guitar players. Even though I don’t really consider myself a high-technique guitar player—I find myself to be a very personalized-technique guitar player. And I’m okay with that.
“But I do like it,” he continues. “Whether it’s Hendrix or some guy sitting on his bed and shredding. Or someone in front of their laptop decoding a Zeppelin thing, like, ‘This is how you play “Misty Mountain Hop” correctly.’ To me that’s really interesting to see, because I love Jimmy Page. I’m never going to play like Jimmy Page, but to have someone decode it and then share that with the world, it’s like, ‘Thank you.’ If I had more time on my hands, I would tune a guitar to traditional tuning and sit down and learn it.”
“I knew that there was something very performative about it. But the composition has to have value beyond the oddity of what you’re doing.”
Most people, of course, don’t usually have to first tune their guitar to standard before they play. But then, Moore is not most people. “I don’t think I have a single guitar in that tuning,” he admits. “And it’s funny, because [Dinosaur Jr. singer and guitarist] J Mascis used to come over, and he’d tune all my guitars to traditional tuning. And it was like, ‘Stop doing that!’ you know? Would drive me crazy.”
At the end of the day, Moore’s intention is to remain creatively open. Even while he is in the throes of the album cycle around Flow Critical Lucidity—“I’m still coming to terms with what we did on this record,” he says—he’s already looking forward to what might be next. “I have it in mind, but I couldn’t say what it is. Sometimes I think I want to make a brutal, harsh, noise-wall record. Or maybe something that’s a super, super-dark metal record. Because I love that kind of stuff.”
There’s still a lot of ground, and music, to explore. “It’s all live and learn,” Moore says. “Even at 66 years old, I still feel like I’m in some place of apprenticeship with a lot of this. I don’t really feel settled. But I do feel more confident, that’s for sure.”
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Thurston Moore, with Jazzmaster and Hot Rod DeVille, performs the Flow Critical Lucidity track “Hypnogram” live in Munich in 2023 in this fan-captured DIY video.
As long as humans have been creating art, they have also been inventing new tools for expressing that art. From the paintbrush to the synthesizer, new technologies have driven paradigm shifts, providing artists with fresh creative avenues. Technology drives the art, as they say.
That’s certainly been the case with Line 6’s DL4 Delay Modeler. Originally conceived as a humble digital delay, the Big Green Monster has created a niche of its own, serving as ground zero for entire new genres of indie and experimental music. Since its release 25 years ago, the DL4 has enhanced the creative palettes of artists ranging from Joe Perry, Mike Campbell, Dave Grohl, and Joe Satriani to Bill Frisell, Thom Yorke, and Ed O’Brien.
Nearly a quarter century later, Line 6 has introduced the DL4 MkII. The updated version features a smaller footprint, as well as increased delay time, sampling and recording via built-in micro-SD card reader, MIDI functionality, and a host of new effects algorithms from Line 6’s legendary HX family of amp and effects processors.
Inauspicious Beginnings
In the late 1990s, fresh from making a disruptive splash with their eye-catching POD amp modeler, the fledgling startup Line 6 set their sights on creating a series of pedals that would further extend their reach into digital emulations of effects. Plans called for the DM4 distortion modeler, the MM4 modulation modeler, the FM4 filter modeler, and the DL4 delay modeler.
The DL4 would include models of classic delays like the Echoplex and Roland Space Echo, as well as Line 6’s own innovative delay algorithms. But it was the DL4’s other features that would pique the interest of adventurous musicians, including a first-of-its-kind tap-tempo function and, of course, its now-legendary looper.
Jeorge Tripps was running his own boutique pedal company, Way Huge, when he was invited to consult with Line 6 on modeling vintage pedals. A few months into the project he was offered a position with the company. “Line 6 was like college for me,” Tripps recounts. “I had worked on things on my own, but developing a product with a team was really an education. Ideas are easy, but bringing a product to fruition as a team was a whole different experience.”
The team comprised the cream of the Line 6 brain trust, including co-founders Michel Doidic and Marcus Ryle, as well as product developers Greg Westall, Jeff Slingluff, and Patrick O’Connor, engineers Nigel Redmon and Kevin Duca, industrial designer Lucien Tu, and numerous other contributors. As Tripps observes, the input of those different perspectives was critical to the project.
