Rut busting and reconstructing has probably been happening since the discovery of fire and advent of the wheel. Guitarists confront it each time they pick up a new instrument to avoid predictable patterns and tones. Premier Guitar contributor (and recent Rig Rundown subject) Pete Thorn has addressed this by suggesting several practices to approach our beloved 6 strings in a fresh perspective. And recently John Bohlinger recommended playing a different instrument to fertilize musical crops. But what does a guitar-playing producer and multi-instrumentalist do to shake things up for his band’s fourth album? Well, for Puscifer’s Mat Mitchell and the band’s 2020 release, Existential Reckoning, you go back in time 40 years to 8-bit synth sounds and the archaic sampling lurking inside the proto-digital Fairlight CMI.
“Part of [the appeal],” Mitchell told PG in a 2021 interview, “is the flow—the way that you work when you’re using these tools. It forces you to do things differently. They are very limited, and being creative within very set boundaries is really good.” And being the creative force he is, Mitchell found gold in the antiquated sounds and tech.
“They sound very unique,” he explains. “Of course, you can sample one and put it in a laptop, but it’s different. All the voices are separate hardware. When you hit a note, it is bouncing around between [processor] cards, so you can hit a note five times and it may sound different all five times. There are all these little things that affect the way it sounds when you’re performing, which is a very different sound from what you get when you sample.”
But he would never tour with this digital dino, so how does Mitchell recreate 8-bit tones in a performance setting? Thankfully, moments ahead of the audience filling the pews of Nashville’s iconic Ryman Auditorium, Puscifer’s aural architect welcomed PG’s Chris Kies for a chat about how Existential Reckoning’s inspiration took him back to the future, and how his live rig has metamorphized and been miniaturized with contemporary gear to realistically represent those superannuated sounds.
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Xcellent Axe
While recording Existential Reckoning, Mitchell relied heavily on a Steinberger GL2T. Not wanting to tour with it, he tapped Kiesel Guitars to build him a few custom Type-X models for the road. This bodacious beauty has a swamp ash body, a 3-piece walnut/maple neck with thru construction, an early version of Seymour Duncan’s first AlNiCo 2 Stack Tele pickup, and a fixed bridge. All his guitars take D’Addario EPN115 XL Pure Nickel strings (.011–.048). It’s worth noting the usual curvy contours and bevels found on a standard Kiesel Type-X were removed by request from Mitchell, who prefers hard-edged instruments like his prized Esquire. Another mentionable mod is the seemingly straight-ahead 3-way pickup selector (bridge, right?) that rolls the tone all the way off (middle) for when Mitchell grabs an EBow and a slight Q-notch filter (neck) for lead or chordal stuff that he wants tucked under. When it’s in the standard bridge position it bypasses the tone circuit. This wiring and tonewood collection are found on all three Type-Xs we’ll see.
X Marks the Spot
Here’s another Kiesel Type-X, but this one has a Seymour Duncan Antiquity Tele single-coil. Besides the radical visuals these instruments add to the band’s stage production, part of the choice was pragmatic because the lightweight, headless design allows Mat to swing the guitar off his shoulder in a split second and control the Waldorf Iridium synth engine for Existential Reckoning jams.
The X-Man
Above is Mitchell’s third Type-X Kiesel. He mentions in the Rundown that “once you give me a guitar, I don’t like to give it back,” so if he has it his way, he’ll start and finish the show with the same X.
Tidy Tones
“There’s a few reasons we shifted to the Axe-Fx III,” admits Mitchell. “First, we have enough songs that our rig was getting bigger, more complex, and it had more failure points. We also wanted a clean stage, so there’s no amps, no cabs, no pedalboards onstage, and that’s why on this run we’re now using wireless, too.” Most of his patches are based around either a Mesa/Boogie Mark II C+ (dirty) or Vibro-King (clean). The band enjoys free-range stage access with Shure Axient AD4Q units.
Lone Wolf
His only guitar-specific hardware outside the Axe-Fx III is this DigiTech FreqOut, to help Mitchell stir up a funnel of feedback.
