The first scene in Davis Guggenheim’s acclaimed 2008 documentary, It Might Get Loud, shows Jack White stringing a wire across a crusty plank of wood outfitted with a Coke-bottle bridge, a Tele bridge pickup, and nails for a tuner and a tailpiece. It’s possibly the most primal lap-slide ever, but despite its roughness it sounds positively badass through White’s ancient valve amp. What’s more, though the film is chock full of luxurious closeups of the iconic and priceless instruments and amps used by White and guitar gods Jimmy Page and the Edge, this opening scene cuts to the chase in a way we rarely consider: For all the emphasis, time, and money we guitarists put into tonewoods, pickups, amps, tubes, effects, speakers, and even cables, we often spend very little time thinking about the core component without which a guitar simply becomes a collection of wood—strings.
The history of stringed instruments stretches back centuries. For most of that time, strings were created using organic materials, primarily animal hair and intestines. Historians frequently refer to “cat gut” strings, but that’s misleading, because generally the intestines of farm animals such as sheep, lamb, or cattle provided the components for early strings. But that all changed early in the 20th century, when guitar builders began using steel strings to increase durability and volume. Gibson was an early proponent, and C.F. Martin & Co. also transitioned to steel strings in the 1920s.
Guitar-string manufacturers of the era typically evolved from firms producing materials for violins and other instruments. As just one example, the D’Addario family focused on violins before branching out into guitar strings in the 1930s.
As the guitar became more prevalent in the post-war era, the need for accessories grew considerably. In 1962, Ernie Ball capitalized on this need and expanded from just selling instruments in his guitar store to producing strings and accessories.
“Ernie Ball is the pioneer of [the sorts of ] electric guitar strings that you know currently in the shops,” says Derek Brooks, who works in the company’s artist relations department. “All the popular gauges that you see are from Ernie Ball and his forethought into combining string gauges.”
Around the same time, GHS was launched in 1964 in Battle Creek, Michigan. Their Boomer series of strings marked the beginning of major growth for the company. And in 1970, Martin acquired the Darco String Company (which was founded by members of the D’Addario family) and began manufacturing its own strings. Other companies have joined the fray over the decades and, today, an expansive industry produces a wide variety of guitar strings.
One of the more recent developments in string manufacturing and marketing is a focus on maintaining the freshness of the strings, much like beer producers that use tinted bottles, born-on dates, and other strategies to provide a higher-quality product. GHS Strings offers a resealable zipper multipack for storing strings prior to use in order to preserve quality. And Dean Markley’s Blue Steel strings—a game-changing product for the company—were inspired by a scientific magazine article.
“The concept came from an article in Popular Mechanics decades ago about how drill-bit, tool, and die manufacturers were cryogenically freezing their products to maintain their sharp edges, thus increasing the lifespan,” says public relations representative Josh Vittek. “A sidebar to that article mentioned a violinist doing the same to her strings to extend the life and performance. From there, the idea was born.”
Behind the Bullet
Most steel strings are constructed with a brass ball end attached to the string using winds of its core wire. In the early ’70s, unhappy with how ball-end strings would shift inside a Stratocaster trem block—and thus cause tuning problems when players worked their wang bars—engineers at Fender developed the Super Bullet string. These have a cylindrical piece of brass clamped directly onto the string (left). As shown in the trem cross-section, the “bullet” sits snuggly in the string channel, reducing movement and improving transfer of string vibration to the bridge.
Frozen strings are just one of the myriad considerations that manufacturers use to improve and differentiate their products. Indeed, the massive variety of options can be daunting, especially to beginners. With all the different gauges, materials, marketing tactics, packaging considerations, and swag offers, the “string wall” at your local retailer—that mecca of spooled wire and prophylactic-like packaging behind the counter—can be intimidating and overwhelming enough as to be more akin to a wailing wall.
“It’s like the toothpaste aisle,” says John Biggs, a tech journalist and hobbyist guitar player. “Intellectually, I know there’re different ingredients and formulas in the tubes. One’s for whitening, one’s for cavity control … but on an emotional level, I stand there and wonder if there is really any difference at all.”
No doubt similar reasoning guides many guitarists to just stick with whatever brand of strings accompanied their guitar, whatever their favorite player uses, or whatever happens to be on sale. For many, that initial strumming in the guitar store establishes a sort of template in the musician’s mind for what the instrument should sound like.
Tim McNair, general manager of Martin’s string division, relates the story of a collector who purchased a new Martin and then contacted the factory about getting additional strings. “I sent him our Clapton’s Choice strings,” says McNair. “He calls me up a couple of days later after he got the strings and he says, ‘You broke my guitar. This is not the guitar I bought.’ I explained that, no, those are not the strings that came on the guitar in the dealership. So I sent him [a set of ] the 4100s we had on that guitar at the time, and he calls and says, ‘You fixed it.’ I don’t think people realize that the set of strings affects how the guitar sounds.”
Construction Types
To understand strings, there are a few somewhat
technical areas to get a handle on,
including how strings are made. What we
consider to be a simple guitar string is actually
the fusion of two main components.
