Counterpoint: Jesu's guitar on Conqueror is POD.
Maelstrom: Obviously, with Jesu it’s just as much what it sounds like as what you’re playing. Let’s start by talking about how you recorded your parts when you went into the studio.
Justin Broadrick: I’ve got my own studio, so it’s very hands-on. I’ve had it since 1991, when I started on a Tascam 688 cassette-based machine. Now it’s virtually all computer based, like on Macintosh G5. I have a lot of outboard stuff as well. On the Jesu album, the guitars were 90 percent DI, using POD. This was one of the two big things for me on the Jesu album, the other being AmpliTube. I used those extensively, much more so than micing up a Marshall [guitar amp], which is ironically what I spent virtually all my career doing in Godflesh.
Maelstrom: It seems to be a near universal opinion that POD isn’t the same as micing up a real amp, but that the convenience of the thing makes it very attractive, like not having to make a ton of noise. But I hear you saying that even if you had the choice, you’d use the POD.
Justin Broadrick: See, that’s it for me. Initially, I must admit it was convenience that led me to record with a POD XT Pro. I could be in the studio at 3 in the morning recording songs, because I was completely inspired, as opposed to having to wait until the right time of the day to do a part with a Marshall up at full blast.
Maelstrom: So I guess your studio is also where you live.
Justin Broadrick: Yes. Since I moved to North Wales, my studio is quite literally in what would be a bedroom. Fortunately, it’s in a detached house, so I can make a lot of racket. But still, I was getting so fucking bored with mic placement and the Marshall amp, and blablablablabla. I sort of got really disillusioned with it – to me, when I make records, I have to do it when I want to do it, and not this pocket of time that I have to cram everything into. I spent time in the late 80s and early 90s going into studios, being forced to record in a certain amount of time, get the fuck out, come back, mix it, get the fuck out again, and then spend the next four years moaning about the record.
Maelstrom: HAHAHAH!
Justin Broadrick: It just has to be done your own way. I want to do these things when I want to do them. What I used quite often with the POD was putting the signal head of the POD into an Avalon compressor. I have a big Avalon vacuum tube unit; I put my vocals into it, and I quite often run my guitars into it as well. Obviously, the Avalon alone costs about as much as my G5. It warms up the signal and boosts the frequencies, and it sounds like it’s got multiple pre-amps on it. I also use a Joe Meek compressor, one of the larger, more expensive ones; not one of the tiny ones. Putting those in a chain with the POD gives me so much more control over the tone than I ever had with micing up a Marshall. For me it’s a lot more exciting: it’s not only convenient, I’m really happy with the tones I get. I’m spending even more time working on these tones for the next Jesu record. And there’s no looking back. I do not go anywhere near mic placement at all.
Maelstrom: What were you struggling with? What did you find that worked, and did it consistently work?
Justin Broadrick: I’ve never banged my head so much against walls as with which mic to use and where to place. I never worked it out. With Godflesh, it was like one day I could turn on the studio, have the Marshall in the bathroom, with an SM 58 about three inches above the cone, and it would sound amazing, and I thought, “wow. That’s the tone I’m looking for.” Shut down the studio, come back the following day, turn it all back on, nothing has moved whatsoever, and the tone is shit. And I’d just be like, “what is this all about? Did I not warm up the Marshall long enough? Is it this? Is it that?” I was so fed up of going through the chain. There were so many Godflesh records that were made where, to be honest, I just put up with it. I got used to it being an approximation of what I wanted. Now I don’t have to put up with that anymore. It’s tweakable at any stage. I can even record the guitar clean, then loop it back into the POD, and change the tone in the mix.
Prior to the Jesu album, my guitar tone had always been talked about as being very specific. And ironically enough, people are talking about the Jesu tone, too, but it’s via POD! People often think that you press a pre-set patch (on the POD) and everybody sounds the same. And a lot of people that I’ve talked to – even musicians that I’ve worked with – as soon as I mention that I’m using a POD and recording DI, they go, “oh, my God....” Do you know what I mean? Like, it’s horrific. Like, “what the fuck are you doing?” And then they listen to it, and they’re like, “shit, that sounds like it’s coming out of the amp.” And I’m like, “yeah, [the POD] is not just a bank.”
I don’t consider myself a straight-up guitarist, anyway. I’m not a slave to the guitar, like some people who are all about the guitar and the pickup. For me, it’s more about what I can do with it on a computer. It’s about how to shape it and get something new out of it. It’s the end result and the big picture. Everything I record has been cut up anyway and put into this and that plug in, and put through an outboard piece, and back in again. It’s software and computers that’s allowing me to do this, rather than finding the next good mic or fantastic mic placement.
I just wanted to share my perspective that a POD is a powerful tool for the home recordist. I'm biased because mine has saved my ass so many times. Living in a thin-walled apartment does not make for convenient recording of real amps.