With this article, I’d like to hip you to some fantastic amps that—so far—have flown under the radar. We all know the usual suspects that have left an indelible mark on the collective guitar psyche. The tones and aesthetics of these canonized stacks and combos are forever linked with the iconic images of legendary players and bands, and some have even made such a splash that they’ve crossed over to become household names with everyday music fans.
The creations I’m highlighting here are so formidable that it’s a wonder they remain a secret. They’re off-the-beaten-path designs that are ominous and arguably deserving of mythical status. But for whatever reason, not only have these amps maintained anonymity with the vast majority of the playing public, but they’ve pretty much been overlooked by the industry as a whole. Some are pawnshop prizes—that oft-skipped-over amp for sale next to the shiny, more easily recognizable and sonically safer brand. Some are classified-ad gems. One, sadly, never evolved beyond the prototype stage. And one got backburnered for years but is now making a comeback. But they all have one thing in common: Each is armed with authoritative sounds, tonal complexity, and burly features. I hope they inspire you to expand your horizons when looking for an amp—or, at the very least, renew your appreciation for your own favorite unsung amps with stories to tell and faces to fry!
Photo by Bruce S. Gates
Beamish Electronics Beamer (prototype)
Built by Dane Beamish from Beamish Electronics in Cleveland, the Beamer started life as a Fender Twin Reverb—or at least the power and output transformers check out to be Fender (the choke is a Partridge). The cabinet appears to be from a Sound City head, and the chassis may be as well, but that’s where the similarities to either brand stop. The preamp is where the most important differences lie: It uses a cathode-follower approach to drive not only the tone stack, but also the built-in compression circuit—which has its own effects loop for inserting additional pedals (like an overdrive) that can alter the attack envelope and fine-tune how aggressively it clamps down on your signal. This makes it possible to have complete touch sensitivity at any volume or gain level. The preamp also employs a traditional, long-tail-pair-style phase inverter—the type that’s been used in most Fenders and Marshalls since the mid 1960s because it offers the cleanest, most balanced way to deliver a signal to a power section.
Of course, this seeming hodgepodge of building approaches would mean nothing if the Beamer didn’t sound fantastic. With its vast gain-selecting options (via a three-position preamp-gain toggle), a solid-state effects loop (separate from the compression circuit’s), master volume, reverb, and headroom knob—a variable negative-feedback control that changes the percussive quality of the amp’s response—the Beamer can cover everything from jazz to blues and hard rock. Adding a gain pedal out front yields even heavier vibes—or you can just crank up the master volume and let the power section do the talking. And Beamer doesn’t just take pedals extremely well, it adds life to everything plugged into it. There’s string-to-string clarity and fullness in spades, as well as a sonic physicality beyond any other amp I’ve owned.
As for the reverb, although it’s a tube-driven blackface Fender spring tank, it envelops your sound in a gooey, space-filling ambience that sounds a lot like a deep plate reverb. The difference seems to come from using a 12AX7 driver, which is higher gain than the typical 12AT7. In the Beamer, the 12AX7 really brings the dwell to the front—and with zero added noise.
What’s really stunning about the Beamer, though, is how it lets you tweak the input-gain range and master volume separately. You can plug into low, medium, or high-gain inputs, and then you can select low, medium, or high sensitivity for that input. This allows you to get everything from small, Champ-like tones to high-headroom Fender sounds, or even Marshall tones via the high-gain input and high-sensitivity setting. The 3-band EQ goes from dark jazz tones to mosquito bright, without any harsh or unusable settings. Pair that with the headroom control, and you’ve got a sound that can be really soft and supple or upfront and bold.
Beamish made very few of these amps, and each one seems to have varied a bit. Some were EL34-driven 100-watters. Some used 6L6s, like mine. There’s legend of a 50-watt model, too. Of the people I know who have them, many are on the road and used almost daily. I believe in 1990 they sold for around $1,500, though the prices were really only disclosed to the lucky few who commissioned them.
