A conversation with
Roger Mayer
aged. That would be like a girl hanging
out a pair of ballet shoes in her bedroom
that have been aged to look like they’ve
been worn by a famous dancer. What’s the
fucking point? You’re trying to buy into
looking cool; it’s fashion, it’s like buying
beaten up jeans.
But isn’t digital where we’re headed?
No, not at all. The fact of the matter is,
and the thing that never changes, is that
the ears are analog. And analog information is continuous; digital isn’t. Digital, if
you equate it to a movie, would be like
looking at a close-up where the face is
in perfect focus and the background is
fuzzy and out of focus, as opposed to a
wide shot or another shot where the face
and all of the background were in perfect
focus. There’s obviously more information in the shot where the background
is in perfect focus, right? And the major
problem with digital sound, which they
can’t get around, is that the majority of
the bits are concentrated at the loud parts
of the music. In other words, the first 10
or 20 dBs of the music has quite a few
bits, but as the music goes down a level,
the resolution goes down and down and
down, which is the audio equivalent of
being out of focus. So that’s why it’s very
difficult sometimes to mix digitally on Pro
Tools or anything like that, because you
just don’t have enough information, you
don’t have enough bandwidth. Unless the
signals are loud, they get prioritized by
loudness, you see? The actual definition
of a signal decreases as it goes down,
which is kind of crazy, because the ear
has the reverse function. In other words,
the Fletcher-Munson curves, which are
the equal-loudness curves of the ear—
your ear perceives frequency response at
different sound pressure levels. And the
softer it gets, the more treble it needs,
Vision Wah Classic
right? Which is exactly the reverse of
what digital gives you. So, you know, it’s
one of those things. That doesn’t mean
that you can’t take a recording that’s
mixed perfectly in analog, and commit it
to digital once. Many albums sound fine
as a CD, but the actual definition and
amount of detail digital provides is not
really that great.
What are you looking towards as the
next development in pedal design?
Well, I’m looking forward to—I cannot
see any reason why when somebody
plays a guitar riff that the whole guitar
riff should have the same sound. Why
should the front of the guitar riff have the
same sound as the rear of it? I believe in
more dynamics in the music, more player
control, anything to impart to the listener
that they are hearing a human performance. I’m not a believer in looping,
because I believe that someone playing
something ten times in a row is far better
than hearing them play it once and having it looped. It’s more interesting and
the public can immediately hear some of
it is in the performance. It’s perceived as
not being exacting, and I think that with
instruments like the guitar, it’s nice to get
that input. And obviously, I mean, isn’t
that one of the reasons that people pick
the guitar up?
As opposed to sequencer, yes.
And, really, I want people to have fun
while they’re playing. Don’t go out and
buy a piece of equipment and imagine
that you can play like someone else.
Don’t buy into that. It’s nonsense. I don’t
follow anybody—I don’t want to be influenced in the wrong way.
