Based on your watch time and clicks, here are the most-watched videos this trip 'round the sun.
Honorable Mention #2: King Crimson's Robert Fripp
Although Fripp and King Crimson will forever be known for pioneering the prog-rock movement with 1969’s In the Court of the Crimson King, his innovation on guitar technology and craft is staggering. His collaborations with Brian Eno, David Bowie, and Andy Summers are highlights of a solo career nearing 50 years. John Bohlinger went to Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium to get the details from Biff Blumfumgagnge, Fripp’s main road tech since 2005. Blumfumgagnge demoed Fripp’s gear and explained the engineering behind the alchemy.See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
Honorable Mention #1: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Back in the fall of 2015 PG traveled south to the Tivoli Theatre in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to catch up with Jason Isbell, guitarist Sadler Vaden, and bassist Jimbo Hart. At the time, the band gave us so much time and so much gusto about their piles of gear, the resulting Rundown became the longest ever at 65 minutes.Fast forward four years and now Perry Bean finds himself onstage, surrounded by even more gear, at the historic Ryman Auditorium in the middle of Isbell’s annual October run. This year saw the Alabama native and his bandmates sell out seven consecutive shows at the Mother Church. And before the 4th night, we basically filmed a feature film spotlighting all the new inspiring additions to their arsenal and how it all further propels the 400 Unit’s sonic quest.
See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
10. Covet's Yvette Young
One would never confuse music as sport. However, for Yvette Young, who took up strict piano lessons at four and added on violin at age seven, the internal pressure and external expectations became too much and broke her. The weight of it all hospitalized her due to an eating disorder. And while still in the hospital, rehabbing from her battle, the struggle’s silver lining appeared in the shape of a guitar. Yvette’s love affair with the instrument began while she was still in bed and has remained tried and true ever since.
She admits to starting out like any guitarist, learning basic chords and shapes in standard tuning, but never really finding
her voice. The generic, sounding-like-everyone qualities plagued her until stumbling upon alternative tunings by way of influencers like Japanese post-rockers Toe and math-rock aerialists American Football. Through these open tunings (for example: F–A–C–G–B–E), Yvette unlocked her guitar creativity and began expressing herself in solo two-hand tapping compositions. One way she pushes her dexterity and fretboard knowledge is to start an idea out as a vocal melody. Yvette then chases that vocal melody for hours on the fretboard, trying to accompany it with simpatico harmonies on the guitar.Eventually, electric guitar grabbed ahold and the need for fuller, collaborative jams took root and she began work as a power trio with bassist David Adamiak and drummer Keith Grimshaw. (Now Forrest Rice is the band’s drummer.) Over the last five years she’s released a handful of records and EPs (full band and solo), including 2014’s
acoustics, 2015’s Currents, a live performance at Audiotree in 2016, 2017’s Ares, 2018’s effloresce, and most recently, acoustics2.Before Covet’s Nashville gig at the High Watt,
PG’s Chris Kies swooped in for a post-soundcheck hang with the band’s founder and 6-string melodist, Yvette Young. Within the 30-minute video, you’ll witness how her finger-tapping approach, bolstered by gobs of modulation and influenced by formal training on the ivories unlocks fresh, polyphonic compositions that flourish over a bed of atmospheric, transcendent post-rock clouds.See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
9. Judas Prieest
Premier Guitar’s John Bohlinger met with Judas Priest founding bassist Ian Hill and guitarist Richie Faulkner for a walk-through their paint-peeling, mountain-crushing rigs.See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
8. Dream Theater
Dream Theater’s The Distance Over Time Tour is nirvana for the band’s fans, who are devout. It’s a three-hour sonic journey through the new The Distance Over Time album, a selection of fan favorites, and the entire Metropolis Pt. 2 Scenes from a Memory, which is being played in full to mark the 20th anniversary of its release.We met with Petrucci, Myung, and chief axe tech Maddi Schieferstein onstage at Nashville’s Tennessee Performing Arts Center before a soundcheck for the band’s sold-out April 17 concert. The video covers everything—and the still photos provide a closer look at Petrucci’s new-for-2019 signature models, Myung’s bass, effects, amps and more.
And yes, I know I said “speakers” instead of “pickups” and “alder” rather than “ash” early in the video. Send coffee and hate mail in care of the magazine. Or just troll me in the video’s comments section, for your convenience. But more important, dig into this supercool Rig Rundown.
