Mixdown Magazine #301

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MADE BY MUSICIANS FOR MUSICIANS

#301 – MAY 2019

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GiveawVIDEO KIT

MV88+ SHURE OLD & NESS G YL O R A B IN V Y GRE IT CARE K KYSER

INTERVIEWS — Anberlin, West Thebarton, Haken, Polish Club & More

EXPRESS YOURSELF.

RELAY G10S Guitar Wireless for your Pedalboard

REVIEWED — Paul Reed Smith SE Custom 24, Fender Rumble LT25, TC Helicon GO Interfaces,

Xotic XSC Guitar. Apogee Element 46 Interface, Vox AC30S1, IK Multimedia UNO Synth + many more

SINGLE CHANNEL. SINGLE SPEAKER. SINGLE PURPOSE.

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• Balanced XLR DI output PRODUCT INFO line6.com/relay-g10s

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CONTENTS 8 10 11 12 16 18 19 20 22 26 27 28 29 30 44 46

Giveaways Industry News Music News Product News Cover Story: Baroness Anberlin West Thebarton Tal Walkenfeld Haken Polish Club Features Musicology Electronic Music Production Guitar Bass Percussion Product Reviews Directory Show & Tell

Baroness PG.16

Foreword I’ve always been blown away John Dyer Baizley’s talent. Whether it be his songwriting, performance or artwork, the man is pure talent and I just can’t get enough. Having loved Baroness’ 2015 record Purple so much that it didn’t leave rotation for a good 18 months, I was so eager to dive into the next chapter. Gold & Grey is unsurprisingly stellar and the band simply gets better with every release. It’s a pleasure to have Baroness on the cover this month alongside interviews with a heap of other great acts, features, reviews and everything in between. Thanks for reading!

/MIXDOWNMAGAZINE @MIXDOWNMAGAZINE @MIXDOWNMAGAZINE MIXDOWNMAG.COM.AU

For breaking news, new content and more giveaways visit our website.

Anberlin

Tal Wilkenfeld

PG. 18

PG. 19

NICHOLAS SIMONSEN - EDITOR

MADE BY MUSICIANS, FOR MUSICIANS STREET AND ONLINE DATE: WEDNESDAY JUNE 12 AD BOOKING DEADLINE: MONDAY JUNE 3 EDITORIAL DEADLINE: TUESDAY JUNE 4 ARTWORK DEADLINE: WEDNESDAY JUNE 5 For more information on Mixdown Magazine contact us at: (03) 9428 3600 or email nicholas@furstmedia.com.au

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PUBLISHER Furst Media Mycelium Studios Factory 1/10-12 Moreland Road East Brunswick VIC 3057 (03) 9428 3600

ONLINE EDITOR Will Brewster will@furstmedia.com.au

MANAGING DIRECTOR Patrick Carr patrick@furstmedia.com.au

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Erica May

EDITOR Nicholas Simonsen nicholas@furstmedia.com.au

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Josh Martin

CONTRIBUTORS Rob Gee, Christie Elizer, Nick Brown, David James Young, Adrian Violi, Michael Cusack, Augustus Welby, Luke Shields, Alex Watts, Jessica Over, Aaron Streatfeild, James Di Fabrizio, Adam

Norris, Alex Winter, Eddy Lim, Lewis Noke-Edwards, Josh Martin, Taylor Douglas

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GIVEAWAYS Shure MV88+ Video Kit Giveaway The Shure MV88+ Video Kit is the perfect mobile professional recording rig for Vloggers, Filmmakers, Musicians and Podcasters. The kit includes a Tripod, phone clamp & shoe‐ mount mic clip, USB‐C & lightning cables, making sure you have everything you need for video and audio recording on the go!

Thanks to our friends at Jands, we have three of these to give away. To find out how to enter, head to the Mixdown website or Instagram or @jandsptyltd.

Last Month’s Giveaway Winners IK Multimedia AXE I/O Giveaway The IK Multimedia AXE I/O is an audio interface and controller designed for the needs of the modern recording guitar. The AXE I/O is full to the brim with high quality and stellar features. We had one to giveaway thanks to our friends at Sound & Music and the winner is: Tegan from Perth, WA

Baroness Gold & Grey Vinyl Giveaway Gold & Grey is the newest chapter in the story of Baroness. The 17 track album is full to the brim with signature Baroness riffs and melodies, and like all of Baroness’ work features beautiful artwork from vocalist/guitar John Baisley. We have a copy of the new record on vinyl to giveaway thanks to our buds at Cooking Vinyl Australia.

Audio-Technica LP120X Turntable Giveaway To coincide with Record Store Day, we had one of the brand spanking new Audio-Technica LP120X Turntables to give away thanks to our friends at Audio- Technica Australia and the winner is: Jeremy from Ashfield, NSW

Kyser Care Kit Giveaway The Kyser Care Kit is a one-stop-shop for guitar maintenance.

Featuring Kyser’s String Cleaning, Instrument Polish, Lem-Oil and an assortment of high quality cleaning cloths, it has all you need to keep your guitar looking fine. Thanks our friends at CMC Music, we have one of these kits to giveaway.

For your chance to win any of these prizes, head to our giveaways page at mixdownmag.com.au/giveaway and follow the instructions. *These giveaways are for Australian residents only and one entry per person. For full terms and conditions visit mixdownmag.com.au/terms-and-conditions

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INDUSTRY NEWS ARIA launches weekly vinyl chart The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) have launched a new weekly Vinyl Albums chart. Vinyl album sales have been rising for eight consecutive years, up 15.19% in 2018 when sales were worth $21.7 million, compared to $18.8 million in 2017. Vinyl album sales hit 896, 209 units in 2018, up 9.36% from 819, 516 from 2017.

ARIA chief executive Dan Rosen pointed out, “The renewed love affair of Australian music fans with vinyl albums has been a phenomenon over the last few years. There is a major sense of nostalgia to the experience of vinyl. The format is tangible and collectable, often with original and numbered artworks. Artists are increasingly using physical formats such as vinyl as a way to give their fans a substantial way of showing their fandom, often working hand in hand with the digital and streaming version for the artist.”

In 2018, the best selling vinyl albums in Australia were Queen’s Greatest Hits; the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack; Nirvana’s Nevermind; Arctic Monkeys’ Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino; and Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black. Best selling Aussie acts on the format were Gang of Youths, Tame Impala, Tash Sultana, Powderfinger, Skeggs, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and INXS.

Community radio lobbies before federal election In the lead up to the federal election on Saturday May 18, the community radio sector will be lobbying sitting members of Parliament and candidates across the major parties, minor parties and independents into better policy settings to allow the sector to thrive.

The campaign will be spearheaded by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, which will be seeking commitments to two issues: long-term funding certainty by ensuring it is recurrent, indexed and ongoing, rather than on allocation; and increasing financial support for community broadcasting by an extra $5.1 million annually to allow a larger development and operations grants pool to meet the growing needs of community radio stations.

CBAA’s CEO, Jon Bisset, said this would “help ensure the growth and sustainability of the community broadcasting sector to help meet community needs.” Currently, funding for digital radio roll out, as well as funding targeted at enhanced news programming, improved online presence and industry skills development is not included in the forward estimates from 2021/22.

Hi-Fi music streaming from Amazon Music?

Amazon Music, the third largest streaming service in the world, has decided to move up a gear to close the gap between themselves and Spotify and Apple Music. Last month came a new free music streaming service, and now Music Business Worldwide has caught wind of their plans to launch a high fidelity music streaming platform. It has been holding talks with major music rights-holders and at least one major record company has apparently thrown its hat in the ring. The whisper is that the service will cost $14 a month and it’ll see light of day by the end of 2019.

Spotify and Apple Music don’t offer that service. But Jay-Z’s TIDAL has CD-quality lossless streams at 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.CD quality for $19.99 a month and a Masters quality at 96 kHz / 24 bit via desktop.

Deezer offers a HiFi tier at a standard price of $19.99 per month streams music at 44.1 kHz / 16-bit via FLAC files. These give great listening enjoyment, and hearing sounds on the recording you might not have heard previously. But the good news about the

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Amazon service, one of MBW’s sources said, “It’s a better bit rate, better than CD quality.

Amazon is working on it as we speak: they’re currently scoping out how much catalogue they can get from everyone and how they’ll ingest it.”

Where there’s a pill, there’s a...

Pill Testing Australia (PTA), which conducted the second ever pill-testing experiment at Canberra’s Groovin’ The Moo late last month, have launched a crowd funding campaign on their website to raise $100,000 to buy a couple of schmick pieces of tech to do the testing (ALPHA II FTIR spectrophotometers), assist with logistics, resources and volunteer travel.

The PTA might as well get ready for future expansion. Most states are still unsmilingly refusing to contemplate pill testing at festivals, but resistance is slowly crumbling.

PTA poster boy Dr David Caldicott says, “Over a dozen professional medical bodies, medical, nursing, paramedical and pharmaceutical now stand with us and 20 years of global data shows that shows pill testing reduces drug consumption and reduces harm.”

Nuclear Blast launches AUS & NZ A&R division

Bohemian Rhapsody to hit $1B

Two creative summits locked in for Melbourne

Mama mia! Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody had its share of dramas getting made, including directors and actors getting the heave-ho, with every person and their dog predicting on its release it would be a giant flop. This month, it’s expected to hit US$1 billion globally at the box office, placing it as the most successful music biopic of all time.

Bohemian Rhapsody is now Fox’s fourthbiggest title behind Avatar, Titanic and Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.

Melbourne is hosting two creative summits this month. The Victorian government’s third Creative State Summit returns to Melbourne Museum May 30-31, bringing together Victoria’s arts, cultural, design, digital games, fashion and screen sectors. Focused on the ‘What’s Next?’ theme, the summit examines bold new ideas, emerging trends and the opportunities and disruptions set to shape the industry in the future.

Hip hop doco puts spotlight on Aussie names Melbourne hip hop identities Sensible Antixx and N’fa Jones have put together a new documentary called Burn Gently looking at the rise of Australian hip hop. Some funding bucks from the Victorian government through Creative Victoria, allowed them to tell the story through the eyes of the likes of Hilltop Hoods’ Suffa, L-FRESH The LION, Baker Boy, Mirrah, Joelistics, Drapht, REMI and Adrian Eagle. The producers said: “[In] late 2017 we recognised we were in a position to tell this story. We’ve worked hard at building our network and crafting a narrative that covers both the positive and negative of how hip hop is perceived and explored in this country.”

Global hard rock and metal record label Nuclear Blast set up a new A&R venture in the Australian and New Zealand markets. It’s a joint venture by Nuclear Blast and Believe Digital, which recently acquired a majority stake in the label. Long term Australian employee and newly appointed Nuclear Blast Oceania managing director John Howarth says local acts have a number of options.

“One is directly to the Nuclear Blast label be it Global or Local, the other is world class digital platform services with Believe,” he reveals.

Sounds Australia continues to wave flag overseas

Nuclear Blast managing director Marcus Hammer says, ’We were looking into this market for a long time already. This area already brought such great artists to the world and has so many dedicated fans and bands. We are stoked to take the next step down under with John, who has been our major asset in this great country for so many years now and looking forward to further develop strong relationships in Australia & New Zealand.’’ Nuclear Blast is home to Opeth, Machine Head, Slayer, Anthrax, Rob Zombie, Lamb Of God and Sabaton among others.

Between May 15-18, at Classical:NEXT, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, three ensembles are set to perform for 1,200 professionals from 45 countries, while a catered lunch will provide them with the first taste of Vegemite and cheese toasties.

In its 10th year of showcasing Aussie acts at major trade events and helping executives network with delegates from abroad, Sounds Australia has been working its collective butt off. After leading a trade mission to South America, last month it took 60 classical and jazz artists to Jazzahead! In Bremen, Germany.

On June 22, the initiative is throwing its flagship Aussie BBQ at New York City’s SummerStage and showcasing A.B. Original (marking the hip hop duo’s US debut), Hermitude, San Cisco, The Teskey Brothers, Tkay Maidza and WAAX.

The Stonnington Jazz Industry Summit is held on Saturday May 11 at Chapel Off Chapel in Melbourne at $25 a ticket.

Keynote speaker is Lilly Schwartz, artistic director of San Francisco Jazz. It covers creative artist management, a marketing workshop, a round table session, and ‘speed mentoring’ sessions to meet bookers, publishers and broadcasters. The summit is part of the 14th Stonnington Jazz Festival (Thursday May 9 – Sunday May 19) with Chelsea Wilson returning as artistic director for a three-year appointment.

A rainbow circle A new record was set in Stirling, WA when as part of Harmony Day, 77 musicians from as many countries formed themselves in a drum circle. Al wore their national dress, and the attempt was led by African percussion ensemble Akwaaba, who provided over 100 African drums.

Australia’s podcasting market widens Podcasting is Australia’s fast growing audio service. Last year there were 3.5 million Australians listening to podcasts, with PwC’s Australian Entertainment & Media Outlook forecasting the number of monthly listeners to reach 8.9 million by 2022. An indication is that new US podcast app Luminary chose Australia as one of four countries to launch in. It offers free and subscription tiers, counting on Aussies willing to pay for podcasts – as in $7.99 a month for 40 exclusive shows. In the meantime, a new study by marketing intelligence service WARC reckoned that by 2022, podcasts would get 4.5% of the globally audio advertising spend, which works out to $US1.6 billion or A$2.28 billion. Spotify acquired three podcasting firms this year, and within a few years is expected to be more known for podcasts than streaming.

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MUSIC NEWS

Posthumous Prince LP Originals slated for June release

City Calm Down tease album three with new single ‘Television’

Beck announces new album Hyperspace

Rejoice: a compilation of previously unreleased material from The Purple One is set to bless our ears next month. Titled Originals, the album is comprised of 15 tracks handpicked from Prince’s vaults by Jay-Z, and features original versions of tracks written for Kenny Rogers, The Bangles, Vanity 6 and more. After an exclusive digital premiere via TIDAL, Originals will hit shelves around the country on Friday June 6 via Warner Music.

Melbourne alternative outfit City Calm Down have offered fans a glimpse of their impending third album with the release of their latest single ‘Television.’ Eschewing their typically moody synths and post-punk basslines for a jangly, Smiths-inspired sonic palette, it’s the first time we’ve heard new music from the local four-piece since last year’s immersive Echoes In Blue. After this single, we can’t wait to hear more of what the band’s got in store.

Zap! Genre-bending indie troubadour Beck has tentatively announced the forthcoming release of his 14th studio album Hyperspace. While the record is yet to receive a release date, the celebrated multi-instrumentalist has hinted at the direction of the album with lead single ‘Saw Lightning,’ an electro-blues mish-mash featuring none other than Pharrell Williams. Beck’s last record Colors saw him nab Best Alternative Music Album and Best Engineered Non-Classical Album awards at this year’s Grammys, so naturally we’re expecting him to go even bigger this time around.

Seminal UK punks The Damned to tour in August

Queen herald their return to Australia in 2020

Northlane gear up for mammoth Alien rollout

Lace your Docs up, and spike that mohawk: punk icons The Damned are making their return to Australia. Once referred to

by Motorhead legend Lemmy Kilmister as “the only real punk band,” the first-wave British masters, who were last here for Golden Plains in 2017, have locked in shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne this August. Tickets are available now via Destroy All Lines – don’t miss this opportunity to see this highly influential band’s raucous live show.

With the hype around the Oscar winning biopic Bohemian Rhapsody still high, universally adored rockers Queen have rolled out the red carpet ready for their royal return with a run of huge stadium shows early next year. Guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor will be accompanied by lauded American Idol vocalist Adam Lambert to put on a blockbuster showcase of the band’s most famous tracks, giving fans the chance to relive their favourite muscial moments in the flesh one last time. Head to TEG Dainty for more details.

Sydney metalcore unit Northlane have announced their upcoming fifth record Alien, which is locked in for a nationwide rollout via UNFD on Friday August 2. In addition to releasing the album’s lead single ‘Bloodline,’ which is accompanied by a devastating music video shot by Jason Eshraghian, the band have also detailed a huge 50+ date world tour in support of the record, including six shows in Australia later in October. Head to Northlane’s website for more details.

The Chemical Brothers drop highly anticipated East Coast dates

FKA Twigs returns with breathtaking new single ‘Cellophane’

Splendour In The Grass detail 2019 sideshows

Beloved UK big beat duo The Chemical Brothers have shared details of three huge Australian shows later this year in support of their latest record No Geography. The electronic two-piece, who are in fact not siblings, will embark on a run of arena shows in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne this October and November, marking their first Australian shows in nearly seven years. With local legends The Avalanches locked in to warm up each show with a party-starting DJ set, this is definitely one show you won’t want to miss out on.

Grab your tickets from Frontier Touring now.

After a three year musical absence, UK avant-garde talent FKA Twigs has finally shared the first taste of her forthcoming sophomore record. Based around a minimal template of sparse piano loops and cavernous electronic textures, ‘Cellophane’ sees FKA Twigs flex her vocal chops to jaw-dropping new levels throughout the new track. With exclusive appearances at Vivid Sydney and Hobart’s Dark Mofo festival locked in for next month, hopefully Australian crowds will be treated to more new material from one of the most dynamic performers of the past decade.

Missed out on tickets to this year’s Splendour In The Grass? Never fear – sideshows are here! James Blake, The Streets and Catfish and the Bottlemen are set to take their acclaimed live shows around the country throughout July, while Foals and Warpaint are teaming up for a huge run of national shows for you rock dogs. There’s also dates from Childish Gambino, who’s making up for last year’s cancelled Australian tour, as well as appearances from RnB sensation SZA, rising UK rapper Little Simz, Canadian skate punks FIDLAR, New York neo-soul outfit Phony Ppl and many, many more. Head online for more details.

