The silky-smooth R&B artist and in-demand sideman gives us the low-down on his economical road rig.
Guitarist and singer-songwriter David Ryan Harris rose to prominence as a key part of John Mayer’s band between 2004 and 2012, and he’s backed everyone from Santana to Dave Matthews to Nick Jonas. But as a solo artist and bandleader, Harris has been spinning gorgeous R&B, blues, and funk for decades. Harris took PG's John Bohlinger through his current touring rig before a stop with Scary Pockets at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl on October 5.
Brought to you by the D'Addario XPND.
Pale Blue Axe
Harris travels light, with just one guitar: his Frank Brothers Ultra Light in Pelham blue. It features a mahogany body, maple top, and Mullinax “Oh, Salvation” P-90 pickups. It stays strung with D’Addario XL Chromes (.012-.052), with a plain .020 G-string.
Double Decker
Harris packs a compact, two-tier pedal board, with his Strymon Zuma and Strymon Iridium hidden beneath the top level. He runs his Ultra Light into a TC Electronic PolyTune, and from there the signal whips through the rest of his board in order: a Jackson Audio PRISM, Cooper FX Outward, custom Browne Amplification “Dual Blue,” JHS Artificial Blonde, Strymon Flint and Iridium, TC Electronic Ditto, and a BOSS OC-3 Super Octave.
'Luxe Living
On a normal day, Harris cranks up either his Two-Rock Studio Signature or his Two-Rock Burnside combo, with a 1x12 cab. But for his Brooklyn Bowl gig, Harris settled for the backline: a Fender '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb.
Shop David Ryan Harris' Rig
D’Addario XL Chromes (.012-.052)
Strymon Zuma
Strymon Iridium
TC Electronic PolyTune
Jackson Audio PRISM
JHS Artificial Blonde
Strymon Flint
TC Electronic Ditto
BOSS OC-5
Fender '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb
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Released in 2005, the original POG revolutionized the world of octave pedals and became a favorite of the likes of Joe Satriani and Jack White. The POG2 followed with updates like programmable presets and an attack filter that helped the POG garner even more popularity among guitarists all over the world. With the biggest feature update to date, the POG3 becomes the most powerful polyphonic octave generator ever.
Electro-Harmonix POG3 Polyphonic Octave Generator Pedal (EHX Demo by BILL RUPPERT)
Building on the foundation laid by the original almost two decades ago, the POG3 offers updates that include a +5th voice, 100 user presets, extensive I/O, enhanced effects section with individual dry effect routing, and expression control over almost every parameter of the pedal.
Features
- Six separate voices: DRY, -2 OCT, -1 OCT, +5TH, +1 OCT, +2OCT
- 100 presets
- Three separate 1/4" outputs – LEFT, RIGHT, DIRECT OUT
- Individual pan controls to separate voices between the LEFT and RIGHT output jacks
- Classic POG and POG2 ATTACK, FILTER, and DETUNE controls with enhancements
- INPUT GAIN control
- MASTER VOLUME control
- FOCUS control for +1 OCT and +2 OCT
- Multimode Filter with Q and Envelope sweep
- All controls can be saved to presets and controlled via expression and/or MIDI
- Illuminated slide pots and buttons
- 128x32 graphic OLED display
- Selectable “home” views to allow for personalized user experiences
- Easy-to-navigate menu system
- New NavCoder knob allows rotary and directional navigation through menus
- EXPRESSION / CV input offers multiple modes of expression
- USB-C port to connect to Windows or Mac and interface with EHXport™ app
The Electro-Harmonix POG3 is available now, comes equipped with a high current EHX 9 Volt power supply and features a U.S. Street Price of $645.00.
For more information, please visit ehx.com.
John Bohlinger, Andrés Segovia would like to have a word with you.
Back in their day, recordings of music were a way to promote sheet music. Labels released recordings only after sheet-music sales slowed down on a particular song. That means that until recently, a large section of society not only knew how to read music well, but they did it often—not as often as we stare at our phones, but it was a primary part of home entertainment. By today’s standards, written music feels like a dead language. Music is probably the most common language on Earth, yet I bet it has the highest illiteracy rate.
As a lifelong professional musician, it’s surprising—and, frankly, a relief—how infrequently I read staff music. Though I read chord or Nashville number charts often, staff rarely comes up, usually only in sessions where a producer/writer/artist has a particular melody or gang riff. I feel a deep shame when I have to read music; I do it about as well as an out-of-shape guy with no training runs a marathon: slowly, painfully, maybe not making it to the finish line.
I learned everything I know about reading through junior high school orchestra, where I was a crappy violinist. So, you can chalk one up to the Montana public school system. Although at times I’m ashamed of my poor music-reading skills, it’s not that big of a deal. When I’m faced with a written staff full of sharps and flats and weird time, I just ask the keyboard player to play the tricky parts slowly. If there’s one player in the band that can read well, it’s usually keys; they mostly grew up with formal lessons. If I hear piano play the part while I read along, the dots and squiggles on the staff start to make sense.
“By today’s standards, written music feels like a dead language.”
I bet most guitar players feel conflicted about reading music. We all want to learn as much as we can about guitar, and obviously some of that information is going to escape us if we can’t read it, even with tabs and guitar-nerd videos just a few clicks away. But maybe our lack of formal training is the source of our superpower. I suspect that the reason guitar has been the driving force behind most popular music for the past 65 years is because the instrument invites exploration. The more you mess with it, the more you discover. That’s the addictive quality of guitar. That’s probably why most guitar players would rather make stuff up than read what somebody else wants them to play. When you have that many people experimenting and creating, art takes a big step forward.
By contrast, classical musicians are not about innovation or taking chances. They are more about interpretation, virtuosity, and a reverence for tradition. The majority of classical music played today was composed in 1600 to 1875. New, experimental classical music is a hard sell. People want to hear the classics, like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.
It’s a strange dichotomy: classical players tune by ear but almost never play by ear. Ask a seasoned orchestra player to improvise and most of them will get a little panicky.
Guitarist: Let’s jam in E.
Orchestra Nerd: What do you mean?
Guitarist: I’ll play something, you play with it. Just make up a melody.
Orchestra Nerd: What melody?
Guitarist: Just make one up?
Orchestra Nerd: What do you mean?
It goes on like that until they nervously decline.
Guitarists are, for the most part, fearless about exploration. Just look at the instrument itself. Most violins built anywhere in the world today look pretty much like the ones built in the 16th century in Italy. By contrast, guitar designs are as varied as car designs—maybe more so. Go into a big music store and you can play a gut-string, flattop, archtop, Les Paul, Tele, Strat, Jaguars, PRS, Flying V, Explorer … and that’s not even getting into the weird ones. Eddie Van Halen could not find a guitar that could produce the music in his head, so he built it. The point is, guitar is an instrument of improvisation—no rules in how you play it or how you build it.
Maybe this is just a way of justifying my shortcomings or making the most of my laziness or lack of brainpower, but I think there’s an upside to being musically illiterate. As the mighty EVH said: “You only have 12 notes, do what you want with them.”