Photo by Bruce S. Gates
Ampeg M15
Although a lot of guitarists think of thundering bass amps when someone mentions Ampeg, the company’s guitar amps of yore—including the Jet and Reverberocket—are revered by a much smaller but still sizable contingent of 6-stringers. I find Ampegs to be some of the best combos out there in terms of how they break up when you push them with humbuckers or your favorite gain pedal. I especially like the M15 because of its octal 6SL7-based preamp. Similar to 9-pin 5751s, 6SL7s have a sound that’s somewhere between the typical 12AX7 used in most modern-day amps and the lower-gain 12AT7s used in vintage amps such as early Fender combos. I’ve built a lot of amps with 6SL7s in the front end because I enjoy their full sound, and the Ampeg’s 15" ceramic Jensen speaker really complements this.
While the M15 seems pretty normal at first glance, it’s got some unique things going on in terms of circuitry. Plug in, and your guitar signal journeys into the preamp, where it is driven hard to compensate for the loss of tone and volume that you often get with old passive EQs. From there it goes to the paraphrase-style inverter (another 6SL7), and on to the cathode-biased 6L6s. A paraphase inverter is an older design that was basically a common way to get an out-of-phase version of the input signal, equal in amplitude, to feed the power-tube inputs.
It isn’t the most balanced way to do this, which is why it yields unique clipping characteristics when pushed. Some describe this type of circuit’s overdrive characteristics as grainy, with a vibrant, almost “alive” feel.
But granular gain isn’t all that makes the M15 so cool. Cranked, it’s gutsy rock ’n’ roll. But run it clean, and it’s a dream. The tremolo is wonderfully lush and harmonically rich. With pedals out front, it really thumps and blooms with sustain. And perhaps best of all, although the M15’s power output may not seem that high, a good specimen should be able to hang in most medium to loud volume situations. When looking for one of these fun amps on the used market, expect to pay between $600 and $900.
Photo by Bruce S. Gates
Aims VTG 105
It’s very difficult to find information on Aims Amplifiers, but I believe the now-defunct Phoenix, Arizona, company was started by former Fender employees sometime in the 1970s. As you might expect, the VTG 105’s design is similar to other Fender combos of the era. The preamp has a 12AT7 long-tail-pair phase inverter that delivers accurate signal balance and gain to the power tubes, and there’s also an optical tremolo circuit and tube-driven reverb. But there’s one major difference between the Aims and most Fenders you’ll encounter—this 4x10 combo uses 6550 power tubes in a push-pull (class-AB) output section. This single change alone means the VTG yields lots of proud volume and crushing low end. And the solid-state rectifier and heavy filtering in the power section ensure the sound is tight and focused, with a very immediate feel in terms of responsiveness.
Given the VTG’s pedigree, features, and 4x10 configuration, it’s only natural to wonder how it compares to a Fender Super Reverb. But the fixed-bias 6550s keep it clean at much higher volumes than a Super and give it a gain structure more akin to a Twin Reverb’s. In fact, any breakup that’s apparent with this amp seems to stem from the speakers and closed-back cabinet design. Further, although the EQ sections are passive, they have a surprisingly active sound. The bass knob offers deep, deep lows, the treble can go really chimey, and the middle control seems to dynamically affect how the other two EQ controls respond.
And while, circuit-wise, the amp’s sine-wave tremolo and spring reverb are similar in almost every way to what you’d find in a Fender from the same period, the reverb pan is mounted rather intriguingly: The tank is uncovered and the springs are visible, but the pan itself has been rigged with small springs at the points where it attaches to the chassis. This is to prevent mechanical vibrations from, say, a bumped cabinet from transferring to the reverb springs themselves. It’s not exactly the prettiest implementation—the tank is basically held in place by bent screws—but the sonic results are nevertheless outstanding. The reverb is lush and warm, and more than capable of defining a small space or instilling surf-y saturation, and the unorthodox “shock-mount” system effectively stifles jarring distractions.
