DINO TALKS ABOUT HIS GEAR MEN AND THEIR MACHINES SOUL OF THE NEW MACHINE "Because of my tone on the records," says Dino Cazares, brains behind LA's Fear Factory, "a lot of people assume that I use all these EQ's, pre-amps and stuff like that. But it's not like that at all, I like to keep my stuff really straightforward, even though Fear Factory is this really electronic band, I like to use the sound of my guitar as naturally as possible." Dino loves to play guitar and loves his sound, a new noise from old technology. I have an old JCM-800 Marshall head which I took to this guy in LA to get the valves changed. When I showed up he was playing his head, another JCM-800, and it had this absolutely wicked crunch sound on it, it sounded fucking killer. It reminded me of Eddie Van Halen on their first record with that killer distortion. I was like, 'Wow, can you do that for me?' and he was like, 'Yeah, just give me 80 bucks!'. He made up this crazy pre-amp which is inside the JCM-800. So now I get this traditional Marshall sound with this killer crunch. I don't even know what it's called and if you look inside the head it's all fucked up and ugly. All the solder is dripping down and it's twisted and ugly, but I love it. I love the way it sounds, it's beautiful." Dino also has a Mesa Boogie amp that serves as a back-up, although it's definitely a second-stringer. "I also use the Mesa Boogie Vintage Celestion 30 watt speakers, the Triple Rectifier cabinets. Rectifier is the name of the amps, there's single Rectifiers, double Rectifiers and mine, which has three times the distortion," he adds with a laugh. "I use the Triple as a back-up but it doesn't come anywhere near the Marshall. The Marshall gives a really cool, clean sound where you can hear all the notes no matter how fast I play" CONTAINING THE NOISE "The Mesa Boogie cabinets are a little bit better than the Marshall cabs 'cos they bring out more of the high-mids that make my sound. I also use a dual noise gate, an Alesis Noise Gate Compressor, but I only use it for the noise gate and I have a Nady Wireless System. "So, I've got one from my head to one of the wireless system and that goes to the cabinet to cut out all the pre-amp hiss. Then I've got one from the guitar to the wireless to the gate to the head and that cuts out all the noise from the wireless, which is really important. When you're playing music that is as tight and precise as Fear Factory's you have to have a perfectly clean signal. When you listen to the record it's really precise and we have to cut out all the pre-amp hiss and noise when we do it live. It's got to be precise otherwise it interferes with the kick-drum sounds, and that is Fear Factory's sound. I think that because of that, a lot of people assume the sound is heavily EQ'ed and sampled and stuff." SEVEN STRINGS - ONE BETTER? "Previously I was playing six strings and tuning down to 'B', so I would have a problem staying in tune. We did a tour with Korn and they were using Ibanez seven strings, I tried one out and liked it. I called up Ibanez and they hooked us up right away. It took me a while to get into it because the necks were so thick, I kinda had to customise them. They're the Universe guitars, they come with three pick-ups, toggle switch, one treble, one bass and the green pick-ups and to me, it looks stupid. So now I've got one Super Dimaggio pick-up, like Steve Vai, one volume knob, they're all black and I've shaved down the neck. So now Korn have heard about it and they're bugging Ibanez, 'We want our guitars like Dino's'." With a big sound you need the big gear, strings 'n all. "I use .52 to .10 and I have to use really thick plectrums. The low 'B' strings are like really thick so if you use thin plastic ones they just snap. "Now my picks are kind of legendary, the ones that say 'Porno' or 'Want Porno', which were originally a mistake. A friend of mine made me some picks right, and originally it was supposed to say 'Sapo' because it means frog in Portugese or Spanish... Sepultura gave me that name a long time ago because I'm always jumping around. So I told the guy 'Sapo'and he thought I said 'Porno'. So when I got them I thought 'Oh that's cool', I watch porno, I've got friends who do porno, so I went with it." KEYS TO SUCCESS "The key thing with my sound and tone is not just being precise, but who is playing it. I've had heaps of people try my equipment, people who say they love my tone and Fear Factory records. The key thing is that me and my gear have become one, and no one else can get the same sounds as me. My head is my wife and my guitar is my girlfriend and I sleep with both of them." FEAR IS THE KILLER "If you listen to some of the early Bee Gees records they were like badly recorded dance music. It's the same beats now except the bass drum has been brought to the front and the snare is louder. I listen to everything from the gayest dance music through to the heaviest metal and hear the songs in it, which is the most important thing. "When we write songs, we write songs that are catchy first and then heavy. ZeroSignal was written on an acoustic guitar with me and christian while Raymond and I wrote Replica just by playing the beats on our knees," he says, going 'budata, budata' on his thighs.