THE AXEMEN SERIES : Garrett Payne./ Samadhist

Samadhist is the instrumental progressive metal project of composer, guitarist and producer Garrett Payne.

1.Tell us your name and the band you play for

I’m Garrett Payne and I play guitar, compose, and produce for my solo project Samadhist



2.Who made you want to pick up the guitar

 

I can’t really trace it back to a specific person or artist. I started when I was 9 years old, and I didn’t know anyone else who played guitar at the time. As a child I always deeply enjoyed music. Most of the music I was exposed to and enjoyed featured guitar as a primary instrument, so guitar made the most sense as a starting point when I decided I would like to learn how to participate in creating and performing music instead of just listening.


3.Are you self taught or did you take lessons?

Mostly self taught; I took lessons for maybe 3 weeks when I first started until I broke my left arm riding a scooter. The cast prevented me from playing at all, and when it came off I decided I wanted to explore the instrument on my own for a while before going back to lessons. Haven’t had a lesson since.

I also played trombone in my middle school band and learned some theory and arrangement from the music we played. That gave me a solid foundation to build on later when I started investigating more advanced concepts on my own.
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4. Can you read music, Can you read tab?

I can read both, but I don’t read them often. I primarily learn and write by ear, and usually prefer recording my ideas as opposed to notating/tabbing them. Reading tab is pretty straightforward, especially when its overlayed on rhythmic notation. Reading four-note guitar chords from notation for me is fairly easy, but I struggle reading piano notation at a reasonable speed.

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5.Do you feel like you have your own sound / tone ?

I do. I think that primarily comes from my use of passive pickups. Metal and prog players use active pickups a lot of the time, but I have never really been a fan of them. I prefer to leave room for dynamics in my picking, and active pickups mostly remove that with their compressed nature.

I feel that my original music is unique, blending several styles under the banner of metal and prog. I like to use non-traditional harmony and chord voicings so that definitely contributes to the differentiation of my sound. Basically I like to break rules and just do what I think sounds good, whether it ‘makes sense’ from a theoretical perspective or not.


6.Tell us about your guitar ( brand ,model . year , color )

  

My primary instrument is an Ibanez RG752 AHM in nebula green burst. It shipped with a set of Dimarzio PAF 7 pickups which I like a lot more than I thought I would when I first ordered it. It has an ash body, ash top, and 5 piece maple/bubinga neck with Gohto locking tuners and the Lo-Pro Edge tremolo system. I love everything about this guitar!

Other than that I also play an 2012 Fender American Standard Stratocaster and an old Ibanez RG7321

  

7.What about pickups? Passive or active ? Tell us about them

Passive all the way. I haven’t explored many different pickup models, but I have always preferred passives. I don’t care for the compression that active pickups give the signal. It sounds great for some contexts but just doesn’t really fit my needs as a player and composer.

Passive pickups allow my picking to control the dynamics of the sound, and also give me room to play with external compression through pedals and other effects. I like that kind of modularity in my gear and tone.

I love every Dimarzio pickup I’ve ever tried and currently use both their PAF 7 and Blaze 7 sets in both of my Ibanez guitars



8.Lets get into amplification, Same drill brand , model , speakers etc

I actually rarely ever use a real amp anymore since I play in a solo studio project. I have a Marshall 1960 A 4x12 cabinet that I’ve used with a couple heads over the years as well as a Rivera Rockcrusher attenuator.

For all of my studio work thus far I’ve used amp simulation suites from Neural DSP, specifically the Fortin Nameless, Fortin NTS, and Archetype: Nolly suites. The guys at Fortin were kind enough to send me a license of their NTS suite a few months back and I love it. Being able to get pro quality tones for my original music from plugins like these is absolutely crucial for me. I can record anytime, anywhere, and without having the neighbors call the police.



9.Do you have a pedal board? Tell us about that badboy

I very recently got my first board and a few effects. Up front I use the Ego Compressor from Wampler audio. I love that pedal; the compression sounds great and it has an on board blend control to let me dial in the perfect amount of compression. I tend to use it more for clean tones to even out the volume and increase sustain, but it also works really well to add a bit of edge to high gain parts and solos.
   

Next up I have the Horizon Devices Precision Drive. This is my desert island pedal for anything rock/metal. Its a tube screamer style overdrive with a built in noise gate and an attack knob that acts as an EQ on the low end of the input signal. Increasing the attack control tightens up the low end and lets you have a lot of options for how much low end dirt to give your amp.

After that I have the Walrus Audio Julia chorus/vibrato pedal. I love the warm character it has. It sounds great for big extended chords on my 7 string guitars and for soloing to give the leads some separation in the mix.

Finally I use the Seymour Duncan Dark Sun digital delay + reverb. This is Mark Holcomb’s signature pedal and it sounds fantastic. Lots of time options for the delay section, built in filtering and modulation for delay and reverb sections, and a lush hall reverb that sounds amazing on cleans and lead sections.

10..Now tell us your Dream Rig in detail…..

  

Oh man that’s tough. My dream rig is something I can use in the studio and on-stage seamlessly, without having to do a ton of reconfiguration. I think an Axe-Fx 3, paired with a Mesa TC-50 head and a 2x12 Zilla modern cabinet plus a foot controller would be all I’d ever need. Not much detail, but I would really need to learn more about all the options out there today to have a better answer to this question.

11.What guitarist can you not stand?

Lucas Mann (Rings of Saturn)

 same here.........

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