Steve explores pick materials that are far from the norm.
If you had the opportunity to read the excellent article (The Spectrum of Plectrum, December 2008) and accompanying interview with Jim Dunlop by Chris Burgess, youāre armed with a lifetime of options to shape your tone by way of the pick. Taking a cue from that Iād like to stretch outside the boundaries of the pick and talk about alternative sources of striking those strings. Alternatives as in not with a pick, and not with your fingersā¦
There are a lot of ways to excite the strings of a guitar. While some of these come in the form of ready-made products that you can purchase, others come from everyday items youād find around the house or office. Letās start with the products you can or could buy at one point in time, then move on to the things you can use right now without laying having to spend a dime. Hey, a dime makes a great pick. Wait a minuteā¦ wrong article.
Ebow
The Ebow (electronic bow) was conceived in the late sixties and debuted at the Chicago NAMM show in 1976. This incredible device is a battery-operated electro-magnetic bow that can simulate the sound of horns, strings and woodwind instruments. Itās incredibly sensitive and can infinitely sustain notes while being very expressive. Though it only sustains one string at a time because of the way it was designed, it also can be used to sweep the strings much like a violin bow goes across the strings. You can hear it on records from Smashing Pumpkins to David Bowie to Soundgarden. And for anyone whoās had the pleasure of checking out the live demos at NAMM, youāve probably heard Ebow virtuoso, Lenny Walker showing off its many sounds. For more information check out ebow.com.
Violin Bow
The most famous example of violin bow use with a guitar would have to be Jimmy Page. His epic orchestration in "Dazed and Confused" pretty much sums up the sound taken to the extreme. Though not the most agile of alternative picks for creating new sounds it has to be one of the most tonally effective. What it lacks in the ability to individually bow strings across the fingerboard it excels in single-string or double-stop violin-like sounds. For the more adventurous player the Togaman GuitarViol by Jonathan Wilson Designs (reviewed in the November 2008 Premier Guitar issue) addresses the issue of the fingerboard radius, pickups and many other guitar shortcomings and allows the bow to be used to its fullest potential.
Gizmotron
This incredibly ambitious device was invented by Lol CrĆØme and Kevin Godley of 10cc, back in 1975. The device was a small box that attached to the bridge of the guitar and consisted of six small motor-driven wheels, whose continuous bowing action was activated by pressing one or all of keys located on the top of the unit. Pressing a key would bow the corresponding string, while the other hand remained free to fret single notes or full chords. Or so it did in theory. Sadly, the Gizmotron was never able to be produced to its fullest intentions and this great idea for a product was a nightmare to install or use properly. Only a few players really ever made great use of the Gizmo, which of course would be Godley and CrĆØme themselves. I bought a NOS bass Gizmotron at one point that seemed to work OK except the rubber wheels had dried out significantly and they ended up cracking off after just a few uses.
Hammer Jammer
The Hammer Jammer is a discontinued product that I believe was distributed by SKB at one point. It was a plastic device that was either temporarily or permanently attached to the guitar by the neck pickup or sound hole. It had six hammers with interchangeable tips that mimicked the hammers on a piano. By tapping the hammers, notes would be struck on the guitar and produced a similar tone to a harpsichord or piano. Not only could you play one note at a time, you could play whole chords simultaneously or even roll multiple strings. I also still own one of these devices and use it to create interesting textures for game and film soundtracks. It can be haunting or aggressive. Definitely check one out if you can ever find one.
OK, so there are four examples of devices that have been or are still being manufactured, and Iām sure there are many more. Now letās move on to items that you can use right now to achieve unique sounds out of your guitar...
Toothbrush - LISTEN
Probably best to go out and spend the $1 for this one. I donāt think anyone wants toothpaste or drool all over their guitar! The toothbrush can be used just like a pick by holding it by the handle and brushing the strings. Itās kind of like having a hundred really fine picks close together and it creates a wooshing sound that is better heard than described. Using a soft bristle brush will sound different than a harder one, just like a pick. Itās great for uniquely sustaining chords and Iāve found that it is much better for multiple strings due to the size of most bristles. If you do want to play individual strings you might find yourself getting creative with left-hand muting techniques to avoid ringing of unintentional strings.
