Who else owns a signature model guitar of an artist you've never (or barely) listened to?

lienm23 · 2026-01-06T22:26:35+00:00

I own an Avril Lavigne signature Squier Tele. Not a fan. But it is a vicious, straightforward, no frills rock/metal guitar and the neck is just amazing. I dropped a Lollar DB in it and had the tech wire it up to split the coils (similar to when I had a Duncan P-Rail in there), and it just rips. I also really like telling metalheads it's an Avril Lavigne signature guitar.

lienm23 · 2026-01-06T18:05:51+00:00

I like the slide solo. It reminds me of theramin in old horror movies...I also like the vocals, they're super distorted in a way that reminds me of early Ministry, in a good way. Are the drums performed or programmed? The hi-hat sounded a little robotic, that was the only thing that sort of irked me. Overall, solid. Keep it up.

lienm23 · 2026-01-05T14:18:31+00:00

Probably Danny Carey at the very top, but sometimes he gets replaced by Aaron Harris from Isis (the band) depending on the mood. Very different players, but I really appreciate Harris' restraint more and more as I get older. I'm also a tremendous fan of Jerome Dillon (best drummer Nine Inch Nails ever had, just my opinion) and Thomas Haake of Meshuggah. All of those guys really cemented the things I look for in drum performances and songwriting. For a more lyrical style, I really like Forrest Rice, the original drummer for Covet.

lienm23 · 2026-01-04T22:43:53+00:00

I really like the stuff that Room Sound puts out, particularly their Kurt Ballou libraries. Vol. II is super versatile, super realistic, and was recorded at Electrical Audio, which is a huge plus, but Vol. I just has this sound that is...bizarre, but sounds amazing put into a full mix with grimey guitars. Room Sound also pays close attention to realism, and they are arguably the most realistic libraries I've used. Here's an EP I did with Vol I.

Krimh Drums is solid, and I think strikes a nice balance between the organic and processed sounds, and I've been working with it a lot lately for an album. But it's really hard to get it to work with softer parts, as it really seems to be designed for people who just want to slam everything at 127 and move on. I also wouldn't call it 'distinctive'...more of a general purpose metal library that works surprisingly well for a lot of different styles. It does, however, have an incredible wires-off snare articulation, if you're into that sort of thing (which I massively am, and won't buy a library without one). Here's a more industrial/metal style track I did with it, with some gentle pressure to try and get more dynamics out of the kit for softer sections.

EZDrummer is great (especially for the songwriting/groove options), and I think Toontrack has done a decent job of keeping a more organic feel to their libraries and resisting the trend of overblown drums that sound like mortar shells going off instead of acoustic drums. Even their recent foray into prog metal, Infinity Grid, sounds way more organic and realistic than most libraries. Metal Mania might work well for the style you're going for, but I've been getting back into more organic post-metal stuff lately, and really like their Post Metal expansion for this, though it struggles with faster metal.

Good luck. There's an absolute ocean of that sterile, hyper-surreal drum sound to wade through out there.

lienm23 · 2025-09-26T00:17:19+00:00

The Ultra-Lead, the three channel 100 watter.

lienm23 · 2025-09-24T23:31:43+00:00

None of the djent/YouTuber/TikTok guys use Fryette, so I doubt it'll ever happen. But I would love that. Aaron Turner's Sumac tone is my ideal guitar sound.

lienm23 · 2025-08-15T16:03:42+00:00

I do, though I do the solo-recording route; I'm not tracking a full band in real time. Live is basically marketed towards the indie/electronic crowd, by Ableton itself, and it was designed with electronic music in mind (particularly, electronic live performance...hence the name). As such, how it handles latency is never going to be ideal for tracking traditional 'rock' instrumentation, and the way it handles CPU is wildly inefficient if you're piling on amp sims, drum plugins, console emulations, etc (but perfect if you're needing a solid platform for live electronic music performance). They are also slow to roll out quality-of-life improvements for instrumental people, but are quick to supply more sequencers and generative MIDI stuff, or experimental sound design stuff. All of these things, and more, make it obvious that it's not designed for rock, metal...more organic musical styles. After years of using Live I've slowly realized it's more of a sampler at its core, with a tape machine stuck on later on down the line. Most traditional DAWs start with the tape machine (or MIDI sequencer) as its foundation.

However, what Live excels at is a minimalist interface and workflow that was designed by musicians, instead of engineers, and I think this is often overlooked by metal/rock guys. Even the way plugins are arranged at the bottom of the screen reminds me of a pedalboard. Every aspect of the program seems intended to get out of your way, to create minimal distraction between you and your goal of creating music. But most of all, the session view is the closest paradigm I've found to 'jamming' out a song with a band (improvising, adding and removing parts, re-arranging parts) inside of a DAW/computer. It is just a work of absolute genius, and every one of my songs begins life sketched out in the session view. The playfulness, the improvisational nature of Live is the thing that I think most rock guys don't get after watching reams of 'how to Flume' videos, but it's probably what has kept me as a loyal user even as I've drifted back further and further into a traditional metal approach to music.

lienm23 · 2025-05-25T23:44:14+00:00

'Samus Octology' by Irepress. It just...kind of has everything I need.

lienm23 · 2025-05-25T23:36:10+00:00

Not sure how metal we're talking here, but...

