Joe Satriani's Drum Machine

Whilst the E-mu SP machines are most famous for their use in Hip-hop, they were used by numerous artists in different genres and in different ways.

To that end, I thought it would be interesting look at why and how it was used on Joe Satriani's 1987 album "Surfing with the alien".

A note - I am aware that playing Joe Satriani songs on an Ibanez JEM is like doing a video about Spider-Man whilst dressed as Batman, but the JEM is the guitar I have. 😀

0:00 Intro
0:58 References
1:24 Custom Samples
3:29 Hi-Hat Shenanigans
4:21 Computer Games
5:01 The SP-12 Setup
6:31 Live Cymbals
6:54 Outro and Surfing with the alien cover

References:

Bongo Bob NAMM Oral History:

[onemic-theminimalist]

Hi Alex, Excellent job trying to explain what we did so many years ago. I will add another reason we did it this way: Joe's guitar parts were all created with a drum machine when he was writing the album. When we tried to use a live drummer, many of those parts just didn't work because the time was much looser. He wasn't going to rewrite the album so we went back to the machine and attempted to make it sound like a human with interesting results. Cheers, John Cuniberti

[thebod]

I remember in the 80's when Reagan and Thatcher signed the "Reverb Accords Agreement".

[XavierRadix]

The hundreds of times that I listened to this album when I was younger and never realised they were using a drum machine! Incredible... The More You Know!

[enricopallazzoofficial]

This video was totally unexpected. Joe Satriani in a Synth channel? the world is going to explode.

[maxpowers]

Listening to Joe Satriani while cruising through the mountains of Arizona is an out of this world experience.

[FatNorthernBigot]

This demonstrates to me that people used to know their studio gear intimately. Every knob, every slider and every menu item. I have a studio full of incredibly powerful software and I have barely scratched the surface of what it can do. 😢

[matthewmoore]

That cover is rockin'! The phrasing is spot-on. I love that Joe is still putting out new stuff 35(!) years on. Thanks!

[PatDurkinMusic]

It’s interesting. Joe was one of the first guitarists that got me into more technical guitar music, a few years back I had a revelation of building a home studio when I realized that was how Joe did a lot of recording, now I’m finding that my use of drum machines for my music was likely inspired by Joe too lol

[BrunodeSouzaLino]

One of the more fascinating effects from Satch would be on the song "Why" from "The Extremist." It can only be created with the Digitech IPS 33B Super Harmony Machine. In Joe's own words, that's not a standard harmonizer and it works of chords instead of scales or pitch shifting. You pick a key and it will supply you with notes it thinks will support the melody. It's also used in the vocal harmonies for the song "Strange" from "Flying in a Blue Dream."

[Psychlist]

Great performance at the end, and appropriate use of an Ibanez :D

[watusis]

Satriani and vai first records have drum machine. They still sound fresh as hell

[ViceSquad]

Thanks for taking time to research and make this video... as an 80's rock/metal guitarist and a tech-electro-music fan you've ticked all the boxes that satisfy my nerdery perfectly! 🙂

[horizontalblanking]

As a cro-mag guitarist of a certain age - who also plays with synths - this was a great trip down memory lane. Performer was my first Sequencer back on an old classic Mac. Good times!

[fallingmanuk]

Great stuff, Alex! Watching your videos is not only always fun, but I'm learning so much in the process - and nice to see the black knobbly JEM in action 😛 tasteful cover!

[MikeGervasi]

And on "Flying In a Blue Dream" Joe used an HR16. I'd been demoing for a year (1989) with one so when I heard the album I immediately knew.

[AUKristoffersen]

Fantastic job Alex! "Surfing ..." is one of my all time favourite albums.

[AndersEngerJensen]

I searched Facebook for Agogo Al, and that name’s taken. 🤪

Also: MOTU (Digital) Performer FTW! My DAW today. 😎

[lonophonic]

I’m a massive fan of Satriani’s work but I did not except this. EXCELLENT!!

[MrMakingsound]

You nailed it ! I was not ready for this perfect guitars rendition, clap clap.

[markorendas]

Cant believe i found a perfect cd copy last month. Been listening to it every Monday since