Joe Satriani Recorded the Guitars on His New Album on a Single Plug-In
On April 8, guitar grandmaster Joe Satriani released his seventeenth studio album, The Elephants of Mars, featuring thirteen tracks via the Sony Music label. Being one of Ibanez’s permanent factory players, he is a proponent of British-style distortions, evidenced by his fondness for Marshalls, including the signature four-channel JVM410JS and other amps based on the concept and sound of Marshall tube amps (Wizard, Soldano, EVH 5150, etc.).
However, on his latest release, Satriani decided to record all the guitar parts using digital technology, specifically the Tech 21 SansAmp plug-in. “Every guitar sound you hear was recorded directly and we used a SansAmp plug-in. That’s insane. If you could see this room I’m in, it’s filled with great amplifiers – and I didn’t use any of them,” Satch said in an interview with the Guitarist magazine.
He also admitted that he didn’t even use Joe Satriani’s signature IK Multimedia AmpliTube software, introduced in 2020, in the studio. “Luckily, I don’t have a deal with Marshall anymore, but I had to call my friends over at IK Multimedia and say, ‘I’m really sorry, but that’s just how it turned out...’,” Satriani explained.
Of course, opting for the SansAmp plug-in doesn’t mean he’s stopped using conventional amps altogether. Satch assures that tube amps will remain a mainstay of his stage sound: “I’ve got a whole bunch of [amps] and as I do every day, I’m gonna turn ’em up and practice for the tour that’s hopefully coming. I love dealing with amps. But playing live with an amp has nothing to do with recording an album.”
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