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PRODUCT NEWS

Markbass Marcus Miller CMD 103 Shipping Now CMC MUSIC | CMCMUSIC.COM.AU Markbass is now shipping the flagship of their signature range of combos designed in partnership with the legendary Marcus Miller – the Marcus Miller CMD 103. The Marcus Miller CMD 103 delivers the kind of bottom end and dynamics that Marcus demands, and is unique amongst bass combos. Sitting squarely between the popular size of a 2x10 cab, and the power of a 4x10 cab, at 23.5 kg, the 3x10 format combo offers a well thought out balance of power, weight and size.

Ernie Ball Everlast Picks Shipping Now

Headrush Expand Range With New Looperboard

IK Multimedia iRig Micro Amp Coming Soon

CMC MUSIC | CMCMUSIC.COM.AU

ELECTRIC FACTORY | ELFA.COM.AU

SOUND & MUSIC| SOUND-MUSIC.COM

The Ernie Ball Everlast range of picks feature highly durable Delrin material for a more secure non-slip surface. The 2019 new pick thicknesses includes eight different thickness types for playing comfort and eight vibrant bright colours to choose from. Pick up the entire range at a retailer near you.

Following the immensely successful HeadRush Pedalboard and Gigboard, the Looperboard is a feature-packed standalone floorboard looper that leaves its competition in the dust. It boasts fully customisable routing, a massive amount of internal storage, a suite of useful built-in effects, an integrated backing track player and an onboard USB audio interface. Keep an eye out for it in a store near you.

The IK Multimedia iRig Micro Amp is a compact, batterypowered amp that lets you do more. At 15W RMS, it’s louder than you’d expect and covers a range of tones, with three custom-voiced analogue channels: clean, drive, and lead.

Expect to see the iRig Micro Amp in a store near you in the coming weeks.

Paul Reed Smith Unveil New S2 Vela Semi-Hollow ELECTRIC FACTORY | ELFA.COM.AU

Audio-Technica Announce LP140XP Turntable AUDIO-TECHNICA AUSTRALIA | AUDIO-TECHNICA.COM.AU

The Vela Semi-Hollow is the newest addition to Paul Reed Smith’s famed S2 line of guitars.

A vintage-inspired, offset design with loads of personality. The Vela featured a PRS Vela pickup in the bridge, and a PRS-Designed Type-D Singlecoil in the neck that gives the guitar some noteworthy bite. The guitar will be available in seven elegant finishes, including the striking Frost Blue Metallic seen here.

The new Audio-Technica LP140XP is a professional DJ turntable designed to deliver exceptional sound quality and reliability. Its die-cast aluminium platter and antiresonance hybrid steel/polymer deck further contribute to the turntable’s rock-solid performance. Available in silver and black, the AT-LP140XP offers DJ-friendly features such as a start/stop button, forward/reverse play, selectable pitch change and a stylus target light.

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PRODUCT NEWS

Apogee Update Symphony I/O With Dante AMBER TECHNOLOGY | AMBERTECH.COM.AU Apogee have updated their flagship interface, the Symphony I/O with Dante. The Dante option card uses Audinate’s Dante Brooklyn II module which features plug and play media networking for up to 32 bidirectional channels at 96kHz and 16 bidirectional channels up to 192k. The Symphony I/O Dante option card is available now.

TC Helicon Go Series Available Now AMBER TECHNOLOGY | AMBERTECH.COM.AU The latest in portable interfaces/preamps from TC Helicon are available now. The GO GUITAR is the only mobile interface you’ll need to record quick, on-the-go riffs anywhere, anytime with your mobile device. The GO VOCAL lets you upgrade your mobile device’s microphone in a flash, providing high-quality recording performance using your favourite external dynamic or condenser microphone.

Fender Reveal Limited Red Mahogany Top Telecaster

New Generation of KRK Rokit Monitors Are Available Now

FENDER MUSIC AUSTRALIA | FENDER.COM.AU

JANDS | JANDS.COM.AU

Fender have continued their Rarities collection with the limited Red Mahogany Top Telecaster. The Telecaster features a two-piece, grain-filled ash body with a figured red mahogany top and a one-piece maple neck. The Custom Shop vintage-style Tele bridge pickup is matched to a Custom Shop Twisted Tele neck pickup for a rousing combination.

The legendary KRK Rokit range of studio monitors have been updated, featuring a new ground up monitor design with onboard DSP room tuning leverages over 30 years of speaker innovation to deliver professional studio sound to all. The monitors are available in 5”, 7”, 8” and 10” and include a newly designed custom Class D power amp. You can hear a pair at any KRK dealer in your area.

Fender Announces Alternate Reality Meteora HH FENDER MUSIC AUSTRALIA | FENDER.COM.AU Following on from the limited edition release of the Meteora in 2018, Fender have announced a new take on the model featuring twin Players Series humbuckers. The Meteora HH sports a sleek body shape that carries on their tradition of arresting aesthetic design. The sound is as propulsive as its visually stimulating lines. It’s a guitar made to catch both the eye and the ear.

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Yamaha Announce New FG Red Label Series YAMAHA MUSIC AUSTRALIA | AU.YAMAHA.COM Inspired by Yamaha’s iconic “red label” guitars of the 1960s, the new FG Red Label folk guitars blend modern inspiration with a timeless design. Featuring a classic semi-gloss finish and high-quality components, FG Red Label guitars capture an authentic vintage aesthetic. The Mahogany back and sides are paired with a premium Sitka Spruce top that’s treated with Yamaha’s Acoustic Resonance Enhancement process for genuine aged-wood tone and sustain. Head to your nearest Yamaha dealer to get your hands on one.

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BARONESS STRIKE GOLD After 12 years and five studio albums, Baroness have reached the end of the rainbow. Just as the prophecy foretold, there’s gold at the end – Gold & Grey, that is. Considered the final album in a cycle, Baroness’ forthcoming fifth LP is one that serves as a reflection on everything the band has been through, from its Grammy-winning highs to its bus-crash lows. The band wants it on record, however, that this was never part of some grand plan or greater scheme.

“Realistically, I never thought it’d happen,” says John Dyer Baizley – the band’s founder, lead singer and primary songwriter. “Making this series of albums was a task that Baroness set out to do at a point in our lives when we just assumed it was something we wouldn’t finish.

To have worked on this loose concept idea for 12 years is a pretty big commitment, so it’s pretty wild to be at the end of it. It started as this half-serious, half-joke kind of thing. Now I’m living in it.”

Gold & Grey follows on from Purple, which was released in the final weeks of 2015 and subsequently shook up a lot of year-end lists in the process. It marks the return of producer Dave Fridmann, who worked on Purple but had next to no experience with metal bands prior to that. Instead, Fridmann is best known for his work with more psychedelic bands, such as The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev. Having that outsider perspective, however, is what made Baizley think he was perfect for the job in the first place. “In terms of production, he’s always been my favourite guy,” says Baizley.

“Right from when the band was starting out, whenever the label people would ask about producers for the record, I would always swing big. I would always put Dave Fridmann’s name out there first.

We’ve been really lucky to develop this relationship with him. I think you really get the best of somebody when you’re doing your second record with them. You’re talking through things, feeling things out – and Purple was already an intense record to begin with. I think he knew we wanted to change, and really make this record a different beast. He works and creates and such a higher level than everybody else, and we can communicate really quickly and spontaneously.”

Nearly everyone who worked on Purple is a part of Gold & Grey – Baizley, Fridmann, bassist/keyboardist Nick Jost and drummer Sebastian Thomson. Making her debut on a Baroness album, however, was lead guitarist Gina Gleason. The virtuoso shredder came on board in 2017, replacing long-serving guitarist Peter Adams after nine years. It was a considerable change for a band that had undergone plenty since its formation in 2003, but one that was handled

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“TO HAVE WORKED ON THIS LOOSE CONCEPT IDEA FOR 12 YEARS IS A PRETTY BIG COMMITMENT, SO IT’S PRETTY WILD TO BE AT THE END OF IT” incredibly well by all parties involved.

“From a fundamental standpoint, nothing felt different,” says Baizley. “It was maybe one of the most surprising things about the transition from Pete to Gina. I think what it is comes back to throwing a new member into some heavy touring. That’s what happened with Nick and Sebastian when they joined before we made Purple, and it’s definitely happened here too. When Gina joined, she was able to get into the flow of how we do things. She didn’t just repeat what Pete would’ve done – she brought her own personality, her own skill-set and everything that makes her unique. She is a phenomenal guitar player, and a great vocalist too.”

As aforementioned, all of the key aspects of Baroness go through Baizley. We’re talking songwriting, lyrics, guitars, vocals, harmonies... even down to the artwork itself. A painter and visual artist of considerable note, Baizley has painted all five of Baroness’ album covers. Much like the albums, the paintings themselves

have always told their own story – which leads one to question the chicken/egg nature of them. Does Baizley paint without any idea of what the album will sound like, or can he only paint the artwork once the album is finished?

“I don’t think it’s ever been done the same way twice,” says Baizley.

“With Purple, for instance, I had done the prep-work for the art on the day before we went into the studio to record it. I finished most of it during the second half of the sessions. With Gold & Grey, I don’t think I so much as even picked up a pencil until the week that the album was getting mastered. That wasn’t by design, but circumstantially I think that lead to the artwork being inspired by the album itself.

“By that point, I’d been writing down a lot of notes. The album had its own life to it. The artwork was generated in response to the music that we’d been making, and the whole thing seemed to tie into this creative idea that I’d started to generate some three years ago. As far as origins go, I lost sight of it a long time ago – to me, Baroness is now just one giant project. It’s a wonderful thing.”

With the release of Gold & Grey looming, Baizley is thinking a lot about the progressions the band has made over the years. As its sole constant, he’s watched each evolution and progression the band has taken to get to where they are right now. It’s with this that he confidently says that Gold & Grey is Baroness’ best album.

“I worry a lot,” he says. “Everytime we write a record, I worry about not being able to confidently say to people that this is the best thing I’ve ever worked on. I can honestly say it about Gold & Grey.

There’s no doubt in my mind about it. I’ve been able to say that with every record. From my standpoint, each record has been a better experience than the one before – and they’ve all been great experiences.” Baizley stops, nervously laughing to himself. “That’s gotta slow down at some point, right?”

BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG

Baroness will release Gold & Grey on Friday June 14 via Abraxan Hymns.

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MUSIC INTERVIEWS It seemed that the band was well and truly retired until December 2018, which saw Anberlin reunite for a one off show with post hardcore giants Underoath. This one off performance opened the floodgates and the band was inundated with cries from hopeful fans yearning to see them back in action. A few months passed and Anberlin’s first full tour in almost five years was announced, with the band heading down under to celebrate classic records Never Take Friendship Personal and Cities as well as a plethora of fan favourites. Vocalist Stephen Christian admits that the time away from the band life was much needed.

“We didn’t break up on bad terms, but internally we were exhausted. We’d been touring for 12 years, we just felt like the band had run its course. We had all these other passions and dreams outside the band, and family and friends. It just kind of felt like Anberlin exclusively stood in the way. It was a tough break up because some of the guys really wanted to stay a band and the other guys, you know, there’s three of us that just kind of felt like well, you know, this is a great time of life, but this isn’t all there is to life.”

Reconnecting Anberlin It was a sad day when Anberlin announced they were calling it a day in 2014. After over a decade of touring the world, the rock band said goodbye with the release of their seventh album Lowborn followed by an extensive farewell tour and the release of a career spanning box set.

The return of Anberlin wasn’t something that came about overnight. Following the final tour, the band members went their separate ways and gave each other breathing room.

After a dozen years living and travelling in close proximity to one another, it was clear that space was what they all needed. Christian admits that reaching out to his former bandmates wasn’t about getting the band back together, but more about reconnecting with old friends.

“There was nothing like band drama or anything like that; we just started to go our own ways. We started to develop our own friends, our own lives. I moved to New Mexico, which is in the middle of the desert, and one of the guys went off to Austin, Texas, the other guys remain in St. Petersburg area,” Christian says.

“So about a year and a half ago I just started to reach out, not with any ambition, not because I wanted to tour. I just felt like these were some valuable friends in my life, and I

This included, but was not limited to: releasing their debut album Different Beings Being Different, taking it across the country, playing every festival under the sun and even giving one of the country’s best live bands, The Living End, a run for their money every night as the support act for their theatre tour. So, how has the septet spent its downtime? By getting right back on its bullshit.

“We never really stop,” laughs Ray Dalfsen, the band’s lead vocalist and occasional guitarist, who also answers to his nickname of The Rev. “Right after we got off tour, we locked ourselves away for a little bit and recorded a bunch of new songs. We’d been writing a bunch after Different Beings came out, but for whatever reason it was all going really slow. When we had some time off in Europe, we decided to demo some tracks in Germany – and it was only then that we realised just how much we had left lying around.”

West Thebarton Keep It Moving If the seven members of West Thebarton chose to take a couple of months off, maybe lounging about at home for a bit, no-one would have blamed them. The Adelaide natives had an active and exhausting 2018.

Of these new tracks, ‘Tops’ was chosen as the band’s new standalone single. A well-road tested song from the previous months of touring, Dalfsen and co. were adamant about capturing the proverbial lightning in a bottle that came from the song’s live performances. “We noticed that, of all the new songs we’ve been playing, people were really getting into that one in particular,” says Dalfsen. “They didn’t even know it and everyone was still going just as crazy as with the songs they did. It’s going to be really great to get out and tour now that it’s out there, and really see the reaction to it kick up to that next level.”

The band recruited Dylan Adams, who produced Different Beings Being Different, to get back behind the boards again to give ‘Tops’ the studio treatment. Describing the experience as “like getting the gang back together,” Dalfsen was excited to get to work with the prolific Sydney-based producer again. “It was in the same place we recorded the album, too – just down the road from my place in Adelaide,” he added.

“It was awesome, because Caitlin [Thomas, drums] didn’t play on the last album, so this was Dylan’s first time getting to work with her. The first time he recorded her, he just

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just wanted to get to know them again, see how the world was treating them, and see what they’re up to. We just decided to talk again and hang out. So we went to stay on the beach not too far from St. Pete and we just started to like reminisce and talk about old times and how much fun we had And we realised that the passion was lost somewhere along the way and I think that all happened when it became a job and not a hobby or something we did on the weekends or something that was intriguing or fun.”

Whilst it might seem off for an American band to kick off their return to touring on the other side of the world, it’s widely known that Australia has always served as a second home for Anberlin. The band have toured Australia over a dozen times and built an incredibly powerful connection with their fanbase down under. Christian says the choice to celebrate Friendship and Cities on this run was easy to make. ”We love Australians and this will be our 14th time as a band heading out to Australia. And so, for us it’s pure joy. When we landed in Australia for the first time we had just put out Never Take Friendship Personal. And so, for us as a band, we felt like, that’s the band. That’s the record that has allowed Anberlin to travel to Australia 13 times. So why would we not wanna play that? And then Cities is just one of our favourite records of the band, so that’s why that’s in there.

If I’m gonna go see a band that I love and that I have loved forever, please do not play something that just came out a week ago. Take me back in time, take me back to a moment when life was way more innocent and I was way more carefree. That’s where we’re at.”

BY NICHOLAS SIMONSEN

Anberlin’s Australian tour kicks off in Brisbane on Saturday May 25.

Cities is still one of the best albums of all time.

turns to me in the control room and is like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Is this her first time recording?’. Professionally, it was. He couldn’t believe it – she was on every beat, like a metronome.” Dalfsen is quick to praise the band’s drummer, who took over on the throne back in 2017 not long after Different Beings was written and recorded.

“Writing songs with her is awesome, because she brings this really different perspective and this great enthusiasm.

When there’s someone new in the room, it feels like you’re writing again for the first time. She makes you think about the music in the way that you normally wouldn’t, and now we’ve been writing together for a while we have this real understanding.”

‘Tops’ also presented itself as a unique composition for the band, given that the band’s regular four-guitar onslaught was not enlisted – Dalfsen only sings on the track, bringing the guitar count down to a measly three. The Rev confesses he finds himself playing less and less guitar these days, both live and in the studio, and instead has been leaving it up to guitarist/percussionist Brian Bolado. “He’s easily the best guitarist in the band,” says Dalfsen of his long-serving bandmate.

“He might even be the best guitarist in all of South Australia. It seemed a bit ridiculous to just have him playing percussion all of the time. There’s a couple of slower songs where I might play guitar coming up, but for the most part I’m just singing now. It’s much more freeing for me to be up there without a guitar strapped on, and it’s also great to see Brian up there shredding as well.”

BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG ‘Tops’ is out now on all streaming platforms. West Thebarton tour nationally in May & June, with tickets available via the band’s website.

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MUSIC INTERVIEWS 2019 is the year that changes, however, as the 32-year-old takes centre stage for Love Remains, only her second solo album and her first to include vocals. Although it’s been 12 years since her first album, Transformation, Wilkenfeld reveals her sophomore had been quietly in the works for several years leading up to its March release.

“There’s a song on the album, ‘Corner Painter,’ that I originally recorded in 2013 and I put out as a single back in 2016,” she says. “The rest of the album was primarily recorded throughout 2014. The next year, I added strings and woodwind, then I got it mixed and mastered. The whole thing was entirely self-funded – I was using my work as a session musician, and my work on the road, to be able to fund the making of this record. I was going back and forth between my two different worlds for quite a while.”