The VTG 105 and other Aims amps are pretty tricky to track down, but despite this rareness they tend to fetch pretty low prices— usually somewhere in the $600 to $800 range.
Photo by Bruce S. Gates
Ampeg V4
Despite its striking resemblance to vintage Ampeg SVT and current-production V-4B reissue bass heads, the original V4 was actually intended for guitar. When I first serviced this venerable amp, I realized it’s anything but typical. It offers a lot of unusual ways to tweak operation, and as I reviewed the schematic during subsequent repairs I became more and more intrigued.
How’s the V4 different? For starters, it has an extremely unique tube complement in both the preamp and the power stage. Two 12AX7s drive the front end, which has a passive James tone stack—an interesting circuit with a pair of filters that have an almost notching effect at lower settings, but that instill a bit of character when set flat, and offer a surprising boost when cranked. It’s a subtractive filter, meaning that it takes away some guitar signal when used, but its tweakability is worth the tradeoff. There are also two switches that set either input’s sensitivity at 0 dB or pads them at -9 or -6 dBs. A 6K11 tube—a nifty bottle containing two 12AX7 sections and one lower-gain triode section (that’s right, three triodes in one valve!)—boosts and changes the input-signal impedance (via the cathode follower) in order to better drive the inductor-based midrange-selection switch, which sets the midrange knob’s midpoint at 300, 1,000, or 3,000 Hz. Each of the switch’s settings effectively reinvents the way the bass and treble controls react.
But wait, there’s more! A 12DW7 valve (which is similar to a 12AU7) drives the preamp-out and power-amp-in connections—two flexible options that, even today, are pretty specialized and forward thinking. Meanwhile, the 12DW7’s second triode stage is used as a paraphase inverter, and a 6CG7 drives the reverb tank. The V4 also uses a solid-state rectifier and offers separate taps for screen voltages on the power transformer.
As with the Beamish, the unusual circuit would mean nothing if the V4’s full-bodied tone didn’t utterly dominate. If you want to brutalize your audience with thunderous lows, this amp has you covered—especially through something like an old Kustom 2x15 speaker cabinet. The 7027-driven power section stays pretty clean throughout the travel of the volume controls, although higher settings do elicit a pleasing distortion with glassy top end but no hint of harshness. Even aggressive tones remain smooth and creamy. The input-sensitivity options are fantastic for making sure you get the amp’s best tones from guitars with varying output levels—but they’re also great for getting the drive characteristics you prefer at different amp volumes. The tone controls offer incredible flexibility, and at higher settings they can have a big impact on the amount of drive available.
Though V4s have gained some momentum in the used market recently, you can still find them for around $450 to $600—which is truly a steal!
Photo by Bruce S. Gates
Soul Shaker Amplification Mama Soul Shaker 30
Soul Shaker Amplification’s Jestin Puett makes amps that are responsive, lively, and steeped in classic circuit design. He borrows from topologies of yore, but he’s meticulous about selecting quality parts, and his amps boast boutique-quality builds and functionality. Tonally, the Mama Soul Shaker 30—which debuted a few years back but is now back in production—is similar to a Valco or tweed Fender, but it’s by no means a knock off. Its Brazilian cherry and curly-maple cabinet houses a point-to-point-wired circuit that uses high-end parts like Jupiter and Mundorf capacitors, as well as Takman 1-watt carbon-film resistors.
The Mama’s preamp is a two-stage, cascade design that uses a 6SN7 tube to provide extended bandwidth and lower impedance to the next stage. A single tone control is implemented later in the circuit to aid in voicing. This means you pretty much get straight tube tone into the 6SL7 phase inverter that feeds the EL34 power tubes sans negative feedback. (Mama can also be biased to work with most octal tubes, too. KT66s are my second favorite.) The 6SL7 that handles the tremolo is wired in parallel and wiggles the amp’s bias to achieve its swampy sound. There’s also an LED indicator for tremolo speed.