Pencil
Great for that woody tone. Thank you, Iāll be here all week. Seriously, though, the pencil is probably one of the simplest tools for creating hammered tones on the guitar. Holding it much like a pick between your thumb and first or second finger let it bounce off the strings. Experiment by hitting it closer to the bridge and move toward the neck. Notice how the tone naturally darkens and gets less springy sounding. You can approximate a dulcimer as your bounce technique gets better. On bass guitar Iāve seen a producer use a drumstick to great effect creating huge piano tones with superb attack and clarity.
Pen - LISTEN
I like a Sharpie because it produces a clean and fat attack. Like the pencil, pens of varying shapes and sizes can create great hammered sounds. Experimenting with different materials (metal, plastic, etc.) youāll definitely be able to create a wide variety of sound. Acoustic guitars love them too.
Paper - LISTEN
What? Sure, why not? Take a piece of paper and fold it up a few times. The more folds, the thicker your pick will be. Itās surprising how familiar it will feel in your hands if youāre used to playing with a pick. The difference is that even with the hardest attack and most force it āgivesā a lot more than a piece of plastic. This particular oddity though natural feeling is anything but natural sounding. With a thuddy attack and lack of a striking sound itās definitely more of an effect. If you play an acoustic guitar or an electric with heavy strings the paper will fall apart very quickly so make sure youāve got an extra sheet or two for your debut gig.
Air
Iāve seen Paul Gilbert whip out a cordless drill with three picks attached to it to create the fastest speed-picking machine known to man (besides Paul himself!). Iāve also heard he got the drill caught in his hairā¦yikes! Hope it had a reverse on it. Anyway, in a similar spirit, the concept of using an airbrush can create really interesting and haunting effects. Clearly this is taking things to the extreme and a pneumatic airbrush may just create more noise than itās worth. However, in the right circumstance using the brush set to a fine stream can open up a variety of sounds that mimic the use of a broken volume pedal. Great for infinite sustain and more fun than youāll ever have building that WWII fighter plane model. I know because thatās how I discovered thisā¦outside in my father-in-lawās garage while he was building a WWII fighter plane model.
I know this is all pretty extreme and it may sound rather funny but I take it quite seriously. To sum it up, what would guitar history be without the inventive nature of guys like Page, Hendrix, Van Halen and Tom Morello. Every one of these players and many more has done things that made an impact on tone by using (at the time) unconventional techniques. Who knows, one day you might be remembered for using a #2 pencil on a hit songās guitar soloā¦.and wouldnāt that be cool.
steve@steveouimette.com
Steve is best known for his work on Guitar Hero III, the multi-platinum selling video game that is turning gamers into guitarists by the thousands. A guitarist/composer/producer, he holds a B.A. in Music Performance and Composition and spends his days and nights writing music for games, film and television. Heās also a rabid tone fanatic and amp enthusiast always looking for a unique sound. His original music can be found on iTunes and at myspace.com/steveouimette.
There's a lot of musical gold inside the scales.
Intermediate
Intermediate
ā¢ Develop a deeper improvisational vocabulary.
ā¢ Combine pentatonic scales to create new colors.
ā¢ Understand the beauty of diatonic harmony.Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.
The following is the first improvisational device I ever came across. I want to say I got it from a Frank Gambale book. The idea is that there are three minor pentatonic scales "hiding" in any given major scale. If we're in the key of C (CāDāEāFāGāAāB) we can pluck out the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. If we frame them over a Dm7 chord, they give us different five-note combinations of the D Dorian mode. In short, we are building minor pentatonic scales off the 2, 3, and 6 of the C major scale.
Viewing this through the lens of D minor (a sibling of C major and the tonal center for this lesson), D minor pentatonic gives us the 1āb3ā4ā5āb7, E minor pentatonic gives us 2ā4ā5ā6ā1, and A minor pentatonic gives us 5āb7ā1ā2ā4. This means you can use your favorite pentatonic licks in three different locations and there are three different sounds we can tap into from the same structure.
If you smashed all of them together, you would get the D Dorian scale (DāEĀĀāFāGāAāBāC) with notes in common between the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. Ex. 1 uses all three scales, so you can hear the different colors each one creates over the chord.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2 is how I improvise with them, usually weaving in and out using different positional shapes.
