DAVID TORN
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His axe was an exotic Teuffel Tesla, (which looked as if it was covered in teflon!) a curious beast with wooden controls and what sounded like some kind of transtrem - a full depression of the tremolo arm took it down exactly one octave, as far as I could see. He went through a selection of fuzz, distortion & compression pedals, then into his PCM42 and PCM80. This led to two Fender Twins with what I assume was a powerbrake to reduce the output whilst keeping the distortion. There was precious little looping, but plenty of subtle soundscapes going on in the quieter moments. He used a plectrum, but the majority of the set was a mixture of thumb and fingers (I wonder if Jeff Beck's technique rubbed off on him?) with which he generated all manner of harmonics & noises.
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How do you mic guitars?
I record almost all electric guitars direct to disc. My Rivera amp head feeds an ADA Ampulator, which feeds the guitar rack, and the rack's outputs feed an ADA Microcab II. When I do use microphones, I use the [CAD] E-200 and attempt to get it as close as possible off-axis to the speaker. I usually move the microphone around until the capsule starts to shut down a little bit. It's either the E-200 or a Shure SM57, which I don't do the capsule-breaking trick with. One other microphone of choice is a Sennheiser 441, and that's it. In a big room, I will ask for ribbon mics as ambient mics if I have the opportunity. But in my own studio, I almost never use microphones — not for electric guitar. At the volume that I like to play guitar, I would drive my neighbors insane at five o'clock in the morning, not to mention the fact that my wife would have left me many years ago. [Laughs.]
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I understand the rig has evolved during the past 15 years or so. Please describe it and how it works.
I have a very strange guitar setup: odd footpedals and even odder ways to make sounds on the guitar manually, in addition to the footpedals. There's a send from the guitar to an outside rack with two live looping devices: my old standby, which is a modified Lexicon PCM 42, and an unmodified Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro. The PCM 42 was originally modified for me by Gary Hall to have more looping memory than the stock units. The PCM 42 sounds wonderful. You can alter the pitch using voltages, and it's nearly impossible to do anything of a recognizable rhythmic value. I approach it quite differently than the Echoplex, which is deadly for rhythmic looping.
The loops are then processed by a Lexicon PCM 80, an Electrix Filter Factory, a Waldorf filter, and a Korg Electribe ES-1 — it could be one or all or none of these things. I also have a Big Briar Moogerfooger pedal that processes the output of the loops. All of these processing devices are in a separate rack with a mixer that has a single stereo output. I control the sends and returns of the looping devices and processors so that I can make a mélange of two or three loops, process them all differently, and set up feedback loops. That's what goes to all of the sessions. Sometimes the computer comes along, too, because people like the postprocessing thing. I can also do certain things in real time on the computer that are pretty interesting, especially with VST plug-ins and Logic, but specifically with some really screwy ensembles that I've built in [Native Instruments] Reaktor. My favorite program for the Macintosh is Reaktor, not only because of its ability to manipulate live input and samples but also for its ability to design your own sound generation.
Additionally, I can step sequence the output of the PCM 42 into the Korg. I can step sequence a gating effect so that what was once a completely ambient and nonrhythmic event can then be step sequenced live and then synced to a computer or to the Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro, for example, which is my rhythmic looping device. It's a strange system. I rewire it every time I'm going to do something. It's a five-space rack with a lot of stuff on top.
Plus, I have the pre-beta version of the Electrix Repeater here, which I've been involved with for six to eight months now, and that's pretty exciting. It will become my featured looping device. With the Repeater, you can actually improvise a loop at the beginning of a session or a gig and then recall it at the end — at a different pitch, in a different time signature, and at a different tempo.
This rig has held up after all these years on the road?
Oh yeah. I started touring around '82 or '83, so it's banged around quite a bit. It hasn't altered that much over the years, funnily enough. All of the devices have changed except for the two Lexicon units, although the PCM 80 used to be a PCM 70.
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GUITARS, STRINGED INSTRUMENTS, AND AMPLIFIERS
Baglama saz from Turkey
Crews Maniac Sound amplified guitar
Fender Mini-Strat (high-strung; manufactured in Japan and no longer in production)
Fender Mustang (1965 model)
Gibson ES350T (1957 model)
Ithaca Stringed Instruments (2) acoustics
Kapa Continental (1965 model)
Kikuyaes (with homemade motorized bowing bridges)
Klein electrics (2)
Magnatone lap steel
Najarian electric ouds (2)
National Delphi
National Resonator (1992 model)
Rivera M100 amplifier with compensated line-out
Sho-Bud pedal steel
Supro lap steel
Teuffel Tesla custom electric
Tokai Strat with Veillette Baritone neck
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OUTBOARD PROCESSORS
ADA Ampulator tube power amp/speaker-cabinet emulator
ADA Microcab II stereo-miked guitar-cabinet emulator
Big Briar Moogerfooger MF-102 ring modulator
Boss EV-5 expression pedals (3)
Digital Pro with software by Aurisis Research
DigiTech VCS-1 tube compressor
DigiTech DHP-55 digital harmony processor
Electrix Filter Factory analog filter
Electrix Repeater loop-based digital recorder (beta version)
Guyatone FB-X Funky Box
Guyatone MD-2 Micro Digital Delay
Guyatone WR-2 Wah Rocker
Lexicon LXP-15II multi-effects processor
Lexicon PCM 42 digital delay processor (modified by Gary Hall and Bob Sellon)
Lexicon PCM 80 digital effects processor
Lexicon Reflex digital reverb
Mesa/Boogie Formula tube preamp
Oberheim GM1000 guitar processor
Oberheim/Trace Elliot Echoplex
Olympus varispeed microcassette recorder
Prescription Electronics Experience effects pedal
Prescription Electronics Throb effects pedal
Prescription Electronics Vibe-Unit effects pedal
Retrospec Squeeze Box
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David Torn. Torn began looping in the late ’70s, and, during the intervening years, his idiosyncratic work has appeared on his solo and collaborative recordings, works by dozens of major artists, and numerous film and television soundtracks. He has experimented with nearly every form of looping device, and is often brought into the development phase by manufacturers. His current rig combines a Gibson Echoplex Digital Pro, an Electrix Repeater, and a modified Lexicon PCM-42 with 20 seconds of delay.
“Everything is connected via a modified Rane SM82 mixer,” explains Torn. “All of the looping devices come up on channels with pre-fader sends to all of the others, so they may be combined and routed to additional processors.”
Torn uses foot pedals and switches to control various functions, and relies on voltage control pedals for adjusting feedback, oscillator speed, and other parameters on the PCM-42. He also routes the output of the PCM-42 to a Nord Modular G2 for additional processing.
“I’ve programmed a 32-step audio sequencer, so that I can take arrhythmic textures and generate distinct rhythms that are constantly in motion,” he says.
In addition to looping his own sounds, Torn loops those created by others. “Onstage or in the studio, I’m capable of grabbing anything,” he says. “My guitars have microphones built into them, and there’s a room mic that feeds my mixer, so if I want to loop other people’s stuff through my pedals, I just hit a momentary switch on my instrument, and they feed into whatever looping device I’ve chosen. When I’m playing guitar, my right hand is actually on the mixer about half the time.”
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