J Mascis Quotes

The Marshall guitar amplifier doesn't just get louder when you turn it up. It distorts the sound to produce a whole range of new harmonics, effectively turning a plucked string instrument into a bowed one.

The heavy guitars are the ones that sound good. They are not that comfortable, but they do sound great.

I'm on this eternal quest to get the best guitar sound in the world, but my vision of what is 'the best' changes every time I go into the studio. Sometimes my goal is to make my guitar jump out, and sometimes I want it to lay back.

Distortion pedals are just fantastic for not only rehearsing quietly but also for all those moments when you are going to play in highly compressed environments like radio, television, or recording against compressed loops.

As you can appreciate over my lifetime I've developed a large vocabulary of sounds each requiring certain physical techniques often combined with a specific effect box.

If you have a great-sounding guitar that's a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that's the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.

If you're a guitarist, you should not be intimidated by using your instrument as a synthesizer, but you shouldn't feel that you have to own one, either.

I don't even think whether I play the blues or not, I just play whatever feels right at the moment. I also will use any gadget or device that I find that helps me achieve the sort of sound on the guitar that I want to get.

The Telecaster doesn't really sound that good for the kind of rock and roll that a lot of people played.

People can't just listen to the music and have their own imagination and take them where they wanna go.

I think when I began, I played distortion more than the guitar. The results of my strumming. Now I play the twang of the string, which is a lot closer to the source of the sound making.

I've always liked the electric guitar better. Even though the acoustic can be a very sexy and mysterious instrument, I can go to way more places with an electric.

I'm not going for a soft sound. I ain't lookin' for a warm sound. My sound is warm, but I don't need tubes to do it. The Randall RG-100 is the best amp for what I do.

In the studio, my brother and I have always used a lot of Marshall amps. We like to keep it pretty basic. We just use a couple of cabinets each - sometimes just one, if we think that's enough. We mainly go for 100-watt and 50-watt heads.

I think that the whole point of music is that there shouldn't be rules. There is no right or wrong. And the fact that I may not like that piece of music and you may... The validation is in the fact that somebody gets something from it.

It is the universe where all rock players live- we all use distortion, overdrive, gain and saturation. I call it 'fuzz.'

There's a quality to the sound of a trumpet that you can really twist for any kind of sound and mood that you want to create.

Everyone can write their melodies and chords and pianos and guitars, but what hasn't been discovered yet are tones and textures, and that's very exciting. Probably the No. 1 most important thing in my music is not to sound like anyone else.

Music is in all our minds and hearts and we are all free to sing anywhere we choose.

I really enjoy the moments with Alter Bridge where I can step out and play lead and have fun.

I've really gotten over pedals. I can't keep up with this craze of boutique pedals that make you sound like everything but your guitar. I can't get my head around it.

Using double coil pickups kills a lot of the guitar tone - you lose the acoustic mechanics. With my single-coils driven through the Marshalls and overdrive, it sounds massive.

I started many years ago using the Boss DS-1 and then graduated to the Satchurator and putting that right into that clean channel, and that sounds great. I've done many tours with that setup. Then we took the next two channels that were part of the JVM sound in channel 1 and made them a little more subtle.

It's my only freedom, music, and I'm not going to give it up to anyone else.

With a huge storm, you need a lot of volume, but it can't become one loud noise. Dolby Atmos helped a lot because it gave us the separation of those elements.