A few years ago, a new effects company from Latvia debuted the Plus Pedal at NAMM. It seemed to create a similar effect to the Electro-Harmonix Superego pedal. If you have been wondering about how the pedals compare, here is a great video from loopop.
The guys from Sweetwater demo a bunch of pedals that will help you create synthesizer sounds without having to learn to play keyboards. As comprehensive as this is, it just scratches the surface. Look for more pedals that create synth-like sounds soon a Guitar Moderne.
As a budding photographer, I was thrilled when guitarist Brandon Ross introduced me to Ralph Gibson through Facebook. It turned out that Ralph is not just a world renowned photographer, with work on display at the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the J. P. Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA, but also an avid guitarist, as interested in the future of the instrument as we are. He has published two books featuring the guitar, Light Strings and State of the Axe (with Andy Summers https://www.guitarmoderne.com/pioneer/the-andy-summers-interview). The latter could serve as an analog version of Guitar Moderne, with its photographs of and interviews with many of the same guitarists that appear here. The pictures in Gibson’s first book of photography, The Somnabulist, are like a dream, not necessarily linear, but very illuminating. Our conversation proved to be similar, wandering off on tangents, moving at oblique angles, but centered by a shared vision.
Music for Lens & Guitar from ralph gibson on Vimeo.
Sarah Lipstate has been a unique voice in modern guitar ever since she went solo as Noveller and began her distinctive looping performances. You can get the back story in my first Guitar Moderne interview, as well as in the one I did for Guitar Player . Much has happened in Noveller-land since then, so on the occasion of the release, A Pink Sunset for No One, it seemed time to sit down with her and find out how she has taken the one-time niche of guitar looping to the big stage with the likes of St. Vincent and Iggy Pop. An admitted gear-junkie, we delve into the goodies she is using, (spoiler alert: like Eno she eschews the comfort of the familiar for the excitement of experimentation.) But Sarah was also candid about her artist’s journey: how she came to these extraordinary opportunities, and why she decided to forsake Brooklyn for Los Angeles.
Experimental guitarist Joel Gilardini is based in Zurich, Switzerland. His projects include experimental doom-metal, ambient loops, and industrial-noise. His music has been lauded by Eraldo Bernocchi, Nik Bärtsch from Ronin, and Colin Edwin of Porcupine Tree. He was kind enough to give GM a detailed rundown of his cool rig.