“Most of us were also players, and that made a difference. You can create a product that’s great from an engineer’s perspective, but when you put it the hands of an artist, they might see something completely different in it.”
Keep It Simple
Simplicity was part of the design goal of the DL4. “The idea was to create a digital pedal with analog functionality,” explains Tripps, adding that he had limited input into the design. “Much of it was already planned out by the time I joined the project. The industrial design was there. I had to figure out how to map functions to the existing hardware.”
The interface was straightforward: a 16-position mode selector knob, five knobs to adjust parameters, and four analog-style footswitches: Record/Overdub, Play/Stop, Play Once, and 1/2 Speed/Reverse. It was Tripps who suggested the fourth button be used for tap-tempo function.
The DL4 also incorporated stereo outputs, which was something of a last-minute addition. “When the DL4 first came out, very few guitarists were playing stereo rigs,” Tripps reports. “We put it in there just because it was cheap and easy to implement. Only after it was out for a while did people start discovering it.”
Tripps also played a key role in promoting the looper, which was in some ways almost an afterthought. Of course, looping itself was nothing new. The Echoplex and other tape-based delays had been around for decades. But analog delays were expensive and unwieldy for live work, and the early digital pedals didn’t have a lot of memory—certainly not enough for looping.
In fact, it was digital’s limitations that contributed to another of the DL4’s characteristic sonic features. “Technically, we couldn’t get quite 15 seconds of loop time; it was like 14 and change,” Tripps recalls. “So we decided to take that remaining few hundred milliseconds of delay time and run that through the looper.”
A Slow Build
Despite Line 6’s aggressive advertising, the DL4 and its siblings were not an immediate hit. “People didn’t really know what it was at first,” says Tripps. “It didn’t really explode until a handful of people started doing stuff with it.” Slowly and steadily, artists as varied as Dimebag Darryl, Ed O’Brien, The Edge, and Thom Yorke started squeezing whole new sonic landscapes from the diminutive box.
Minus the Bear’s David Knudson made the DL4 an integral part of the band’s sound. “At first I was mesmerized by the rad stereo sounds. Playing in a hardcore/metal band at the time, in the beginning I was using one half-stack amp. At some point down the line, I realized that as the only guitar player I should get another half-stack for the other side of the stage. Once I plugged in the DL4 to each half-stack and found the Ping Pong delay, my mind was instantly blown. The melodic guitar parts had never sounded so huge and epic. It was the beginning of an epic journey to discover what all the delays were about.”
For Joff Oddie of indie rockers Wolf Alice, the experience was equally liberating. “I actually don’t think I’d even used a delay pedal before and it blew my mind. There were sounds that I expected, and then other settings like the Sweep delay and reverse sounds, which to me sounded so otherworldly yet at the same time organic. I never gave my manager the pedal back. I hope he doesn’t read this.”
As Knudson notes, it was many years later and a happy accident in the studio that led to his discovering the DL4’s looping function. “We were recording some demos after our first LP came out and I think out of boredom I played a little tapping lead into the looper. That song would become “Fine +2 Points,” which features a re-triggered loop section in the bridge that really opened the door for me. After that little successful experiment, for our next record, Menos El Oso, I was in full-on loop and sampler mode. I realized that with multiple DL4s I could emulate some of my favorite cut-up and glitchy sounds coming out of artists like Four Tet, DJ Shadow, Caribou, and other early EDM pioneers. The one-shot function allowed me to re-trigger samples and create riffs that sounded like they should have originated on an MPC. Eight of the 11 songs on that record have sampled riffs and re-defined what guitar playing meant for me.”
Of course, looping was only part of the DL4’s broader appeal, which also offered sounds and tactile control previously unavailable on most effects pedals. “I loved how cranking the feedback knob made it go crazy,” opines Oddie, “how the time knob sounded when you wiggled it and the delays pitch shifted. Part of its charm is how incredibly tactile it is.”
“I’ve yet to find another sampler pedal that works as well as the DL4,” adds Knudson. “It’s super easy to use and so straightforward that it’s perfect for the live setting. I don’t want a bank of digital menus to scroll through, and the fact that it can get everything I need done with four buttons is perfect. If it were any more complicated I don’t think it would have been nearly as successful as it has become.”
