Kurt Ballou

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kurt Ballou is the guitarist from the Massachusetts based band Converge. Aside from his role in Converge, he is also the recording engineer and owner of GodCity Studio. He endorses EMG pickups, Bad Cat amplifiers, and THD amplifiers. He notably favors very dense woods, such as maple and ebony, in the construction of his guitars, which contributes to his bright guitar tone. He also uses D'addario nickel-plated steel strings. One integral part of his sound is his preference of wiring all of his speaker enclosures in parallel, which reduces the total impedance of his enclosures to the lowest possible resistance in ohms. The effect that this has on an amplifier is that all of the transformer windings are used, as opposed to using only a fraction of them, thus yielding a desirable tonal quality. Another important part of his sound is his use of several different boost and distortion pedals, which he uses not for distortion, but to amplify his signal gain. This causes the preamp tubes in the first stage of an amplifier to distort and compress. Kurt mixes the sounds of preamp and poweramp distortion to achieve his overall sound. A page with information on his First Act custom guitar can be found at the First Act website. He occasionally writes for AMP magazine in an article entitled, "Tech Talk," and an interesting review of the Rickenbacker 650A "Atlantis" model guitar, written by Kurt, can be read at the Harmony Central website, here.

[edit] Guitar Stylings

Ballou is known for several key elements of his guitar playing sensibilities. He his quite adept at playing in very unusual time signatures. He also makes use of many abstract/experimental melodies, relying heavily on the diminished scale as well as tense intervals such as major 7th and minor 2nd. His style can be summed up as being extremely heavy guitar playing that is just as dense as it is bizzare. His influences include (but are not limited to) Tonie Joy (Universal Order of Armageddon, Moss Icon, The Great Unraveling, The Convocation of...), Greg Ginn of Black Flag, and Uffe Cederlund and Alex Hellid from Swedish death metal band Entombed. Ballou's contributions in Converge are very often a throwback to his these influences, and this contributes to Converge's sundry repertoire. His playing style is crucial to their overall sound.

[edit] Equipment

Guitars commonly used: First Act "Custom Sheena" guitar w/ EMG 81 bridge pickup, Rickenbacker 650A (chrome hardware) w/ EMG 81 bridge pickup, Warmoth Custom Jazzmaster W/ EMG 89 bridge pickup, Warmoth Custom Telecaster w/ EMG 81 bridge pickup and bigsby vibrato, Rickenbacker 650S (gold hardware) w/ EMG 81 bridge pickup. Amps commonly used: Bad Cat Black Cat 30-watt Class-A head, Bad Cat Lynx 50-watt Class-A head, THD Flexi 50/20-watt head, Late 70's 50-watt Marshall JMP non-master volume model, Early 70's Ampeg V-4 head. Speaker Enclosures commonly used: Marshall JCM 800 Bass 4x12 with Celestion Sidewinders, Marshall Oversized 4x12 w/ Eminence Legend V12's, Marshall 8x10 cabinet w/ 15-watt Celestions, Orange 4x12 w/ Celestion Vintage 30's, Marshall Basketweave 4x12 w/ Celestion Vintage 30's. Effects commonly used: Providence Stampede Distortion, Boss GE-7 Graphic Equalizer, Akai Headrush, Line 6 MM4, Boss DD-5 Delay, Boss Pitch Shifter/Delay, Boss Metalzone, Boss Tuner, Boss Noise Suppressor.