The Soul Shaker is harmonically rich and balanced, with a depth of harmonic detail found in few amps. You play and it just sings! Its gain structure sounds clean and clear, but when it clips, it does so in the sweetest way. Every nuance and finger motion is translated beautifully, and it sounded huge with every cabinet I tried it with. And even at low volume, the tremolo is incredibly sweet and physical sounding. As you turn up, Mama compresses in a very musical way, with no flub or brash high end. And despite its lone tone control, it never feels lacking in terms of expressive EQ. You don’t need a bunch of knobs when it sounds right at every setting.
Availability? The Mama Soul Shaker isn’t rare in terms of being discontinued, but it is currently only available by custom order. Soul Shaker amps are priced in the $1,500 to $2,000 range and are well worth the money.
Photo by Bruce S. Gates
Traynor YSR-1 Custom Reverb
Although the Traynor YSR-1’s topology is pretty comparable to what you see in typical Fender and Marshall designs, there are a couple of important differences that help make it one of my favorite amps. First, the bright channel (input 1) has a treble-bleed cap on its two inputs. Second, you can “jumper” (connect via short 1/4" cables) inputs on both channels to blend their tonal characteristics. These two seemingly minor departures from the norm yield huge dividends and make it possible to get a very full-range, bi-amped-type sound.
The YSR-1 uses old-school Hammond transformers, a lively-sounding James-esque tone stack (like the Ampeg V4), and a tweaked phase inverter, all of which add up to help it break up smoother and earlier than Fender amps with a similar design and output. But it also stays warmer than a Marshall and has a spongy feel that really responds to playing dynamics. Play soft, and it’s a whisper. Dig in, and paint peels. One of the neatest things about this particular Traynor is how effects seamlessly integrate with its fundamental tones. Meanwhile, the grid-bias, sine-wave-style trem can go nice and slow, and the long-spring, tube-driven reverb—which, in a clever use of space, is mounted in a recessed cavity on the bottom of the head cabinet—is deep but darker than the typical Fender.
On the used market, Traynor Custom Reverbs can be had for $400 to $650. But don’t buy them all—I’m still shopping for a backup!
Keeping the Faith
Reverend guitars and basses always seem to emerge from their shipping containers ready to rock. The Descent was no different. We opened the box and pulled it from its optional case, perfectly in tune. Pretty impressive considering the jostling and banging that happens in transit. Reverend’s typically impeccable fretwork and setup were also plain to see.
The Descent’s features are impressive too: a lightweight korina body, pin-lock tuners, a graphite nut, a two-post Wilkinson WVS50 IIK vibrato, and Railhammer Gnarly 90 bridge and Tel 90 neck pickups with alnico 5 magnets, a rail under the lower three strings, and traditional pole pieces under the treble strings. Tones are tweaked via a deceptively simple complement of master volume and tone knobs and Reverend’s trademark bass-contour control.
Doubting Thomases
While some gurus insist a true baritone should be at least 28" in scale to provide optimal string tension and intonation, the 26 3/4"-scale Rev’ intonated perfectly. Chords hung together harmonically up and down the neck, and there was more than enough snap and spank across the .012–.068-gauge strings. The B-to-B-tuned guitar also looks and feels so good in your hands that anyone used to 25.5" instruments and heavy strings might very well forget they’re playing an extended-range instrument.
I will confess, though, that before testing the Descent I was slightly skeptical—not just of the modern-looking hybrid pickups’ ability to deliver a lot of sonic nuance, but also of the bass-contour knob: On standard-scale Reverends I’ve found that this passive bass roll-off can complicate the process of getting sounds you’re anticipating across various pickup positions. But on the Descent—an instrument explicitly designed to serve up big bottom end—the bass-contour circuit can be downright magical.
