“I think it sounds very close to vintage amps. If I hadn’t told you that, you probably wouldn’t have guessed, right?”: Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett explains why he opted for a digital modeler over tube amps on his latest EP
Chris Shiflett is best known as Foo Fighters’ lead guitarist, but he’s also a solo artist in his own right. His latest EP, Starry Nights & Campfire Lights, notably features a country version of Thin Lizzy’s Cowboy Song and an Americana rendition of Don’t You Ever Leave Me by Hanoi Rocks.
However, despite the old-school feel, Shiflett actually did away with tube amps and recorded the whole EP using a Neural DSP Quad Cortex.
“I used a Quad Cortex for all the electric guitars. We recorded everything pretty quick. Truth be told, I didn’t have a lot of time and didn’t want to grab all my old amps and set them up,” he reveals in the latest edition of Total Guitar.
“So I just brought the Quad Cortex, baby. It really did the job… I think it sounds very close to vintage amps. If I hadn’t told you that, you probably wouldn’t have guessed, right?
Don’t You Ever Leave Me – YouTube
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“I know some guitar players purposefully use things like Fractals on their records because then they have the exact same tones for the live shows. That’s what I was thinking. I’ll record with this thing and then I’ve got those sounds on my little device wherever I go on tour.”
This doesn’t mean that Shiflett is a total amp modeler convert, however. “Just for the record, I do want to state clearly that I prefer a real amp,” he says. “But at my advanced age, I’m a lazy motherf*cker and it’s okay to throw a Quad Cortex in.”
In a 2023 Guitarist interview, Shiflett spoke at length about the reasons behind his amp-less live rig, which he’s rolled out for a few smaller shows.
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“It feels like total blasphemy. But doing my solo shows, I play a lot of shitty bars with shitty PAs, and oftentimes I’m not travelling with my own sound man and it’s a real roll of the dice – sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s fucking terrible.”
He continued, “I just found that dragging around my old combo amps – because I normally play through a Deluxe Reverb or old Princeton – they’re so susceptible to dirty power and things coloring your tone.”
“Cowboy Song” (Thin Lizzy cover) – Chris Shiflett, Live @ QMU, Glasgow, 23/03/2024 – YouTube
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Another contributing factor was sound engineer inconsistencies, which led him to consider an amp modeler-powered setup.
“I’d bought one of those [Strymon] Iridiums to fuck around with in my studio and just loved the way it sounded. Live, it just cuts out the middle man.”
For more Chris Shiflett, plus a rundown of the greatest guitar cover versions of all time, pick up issue 386 of Total Guitar at Magazines Direct.
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