First, there is the core wire—basically the inner foundation of the product. Some string companies use a hexagonal (six-sided) core, others use a round core.
“You have to marry the tensile strength against the flexibility of the core wire,” says Martin’s McNair. “If you get it too stiff, it’s not going to play well—the vibrations start to slow down, and you don’t get as much pressure against the fret.”
Second, there is the wrap material that encircles the core. The shape of this wrap material often drives the designation of how a string is “wound.”
Roundwound strings are constructed by wrapping a round metal wire around the core (imagine a spaghetti noodle twined around a chopstick). They are the most common string type today, and they’re considered a good, all-purpose option for multiple genres of music.
Flatwound strings are constructed by wrapping a flat, ribbon-like material around the core (imagine a linguine noodle around the chopstick). They produce warm, somewhat subdued-sounding tones often preferred by jazz players.
Halfwound strings combine the qualities of roundwounds and flatwounds. In fact, some manufacturers take a roundwound string and grind off the edges. This produces a string that offers reduced finger squeak.
Although these three types represent the overwhelming majority of strings on the market, some companies are exploring new winding methods. For example, Dean Markley’s Helix HD line uses a wrapping material that has an elliptical shape. Further, Rotosound’s Jason How adds that machinery and construction speed are also important factors. “Rotosound is one of a few string manufacturers that designs and builds all its own machinery entirely in-house. This means we can control and adapt to every possible function of the string—tension-control management, wrap-wire angles, wrap speed etc. … Many string companies wind their strings at ridiculously high spindle speeds to achieve efficiencies. We have a unique system that allows us to run the machines at the perfect slower speed to produce a superior product and still achieve maximum output.”
Metal Types
What your strings’ individual components
are made from affects the final sound at least
as much as the type of construction. Most
manufacturers use steel cores but employ
numerous combinations of metals and alloys
to produce a wide range of tones across
their product lines. It’s a bit like the contestants
in a chili cook off, where some prefer
cayenne, some use red pepper, and others
choose paprika to augment their cherished
recipes. Guitar string producers do the same
thing, just with more volume.
Steel is used for a bright, crunchy tone.
Nickel, once the industry standard, is used for a slightly warmer, “vintage” tone.
Down to the Wire
Gauges, Tension, and the Core-to-Wrap Ratio
Guitarists are typically used to thinking about string tension—that
is, how easy or difficult a set of strings is to play—in terms of
gauge. For instance, tuned to high E, a plain .011 string has more tension
than a .009 made of the same material—a fact our fingers can easily
confirm. However, when it comes to wound strings, there’s more to
the question of tension and feel than meets the eye. It’s true that, tuned
to low E, a .048 string feels tighter than a .046. But can there be a difference
in tension between .046 strings made by different companies,
assuming they’re on identical guitars and tuned to the same pitch?
The answer is yes, and although the differences may be subtle, it’s an area worth exploring. As you can see when you clip a wound string and peer at its cross section, it comprises two elements: the core wire and wrap wire. To achieve a given string gauge, manufacturers may vary the ratio between these two wires. One brand may have a thicker core and thinner wrap, while another may use a slightly thinner core but make up the difference in diameter by using a bigger wrap.
These differences affect feel, explains Eric Cocco, vice-president of LaBella Strings. “The tension of a musical string can be adjusted by simply combining different core and wrap wires. This can also be varied by using different tensile strength for the core and wrap wires. As an example, an electric guitar gauge of .042 can be made by using a .016 core and a .013 wrap wire. Another way of building that string could be with a .019 core and a .0115 wrap. The gauge would be the same— .042—but the string with the .019 core would be much stiffer.”
The core-to-wrap ratio also impacts tone. “You want a significant mass on the winding,” says Jason Everly, president of Cleartone Strings, “because that’s what makes the sound waves. The thicker the mass of the wrap, relative to the size of the string, the more audible low-end frequencies you’re going to get. You’re trying to get close to a 1-to-1 ratio between core and wrap wires—at least on an acoustic string—but that’s difficult because the wrap wire will shear the core wire when you reach that ratio. So that’s the game, and everyone has their own top-secret formula as to how they overcome this and how they adjust for it.”
If you’re interested in fine-tuning your guitar’s playability and tone, it pays to experiment. Companies put a lot of thought into how they manufacture wound strings, and the core-to-wrap ratio is an important factor in their designs. —Andy EllisBronze refers to a mixture of metals, frequently a combination of copper, zinc, brass, or other materials. It’s generally used as a wrap for acoustic-guitar strings to provide bright, crisp tones with good volume and projection.
Phosphor-bronze combines phosphor with bronze to increase the durability. It’s also generally used for acoustic guitar strings to provide a combination of brightness and warmth.
Gauges
Perhaps the most common terms you’ll hear
guitarists use when talking about strings
are their gauge—that is, how thick each
one is. You might hear a fan of shredding
metal solos saying, “I play eights” or “I play
nines,” which is simplified guitar speak for
saying they prefer using a set of strings that
has a .008" or .009" high-E (or 1st) string.