Spelunking the Depths
To test the Descent, I plugged it into my pedalboard, and routed that to cranked Jaguar HC50 and Goodsell Valpreaux 21 amps. I dimed the guitar’s knobs, flicked the 3-way pickup selector to the bridge position, and hit a low-B power chord. The result was a brass-knuckled blow to the belly: massive, gristly low end of the sort you’d expect from the burlier P-90s on the market—not ringing, vintage P-90 tone with lots of high end, but beefy, almost humbucker-like output.
Initially this seemed to support my apprehensions about the Railhammers. But when I dialed the bass-contour control knob back a notch the sound morphed from a lardaceous, ham-fisted weapon to a leaner kind of brawniness. Dialing it back shaved off low end until I was left with a mean tone shiv not unlike what you’d hear from a blade-humbucker-equipped Tele. In the bridge position, the Descent could go from meaty hard-rock vibes to Southern rock sounds, and quasi-Danny Gatton snap and twang with the mere twist of a knob. The contour knob affects so many frequencies (and therefore overall output) that you can even use it as a fat boost for solos rather than just a voice-selector.
Ratings
Pros:
Fantastic build, setup, and hardware. Great tuning stability. Light weight. Incredible range of fat to switchblade-sharp tones.
Cons:
Only two finish options. Tone selection not as simple as it seems.
Tones:
Playability:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$999
Reverend Descent H90 Baritone
reverendguitars.com
Switch to the middle- or neck-pickup position, and the results are just as wide-ranging and tonally transformative—although the neck pickup has much more clarity than the bridge unit. With a little amp grit, I was able to find deep-throated in-between sounds in the vein of Page on a subterranean version of “No Quarter,” or thick, rich, and chiming sounds for hybrid- or Travis-picked rockabilly lines as I dialed out the dirt.
Devil in Disguise
So far we’ve only scratched the surface of the Descent’s possibilities, because the bass-contour control is only half the story: Unlike most master-tone knobs, the Descent’s doesn’t just gradually roll off high end as you dial it back. Full stop, it has a balance of treble, mids, and bass, but as you dial it back, more mid and low-mid content is removed than treble. Halfway through its range, you get a scooped sound that still sparkles. With both pickups selected, tone and contour knobs around their midpoint, and a clean-ish sound, you get a response that’s a lot like the “out-of-phase” 2 and 4 positions from a Stratocaster.
The Rev’s tone knob does become more bass heavy as you approach full-counterclockwise position, but even here there’s more treble than you’d hear on similarly adjusted instruments. That can make it difficult to find some of the smokier neck-pickup jazz sounds some might hope for. But the way the tone and contour controls dynamically interact expands the Descent’s voicings way beyond what you’d expect. For instance, with the neck pickup selected, and tone and contour all the way down, palm-muted riffs on the low B yield lovely, tic-tac-style bass lines with a lot of the warm, vintage-y personality of a Danelectro 6-string bass or Fender Bass VI. Bring the contour control up toward max, and you can easily pull off fat P-bass-ish lines, too.
The Verdict
While some players might yearn for simpler, more predictable functionality, the dynamic interplay of the Reverend Descent H90’s tone and bass-contour controls is a real asset. In fact, the quality of build, tones, and features is so high—and, more importantly, so versatile—that it very well may be the most flexible production-line baritone on the market. Given this and its very reasonable price, it’s virtually a no-brainer for anyone lamenting the dearth of available baritones.
Watch the Review Demo:
Williams was born in New Jersey, but spent his first years in Liberia, in West Africa, his parents’ homeland. He relocated to Richmond, Virginia, as a youngster and still lives there. “It’s an absolutely amazing music scene,” he says. “So many talented musicians and so many different genres of music are based right here in the city.” Artists as disparate as Lamb of God and Pharrell Williams hail from the area. “There is definitely a family of musicians and everyone supports everybody, comes to each other’s shows, and are always sitting in. It’s really great to see.”
Williams didn’t start with guitar; his first instrument was piano. He also plays clarinet, drums, and bass. He took up guitar his senior year of high school and gigged in and around Richmond with a variety of groups, including his own band, the DJ Williams Projekt.
