We Listened to Guitar Guru Juan Alderete Deliver a Sermon on Pedals

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Edmonton musicians sat impatiently in their seats while waiting for a man who promised them musical inspiration.“When the hell is he going to be here?” A 20-something with a black t-shirt featuring a detailed guitar pedal said under his breath in anticipation. The musician he was speaking of was Grammy award winner Juan Alderete, who was about to hold a guitar effects pedal workshop to a crowd of worshippers, sponsored by a guitar pedal manufacturer.

As he stepped into Stang Guitars, a soon to be open local guitar store, the room fell silent. Fans could not believe he was actually standing there, in the flesh. As the bassist of the now defunct progressive rock band The Mars Volta whipped out his expansive pedalboard, people were in awe. “Dude, its really him,” someone in the front row motions to their friend ecstatically. “Hey guys, I wanted to show you guys how I get my sound with guitar effects if that’s cool you,” Alderete said humbly. He only had one main rule for this workshop—ask questions. “I’ll answer anything, I’m pretty sure,” Alderete laughed.

Alderete live demoed EarthQuaker effects pedals during his workshop. His pedal board contained over 30 pedals that varied from distortion, delay, modulation, fuzz, reverb—basically any kind of effects pedal you could imagine. Alderete has being using effects pedals to create unique sounds for decades with his diverse array of current and past projects like The Mars Volta, Vato Negro, Big Sir, and Deltron 3030, just to name a few.

A couple years back, Alderete started a website called pedalsandeffects.com to feed his pedal effects obsession as well as offer his extensive sound knowledge. “My website gave me voice in effects pedals, something that has been happening for 30 or 40 years, but for some reason in the last 10 to 15 years it has been expanding like crazy,” said Alderete.

Alderete is referring to the amplifying trend of boutique guitar effects companies like Analog Alien, Dr. Scientist, and EarthQuaker Devices, appearing out of nowhere over the last decade or so. “Now there are a lot of pedals here. I tend to not know every element of these pedals,” Alderete said as he looked down at the vast display of effects pedals. “For example, I don’t know how many milliseconds of delay this Disaster Transport has,” he said has as he flipped on the pedal and began playing an improvised riff.

As Alderete was saying all this, observers got a real sense of what kind of musician he is when it comes to musical creation with effects. “For me, its not about the specifics of the pedal. I don’t care. Its about if it sounds good or I can create something awesome,” said Alderete.

And Alderete proceeded to do just that. He stomped on a pedal called The Organizer (a polyphonic organ emulator) and proceeded to jam out a minor keyed slide riff that echoed throughout the room. Alderete stepped on a modulation pedal, (which increases the rate of notes played to forge a tremolo effect) called The Hummingbird to boost his newfound nebulous riff. After fiddling around with some of the knobs on the pedals, Alderete was satisfied and looped his riff. The room was painted with a wall of obscure sound.

After noodling on a few more pedals, Alderete found another sound with the Disaster Transport delay and an analog guitar synthesizer called the Bit Commander that he needed to experiment with. “The Bit Commander kind of makes me sound like a glitched out computer,” laughed Alderete. He stomped on another pedal called the Rainbow Machine (an oscillating pitch shifter), which made the sound even more outlandish. “Look, its like acid in a pill,” Alderete chuckled as he switched the Rainbow Machine on and off, comparing it to the psychedelic drug. He began playing a couple harmonics and tapping on single strings in repetition. The result sounded digitally synthetic.

These examples are only tidbits of the full experience of a Juan Alderete workshop. His sound has continued to evolve ever since he stepped into the musical world. He began his vice in music at Musicians Institute College in Los Angeles and eventually joined a heavy metal group called Racer X. Although metal was not really Alderete’s scene, he loved music and knew he had to take an opportunity to make music as a career. “If you had a love for music, what would you do? Submerge yourself in it.” Around the end of his time with Racer X, Alderete started his experimental jazz project Big Sir with Lisa Papineau of M83.

Alderete was eventually picked up by The Mars Volta and went on to record five unique progressive rock albums with them. Though guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez actually wrote most of the instrumental parts for The Mars Volta, Alderete knows that his sound was his own. “My bass lines are always like stuff I have played. Omar and I would rehearse a riff one on one, but I would always have my style.” The Mars Volta was a band that took Alderete’s world and “flipped it upside down.”

“The Mars Volta was a home for me to do what I do,” said Alderete. “I loved working with musicians who sounded like no one else. I don’t think Omar sounds like anyone in the entire world. He only sounds like Omar. I’ve always believed that I sound like that, like I think no one sounds like me in the entire world. Or John Theodore on drums, or Cedric Bixler- Zavala as a performance singer or Ikey on keys.”

Alderete will always think of The Mars Volta as Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavalaz’s group, but he knows that he was integral to the sound. “It was Omar and Cedric’s, but with our live jams as a band you could here that nothing sounded like us. I was fortunate to play with a bunch guys who really define their own voices as musicians. Whenever you have that I think you have real magic,” said Alderete.

Alderete’s favourite Volta album Frances the Mute, contained the most of these live jams that became songs. “For me that’s why Frances is my favorite, cause it has the most band cohesiveness. We really felt like a band at that point.” Ever since the Volta’s breakup in 2012, Alderete has been making music non stop with his diverse amount of projects. He is a riff-making machine for all of his projects. Usually, before deciding where a certain riff will go, Alderete plays them for band members or anyone willing to hear. That is how he determines if they make the cut. If they light up and they go ‘fuck that’s awesome’ then I know that’s where its gonna go. If it inspires them then I know were gonna have a connection,” said Alderete.

Alderete’s riff making process is essentially the same way he approaches his clinics. He has nothing pre-planned. He just tries to “make moments happen.” He craves for spectators to feel inspired during his workshops. “I want something I play to have a profound effect on them. I want them have that thought ‘man, that moment on this pedal, with this combo and he was playing that one riff— that floored me’ cause that’s the kind of the thing they will remember for the rest of their lives. That’s why I do it.”

Stephan Boissonneault is a writer living in Edmonton - @SDBoissonneault