Northlane's guitar tones are known for their crushing intensity and precise detail, whether in the studio or on stage. But behind the scenes, keeping those tones consistent takes more than just killer gear. In this exclusive interview, Northlane's guitar tech shares how Spark GO has become an essential part of their touring toolkit, offering tone-checking flexibility and portable power, plus surprising accuracy in emulating their full rig.

Northlane's guitar tones are famously massive and detailed— how have you guys been using your Spark GO's on the road? How did it hold up compared to the full rig?

Especially working as a tech, having an amp to test guitars through that has a variety of different amp sounds and tones is essential. It allows me to make sure the pickups are responding as they should - whether through clean atmospheric tones or heavily gated rhythm sounds. You can very quickly identify if the pickups heights have changed etc. as the Spark GO can emulate the main tones they use quite closely. A testing amp/bluetooth speaker to jam tunes at my bench while I'm restringing is the main use, but I'll occasionally take them into the greenroom for the boys if they want to warm up on a particular section with actual sound too.

What's one behind-the-scenes trick you use to keep Josh and Jon's tone consistent show-to-show, especially when switching between drop tunings and complex FX chains?

Constantly rechecking the setup - in particular neck relief - is essential show to show, especially when going through drastic changes in temperature. Consistency is key, so having very meticulous and easily repeatable techniques for restringing and stretching in the strings gives them a nice stable platform to work with every time. If you start at the beginning of the signal chain - the guitar - and make sure it's absolutely rock solid, then everything else tone wise will remain stable from then onwards. If you aren't fighting the guitar you're playing, it allows you to concentrate on more dynamic variance in your performance, and everything will sound better overall, from the rig to front of house.

How do you manage tone translation between studio mixes and live rigs? Do you ever reference smaller amps like the Spark GO to get a "real-world" playback vibe when re-amping or demoing?

Both Jon and Josh spend a lot of time dialling in their respective tones at home before getting them to a live setting, and they are incredibly good at it. I never have to tweak them at all by the time the Quad Cortex's are in front of me - all the patches sound incredible. They both definitely know exactly what they are doing, which keeps me on my toes at all times, because nothing sneaks past them. I think they have their methods pretty down pat, so don't know if they would reference smaller amps like the GO in a studio setting.

What advice do you have for guitarists building their first pedalboard or rig, especially if they're chasing that polished, modern metal tone Northlane is known for?

Simple is always better. Start small and work your way up. Less is more, and if you can get yourself something with lots of options in one place - any digital modelers like the Axe FX FM3, Line 6 HX Stomp, Neural DSP Quad Cortex, or any of the Positive Grid products are a fantastic place to start. It will allow you to experiment with some different approaches. The amp and cab combination is often the most important ingredient, and then a nice overdrive to boost it a little bit, and some responsive noise gating will get you quite close. But often less drive sounds heavier in a live setting I've found.

If you had to create a Northlane-inspired tone preset for the Spark GO—just using its built-in tools—what would be your go-to amp, cab, and FX choices to get that signature bite and atmosphere?

A decently high gain amp like the insane (5150) or the (6505) amp and then a nice Klon-like overdrive to boost it a little bit, and some good responsive noise gating in front of the amp will get you quite close. Then you'd want a good clean tone with a little reverb and some pretty substantial tape delay. I've gone for a JC120 sound that one just because it's my favourite clean amp, it's not necessarily what the boys use but I find it's a decent enough approximation in order to test things.

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