Lighter gauges (.008 or .009 sets for electric, or .010 or .011 set for acoustic) are easier to play and most appropriate for newer guitar players. The most common gauge sets for electric guitarists in general are .010 sets, but some blues and jazz players often play .011, .012, or .013 sets because they tend to yield a more taut and burly tone. Fans of detuned metal or baritone guitar also play heavier sets out of necessity—thinner gauges are too slack and lose their pitch too easily when tuned to lower registers.
As for acoustic guitar, .012s are the most common sets for two reasons: First, most acoustic players don’t play electriclike leads on their flattops, so they don’t need them to be as easy to shred on. Second, more of your tone is generated directly by the physics of the guitar body with an acoustic, and heavier strings yield a richer, more robust acoustic tone.
As we mentioned above, keep in mind that these single-number designations (e.g., “I play .011s”) are just ballpark figures, because virtually every string manufacturer makes at least a couple of varieties of sets in each general gauge range. For example, both Dunlop’s Medium sets and its Light/Heavy sets have .010, .013, and .017 gauges for the top three strings, but the Mediums have .026, .036, and .046 gauges for the lower three strings, while the Light/Heavies have .030, .042, and .052 gauges for a little extra oomph on the E, A, and D strings.
In the past, players were constrained by manufacturer offerings in terms of gauges, but today, there is an almost limitless palette. “Throughout most of the 20th century, standardized electric and acoustic guitar gauges were sufficient,” says Brian Vance, director of product management at D’Addario. “However, today there are so many popular styles and trends that it is often necessary for players to go outside of standard gauge sets to get the effect they desire. Whether it’s for open tunings, drop tunings, baritone guitars, 5-string guitars, 7-string guitars, or a variety of other reasons, many players are opting to go their own way and customize their string selection.”
Coatings
Many guitar string brands offer sets that are
treated with a variety of proprietary coatings
and polymers to reduce corrosion, fret wear,
and the audible squeaking sounds players
sometimes experience as they slide their
fingers from one neck position to another.
Some players dislike coated strings (although
they seem to be more widely used in the
acoustic realm) claiming they muffle the
string’s natural tone or sometimes have a
bit of a sticky feel. However, some manufacturers
claim there isn’t an appreciable
difference, while others say a different feel
was precisely the goal for developing coated
strings in the first place.
“It’s about giving players options,” says Steve R. Rosenberg, project manager at Elixir Strings, the company that pioneered coated strings. “Originally, it was about the feel of the string—the idea that it gave you a different feel. [But] after tens of thousands of strings, [we realized] this long-tone-life benefit trumped the original concept.”
Today, depending on target markets and branding strategies, some companies choose to highlight the difference of a coated string while others downplay the difference between the playability of coated versus uncoated.
D’Addario’s Vance says, “Our EXP coated [acoustic] strings look, sound, and feel like traditional strings, while providing a barrier against corrosion and wear. They retain their new-string tone and last three to four times longer than traditional strings.”
Actual coating methodologies vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Elixir Strings, for example, owns a patent on materials and technologies that coat the strings’ cracks and crevices.
“As you play, dirt and gunk accumulates between the windings, in the gaps,” says Elixir’s Rosenberg. “What that does is add mass, but more importantly, it’s restricting the motion so your string can’t freely vibrate. That’s what’s causing those highs to roll off and lose that bright tone people are looking for. Unless you are protecting the gap between the winding—physically preventing material from accumulating—you’re not significantly changing tone life.”
Colored strings, such as the Neon series from DR Strings or the guitar and bass sets from Strings by Aurora, illustrate another reason to balance coating size with playability and longevity. While enabling players to customize instrument appearance, colored strings also reveal the worn spots. “If you have a coating you’re saying is really thin, but you can’t tell it’s there, if you put pigment in it, you’d see how fast it went away,” says Thomas Klukosky, factory manager at DR. “If you’re going super thin—down to micron coatings—you’ll rub off the plating. As soon as your string hits the fret, it starts wearing away whatever the string is made of.”
Machinery and construction practices factor into quality of string production, says Jason How
of Rotosound, which controls all of its hardware in-house, from machine design to operation
speed. Photos courtesy of Rotosound
Smart Tools to Aid Your Search
Big-name guitarists (and their techs) get
courted by reps from every imaginable string
company, so they have it a bit easier when
it comes to selecting their go-to strings. But
how should a weekend warrior go about it?
“Patiently,” says Dean Markley’s Vittek. “Developing as a musician is a long process. Finding the tools you need to do so can be even longer. Try them all. Trial and error will be the only way you come to a conclusion of what string works best for you.”
Russ McFee, president of GHS Strings, agrees with the trial-and-error nature of the process. “The best advice is to experiment. Strings feel different to every player, and you have to find the one that fits your own playing. In our opinion, a new player should keep the gauge of the string on the lighter side—for both electric and acoustic. As the player gets more experience, then he or she can try heavier gauges for a little more punch and volume or for different tunings.”