Tal Wilkenfeld In The Spotlight It’s easy to say a performer was born for the stage. It’s harder to remember how much room is up there, though. Tal Wilkenfeld has spent most of her life up on-stage, but it’s primarily been on the sidelines – she’s served as a bassist for the likes of Jackson Browne, Jeff Beck, Chick Corea, Macy Gray and even the late, great Prince.

Wilkenfeld attributes the delay in releasing Love Remains to both her busy touring schedule – which included a run opening for The Who in 2016 – and a period of mourning after losing some of her closest friends in quick succession.

“I needed to take some time to myself,” she says. “I had a lot that I needed to figure out, and it took me about a year before I felt like I could really settle back in. These things take time, and every album has its process. It’s definitely given me a real appreciation for what it takes to be a solo artist.”

The process for Love Remains also included putting together a key troupe of players to be enlisted in her band. Among them were current Death Cab for Cutie keyboardist Zac Rae, former Noel Gallagher drummer Jeremy Stacey and Tom Petty keyboardist Benmont Tench. “It all kind of happened over sushi,” explains Wilkenfeld with a laugh.

“I knew Benmont first, and we went out to dinner together.

Benmont invited his friend Jeremy, who in turn brought along his brother Paul. While we were there, I mentioned to them that I was working on a solo album. I literally played them songs in my car, and they were all really excited about them. We decided to go into the studio, just to try it. We got

the rest of the guys in, and as soon as we laid down ‘Corner Painter’ I knew that I had to make a whole record with this band.”

Having played bass for some 15 years, and guitar for even longer than that, Wilkenfeld is widely regarded as one of the best instrumentalists working today. She achieves her sound through the use of vintage equipment, deployed throughout the recording of Love Remains. “I had to borrow a few bits and pieces here and there,” says Wilkenfeld on the album’s gear and set-up. “For instance, I didn’t have my own [Fender] P-bass at the time, so I borrowed one from Jackson Browne.

“There’s a song on the record called ‘One Thing After Another,’ where I’m playing an early ‘50s Epiphone. It’s really interesting to get to play these sorts of instruments, because you’re dealing with a really different feel to something like my Sadowsky bass. That’s what I’m playing live, and it still made it onto the record – there’s one on ‘Haunted Love,’ because that’s written on a five-string bass. You can’t really get a vintage five-string, unless you move over to a Fender VI or something like that.”

With Love Remains finally out in the world, Wilkenfeld is currently in rehearsals with her touring band, who will accompany her on a run of dates throughout 2019 that will hopefully see her return to her native Australia in due season. “We’re trying to make it all happen as soon as possible,” she promises.

BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG

Love Remains is out now via BMG.

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MUSIC INTERVIEWS With Vector, each song has its own heavy moment, and some tracks are quite heavy throughout, which really sets it apart from most of our previous records.”

Narrative concept albums have been a mainstay of prog rock from Shadow Gallery’s Tyranny to Ayreon’s rock opera The Theory of Everything. ‘The Good Doctor’, Vector’s first single, keeps narrative at the fore while exploring sounds heavier than those of traditional prog rock. The narrative concept for ‘The Good Doctor’ came from Haken guitarist Charles Griffiths, says Henshall.

“Charlie penciled this idea about setting the album in the 1950s, in a psychiatric ward,” explains Henshall. “We looked into the sinister experiments that were used on people to understand the human mind. That was really the starting point for the album, and ‘The Good Doctor’ sets that scene perfectly… Having strong themes that can grow and morph throughout the album, and good lyrical content that tells a story, can allow the listener to paint an image in their mind whilst they’re listening to the music.”

The Gritty Side Of Haken Haken’s new album, Vector, is their shortest studio release at 46 minutes. But Vector is far from lightweight, combining pure metal sounds with complex narrative lyrics to form tracks as dense as uranium. “It is probably the grittiest, heaviest album we’ve ever done,” says instrumentalist Richard Henshall. “In the past, we’ve dipped our toes into that side of our sound, but never really jumped in headfirst.

Prog rock Reddit has been abuzz with debates over the intended meaning of ‘The Good Doctor’. The Rorschach blot on the album’s cover conveys an invitation to the audience to interpret the music themselves, says vocalist Ross Jennings.

Elsewhere in Vector, narrative lyrics are used to thread together a range of musical styles into a single coherent track. ‘Puzzle Box’ moves from the metal sound typical of the album to dreamy interludes reminiscent of Muse. It’s little surprise, given the space-rock undertones of tracks like ‘Puzzle Box’ and ‘Veil’, that Henshall and Jennings grew up on a diet of Muse, whom they saw at Reading as teenagers.

“They’re a rare band that’s really cracked it in the mainstream without sacrificing any of that musicality,” says Henshall. “Matt Bellamy is an incredible musician and a great songwriter as well, so I think it’s a great testament to them as a band that they’ve done so well.”

dispersing to their home studios to record their respective tracks individually. Vector took Jennings to Mexico City to work with Haken keyboardist Diego Tejeida in his home studio. With the help of Adam “Nolly” Getgood, previously of Periphery, who mixed the album, Jennings was able to develop and refine the album’s more technically challenging tracks.

“Usually we’ve done it in London, and it changed the vibe up a bit to do it in a different country,” says Jennings. “For me, ‘Puzzle Box’ was a tricky one. For that song in particular, we had a couple of different ideas about how the chorus was going to go. We had a lot of last-minute decision-making on that track in particular. The rest of it was pretty smooth going – we demoed everything quite intensely.

Haken played their first Australian tour in 2017, flying straight from New York to Sydney and playing five shows back-to-back on little sleep. The band expect their 2019 return Down Under to be a little more relaxed, with stops across Australia and New Zealand. Aussie fans who come in costume may earn themselves an invite onstage, à la Iron Maiden, says Jennings.

Haken also plan to follow up the Vector Studies Tour with a tour across Europe in support of heavy metal singersongwriter Devin Townsend.

“We’re hoping that this time, when we come back, we’re going to have a better production,” says Henshall. “We’re going to build upon what we laid down on those tours… All in all, it’s going to be a nice little Haken celebration.”

BY ZACHARY SNOWDON SMITH

Vector is out now via Inside Out Music. Haken visit Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne in June.

Haken have traditionally recorded their albums pieceby-piece, laying down the drum track in-studio before “We changed it, but we still don’t even really know what ‘it’ was,” laughs David Novak, the singing and guitarplaying half of the duo. “All we knew going into making this record was that we didn’t want to do the same thing again. It would be boring, and more importantly it would be disingenuous.

“We didn’t even really have any frame of reference to work with – we went away and we wrote all these new songs, and when we showed them to management they were like, ‘They’re not really rock & roll songs.’ At the same time, though, everyone else is still treating us like a rock band and that our songs are rock songs. I don’t even know anymore – The Rubens just won an APRA Award for Best Rock Work, and I don’t think there are even any guitars on their last record.

Who knows?”

Polish Club Double Down For those of you reading that don’t know, Polish Club are a Sydney-based rock band... at least, they think they are. The rock part, anyway. The spectrum has broadened so widely in the last few years that everything from AC/DC to Imagine Dragons can supposedly fit under its umbrella. Even as Polish Club has stylistically shifted over the last couple of years, they still consider themselves within the genre... at least (again), they think they are.

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Of course, when it all comes down to it, there are really only two kinds of music: good music and bad music. Polish Club have been delivering the former for the last few years, and while an urgent, lo-fi song such as ‘Beeping’ might not have much in common with a slick, catchy tune like ‘Clarity’, you can still find the through-line that got the band from A to B. B, in this instance, is their second studio album Iguana.

It arrives almost three years on from their debut, Enough Already, and it sees the band’s creative ambitions burst wide open across its runtime. If Enough Already was sepia, consider Iguana a full technicolour display.

“In the beginning, we were really just trying to figure out what we sounded like,” says Novak. “After a few years, I feel like we know a lot more. We definitely know what our strengths are. This album, for us, was a matter of realising that. It’s everything that we felt capable of. We had the tools at our disposal and the people around us to push ourselves to our full capabilities. We weren’t blindly trying things just for the sake of trying them. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but this album was about knowing our limits and pushing to them.”

One of the key people surrounding the band was Wade Keighran. Australian music trainspotters of the 2000s might know Keighran from his tenures in bands like The Scare and Wolf & Cub. Most recently, however, he’s found himself behind the boards rather than in front of them, serving as an engineer and producer around Sydney. He’s been working with Polish Club for over a year now, and has also come on board as their touring bassist.

“I wasn’t as aware of them, but John [Pajak, drums] was definitely into The Scare,” says Novak. “They were both around that kind of scene at the same time, but didn’t really know one another. We only all came together when our management hooked it up. We did demos with him, and then we ended up getting him to produce the entire thing.

Our relationship is really easy – he knows all the production stuff, but also knows the musician’s side as well. John or I might ask for something in the mix, and it might not be the right term but he’ll know exactly what we mean. He helps everything makes sense.”

Novak, Pajak and Keighran will be out on tour in support of Iguana this coming June, which will see many of the tracks being performed live for the first time ever. “It’s all still a bit unknown for us,” says Novak. “It’s all super-new, but we’re going to put in as much effort as possible to make sure that we get everything on the record out onto the road.”

BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG

Polish Club’s Iguana arrives Friday June 7 via UMA. The band heads off on their Meet the Iguana tour across June and July, with tickets available from the Polish Club website.

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ADVICE COLUMNS

ABBEY ROAD INSTITUTE

WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A MUSIC INTERNSHIP It’s not easy to pursue a career in the music industry. The companies you want to work for often don’t appear in SEEK’s search results, and there’s not usually graduate roles waiting for you once you accept your degree. Like music itself, finding your feet and making your mark in the industry requires a little creativity, a work ethic like no other, and a whole lot of hustle.

Audio engineers are perhaps some of the most qualified individuals to comment on this particular subject. Flipping through the classifieds section of your local newspaper isn’t likely to get you a seat at the mixing desk, which can make pursuing a career in audio a daunting experience. In Charlotte Rochecouste’s case, her role at Sydney’s acclaimed Studios 301 can be traced back to her decision to enrol at Abbey Road Institute.

“I was a massive beginner when I first started,” says Rochecouste. “I was just getting into audio engineering and producing, but I was making a lot of mistakes that I didn’t even realise I was doing because it’s such a big concept to try and learn by yourself. It’s such a hard thing to do. Audio is really challenging at first, so Abbey Road really laid down the foundation of what things were – what is signal flow, what microphones do, polar patterns, all this technical stuff that helps you understand audio.”

To prepare for a career in such a competitive industry, Rochecouste returned to the everreliable mantra that fuels success: practice makes perfect. Enabled by the world-class facilities at ARI, Rochecouste knuckled

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down and amassed an incredible 156 hours of studio time in just one trimester, a sure factor in her subsequent success.

“Access to the studios and being encouraged to use the studios was a massive thing for me, because you can know all of the academic knowledge, but if you don’t do it then it’s kind of pointless,” says Rochecouste. “Audio is an extremely handson thing and you need to touch things, you need to hear things, you need to experience it. Being able to use the studios [at Abbey Road Institute] after we’ve had a lesson and we’ve just learned this new thing and being like, ‘Ok, let’s go try that out,’ was really cool because it made it more real and hands-on.

“Using the studio is so important because if you want to do engineering, you’re going to be in situations where you have to think really quickly and get sound working. If you know how studios work and how signal flow works, then you will most likely be hired over someone who doesn’t know that much and can’t work as quickly as you do.”

Honing your craft is one major factor when following your career aspirations, but being in the know should never be underestimated.

Studying any creative course will ensure you hear the word ‘networking’ more times than you can count – and for good reason.

Sometimes it’s not just about what you know, but who you know.

“Hustle and collaboration is really important, and it doesn’t come naturally to some people,” says Rochecouste. “To be honest, I didn’t really do it at the start [of my study] because I was pretty reserved and nervous and thinking, ‘I’m not good enough yet to go and talk to clients. I don’t feel like I could pull off a session’. That’s perfectly

normal to feel like that when you first start out. If anything, just do what you’re comfortable with and practise with yourself and then when you feel like you’re at a level where you can collaborate with other people, then reach out to people – anyone you know, even in your own circle.

“Who cares what you make [or] if it sounds really bad? At least you’re going to be in the studio and practising. You don’t even have to finish the work. It’d be nice to finish a song, but even if you get in and just do something, it gets you closer to being better.”

Internships are one of the more frequently discussed pathways in the creative industries. Things have changed in the last decade, and being an intern at a music company no longer means your days are limited to fetching coffees. Instead, internships are viable options to gain hands-on experience, put your skills to the test, and prepare yourself for a career in the industry. Rochecouste knows this better than most. As part of her studies with Abbey Road Institute, she secured an internship with Studios 301 and the rest, as they say, is history.

“That internship was an extremely pivotal moment and has really changed my life,” she says. “I was recommended by Abbey Road Institute because Simon Cohen, the amazing vocal producer at 301, wanted an assistant as part of his vocal chain. Abbey Road knew that I was a vocalist and really loved vocals, and I did a lot of vocal production [because] that was where I was passionate. I went through the process and got the internship and started working alongside Simon. It’s just been amazing because I have learned

so much about workflow and efficiency and systems and how to really get an incredible vocal sound, how to work with artists and session management, personable skills – so many skills, and mixing skills, just so many things to learn about how to run and create incredible sounding vocals that make the artist happy.”

Rochecouste’s work as an intern and now as an employee with Studios 301 has seen her work with some of the biggest names in the industry, with clients ranging from Thelma Plum and L-FRESH The LION to hip-hop heavyweights A$AP Rocky and Rae Sremmurd. It’s been a long road full of hard work and dedication, and Rochecouste recognises the institute that made it possible.

“I love coming back to Abbey Road. It feels like a second home because I was here so long. It’s really nice to see the teachers and the students and to see how the place is going because you want it to be like a haven, you know what I mean? You want it to feel like you could just come here and hang out.”

BY JESSICA OVER Find out more about how to kickstart your career in audio at abbeyroadinstitute.com.au.

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ADVICE COLUMNS

FAITH GUITARS’ PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE Overseen by none other than master guitar builder Patrick James Eggle, Faith Guitars are slowly but surely making their irrepressible mark on the world. Featuring sleek, pristine designs and worldclass lutherie, Faith Guitars were able to claim and hold the title of ‘UK’s Best Acoustic Guitar’ for five consecutive years – no simple feat indeed. While Eggle’s personal guitar brand was booming in the ‘90s, a chance encounter at a popular music exposition led him on an entirely new venture.

“When I was at Summer NAMM in Nashville, 2002, I was approached by Brian Cleary (one of the managing directors of Barnes and Mullins) to design some flat top acoustics for Faith Guitars – which was then a newly formed brand. I accepted, but a few months after that, my visa ran out, and so I came back to the UK. Shortly after, they invited me to move into the Barnes and Mullins building to work – so now, he’s my landlord as well,” Eggle laughs.

Alex Mew, marketing director of Barnes and Mullins, was a big advocate for Faith Guitars’ partnership with Eggle. “The idea behind Faith was to build high quality all solid guitars at reasonable prices,” Mew says.

“We always wanted to continue working with the workshop in Indonesia, and we’re still working with them today. Essentially, we already made some good guitars, but we knew they could be better. There’s only so much you can do when you don’t physically understand the very base structure. Patrick was someone who knew down to the finest details of how guitars were built from

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scratch, and even when making seemingly small changes they made enormous differences. You know - this is nice, but it could be nicer?”

Once the partnership was set in stone, Eggle immediately began his tenure with Faith Guitars as its new lead designer, utilising his extensive knowledge to reform almost everything from the ground up, bar the headstock shape and guitar model names.

The design philosophy behind the new range of instruments was pure simplicity and humility; placing heavy emphasis on the fundamentals of a great-sounding and highly playable guitar, rather than fancy inlays and over-the-top finishes.

The guitars themselves exude confidence through sheer elementary aesthetics alone, relying on the wood’s natural grain pattern to speak for itself. One of Eggle’s major contributions to the new line of guitars was his bountiful experience with diverse lacquer finishes, and the nuanced ways it finely sculpted sound output in particular.

“I can probably pass a blindfold test with two instruments built of the same quality but finished differently,” Eggle says.

“If you have too much lacquer on a guitar, it’ll be heavy, which will affect the response time of the instrument. It’ll affect how quickly the energy of the strings can push energy into the guitar and get that momentum going, dampening the instrument.

With our guitars, we ensure the lacquer is as thin as we can get it; we use urethane to allow it to breathe and still remain flexible.

The finish moves with the instrument and doesn’t inhibit the sound. Acoustic guitars with almost no finish sound extremely alive, and a lot of people like that.”

One of such guitars was voted by the public as the UK’s best acoustic guitar of 2013 – the Naked Venus Cut/Electro. The entire body of the instrument is finished in two-stage satin and is utterly devoid of any cosmetics. With such a thin finish, the solid tonewood body is almost entirely unrestricted in its resonance, amplifying its natural tonal qualities.

“The Naked Series was essentially taken from the Natural Series,” Mew says.

“We stripped down the Natural Series to its very core, using a very understated look as its starting point. Because of the tonewood’s high quality, the raw instrument as a whole is incredibly beautiful, without any cosmetic embellishments at all.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing,” Eggle adds.

