I enjoy playing guitar (duh), and Wipers sparked my love for writing less simple guitar peices like 'Malignant' and 'Dream Away The Shame', yet my foundation of songwriting is based in Nirvana melodies and chords. I want to show y'all what I do, cause lately my tone has been quite good (not talking about the shitty debut album, the tone was just ok there).
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But starting off with the Self Titled sound:
I have a Ibenez GT 10 that I got for $20 in about April of 2024 out of this pawn shop downtown, and 3 pedals, I only use 2 of them, one is a modulation pedal and I hardly ever use it as I don't enjoy the settings on the mod pedal, they all feel too digital and my main goal at that time was to make my solid state sound like a tube. But I did actually use it on Lie On A Foothill, but I'll get into that later. The other pedals are a Boss DS-1 and a ProCo Rat. My guitar- a Squire Mustang with 2 Humbuckers, although the neck pickup was missing a screw so i never used it in that position. which runs directly into my ProCo Rat, the aformentioned Rat is my least favorite, its too muffled and I used the Rat as a gain pedal, its run at minimum distortion and no filter and completely cranked in volume, I run that into my Boss DS-1, run at full volume but tone at about 1 o'clock, and distortion at about 8-9 o'clock running right into my amp. One thing to note is how I have the amp almost at full volume, yet it's not fully at 10, closer to 9, with cranked treb, high mids and low to almost no bass, this makes the cleans have an almost crystaline sound while still being punchy, I don't quite remeber what I used to record Passing Lane or Drunk Dumb Love/Denialism, but I belive I used a Donner Strat knock-off with the same setup.
Personally the only song I wish I actually put on the Cutis Self-Titled was Lie On A Foothill, the only reason I didn't put it on the album was because I was embarrased of the frankly godawful distorted tone, which was because I was using my first amplifier- a Squire SP-10- a 10-watt amplifier I got in 2023, and the vocals weren't that great. But I used the chorus affect on the mod pedal during the bridge of the song. You can't quite hear it as the amp just fucking sucks, but still.
I personally hate the sound of the Cutis Self-Titled EP, it's muffled, drowing in its own sound and theres only a few songs I enjoy off that record. Like 'Beravement' 'Dream Away The Shame' and 'Nanimonai'. I would've produced something better if I didn't feel as pressured to release something under the Cutis name. A few songs were written mere minutes before recording and were 90% improv, like 'Watch Out' and others were poorly written sludgy slop like 'Gouge' and by far the most successful song off that EP is Passing Lane, which is a song that couldve been so much better. It's also a cover of a song which was in place of a different cover that could've been 1000x better. I was going to cover 'Flower On A Grave' by Bunkbed Coffin or 'Eric' by the underground band Iris(UK). Rant over.
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On Christmas of 2024 I got a new pedal: a DemonFX tape Echo, which I think is meant to be a clone of a Mag Echo Circuit from Keeley, but it sounds more like a maestro echoplex to me. it's currently my favorite pedal.
On the next album I'm using that pedal and an Ampeg Gemini I, which is a great amp that I got in Febuary or March of 2025, the only problem I have with it is that it has no standby switch. Not a big deal really. I may figure out a way to implement one, It's the same amp Greg Sage used for most Wipers albums, and he clearly knows what he's talking about. I know he used it on The Circle, it's suspected to have been used on their first three records, and I personally think he used it on Straight Ahead and MAYBE Follow Blind. Before I record that album I'm going to buy or build a preamp, cause the amp has 0 mid-range, which really sucks. I like midrange a lot. I might use my Ibenez GT-10 as a preamp. The songs on the next album are going to be a lot better. I' ve had a plan for Cutis since I started making music, although under different names. It's been Aniya-Late, Joan And The Aliens, Alien Girl, The Black Cat Lesbians, Widowed Flowers, Glitoris, Losers Revenge, Blue and Red, but the ideas always been the same. That music is too much of an entertainment form, and less about art, Cutis is meant to be pure art, which is why it's so hard to label us. Sometimes we're Punk, sometimes Post-Punk, sometimes Goth, sometimes it's Avant-Guard. So far the songs I've written for this album I'm really proud of. They're a bit more me, a little less crass.
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If anyones interested in my songwriting, heres where you find out about it! Heres my secret to writing a gothic/punk-y/grunge song in the style of Cutis: Don't even fucking try. I have no writing style in particular, I write about whatever, I just make shit on guitar up and melodies are just made up. Like genuinely. Kinda like Kurt Cobain I just play chords and make up some melody and write words that usually mean nothing. I know 0 music theory, I don't know how to play scales, I can't write my chord progressions down cause I'm way too lazy for that. I learnt to play by ear almost exclusively. I played along to Nirvana, Sex Pistols, Green Day, Bam Bam, Wipers and Hendrix to actually learn. Still I kinda suck, I only really play powerchords.
But ya'know whats weird? I'm a really loving person. I love loving people. Yet all my songs are about death and hatered and how humans are awful... huh...
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My main tone influence, as you can guess, is the Wipers, I've only mentioned them like a billion times throughout my very short time as an underground musician and I only ever mention them to anyone who will listen!- Greg Sage is my favorite guitarist ever. Especially Youth of America and Land of The Lost, which are very similar in terms of tone, Youth of America is probably my favorite album ever, I like the production and the tone is really great. I cannot overstate just how much influence this silly little band has over my music, Greg Sage is why my music is the way it is. Hes also why I plan on being an electrical engenieer, cause I want to replicate those sounds, not for Cutis, which has a simialar but different tone. I don't like beefy tones in guitar as much as him. I do agree with his views on music and vacuum tubes (I fucking LOVE vacuum tubes).