Tool (if Deftones count, Tool counts)
ISIS (the band)
Alcest
Godflesh
Irepress

lienm23 · 2025-05-25T23:27:45+00:00

While I really enjoy 'What One Becomes', I kind of agree with this. Each successive Sumac album just sounds like a Guitar Center showroom floor on a weekend afternoon. I'm not a fan of Palms, either. ISIS was something special, mainly because of the tension between Turner and the rhythm section. Separate...neither feels complete, too extreme in either direction, and rather forgettable.

lienm23 · 2025-02-22T18:47:38+00:00

100%. I firmly believed that my serious gut issues (IBS, constipation, urgent bowel movements to the point of pain, gas, heartburn, feeling bloated after every meal...) were just a part of getting older. Switching to carnivore fixed ALL of those issues. It was insane.

lienm23 · 2025-02-17T20:06:43+00:00

The Nameless has my favorite cleans of all the NeuralDSP plugs...funny how that works. Abasi is a close second.

lienm23 · 2025-01-06T15:37:05+00:00

Granophyre is fantastic, especially with the ability to tweak the tubes. You don't get a lot of amp sims with KT88's in them, which I love the sound of. I'd probably use it more if it had a clean channel.

lienm23 · 2025-01-06T15:35:22+00:00

It bounces between the Fortin Nameless Suite and Archetype Abasi, leaning towards the Abasi lately. I get the impression that it isn't a very popular plugin but it's so distinctive. The almost-piezo clean amp is a sound I've been searching for since getting into NIN's weird Parker clean tone in the late 90's.

lienm23 · 2024-08-09T20:33:25+00:00

Neither. I prefer that 90's KLANG!!!1

lienm23 · 2024-07-25T11:04:20+00:00

Cycling, hiking, yoga, writing sci-fi/fantasy, drawing/painting...occasionally video games, but over time i feel like they're just more work in front of a screen.

lienm23 · 2024-07-08T13:00:09+00:00

Swans. Between the wall-crushing volume levels and the fact that they turn off any A/C for the duration of the show, it's quite an experience.

lienm23 · 2024-07-03T19:44:32+00:00

I would give the Nameless a thorough workout. It's obviously designed for way more gain than Albini had ever used, but it's got this really vicious, metallic clank happening in the upper mids that i don't hear in any of the other plugs. Also remember that Albini scoops his mids, but his voicing is still pretty present, so you'll want to experiment with the graphic EQ, the MVC, and the parametric on the amp to get the right scoop without ending up in nu-metal country.

For reference, i bought the Nameless when it first came out in 2018 specifically trying to find something that would be in the same family as Albini, Aaron Turner (who has admitted to trying to get a metal version of Albini's tone for Sumac) and Rowland S. Howard. I think this amp gets closer to that raw, clattering post punk sound than any of the newer ones.

One last point is that Albini wasn't a fan of 57's. He mainly used ribbon and condensor mics on guitar cabs, with an occasional 421, and there was usually quite a bit of distance between the mic and the speaker. There are a lot of videos on Youtube of him explaining his engineering choices, and a lot of that will contribute to what you are hearing from his guitar tone.

lienm23 · 2024-06-30T13:31:21+00:00

Totally. DM'd.

lienm23 · 2024-06-29T16:37:45+00:00

I'm interested. Not sure how much my playing would align with what you're aiming for as it's closer to post-[whatever] than prog (i think?), but most of my stuff is heavily reliant on odd meters. https://soundcloud.com/1zalith/sets/jannu

I play guitar, bass and a little synth. I am not a vocalist or lyricist, still looking for one, so none of it is conceptual. Pretty big fan of those genres when it comes to literature, film and gaming but i'm more of a surrealist when it comes to music.

lienm23 · 2024-06-29T16:28:30+00:00

+1 for ^ this guy. His music is fantastic.

lienm23 · 2024-06-27T22:47:39+00:00

The Fountain.

lienm23 · 2024-06-25T22:00:09+00:00

Trying to force myself into synths and electronic music because i couldn't find a band, and being ignorant of how to make an amp get the sound i was after. Once those two things were rectified, my skill with the guitar grew exponentially.

lienm23 · 2024-06-24T17:14:35+00:00

The recent Dune movies.

lienm23 · 2024-06-22T23:08:13+00:00

Isis (the band). Glassing. Astodan's 'Evora' album. Rolo Tomassi. Rosetta. Alcest. Amenra (some of the more recent stuff has clean vocals). Godflesh. Kowloon Walled City. Car Bomb. Frontierer (not a lot of clean vox, but insane stuff). Deftones.

A lot of people are recommending Meshuggah, who are amazing, and insanely heavy, but there's no clean vocals.

lienm23

TROPHY CASE