Blake Mills Interview

I have wanted to talk to Blake Mills, well forever, but especially since he recorded Look, a collection of instrumental pieces recorded almost entirely with old Roland guitar synthesizers. At that time, I tried to go through his publicist to no avail. Since then he has used the synths on Mutable Set, a group of dark, intimate, minimalist songs that create a unique world. More recently, he busted out the guitar synth for a few moments in Notes With Attachments (see videos below), yet another unique-sounding record created in conjunction with world-class bassist, Pino Palladino. Our conversation ranges far and wide, as Mills proves as thoughtful as he is musical.
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[@satanwood]

Blake is such a cool person, really well done on the interview!

[@justinsmoustache]

Excellent interview. Love the behind the scenes details and Blake’s willingness to share. Always humanizing to hear how amazing music gets made.

[@alschlimm8007]

Marc Johnson's band was Bass Desires. They did two records. The first, Sounds of Summer Running, is excellent. I saw them live at Blues Alley in DC back in the day... with Frisell and Scofield.

[@music_works]

Thank u!!!

[@markhammer643]

One of the critical elements of a guitar synth is the positioning and width of the divided pickup. Indeed, making a narrower pickup that could be snuggled up against the bridge is critical to avoiding bleedthrough from adjacent strings, as well as being able to track the pitch from harmonics, rather than fundamentals. I have a gadget, made by Guild in the early '70s, called the Tri-Oct. I consider it to be the "missing link" between fuzzboxes and guitar synth. It is a polyphonic octave divider that uses a proprietary divided pickup, such that each string can be processed through its own divider circuit. before being mixed together into a mono output. All six strings are also processed through a common fuzz, and the user can mix in the amount of fuzz, clean, and octave-divided sound they want. The tracking is abysmal. Why? The pickup itself is reasonably low profile, but is about the size of a P-90 pickup, meaning that it can't be positioned next to the bridge, unless the guitar has no bridge pickup. Situating the pickup between neck and bridge pickups puts it where the strings wiggle too much for there to be any isolation. Even if one could put it right against the bridge, the sensing area comes out way too far from the bridge, making the fundamental dominant. The circuitry is clever and decent enough but the bleedthrough from adjacent strings means the divider circuits are always being confused by nearby strings. That said, I realized, after reading a passing comment, that the unit was probably intended for use with what would have been a more common string at the time - medium or heavy-gauge flatwounds - that would be harder to bend and less likely to wiggle sideways very much. All of this is to illustrate that, for those earlier guitar synths relying on mag pickups, having a strong first harmonic and minimal bleedthrough from adjacent strings, is a big part of what allows them to track well, and rely on pitch-to-voltage conversion based on content *above* the fundamental.

[@gooddoghappyman4270]

Thanks for this. Great interview

[@jonahnelson2]

Great interview with one of the greats.

[@doofus1926]

Great interview! Midway through, gonna check out the rest later this weekend!

[@shapdanone]

Didn't quite like the know-it-all attitude of the interviewer, but I appreciate the effort of putting this together. Enjoyed it over all, but wished Blake had a bit more protagonism.

[@craigdunsmuir636]

Thanks for this interview! Two great recent other entry points into Sam Gendel's work that I'd really recommend would be Music For Saxofone And Bass Guitar by him and Sam Wilkes on bass (which to me sounds very much like it's midway between Jon Hassell and D'Angelo in the best of ways), as well as his debut for Nonesuch, Satin Doll, where he leads an electronics/FX-enhanced jazz trio through the fake book/standards...

[@hoagyguitarmichael]

Thanks I will check those out.

[@rodgre]

This is a great interview. Thank you!

[@hoagyguitarmichael]

Thanks you!

[@meanmrmustard7042]

Bill Frisell also did an album with Vernon Reid called smash and scatteration in the mid 80s that had a lot of guitar synth.

[@hoagyguitarmichael]

Bill used one for a while with Stone Tiger. John Abercrombie used one as well. Pat Metheny stuck with it and Fripp but few others.

[@cosmonaut9942]

Look is a fun listen. It took me back 45 years to the "space" portion of the second set of a Grateful Dead concert. I wonder if Blake Mills listened to Garcia?

[@PrawitSiriwat]

Amazing!

[@CarstenGoeke]

Fantastic interview. Thanks very much ✌🏼

[@yakabayngu1126]

Bass Desires

[@lawrence7268]

Did I hear you correctly? All strings 8 gauge most effective tracking for midi guitar ?

[@hoagyguitarmichael]

At least in the early days of synth pickups, the thinner the string, the more accurately they tracked, which was why for years they couldn't be used with bass.

[@lawrence7268]

@@hoagyguitarmichael thanks, good to know