See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
7. Polyphia' Scott LePage
Before soundcheck, PG’s Chris Kies swooped into Nashville’s Cowan music venue to speak with sarcastic (and sweet) Scott LePage, one-half of the blistering guitar duo that mobilizes the genre-morphing band.See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
6. Christone "Kingfish" Ingram
Christone "Kingfish" Ingram is currently putting some serious miles in on his tour to support his debut album, Kingfish. Before his show at Songbirds in Chattanooga, Tennessee, “Kingfish” met up with Premier Guitar’s John Bohlinger to talk through his rig and display some fiery guitar playing.See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
5. Billy Strings
Born William Apostol, Billy Strings (a nickname given to him by his aunt because of his fluency on several instruments) sharpened his chops in bluegrass alongside his father in Michigan. But to play music with musicians closer to his age, he started shredding in bands inspired by death metal bands Cryptopsy and Cannibal Corpse. While the death-metal thing never stuck (he’s still a regular listener of the genre), the energy, string-splitting proficiency, and raw power trickled into his bluegrass performances. He and his stalwart bandmates logged over 200 shows for a handful of years before recording his 2017 debut Tinfoil and Turmoil, which has many pillars of bluegrass (acoustic instruments, no drums, lightning-fast picking, strong vocal harmonies), but also features the rowdiness of death metal, modern-day tales of drugs and debauchery, and hallucinating delays and reverbs that usher in progressive jams.Months before his sophomore release, Home, hits the shelves, Billy Strings had the honor of headlining one of the Ryman’s Bluegrass Nights. And that’s where PG’s Perry Bean had the pleasure of spending some quality time with Strings to talk about the perfect acoustic guitar and why he uses pedals to break down bluegrass barriers while still paying reverence to the music’s forefathers like Doc Watson and Bill Monroe.
See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
4. Nita Strauss
Premier Guitar’s John Bohlinger met with Judas Priest founding bassist Ian Hill and guitarist Richie Faulkner for a walk-through their paint-peeling, mountain-crushing rigs.See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
3. Sleep's Matt Pike
Matt Pike is much like his guitar playing—powerful, blunt, slightly pissed off, and occasionally out of tune. And he’s been playing guitar almost as long as he’s been talking. “My uncle and grandpa used to always play guitar and I just remember loving those times,” says Pike. “Ever since I could handle a guitar, I’ve been playing one.”Pike’s headbanging lineage started in the ’90s with stoner-metal icons Sleep, and after that band’s initial burnout, continued with the ferocious High on Fire. Decades of playing have honed Pike’s perspective about his instrument and music: “Riffs are the conversation starter—that’s what brings people in, but you better have more to offer than just that,” he says. “I create with the guitar and the riff is my illustrative force.” For fans of Pike’s raging riffage, it should be no shock that the frontman/guitarist had enough to say by way of his guitar (and High on Fire lyrics) to populate two new albums: Electric Messiah from High on Fire and Sleep’s The Sciences.
Since the release of those two critically acclaimed albums in 2018, Pike’s vision has been validated by way of a Grammy for Best Metal Performance (Electric Messiah) and dozens of sold-out Sleep shows that have continued to send the doom trio around the world. While the tour that brought Pike, bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros, and drummer Jason Roeder to town was delayed because Pike had one of his toes partially amputated due to diabetes, the pioneering guitarist couldn’t be sidelined for long. “The guitar is a spiritual instrument—it goes from heart, to head, to hands, out the speaker cabs, and into the universe. That directly impacts the people who listen to you—they know if you’re full of shit or not. I’ve always known I was meant to express myself through this 6-string tool. The only constant through addiction, hard times, juvenile delinquency, heartache, and life has been the guitar.”
Before the band’s show at Nashville’s Marathon Music Works, the bare-chested shredder threw on a shirt, strapped on a Les Paul Artisan, and explained to PG’s Chris Kies how Sleep’s aural expeditions are full of patient, spontaneous moments built on a bed of sustain and swirl.
See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
2. Jake E. Lee
Rock guitar icon Jake E. Lee takes Premier Guitar through his powerful rig before the Red Dragon Cartel’s soundcheck at Nashville’s Basement East.See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
1. Tom Morello
During the unrivaled axeman’s solo tour supporting his 2018 album The Atlas Underground, PG’s Chris Kies stood amazed as Tom Morello revealed the tricks that fortified a legacy of riffs in Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Plus, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee member (yes, he knows that Iron Maiden needs to be inducted) breaks down how he’s still aiming to shoot the instrument into the future.See this Rig Rundown's gear gallery.