Many guitar companies help beginners via interactive website tools that help you zero-in on a particular type of string. For example, GHS features a graphic of a string delineated with various string models along a continuum from bright to mellow. D’Addario’s website has a similar string-selection tool that also enables you to add filters for coating, wrap material, and construction. Ernie Ball offers three different web tools: The Tone Universe and String Player offer different ways to listen to clean or distorted recordings (single-string or chord) of various string types, while the String Finder lets you reference the company’s diverse roster of famous endorsees to help you decide which string type and gauge might work for you.
The Future of Strings
The string industry has invested millions
of dollars in research and development to
bring us some pretty cool innovations over
the years—innovations that are easy to
take for granted or overlook. A medieval
traveling minstrel accustomed to stretching
gut strings across his lute would be
shocked at the variety and combinations
of alloys, gauges, and coatings available in
the 21st century. And if one thing’s for sure
after talking to reps from so many of these
companies, it’s that we can count on them
continuing to blaze new trails.
“There is room for improvement in the areas of corrosion-resistant materials and processes, new alloys with varying tone and texture characteristics, and more variations based on the feel and tension of the strings,” says D’Addario’s Brian Vance.
Some industry experts even predict that younger players will come to expect features that traditionalists dismiss today. Further, society’s increasing awareness of environmental citizenship may also influence the future of guitar strings.
“I think a lot of companies are becoming more environmentally aware than ever,” says Russ McFee from GHS. “We continually look at ways to improve the process and cut down on material waste while maintaining a high-quality guitar string. The packaging that companies use will continue to evolve and be redesigned as we move forward, offering some exciting opportunities.”
In that initial It Might Get Loud scene, Jack White nails down a thick, heavy-duty wire that seems better suited to industrial lighting applications than music. In future generations, the same scene might be filmed with a gossamer thin fluorescent strand that seems as fragile as a spider web but is strong as steel. But whatever the future technologies, the string will remain as integral as ever—after all, there’s a reason one of our favorite nicknames for the instrument is “the 6-string.”
Killswitch Engage are, from left to right, Justin Foley on drums, guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz, vocalist Jesse Leach, bassist Mike D’Antonio, and guitarist Joel Stroetzel.
As a result, Killswitch Engage’s ninth full-length LP, This Consequence, has all the hallmarks of a band meeting its moment. It’s been nearly a quarter-century since they released their eponymous debut, and they’ve subsequently achieved a career-sustaining amount of success as one of the main architects of the metalcore genre, but This Consequence is likely their first album to highlight such a clearly articulated, socially conscious through line.
Lyrically, cause-and-effect is a driving theme on This Consequence, and Killswitch Engage (KSE) captures the zeitgeist of the 2020s with incisive, often cautionary, commentary regarding topics like war, hatred, division, and falling in line. Musically, the band has channeled those same sources of inspiration into performances that feel more urgent, and thus more sincere, creating a viscerally brutal yet brilliantly melodic slab of postmodern metalcore. KSE has long held a reputation for having a good time and riling up crowds with uncontainable energy and unpredictable performances, but it’s been hard to ignore the degradation of discourse in this country over the last decade, even for these renowned ringmasters.
KSE was formed in 1999 in Westfield, Massachusetts, from the remnants of Overcast and Aftershock, two prominent local metal bands. KSE’s early lineup featured founding members Dutkiewicz on drums and Mike D’Antonio on bass, along with vocalist Jesse Leach and guitarist Joel Stroetzel. The fledgling band quickly gained attention for its mix of melodic and death-metal influences: a musical amalgamation that would become the template for metalcore. The band’s second album, 2002’s Alive or Just Breathing, was pivotal, marking a major shift in their sound and identity, with a dual-guitar attack leading the charge. In order to accurately render that album in concert, Dutkiewicz switched to guitar, and they brought in Tom Gomes on drums. The record includes some of the band’s most iconic songs to date, including, “My Last Serenade,” “Fixation on the Darkness,” and “The Element of One.” Adopting a two-guitar approach was a masterstroke and Alive or Just Breathing has since become one of metalcore’s most definitive albums, blending deft, tightly synchronized guitar riffs with battering rhythms, guttural verses, melodic choruses, and a hardcore punk attitude. It was a winning formula that enabled KSE to build a huge fan base.
“Everything I bring to the table, I tell them, ‘We can throw it away.’”–Adam Dutkiewicz
In 2004, they released The End of Heartache, their first to feature Howard Jones on lead vocals and Justin Foley on drums. The album reached No. 21 on the Billboard200 and earned a Best Metal Performance Grammy nomination for the title track. Songs like “When Darkness Falls” and “Rose of Sharyn” continued to elevate KSE’s status within the metalcore hierarchy. In 2009, Jones left and Leach returned. Disarm the Descent was released in 2013 and debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard200, marking the band’s highest charting debut to that point. Incarnate followed in 2016, and then Atonement, their first release on Metal Blade, in 2019. KSE was on a roll with Leach firmly back in the fold, and ready to tour when the pandemic struck. During the downtime, inspiration hit, so they regrouped, wrote, rehearsed, and eventually recorded This Consequence. Songs like “Aftermath,” “Abandon Us,” and “Broken Glass” exemplify the kind of relatable cultural commentary that can be cathartic for today’s disenfranchised—especially when paired with the band’s other equally memorable musical attributes.
