Joe Satriani – Surfing With The Alien

"'We didn’t know where that song was going until one afternoon when we went to record the melody and I plugged a wah-wah pedal and a Tubedriver into my 100-watt Marshall,' says Joe Satriani.

'Then, just on a whim, I said, ‘Let’s try this harmonizer.’ It was one of those Eventide 949s. The sound that came out of the speakers blew us away so much that we recorded the melody and the solo in about a half-hour and sat back and went, ‘Whoa! This is a song, man!’

'And then, of course, the Eventide broke down and we couldn’t fix it. We couldn’t do anything. We lost our tone. When we finally got it working again, we weren’t able to recreate the original effect. It just sounded different. So rather than screw up a wonderful-sounding performance that may have had a couple of glitches, we decided to just leave it, because it was just swinging.

'That wasn’t the title track of the album for quite a while. It was going to be called The Lord of Karma. It wasn’t until we finished that track and added the jet noises that we realized that ‘Surfing’ was the song that summed up the feeling of the whole album.'"

"What kind of guitars did you use on Surfin’? I used a Kramer Pacer made from spare parts, and two guitars I assembled from Boogie bodies and ESP parts.

"The tone on the title track is so big, throaty, and dry. It was the Kramer into a Vox wah and a Chandler Tube Driver into a Marshall half-stack. We used an Eventide 949 Harmonizer for the pitch-shift effect."

Used on "Ice 9", as stated in this February 17, 2017 Music Radar interview.

“On that one, I'm using a Boss DS-1 and the overdrive, OD-1, I think. I'm playing my ’60s P-Bass, but I think that's where the rhythm guitars are the DS-1, so they're a bit crunchier. For the solos, I believe it's a Rockman [headphone amp], and we just used one channel of the Rockman and put it up on the middle, flat and dry. I mean, that's about as dry as I've ever recorded. Simple legato technique and just crazy all over the place."

Used on Not of This Earth, Surfing With the Alien and Flying in a Blue Dream. Among online sources, it is first mentioned in this January 2012 Vintage Guitar interview.

Do you have a favorite tone or setup?

I don’t think so. I’d say just about anything through a Marshall is really good. There are so many different ones, but the basic Marshall is the 'kitchen sink' sound – it gives you everything. More than you want, maybe! It’s the most revealing amp you’ll ever plug into, I think.

Early in my career, I tried to run from it. On the first couple of solo records… for Not of This Earth I didn’t even bring one into the studio. I was such a contrarian, I remember calling [recording engineer] John Cuniberti and saying, 'I’m gonna use whatever is in the closet.' I thought that was a cool, artsy way of doing things. What happened to be in the closet was an early-’70s Pro Reverb, and I just plugged little (effects) boxes into it. We’d record quietly and use microphones like a C12A, Boss pedals, and early tube drivers made by Paul Chandler.

Satriani later stated the C12A's use on "Flying in a Blue Dream" in this December 26, 2011 Tumblr post.

DAVUDTESCH asked: I've read that you used a Mesa Mark IIC+ on Flying in a Blue Dream... Was it just on the song or the whole album? I ask cuz I love the voicing you get out of your tone in the beginning of part 2 of the Bells of Lal.. When I'm dialing my tone if it feels similar then I know I'm in the ballpark. I use that and the riff from Crystal Planet... those are my tone-testers :)

On that song I was using a silver face Fender Pro Reverb amp with a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal, and put an AKG C12-A microphone up close to the grill.

The use of the C12A on Surfing With the Alien was stated in this February 17, 2017 Music Radar interview about the album.

“We used a [Roland] JC-120 for almost all of Echo. John had a very clever way of recording the JC-120 with six different microphones, an [AKG] C12A and this and that, and using the DS-1. It was just really interesting how we got a lot of mileage out of that amp. It was the perfect antidote to the Marshall stack or the little Silverface Pro Reverb or Princeton that was there that we used for a lot of the album, too."

Used on Not of This Earth, Surfing With the Alien and "Flying In A Blue Dream". Among online sources, the amp is first mentioned by Satriani in this January 2012 interview with Vintage Guitar Magazine:

"There are so many different ones, but the basic Marshall is the 'kitchen sink' sound – it gives you everything. More than you want, maybe! It’s the most revealing amp you’ll ever plug into, I think.

