The rollout of the Poly Effects pedals has been one of the slowest in memory. It was at least three years ago that Loki Davison unveiled his concept for a modular, programable, touchscreen, pedal. Now that his concept seems to be finally hitting the street, we see that like some Source Audio pedals, the basic housing allows either pedal to perform the functions of the other. Here are a couple of demos outside the noisy NAMM environment that show some of the fascinating possibilities.
Henry Kaiser has been offering a series of weekly, solo, “live” performances” through Cuneiform Records. Mike Baggetta has posted a video of his band MSSV also performing “live.” Here, Henry talks about his duo video with Baggetta, why these performances are not streamed, and both reveal how they record them.
One upside of sheltering in place is that it has given me time to get back to playing guitar through my Laptop/iPad rig. I posted some video snippets on Facebook, which prompted some questions about my setup. You can read about some of my earlier experiences here. But the time seems ripe to reveal the results of some improvements in both my technique and the technology.
A new Torn record is always a cause for celebration, but FUR/TORN is a bonanza for fans of the artist’s guitar playing. Performed solo, with no overdubs, it is distilled Torn—a reduction of pure tone, technique and ideas. He performs with his Ronin “Supastah” set clean and through a variety of hairy fuzz pedals (FUR?). We talked about the vagaries of the virus, what he looks for in a fuzz, our mutual admiration of the late John Abercrombie, and much more. The video and sound came out pristine, and given that we all have more time on our hands, I thought I would offer Guitar Moderne fans a chance to sit in on our unedited conversation. Enjoy and subscribe for more like this.
What does Nigel Tufnel have to do with modern guitar? Well, other than the fact that Spinal Tap is a movie any professional musician can relate to, he was the inspiration for Scott Fields’ Eleven Project. Guitarists are invited to follow the link for instructions on how to contribute an 11 second recording of their instrument through an amp turned up to 11. The compilation will be released next November on 11/11.