This month we will examine an aspect of distortion that has a substantial amount of control over our sound because it is the last physical component before the signal hits our ears – the speaker. Speakers come in about a million different flavors, and no single design can work in every situation. We must keep in mind that for every purpose or requirement there is likely a type of speaker best suited for the job, plus a bunch of them that simply won’t cut it. Speakers come in many different sizes and compositions, but for guitar and bass applications, we are generally concerned with 8”, 10”, 12” and 15” sizes.
The 8” speaker is usually found on very small amps, such as the Fender Champ, Valcos, or Silvertones. An 8” speaker usually doesn’t sound very good for rock n’ rollers, but sometimes a mini can do well with pedals at low volumes. 10” air pushers find their way into medium amps, and exist in groups of two, four, six or eight. 4x10 cabs can really kick – four 10” speakers move more air than one 15”, which is why we see 4x10 bass cabs in great numbers.
The big 15s are usually relegated to bass, but they can work for guitar. Like the little 8”, try your amp with a 15” speaker and a few pedals. The sound should be perfect for low-end grunge, heavy seven strings and dropped tuning! Try some good, oldfashioned Black Sabbath tunings – total drop to C# – played through a very dark pedal and a 15”. If done correctly, there is the great possibility of trauma for innocent bystanders. In this situation, be careful not to use too much volume and learn to listen for the speaker bottoming out.
That brings us to the 12”– the most common speaker size for guitar. Many 12” models are specific to the guitar, and there are many derivatives within this class. The power handling, ohm load, cone and dust cap types and magnet composition are all variables that must be taken into consideration for achieving a particular sound. For more information on these parameters and how they’ll affect your tone, visit the websites of companies like Celestion, Jensen, Eminence, Weber, Scumback and Tone Tubby. They all have a lot of great information and if you can’t find an answer to your question, look closely, most questions are addressed. Drop a line to Ted at Weber or Jim at Scumback and tell them Sarge sent you.
So what does this all have to do with distortion? Speaker distortion occurs similarly to the over driving of electronics: If a speaker is pushed physically beyond what it can cleanly reproduce, the resulting sound can become distorted as the speaker begins to move “out of round.” An entire speaker typically moves back and forth equally all the way around. Gas ‘em up, and, depending on how well the speaker can deal with the signal, some parts of the cone may move further than other parts, creating distortion. Guitar specific speakers are usually less stiff and have lower tolerances staying true than their counterparts designed for PA or hi-fi use, which is why we can say a Celestion “breaks up” better than a JBL.
It should be noted that speaker distortion exists in a very limited area of musicality. Tube distortion is normally more musical than pedal-derived distortion, with speaker distortion falls last on the list as “musical” however, speaker distortion becomes the icing on the cake when you have great tube distortion. The ability to choose a speaker for its mechanical break up is somewhat arbitrary – it is not dependent on one variable, like speaker size. You need to ask lots of questions. What kind of amp are you using? What kind of guitar tone do you want? How loud do you want it to go before break up? The best way to determine the particulars is to carefully identify what you are looking for in terms of tone and to review the speaker manufacturers’ websites (remember our homework assignment?).
But is over driving your speaker safe? Definitely, as most of our favorite music from the sixties and seventies would attest. Of course, there is a fine line between musical and death to the speaker. Players need to listen to their speaker and become very aware of when it is being pushed too far. For the trained this is instantly obvious; for the unaware, speakers will burn out and put out crummy sound. This is an area that I can get mad as a wet hornet over – more often than I’d like to recall I’ve heard speakers hitting the wall and the player was off in a fog of his/her own fantasy. The key here is to listen and quit “just turning it up to 10.” Great tone is elusive, but it isn’t that hard either. Listen, listen, listen.
Keep in mind that there are no good or bad speakers, unless the speaker is not functioning correctly. Speakers must be used in the application best suited for their design characteristics and the desired sound. Because of that, I have 30-plus amps, five 4x12 cabs, three 4x10 cabs, a 2x15, a single 15, a 6x10, two 2x12s and two single 12” cabs – all with various speaker types. I tend to follow an old maxim:
“How many guitars, amps and speakers does one man need?” “As many as he can get.”
Gary "Sarge" Gistinger
President, Creation Audio Labs, Inc.
creationaudiolabs.com
Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.
Once the news of the Oasis reunion got out, Sadler Vaden hit YouTube hard on the tour bus, driving his bandmates crazy. The Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit guitarist has been a Noel Gallagher mega-fan since he was a teenager, so he joined us to wax poetic about Oasis’ hooks, Noel’s guitar sound, and the band’s symphonic melodies. What are Sadler’s favorite Oasis jams? And if he ever shares a bill with Oasis and they ask him onstage, what song does he want to join in on?