In riffs they trust: Killswitch Engage’s Adam Dutkiewicz (left) and Mike Stroetzel prefer strong, arranged guitar parts that create scenes within arrangements, rather than flash shredding.
Photo by Mike White
The writing and rehearsal process for This Consequence was the first time since Alive or Just Breathing that all five members convened in a studio to work out the material before recording. Like many artists nowadays, KSE had been writing and recording remotely for at least the last decade. Stroetzel says it was great to be able to work on the tunes together, in the same room, and that, musically, it allowed the arrangements to come together a little bit faster. “Especially the songs that were only partially finished,” chimes in Dutkiewicz. In addition to his role on guitar, Dutkiewicz has been the band’s producer—his major at Berklee—almost since inception. Perhaps having a skill set with that kind of overview is why he’s also the only member of the group to craft fully fleshed-out songs on his own. And yet, even he recognizes how his material benefitted from their rehearsal process this time. “It was really good for everybody in the band to get their hands on their instruments, learn the riffs, and then tweak them to their level of comfort,” he says. “They’re more invested in the song that way because their voice and their sound is on it. And when we play the song live, it’s more their song, instead of that song that Adam wrote.”
“A tight staccato section needs a wide, harmonically rich section to complement it. We try our best to have scenes in a song like that.”–Adam Dutkiewicz
The cultural continuity of the lyrics on This Consequence didn’t just come about by happenstance, either. It’s not a concept album per se, but the band encouraged Leach to continually refine his lyrics and elevate his ideas and topics. “When you’re writing lyrics for that many songs at once, it’s easy to fall into the tendency of writing about the same topics, with the same vibe,” says Dutkiewicz. “He just needed to try something completely different.” As a result, Leach tapped into his own angst about the current state of world affairs, bestowing upon This Consequence the kind of social relevance that previous KSE albums never quite captured so succinctly. “Jesse gets the gold star for trying the hardest,” commends Dutkiewicz.
Per usual, Adam Dutkiewicz served as producer for the new album, but engineer Mark Lewis at MRL Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, played a significant role in determining its final sonic character.
Dutkiewicz isn’t particularly attached to his own musical ideas or songs and admits he’s willing to deconstruct just about anything for the good of the group, even after he’s submitted a complete demo to the rest of the guys. “Everything I bring to the table, I tell them, ‘We can throw it away.’ I think a big part of being an artist is just the creation of things and sometimes the destruction of things.” Dutkiewicz’s willingness to analyze material from that perspective is part of what makes him such a good de facto producer for the band. “It’s just not having an ego about anything,” he says. “You always have to remember you have to do what’s best for the song and not for my riff.” Another theme that runs through KSE songs on This Consequence, and in general, is how their arrangements work. They employ a visual, almost cinematic approach to production and songcraft. “It’s almost like you want scenes in a song,” explains Dutkiewicz. “A tight staccato section needs a wide, harmonically rich section to complement it. We try our best to have scenes in a song like that.”
“We play together a little behind the beat now. Before, we were fighting each other a little bit.”—Joel Stroetzel
Dutkiewicz and Stroetzel have been playing guitar together since long before the release of Alive or Just Breathing, mostly because the former has always worn multiple hats within the band, and share many of the same influences, including Megadeth, Slayer, Testament, Sepultura, and especially Metallica. They both credit James Hetfield for setting the bar when it comes to their own obsession with fast, articulate rhythm-guitar playing. As Stroetzel got older he gravitated towards classic rock, especially Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. “Now I can play things other than metal,” he jokes. Dutkiewicz, on the other hand, got into the classic stuff at a younger age, citing his early infatuation with Eddie Van Halen and Angus Young. “It’s more so Angus Young’s spirit and onstage attitude,” he clarifies. Dutkiewicz’s high-energy stage presence validates that sentiment.
Adam Dutkiewicz’s Gear
Adam Dutkiewicz, telegraphing his love of suds, onstage at Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theatre in February 2022, playing his Caparison TAT Special FX “Metal Machine” with Fishman Fluence Signature Series Killswitch Engage Pickups.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Guitars
- Caparison TAT Special FX “Metal Machine” with Fishman Fluence Signature Series Killswitch Engage Pickups
Amps
- Kemper Profiler
- Kemper Stage
- Mesa/Boogie 4x12 cabs with Celestion speakers
Effects
- Electro-Harmonix Magnum 44 Power Amp
- Maxon OD808 Overdrive
Strings, Picks, Microphones, &
Accessories
- D’Addario EXL115 XL Nickel Wound (.011– .049)
- In-Tune XJ Jazz 1.14 mm
- Shure ULXD and GLXD wireless systems
- sE V7 Dynamic Microphones
- D’Addario Planet Waves cables
Stroetzel confesses that it took some time to develop into the symbiotic guitar tandem that’s become a signature musical element of the KSE sound. “We play together a little behind the beat now,” he explains. “Before, we were fighting each other a little bit. I always thought Adam had a very forward style with his picking, but he’s mellowed over the years. I had to pick up the pace a little, Adam relaxed a little bit, and I think we found a happy midpoint. It only took 25 years [laughter].” Part of the challenge has been adapting to how the other person writes. “I struggle with some of Joel’s articulate phrasing sections,” explains Dutkiewicz. “I’m just a big mangler and he’s got these well-phrased sections. And I’m just like, ‘God, ah.’ He plays a lot more guitar than me, so his string skipping and pick phrasing is way beyond what I’m capable of doing.” Stroetzel says he struggles with some of Dutkiewicz’s chord voicings because he has such big hands. “Some of these chords he can reach, I’m like, ‘Man, how do you even do that?’”
