His 2019 solo debut, How Long, caught some fans off guard and shined brightly because of his song-first approach. “These days, I like listening to songs and the story and the total package,” Posen told PG in 2019. “I just trusted my gut and I can reach more people by playing songs, and I get moved more by a story and lyrics and harmony, so that’s where I naturally go. The live show is a lot more guitar-centric.”
But saying all that, Posen still gets down on the guitar. His slide might do most the talking (look no further than How Long’s sizzling “Get You Back”), but his fingerstyle flourishes and potent phrasing make him an all-around threat. And on top of all that, the dude can sing, too!
His brand-new album Headway expands on the success of How Long by incorporating more rootsy Americana vibes (“Heart by Heart” or “Carry Me Home”) and slinky neo-soul touches (“What Are We Doing Here”). And guitarists, don’t worry, he still cuts a grooving, silky solo (“Coming Back” or “Heart by Heart”).
Just before releasing his emotive, heartfelt 12-song collection, the burgeoning-songwriting guitarist virtually welcomed PG’s Chris Kies into his Canadian-home jam space.
In this episode, we find out how a $50-pawnhsop purchase inspired his No. 1—a custom-made, S-style baritone—and he explains why all of his guitars (and their tones) have to be “different,” and he goes through his travel-ready pedalboard that’s been grounded for over a year, but has still been a big asset for recording.
D'Addario XPND Pedalboard:https://www.daddario.com/XPNDRR
[Facing a mandatory shelter-in-place ordinance to limit the spread of COVID-19, PG enacted a hybrid approach to filming and producing Rig Rundowns. This is the 43rd video in that format.]
If you’ve spent any time with Ariel Posen’s first solo record, How Long, an auditory high mark might be the ripping, raunchy slide solo packed within “Get You Back.” As explained in a 2019 PG interview, Posen’s pairing for that song were two cheapos—a $50 Teisco Del Ray into a Kay combo. However, when he took the pawnshop prize onstage, the magic was gone. “It wouldn’t stay in tune and wouldn’t stop feeding back—it was unbearable [laughs].”
Posen was familiar with Matt Eich of Mule Resophonic—who specializes in building metal-body resonators—so he approached the luthier to construct him a steel-bodied, Strat-style baritone. Eich was reluctant at first (he typically builds roundneck-resos and T-style-baritones), but after seeing a clip of Posen playing live the partnership was started.
The above steel-bodied Strat-style is Posen’s second custom 25"-scale baritone. (On Mule Resophonic’s website, it’s affectionately named the “Posencaster.”) The gold-foil-y pickups are handwound by luthier Matt Eich and are actually mini-humbuckers. He employs a custom Stringjoy set (.017–.064 with a wound G) and typically tunes to B standard. The massive strings allow the shorter-scale baritone to maintain a regular-tension feel. And when he gigs, he tours light (usually two guitars) and so he’ll use a capo to morph into D or E standard.
If touring were a thing right now, Posen would take this Josh Williams Guitars’ Mockingbird on the road for open-C duties. (Again, also using a capo to unlock more doors while still traveling lean.) It speaks with a set of Ron Ellis PAFs that sit in the 7-8k range.
Another one that saw recording time for Headway is the above Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt '60s Jazzmaster (by Carlos Lopez). Making it work better for him, he had the treble-bleed circuit removed, so when the guitar’s volume is lowered, it actually gets warmer.
Here is Posen’s Fender Ultra Telecaster that was recently upgraded with a sharp faux-tortoise-shell pickguard constructed by Chris Moffitt. (He’s a Northern Ireland-based luthier who works under the name Kithara Guitars.) Another mod he did to this tele was swapping out the stock Ultra Noiseless pickups for a vintage-voiced, ’50s-era, T-style set from Ron Ellis. For pandemic projects he’s had this one set in standard tuning and outfitted with Ernie Ball Slinkys (.012s).
Above is a Wide Sky Guitars P125 Cutaway model built by luthier Patch Rubin. The New Mexico-based shop focuses on classic singlecut, LP-style electrics and golden-age acoustics. The P125 features a chambered sapele body with a carved maple top, mahogany neck with a bound ebony fretboard, and it came loaded with a mixed set of Curtis Novak pickups—a P-90 in the neck and a PAF in the bridge.
Easily the wonkiest guitar in Posen’s collection is this custom ride created by Dahlberg Intruments. The body is based on their standard Crusader model, but the rest is unique to Ariel. Its fiesta red body is made from swamp ash, it has a walnut neck, a fretless ebony fretboard with aluminum fret markers, custom Lücking gold-foil pickups, and a rubber-coated floating wooden bridge.
On the surface, this looks like a junky ’50s Kay. And while you’re not entirely wrong, the guitar is quite playable and has a character all its own thanks to being fully refurbished (completely with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails in the soundhole) by luthier Reuben Cox of L.A.’s Old Style Guitar Shop.
Posen’s favorite style of acoustic is a dreadnought. His prized Martin D-28 rests back home in Winnipeg, but during quarantine he’s been bonding with this Collings D1 T that’s seen work during recent recording projects.
If you’ve caught Ariel onstage, you’ve probably seen him plug into a Two-Rock. For the recording purposes of this Rundown, he fired up his Classic Reverb and routed it into the Universal Audio Ox Load Box.
Another tone machine used during the pandemic is Posen’s Revv D20 (sitting on top of the aforementioned UA Ox Box).
Posen toured with this setup for over a year before everything shut down. In the Rundown he mentions that he uses it quite a bit for sessions, proving to be flexible while compacted into a travel-friendly package.
