Larkin Poe’s Rebecca and Megan Lovell join Axe Lords to talk guitars, their new album Bloom, their blood-harmony superpowers, and how building a recording studio with your spouse is a terrific way to test the structural integrity of a relationship—not to mention your credit card limit.
Rebecca walks us through how she became the reluctant lead singer, why she mostly relies on the bridge humbucker in her Strat, and how open tunings both elevate your riffs and ruin your life onstage. Meanwhile, Megan traces her lap-steel journey from a back-breaking vintage Rickenbacker to her signature model Electro-Liege. Warning: You may think you suck at music after she rips an improvised episode outro for us!
Axe Lords is presented in partnership with Premier Guitar. Hosted by Dave Hill, Cindy Hulej and Tom Beaujour. Produced by Studio Kairos. Executive Producer is Kirsten Cluthe. Edited by Justin Thomas at Revoice Media. Engineered by Patrick Samaha. Recorded at Kensaltown East. Artwork by Mark Dowd. Theme music by Valley Lodge.
Follow @axelordspod for updates, news, and cool stuff.
Larkin Poe’s Rebecca and Megan Lovell join Axe Lords to talk guitars, their new album Bloom, their blood-harmony superpowers, and how building a recording studio with your spouse is a terrific way to test the structural integrity of a relationship—not to mention your credit card limit.
Rebecca walks us through how she became the reluctant lead singer, why she mostly relies on the bridge humbucker in her Strat, and how open tunings both elevate your riffs and ruin your life onstage. Meanwhile, Megan traces her lap-steel journey from a back-breaking vintage Rickenbacker to her signature model Electro-Liege. Warning: You may think you suck at music after she rips an improvised episode outro for us!
Axe Lords is presented in partnership with Premier Guitar. Hosted by Dave Hill, Cindy Hulej and Tom Beaujour. Produced by Studio Kairos. Executive Producer is Kirsten Cluthe. Edited by Justin Thomas at Revoice Media. Engineered by Patrick Samaha. Recorded at Kensaltown East. Artwork by Mark Dowd. Theme music by Valley Lodge.
Follow @axelordspod for updates, news, and cool stuff.
Guitar is an unusual instrument, yet somehow we human beings invented it and refined it, both technologically and artistically. There are some days when everything flows, while other days it feels like we’re complete beginners again. This is totally normal. If we really considered how much information our bodies are processing just to be alive in our version of the world, perhaps we’d be a bit kinder to ourselves about our off days and humbler about our good days! I want to share a few perspectives on the core technical aspects of playing that can be helpful to work on and remind ourselves of regularly. Let’s dive in!
Muting
The guitar can be a sensitive instrument. The slightest movements can cause sounds that are both wanted and unwanted to come out. Some of these sounds are natural and part of the character of guitar. However, even though we can’t be perfect we can aim to be as clean as possible in our playing with a few simple maneuvers.
Ensuring the picking hand is covering the strings without bearing down on them too hard keeps the lower strings in check. Depending on your picking-hand style, you can also use the 3rd and 4th fingers to lightly mute the upper three strings.
The fretting hand’s index finger takes control over a lot as well. The fingertip can fret a note on the 5th string and tuck under the 6th string at the same time. The flat side of the index finger from the knuckle area towards the hand can also mute higher strings.
It’s important to consider the type of sound we’re using as well. The more gain or compression we use, the more unwanted noise can come flying out of the guitar. Even with the muting techniques above, if we’re too “hard” with them they can start to create noise themselves. So, keep this in mind.
Less gain gives a more dynamic tone, which is harder to play with, but much easier to control dynamically and keep clean. This isn’t to say it’s better or worse, it’s a stylistic choice. But it’s worth considering how much gain we really do need. Noise gates can help, but they can’t fix or hide poor muting and out of sync hands. (More on keeping sync later in this column.
Keep these muting considerations in mind as we go over the areas of technique to address.
Confidence and Subdivisions
Our fretting hand does a lot of work. Picking synchronization is very important. We’ll look at this next. However, I’ve got some working considerations for the fretting hand.
There are many exercises we can do, but ensuring that you’re not pressing down too hard on the fretboard is the first step. We don’t have to press hard unless we have unreasonably high action. If your action is high and it’s slowing you down, I’d suggest going up a string gauge and lowering the action if you want to keep the “resistance” feel. When we lighten up our touch with the fretting hand, we find that our fingers generally stay closer to the fretboard, which helps with economy of movement.
The next thing to consider is timing. Timing is everything no matter what technique you’re using. If the pistons in the engine aren’t firing at the right time, they’ll go out of sync, all fire at once, and boom, there’s an explosion. I don’t know anything about cars, but it’s an analogy that might make sense. Being aware of the subdivisions you’re playing and where the downbeat is ensures that both hands are confidently making those maneuvers.
