Stifled by years of
formal piano lessons, Sarah
Lipstate resolved to develop her
own approach to guitar. The
Brooklyn-based guitarist and
filmmaker’s effects pedals do
not define her music, but she
makes no secret of her affection
for them. “I know them
so well and I think they are
beautiful,” she says. “Manipulating
pedals is an art form,
but sometimes they screw me
over by fritzing out during a
live performance.”
Performing as Noveller, Lipstate
employs an array of effects
and live looping to realize the
beautifully layered, multi-faceted,
and emotionally charged
compositions that comprise her
self-produced records, including
her latest, Glacial Glow
[Weird Forest].
A Japanese Fender Jaguar is
routed through her pedalboard
into a Sunn Concert Bass head
powering a Music Man cabinet
with one 15" speaker. Lipstate
finds a bass rig better handles
the dropped-octave loops created
with her Boss PS-5 Super
Shifter.
Her effects chain starts with
a Death By Audio Total Sonic
Annihilation pedal that she
uses to create feedback frequencies
determined by the
effects in the pedal’s send/
return loop—currently a discontinued
Ibanez TS7 Tube
Screamer and a Boss ODB-3
Bass Overdrive pedal. “This Tube Screamer
has a Mode toggle switch that goes between
the normal TS9 and the Hot setting I use
anytime I bow the guitar,” she explains. “It
helps make the bowing more audible without
adding a lot of noise. And I like that I
can switch the toggle with my foot.”
Next comes a Boss DD-6 Digital Delay.
“The delay makes a huge difference in the
way the notes interact with each other, and
it affects the way I build the layers of the
song,” says Lipstate. “If I accidentally have
it in the wrong mode or have the delay
knob off by a quarter turn, it can ruin some
pieces—but it can also be interesting. It won’t
sound like it is supposed to, but that doesn’t
mean it is bad or wrong. It could even sound
better than the ‘correct’ way.”
Following the aforementioned pitch shifter
is an Electro-Harmonix Freeze pedal. “Usually
it will capture a single-note drone that I
manipulate with a Moogerfooger MIDI MuRF
pedal,” she says. “I might create a loop out of
that to use at the end of a song as an ambient
transition between two pieces. It fills the
space if I have to retune the guitar.”
Lipstate patches an Electro-Harmonix
Holy Grail reverb pedal between the Freeze
and the MuRF, and post MuRF is an Akai E2
Headrush. “I use the Headrush for delay, but
I also use it for looping in addition to my Line
6 DL4s, because it has a feature they don’t,”
she says. “No matter how many overdubs
you layer over the first loop you create, you
can return to just the original loop by double
clicking on the Record/Overdub switch, often
to dramatic effect. I have two DL4s that I use
for looping, with an expression pedal connected
to one of them so I can, say, fade out
a loop recorded at half-speed, change it to
double-speed, and fade it back in.”
All this hardware results in 40 pounds of
pedals to transport, but Lipstate can’t imagine
forsaking them for a more compact computer-
based system. “The audience has no
idea what is happening on the other side of
a laptop screen, so they have less appreciation
for the sounds because they don’t see
the process that creates them,” she says. “For
that reason, I don’t see myself switching to
a laptop—ever.”