Kyle Sipress
Niles, Michigan
The Devil Wears Prada
God Alone
tdwpband.com
godaloneband.com
How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place?
I was in choir when I was super young, then played saxophone briefly in 5th grade band. I’ve been playing guitar since I was about 12 or 13, so for about 15 years or so. My dad got me a cheap Cort acoustic for Christmas one year and i’ve been playing ever since. When I got my first electric guitar shortly after (a pawnshop’d Ibanez RG220), I forced all my friends, who had no interest in playing music to buy instruments and start a band with me. It was super shitty but I had a ton of fun. I really enjoyed creating music with other people and the feeling I got from putting these ideas together to form a song was addicting. I think that has been a major driving force for myself to be in bands for the last decade.
Who have been some of your major musical influences, past or present?
Les Paul, Blindside, Weezer, Battles, Tortoise, Slayer, Dirty Projectors, Land of Talk, Black Sabbath, Sigur Ros, Tom Petty, Kate Bush, Radiohead, Tom Waits, Built To Spill, Jimmy Eat World, Wye Oak, Primus, Meshuggah, Pinback, Metric, Young Widows, Sumac, Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I’m always searching for inspiration and my influences are always changing.
What drew you to using pedals initially? Have you been using them throughout your playing career? How have pedals helped to shape your sound, or influence the style that you’ve created?
My first pedal was an awful Zoom 606. It was just an affordable smorgasbord of shitty effects. However, it did inspire me to hunt down different tones and sounds. I’ve been using pedals from the start and some pedals have had the ability to help translate the way I hear things in my head. Some of the tones I’ve been able to create have inspired me to take a different turn when I’m writing songs. I like to use pedals as a way of enhancing an idea or feeling, creating an atmosphere or to give a unique personality to a riff. Getting a cool pedal and sitting down with it, figuring out how extreme you can make it sound or how to subtly it can be used has proved to be innovative in the way that I write.
What’s your current setup look like? Take us through your pedal rig (feel free to include amps and instruments as well if you’d like):
I like to use only what’s necessary for the songs that we are playing per tour, so my board changes up pretty often. I also play in a post-punk band called God Alone and that rig is quite a bit different. I’ll just outline my Prada rig for now.
Currently I run into my JHS modded Ernie Ball VP Jr, tuner out to my trusty Boss TU-2, out of my volume pedal into a v.3 OCD (used as a boost to add a little bite to my D guitar, volume is all the way up and drive all the way down. Also used for feedback and clean boost parts), into my GEC9 looper/switcher and my loops are:
Loop 1: T.C. Electronic Sentry Noise Gate
Loop 2: Solid Gold FX Stutterbox Trem
Loop 3: Red Panda Context (set on a nice and easy hall verb)
Loop 4: Red Panda Context (set on Cathedral with blend and decay all the way up for an atmospheric freeze swell on our new song To The Key Evergreen)
Loop 5: JHS Panther Cub Delay
Loop 7 (N.C.) and Out 1 are connected allowing me to us loop 7 for my clean amp, which has my Strymon El Capistan in front of it.
Loop 9 (N.C.) and Out 2 are connected allowing me to use loop 9 for my dirty amp. I also have a Palmer PLI01 Isolation transformer at the end of out 2, before it hits my dirty amp to keep the signal isolated and ground loop free between the two amps
Lastly, I have a Tapestry Audio Time Traveler connected to my Panther Cub and El Capistan which allows me to save BPMs for each song and it syncs up both delays to hit the same without just tapping both as closely as I possibly can.
I have a rear mounted in/out panel from Best-Tronics on my Pedal Train Pro with a power-con in, guitar in, amp 1 out and amp 2 out for super easy set up. My board is powered by an MXR CAE MC-403 power system with custom length DC cables from Best-Tronics, George L’s patch cables and 3 Sinasoid instrument cables for my guitar in, amp out 1 and amp out 2. I run a Soldano Avenger Hot Rod 100 into an Atlas 4×12 cab as my dirty tone and a ’74 Marshall JMP into an Atlas 2×12 as my clean tone. Both cabs are loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s.
We play in 3 different tunings: B F# B E G# C#, D A D G B E and A E A D F# B and I use D’Addario strings for all of my guitars. EXL 158s (.013-.062) for my B, EXL 116s (.011-.052) on my D and EXL 157s (.014-.068) for my A. I use a Dunable Yeti (498t in the bridge and a bareknuckle manhattan in the neck) as my main B and a Gibson SG Standard (498t in the neck and bridge) as my backup B. I use a custom Moniker Anastasia (Lollar imperials in the neck and bridge) for my main D and a modded Fender Jag (one single 498t in the bridge) as my back up D. For my A I use a Dunable Yarnhawk (Bareknuckle Blackhawks in the neck and bridge).
Favorite type of pedal (drive, delay, fuzz, etc. – more than one answer is always acceptable!):
This is obviously a tough question as there are so many pedals out there that rule. I suppose my favorite type of pedals are delays and reverbs. My absolutely favorite “pedal” is my ’74 Roland Space Echo RE-101. Not only for its unique and slightly unpredictable echo patterns but also as a pre amp for some very nice natural distortion. It’s a very inspiring piece of gear.
You’re stranded on a desert island – which three (3) of the following do you want to have?
Instruments: Dunable Yeti
Amps: JMP
Pedals: Space Echo RE-101 or RE-201
What’s up next for you/your band(s)?
Prada just released our new album, “Transit Blues” so it’s time to hit the road hard with that. I know we are going to be doing a lot of international touring coming up, which is exciting. Mike and I also have a band called God Alone as I stated above. Our lighting guy Quinn and one of our guitar techs, Pip play drums and bass with us. We want to get on the road some more with that when we have some gaps between Prada touring.
The Klon hype: Love it or Hate it?
Klons are awesome. They really do sound great. They are a bit mythological in the gear world at this point. However, there are so many amazing companies putting out new, cloned and revised OD pedals. I really enjoy seeing people try to come up with unique tones using different gear, rather than trying to mimmic their favorite pentatonic guitar virtuoso with exactly what “that guy” used.
Any last comments, promos or anything you’d like to talk about?
Thanks for having me! Check out Prada’s new album “Transit Blues” on iTunes and God Alones Ep “Low Fire” at godaloneband.com. Also, shout out to everyone who’s using real amps and effects. Personally, I don’t believe that convenience outweighs tonality.
Thanks so much to Kyle for taking the time to answer some questions! Make sure to go check out tdwpband.com and godaloneband.com, and check their tour pages to see when they’re headed to a town near you! Cheers!
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