“Just hearing the Kemper for the first time, and what it could actually do, was pretty impressive, especially for high-gain tone.”—Joel Stroetzel
Surprisingly, however, they don’t actually even take guitar solos in the traditional sense. “We’re not necessarily looking to throw leads on everything,” admits Dutkiewicz. “To us, it’s just a musical interlude. You can’t have vocals [constantly] for three minutes and 30 seconds, so it’s just a quick little side journey in the song.” One of the closest things to an actual guitar solo is probably on the opening track “Abandon Us,” right after the first chorus, which features the nimble-fingered fretwork of Dutkiewicz, but even that’s more like a short detour than a bona fide lead break. Instead, they tend to incorporate a lot of Thin Lizzy/Iron Maiden-style harmony parts and deploy single-note phrases, counter melodies, and sub-hooks to the vocals in bridges and choruses, weaving a layered tapestry of melodic ear candy. Songwriting is ultimately their primary focus, and the songs are relatively short and to the point for a metal band, so there doesn’t seem to be a need to clutter things up with unnecessary solos. When it comes to crafting such parts, the general rule of thumb for assigning these melodious forays is whoever writes the song, or initiates the song idea, does the honors. And so, songs like “Discordant Nation,” “I Believe,” and “Requiem” highlight Stroetzel’s nuanced lyrical phrases, while “Abandon Us” and “Where It Dies” feature Dutkiewicz’s more shred-like soloing style.
When it comes to tone, Stroetzel in particular remains a big fan of tube amps, and the band has a long history of utilizing heads from boutique manufacturers like Diezel, Framus, and Friedman. In recent years, however, software sounds have gotten much better, and they’ve gravitated towards profiling amps and plugins, especially live. “Just hearing the Kemper for the first time, and what it could actually do, was pretty impressive, especially for high-gain tone,” explains Stroetzel. “If you want an aggressive metal tone, I think the Kemper does a nice job capturing that, and it works great live—we’re consistent from night to night.” And besides, they both openly admit it’s not like KSE requires a lot of nuanced technique. “We don’t have very delicate parts in our songs,” jokes Dutkiewicz. “Even our clean tones aren’t very touch sensitive.”
Joel Stroetzel's Gear
Joel Stroetzel, here, and Adam Dutkiewicz both play signature-model Caparison guitars. Stroetzel’s is a Dellinger-JSM V2.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Guitars
- Caparison Dellinger-JSM V2 with Fishman Fluence Signature Series Killswitch Engage Pickups
Amps
- Kemper Profiler
- Kemper Stage
- Mesa/Boogie 4x12 cabs with Celestion speakers
Effects
- Electro-Harmonix Magnum 44 Power Amp
- Maxon OD808 Overdrive
Strings, Picks, Microphones, &
Accessories
- D’Addario EXL115 XL Nickel Wound (.011–.049)
- D’Addario Duralin Black Ice 1.10 mm
- Shure ULXD and GLXD wireless systems
- sE V7 Dynamic Microphones
- D’Addario Planet Waves cables
Dutkiewicz says that what listeners end up hearing, tone-wise, is ultimately up to whoever mixes the album, which, in the case of This Consequence, was Mark Lewis at MRL Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. Aside from that, everything else is very cut-and-dried. Stroetzel says there’s always a Maxon OD808 on everything they do that’s dirty. “Throw a little bit of that boost in there, and it just kind of compresses the tone a little bit and brings out the midrange a little more,” he explains. “And then, all we really need is a noise gate. That’s it.” They both play Caparison signature model guitars, incorporating elements of other instruments they’ve played over the years. “I’ve always liked Fender-style guitars—Strats and Teles,” says Stroetzel. “So, my signature model is constructed with those in mind, but to sound a little bit thicker and have some thunder in the low end, like a hot-rod metal guitar.” Dutkiewicz says his guitar was designed with simplicity in mind. “I was ruining guitars on tour,” he admits. “I had a bolt-on once, and my sweat got into the bolt holes and it actually rotted out. I couldn’t believe it. Sweat was getting in the cavity of the guitar, and it was cutting out the pickups and causing corrosion on the electronics inside. So, I got rid of the neck pickup and made it a neck-through. I’m a mangler, so it’s loud, bright, and obnoxious, just like me [laughter].”