Ex. 2
The next idea is one I stole from a guitarist who often came into a music store I worked at. On the surface, it's very easy: Just take two triads (in our example it will be Dm and C) and ping-pong between them. The D minor triad (DāFāA) gives us 1āb3ā5, which is very much rooted in the chord, and the C major triad (CāEāG) gives us the b7ā9ā4, which is much floatier. Also, if you smash these two triads together, you get 1ā2āb3ā4ā5āb7, which is a minor pentatonic scale with an added 2 (or 9). Eric Johnson uses this sound all the time. Ex. 3 is the lick I stole years ago.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is how I would improvise with this concept. Many different fingerings work with these, so experiment until you find a layout that's comfortable for your own playing.
Ex. 4
If two triads work, why not seven? This next approach will take all the triads in the key of C (CāDmāEmāFāGāAmāBdim) and use them over a Dm7 chord (Ex. 5). Each triad highlights different three-note combinations from the Dorian scale, and all of them sound different. Triads are clear structures that sound strong to our ears, and they can generate nice linear interest when played over one chord. Once again, all of this is 100% inside the scale. Ex. 5 is how each triad sounds over the track, and Ex. 6 is my attempt to improvise with them.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
If we could find all these possibilities with triads, it's logical to make the structure a little bigger and take a similar approach with 7 chords, or in this case, arpeggios. Naturally, all the diatonic chords will work, but I'll limit this next idea to just Dm7, Fmaj7, Am7, and Cmaj7. I love this approach because as you move further away from the Dm7 shape, each new structure takes out a chord tone and replaces it with an extension. I notice that I usually come up with different lines when I'm thinking about different chord shapes, and this approach is a decent way to facilitate that. Ex. 7 is a good way to get these under your fingers. Just ascend one shape, shift into the next shape on the highest string, then descend and shift to the next on the lowest string.
Ex. 7
Ex. 8 is my improvisation using all four shapes and sounds, but I lean pretty heavily on the Am7.
Ex. 8
This last concept has kept me busy on the fretboard for the last five years or so. Check it out: You can take any idea that works over Dm7 and move the other diatonic chords. The result is six variations of your original lick. In Ex. 9 I play a line that is 4ā1āb3Āā5 over Dm7 and then walk it through the other chords in the key. These notes are still in the key of C, but it sounds drastically different from playing a scale.
Ex. 9
In Ex. 10, I try to think about the shapes from the previous example, but I break up the note order in a random but fun way. The ending line is random but felt good, so I left it in.
Ex. 10
While all these concepts have been presented over a minor chord, you can just as easily apply them to any chord quality, and they work just as well in harmonic or melodic minor. Rewarding sounds are available right inside the harmony, and I am still discovering new ideas through these concepts after many years.
Though the above ideas won't necessarily be appropriate for every style or situation, they will work in quite a few. Developing any approach to the point that it becomes a natural extension of your playing takes considerable work and patience, so just enjoy the process, experiment, and let your ear guide you to the sounds you like. Even over just one chord, there is always something new to find.
The high priest of prog-metal guitar, John Petrucci, is still finding new territory on his instrument.
The legendary progressive-metal guitarist details the darknessāand the renewed camaraderieāthat led to his band Dream Theaterās 16th full-length record, Parasomnia.
Some very important events happened in John Petrucciās life in 2024. He celebrated an enormous milestone with his bandmates in prog-metal behemoth Dream Theater: Theyāve been a band for 40 years. Many bands arenāt destined to last a single decade, let alone four. Itās a titanic personal and artistic achievement. And yet, that anniversary paled in significance next to another major development: The band wrote and created a new full-length record with founding drummer Mike Portnoy, who had been absent from Dream Theater since 2010.
The news of Portnoyās reunion with Dream Theater rocked the metal world. Over the years, whiffs of acrimony and hurt feelings suggested Portnoyās return to the band might be a pipe dream. But in October 2023, the band revealed that they had all independently reconciled with Portnoy, a process that culminated backstage at New Yorkās Beacon Theater in 2022. Portnoy attended Dream Theaterās show at the venue and met up with the band afterward. It was the first time heād seen vocalist James Labrie in 10 years. Within seconds, 13 years melted away in the warmth of camaraderie.