![Jerry Cantrell Rig Rundown [2024]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/youtube.jpg?id=53714787&width=600&height=600&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C560%2C0)
Stompboxtober is rolling on! Enter below for your chance to WIN today's featured pedal from Peterson Tuners! Come back each day during the month of October for more chances to win!
Peterson StroboStomp Mini Pedal Tuner
| The StroboStomp Mini delivers the unmatched 0.1 cent tuning accuracy of all authentic Peterson Strobe Tuners in a mini pedal tuner format. We designed StroboStomp Mini around the most requested features from our customers: a mini form factor, and top mounted jacks. |
Wonderful array of weird and thrilling sounds can be instantly conjured. All three core settings are colorful, and simply twisting the time, span, and filter dials yields pleasing, controllable chaos. Low learning curve.
Not for the faint-hearted or unimaginative. Mode II is not as characterful as DBA and EQD settings.
$199
EarthQuaker Devices/Death By Audio Time Shadows
earthquakerdevices.com
This joyful noisemaker can quickly make you the ringmaster of your own psychedelic circus, via creative delays, raucous filtering, and easy-to-use, highly responsive controls.
I love guitar chaos, from the expressionist sound-painting of Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” to the clean, clever skronk ’n’ melody of Derek Bailey to the slide guitar fantasias of Sonny Sharrock to the dark, molten eruptions of Sunn O))). When I was just getting a grip on guitar, my friends and I would spend eight-hour days exploring feedback and twisted riffage, to see what we might learn about pushing guitar tones past the conventional.
So, pedals that are Pandora’s boxes of weirdness appeal to me. My two current favorites are my Mantic Flex Pro, a series of filter controls linked to a low-frequency oscillator, and my Pigtronix Mothership 2, a stompbox analog synth. But the Time Shadows II Subharmonic Multi-Delay Resonator is threatening their favored status—or at least demanding a third chair. This collaboration between Death By Audio and EarthQuaker Devices is a wonderful, gnarly little box of noise and fun that—unlike the two pedals I just mentioned—is easy to dial in and adjust on the fly, creating appealing and odd sounds at every turn.
Behind the Wall of Sound
Unlike the Mantic Flex Pro, the Time Shadows is consistent. You can plug the Mantic into the same rig, and that rig into the same outlet, every day, and there are going to be slight—or big—differences in the sound. Those differences are even less predictable on different stages and in different rooms. The Time Shadows, besides its operating consistency, has six user-programmable presets. They write with a single touch of the button in the center of the device’s tough, aluminum 4 3/4" x 2 1/2" x 2 1/4" shell. Inside that shell live ghosts, wind, and unicorns that blow raspberries on cue and more or less on key. EQD and DBA explain these “presences” differently, relating that the Time Shadow’s circuitry combines three delay voices (EQD, II, and DBA) with filters, fuzz, phasing, shimmer, swell, and subharmonics. There’s also an input for an expression pedal, which is great for making the Time Shadows’ more radical sounds voice-like and lending dynamic control. But sustaining a tone sweeping the time, span, and filter dials manually is rewarding on its own, producing a Strickfaden lab’s worth of swirling, sweeping, and dipping sounds.
Guitar Tone from Roswell
Because of the wide variety of sounds, swirls, and shimmers the Time Shadows produces, I found it best to play through a pair of combos in stereo, so the full range of, say, high notes cascading downwards and dropping pitch as they repeat, could be appreciated in their full dimensionality. (That happens in DBA mode, with the time and span at 10 and 4 o’clock respectively, with the filter also at 4, and it’s magical.) The pedal also stands up well to fuzz and overdrives whether paired with humbucker, P-90, or single-coil guitars.
I loved all three modes, but the more radical EQD and DBA positions are especially excellent. The EQD side piles dirt on the incoming signal, adds sub-octave shimmer, and is delayed just before hitting the filters. Keeping the filter function low lends alligator growls to sustained barre chords, and single notes transform into orchestral strings or brass turf, with a soft attack. Pushing the span dial high creates kaleidoscopes of sound. The Death By Audio mode really hones in on the pedal’s delay characteristics, creating crisp repeats and clean sounds with a little less midrange in the filtering, but lending the ability to cut through a mix at volume. The II mode is comparatively clean, and the filter control becomes a mix dial for the delayed signal.