Like most legends, the DL4 has spawned a host of imitators. Looping and sampling have become powerful tools for guitarists and other musicians, and while the DL4 may not have been the first, it’s largely seen as the big daddy of the art form.
“The DL4 didn’t really break any new ground, yet it was a major leap,” observes Tripps. “It didn’t improve on existing delays as much as it created a whole new instrument. It put a lot of power on the floor for guitarists, along with a really intuitive interface. Almost by accident, it made looping accessible for live performance.”
It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 25 years since the DL4 made its debut. Technology has obviously come a long way since then, and Line 6 has recently unveiled a new commemorative 25th Anniversary edition of the iconic pedal. The Mk II version adds to the legend without taking away the features that made it what it is. “The MkII just improves upon an already great pedal,” Knudson observes. “Honestly, one of the best things is just the smaller footprint on the pedalboard. As we know, boards are increasingly becoming competitive as to how much stuff you can squeeze on there! But I love the additional delays and reverbs. The classics are obviously my go-to choices, but I love how it has evolved and elevated with current trends with guitarists but still stayed true to form in what made it so wonderful in the first place.”
The quiet impact of the DL4 is something no one would have foreseen. Much like a band making a record, all the best laid plans won’t predict the public’s response. Will it thud like a tree in an empty forest, or be gone tomorrow like a flash in the pan? Like a hit single, only time will tell if it has the staying power to become a legend. As Tripps concludes, “It was the right combination of great minds, great ideas, and great execution, at the right time.”
Celebrating 10 years of Revv & 5 years since the release of the G2, Revv is debuting V2 circuit revisions of the G2, G3, & G4, implementing new designs for more tone in 3 little pedals, in a limited edition colorway.
The Revv Amplification 5th Anniversary G-Series V2 Lineup features:
- 3 Fresh Flavors of Boutique Canadian Tone - G-Series pedals are sonic recreations of 3 of Revv’s boutique amp channels used by Nashville session stars & metal touring artists alike.
- The Standard, Redefined - V2 circuit revisions are based on the Generator 120 MK3 Rev. B & incorporate new design elements for the most tube-like response & tone ever.
- Limited Edition - Exclusive new colorway featuring a black enclosure w/ custom graphics, embossed Revv badge, & color-coded knobs.
- Find Your Sound - The G2 is a powerful & versatile overdrive capable of everything from touch-sensitive boost to organic vintage stack tones, taken from Revv’s Green Channel.
- High Gain Clarity - The G3 utilizes Revv’s legendary Purple Channel, a tight & responsive high gain tone perfect for drop tuning & cutting through any mix.
- Fat Solo Tones - The G4 is based on Revv’s thick & saturated Red Channel, the ideal sound for chewy crunch, modern rock wall of sound, & liquid sustaining solos.
- Made in Canada - 100% analog circuit w/ top jacks, true bypass, & 2 year warranty.
Revv’s G-Series pedals have a street price of $229 & can be ordered immediately through many fine dealers worldwide.
For more information, please visit revvamplification.com.
Revv G3 Purple Channel Preamp/Overdrive/Distortion Pedal - Anniversary Edition
Huge shocker incoming: Zach Broyles made a Tube Screamer. The Mythos Envy Pro Overdrive is Zach’s take on the green apple of his eye, with some special tweaks including increased output, more drive sounds, and a low-end boost option. Does this mean he can clear out his collection of TS-9s? Of course not.
This time on Dipped in Tone, Rhett and Zach welcome Tyler Bryant, the Texas-bred and Nashville-based rocker who has made waves with his band the Shakedown, who Rhett credits as one of his favorite groups. Bryant, it turns out, is a TS-head himself, having learned to love the pedal thanks to its being found everywhere in Texas guitar circles.Bryant shares how he scraped together a band after dropping out of high school and moving to Nashville, including the rigors of 15-hour drives for 30-minute sets in a trusty Ford Expedition. He’s lived the dream (or nightmare, depending on the day) and has the wisdom to show it.
Throughout the chat, the gang covers modeling amps and why modern rock bands still need amps on stage; the ins and outs of recording-gear rabbit holes and getting great sounds; and the differences between American and European audiences. Tune in to hear it all.
