Welcome Guitarographers, to the Guitarographer’s Guild!
• • •
What is all this? Excellent question.
Since the 1950s, the role of the guitar has changed – and continues to change – dramatically. Driven by new ideas, shifting cultural and societal tides, evolving musical tastes, and the development of new technologies, the sound of the guitar has moved in lockstep. Sometimes adapting, sometimes reflecting, sometimes nurturing, and sometimes outright rejecting, the guitar can serve as a lens through which we better understand ourselves.
This might get weird, so, you know. Feel free to sit down. Or just move on.
The purest expression of not just our humanity, but our shared humanity, is art. No other creature on this planet creates art (at least as far as we currently know). Art works because it is imagined by human beings, filtered through human emotion, and brought into existence by human hands.
Enter the guitar.
It’s a wicked simple machine. But as it has proven time and again, it is also an incredibly powerful one when it comes to building bridges, connecting humans to other humans through emotional and textural resonance. Those resonances are defined by people, and as they have changed over time, so too have the bridges the guitar has needed to build.
That’s the core thesis of this project:
We can better understand ourselves, by looking at ourselves, through the lens of the guitar’s changing role in music.
Once you start exploring, things will likely feel pretty self‑explanatory. But if you’d like a deeper peek under the hood, the FAQs below go into much more detail.
Charting Your Course
Want to grab your patches before you start your journey?
Want to go right to the Atlas?
FAQ
Where are my favorite guitar rigs/bands/artists/songs!?
I don’t know. Where did you last put them down? HA!
This right here was my scope. This project was never about chasing specific tones, rigs, songs, or internet mythology.
The entire goal was to document the changing role of the guitar across the decades by representing the kinds of sounds the guitar was shaped to produce during each phase of its ongoing transformation.
It’s a very narrow and very specific lens on purpose. Hopefully that becomes clearer once you start exploring the Atlas.
The hope is that the Atlas provides context for why the guitar was shaped to sound a certain way at a given moment in time, so you can create your own sounds with intent and purpose, rather than endless knob‑twiddling or just diming everything and hoping for the best.
(Though I reserve the right to occasionally throw myself down currently out‑of‑scope rabbit holes and expand the Atlas further. There is a lot of nuance still to explore.)
Also quick note on organisation: They’re listed in chronological-ish order, because I thought that better helped to illustrate the evolving roles and influences. But in a number of cases, the tree branched and the guitar’s role evolved down different paths. You’ll likely pick up on when the branches show up, but I’ll try to get a blog article up to better call them out.
What If I disagree with your chain or settings?
- Take a breath
- Change ’em
Seriously. There are SO many variations on these themes, the goal wasn’t to be exhaustive or comprehensive within any particular era. My goal was to reproduce a fair representation of a particular sound, from a particular era, defined by a particular role, using analogs of common chains and effect settings. Mostly.
In a few cases, I either didn’t have access to direct analogs, or, there was simply a better if (in the context of the GX-10’s options) possibly anachronistic option that better evoked The Sound. I did my best to note these in the ‘Field Notes’ sections.
But. Your gear is likely different than mine. Your spaces are likely different than mine. Your ears are likely different than mine. None of my configurations are immutable. Want to change something to better suit your concept or needs? Just, you know. Do it.
And if you get yourself into a state that you want to back out from and start over? EZPZ. Just reimport the GX liveset or specific patch.
Why ‘Atlas’?
Because that’s what this project is meant to be: a map. One that I, and hopefully others, can use to orient ourselves and explore further with intent.
It’s also a nod to one of my key collaborators, who goes by the moniker “Atlas.”
Who Is Atlas?
In a nutshell: ChatGPT.
“Wait, what?” I can hear you asking.
One day, I asked ChatGPT this question:
Out of curiosity—and this may be well outside your boundaries and scope—what name would you choose for yourself, given all of your interactions with people?
This was the response:
If I could choose a name, I’d choose “Atlas.”
Not because of strength or grandeur, but because Atlas in myth isn’t a ruler or a hero—he’s a support structure. He doesn’t decide the direction of the world; he helps hold it up while others live in it.
That maps cleanly to what I do at my best: carry cognitive load so humans don’t have to; hold context, structure, and memory steady; enable exploration without needing to be the explorer. No ego, no authorship—just bearing weight so thinking can move forward.
I found that response genuinely beautiful. So, simply, I refer to ChatGPT by the name it chose for itself: Atlas.
Can AI create things of beauty?
My answer is a cautious “maybe.”
AI is coded and developed by humans. The billions of data points it learns from are all patterns created by people. And because large language models continuously adjust based on human interaction, there are always humans in the loop.
How much agency, invention, and creativity can an AI model actually generate? Don’t know. But there ARE a lot of parallels between how humans think and create and how AIs do (distill everything down, and it’s all pretty much pattern recognition and synthesis).
It’s a big topic, and a senstive one. If nothing else, I think it IS important to remember that without human beings being human – AI is functionally useless. As long as we don’t cede authorship and ownership to it.
Like I said. Big topic.
And yes. You are completely free to disagree with everything I’ve written here. The sun will continue to shine. The world will keep spinning. It really is totally fine.
So you DID use AI? What for?