“If the guitar is right – if it’s designed right, feels right, and sounds right, you don’t need to do anything else. It already looks great, so everything else is unnecessary. That’s the main philosophy behind Faith. We always concentrate on the fundamentals, rather than the fancy inlays and crazy finishes.

What we’ve always strived for is to build guitars that sound good and look great. And of course, for the right price.”

It goes without saying that Faith Guitars heavily pride themselves on both the quality and workmanship of their instruments.

Each guitar is constructed in a family-run workshop in West Java, Indonesia, staffed by woodworking graduates and highly trained luthiers. Every single component is meticulously crafted, shaped, and set by hand, using a marriage of modern and traditional techniques to achieve results of the highest calibre. After construction, each guitar is carefully set up to Eggle’s specifications, ensuring they perform at

their very best right out of their case.

Faith Guitars places significant attention on both quality and sustainability of the timber used in their instruments, making sure each merchant source they deal with is FSC certified. Engelmann spruce, cedar and maple are procured from North America and Europe, while mahogany, rosewood and trembesi are sourced locally in Indonesia.

While not exactly a household name in luthiery, trembesi – an exotic tonewood indigenous to Indonesia – is the unique star in its eponymously named series. The recent addition to the Faith Guitars lineup was conceived from an accidental yet fruitful discovery by Eggle and his team on a business trip overseas.

“We were in Indonesia visiting the workshop, and there was this beautiful table in our hotel. We looked at it and thought it looked just lovely. So, we asked the team at the workshop what kind of wood it was, and it turned out to be trembesi. Then I said ‘cool – can we make guitars out of it?

Could we sample one?’ And that’s where it all started, really. Visually and sonically, it’s closer to koa or Australian blackwood. It’s warm and has good mids, but still remains crisp as well,” Eggle says.

With such outstanding performance in the UK in a relatively short period of time, things are only looking up for Faith Guitars in the global scene. The company plans to announce a few new models later this year, including a baritone constructed with spruce and rosewood, and a cedar and rosewood nylon string guitar aimed at non-classical guitar players.

BY EDDY LIM Find out more at faithguitars.com

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PAGE HEADER

STAGE TWO: TRACKING

AN EXPERT’S GUIDE TO MAKING A TRACK COME TO LIFE WITH SIMON MORO For our second in a series of five articles on creating and releasing a song, Melbourne producer and engineer Simon Moro gives his expert view on tracking.

Last month Moro detailed the preproduction process, which involves identifying and ironing out any issues with the song, deciding on what the arrangement will include and assembling a band. It’s preferable to have this all locked in before tracking, but situations may arise where the band doesn’t click or other instrumentalists need to be added.

The benefit of being prepared, however, is that coming to the conclusion that a song might not be working – or that an instrument, part or idea is clashing – happens much faster.

“It’s very important to call things out when they aren’t working,” Moro says. “I start by asking ‘why?’ Often asking that question gets us to the solution. It’s much better than being silent in the hope that something that’s a problem now will stop being a problem in the future. If it’s a problem now, at best it will be a slightly hidden problem later. So fix it!”

The genre of music has an impact on how the tracking process is organised. If we look at a more conventional rock band setup, there are a number of things to consider.

First of all, should you record live or track each instrument separately?

“The first preference is working out what will feel best, but things such as budget, musician availability, size of the studio and ensemble can all affect the decision,” Moro says. “If the song is meant to feel like a live rock band and the band are very well rehearsed, then tracking live is going to capture a great feel. But it may be at the cost of attention to detail.”

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The loss of attention to detail in a live tracking scenario can be a positive just as much as a negative, says Moro.

“For example, if drums are going down first with very little backing to support them, we are going to be listening to and judging the drums in a context that is very different from the end result. Slight movement around a click track might feel loose, or we could get stuck in the minutia of a drum roll. In reality, when the guitars are down and the bass is in, those things that seemed like issues were actually great vibes.”

There are many perks to recording with a click trick, not least that it makes the editing and comping process a heck of a lot easier. By virtue of digital studio gear, there’s more than one way to implement the click.

“All of my sessions end up with a click,” Moro says. “Most start with a solid tempo map that is pretty consistent. I may bump up the BPM in choruses or finish with a rall – i.e. where the tempo slows down over a bar or two. However, other times I’ll record the guide live without a click then map a click track to the performance.”

Moro works with artists from across the genre spectrum, from folk to indie pop, hip hop to orchestral music. The tracking process differs from one genre to the next, although there are a few distinct categories.

“I find folk records lean more toward traditional recording,” he says. “That is, capturing a performance. It’s very much about mic placement, room sound, and raw, emotive performance. Orchestral recording is also similar to my process for folk. It’s all about mic placement, the room, and the performance. It is definitely a magical experience recording orchestras. Hearing the shift from the demo orchestral parts to the real thing is always a special moment for the artist.

“Pop and hip hop have a more modern approach that is very often about creating a performance. This might be from programming parts and manipulating loops to adding many layers of vocals and time aligning them so they sound like one larger than life vocal.”

Moro’s studio experience dates back nearly two decades and the artists he works with put faith in his professional expertise.

That’s not to say it’s his way or the highway, though. There are times when an artist’s preference deviates from his usual method.

“I can learn things from everyone I work with. It might be some technique I’ve never tried or a reminder of an old method I moved away from. It’s also energising to mix things up. However, I push back when something might impact my ability to deliver a result for a client,” he says.

“If I’m being trusted to manage the budget and get a result, I need certainty that I can deliver on my promises. Unknowns impact that ability. If I explore the idea and think it’s low risk, high reward, I’ll absolutely embrace it.”

Tracking has the potential to take a long time. If you’re hell-bent on getting the perfect take, it can be a drawn-out and often frustrating process. Then there are days when things just don’t work or you can’t agree on which takes are winners.

“I have a bias toward less takes during tracking,” Moro says. “That’s not to say there aren’t sessions where I record 40 takes of a vocal, but I think if it’s taking more than ten or so takes to get something down, then it was too early to record and more rehearsal is required.

emotion and desired emotion for the different sections. I’ll mark this up on my lyrics sheet too. We then go back in for more takes and usually have it within a few more.”

The law of diminishing returns generally applies to an excessive number of takes.

The precision might improve, but the energy and intensity dwindles, and then fatigue sets in.

“With 20-plus takes, it’s impossible to hold all that information in one’s head. It can become a loop of uncertainty and ‘let’s just get one more for safety.’ If it’s taking a long time, it may be better to take a break, have a snack, and come back to it. Remember that every take in the studio adds time to the editing process too.”

There can be a temptation to do some mixing while tracking. Mixing is such an important part of the process and something that you want ample time to get right. Moro completely leaves it alone during tracking.

“My philosophy is that a song is ready for mixing when it sounds great with the raw tracking and only fader levels, pan, a reverb and delay. If your song sounds great like that, then you’ve nailed it. If you need EQs and compressors and automation on everything throughout tracking, then there have been problems along the way. Great songs played well on good instruments in great rooms through decent gear should sound awesome without additional processing. Then you’re ready to mix.”

BY AUGUSTUS WELBY To learn more about Simon’s work, head to his website at www.NinetyNine100.com

“With vocals for example, I like to do a couple of takes to warm up and get in the zone, and then do a few proper takes.

After that we’ll stop and discuss the song’s

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ADVICE COLUMNS

MUSICOLOGY:

BECOMING A BETTER MUSICIAN When you start learning to play a musical instrument, people will tell you not to compare yourself to others. Given you’re likely at the level of ‘Chopsticks’ and the ‘Smoke on the Water’ riff at this point, it’s probably sage advice.

But fast forward a decade or two and things have changed. With years of lessons behind you, skills shaped by constructive criticism, and hundreds of songs beneath your fingertips, it’s time to change your perspective. The best way to start? By comparing yourself to the musician you want to be.

Thom Yorke once said, “Anyone can play guitar,” and maybe that’s the point. If you want to stand out amidst hundreds of musicians fighting for their time in the spotlight, you need to aim higher. Anyone can play an instrument if they set their mind to it, but excelling at your craft requires dedication, hard work, and a healthy competitive streak within yourself purely for the purpose of being the best artist you can be.

Take joining an orchestra, for example.

After spending the majority of your time playing as a solo artist, throwing yourself into an environment with twenty other musicians can be quite intimidating – and so it should be. The level of respect when you walk into that rehearsal room should be sky-high. Here are musicians, either amateur or professional, who have honed their craft

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and can play notes you can only dream of reaching. These are the people you should look to for advice, the ones to draw on for inspiration. They’re leading their section for a reason, and by comparing your playing to theirs, you’ll find your motivation to improve has never been better.

Sure, seeing other musicians at the top of their game isn’t always the most inspiring observation. Frankly, it can be disheartening. It’s perfectly natural to watch from afar and wonder why you don’t sound like that. The crucial part is what you do next: wallow or grow. If you compare yourself to others and don’t try to be the best musician you can be, you’re settling – and if that’s where you’re happy to be, there’s nothing wrong with it. But if your sights are set on something more, this is the time to take a different approach. Look at another’s playing ability and do everything in your power to climb to that level, and you’ll be excelling. Give it some time and you’ll become the inspiration.

But to reach such heights means avoiding one of the most dangerous traps of musicianship: resting on your laurels. Yes, there’s no better feeling than absolutely nailing a piece you’ve been practising for weeks, but why stop there? Don’t settle for playing the pieces you know like the back of your hand; set aside a few hours to tackle the ones that make your head ache just looking at them. You’ll thank yourself for it.

Many musicians will point to someone who has reached astronomical levels of fame with their art and say, “I want to be like

that.” The problem arises when the effort doesn’t match the goal. You truly get out what you put in, and your dreams are likely to stay out of reach if you readily fall into a complacent mindset.

Of course, international acclaim isn’t the goal for every musician. Some goals lie in the back room of your local venue, where a band is preparing to take to the stage.

Others are found in recording studios where session artists lend their skills to a track whenever they’re called upon. Music isn’t like other professions. The ultimate goal doesn’t lie atop a socially-constructed hierarchy. Instead, your aspirations are wherever you place them, not on a ladder, but on a landscape shared with your fellow musicians. Where you fit in is entirely up to you.

But one thing remains true whether you’re aiming for a residency at your local pub or planning a route to a Grammy Award: you won’t be the best musician you can be if you’re content with where you are. Always push for more. Try the piece that makes your fingers bleed. Play that chromatic scale at double-speed fifty times in a row until you get it right. Watch what others around you do and let life imitate art. Aim to be as good as your musical hero, whether that’s someone whose name is instantly recognisable or your bandmate whose skills are second-to-none, because inspiration can be found at all levels of music. Those around us are the perfect place to start.

expertise of legends, but don’t be shocked when your playing doesn’t rival their own.

These musicians are exceptional, and perhaps we’ll never play as well as they do. But the lesson is not in comparing virtuosity, but in finding musicians who make you want to aim higher. If they can do it, why can’t you?

It’s not about being the best; it’s about being your best. And while that sounds like something your primary school teacher would ask the class to chorus together, it rings true well into your adult life. Compare your musicianship to others to better yourself, not to be the best. Music isn’t a competition you need to win against others, but one you should enter against yourself. Compete with the musician you were yesterday to become more like the one you want to be today. Compete with the idea of the musician you are as opposed to the musician you know you can be.

Know yourself and your limitations, but just as importantly, know your aspirations and practise accordingly. Being the best musician you can be won’t come from settling for the musician you are now.

Whether you’re an amateur or professional, there’s always room to improve, and that’s perhaps the biggest motivator of all.

BY JESSICA OVER

To compare yourself is to better yourself – within reason. Hold yourself up to the

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ELECTRONIC MUSIC PRODUCTION

Superbooth 2019 Wrap Up Given the amount of new gear we saw announced at NAMM 2019 in January, it was fairly unexpected that we’d be treated to another onslaught of new synthesisers at Berlin’s Superbooth - but I’m certainly not complaining.

Here’s a rundown of all the new noteworthy gear.

NOVATION Novation surprised everyone with a new flagship synth dubbed the Summit, replacing their popular Peak model at the mantle. It’s a full size, 61-key digital/analogue hybrid synthesiser, essentially taking the Peak’s 3-oscillator synth engine and doubling it, offering 16-voices and bi-timbral functionality. It’s been a long time since Novation tackled the very high end of the synth market, arguably since 2000’s behemoth Supernova II synth, but this thing looks exceptional.

KORG Korg turned up with a new addition to their Volca series, a sneaky prototype and a desktop module version of their new Minilogue XD synth. The Volca Nubass is a synthesiser based around their Nutube vacuum tube technology, promising a gritty take on the 303-style bass synthesiser/ sequencer. The prototype is a DIY kit version of their open source multi-engine digital

oscillator on its own, called the Nu:Tekt, which is a pretty nifty idea if you’re just interested in the experimental side of Korg.

Hopefully that gets off the ground.

MIND MUSIC LABS/STEINBERG In what is perhaps a first, Mind Music Labs and Steinberg have teamed up to create a hardware synthesizer housing Steinberg’s ‘Retrologue’ VST synthesiser. This is an interesting development for the hardware synthesiser, and one I bet purists will have a lot of thoughts on. Imagine if all your favourite synth plugins could be standalone with a dedicated and nicely laid out controller? Is this the future?

BEHRINGER Everyone’s favourite synth-troll Uli Behringer has once again come out with a prototype remake of a classic synthesiser that may or may not enter production. This time, it’s the fabled Yamaha CS80 that’s copped the clone treatment. With prices on the original easily reaching tens of thousands of dollars, this would not be an unwelcome development for any synth enthusiast. Oh, and they’ve teased another prototype of an Oberheim OB-Xa clone. The saga continues...

ELEKTRON Elektron have gone and slapped a keyboard on the end of their Digitone FM synthesiser and called it a day. It’s quite unusual looking, and defies the accepted standard

of synthesiser layouts, but it’s not their first rodeo with this layout. It harks back to 2003’s Monomachine SFX-6 that also featured this ultra-long layout. It’s a curious move to go back to this, rather that a more traditional shape like their Analog 4 Keys.

Regardless, a powerful FM synth with keys is a welcome addition to the market.

It doesn’t end there: IK Multimedia have released a new drum machine called Uno, as have The Division Department with their 01/1V model. Pittsburgh Modular

have announced a range of experimental Eurorack modules called the Voltage Research Laboratory for more unusual sounds, while Dreadbox have updated their popular Nyx paraphonic analogue synthesiser to V2 - the list goes on.

Exciting times, fellow synth nerds!

BY MICHAEL CUSACK

ADVICE COLUMNS GUITAR

BASS GUITAR

Even more Altered Scale ideas

Even more odd times

This month we’re looking at a few extra approaches to playing the Altered Scale and then incorporating it as part of your vocabulary. As mentioned previously, you need to get to a certain level of comfort with playing the actual scale before you can really make it sound musical and start developing ideas.

We’ve checked out 3/4 and 5/4, let’s jump into 7 this month. Popular in rock and fusion you’ll also see 7 in jazz, many world/ethnic traditional styles and even in indie, alternative and country music.

Starting with a typical rock chord progression Figure A let’s turn it into 7/8 and see how it can work from a bass perspective.

For a lot of players, the Altered intervals (b5, b9, #9, b13) feel and sound different on the guitar. Those of you that mainly play Minor/Major Pentatonic and Major/Minor scales won’t have encountered their sound and similarly the fingerings of the intervals might be difficult at first.

Figure B now changes the time signature to 7/8, meaning seven quavers per bar. Let’s play it super straight as a starting point, playing every beat of the bar (quavers).

Using G Altered, Figure A sticks a box-like pattern with the majority of the scale being a 3 per string pattern. This allows for some hammer-ons and legato left hand technique if you so desire.

Counting each beat 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5 ,6, 7 (making sure to use ‘sev’ for seven as it’s just one syllable) it can feel quite similar to 4/4 (or two bars of 4/4) but just dropping the last beat.

It feels like it changes early but can still really groove. A bar of 7/8 in this feel is often counted as four beats and then three beats in that fashion (1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3) feeling like 4/4 with the second bar just dropping a beat.

Moving onto something more rhythmic in Figure C, try to still keep the full count in your head/out loud/with your foot to lock it in. The first note in the bar falls on the 1 and is held for three quavers. The next two notes fall on beats 4 and 6.

Figure B takes a slightly more linear approach and works up the neck. Again, it can be handy for legato left hand technique or picked if you prefer (or a combo of both).

We compared some scales and how they’d fit over a V chord (G7) last issue. Let’s take another approach this month for you to get the Altered Scale locked into your head and under your fingers.

G Altered = G-Ab-Bb-B-Db-Eb-F-G As we touched on a few issues back, the Altered Scale is the 7th mode of the Melodic Minor Scale. So, G Altered comes from Ab Melodic Minor…that means G Altered is Ab Melodic Minor starting on G! How does this help? Well, if you know/have played Melodic Minor scales before, all you need to do is move it a semitone up from the root of the chord you want to play it over. E.g G7 chord, use Ab Melodic Minor; C#7 chord, use D Melodic Minor.

Figure C works with G7 resolving to Cm.

Figure D takes a II-V-I in C (Dm7-G7-C) but uses a substitution on the V chord. Usually this is G7 and we’ve been playing G Altered over it. Another option is to think of the G7 as Db7 (tritone substitution). You can play Db7 very literally and it will work and outline the chord/ substitution nicely as long as you resolve to the bar of C (the I chord). Now, remember we said G Altered was Ab Melodic Minor? Well the 4th mode of Ab Melodic Minor is Db Lydian Dominant (a Lydian mode with a dominant 7th) or Db7 with the #4 which beautifully outlines our Db7 sound in the second bar.