āThe gear was all set up and we sat there and started playing. It was magic. It was like we never missed a beat.ā
A few months after the announcement of Portnoyās return, he and bandmates Labrie, Petrucci, bassist John Myung, and keyboardist Jordan Rudess convened at the recently renovated Dream Theater HQ, their longtime creative hideout and recording studio in Long Island, to begin to create new music. Petrucci, speaking over the phone from Brazil during Dream Theaterās December 2024 tour, remembers that period fondly. āFrom the moment that we all stepped in the studio in February, the gear was all set up and we sat there and started playing,ā he says. āIt was magic. It was like we never missed a beat.ā
After shaking off the cobwebs, the first song they wrote together was āNight Terrorāāāif that gives you any indication of the energy and vibe and mood that we were in,ā quips Petrucci. Itās heavy, riffy, aggressive, and progressive, a capsule of 13 years in just shy of 10 minutes. āWe let that all out in the first couple of weeks of just being together,ā Petrucci continues. āIt was wonderful and the creative juices just flowed the way they always did. There was great brotherly chemistry between all of us.ā
Last year, Dream Theater celebrated their ruby anniversary as a band. Four decades on, theyāre still exploring the dark corners of what happens when we sleep.
The band continued to create together as theyād always done. They had some concrete ideas: They wanted to make a concept album, and it had to be heavy and riff-centric. Petrucci, who produced the record, was intrigued by parasomnia, a medical concept which refers broadly to any unusual sleep pattern, like sleepwalking, nightmares, insomnia, sleep paralysis, and more. He hadnāt experienced those nocturnal issues (the worst he deals with is snoring), but he began deep research into them. A path had opened up. āThat creative part of me just wakes up, and then that turns into it also being musically creative, lyrically creative, visually creative,ā says Petrucci.
This is how Parasomnia, Dream Theaterās 16th studio record, came to exist. Engineered and mixed by Andy Sneap, the concept album comprises a collection of suites and vignettes that center on various sleep disturbances, opening with āIn the Arms of Morpheus,ā a slowly building soundscape that sets the scene for all that follows. It soundtracks someone getting ready for bed and falling asleep, and just as theyāre drifting into a dreamstate, a musical theme starts to creep in. It heightens and gets weird before exploding into the full chaos that gives way to āNight Terror,ā the nine-minute-plus epic. Petrucciās playing on this song alone is staggering: Thereās the classic, open-string beginner riff, then vintage, hyper, ā80s-metal single-note melody work, then a truly brain-melting, lightning-fast solo that leaves your jaw open.
True to Dream Theater lineage, there are pieces of the record that feel ready to soundtrack alien drag races on Mars next to swanky sections of jazzy, hard-rocking funk-blues, like on āA Broken Man.ā Petrucci slips in and out of modes and scales like a chameleon changing its colors, each sounding as lived-in and natural as the last. His fingers just seem to know where to go. His only reprieve is the funereal interlude āAre We Dreaming?ā which prepares us for the power ballad āBend the Clockā and the devastating, scorched earth closer: āThe Shadow Man Incident.ā
Parasomnia is Dream Theaterās 16th studio record, and their first since reuniting with founding drummer Mike Portnoy.
āItās wacky,ā says Petrucci about the phenomena behind that songās title. If youāre not familiar, āthe shadow manā is a colloquial name given to a figure that appears during some episodes of sleep paralysis. People around the world have reported a similar apparition visiting them while theyāre experiencing sleep paralysisābut thereās no scientific consensus for what causes the similar visions.