Here's an experiment you can try: Take a simple two-octave scale pattern of your choosing. In Ex. 1 I picked a simple D minor scale. The idea is to change subdivisions in each measure. Here, I started with a measure of eighth-notes then went to triplets, back to eighth-notes, 16th-notes, eighth-notes again, and then I wrapped with quarter-notes. No matter where the “1” of the next measure starts within the scale position, we keep the hands synced up. We can make this more complicated by using a sequence of thirds or triads and doing a similar thing. The goal here isn’t to master every position, sequence, and sub-division. It’s to keep testing different areas out, iron out the errors, and keep it fresh. It’s a great warm up when done slow and bound to get you in sync.
Picking Sequences
We also need to do similar things for the picking hand. The same idea we discussed above about subdivisions applies to picking as well. The extra thing to consider of course is pick direction and string skipping.
It’s worth practicing alternate picking here, keeping the confidence and control in place even if purely for technical reasons, to ensure the technique is as even as possible. Take a melody pattern like Ex. 2, where I repeat the same two-measure melody, but I change fingerings in the second half. This changes the amount of picked notes on each string, which changes different aspects of how this melody can feel both technically and from an articulation point of view. A simple way of getting more out of this exercise is to start with an upstroke. With practice, it can be quite an effective picking workout.
String Crossing and Skipping
A lot of guitar playing uses one-note-per-string ideas which can sometimes trip us up. In Ex. 3, I wrote an easy chord progression and created a picking patter that I could alternate pick without losing momentum. It’s a practice that can never get old. Just get creative.
In Ex. 4 we take a minor pentatonic shape (here we are using B minor and F# minor) and move through the pattern with string skipping. A super-simple idea, but worth spending time on. Simple skipping patterns like these keep your playing fresh and focused.
You’re training an impersonal organic system, respect it!
When we’re practicing, we can get quite contracted and tense. There can be a pushiness and anxiety about the process, forcing ourselves through the practice session. We have a lot of internal commentary about how it’s all going, often quite unfair.
“This lick should be fast by now!”
“I don’t have the technique or natural ability to do this.”
“Steve Vai practiced for 10 hours a day, so should I.”
“I’ll never make it as a guitarist.”
All of these thoughts are abstractions as they are not based in reality. What is happening in the moment is practice. Our attention gets divided between these thought patterns and our feeling of anxiety. Very little attention gets spent on really listening and feeling what we’re practicing with no internal commentary. Because of this we become aversive to practice, we feel that practice doesn’t work or that we don’t have a natural ability or talent.
Therefore, wise practice sessions that are simplified and put into short time frames are most effective. It can be helpful to calm ourselves down before practicing so that our practice is effective.
Why do we practice? We practice because it helps us achieve results. We want to play a riff, we listen carefully, we learn the riff, and then we then practice the riff. Generally, that gets results. However, we are impatient. Humans believe that our thoughts can speed up our bodies and brains. This is a misplaced belief. We can set the conditions to get results, but we can’t control the speed at which our body learns. Practicing trains our bodies, our nervous system, our consciousness.
Our bodies are not separate from the world around us; we are what we eat and breathe. Our thoughts are the thoughts we are exposed to, our feelings are consciously and unconsciously triggered by the world around us. We are no different from nature, we are no different from a tree. We don’t will our fingernails to grow, we don’t will our heart and lungs to keeping going. We have no control over our senses, we can’t choose not to hear sounds around us, we can’t choose not to see when we open our eyes. And in the same way, we can’t force our body to speed up.
We must be grateful for the fact we’re alive before we practice, that there’s a body and mind to practice with. Rather than fighting our fingers and our thoughts, we must approach them with compassion. As you’re practicing, your body is busy programming all this information. Just like growing a plant or vegetable, you can set the right conditions, get the soil right, and water it. But you can’t force it to grow immediately, you must treat it with compassion and trust that you’re doing the right process. You can’t plant the seed then as soon as you see any sprouting, start pulling on the sprouts, that will stop growth all together.
In summary: Appreciate your body, your mind, the fact your conscious to even play guitar. Make sure you set reasonable goals in your practice, make your sessions simple and effective. Then, let the practice happen, trust that you’re programming the right information.
For nearly two decades, jazz-fusion collective Snarky Puppy and Audio-Technica have shared a relationship built on trust, innovation and the pursuit of uncompromising sound. That connection is vividly realized on the group’s latest album, Somni, a project that captures Snarky Puppy’s daring compositions and world-class musicianship while pushing technical boundaries in both stereo and immersive formats.
Following the approach of their 2022 LP Empire Central, Somni was recorded in front of a live audience to capture the energy and spontaneity that define the band’s sound. Recorded over three nights in January 2025 in Utrecht, the Netherlands, the sessions united Snarky Puppy with the renowned Metropole Orkest and conductor Jules Buckley. Bandleader Michael League and his ensemble performed the album start to finish as fans surrounded the musicians in the room.
“The idea is that the audience provides energy for the band,” says engineer and longtime collaborator Nic Hard. “That excitement translates into the recordings, keeping the performances fresh and alive.”