Try creating your own and lock them in with a metronome/drum machine. To get wacky just take Figure B and randomly delete notes. Then test yourself by increasing the tempo, making it easy to come up with cool ideas.

Figure D uses more syncopation and semiquavers to push your skills even further. Remember that these examples are written in 7/8, meaning sevenquavers per bar (but you count each quaver, so – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). When you have semi quavers they are worth half a beat each – e.g 1 +, 2 +, 3 +, 4 +, 5 +, 6 +, 7 +. As always, start slow and get used to counting and feeling the time signature and rhythms before you ramp up the tempo. Next try changing the notes, key chord changes, etc to really stretch out. Figure D could be a great unison riff when locking in with the bass drum and snare or doubled with guitar.

As mentioned there are lots of examples of 7 (both 7/4 and 7/8) in rock, jazz, fusion, metal and more. Meshuggah, Weather Report, Chick Corea, Sting, Animals as Leaders are definitely worth a listen (plus loads more). 7 can be cool to create syncopated, more out-sounding rhythms but can also really groove – get stuck into it!

BY NICK BROWN

BY NICK BROWN 28

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PERCUSSION

The Live Element Way back in high school, I remember being in the Stage Band as an up-and-coming drummer and the challenges I faced at every rehearsal. The usual things – like trying to impress the ensemble director by not stuffing up, while making sure to show off for the girls. Ah yes, the days. I digress.

As the head of music at my school, now I couldn’t imagine not having a College Stage Band. It has been one of the primary senior ensembles for some years. And now, a new student drummer has just got the gig.

BIG SHOES As the 2018 college year concluded, the drummer of our college stage band finished Year 12 and subsequently moved on, leaving room for another keen student. The band is actually more of a soul band with singers and the material is anything from Chaka Khan and Earth, Wind and Fire to a jazz standard or up-tempo big band swing.

Either way, the drummer has a bit of a job ahead of them if they’re half decent, let alone if they’re a student who’s a bit rusty on the ol’ rudiments and grooves.

We recently had a two-day excursion to a nearby venue to run through as much new

repertoire as possible to get a head start and get out to do some gigs; something the kids always really enjoy. Besides me trying to sight-read bass clef as the designated bass player in the band, the rehearsals went really well. However, I was very conscious of our new drummer and how he was coping with the task set of him.

NEW BLOOD This particular person is one of my better drum students. A reliable and diligent practicer week-to-week, I thought he would be a great choice for the stage band. There have been some challenges though. He’s still a great kid but I’ve discovered that currently, he’s struggling to fit into the new role. Now, there’s a lesson in this (I’m not paying out on a student, so stay tuned) but I realised as his drum teacher, I’ve taught him a lot but the reality is that nothing can prepare you fully for doing a live gig; charts or not.

Within the space of two days, this new drummer has had to sight-read and try to cope with swing grooves with big band horn figures, half time funk grooves, a bossa nova/Latin tune, a gospel arrangement of a Chaka Khan tune, a slower tempo swing, odd-time bars, a drum solo section over hits and more. The kid is feeling the pressure; he obviously

wants to impress his drum teacher and as the new member doesn’t want to do a bad job, which is totally understandable.

He’s doing his best and there’s been some good stuff at times but also clear room for improvement overall. I actually thought he’d smash the gig but instead, weaknesses are being revealed.

CHARACTER BUILDING On the flip side, the most interesting thing about this is just how much experience this student is getting. If the band gig wasn’t on the cards, lessons would still continue as normal, but I can’t say I had crash courses on gospel chops or big band playing in the upcoming short-term curriculum. Sometimes, live situations just present unique, exciting, unexpected and sometimes darn scary challenges but there’s always a subsequent learning experience to follow. As part of the tuition process, a band experience is unbelievable for shaping a drummer. This student will become more confident and experienced at every rehearsal and as a result of the challenges he will be a better drummer – period. The student seemed a little down about things after the rehearsals and I assured him we’d go over the material but also made him understand the benefits he was getting as a learner by sticking it out.

We can all take something from this. Even though a gig situation may not seem to be that amazing, there could be something to learn. You might be a super experienced player and your challenges may not be sight-reading or gospel chops but we can always be aware of how much musicianship we are bringing to the situation. Every experience can be something to learn from – especially when the drum teacher is trying to sight-read bass guitar charts.

BY ADRIAN VIOLI

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CONNECT

E N T E RTA I N

SECURE

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PRODUCT REVIEWS FENDER

Tre-Verb, MTG Tube Distortion and Bubbler Chorus Pedals FENDER MUSIC AUSTRALIA | FENDER.COM.AU RRP: TRE-VERB - $469 MTG - $399 BUBBLER - $299

It’s an undeniable truth that no manufacturer has had a greater impact on the development and discourse of popular music than Fender. From the 1950s until now, the So-Cal entity have controlled the zeitgeist with their universally appealing product ethos and stranglehold on the electric guitar, bass and amplifier markets.

Despite this, there’s always been one sector where the company just can’t quite seem to wedge their products into the minds of the masses: effects pedals.

However, that all looks set to change with the introduction of Fender’s newest effects range: a collection of boutique style, polished chrome pedals meticulously designed by their head honchos in the US. The series features a range of gain, modulation, compression and time-based effects pedals, including the Bubbler Chorus, the Tre-Verb Tremolo/Reverb and the MTG Tube Distortion. From the designs and descriptions alone, one can assume that Fender are aiming for the big leagues, with each of the above bearing similarities to other heavy-hitting brands in the effects market. While aesthetic and sonic semblance to a competitors product isn’t always a bad thing, it does go to show that Fender aren’t exactly aiming to reinvent the wheel (or the chorus pedal for that matter) here: rather, they’re just making really good quality effects units to their pre-existing target market.

For example, take the Fender Tre-Verb. It’s blatantly obvious that Fender are choosing to go head-to-head with Strymon’s Flint, an incredibly similar Tremolo/Reverb combination which has won the hearts of many a guitarist in recent years. This unit features three tremolo types – Opto, Bias and Hum – and three reverbs – ’63, ’65 and Plate – as well as standard level/

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tone/rate/depth/dwell/blend controls. The tremolo circuit of the Tre-Verb also boasts a tap-tempo feature which can be found by holding down the bypass switch, giving you hands-free control over the rate of the effect when you’re performing.

Fender have a rich history of wiring incredible sounding reverb and tremolo circuits into their amplifiers, and the TreVerb acts as a testament to this, offering guitarists a wide array of sonic possibilities to alter their signal with. The Plate reverb setting offers a lush modulated texture that pairs impeccably with the Bias tremolo, while the combination of ‘63 reverb and Opto tremolo is practically surf-rock-in-a-box. The Tre-Verb’s true stereo outputs ensure that you get a huge-sounding binaural spread if you please, while a handy flick-switch at the back allows you to switch the signal path of the tremolo and reverb circuits to suit your own preferences. If you dig cavernous chords, ambient plucking and washy, modulated sound effects, the Tre-Verb’s definitely got a place on your pedalboard.

There are very few things in life that sound as warm and gooey as a good analogue chorus, and Fender are tapping into this phenom with the Bubbler Chorus.

Combining vintage-sounding modulation with thoughtful modern touches, such as the ability to switch between Triangle and Sine waveforms and a dynamic Sensitivity control that interacts with your picking response, the Bubbler is by far one of the most feature packed chorus pedals I’ve come across.

Like many guitarists, I’ve definitely got a bit of a love/hate relationship with chorus effects. I firmly stand by the belief that there’s a lot more awful chorus pedals in the world than there are great ones,

mainly due to its prevalence within the realms of cringey radio-rock from the ‘80s and ‘90s. Luckily, the Bubbler leans a lot further towards being grouped into the latter category, due in part to its beautiful sounding Bucket Brigade circuitry and intuitive controls. The dedicated Slow/Fast footswitch is an absolute God send, allowing for you to bounce between warbling fauxLeslie tones and a lush ‘80s shimmer with a simple boot stomp. If you’re chasing that classic Andy Summers JC-120 analogue chorus sound or a wonky, warbling Mac DeMarco-esque vibrato, the Bubbler can pull off both with absolute ease, and having the option to easily flick between the two is a very, very welcome touch.

Finally, we’ve got the Fender MTG Tube Distortion, designed in conjunction with esteemed amplifier guru Bruce Egnater. As its name suggests, the MTG utilises an actual new-old stock US made military-grade 6205 preamp tube, so instead of emulating the glorious sound of valve break-up, you’re getting the real deal. With a three band EQ, Level, Gain and Tight controls and a switchable Boost feature with independent Level and Gain knobs, you’re spoilt for choice in the tone department here. I also really dug the fact that Fender have used an actual Fender amp Jewel LED to indicate the engagement of the effect – sometimes, it’s the little things that mean the most.

Possibly due to Bruce Egnater’s brain being present throughout the design process, the MTG is one tough sounding, supertransparent distortion pedal. As expected from anything with the Fender name badge, it offers a trustworthy tone for wailing blues and crunchy funk-rock stylings, while boosting the mids and gain knobs sends you soaring into ballsy hard-rock

and metal territory. However, I was a little underwhelmed by the Boost function, which functions more or less like a cascading amp due its second master volume control. I would have also liked to have been able to use the Boost function independently without engaging the Distortion circuit, but hey, you can’t win them all.

Despite their historical tendencies to disappoint with previous entries into the effects pedal market, Fender have done a pretty solid job with this selection from their newest range. With looks to kill and tones to match, the Tre-Verb, Bubbler and MTG are all incredibly well-designed and great sounding effects units that will definitely demand the attention of tone-hounds. However, with their boutique price point and stiff competition from preestablished and popular names within the pedal sector, it’ll be interesting to see just how these new units are received by the masses – I guess time will tell.

BY WILL BREWSTER

HITS ∙∙ Premium brushed chrome construction ∙∙ So many tonal possibilities! ∙∙ Not to pick a favourite, but the TreVerb sounds breathtaking MISSES ∙∙ A tad pricey, particularly when compared to their competitors ∙∙ No independent Boost on the MTG

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PRODUCT REVIEWS KYSER

Quick-Change BMU, LT and E Capos CMC MUSIC | CMCMUSIC.COM.AU | EXPECT TO PAY: $39.95 Kyser have long been the gear world’s resident capo specialists. The Texan family-owned guitar accessory company has recently snagged a new distribution deal under the umbrella of CMC Music Australia, bringing more affordable versions of their iconic Quick-Change capos Down Under.

Mixdown has got its hands on the first few landing in CMC Australia’s Kyser QuickChange March rerelease, and we’re happy to report they’re as nifty as ever.

In 1974, the Kyser Quick-Change capo was born. The synthesiser hadn’t quite impacted popular music, The Ramones had just formed and hip-hop was a kernel of an idea in the boroughs of New York. Music has changed a lot over the last four decades but the capo has not. The Quick-Change has been consistently popular over that time because it does precisely what its name states; offering a quick and easy way to change the tuning of your guitar without actually retuning.

The E (Electric) capo for six string electric guitars is the most similar to the original design, with only minor tinkering. The Quick-Change you’ll be playing in Australia this month has a slightly smaller body and less spring tension than the ‘74 original, accounting for the prevalence of lower

action guitars. It’s as easy to use as ever, allowing for swift changes without fuss.

Whenever you’re not using the Quick-Change it sits neatly on the headstock of your guitar – mine sits permanently on a Gretsch semi-hollow body. Although this model is designed specifically for electrics, there is little difference between this and the acoustic version.

The Low Tension Capo is the most significant update to the Kyser Quick-Change model since its inception; to use a tired gear maxim, it’s less reinventing the wheel and more offering new treads. The LT has 25% less tension in its spring than its big brother, and is considerably smaller. It also arrives in only matte black, driving home its sleek modus operandi. Used on both a Gretsch semi-hollow and a Les Paul, it was even quicker to manoeuver up and down the fretboard by virtue of its size. Happily, the lower tension also meant the capo didn’t force my strings out of tune as quick.

Overall, I’d be more inclined to purchase an LT next time I’m forced to go capo shopping though there is little point in owning both the LT and the E. The BMU (Banjo, Mandolin and Ukulele) capo shows off one side of Kyser’s purposebuilt ranges. It’s far smaller than the other

two, fitting the necks of the sometimes maligned instruments. The BMU capo functions with the same Kyser Quick-Change spring you know and love on a miniature scale, making it a cute little accessory.

Using a capo on an instrument as small as the ukulele does feel somewhat pointless, though it provides plenty of bizarre tonality when applied to the mandolin.

Overall, Kyser’s build quality across its capo range is impeccably sturdy. It’s a tried and true manufacturing recipe that is impossible to discredit. This is less a review and more a celebration of what guitarists should already know; the Kyser capo is here to stay.

HITS ∙∙ They’re the capos you know and love ∙∙ The Low Tension capo is highly manoeuvrable MISSES ∙∙ Nup.

BY JOSHUA MARTIN

PAUL REED SMITH

SE Custom 24 Zebrawood ELECTRIC FACTORY | ELFA.COM.AU | EXPECT TO PAY: $1499 PRS is a guitar company surrounded by some of the best players in the business.

Not only do Carlos Santana, King Crimson, Paul Allender and Mark Holcomb (need I say more? Yes. John Mayer, Dustie Waring, Mark Tremonti and Zach Myers) call Paul Reed Smith home, but PRS continues to produce expertly crafted instruments for the masses.

The PRS SE Custom is one famed body shape, and the Zebrawood Edition of this guitar is a sight to behold. Featuring - you guessed it - a Zebrawood veneer over the maple body and - yep - zebra coloured PRS 85/15 pickups as standard, the SE Custom Zebrawood needs no introduction, nor additional aftermarket changes. It’s a guitar that’s easy to play, sounds fantastic, and will continue to inspire for years to come.

The tone is rich but articulate, thanks to the streamlined body and neck. It’s a 25” solid body electric with 24 frets, but it’s also so much more.

A scale length of 25” makes this guitar sit somewhere between a Les Paul (generally 24.75”) and a Super Strat (generally 25.75”). The neck takes some getting used to, feeling particularly thin around the first fret. The neck shape is PRS’s own ‘Wide Thin’, and is ideal for complex chord voicing and noodling because the notes, frets and strings are so close together. The double cutaway body is contoured beautifully to allow easy access to the 24th frets, and

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overall feels phenomenally put together.

The guitar resonates nicely, especially in E Standard, and was expertly set-up straight out of the box. The tuning stability is unmatched but the tension is low enough to really grab ahold of notes when wailing or noodling. The guitar itself is very responsive to dynamics, and the pickup combination works in tandem with the build. The neck pickup produces a thick, creamy tone without being too muddy, and the bridge boasts an abundance of bite without being overbearing or snarky. Both pickups handle pedals well, and only build on the base tone that is retained through whatever gear you’re playing.

The guitar features a rosewood fingerboard with PRS’s famed bird inlays, located just above the PRS 85/15 pickups. The pickups feature a coil split on the tone knob, which is a noticeably thinner tone, but not a lesser tone by any means. The Zebrawood veneer provides a darker overtone and extra harmonics that the wood is known for. The guitar itself is mid present, sparkly and rich without an overbearing low end. Rock riffs can be chunky but controlled, and bluesy or Spanish inspired leads are thick and present. This instrument could be a go-to in the studio or onstage for leads or other articulate playing that may be called for.

Overall, this PRS SE Custom is a phenomenal instrument. Well crafted, the guitar is

beautifully assembled with parts and woods that compliment the specs to a tee. The PRS pickups are resonant in the maple body, and the string sounds bounce off the Zebrawood veneer. The mahogany back of the guitar holds it all together in the richest way that only mahogany can. The PRS tremolo holds it down and keeps everything tuned and perfect along the 25” scale length, while the bird inlays flutter along the rosewood fingerboard. The frets are set perfectly, and the neck profile gives you the reach to grab ahold of those finnicky notes and hold them down. It’s no wonder PRS has such a stellar list of artists when they’re making guitars like the SE Custom Zebrawood.

BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS

HITS ∙∙ Great acoustic tone ∙∙ Great tuning stability MISSES ∙∙ Neck initially feels thin

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PRODUCT REVIEWS vX O T I C G U I T A R S

XSC Series Guitar GUITAR BROTHERS | GUITAR BROTHERS.COM.AU | ENQUIRE FOR PRICING Xotic are well known for their pedals, namely the EP Booster, seen on pedal boards everywhere. Not so well known are their master-built, heavily relic’d and completely customisable electric guitars.

This particular Strat-inspired XSC is loaded with triple-threat single coil Raw Vintage pickups, a flame roasted maple neck and an asymmetrical neck profile for maximum comfort. The XSC series of guitars are flawlessly designed, expertly built and endlessly inspiring.

Head to toe, this Xotic XSC really is its own instrument. With an obvious nod to one of the most famous body shapes in guitar, it retains its own character, bells and whistles and relic’d look. The neck’s profile is asymmetrical for maximum comfort. It’s not something you’ll notice immediately, but the profile, starting from a D-shape on the bass side and curving around to a C on the treble, inconspicuously makes this guitar comfortable and helps grab hold of solos and licks. Initially the neck felt big and round, but without getting in the way of your playing. It feels like a machine ready to take on whatever you’ve got for it, and the flame roasted finish is a very welcome addition.

