Puscifer
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Rut busting and reconstructing has probably been happening since the discovery of fire and advent of the wheel. Guitarists confront it each time they pick up a new instrument to avoid predictable patterns and tones. Premier Guitar contributor (and recent Rig Rundown subject) Pete Thorn has addressed this by suggesting several practices to approach our beloved 6 strings in a fresh perspective. And recently John Bohlinger recommended playing a different instrument to fertilize musical crops. But what does a guitar-playing producer and multi-instrumentalist do to shake things up for his band\\u2019s fourth album? Well, for Puscifer\\u2019s Mat Mitchell and the band\\u2019s 2020 release, Existential Reckoning, you go back in time 40 years to 8-bit synth sounds and the archaic sampling lurking inside the proto-digital Fairlight CMI.
\\u201cPart of [the appeal],\\u201d Mitchell told PG in a 2021 interview, \\u201cis the flow\\u2014the way that you work when you\\u2019re using these tools. It forces you to do things differently. They are very limited, and being creative within very set boundaries is really good.\\u201d And being the creative force he is, Mitchell found gold in the antiquated sounds and tech.
\\u201cThey sound very unique,\\u201d he explains. \\u201cOf course, you can sample one and put it in a laptop, but it\\u2019s different. All the voices are separate hardware. When you hit a note, it is bouncing around between [processor] cards, so you can hit a note five times and it may sound different all five times. There are all these little things that affect the way it sounds when you\\u2019re performing, which is a very different sound from what you get when you sample.\\u201d
But he would never tour with this digital dino, so how does Mitchell recreate 8-bit tones in a performance setting? Thankfully, moments ahead of the audience filling the pews of Nashville\\u2019s iconic Ryman Auditorium, Puscifer\\u2019s aural architect welcomed PG\\u2019s Chris Kies for a chat about how Existential Reckoning\\u2019s inspiration took him back to the future, and how his live rig has metamorphized and been miniaturized with contemporary gear to realistically represent those superannuated sounds.
Brought to you by D\\u2019Addario XPND Pedalboard.
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