Early in my career, I tried to run from it. On the first couple of solo records… for Not of This Earth I didn’t even bring one into the studio. I was such a contrarian, I remember calling [recording engineer] John Cuniberti and saying, 'I’m gonna use whatever is in the closet.' I thought that was a cool, artsy way of doing things. What happened to be in the closet was an early-’70s Pro Reverb, and I just plugged little (effects) boxes into it. We’d record quietly and use microphones like a C12A, Boss pedals, and early tube drivers made by Paul Chandler."

Satriani later specified this amp to be a Silverface in a December 26, 2011 Tumblr post, which also revealed that the Pro Reverb was used on the track “Flying In a Blue Dream”.

DAVUDTESCH asked: I've read that you used a Mesa Mark IIC+ on Flying in a Blue Dream... Was it just on the song or the whole album? I ask cuz I love the voicing you get out of your tone in the beginning of part 2 of the Bells of Lal.. When I'm dialing my tone if it feels similar then I know I'm in the ballpark. I use that and the riff from Crystal Planet... those are my tone-testers :)

On that song I was using a silver face Fender Pro Reverb amp with a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal, and put an AKG C12-A microphone up close to the grill.

This dispells a popular myth that a Mesa/BOOGIE MKIIC+ was used, as discussed in this May 3, 2016 post in the Fractal Audio forums by user marklumsley.

While Satch did indeed use a respectable bunch of amplifiers during his 'Flying...' album - including the Mesa/Boogie Mk IIC+, it was NOT used during the recording of the title track. Used instead was a silverface Fender Pro Reverb as stated by the man himself on his Tumblr account whilst answering a fan's question, seen here:

The amp is brought up a third time in this February 17, 2017 Music Radar interview about Surfing With the Alien.

“We used a [Roland] JC-120 for almost all of Echo. John had a very clever way of recording the JC-120 with six different microphones, an [AKG] C12A and this and that, and using the DS-1. It was just really interesting how we got a lot of mileage out of that amp. It was the perfect antidote to the Marshall stack or the little Silverface Pro Reverb or Princeton that was there that we used for a lot of the album, too."

Mentioned in this 2007 Guitar Player interview.

By the time I started making solo records, I had developed some pretty bad attitudes towards vintage gear and the vintage cognoscenti. I think it stemmed from the fact I was working at a vintage guitar store—Second Hand Guitars in Berkeley—and I was broke. But back then, I only thought about music. So, in a way, I became “Mr. Contrarian“ when it came to tone. With Surfing, I went in with a Roland JC-120 and a ’68 Marshall half-stack that was modded with a master volume. I also used original Chandler Tube Drivers, a Boss DS-1 and an SD-1, a Scholz Rockman, a Nomad amplifier, and a borrowed bass amp.

Satriani also mentions the JC-120‘s use on Surfin’ With the Alien in this 2012 interview with Vintage Guitar magazine, where it is erroneously transcribed as the then nonexistent JC-20.

Parts of Surfin’ With the Alien were done with a JC-20 [sic] and the DS-1 instead of the Marshall stack.

Used on "Lords of Karma", as stated in this February 1, 2017 Music Radar interview.

“That's a Coral sitar - a vintage one that I borrowed from a guy named Ratdog at Subway Guitars in Berkeley, California - playing those opening chords. We recorded it direct and then just applied a really cool mic pre and stuff like that to it."

A 1960s P-Bass was used on "Ice 9", as stated in this February 17, 2017 Music Radar interview.

“On that one, I'm using a Boss DS-1 and the overdrive, OD-1, I think. I'm playing my ’60s P-Bass, but I think that's where the rhythm guitars are the DS-1, so they're a bit crunchier. For the solos, I believe it's a Rockman [headphone amp], and we just used one channel of the Rockman and put it up on the middle, flat and dry. I mean, that's about as dry as I've ever recorded. Simple legato technique and just crazy all over the place."

Joe Satriani is confirmed to use the IK Multimedia TONEX, as demonstrated in a video by IK Multimedia. The video showcases the Joe Satriani Amp Vault Signature Collection for TONEX, featuring 59 new Tone Models that reflect over 35 years of his iconic guitar tones.