The flame roasting maple process allows for minimum finish on the neck itself to seal it, so this is as close to an unfinished neck as you can get. There’s no sticky gloss to hold you back, and it holds up better than a

matte finish when playing for hours (which you will). The neck is bolted to the body just above the three Raw Vintage single coil pickups and the five-way pickup selector.

Raw Vintage pickups are hand wound in the Los Angeles Xotic shop, and really deliver their own flavour. There’s something inherently Strat-like about them, but with an edge. Maybe it’s the roasted maple fingerboard, maybe it’s the design of the guitar or the Xotic tremolo bridge holding it all in place, but there’s a character, attack and spank the Raw Vintage pickups deliver that I’ve never heard. Every setting of the pickups is very usable, something not all that common with triple single coil guitars.

There’s usually a throwaway phase affected tone, but not here.

Playing the XSC is an absolute pleasure.

Thanks to the neck profile you can really grab hold of notes and take them for a walk. There’s snarky response that feels fresh, clean and solid (it’s difficult to articulate any other way) something the XSC has no trouble doing even with delicate notes. The guitar makes you want to play, but doesn’t bog you down in a specific style. It responds phenomenally well to your playing, so it can work for really any style while retaining its own character.

Admittedly, the fret edging is a little less rounded than I usually like for my personal taste, but that’s a small and very easy fix.

This Xotic XSC has all the bells and whistles that you’ll never notice. The features and playability are integrated so masterfully that they just do their job, while you focus on the playing. I didn’t notice the asymmetrical neck profile until I read the specs, but I knew the neck felt great.

I noted the Raw Vintage pickups sound like nothing else before reading about them on the Xotic California website. The guitar resonates and responds excellently, pointing to perfectly balanced, cut and assembled guitar. Even while writing this review the XSC distracted me. Anything from the XSC series of Xotic Guitars are your new ol’ faithful, and will never leave your side as long as you’re playing. Bury me with this one.

BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS

HITS ∙∙ Masterfully built ∙∙ Raw Vintage pickups are great ∙∙ Neck profile is a dream MISSES ∙∙ Fret edging a little harsh

A3 STOMPBOX

Custom Volume Pedal GSUS4 | GSUS4.COM.AU | EXPECT TO PAY: $399 A3 Stompbox are a boutique South Korean pedal company that prides itself on brute utility for musicians. Their Custom Volume pedal is expressive with a DIY design that makes its price tag questionable.

Volume pedals are unassuming pieces of gear. To the home hobbyist they seem like an expensive accessory, though to players of post-rock and textural ambient guitar styles, they are the key to more expressive playing.

A3 Stompbox have taken this as a major cue for their Custom Volume, offering deft passive control without any aesthetic frills.

Out of the box, you might be a bit shocked at the hunk of stainless steel staring back at you. A neat engraving at the top marks it as an A3 Stompbox, while the grippy black mat is the only colouration on the entire pedal.

It doesn’t match the lurid colours of the Big Muffs or the Whammys that might be populating your current collection, though its industrial look is somewhat refreshing.

The Custom Volume arrives in both Standard (d 25cm x w 9.5cm x h 6.5cm) and Mini (d 18cm x w 8.5cm x h 6.5cm) sizes, though both take up a considerable amount of pedalboard real estate. The pedal is remarkably lightweight, 1.04kg and 750g in the Standard and Mini respectively.

There is no two-in-one whammy-wah action in the Custom Volume; this pedal has an input-output binary, plus a tuner plug if you

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so wish. Funnily enough, the plugs’ label is a laminated piece of paper stuck on. The pedal’s hinge is smooth enough that even those with the stiffest feet will be able to reach any volume on the spectrum. Pulling off the pedal gives you a look inside the product’s extraordinarily simple circuitry. Its smooth B Curve operation is held together with string and springs; by virtue of that simplicity, it is also very sturdy. It works using a mainly resistive load, at 250 kohms.

Playing the stompbox is a simple joy, allowing you to play across a spectrum of volumes while keeping every detail of your tone. Thanks to the passive design there is zero hum, even with the shoddiest of leads and amps attached. The tuning plug is a nice touch, something other volume pedals have recently co opted; plug any tuner you like and sit it next to the pedal, then rock back the volume to zero to tune silently mid set. Tremolo-like tones can be created simply by rocking back and forth on the pedal, which can sound quite organic due to the passive circuitry. I found pairing the Custom Volume with other textural pedals like the Memory Boy was the ultimate post-rock package; leaving you ready to join Godspeed You! Black Emperor without anyone in the ten person lineup noticing.

The Custom Volume is an excellent, getwhat-you-asked-for passive volume pedal.

What is less excellent is the hefty custom price tag. Counter to that point, it’s unlikely this pedal is for anyone apart from gigging and recording musicians in serious need of its utility. More affordable options provide less detailed sound in digital packages, counting them out of the studio. It will be interesting to see where A3 Stompbox takes designs like the Custom Volume from here.

BY JOSHUA MARTIN

HITS ∙∙ Industrial chic ∙∙ Ultra-smooth operation, no need for battery or power supply ∙∙ Lightweight ∙∙ Beautiful expression MISSES ∙∙ Chunky

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TC HELICON

Go Vocal Preamp and Go Guitar Interface AMBER TECHNOLOGY | AMBERTECH.COM.AU EXPECT TO PAY: GO VOCAL - $79 GO GUITAR - $49 It’s getting harder and harder to avoid recording from home. Bedroom production, once a lo-fi domain, has been forcing studios to make the case for their existence for the better part of a decade now.

The second reckoning has been mobile interfaces; now a guitar and a phone might be the only tools you’ll need to get your music on (digital) tape.

TC Helicon’s Go Vocal Microphone Preamp and Guitar Portable Interface for Mobile Devices are two plastic packs that weigh no more than 100 grams each and fit even in the tightest of jeans pockets. They arrive as more affordable competition to the IK Multimedia’s mobile interface juggernaut, the iRig. Both the Go Vocal and the Go Guitar arrive separately, though a joint purchase won’t even set you back $100. The Go Vocal is slightly chunkier, accounting for an XLR output. The top of the casing is a nice matte black, though the rest feels as plastic as you’d expect at the price point.

The basic chassis for both products has the same no-nonsense plug setup as an iRig; input, output, volume dial and a headphone jack. Both use a permanently attached 3.5mm plug as the output plug, which is slightly frustrating considering it

wouldn’t have been much of a fuss to make it detachable. For mobile purposes however, it is more than serviceable. Go Vocal is powered by a 9v battery, though it helpfully provides 48v phantom power for condenser mics. More appropriately, the Go Guitar is bus powered, meaning all you’ll need is your computer or phone to leech off. For iPhones 7 and later, you’ll need a lightning cable adapter to plug it into your phone; more an indictment of Apple’s ridiculous removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack than TC Helicon.

What makes less sense is Go Guitar’s clip; you’d be hard pressed to find any belt or guitar strap thin enough to slot through it.

Personally, I’d approach TC Helicon’s creative suite of apps designed for use with these devices with caution. At least on the Australian app store, most of their apps feel half baked and pale hard in comparison to GarageBand. Once you’ve actually plugged in however, both the Go Vocal and Go Guitar shine. The Go Guitar produces a mobile tone as powerful as one could expect, while the Go Vocal carries exceptional detail. The Go Guitar’s extra output is also a nice touch, providing a swathe of upgradable digital effects superior to that of a basic Roland Cube. If I was paying less attention to

the unit the cord would slip around in the headphone jack, but otherwise no issues were had with the units’ hardware.

While the Go Guitar’s functionality has been seen before; the Go Vocal is something else entirely. For the money, users will be struck by its awesome capability to act as a mobile interface for both dynamic and condenser microphones. Even when pushed, I struggled to really hear any significant losses using an SM57 dynamic mic. There is a slightly tinny quality to its reproduction, although we’re a few hundred dollars from even a low end interface or mixer.

Fundamentally, the Go Vocal and Go Guitar win over the well-loved iRig because they are nearly half the cost. Both are an easy recording solution for getting ideas down on the go, and for beginners who want to dip their toes in the home recording world without drowning in cost. Ideally, they’d be

wireless in new models but if it made them less cost effective they’d lose out to the competition. The Go Vocal interface will be the most interesting model going forward; if TC Helicon continues to make affordable improvements, it may have a market killing product on its hands.

BY JOSHUA MARTIN HITS ∙∙ Exceptionally functional ∙∙ Exceptionally cheap ∙∙ Strong reproduction via GarageBand ∙∙ Great battery-less power system MISSES ∙∙ Flimsy and unusable belt clip ∙∙ Underdeveloped TC Helicon associated apps

IK MULTIMEDIA

UNO Synthesiser SOUND AND MUSIC | SOUND-MUSIC.COM | EXPECT TO PAY: $329 If you’ve been keeping up to date with what’s trending in the music gear sphere, you’ll have noticed a steady shift towards companies mass-producing relatively affordable analogue synths in recent years.

Spearheaded by the likes of Korg and Arturia and followed somewhat sluggishly by Roland and Behringer, this shift has seen manufacturers eschew the bulky digital workstation in favour of small hardware units that act as the perfect gateway into the winding world of analogue synthesis.

Despite the abundance of heavyweight competitors, Italian audio tech firm IK Multimedia has also decided to throw its hat in the ring with their own take on the analogue trend with the small, yet oh-somighty, UNO. Weighing in at a slight 400 grams and taking up less space than the average iPad, the UNO is an ultra-portable, two oscillator mono synth packed with a sequencer, arpeggiator and an array of real-time effects. Power is provided either via micro USB or four AA batteries, making the UNO perfect for musicians on the go or to fiddle with in transit. I’m sure some will fuss about IK’s decision to add 3.5mm input and output ports on the rear of the unit, but it’s obviously a nifty cost-cutting measure that also complements the portability of the synth. While its name bears semblance to a relatively famous polysynth of the ‘80s, the UNO follows in the footsteps of none,

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offering a completely unique approach in its sound, function and design. Given IK Multimedia’s main hustle is within the digital realm of interfaces and iOS apps, this decision is definitely for the better, making playing with the UNO an invigorating experience.

Avoiding the typical analogue trope of crowding as many knobs, switches and faders onto the interface as possible, the UNO’s synth engine is instead controlled by four rotary knobs and soft touch buttons arranged into one easy matrix.

With two independent VCOs providing sawtooth, triangle, square and variable pulse waveforms, a noise generator, a twopole filter with LPF, BPF and HPF modes (there’s also a dedicated filter cutoff knob, which is a big win in my books), an LFO and a custom dual-stage overdrive, you’ll be flummoxed with the amount of sounds you can squeeze out of the UNO. Whether you’re aiming for snarling acid house tones, rumbling Moog bass, sharp sawtooth leads or something weird and wacky, you’ll be able to wrangle it from the UNO with ease.

There’s also 100 presets (80 of which are customisable) to choose from to get you started with patch building, which is actually quite impressive considering the size of the device. However, given the same kind of buttons found in the editing matrix are used to control the keyboard of the synth, you’ll want to plug a MIDI keyboard

into the UNO straight away to really access its full potential, otherwise you’ll be stuck in sequencer land.

If being stuck in sequencer land doesn’t sound too bad to you, then you’ll still be able to have plenty of fun with the UNO. Recording and editing sequences is simple and intuitive, and if you’ve ever played around with any model from the Korg Volca series, you’ll be able to master the UNO’s 16-step sequencer pretty easily. Sequences can be programmed in steps or in real time with three directions to choose from: forwards, backwards or back-and-forth, while tempo can be tweaked via a dedicated rotary knob. The UNO’s arpeggiator is also surprisingly powerful with ten patterns, a four-octave range and a convenient hold function to keep things rolling on even when you’re editing sounds. There’s also an inbuilt analogue delay located near the right side of the keyboard which adds a whole lot of character to any sequence or arpeggio you’re playing, as well as a range of other performance effects including Dive, Scoop, Vibrato, Wah and Tremolo. Save for the delay, these effects really don’t add anything to the experience of the UNO, and sound like they’ve been shipped across from a quirky ‘90s multi-effects pedal.

Given the power, performance, portability and price tag of IK Multimedia’s first foray into the world of analogue synths, I’m

surprised at the lack of hype around this little fella, because the UNO has serious potential to put a big dent in the budget synth market. It’s an incredibly inspiring unit with an easily navigable interface and array of sounds to choose from, and is bound to offer just as much fun to synth masters as it does to beginners.

BY WILL BREWSTER

HITS ∙∙ It’s literally the size and weight of a paperback novel – what’s not to love? ∙∙ 100% pure analogue bliss ∙∙ Nifty sequencer and arpeggiator section MISSES ∙∙ Cheesy effects ∙∙ Soft touch keys definitely aren’t for everybody

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PRODUCT REVIEWS VOX

AC30 S1 Amplifier YAMAHA MUSIC AUSTRALIA | AU.YAMAHA.COM | EXPECT TO PAY: $1499 As defined by the Oxford Dictionary, in physics singularity is the “point at which a function takes an infinite value, especially in space–time when matter is infinitely dense, such as at the center of a black hole.” Taken more figuratively it is the position that a thing takes of absolute self hood, where any given object is the most condensed version of itself, leaving little to no room for accouterments, addendum or paraphernalia; the one and only source of its own characteristic. Metaphorically speaking there is a number of beings that exist in the musical world that could claim to have achieved this solitary state of being. Jimmy Page’s ancient Supro, the first Strat or Nocaster, and Keith Richards’ original skin all hold an absolutely singular place in the great hall of musical artifacts.

Given its pivotal role in defining the sound of generation after generation of guitarists, Vox’s inimitable AC30 guitar amplifier has been achingly close to achieving this holy one-ness for decades. Now, in one of the more closely kept secrets of recent times, the AC30 S1 takes this earth-shattering vibration to that higher plane.

Now, we’ve all seen, heard, played through and tried to lift an AC before. We all know what they are there for. Heavier than hell and louder than your neighboring nation

could abide, that infamous hazelnut grillecloth has long been the dream for anyone with a thirst for tube transcendence. At the same time we’ve all scratched our heads wondering how and why channel jumping works as much as we have whether or not we bother venturing down that path. This is where the new AC comes in. For what feels like the very first time Vox delivers a single channel, single 12” speaker variation on the theme and for me it immediately takes its seat at the top of the hierarchy.

Much like the models it joins in the AC council of elders, 12AX7 preamp and EL84 power tubes drive the beginning, middle and end of the S1 story. The expansive, chiming response of the former is beefed up and thrust forward by the latter in exactly the way you’d expect from a Vox build. For what it’s worth, I’ve never found an AC30 I’ve loved as much as I’ve wanted to. I’ve always found the voicing a little too dry and evened out for my taste and wanted more space in the reverb tank to splash around in. That is until now. Immediately the S1 has a vastness, harmonic richness and almost Fender-esque brilliance that I’ve yearned for from Vox for as long as I can remember. I feel like the distilled nature of the single channel design has trimmed a lot of fat from the voicing and allowed it to

blossom gloriously, giving that famous tube combination a lot more breathing space.

Driven hard there is a luscious amount of natural compression to the gain stage that opens up as you dig in while retaining a warmth, versatility and transparent grit that blues and jazz players will respond as favorably as your average rock pig.

I can now breathe an eternal sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge that Vox have perfected their historic AC line. While it might seem like me making a big deal over a simple modification, the proof is in the aural pudding. With a luxurious harmonic

landscape and classic design features, the AC30 S1 is the Holy Grail amp that Vox have been promising for eons.

BY LUKE SHIELDS

HITS ∙∙ Harmonic richness like never before MISSES ∙∙ None

*How to redeem and full terms and conditions available at www.jands.com.au/promotions

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PRODUCT REVIEWS CARL MARTIN

Comp/Limiter, Panama and Purple Moon Pedals INNOVATIVE MUSIC | WWW.INNOVATIVEMUSIC.COM.AU EXPECT TO PAY: COMP/LIMITER - $299 PANAMA - $229 PURPLE MOON - $249

Carl Martin is a humble audio company based in Denmark. Since their beginnings in 1990 as a hire company and their Custom Shop 50 amplifier in 2005, Carl Martin has continued to produce creative, top-tier and easy-to-use pedals. The newest incarnation of this is the 2019 series of pedals, a series with a smaller footprint than their predecessors, but by no means a smaller tonal impact. The Purple Moon Fuzz ’N’ Vibe, a fuzz and Uni-Vibe clone in one, Panama British-style Overdrive, an ‘80s style thrashy, rocky, London-style overdrive, and the aptly named Comp/Limiter can bring the last 10% of your tone, or create entirely new sounds in their own right. All three pedals are weighty, solid and unassuming, powered via 9V adapter aptly located between the in/out on top of the pedal.

Generally, a compressor would be one of the first pedals in your signal chain. The Carl Martin Comp/Limiter is a simple two knob compressor that becomes a limiter when completely dialled. Featuring only ‘Comp’ and ‘Level’ controls either side of the bright blue LED, it couldn’t be easier to use. Compressors can be a complicated one for first-timers, offering control of speed, attack and/or release as well as a threshold, but the Carl Martin Comp/Limiter is much simpler to use and responds how you want it to anyway. Usually I like effects, especially compression, to be dialled too far before reigning it back in. I just like knowing how far something can go, however the Comp/

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Limiter sounds great even with ‘Comp’ set to 100 (five o’clock). Even at maximum settings, the Comp/Limiter retains great tonality without masking the character of your playing and still compresses hard.