The Verdict
The closest delay I’ve found comparable to the Time Shadows is Red Panda’s function-rich Particle 2 granular delay and pitch-shifter, which also uses filtering, among other tricks. But that pedal has a very deep menu of functions, with a larger learning curve. If you like to expect the unexpected, and you want it now, the Time Shadows supports crafting a wide variety of cool, surprising sounds fast. And that’s fun. The challenge will be working the Time Shadows’ cascading aural whirlpools and dinosaur choirs into song arrangements, but I heard how the pedal could be used to create unique, wonderful pads or bellicose solos after just a few minutes of playing. If you’d like to easily sidestep the ordinary, you might find spelunking the Time Shadows’ cavernous possibilities worthwhile.
This little pedal offers three voices—analog, tape, and digital—and faithfully replicates the highlights of all three, with minimal drawbacks.
Faithful replications of analog and tape delays. Straightforward design.
Digital voice can feel sterile.
$119
Fishman EchoBack Mini Delay
fishman.com
As someone who was primarily an acoustic guitarist for the first 16 out of 17 years that I’ve been playing, I’m relatively new to the pedal game. That’s not saying I’m new to effects—I’ve employed a squadron of them generously on acoustic tracks in post-production, but rarely in performance. But I’m discovering that a pedalboard, particularly for my acoustic, offers the amenities and comforts of the hobbit hole I dream of architecting for myself one day in the distant future.
But by gosh, if delay—and its sister effect, reverb—haven’t always been perfect for the music I like to write and play. Which brings us to the Fishman EchoBack Mini Delay. The EchoBack, along with the standard delay controls of level, time, and repeats—as well as a tap tempo—has a toggle to alternate between analog, tape, and digital-delay voices.
I hooked up my Washburn Bella Tono Elegante to my Blues Junior to give the EchoBack a test run. We love a medium delay—my usual preference for delay settings is to have both level and repeats at 1 o’clock, and time at 11 o’clock. With the analog voice switched on, I heard some pillowy warmth in the processed signal, as well as a familiar degradation with each repeat—until their wake gave way to a gentle, distant, crinkly ticking. Staying on analog and adjusting delay time down to 8 o’clock and repeats to about 11:30, some cozy slapback enveloped my rendition of Johnny Marr’s part to “Back to the Old House,” conjuring up thoughts of Elvis trapped in a small chamber, but in a good way. It sounded indubitably authentic. The one drawback of analog delay for me, generally, is that its roundness can feel a bit under water at times.
Switching over to tape, that pillowy warmth evaporated, and in its place came a very clear replication of my tone—but with just a bit of the highs shaved off the top. With the settings at the medium-length mode listed above, I could see the empty, glass hall the pedal sent my sound bouncing down. I heard several pronounced pings of repeats before the signal fully faded out. On slapback settings (time at 8 o’clock, repeats at 11:30), rather than Elvis, I heard something more along the lines of a honky-tonk mic in a glass bottle. Still relatively crystalline, which actually was not my favorite. I like a bit more crinkle—so maybe analog is my bag....“That pillowy warmth evaporated, and in its place came a very clear, pristine replication of my tone—but with just a bit of the highs shaved off the top.”
Next up, digital. Here we have the brightest voice, and as expected, the most faithful repeats. They ping just a few times before shifting to a smooth, single undulating wave. When putting its slapback hat on, I found that the effect was a bit less alluring than I’d observed for the analog and tape voices. This is where the digital delay felt a little too sterile, with the cleanly preserved signal feeling a bit unnatural.
All in all, I dig the EchoBack for its replications of analog and tape voices, and ultimately, lean towards tape. While it’s nice having the digital delay there as an option, it feels a bit too clean when meddling with time of any given length. Nonetheless, this is surely a handy stomp for any acoustic player looking to venture into the land of live effects, or for those who are already there.
A silicon Fuzz Face-inspired scorcher.
Hot silicon Fuzz Face tones with dimension and character. Sturdy build. Better clean tones than many silicon Fuzz Face clones.
Like all silicon Fuzz Faces, lacks dynamic potential relative to germanium versions.