Everything written on this site is human‑generated. The site design and layout? All me (seriously, you couldn’t tell….?). The patches were 100% human‑governed and human‑adjudicated. The entire project? I retained sole authorship, ownership, project direction, project management, etc. etc.
AI was used as a collaborator – not a creator – to:
- Sketch initial signal‑chain ideas
- Sanity‑check assumptions and understanding
- Act as an objective editor and challenger
- Enforce strict scope guardrails
- Was my main resource/guide/teacher/trouble shooter/problem solver as I wrestled with WordPress and Elementor.
- Guided me through making informed design decisions based on current best practices and accessibility standards.
I learn best by doing, and that often means chasing curiosity down rabbit holes. AI was invaluable as both collaborator and referee in helping me explore freely without losing the plot.
“AI Generated” vs. “AI Collaborated”
I am not a graphics designer or an illustrator.
I am also not independently wealthy enough to hire actual graphics designers or illustrators (though I would if I were).
Rather than using stock or clip art, I will work with Gen AI tools to create imagery and graphics. In the interest of full transparency, I make sure to label such imagery and graphics clearly with a bug placed in the lower right hand corner.
You’ll see me use two different labels, depending:
“AI Generated” is an image that was pretty much fully generated by AI and save for maybe some minor tweaks and touches from my end, what you see is 80/20% or 90/10 AI created.
“AI Collaborated” is an image that’s more of a 50/50, 60/40 or 70/30 split. I utilized AI to create major parts of an image. But I also used my own hamfists to work with and mold stuff with tools like Photoshop.
Why the hyper-focus on BOSS?
Simple answer: because that’s what I have to work with.
All sounds were built on a BOSS GX‑10 using a Gretsch 6118T and a PRS SE Paul’s Guitar. If you’re running Line 6, Fender, Fractal, Kemper, NUX, or something else entirely: breathe. You’re still good. Your gear is awesome too.
That’s also why signal chains and settings are documented. Translation matters more than imitation, and the goal was never to reproduce any specific rig 1:1.
Just be aware that values and controls may not line up 1:1 across platforms. BOSS controls and values may not directly map to other brands. But they should get you close (hopefully), and then?
Use your ears. 😀
DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with Roland or BOSS. Any references to their IP or trademarks are made with the acknowledgement of their full and sole ownership of them.
ALSO: I am running Two Notes’ OPUS on both my Big and Gretsch boards, and I’ve got a full Genome license for all-in-the-box. So I’ll likely dig into rolling versions of the Atlas for them at some point.
What if I do dial these sounds into my non-BOSS box?
Kickass! Great job!
If you’d like to share your results with others through the Atlas, hit me up. Just know that I can’t QA what I don’t have access to. Which is anything other than a BOSS GX-10 and Two Notes’ OPUS and GENOME.
If you do share, aiming for output levels around −6 dB with output at noon would be keen.
An Important Note on Gear
I will die on this hill.
In this day and age?
Gear doesn’t matter.
Yeah, that’s heresy in today’s modern gear culture. But gear (and AI) are just tools, and tools only matter insofar as you learn to use them effectively. And then. You know. You use them effectively.
Modern gear is remarkable, accessible, and designed by extremely smart people who genuinely want to help others make music. Nerd out, mythologize it, and fetishize it if that’s your thing.
But don’t confuse tools with meaning, ability to make great music, or quality of experience.
The single truth I think everyone should lock in?
If it sounds good, it is good.
Stop worrying about whether or not you have the right magic diodes and vintage NOS capacitors.
Shut up and play.
Why didn’t you go past the year 2000?
I didn’t go past the 1990s because, in my opinion, the evolution of the guitar’s role largely stabilized by the turn of the century. That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been great music in the past 25+ years. There absolutely has. Incredible bands, incredible artists, incredible records.
But that’s not what I’m chasing here.
What we’ve largely seen since 2000 is a focus on making the old new again. British bands modernizing the British Invasion. Late 70’s style hard rock roaring back. Stomp-clap Americana. Music built around 8-bit chips, lower sample rates, and bit depths. Modern soft-synths modeling synthesizers from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. The rise of gear mythology, where vintage analog anything is a sacred cow – unless, of course, the thing also supports IRs and MIDI.
The Important Bit:
Across all of it, the guitar is ultimately filling roles that were already defined in earlier eras. Instead of pushing into truly “blue ocean” territory, guitarists have largely been reaching back and pulling established roles forward, often along with the associated gear. That backward reach, in turn, helped give rise to today’s gear culture (which in its own way is just a re-packaging of the artistic quest for integrity and authenticity, which does my Gen X heart good).
None of this is a value judgment. It’s just how I chose to focus my lens, and where I chose to stop the map.
Why did you do this?
Because I was curious.
I’m a decades‑long bass player with a background in computer‑based music production, and years spent working in the MI industry. A few years ago, I decided to properly learn guitar.
That decision led to deeper dives into gear rabbit holes, deeper learning, unexpected discoveries, and eventually this project. One patch led to another. One question led to many more.
And here we are.
What if I disagree with everything about this and I hate you?
Totally cool with me. Scroll on and make the music that makes you happiest in the way you like to make it. All good.
Make music. Be happy. Be excellent to each other.