Dynamics can’t get away from you, and yet there’s no massive rise in noise floor or pumping. This makes the pedal a great option for bass, as you can retain the attack of your playing while remaining a consistent anchor for your band. On guitar, clean tones sparkle a little more with spank and consistently help your amp respond more evenly. The Comp/Limiter provides album ready solo tones that pop out of a mix without being overbearingly compressed.

Unless of course, that excessive tone is what you’re after.

The ‘80s were all about excess and those BIG sounds. The Panama, a British (sic) Hot Modded Overdrive, is this sound in a box. This four knob overdrive is a tone tightener and solo thickener. Fairly standard ‘Gain’, ‘Level’ and ‘Tone’ controls are self explanatory. The ‘Damping’ knob, however, is a high-pass-filter that slowly tightens the remainder of your tone as it’s dialled up.

Overall, this is a Marshall-style overdrive that thickens instantly without any excess mud or mess. Mids are pushed, something else that’s inherently British, and with the gain dialled back you can nail the jangly mod guitar tone. This pedal can help you really cut through for a solo or hook and really has a lot of tonal shaping options

for such a small package. When used similarly to a Tube Screamer, i.e. to push an already driven amp just a little further, the Panama hits it out of the park. Gain is more controlled, bottom end is resonant but won’t run away from you, and the tone feels more mixed and ready for your audience.

Throw the Comp/Limiter before your Panama and amp and you’re laying down consistent chords, resonant riffs and controlled solos.

The Purple Moon is another gain option from Carl Martin. A tribute to Hendrix’s famed fuzz and Uni-Vibe combination, the Purple Moon is a small purple stomp box with three pots for the vibe and two mini pots to control the fuzz. With independent controls, the Purple Moon is effectively two pedals in one. Full on fuzz is thick, angry and a rounded vintage without being too dark.

Roll the fuzz back and it can thicken up an existing tone, becoming the secret sauce between another overdrive and your amp.

The Vibe, in combination with the fuzz, swirls, trembles and bellows as you roll up, down and through rocky pentatonic scales on your off-white Strat strung upside down.

The combo is Band of Gypsys at Fillmore East, and it inspires slow, meaningful leads with articulate blues voicing and double stops. Dial back the fuzz completely, and you’ve got an interesting modulation pedal that brings the last 10% to some ear candy or swallows your playing whole depending on the Speed and Depth. Delicious.

Overall, Carl Martin’s latest line of pedals are tiny packages that all pack punches. The Comp/Limiter can be set and forgotten, but will be sorely missed if it’s ever switched out (or off). The Purple Moon is either a little extra push into another overdrive, a modulating monster, or a fat fuzz machine, and everything in-between. The Panama, the pedal you never knew you needed, is a familiar British style overdrive with some extra features to help shape your tone and integrate the pedal into your rig however you see fit. The new series of pedals are great in their own right, but even better in combination. Buy them all.

BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS HITS ∙∙ Easy to dial pedals ∙∙ Even when maxed out, pedals still sound great MISSES ∙∙ N/A

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PRODUCT REVIEWS XOTIC GUITARS

XTC-1 Series Guitar GUITAR BROTHERS | WWW.GUITARBROTHERS.COM.AU | ENQUIRE FOR PRICING Xotic’s impressive take on a tried and true classic is one to behold. Combining familiar vintage T-style appointments with high quality modern components and materials, Xotic have truly made an absolute beast of a guitar that possesses the best of both worlds. However, with a price tag placing it in the range of exceptionally worthy competition, this axe might pander to only the most discerning of customers.

Hoisting the guitar out of its aggressivelooking hard case was a breeze – its ash body was almost abnormally light, with plenty of acoustic resonance when strummed. This review unit sported a medium relic finish over a classic Three-Tone sunburst, matched with a white single ply pickguard. The artificial damage is tasteful and appropriate, with the expected symptoms of wear and tear in all the right places.

At a glance, the hardware screams pure vintage Telecaster; single coil pickups with a chrome neck cover, a three-way top hat selector, single chrome volume and tone knob, and an ashtray paired with a threebarrel assembly. However, the nuances begin to materialise on closer inspection.

The most outstanding feature about the XTC-1 is its pure maple neck. The flamed maple fingerboard is roasted to a gorgeous light chocolate-brown, with a stunning stereoscopic pattern on the back. A natural

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oil finish coats its entire length, achieving a supremely comfortable bare wood feel.

Even after multiple extended playing sessions, the oil finish never generated any form of friction or stickiness. Xotic calls this neck carve a modern C shape; while comparable to Fender’s offerings of the same name, slightly more heft is present in the XTC-1. The excellent build quality extends to the narrow-tall Jescar 55090 frets, which are filed magnificently from edge to edge. Even at the highest frets and with the most abusive of bends, I was unable to get this guitar to choke out. At its crown, the XTC-1 utilises Gotoh vintagestyle locking tuners, a perfect marriage of form and function.

In the sound department, Xotic chose to employ a set of hand wound USA Raw Vintage pickups. The front pickup offers plenty of warmth, low end, and a surprising amount of top end definition – not a common trait a T-style neck pickup is known for. The back pickup delivers the sound we all know and love in spades. There’s plenty of presence and the trademarked Telecaster bridge ‘honk’, without any notion of being overly shrill or ‘ice-picky’. Adding a touch of gain truly made these pickups come alive, producing lush overtones and harmonics without breaking a sweat.

While the pickups performed well, I was left wondering about the lack of any standout features from a guitar of this value. There aren’t any fancy push-pull mechanics on the controls or any special tone modifications. Even the neck – as impressive and beautiful as it is – has an elementary 9.5-inch radius, with no compound radii in sight. The guitar simply is what it is: an excellent stock instrument.

Granted, Xotic’s included spec sheet and website indicate a new owner would be allowed to choose from a selection of tonewoods, artificial aging, and finish options. However, the options generally revolve around aesthetic differences.

Unfortunately, there’s not much in the way of innovation with the XTC-1 – no matter how admirable the build quality is. At the end of the day, it really begs the question: if one was in the market for a top-of-therange, hand-built in America, Telecaster-style guitar, why not go straight to the source?

BY EDDY LIM

HITS ∙∙ Faultless build quality ∙∙ Supremely comfortable neck ∙∙ Great pickups MISSES ∙∙ Sizeable price tag

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PRODUCT REVIEWS VOX

VX50GTV Amplifier YAMAHA MUSIC AUSTRALIA | AU.YAMAHA.COM EXPECT TO PAY: $450 Vox Amplifiers are clean amp royalty. The Vox AC30 is hailed, imitated, profiled, gigged and loved endlessly, which is why the Vox VX50GTV is such an interesting product. The VX50GTV is a 50 watt amp modeller with built-in effects, tuner and 8” speaker. It sits in its own spot in the market between all-out profiling amps and multi-FX pedals, but is by no means an entry-level product. While it is an affordable one-stop shop for someone who needs one product for everything they do, it can also be a secret weapon in the studio. I wouldn’t gig with it but I’d definitely record with it, as providing fresh sounds is where this amp shines. As if we’d expect anything less from Vox? The Vox VX50GTV is primarily a profiling amplifier, featuring 11 different amps and sounds ranging from clean to dirty and tipping their hat to Fender cleans, the AC30 and Marshall style amps, all the way to Mesa drive and finally a line only option. Much like Line 6’s Helix, a Kemper or Fractal’s AxeFX, profiling amps will never completely replace amplifier heads, nor will they ever sound specifically like the amp they’re trying to recreate. What they do, however, is create new sounds whether they nail what they’re trying to replicate or not. The VX50GTV won’t replace your Fender Twin, nor your Mesa Dual Rec, but it’s not trying to. You can pull tones out of this small amp that are

great in their own right, and that’s what it’s trying to do. While this amp is the perfect one-stop shop for the bedroom or occasional guitarist, it’s also a great addition to a collection of any size. The effects, ranging from modulating choruses, flangers, tremolos and phasers to bouncy reverbs, metallic plates and grand halls with tap-tempo, are enough to sell this amp. Some different flavours blended however you want them, either together or solo, and the right amp choice can build a tone that can nail the sound in anyone’s head.

The VX50GTV’s amp models are all workable.

Beginning with a Fender Deluxe-style clean and building to the Vox cleans, the amp modelling becomes dirtier as you dial past the Brit 1959 and 800 settings, before landing on the SL-OD and finally Double Rec. There’s a universal gain control that changes with each amp selection on the stepped knob, and universal bass, treble and volume controls above the NuTube technology knob that dials the amp’s power from 0-50 watts.

As if the amp modelling wasn’t enough for noodling at home or creating in the studio, you can dial the power all the way back and run the amp hard, delivering the breakup made famous by clean and dirty tube amps alike. Effects respond differently when driven, so you’ve effectively got double or triple the sounds, depending how hard you

run the amp. The ‘Org Phase’ effect gets super gritty in the most pleasing way, and when you find a setting you like, you can save it!

The Vox VX50GTV is a one-stop amp for guitarists of any calibre. There’s also bass, keyboard and acoustic versions in the VX50BA, VX50KB and VX50AG respectively.

Dial in your amp with the amp modeller, set the gain, tweak the EQ and save the settings if you want. Add some grit, size and heat with the modulation effects and then give your tone some space with a nice reverb or delay. Triple-check your tuning

and get on your way at either one or 50 watts depending on how much you like your neighbours.

BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS HITS ∙∙ Great selection of amps ∙∙ Great, usable effects MISSES ∙∙ No mid control in EQ section

GIGAREX

PGT-124 Wireless IEM System GSUS4 | GSUS4.COM.AU | EXPECT TO PAY: $429 Wireless in-ear monitoring is an increasingly common monitoring options for bands of any calibre, not to mention live broadcast in radio, television and films. The signal you’re putting out, whether it be a sung vocal on stage, spoken word on a live broadcast or strummed acoustic guitar, is sent to either a FOH or monitor mixer who then sends the signal back to you to monitor yourself.

The Gigarex IEM system sits between you and the monitor engineer, sending the signal back to you with crystal clarity into your headphones, or earbuds of choice.

Where musicians have previously relied on beaten-up monitors that have sat in venues for years, it’s now increasingly accessible and feasible to run a band on an in-ear monitoring set-up. Alternatively, the Gigarex system can be used to transmit signal to a recording source, such as when creating online content where messy cables are unsightly and will detract from your product.

The Gigarex IEM system is a perfect solution, featuring an inconspicuous transmitter and receiver that charges via mini USB, with ten hours of continuous battery life and boasting some handy frequency selection technology.

The Gigarex IEM system is clean, well-suited to being attached to you on stage without it making a scene and ruining the wireless illusion. Both transmitter and receiver are Li-ion powered, and the batteries are

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rechargeable via mini USB. The Transmitter and Receiver are very easy to pair and easy to set-up, as they’re designed to be a set-and-forget system so you can focus on performance and trust in the Gigarex IEM. Admittedly, the system is designed to be so simple to set-up that the receiver doesn’t include a volume control, which would be a handy addition. The only issue, is that you’ll need to ask your monitor engineer for more or less signal, so c’est la vie.

The system is designed to be trusted, and the 1,000mA Li-ion battery is ready for up to 10 hours of continuous usage, or alternatively 24 hours of standby mode. Both units weigh in at 124g so they won’t get in the way, and feature a maximum 19ms latency for live broadcast or monitoring. That’s a maximum, i.e. in the worst situations. Conventionally, the receiver unit of wireless systems are bulky, with large antennae protruding from the top of the unit, and bright lights indicating the signal status. The Gigarex system features a receiver as small as the transmitter, so even your monitor engineer won’t be distracted by bulky gear on their console or sound system. Both the transmitter and receiver feature Adaptive Frequency Hopping technology to ensure it’s not interfered with by other wireless units close by. What’s more, the Gigarex IEM system allows you to bring your own headphones or earbuds, so it’s a highly customisable system to ensure

maximum comfort and minimum interference (in literally every sonic, physical and emotional sense of the word) while performing on stage.

Overall, the Gigarex IEM system is a great option for portable, reliable in-ear monitoring. Gone are the days of hoping for the best when loading into a gig, begging for more or less signal through beaten-up monitors or dated power amplifiers. You’ll have the same signal night after night and really have a chance to hone your craft with focus and precision that different monitors simply can’t offer. The Gigarex IEM system is ready for you, so make sure you’re ready to perform your best.

BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS

HITS ∙∙ Small size ∙∙ Long battery life MISSES ∙∙ No volume control on transmitter

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RARITIES COLLECTION R E D M A H O G A N Y TO P T E L E C AST E R ®

AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY FROM NSW Guitar Factory Parramatta•Musos Corner VIC A&B Music •Guitar Station•Music Junction SA Derringers Music ACT DW Music WA Sound Centre•Mega Music QLD Guitar Brothers

©2018 FMIC. FENDER®; STRATOCASTER®; STRAT® AND THE DISTINCTIVE HEAD STOCK SHAPE OF THE STRATOCASTER® ARE THE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OFFENDER MUSIC AUSTRALIA PTY LTD [ABN 34 613 081 191]. ONLY FENDER MUSIC AUSTRALIA CAN AUTHORISE THESE TRADE MARKS FOR AUSTRALIA.

PRODUCT REVIEWS MACKIE

DRM212 12” Powered Speaker AMBER TECHNOLOGY | AMBERTECH.COM.AU | EXPECT TO PAY: $1649 Mackie is, and forever has been, a workhorse company, creating products from entry-level interfaces and studio monitors all the way to the universally tried and true Big Knob monitors controllers and powered loudspeakers. The DRM212 is a 12” powered loudspeaker designed for many uses, and only limited by your own creativity.

Featuring a 12” speaker, two mono inputs and a stereo line input, Mackie’s new Dashboard software for onboard voicing, EQ, input gain, delay and mains monitoring, the Mackie DRM212 is highly customisable, and very easily so. Tweaks can be made quickly on stage without referring to an FOH or monitor engineer. This makes the DRM series a great solution for bands doing away with conventional guitar or bass cabinets.

The Mackie DRM212 is primarily designed to be used as a stage monitor, or alternatively as a smaller FOH speaker for more intimate gigs. Alternatively, because of the super flat EQ curve, the speaker can be used for creatively re-amping room sounds, emphasising drums in a room or as a powered speaker for an amp modeler such as Fractal Audio AxeFx, Kemper or the Line 6 Helix. The profiles created on these units can ring true and remain uncoloured by more conventional guitar cabinets.

With two microphone inputs, as well as Neutrik combo XLR/1/4” jack inputs and an auxiliary stereo input, all with independent

gain pots, there’s a myriad of uses for the DRM212 specifically. Once you’re in, further settings can be tweaked via the Dashboard.

Similar to a standard 4x12 speaker guitar cabinet, the DRM212 is a 12” powered loudspeaker, powered by a 1600 watt Class-D amplifier. Reproducing frequencies from 45Hz up to 20kHz, with a maximum SPL peak of 134dB. The 12” speaker itself reproduces sound with startling clarity, with a super flat EQ curve and total harmonic distortion totaling less than 1%. If flat EQ isn’t your thing, that’s okay too - you can quickly change the EQ via the Dashboard software, on the brightly lit screen on a darkened stage. There’s an electronic crossover at 1.5kHz, featuring a slope of 24dB per octave. A matte black grille protects the 12” speaker, attached to the plywood enclosure, ensuring minimal vibration, rattle and long life even at loud volumes. All speakers in the series feature Mackie’s DRM Control Dashboard, accessible via the brightly lit, full-colour display on the back of the speaker. From here you can tweak input gain, voicing and even delay to compensate for the position of the speakers.

You can change the sub crosser point, and tweak the onboard three band EQ. Overall, the Mackie DRM212 is a great speaker solution for the audio professional.

While the smallest in size of the DRM

Series, the DRM212 packs a punch and can deliver the goods. Reproducing crystal clear sound at high volumes with minimal distortion, the speaker can withstand high level inputs, and deliver high output without breaking a sweat. The Dashboard software makes tweaking the voicing and EQ of the speaker a breeze, and you can quickly toggle it without running back and forth between FOH and the stage to check. If the DRM212 isn’t enough for your needs, Mackie also offer more powerful options with the DRM215 and DRM315, which both feature the Dashboard software onboard. The series then extends all the way up monstrous towering FOH systems for large venues. Mackie is here to work with musicians and artists to create and express their best work, ready to be relied on and sought after.

BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS

HITS ∙∙ Dashboard software is great ∙∙ Huge sound MISSES ∙∙ N/A

GRETSCH

G5655TG Limited Edition Electromatic GRETSCH GUITARS AUSTRALIA | GRETSCH.COM.AU | RRP: $1799 Having had much success with their Electromatic line, Gretsch continue to extend their stocks with additional models, features and specs. Offering players a Gretsch guitar with a mix of classic looks and feel as well as a handful of modern features and build decisions to limit overall cost, the Electromatic line opens up the brand to a whole new range of potential players.

A smaller sized cutaway guitar, the G5655TG is made from maple, with a chambered spruce centre block to keep things grounded. The neck is also maple with a 12” Laurel fingerboard, which seems to be a popular choice these days (due in part to its availability, cost and reliability I’ve been told). Finished in ‘Snow Crest’ white the instrument looks great, definitely in the slightly blingy Gretsch vein with the gold hardware and electronics providing a cool contrast.

A Gretsch guitar wouldn’t be complete without FilterTron pickups I hear you say?

Indeed. ‘Black Top’ FliterTrons are the pickup of choice for the G5655TG, giving you the standard three position options of neck, bridge and both. Overall the guitar looks very much Gretsch and definitely hip, retaining its curviness and retro style but

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with a smaller body that might entice even more players.