In the early 2000s, Williams rendezvoused with Karl Denson. “My band, the Projekt, opened up for Tiny Universe,” he says. “Karl sat in with my band and I sat in with his. We became pretty close and our bands toured together for a short while. We saw each other at festivals and I’d sit in with his band. When his guitar player left in 2011, Karl asked me if I wanted to join. I’ve been with him ever since.”
Williams tours extensively with Denson and is all over KDTU’s 2014 release, New Ammo. A new Tiny Universe album, tentatively titled Camping in Suits, is due in early 2016. The DJ Williams Projekt has a new album in the works as well, and both bands will be touring in support of their releases. “It’s going to be a busy 2016, for sure,” Williams says.
Premier Guitar spoke with Williams about the lost art of rhythm playing, sitting tight in the pocket, colorful comping, and how he crafts his incredibly warm tone.
Who are some of your influences? Who made you want to play the guitar?
I started playing classical piano. I didn’t really pick up guitar until later, in high school, so a lot of my influences are pianists—Robert Glasper, and a lot of classical cats like Rachmaninoff. But I think Curtis Mayfield is the one who really drew me to want to play guitar.
What was it about Curtis Mayfield?
I just remember being drawn to that wah-wah sound. My mother has this listening room and I remember her putting on those records. I remember her—what she was wearing and what the room smelled like—and I was like, “What is that sound that is happening right now?” I started learning Curtis Mayfield songs. And then my older sister turned me on to [Funkadelic’s] Maggot Brain and Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder. I just started stealing my parents’ vinyl…
But you didn’t start playing guitar until later in high school. What got you to pick one up?
Some people were talking after school about starting a band and I wanted to jump onboard.
Tell us about your approach to rhythm playing.
Rhythm playing is the most important element of guitar to me—it’s such a rhythmic instrument—and I think a lot of my influences came from African music. It’s really very much about the placement, finding the space, and using your ear to figure out where you want to put those chunks of [rhythm]. You’ve got to find where it fits in the pattern of what’s going on, especially in funk bands that are six, seven, eight people deep. That is pretty much what I’m doing. I’m listening more than anything and trying to figure out what polyrhythms connect with whatever is already going on.
Are you specifically trying to play polyrhythms against the rhythms the band is playing or are you trying to stay more in the pocket?
It depends on what the song calls for. I use my own judgment. Sometimes I like to play against and sometimes I like to play with.
Do you ever find, when playing repetitive rhythm parts, that you get into a zone?
Yes, and that is completely that Afro-rhythm thing. The longer you play something, it becomes a trance. Karl talks about that a lot, too. You keep playing your part over and over and it starts sounding like a train going down the track. It gets tighter and tighter and that’s how I feel it in my head.
Who should guitar players listen to, to learn how to do that?
Definitely a lot of the old funk players like Cornell Dupree. He played with everybody and he is on so many records. He’s one of my biggest influences when it comes to funk guitar.
How do you comp creatively—particularly in terms of choosing interesting chord voicings—without competing with the keyboardist who is doing the same thing?
Well, David [Veith], the keyboardist in Tiny Universe, is an amazing comper, so I’m always trying not to step on his toes [laughs]. Usually he has moments where he gets simple and I’m able to take over a lot of the voicings. A lot of the voicings I use come more from the gospel side of things. I love major ninths, major sevenths—whenever I get a chance to throw the pretty stuff in there, I like to do that.
You do that often, especially on some of the slower songs that are a bit more open. “Sure Shot,” the Beastie Boys cover from New Ammo, is a good example of that.
Oh yeah, that’s a song that I completely get to go jazz-wild on because Karl is doing the flute thing. That is one of those moments where I can really expand my chordal vocabulary without stepping on anyone’s toes.
Williams jams with former Allman Brothers Band and current Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell at the 2015 Lockn’ Music Festival in Arrington, Virginia, in September. Photo by William David Lawrence
Do you find—similar to what a lot of players do in a jazz setting—that you stay away from playing a chord’s root and 5?