Fear the Gear
Here’s the bulk of the gear used during the recording of Existential Reckoning and the corresponding Live at Arcosanti album, performed in the depths of the Arizona desert. Starting on the left is the Steinberger GL2T, then a pair of shots of the Fairlight CMI digital synthesizer, sampler and digital audio workstation. Below that is his Fender Custom Shop Esquire reissue and Mesa/Boogie Mark II C+, and the bottom row shows Mitchell’s choice stomps: ZVEX Fuzz Factory, Fulltone OCD, Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, Boss VB-2 Vibrato, Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz, and Radial SGI. The lower-right shows a pair of Oto Machines (BOUM Warming Unit and BIM 12-Bit Delay).
Puscifer's lineup for Existential Reckoning is (left to right): Mat Mitchell (guitar, synths), Gunnar Olsen (drums), Carina Round (vocals, keys), Greg Edwards (bass), and frontman Maynard James Keenan.
During a break in the ensuing APC tour, Edwards got a mysterious call from Keenan. “He just said, 'Start practicing fretless,'" Edwards recalls. The suggestion wasn't completely insane. Edwards, who plays both bass and guitar, had already played fretless bass in the first incarnation of Failure (having been heavily influenced by early new wave band Japan's Mick Karn, and Brian Eno bassist Percy Jones). But it certainly hadn't been his focus in recent years.
“I love the feeling of playing fretless," he says. “I love what it does, sonically, and what it can achieve in a song. But it was a challenge to get back. It's a whole new set of concerns when you're playing fretless, especially with someone like Maynard singing. The intonation has to be spot on. But that appealed to me."
But “challenge" seems to be an operative word when it comes to Keenan's creative process, including with his supergroup Puscifer's new Existential Reckoning, where idiosyncratic instrumentation and outmoded/vintage technologies were key facilitators. Happy with Edwards' performance in APC, Keenan brought him along for the Existential ride, as well. He also brought back longtime production, songwriting, and guitar-playing/mad scientist collaborator Mat Mitchell.
For the Reckoning sessions, Mitchell (who, along with Keenan and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Carina Round, forms the nucleus of the band) wanted something to disrupt his usual workflow and stimulate his imagination. His solution? State-of-the-art-circa-1980 computer-driven synthesizers like a Synclavier and a Fairlight CMI (famously used by Peter Gabriel on his eponymous 1980 release).
“Part of [the appeal]," says Mitchell of the quirky gear, “is the flow—the way that you work when you're using these tools. It forces you to do things differently. They are very limited, and being creative within very set boundaries is really good."
TIDBIT: Cumbersome vintage synth hardware was a key foil to the guitar and bass parts on Existential Reckoning.
But the instruments did more than just force Mitchell into a new headspace. “They sound very unique," he explains. “Of course, you can sample one and put it in a laptop, but it's different. The way that both of those instruments are is that all the voices are separate hardware. When you hit a note, it is bouncing around between [processor] cards, so you can hit a note five times and it may sound different all five times. There are all these little things that affect the way it sounds when you're performing on it, which is a very different sound from what you get when you sample."
Mitchell applied that same disorienting criteria when choosing his main guitar for Existential Reckoning. In the end, he settled on a headless Steinberger GL2T.
“I've always wanted one," he says. “When you get your hands on one, you realize it doesn't feel like a luthier-made instrument. It feels like an engineer or a clockmaker made it. It feels more like a watch than it does a guitar, and it seemed fitting for what we were doing. The whole record is this mix of organic and early electronics, and a wood guitar just didn't feel right."
When he's not learning almost-forgotten synth technology or wrangling sounds from his Steinberger, Mitchell focuses primarily on the creative process itself. He has a reference folder filled with everything from full arrangements of possible songs to keyboard sounds that strike his fancy. He shares that folder with Keenan, who goes through it when he has the time or when he's ready to start working on a new Puscifer album. When they find something that clicks, they play with it, develop it, and take the first tentative steps toward crafting a song.
Mitchell customized his Steinberger by replacing its humbuckers with single-coils. “When you play soft and you play hard on a single-coil, there is a bigger range than you get from a humbucker." Photo by Mitra Mehvar.jpg
“Typically, I'll build out the arrangements, and that's when Greg comes in," says Mitchell. “Most of the arrangements were already there, and then he interpreted on top of that. There were a few moments where he went in an unexpected direction, and I suggested we change the chord structure to match what he was doing. We're not precious about anything until it's done. We're all happy to let it be in flux and to let each person's decisions push it one way or another."
That openness played to Edwards' strengths. Left alone in a studio room with synths and roughly 20 different stringed instruments—including fretted and fretless basses, guitars, an electric sitar, and an electric violin—he was like a kid in a candy store.
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