As for their revered place in the pantheon of metalcore, Stroetzel takes the humble approach, as many in his position often do, saying they’re not really concerned with putting a label on KSE. “We all just try to put in elements of what we like,” he says. “Everybody in the band has listened to so many different types of music over the years. It’s like, ‘Who cares if this is a hardcore song or a thrash song?’ It doesn’t really matter. I don’t think we’ve ever tried to stick to a specific style. We’re just a rock band.”
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In this full-set performance from 2023’s Wacken Open Air festival in Itzehoe, Germany, Killswitch Engage dances the line between beauty and brutality.
The National New Yorker lived at the forefront of the emerging electric guitar industry, and in Memphis Minnie’s hands, it came alive.
(Are you not totally intrigued by the story of this incredible woman? Why did she run away from home? Why did she fall in love with the guitar? We haven’t even touched on how remarkable her songwriting is. This is a singular pioneer of guitar history, and we beseech you to read Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie’s Blues by Beth and Paul Garon.)
Following the end of World War I, Hawaiian music enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity. On their travels around the U.S., musicians like Sol Ho’opi’i became fans of Louis Armstrong and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, leading to a great cross-pollination of Hawaiian music with jazz and blues. This potent combination proved popular and drew ever-larger audiences, which created a significant problem: How on earth would an audience of thousands hear the sound from a wimpy little acoustic guitar?
This art deco pickguard offers just a bit of pizzazz to an otherwise demure instrument.
In the late 1920s, George Beauchamp, John and Rudy Dopyera, Adolph Rickenbacker, and John Dopyera’s nephew Paul Barth endeavored to answer that question with a mechanically amplified guitar. Working together under Beauchamp and John Dopyera’s National String Instrument Corporation, they designed the first resonator guitar, which, like a Victrola, used a cone-shaped resonator built into the guitar to amplify the sound. It was definitely louder, but not quite loud enough—especially for the Hawaiian slide musicians. With the guitars laid on their laps, much of the sound projected straight up at the ceiling instead of toward the audience.
Barth and Beauchamp tackled this problem in the 1930s by designing a magnetic pickup, and Rickenbacker installed it in the first commercially successful electric instrument: a lap-steel guitar known affectionately as the “Frying Pan” due to its distinctive shape. Suddenly, any stringed instrument could be as loud as your amplifier allowed, setting off a flurry of innovation. Electric guitars were born!
“At the time it was positively futuristic, with its lack of f-holes and way-cool art deco design on the pickup.”
By this time, Memphis Minnie was a bona fide star. She recorded for Columbia, Vocalion, and Decca Records. Her song “Bumble Bee,” featuring her driving guitar technique, became hugely popular and earned her a new nickname: the Queen of Country Blues. She was officially royalty, and her subjects needed to hear her game-changing playing. This is where she crossed paths with our old pals over at National.
National and other companies began adding pickups to so-called Spanish guitars, which they naturally called “Electric Spanish.” (This term was famously abbreviated ES by the Gibson Guitar Corporation and used as a prefix on a wide variety of models.) In 1935, National made its first Electric Spanish guitar, renamed the New Yorker three years later. By today’s standards, it’s modestly appointed. At the time it was positively futuristic, with its lack of f-holes and way-cool art deco design on the pickup.
There’s buckle rash and the finish on the back of the neck is rubbed clean off in spots, but that just goes to show how well-loved this guitar has been.
Memphis Minnie had finally found an axe fit for a Queen. She was among the first blues guitarists to go electric, and the New Yorker fueled her already-upward trajectory. She recorded over 200 songs in her 25-year career, cementing her and the National New Yorker’s place in musical history.
Our National New Yorker was made in 1939 and shows perfect play wear as far as we’re concerned. Sure, there’s buckle rash and the finish on the back of the neck is rubbed clean off in spots, but structurally, this guitar is in great shape. It’s easy to imagine this guitar was lovingly wiped down each time it was put back in the case.
There’s magic in this guitar, y’all. Every time we pick it up, we can feel Memphis Minnie’s spirit enter the room. This guitar sounds fearless. It’s a survivor. This is a guitar that could inspire you to run away and join the circus, transcend genre and gender, and leave your own mark on music history. As a guitar store, watching guitars pass from musician to musician gives us a beautiful physical reminder of how history moves through generations. We can’t wait to see who joins this guitar’s remarkable legacy.
SOURCES: blackpast.org, nps.gov, worldmusic.net, historylink.org, Memphis Music Hall of Fame, “Memphis Minnie’s ‘Scientific Sound’: Afro-Sonic Modernity and the Jukebox Era of the Blues” from American Quarterly, “The History of the Development of Electric Stringed Musical Instruments” by Stephen Errede, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL.
We know Horsegirl as a band of musicians, but their friendships will always come before the music. From left to right: Nora Cheng, drummer Gigi Reece, and Penelope Lowenstein.
“It was kind of life-changing, honestly. It changed how I thought about womanhood,” Lowenstein says over the call, laughing a bit at the gravitas of the statement.