Yes, shell voicings, for sure. Especially in a band this big. I rarely ever play the root; I just play the shell of the chord.
You’ll just play the 3, 7, and a color note?
Yeah, and it’s gotten to the point where I just do it all the time out of habit. I’ll be playing by myself and I’ve got to remind myself to put the root in there when I’m playing solo.
Horn players tend to favor keys like Bb, F, and C as opposed to classic guitar keys like E and A. Does that ever get to be a challenge?
Ah, no, I love all the keys. There are some keys like F# and C# that I have to pay more attention to—they are such lonely, far-out-there keys that a lot of people don’t play in. But other than that, I’ve gotten pretty comfortable at playing in any key.
DJ Williams’ Gear
Guitars
Gibson ES-335
Fender reissue 1972 Thinline Telecaster
Fender Telecaster Deluxe with P-90s
Epiphone Sheraton II
ESP Viper 100
Amps
Fender Twin Reverb
Mesa/Boogie 4x12 with Celestion V30 speakers
Effects
Henretta Engineering 6 Speed (custom multi-effects box built by Kevin Henretta, with reverb, phase shifter, tremolo, fuzz, and overdrive)
Custom Fonesy Overdrive
Ernie Ball VP Jr. volume pedal
Vox V847 Classic Wah
T-Rex Replica Delay
Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner
Strings and Picks
DR Pure Blues (.011–.050)
Dunlop Tortex Picks .73 mm
Talk about soloing and your approach to getting beyond the blues scale.
I’d say my comfort zone is melodic minor. That’s pretty much how I approach everything when it comes to soloing.
How about songs with a more complex chordal structure? Do you have to think more like a jazz-head in terms of making changes?
I’m not really thinking in terms of jazz chops or anything. I always just think about being melodic. I try to tell a story. I usually start pretty simple and I either approach the solo very melodically or very funky. Sometimes I try to go back and forth between those two worlds. I usually like to reference the melody line somewhere in the solo, and I usually try to find some way to take that melody line and twist it inside out and find a way to drive it home.
What do you do to develop good habits and techniques?
One thing I always try to practice is getting the left and right hands to work together at the same time. Pre-show, I’ll sit backstage and do a lot of chromatic runs up and down the neck. I have different exercises that I do. I go four frets at a time, up and down each string chromatically. Then I do exercises in fourths, so that I am practicing skipping from string to string up and down the neck as well. And I do runs—probably about 20 to 30 minutes of those—before going onstage.
Are you playing a shape or are you changing fingerings between the 2nd and 3rd strings?
I’m playing fourths but I’m also going diagonally. It’s almost like a major 7 arpeggio as well.
Do you practice with a metronome?
No I don’t. I should [laughs].
Let’s talk about your tone. How do you get such a warm fuzz sound?
For the longest time I used this pedal called the Fonesy. It’s a custom overdrive pedal built by Brian Fones. He lives here in Richmond and made it for me. It’s one of the best overdrive pedals because it actually lets a lot of the natural tones of the guitar come through without putting any of that scratch and powder on top. It gives it that warm feeling. It’s more of the guitar being on top and the fuzz being on bottom.
So you’re relying on the pedal for your fuzz as opposed to your amp?
Yeah. I play through a Fender Twin because I love my cleans really clean. I piggyback the Twin through a Mesa/Boogie 4x12 cab, so I’m actually pushing all six 12s.
You also play a lot of semi-hollowbody guitars. What do you like about them?
It’s just that warm sound, plus I can get so many different tones out of it. I actually just got an artist deal with Gibson, so I’ve been playing this 335 that I got from the Gibson shop in Austin. I’ve wanted one forever and now that I finally have one, I’ve kind of neglected all of my other guitars.
YouTube It
Showing their deep soul-groove roots, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe take on D.C. go-go legends the Soul Searchers’ “Ashley’s Roachclip.” DJ Williams keeps his rhythm tight until 2:38, when he breaks into a tasteful solo, and then he drops back in the pocket until 3:30, when he unfurls his superb scratching technique.