āThereās something in the human brain that is unaccounted for or whatever that must be producing that, that repeated experience,ā continues Petrucci. āYou start doing all this research and going down rabbit holes online. Youāre like, āWow, for centuries, in every culture and civilization, the same thing has been happening. What is this?ā It definitely explores the depths of the human mind, but it reminds me of any sort of topic that holds your interest in a weird way, like UFOs. A song like āThe Shadow Man Incidentā is a long, epic piece of music that gives you the backdrop and license to go into storytelling more.ā
The goal was to take that storytelling beyond the normal confines of an LPāor, at least, what we think of as an LP in the streaming age. āWhat we decided to do was to make the album kind of like a Dark Side of the Moon listening experience,ā explains Petrucci. āOur hope is that people will get this record, turn down the lights, get together with some friends for a drink or whatever you do, and just listen to the whole thing like youāre watching a movie. Itās supposed to be an experience.āPetrucci even studied the music of composers like John Williams to get a bead on how to create epic, cinematic feelings in music. He displayed his research to his bandmates in the form of creative direction for certain songs, likening the process to scoring a film. āThe album or song topic presents certain imagery, and you want the music to match that imagery, so you have those tools in your toolbox, like, āOkay, I know what kind of chord movement or chordal sounds or modal things I can do that are going to make that,ā and itās going to create that flavor as opposed to just going in and writing in the typical way that you would if you didnāt have that knowledge ahead of time.ā
āWith Mike rejoining the band, I wanted to lean into the nostalgic aspect in some of the recording process.ā
A part of that soundscaping is what Petrucci describes as āear candyā: spoken-word passages, or sound effects like clocks ticking and alarms ringing. These elements help build a more profound, immersive listen, but they only work if the songs are good, says Petrucci. āYou can have all these sound connections and overdubs and voices, but if the songs suck, itās not going to mean anything. No oneās going to want to listen to it.ā
Knowing that the record would deal with all things eerie and creepy, Petrucci wanted to explore what types of tonalities could unsettle the listening experience. āFor āNight Terror,ā I use the super Phrygian mode, which is like a mode of the Hungarian minor which has a very unresolved sound that creates a lot of tension,ā he says. He also experimented with constructs like the Prometheus and Tristan chords. āThat gives you that dreamy weird thing you hear in āIn the Arms of Morpheus.ā That first 8-string chord is this crazy chord of all tritones that just makes it sound like youāre in a nightmare right away.ā
Petrucci, pictured here shredding in November 1994, broke out plenty of classic gear for the recording of Parasomnia to mark the reunion with Portnoy.
Photo by Frank White
Petrucci called on a range of tools old and new to bring Parasomnia to life. āWith Mike rejoining the band, I wanted to lean into the nostalgic aspect in some of the recording process,ā he explains. He used his 6-, 7-, and 8-string Ernie Ball Music Man Majesty guitars, in a spread of different tunings. He used his Mesa/Boogie JP-2C on everything except the recordās solos. For those, he busted out his old Mesasāa Mark III, IV, and IIC+ among themāfor a shootout and wound up choosing the IIC+ that he used on old Dream Theater records (plus his own solo release, Suspended Animation). A Roland Jazz Chorus even clocked in for some cleansāa page Petrucci took from James Hetfieldās book.
The nostalgia didnāt end there. The band reached out to recording engineer Doug Oberkircher, who engineered all of the bandās records from 1992ās Images and Words through 2003ās Train of Thought, to purchase the Neve preamp used on those albums. All the guitars on Parasomnia were recorded through that preamp.
In many ways, a production this grand and intricate is familiar territory for the band. Petrucci and Dream Theater obviously have a penchant for art that is narrative, theatrical, and grand. But Parasomnia is specially weighted with circumstance and time.John Petrucci's Gear
Petrucci and Dream Theater have managed an incredible feat: Theyāre just as excited about their music now as they were when they were teenagers.
Photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva
Guitars
- Various Ernie Ball Music Man The Majesty 6-, 7-, and 8-string guitars with DiMarzio Dreamcatcher and Rainmaker pickups
Amps
- Mesa/Boogie JP-2C (rhythm parts)
- Vintage Mesa/Boogie Mark II C+ Simul-Class (lead parts)
- Roland JC-120 (clean parts)
- Mesa/Boogie 4x12 Rectifier Traditional Straight cabinet
Effects
- MXR Bass Compressor
- Boss CE-2W
- Boss DC-2W
- TC Electronic Dreamscape
- TC Electronic TC 2290
- TC Electronic Corona Chorus+
- MXR Stereo Chorus
- Keeley Blues Disorder
- Dunlop JP95 John Petrucci Signature Cry Baby Wah
- MXR Custom Audio Electronics MC403 Power System
Recording
- Neve 1093 Pre/EQ
- API 3124MV
- Solid State Logic PURE DRIVE OCTO
- sE Electronics VR2 + Mojave Audio MA-D (rhythm parts)
- sE Electronics SE4400a + Royer Labs R-121 (lead parts)
- Royer Labs R-121 in stereo (clean parts)
- sE Electronics RNR1 (mid room)
- sE Electronics RNT in OMNI (far room)
- Waves H-Delay Analog Delay Plugin
- Soundtoys EchoBoy
- Soundtoys MicroShift
- Soundtoys Crystallizer
- D16 Group Audio Software Repeater
- Valhalla DSP VintageVerb Plugin
- Valhalla DSP ValhallaRoom Reverb Plugin
- Radial ProRMP
- Radial J48
- EBow
Strings & Picks
- John Petrucci signature Dunlops
- Ernie Ball .10 gauge electric sets
āJohn Myung and I met when we were in middle school, so we were like 12, and I remember everything about us playing together, going over to each otherās houses after school and playing every Iron Maiden song there ever was, going to Berklee and meeting Mike when we were 18, forming the band,ā says Petrucci. āHere we are, itās 40 years later. How the hell does that happen? But the great thing is to still be playing with my brothers and my buddies, and still making music together that weāre just as excited about as we were when we were 18. Itās all we ever wanted to do.ā
All of this history isnāt just window dressing. It comes out in Petrucciās playing, too: Itās all one, long story. āBy the time I was 16 or 17, I had a handle on the kind of style of player I wanted to be, and those original elements are still there and will always be there,ā says Petrucci. āBut now, 40 years later, thereās still new things coming in. Even on the new album, thereās things I never did before. Weāre playing these shows and Iām trying to master this stuff live in front of an audience and see if I can pull it off under pressure. The challenge of it is just as much as it was when I was a teenager. I love it.