$229
JAM Fuzz Phrase Si
jampedals.com
Everyone has records and artists they indelibly associate with a specific stompbox. But if the subject is the silicon Fuzz Face, my first thought is always of David Gilmour and the Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii film. What you hear in Live at Pompeii is probably shaped by a little studio sweetening. Even still, the fuzz you hear in “Echoes” and “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”—well, that is how a fuzz blaring through a wall of WEM cabinets in an ancient amphitheater should sound, like the sky shredded by the wail of banshees. I don’t go for sounds of such epic scale much lately, but the sound of Gilmour shaking those Roman columns remains my gold standard for hugeness.
JAM’s Fuzz Phrase Fuzz Face homage is well-known to collectors in its now very expensive and discontinued germanium version, but this silicon variation is a ripper. If you love Gilmour’s sustaining, wailing buzzsaw tone in Pompeii, you’ll dig this big time. But its ’66 acid-punk tones are killer, too, especially if you get resourceful with guitar volume and tone. And while it can’t match its germanium-transistor-equipped equivalent for dynamic response to guitar volume and tone settings or picking intensity, it does not have to operate full-tilt to sound cool. There are plenty of overdriven and near-clean tones you can get without ever touching the pedal itself.
Great Grape! It’s Purple JAM, Man!
Like any Fuzz Face-style stomp worth its fizz, the Fuzz Phrase Si is silly simple. The gain knob generally sounds best at maximum, though mellower settings make clean sounds easier to source. The output volume control ranges to speaker-busting zones. But there’s also a cool internal bias trimmer that can summon thicker or thin and raspy variations on the basic voice, which opens up the possibility of exploring more perverse fuzz textures. The Fuzz Phrase Si’s pedal-to-the-metal tones—with guitar volume and pedal gain wide open—bridge the gap between mid-’60s buzz and more contemporary-sounding silicon fuzzes like the Big Muff. And guitar volume attenuation summons many different personalities from the Fuzz Phrase Si—from vintage garage-psych tones with more note articulation and less sustain (great for sharp, punctuated riffs) as well as thick overdrive sounds.
If you’re curious about Fuzz Face-style circuits because of the dynamic response in germanium versions, the Fuzz Phrase Si performs better in this respect than many other silicon variations, though it won’t match the responsiveness of a good germanium incarnation. For starters, the travel you have to cover with a guitar volume knob to get tones approaching “clean” (a very relative term here) is significantly greater than that required by a good germanium Fuzz Face clone, which will clean up with very slight guitar volume adjustments. This makes precise gain management with guitar controls harder. And in situations where you have to move fast, you may be inclined to just switch the pedal off rather than attempt a dirty-to-clean shift with the guitar volume.
“The best clean-ish tones come via humbuckers and a high-headroom amp with not too much midrange, which makes a PAF-and-black-panel-Fender combination a great fit.”
The best clean-ish tones come via humbuckers and a high-headroom amp with not too much midrange, which makes a PAF-and-black-panel-Fender combination a great fit if you’re out to extract maximum dirty-to-clean range. You don’t need to attenuate your guitar volume as much with the PAF/black-panel tandem, and you can get pretty close to bypassed tone if you reduce picking intensity and/or switch from flatpick to fingers and nails. Single-coil pickups make such maneuvers more difficult. They tend to get thin in a less-than-ideal way before they shake the dirt, and they’re less responsive to the touch dynamics that yield so much range with PAFs. If you’re less interested in thick, clean tones, though, single-coils are a killer match for the Fuzz Phrase Si, yielding Yardbirds-y rasp, quirky lo-fi fuzz, and dirty overdrive that illuminates chord detail without sacrificing attitude. Pompeii tones are readily attainable via a Stratocaster and a high-headroom Fender amp, too, when you maximize guitar volume and pedal gain. And with British-style amps those same sounds turn feral and screaming, evoking Jimi’s nastiest.
The Verdict
Like every JAM pedal I’ve ever touched, the JAM Fuzz Phrase Si is built with care that makes the $229 price palatable. Cheaper silicon Fuzz Face clones may be easy to come by, but I’m hard-pressed to think they’ll last as long or as well as the Greece-made Fuzz Phrase Si. Like any silicon Fuzz Face-inspired design, what you gain in heat, you trade in dynamics. But the Si makes the best of this trade, opening a path to near-clean tones and many in-between gain textures, particularly if you put PAFs and a scooped black-panel Fender amp in the mix. And if streamlining is on your agenda, this fuzz’s combination of simplicity, swagger, and style means paring down pedals and controls doesn’t mean less fun.