With all the funk you play, I would’ve thought you played a Telecaster and nothing else. Do you even own a Tele?
I do. When I first joined Tiny Universe that was my main axe. I have a 1972 Thinline Telecaster, which is the Telecaster, but it has humbuckers and it’s semi-hollow. It’s the one with the F-hole.
And finally, how do you create those cool record-scratching sounds?
It started with me seeing [Rage Against the Machine’s] Tom Morello do it back when I was a senior in high school. I thought, “I need to learn that immediately.” I read a bunch of interviews and I tried to find out how he did it. I did research online. I started experimenting with using the gain—I cut the guitar all the way back to the bridge pickup and I turned the gain really high up on one of my overdrives—but then I found out that if I turned the wah on and just left it in the up position, I could really get that high-pitched thing. I use my fingers to rub against the strings above the neck pickup and it sounds just like scratching a record.
On the recorded version we actually ran that through an old Echoplex machine. It sounds even crazier on the record than it does live. It was a lot of fun to play with the different sounds.
DJ Williams jams with fellow soul-funker Robert Randolph during Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe Run DMC Remixed concert at the Brooklyn Bowl on February 5, 2015. Photo by Marc Millman
Shell Voicings: A Simple Approach to Adding Harmonic Colors
Shell voicings are a tool DJ Williams uses to keep his comping simple. These voicings allow you to play complex chords without competing with your band’s other accompanists. They also allow you to expand your harmonic palette beyond simple barre chords and power chords.
Most guitar players love power chords because they contain only two notes: the root and fifth of a chord. Power chords are easy to play and—as an added bonus—allow for harmonic ambiguity. They don’t contain a third (the note in the chord that indicates major or minor) and are therefore perfect for blues-based rock and its derivatives including punk, metal, thrash, and you-name-it.
But in other musical contexts, particularly funk and jazz, more complex chords are not only more appropriate but—can I say it?—may even sound better. In those settings you need to include other chord tones like the 3 and 7, plus notes drawn from the upper tensions (like 9s, 11s, and 13s). If you try building those more complex chords using the power chord as your base (i.e. the standard barre chord), you end up with a thick soup of unnecessary and redundant sounds that clutter up the mix and don’t allow space for the music to breathe.
Shell voicings are the simple yet elegant solution. The foundation of shell voicings—similar to power chords—are based on just two notes. Those two notes, the 3 and the 7, are all you need to determine whether the chord is a major, dominant, or minor. That is the basic “shell” of the chord. They are easy to play, sound great with other instruments, and allow you to provide a creative accompaniment while still giving the soloist the freedom to add color or dissonance.
Here’s how to build your own.
Step one. Figure out the chord’s root. (Hint: It’s the name of the chord. For example, the root of Amaj7#11 is “A.”) You almost never need to play the root because another instrument (usually the bass) is already playing it. But even though you might not play it, you need to know what it is so you can determine the other notes.
Step two. Once you know the root, figure out the 3 of the chord. You only have two choices: either major or minor. For example, if the chord is C major-something, the 3 is E. If it is C minor-something, the 3 is Eb.
Step three. Determine the 7 of the chord. Again, you have only two note choices (in C it is either B or Bb), but depending on the 3 you could end up with one of four sounds. In C it looks like this:
• Major 7: E (major third) + B (major seventh)
• Dominant 7: E (major third) + Bb (minor seventh)
• Minor 7: Eb (minor third) + Bb (minor seventh)
• Minor/major 7: Eb (minor third) + B (major seventh) (the Get Smart chord)
The beauty of shell voicings is that once you know the 3 and 7, you can play them any way you choose. Either note can be above or below the other, and depending on context, the implied sound will always remain the same. You can leave it as is or add tension, and a tension note is always within reach.
There is a lot more to say about shell voicings, but discovering the simplest fingerings for your favorite chords is a great way to begin.