But the moment of levity illuminates the fact that big things are happening in their lives. When they released their debut album, 2022’s Versions of Modern Performance, the three members of Horsegirl were still teenagers in high school. Their new, sophomore record, Phonetics On and On, arrives right in the middle of numerous first experiences—their first time living away from home, first loves, first years of their 20s, in university. Horsegirl is going through changes. Lowenstein notes how, through moving to a new city, their friendship has grown, too, into something more familial. They rely on each other more.
“If the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band, without any doubt.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“Everyone's cooking together, you take each other to the doctor,” Lowenstein says. “You rely on each other for weird things. I think transitioning from being teenage friends to suddenly working together, touring together, writing together in this really intimate creative relationship, going through sort of an unusual experience together at a young age, and then also starting school together—I just feel like it brings this insane intimacy that we work really hard to maintain. And if the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band without any doubt.”
Horsegirl recorded their sophomore LP, Phonetics On and On, at Wilco’s The Loft studio in their hometown, Chicago.
These changes also include subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in their sophisticated and artful guitar-pop. Versions of Modern Performance created a notion of the band as ’90s college-rock torchbearers, with reverb-and-distortion-drenched numbers that recalled Yo La Tengo and the Breeders. Phonetics On and On doesn’t extinguish the flame, but it’s markedly more contemporary, sacrificing none of the catchiness but opting for more space, hypnotic guitar lines, and meditative, repeated phrases. Cheng and Lowenstein credit Welsh art-pop wiz Cate Le Bon’s presence as producer in the studio as essential to the sonic direction.
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little.”–Nora Cheng
“We had never really let a fourth person into our writing process,” Cheng says. “I feel like Cate really changed the way we think about how you can compose a song, and built off ideas we were already thinking about, and just created this very comfortable space for experimentation and pushed us. There are so many weird instruments and things that aren't even instruments at [Wilco’s Chicago studio] The Loft. I feel like, definitely on our first record, we were super hesitant to go into territory that wasn't just distorted guitar, bass, and drums.”
Nora Cheng's Gear
Nora Cheng says that letting a fourth person—Welsh artist Cate Le Bon—into the trio’s songwriting changed how they thought about composition.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Devices Plumes
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- TC Electronic Polytune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
Phonetics On and On introduces warm synths (“Julie”), raw-sounding violin (“In Twos”), and gamelan tiles—common in traditional Indonesian music—to Horsegirl’s repertoire, and expands on their already deep quiver of guitar sounds as Cheng and Lowenstein branch into frenetic squonks, warped jangles, and jagged, bare-bones riffs. The result is a collection of songs simultaneously densely textured and spacious.
“I listen to these songs and I feel like it captures the raw, creative energy of being in the studio and being like, ‘Fuck! We just exploded the song. What is about to happen?’” Lowenstein says. “That feeling is something we didn’t have on the first record because we knew exactly what we wanted to capture and it was the songs we had written in my parents’ basement.”
Cheng was first introduced to classical guitar as a kid by her dad, who tried to teach her, and then she was subsequently drawn back to rock by bands like Cage The Elephant and Arcade Fire. Lowenstein started playing at age 6, which covers most of her life memories and comprises a large part of her identity. “It made me feel really powerful as a young girl to know that I was a very proficient guitarist,” she says. The shreddy playing of Television, Pink Floyd’s spacey guitar solos, and Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan were all integral to her as Horsegirl began.
Penelope Lowenstein's Gear
Penelope Lowenstein likes looking back at the versions of herself that made older records.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Westwood
- EarthQuaker Bellows
- TC Electronic PolyTune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex 1.0 mm
Recently, the two of them have found themselves influenced by guitarists both related and unrelated to the type of tunes they’re trading in on their new album. Lowenstein got into Brazilian guitar during the pandemic and has recently been “in a Jim O’Rourke, John Fahey zone.”
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument,” Lowenstein says. “And hearing what the bass in those guitar parts is doing—as in, the E string—is kind of mind blowing.”
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little,” Cheng adds. “And also Lizzy Mercier [Descloux], mostly on the Rosa Yemen records. That guitar playing I feel was very inspiring for the anti-solo,[a technique] which appears on [Phonetics On and On].”This flurry of focused discovery gives the impression that Cheng and Lowenstein’s sensibilities are shifting day-to-day, buoyed by the incredible expansion of creative possibilities that setting one’s life to revolve around music can afford. And, of course, the energy and exponential growth of youth. Horsegirl has already clocked major stylistic shifts in their brief lifespan, and it’s exciting to have such a clear glimpse of evolution in artists who are, likely and hopefully, just beginning a long journey together.
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“In your 20s, life moves so fast,” Lowenstein says. “So much changes from the time of recording something to releasing something that even that process is so strange. You recognize yourself, and you also kind of sympathize with yourself. It's a really rewarding way of life, I think, for musicians, and it's cool that we have our teenage years captured like that, too—on and on until we're old women.”
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Last summer, Horsegirl gathered at a Chicago studio space to record a sun-soaked set of new and old tunes.