To achieve this hybrid recording environment, Hard and his team transformed a nightclub-style venue into a professional studio. The space was fully carpeted, draped, and acoustically treated, with truss-mounted fabric controlling reflections. More than 200 audio channels fed four synchronized Pro Tools systems running at 96 kHz. Because there was no PA system, all 300 audience members monitored the session through Audio-Technica headphones paired with wireless RF packs delivering a custom live mix from front-of-house engineer Michael Harrison.
Audio-Technica products have been integral to Snarky Puppy’s sound for 18 years. For Somni, the band used ATH-M50x Limited Edition Ice Blue headphones for the musicians, ATH-M50x White headphones for the Metropole Orkest, and ATH-M20x Black headphones for the audience. The microphone arsenal included the new ATM355VF compact clip-on cardioid condenser for violinist Zach Brock; AT4081 bidirectional ribbons on horns; AE6100 hypercardioid handhelds for talkback; AT5047 large-diaphragm condensers on vocals and woodwinds; AT5045 instrument condensers for percussion; AT4033a condensers for Hammond organ; and PRO35 condensers across the string section.
“It was absolutely breathtaking to walk into that room,” recalls Roxanne Ricks, Audio-Technica Artist Relations Manager. “Over 300 people seated among the orchestra, every single person wearing A-T headphones with their own personal mix. It was overwhelming in the best possible way. You weren’t just watching a recording session; you were immersed in an incredible experience and part of history.”
Hard notes that mic choice and isolation were crucial in capturing dozens of instruments, four drum kits, violins, and percussion, all sharing the same room. “We relied heavily on AT4050s in the percussion setup, about 20 mics covering 50 to 60 instruments, constantly changing polar patterns between cardioid, omni, and figure-eight depending on the song. For horns, I paired AT4081 ribbons with other condensers, using both for redundancy and to compare bleed. The ribbons sounded fantastic; in the mix I kept about a 50/50 blend of the two.”
The newly introduced Audio-Technica ATM355VF was used on violinist Zach Brock, capturing his acoustic tone alongside a direct signal from his pedalboard. “The acoustic mic added a beautiful detail that the DI alone couldn’t provide,” Hard explains. Ricks adds, “Snarky Puppy has trusted A-T mics for every album project they’ve recorded over the last 18 years, from their earliest tours to Sylva in 2014, and now Somni. Our products have been part of their journey every step of the way.”
Dirk Overeem, staff sound engineer for the Metropole Orkest, served as technical producer and monitor engineer. “Nic and I made a general patch list with all the lines and microphones, and I was glad Audio-Technica once again joined the project,” he recalls. “We needed over 400 headphones for the audience, orchestra, and band. Since then, we’ve used them on every gig. I even mix in them now, since I know them so well.” Overeem praises the ATM355VF’s performance: “For me, its tone was noticeably richer and fuller compared to the PRO35. The mounting system is simple, effective, and very stable, and it allows the player to move freely without affecting tone or introducing unwanted noise.”
After the sessions wrapped, Hard mixed Somni entirely in-the-box at his home studio in Spain, managing more than 200 tracks per song before creating a Dolby Atmos® mix that placed instruments dynamically around the listener. “I wanted to make it as fun as possible without being distracting,” he says. “The four-drummer trading section moves seamlessly around the listener, it’s completely immersive.”
From their earliest collaborations to the ambitious production of Somni, Audio-Technica and Snarky Puppy continue to evolve together. “Audio-Technica provided us with the flexibility and reliability we needed to make such a complex production work,” says Overeem. “From microphones to monitoring headphones, everything delivered.” Ricks concludes, “This project brought together Snarky Puppy, the Metropole Orkest, and an audience of hundreds into one immersive space. Audio-Technica was there not just as a sponsor, but as a partner helping to shape the entire experience. To be in that room, surrounded by sound and energy, was something I’ll never forget.”
With Somni, Snarky Puppy once again demonstrates why they remain one of the most forward-thinking ensembles in music today, and Audio-Technica is proud to continue playing a role in bringing that vision to life.
Monger Pedals has introduced the Snake Wine Fuzz Germanium, a versatile hybrid germanium fuzz pedal.
The pedal represents a dramatic restructuring of Monger’s original Snake Wine Fuzz: the new germanium Snake Wine Fuzz Germanium uses NOS 1T313 germanium transistors in two clipping stages, with a fuzz circuit that is completely redesigned to have deliver improved mid-range presence and a warmer tone. It also cleans up better with your guitar’s volume knob and has more headroom than the original. The new pedal also features a redesigned parallel clean blend and gain that allows you to combine clean and fuzz signals with more precision and clarity.
The Snake Wine Fuzz Germanium features include:
New old stock Russian germanium transistors
Controls for: Volume, Tone, Fuzz, Blend & Gain
Fully parallel Clean Blend & Clean Gain
Focus on a less mid scooped tone stack
Soft switch latching relay true bypass, 9-volt standard DC input, top mounted I/O
The Snake Wine Fuzz Germanium carries a street price of $199 and can be purchased directly from the Monger Pedals online store at www.MongerPedals.com.