Starting at the top left, you have a Chase Bliss Tonal Recall, Walrus Audio Monument, and a Chase Bliss Dark World. Down below that he has a Vemuram Jan Ray overdrive and a KingTone Germanium miniFUZZ. And the bottom row he has a Morningstar FX MC6 MIDI Controller and a TC Electronic PolyTune3 Mini Noir.
But wait … there’s more!! Underneath the top two rows sits a trio of stomps—a Mythos Pedals’ Argonaut Mini Octave Up, Eventide H9, and Ariel’s signature Hudson Electronics Broadcast AP that he leaves on all the time (cleaning up with his guitar’s volume knob).
Another big piece of the tonal pie for Posen is using his signature brass Rock Slide. He worked alongside Rock Slide’s Danny Songhurst to develop his namesake slide that features a round-tip end that helps Posen avoid dead spots or unwanted scratching. While he prefers polished brash, you can see about that it’s also available in a nickel-plated finish and an aged brass.
Name: Conrad Warre
Location: Boston, MassachusettsGuitar: The Beecaster
As the guitarist for the Boston-based, acid-blues band Bees Deluxe,there were two different guitar problems I needed to address. We sometimes play shows that can last more than three hours, and we occasionally play venues that have prehistoric electric wiring in the building, especially if they’re running older kitchens for their dinner crowds. The extremely long shows could be helped by my playing a much lighter-weight guitar than I typically play.
The older (more venerable) venues who haven’t shielded or upgraded their electrical wiring properly result in my single-coil guitars picking up local television news stations and re-transmitting their signals or merely humming along with them tunelessly, and require some level of humbucking support. So I commissioned a local expert luthier, Michael McCarten of Athol, Massachusetts, to build me a single, noiseless-pickup guitar made of the lightest appropriate wood.
McCarten specializes in building archtop guitars, mandolins, resonator guitars, ukuleles, and pocket violins, and proved very amenable to collaborating with me on the design. We chose basswood for the single-cut body, a maple set neck with ebony fretboard, and a Seymour Duncan Noiseless Stack Neck P-90. I wanted him to install a P-90 because they aren’t as far removed from single-coil pickups in timbre as full-blown humbucking pickups. I need a certain amount of bite in the guitar sound to cut through the similar keyboard frequencies in the band.
In order to enable the guitar to have as wide a range of “voice” as possible, we threw in two push/pull pots. The single volume and single tone pots each push-pull. The volume is positioned as close to my right hand as possible to enable “violining” and switches the pickup output from series to parallel, and, at McCarten’s suggestion, the single tone pot changes the capacitor in use, bringing a sharper, spankier, brighter, more Telecaster flavor to the P-90 when needed. The Beecaster weighs less than 6 pounds, so now as soon as the venues in the Northeast reopen, and we get back on the road headed north and south, I’ll be ready to play the guitar tirelessly from dusk to dawn, like a musical vampire.
Send your guitar story to submissions@premierguitar.com.
“This is kinda my baby—it’s sorta my soulmate of guitars. There’s a lot of attachment here and it’s become a limb,” swoons Molly Miller when introducing her 1978 Gibson ES-335 finished in the subdued walnut. She’s been with this semi-hollowbody since Miller was 17 and scooped it up at her home base guitar store, Rhythm & Notes, in Redondo Beach.
The last gig before quarantine earned the 335 a battle scar (replacement G-string tuner) after she dropped it onstage. She’s had a refret done to it, but other than that it’s like the day she bought it. For strings, Miller rocks .011s from either Ernie Ball (Slinkys) or Gabriel Tenorio and she uses Copperpeace leather straps.
Originally sourced as a road dog fill-in for the 335, this run-of-the-mill Fender Tele has become a reliable ally for Miller. Her bond with the flexible workhorse has appreciated because it keeps her out of more boxes or redundant traps than the 335.
Just before filming the Rundown, the Tele returned with a new neck made by L.A. tech Mike Cornwall. She describes it in the video as “the top part is angular and the bottom half is rounded, but it plays like butter and is silk [laughs].”
Here is Miller’s Taylor Grand Auditorium Builder's Edition 614ce.
Another semi-hollow sweetie is this Taylor T3 that offers Molly a smaller-bodied option to her beefier 335.
Always on the hunt to find a road replacement for her ’78 ES, she scored one from where the 335s were originally built in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She says the newer Heritage H535 (loaded with Seymour Duncan ’59 humbuckers) is a bit brighter than her main semi-hollow, but it certainly could see stage time when touring resumes (hopefully in 2021).
[Editor’s note: Gibson HQ was founded by Orville Gibson in Kalamazoo in the late 1800s. He eventually moved production to 225 Parsons Street in 1917 and produced instruments until 1984 when Gibson moved to Nashville. A few former Gibson employees banded together and started Heritage in 1985 on those same hallowed grounds.]
While Molly waits for her own semi-hollow Ashbord to be built by luthier Kevin Equitz, she's taking good care of her friend's lovely 6-string.
If she’s amplified, she’s probably plugging into this modern reissue Fender Princeton Reverb combo that was modded at some point to make its narrow midrange voice a “wider” sound.
As you see here, Molly Miller is one for maximizing space. Not a wasted inch on this A3 Stompbox-built board that is home to a Chase Bliss Dark World, a couple of Keeleys (Mag Echo and Oxblood), a pair of EarthQuaker Devices (Dunes and Dispatch Master), A3 Stompbox Awesome overdrive, and Voodoo Lab Tremolo. Her two foot-controlled pedals are a A3 Stompbox custom volume pedal (left) and Fulltone Clyde Standard Wah (right). Molly’s guitars are kept in check with a TC Electronic PolyTune 2 Mini and she added the brand new EarthQuaker Devices Astral Destiny for some freaky tones during the Rundown.
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