āItās a continuing experiment,ā Petrucci continues. āAs you develop new techniques and go down new roads of playing, all of a sudden you realize you abandoned some older techniques, then you go back and rediscover those things, and through the process of rediscovering the old things you used to do, all of a sudden you could do some stuff that you never were able to do before. Itās like something thatās living. Itās a living experiment of guitar playing. Itās just forever inspiring.ā
YouTube It
Last year marked Dream Theaterās 40th anniversary as a band, and the official Dream Theater fan club caught up with the group before their gig in Oslo to see how they brought the milestone tour to life.
Fifteen watts that sits in a unique tone space and offers modern signal routing options.
A distinct alternative to the most popular 1x10 combos. Muscular and thick for a 1x10 at many settings. Pairs easily with single-coils and humbuckers. Cool looks.
Tone stack could be more rangeful.
$999
Supro Montauk
supro.com
When you imagine an ideal creative space, what do you see? A loft? A barn? A cabin far from distraction? Reveling in such visions is inspiration and a beautiful escape. Reality for most of us, though, is different. Weāre lucky to have a corner in the kitchen or a converted closet to make music in. Still, thereās a romance and sense of possibility in these modest spaces, and the 15-watt, 1x10, all-tubeSupro Montauk is an amplifier well suited to this kind of place. It enlivens cramped corners with its classy, colorful appearance. Itās compact. Itās also potent enough to sound and respond like a bigger amp in a small room.
The Montauk works in tight quarters for reasons other than size, thoughāwith three pre-power-section outputs that can route dry signal, all-wet signal from the ampās spring reverb, or a mixture of both to a DAW or power amplifier.
Different Stripes and Spacious Places
Vintage Supro amps are modestly lovely things. The China-made Montauk doesnāt adhere toold Supro style motifs in the strictest sense. Its white skunk stripe is more commonly seen on black Supro combos from the late 1950s, while the blue ārhino hideā vinyl evokes Supros from the following decade. But the Montaukās handsome looks make a cramped corner look a lot less dour. It looks pretty cool on a stage, too, but the Montauk attribute most likely to please performing guitarists is the small size (17.75" x 16.5" x 7.5") and light weight (29 pounds), which, if you tote your guitar in a gig bag and keep your other stuff to a minimum, facilitates magical one-trip load ins.
Keen-eyed Supro-spotters noting the Montaukās weight and dimensions might spy the similarities to another 1x10 Supro combo,the Amulet. A casual comparison of the two amps might suggest that the Montauk is, more-or-less, an Amulet without tremolo and power scaling. They share the same tube complement, including a relatively uncommon 1x6L6 power section. But while the Montauk lacks the Amuletās tremolo, the Montaukās spring reverb features level and dwell controls rather than the Amuletās single reverb-level knob.