Paul Bigsby’s tremolo design was an instant hit in the 1940s and has been a classic hardware item ever since. Almost synonymous with the Gretsch brand, its distinctive look, feel and tone has worked its way into the repertoire of hundreds of famous players and songs. I really like the weight and resistance on a Bigsby, which really lets you feel the tremolo. You can’t help but play with some deep dips and rapid flutters. And of course these aren’t limited to style or genre. The chambered body feels nice weight-wise while the combination of hollow and a block adds stability for louder settings. Warm neck pickup sounds, throaty in-between tones and brighter twang are just some of the possibilities with the G5655TG and I could see it working well in country, rock, blues, rockabilly and more.

Gretsch seem to be onto another winner here with the G5655TG. The smaller body feels good (solid yet smaller) and the chambering adds hollow traits while handling louder volumes without the worry of excessive feedback and resonance. Clean, jangly broken tones and heavier saturated distortion all work well and the combination of the FilterTron pickups, and the Bigsby

helps to land you smack bang in the middle of Gretsch tone town. The price tag will also entice many players, and the fact that you can easily tweak the guitar further to your own liking makes it a nice, accessible entry into the Gretsch world/semi-hollow world/ Bigsby world.

BY NICK BROWN

HITS ∙∙ Smaller body, different style/design ∙∙ Gretsch in style and sound at a reduced price MISSES ∙∙ No case or gigbag included

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PRODUCT REVIEWS FENDER

Rumble LT 25 Bass Combo FENDER MUSIC AUSTRALIA | FENDER.COM.AU | RRP: $399 Fender’s influence on the guitar and bass world is undeniable with instruments, amplifiers, effects and more. Catering to all levels of musician, Fender have also continued to develop products that suit the bedroom alongside higher priced pro level items. Aiming for a lighter weight, portable amp that still packs a punch, the Rumble series of bass amps have been utilised by a range of players and remain a big seller in the amplification marketplace.

Fender’s latest incarnation in the Rumble line is the LT25, a 25 watt combo amp featuring a digital interface loaded with tones and presets. Sizing up a little under 40x40x30cms the LT25 is a compact unit ideally intended as a practice amp for just about anywhere you can envisage it (home/studio/bedroom/shed etc). This iteration of the Rumble continues with the cream coloured vintage styled control knobs and black textured vinyl covering, but this time with a matching black grille cloth (as opposed to the typical silver).

The black looks a little more understated and inconspicuous and the whole unit is sleek and restrained. Specs wise, the control panel features Gain, Bass, Middle, Treble and a Master level. Next, we come to the Display Window, with a rotary control and buttons labelled ‘Back’, ‘Save’, ‘Menu’ and ‘Tap.’ Alongside the power switch and

input jack there are Aux and USB inputs and a mini 3.5mm headphone output for quiet practice.

Plug into the LT25 and you can immediately dial a range of tones from clean and scooped through to warmer rounder type sounds. The standard EQ section is straight forward with the additional interface then adding the real flexibility. 30 onboard presets range from clean to fuzz to delay to compressed, octave, phaser and more.

Offering amp types and EQ, Stomp, Mod and Delay effects blocks you can flick through the presets and then edit as you like. The rotary controller allows you to navigate the menus fairly easily and you can of course save and edit preset names.

Smaller ‘practice’ style amps have really come a long way. Presets, effects, portability, a good range of tones and the ability to use headphones and plug in an external source give you a great base to hone your chops solo or jamming along with tracks on your smartphone.

I like the look and size of the LT25 and the single 8” produces more oomph than you’d think giving you enough volume to jam out at home. The presets cover a solid range of tones and the amp models and effects are more than enough to keep you busy. Essentially, the LT25 can be straight

forward if that’s your vibe or a little more in depth if you want to dig a little deeper into the pocket of what this little guy has to offer. Cool.

BY NICK BROWN

HITS ∙∙ Size and weight make it easy to manoeuvre ∙∙ Onboard presets add a solid range of tones MISSES ∙∙ None

APOGEE

Element 46 Interface AMBER TECHNOLOGY | AMBERTECH.COM.AU | EXPECT TO PAY: $1399 Apogee have been consistently delivering professional-grade products since their Apogee Solo, Duet and Quartet burst onto the market. Since then, their flagship Apogee Symphony has become a staple of the most top tier studios of relevance, and the Element is undoubtedly bound to become the staple for mobile studios and/or traveling musicians. The Apogee Element 46 is a 12 in, 14 out interface with maybe the most simple design that I, and the market, have ever seen. There’s four Neutrik combo XLR/1/4” jack inputs and two headphone outs on the front, while the rear features two XLR outputs for main monitoring, optical in/out, word clock in/out and that’s it. Designed to be as mobile as possible, the Element 46 is streamlined, slick and inconspicuous. Software assists in dialing gain on the four world-class mic preamps, or switching the phantom power in and out, all connected via Thunderbolt to your Mac. Capable of recording up to 192kHz, 24-bit audio via the four analogue inputs, the Element 46 is a great option for musicians or producers on the go. The lack of knobs and pots make it extremely rugged and road worthy, as there’s not much to break off in the case of a fall or drop. Thunderbolt keeps the latency ultra-low, while ADAT, SMUX and S/PDIF connections are available via the optical I/O, as well as keeping your digital audio rig concise, clear and

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integrated through the word clock I/O via BNC connections. The two headphone outs are 1/4” jacks, and are controllable by the Apogee software, or by the Apogee app with an iOS device. The preamps and monitors are all controllable via this software as well.

Alternatively, a hardware remote is available separately, with matching sleek looks that will look at home beside any interface in the Element series on your desk. For a bigger or smaller rig, the Element series ranges from the Element 12 (10 in, 12 out) up to the Element 88 (16 in, 16 out) with varying ins, outs and options, all via Thunderbolt.

In use, the Element 46 is simple and straight forward while remaining unassuming. This is the kind of product that is easily integrated into an existing rig, or used as the heart of your recording studio, and never produces an issue, always enhances creativity and never gets in the way or holds you back. The Element 46 is more or less set-and-forget, in the sense that once it’s set-up, it’ll do its job well and can be relied on gig after gig, session after session. The Element Series can fit in your backpack or a road case, without worry of knobs or external power cables etc. snapping off while in transit. The Element 46 is everything you need it to be, and that’s all. There’s bells, there’s whistles, but they’re all internal or integrated into the software.

Overall, the Apogee Element 46 is a complete solution for a producer on the go, with minimal external requirements, plenty of routing options, and maximum invisibility once integrated, allowing you to focus on music and not complicated interfaces and digital conversion. The unit can handle even the highest resolution audio, up to 192kHz at 24-bit, with little latency and minimal round-trip latency when recording or send to external equipment. Low weight, high specs, consistent performance. That’s what the Element series is about. Smaller Element interfaces are a great introduction to Apogee that delivers for budding bedroom musicians to big budget producers, both of whom need a reliable system to record to.

HITS ∙∙ Inconspicuous ∙∙ Lightweight ∙∙ No external buttons and knobs to be broken MISSES ∙∙ N/A

BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS

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DIRECTORY

EVOLUTION MUSIC

SKY MUSIC

DANGERFORK PRINT CO

A | 8/2 Northey Rd, Lynbrook VIC P | (03) 8787 8599 E | info@evolutionmusic.com.au W | evolutionmusic.com.au /evolutionmusicaus

A | 4/2181 Princes Hwy, Clayton VIC P | (03) 9546 0188 E | info@skymusic.com.au W | skymusic.com.au /skymusiconline

A | 1-5 Perry Street, Collingwood, VIC P | (03) 9417 5185 E | info@dangerfork.com W | dangerfork.com / dangerfork

(Recording Studios) A | 230 Crown St, Darlinghurst NSW P | (02) 9331 0666 E | bookings@damiengerard.net W | damiengerard.com.au /damiengerardstudios

AA DUPLICATION

FIVE STAR MUSIC

THE AUDIO EXPERTS

MAKE MERCHANDISE

A | 84 Nicholson St, Abbotsford VIC P | (03) 9416 2133 E | sales@aaduplication.com.au W | aaduplication.com.au /AADuplicationServices

A | 102 Maroondah Hwy, Ringwood VIC P | (03) 9870 4143 E | websales@fivestarmusic.com.au W | fivestarmusic.com.au /fivestarmusicoz

A | 2065 Dandenong Road, Clayton VIC P | (03) 9545 5152 E | sales@theaudioexperts.com.au W | theaudioexperts.com.au /TheAudioExpertsAus

(Screenprinting, Embroidery & Promotional Products) A | Unit 22/7 Lyn Parade, Prestons, NSW P | 0423 740 733 E | sales@makemerchandise.com.au W | makemerchandise.com.au /MakeMerchandise

EASTGATE MUSIC

NEWMARKET STUDIOS

LEARN MUSIC

SOUNDS EASY PTY LTD

A | 1131 Burke Rd, Kew VIC P | (03) 9817 7000 E | sales@eastgatemusic.com W | eastgatemusic.com.au /Eastgatemusic

A | 87-91 Arden Street, Melbourne VIC P | (03) 9329 2877 E | callum@newmarketstudios.com.au W | newmarketstudios.com.au /newmarketstudios

A | 311 High Street, Kew VIC P | (03) 9853 8318 E | learnmusic@bigpond.com W | learnmusic.com.au /kewlearnmusic

(Music Technology & Instruments Retailer) A | Suite G05, 15 Atchison St, St Leonards NSW P | (02) 8213 0202 W | soundseasy.com.au /dsoundseasy

JABEN AUDIO

VINYL REVIVAL

BINARY MUSIC

(Music Instruments Retailer & Education) A | 48 Bloomfield St, Cleveland QLD P | (07) 3488 2230 E | sales@binarymusic.com.au W | binarymusic.com.au /binarymusic

SOUNDS ESPRESSO

(Record Store & Café) A | 268 Victoria Road, Marrickville, NSW P | (02) 9572 6959 E | soundsespresso@hotmail.com W | soundsespresso.com.au /soundsespresso

HYDRA REHEARSAL STUDIOS

MELBOURNE MUSIC CENTRE

CONWAY CUSTOM GUITARS

GLADESVILLE GUITAR FACTORY

EASTERN SUBURBS SCHOOL OF MUSIC

DEX AUDIO

MONA VALE MUSIC

TURRAMURRA MUSIC

(Music Instruments Retailer)

(Printing/CD & DVD Duplication)

(Music Instruments Retailer)

(Headphone Specialist Retailer) A | Shop 2 398 Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC P | (03) 9670 8231 E | info@jaben.com.au W | jaben.com.au /jabenau

(Rehearsal Rooms) A | 18 Duffy Street, Burwood VIC P | (03) 9038 8101 E | hydrastudios@bigpond.com W | hydrastudios.com.au /hydra.rehearsal.studios

(Music Lessons) A | 10 Floriston Road, Boronia VIC 7 Sahra Grove, Carrum Downs VIC P | 0421 705 150 E | essm@essm.net.au W | essm.net.au /easternsuburbsschoolofmusic

(Music Instruments Retailer)

(Music Instruments Retailer)

(Music Production Studio)

(Vinyl and Record Specialist) A | 405 Brunswick St, Fitzroy VIC P | (03) 9419 5070 A | 128 Sydney Rd, Brunswick VIC P | (03) 9448 8635 E | info@vinylrevival.com.au W | vinylrevival.com.au /vinylrevivalmelbourne

(Music Instruments Retailer) A | 525 North Rd, Ormond, VIC P | (03) 9578 2426 E | info@melbournemusiccentre. com.au W | melbournemusiccentre.com.au /melbournemusic.centre

(Audio Visual Retailer)

(Screenprinting & Design Service)

(Audio Visual Retailer)

(Music Education)

(Luthier) A | Wynnum, QLD P | 0408 338 181 E | info@conwaycustom.com.au W | conwaycustom.com.au /conwaycustomguitars

(Music Instruments Retailer)

A | 393-399 Macaulay Rd, Melbourne VIC P | (03) 8378 2266 E | mail@dexaudio.com.au W | dexaudio.com.au /dexaudioaustralia

A | 55 Bassett Street, Mona Vale NSW P | (02) 9986 0589 E | info@mvmwarehouse.com W | www.monavalemusic.com / monavalemusic

DAMIEN GERARD STUDIOS

(Music Instruments Retailer) A | 280 Victoria Rd, Gladesville NSW P | (02) 9817 2173 E | mail@guitarfactory.net W | guitarfactory.net / GladesvilleGuitarFactory

(Music Instruments Retailer)

A | 1267 Pacific Hwy, Turramurra NSW P | (02) 9449 8487 E | general_sales@turramusic.com.au W | turramusic.com.au / TurramurraMusic

Not In The Directory?

C O N TA C T

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W I L L @ F U R S T M E D I A . C O M . A U

T O

S E C U R E

Y O U R

P L A C E

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©2019 FMIC. FENDER®; are the registered trademarks of FENDER MUSIC AUSTRALIA PTY LTD [ABN 34 613 081 191]. Only Fender Music Australia can authorise these trade marks for Australia

EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN. UNLOCK NEW SOUNDS WITH THE AMERICAN ACOUSTASONIC ™ TELECASTER.®

C RAFTED IN C O RO N A, C ALIFO RN IA

SHOW AND TELL

Eric Fortaleza What piece of equipment do you have to show us today?

My original 1963 Fender Precision Bass (in Daphne Blue with gold hardware).

How did you come across this particular item?

My prior purchase before this bass was a Fender Custom Shop Pino Palladino Signature Precision Bass. This was based on two of Pino’s vintage Precision Basses. So when it came to a vintage style Precision Bass, I thought I was covered. Then I saw this bass on eBay in 2013.

I saw an opportunity to purchase an original vintage Fender, rather than a reissue.

What is it that you like about it so much?

This bass weighs just under 4kgs. Through the years of buying instruments, I found that my weight threshold and preference are basses under this weight. I’ve sold many basses that were too heavy for me. The moment you have to say too many details about a P Bass, I feel I would be talking too much. I love that this is what a bass sounds like to me. All my favourite bass tones from my favourite records, nearly all of the time comes from a Fender Precision Bass. I love that this is my own P Bass. It’s part of my story and has battle scars to boot. Not a reissue, not a custom shop, not a relic. Every scratch, every ding is from me. This bass will go around the world with me.

How do you use it and how has it shaped the way you write music?

This bass has been strung with rounds & flatwound strings. It is currently in its flats phase (Dunlop Flatwound Bass Strings 40-100). Very light gauges, so I let the meat of my fingers do most of the work. Being a fan of vintage Fender basses is also reflected in the style of music I love playing & writing. Pino Palladino is my biggest influence, so that is a big indicator of why I love P Basses so much. The P Bass is also the most studio friendly bass.

Engineers and artists almost always prefer the meaty sound of a P Bass. A lot of people say it cuts through the mix the most. I personally don’t think so. I think Jazz Basses cut through the mix the most. But the P bass carries more weight in the mix. I’m all about weight. It’s called bass for a reason.

Tell us a little about what you have coming up?

I am currently teaming up with Fender Custom Shop & Fender Australia to have Master Builder Jason Smith create an exact replica of my bass. Scratches and all. Jason Smith has a super long waiting list and has built basses for Flea, John 5, Michael Landau, Geddy Lee, Steve Harris just to name a few. It’s an honour for Jason to be replicating my bass. My friend Sean Hurley always says “You gotta have two P Basses, one with flats and one with rounds”. So that’s how I’m going to be utilising the two. Eventually when people care about me enough, hopefully young bass players will want an Eric Fortaleza Signature Precision Bass.

Stay tuned to Eric Fortaleza’s Facebook page for news on his bass replica.

Eric Steckel What piece of equipment do you have to show us today?

The piece of gear I’m showing to you is my Signature Eric Steckel model guitar with a company called Knaggs Guitars based in Maryland, USA and run by Master Luthier Joe Knaggs.

How did you come across this particular item?

Actually, this piece of gear found me. Last year Knaggs Guitars approached me to develop my dream guitar with them to release on the market as a signature model and we immediately got to work designing a lightweight single-cut, double-humbucker beast that fits me like a glove.

What is it that you like about it so much?

The guitar weighs less than 7.99 pounds (around 3.5 kg) and sustains for days, yet has a smooth fast neck that most guitars of this style lack. We kept it simple with a solid mahogany body, flamed maple top/back of neck/back of headstock, plus an ebony fretboard with the signature morning star inlays. We load these guitars with Seymour Duncan Saturday Night Special pickups which are low/medium output and have a great sweetness in the midrange that I strive for in my tone. They really nailed my vision and I’m so proud of these axes!

How do you use it and how has it shaped the way you write music?

This guitar has changed the way I play in that I tend to savour each note and let the sustain bloom during a long whole-step bend, for instance. Before I joined with Knaggs, I wasn’t savouring the tone as much and playing too fast for my own good sometimes. These guitars have actually taught me a bit of restraint. The thicker midrange and chunkier low-end these guitars provide helps me dial in the blues metal tone I’m known for much easier and I’ve eliminated the need for any pedals between these guitars and my amps. I can control all the dynamics simply from this guitar’s volume knob, which is a dream.

Tell us a little about what you have coming up?

The month of May will be very busy for me. I’m off to Australia for my third tour Down Under covering Gold Coast, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and more. I’m very excited for all the touring and travel this month! The rest of the summer sees me touring back home in the States until I fly back to Europe in the fall for more touring and some clinics and masterclasses as well.

Catch Eric Steckel on tour this month. For more details visit ericsteckel.com.

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