āHigh reverb levels and low dwell settings evoke a small, reflective room with metallic overtones from the spring sprinkled on topāleaving ghostly ambience in the wake of strong, defined transient tones.ā
If you use reverb a lot and in varying levels of intensity, youāll appreciate the extra flexibility. High reverb levels and low dwell settings evoke a small, reflective room with metallic overtones from the spring sprinkled on topāleaving ghostly ambience in the wake of strong, defined transient tones. There are many shades of this subtle texture to explore, and itās a great sound and solution for those who find the spring reverbs in Fender amps (which feature no dwell control) an all-or-nothing proposition. For those who like to get deep in the pipeline, though, the dwell offers room to roam. Mixing high level and dwell settings blunts the ampās touch sensitivity a bit, and at 15 watts you trade headroom for natural compression, compounding the fogginess of these aggressive settings. A Twin Reverb it aināt. But there is texture aplenty to play with.
A Long, Wide Strand
Admirably, the Montauk speaks in many voices when paired with a guitar alone. The EQ sits most naturally and alive with treble and bass in the noon-to-2-oāclock region, and a slight midrange lean adds welcome punch. Even the ampās trebliest realms afford you a lot of expressive headroom if you have enough range and sensitivity in your guitar volume and tone pots. Interactions between the gain and master output controls yield scads of different tone color, too. Generally, I preferred high gain settings, which add a firecracker edge to maximum guitar volume settings and preserve touch and pick response at attenuated guitar volume and tone levels.
If working with the Montauk in this fashion feels natural, youāll need very few pedals. But itās a good fit for many effects. A Fuzz Face sounded nasty without collapsing into spitty junk, and the Klon-ish Electro-Harmonix Soul Food added muscle and character in its clean-boost guise and at grittier gain levels. Thereās plenty of headroom for exploring nuance and complexity in delays and modulations. It also pairs happily with a wide range of guitars and pickups: Every time I thought a Telecaster was a perfect fit, Iād plug in an SG with PAFs and drift away in Mick Taylor/Stones bliss.
The Verdict
Because the gain, master, tone, and reverb controls are fairly interactive, it took me a minute to suss out the Montaukās best and sweetest tones. But by the time I was through with this review, I found many sweet spots that fill the spaces between Vox and Fender templates. Thereās also raunch in abundance when you turn it up. Itās tempting to view the Montauk as a competitor to the Fender Princeton and Vox AC15. At a thousand bucks, itās $400 dollars less than the Mexico-made Princeton ā68 Custom and $170 more than the AC15, also made in China. In purely tone terms, though, it represents a real alternative to those stalwarts. Iād be more than happy to see one in a backline, provided I wasnāt trying to rise above a Geezer Butler/Bill Ward rhythm section. And with its capacity for routing to other amps and recording consoles in many intriguing configurations, it succeeds in being a genuinely interesting combination of vintage style and sound and home-studio utilityāall without adding a single digital or solid-state component to the mix.
Watch the official video documenting the sold-out event at House of Blues in Anaheim. Join Paul Reed Smith and special guests as they toast to quality and excellence in guitar craftsmanship.
PRS Guitars today released the official video documenting the full night of performances at their 40th Anniversary celebration, held January 24th in conjunction with the 2025 NAMM (The National Association of Music Merchants) Show. The sold-out, private event took place at House of Blues in Anaheim, California and featured performances by PRS artists Randy Bowland, Curt Chambers, David Grissom, Jon Jourdan, Howard Leese, Mark Lettieri Group, Herman Li, John Mayer, Orianthi, Tim Pierce, Noah Robertson, Shantaia, Philip Sayce, and Dany Villarreal, along with Paul Reed Smith and his Eightlock band.
āWhat a night! Big thanks to everyone who came out to support us: retailers, distributors, vendors, content creators, industry friends, and especially the artists. I loved every second. We are so pleased to share the whole night now on this video,ā said Paul Reed Smith, Founder & Managing General Partner of PRS Guitars. āI couldnāt be more proud to still be here 40 years later.ā
With nearly 1,400 of the whoās who in the musical instrument industry in attendance, the night ended with a thoughtful toast from PRS Signature Artist John Mayer, who reflected on 40 years of PRS Guitars and the quality that sets the brand apart. āThe guitars are great. You canāt last 40 years if the guitars arenāt great,ā said Mayer. āMany of you started hearing about PRS the same way I did, which is you would talk about PRS and someone would say āTheyāre too nice.ā Whatās too nice for a guitar? What, you want that special vibe that only tuning every song can give you on stage? You want that grit just like your heroes ā¦ bad intonation? The product is incredible.ā