Latest / Chasing Tone - Guitar Podcast About Gear, Effects, Amps and Tone / 627 - Experimental backing tracks, Fender vs the entire planet, and robot rock stars

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627 - Experimental backing tracks, Fender vs the entire planet, and robot rock stars · Chasing Tone - Guitar Podcast About Gear, Effects, Amps and Tone

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, last uh last week some people um didn't like my my change song at the beginning.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't like it.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: I thought it was funny that it was like the same sort of thing, but it was like bluesy and you know.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Swampy.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Swampy.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Which is your nickname.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: And some people like, nah, change it back.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Don't do this.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Change change stop, whatever you're doing, stop.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: Change it back.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like change.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't my favorite variant.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna lie, Brian.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, it was just uh, you know, a little different mood.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: A little bit of experimentation to see if anyone was paying attention.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out they were.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: So experiment pass.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: I I never get emails that of anyone saying, you know, that song that you recorded sounds great.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's always you change the song.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: What the hell are you doing?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, back in the day it was I heard your song on a different YouTube channel.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's true, yeah.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was fishing and watching YouTube.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, look, we we should probably say a little bit about how you've produced so much music so quickly, Bri.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because you've been either the most prodigiously talented that you've been for years, or you've had help.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'd like to tell you about the new artist on Spotify called Brad Womp.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, it's my new, it's my new artist that uh I started releasing AI music, you know.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, actually, so I've been experimenting with Suno.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um actually, it's really good for backing tracks, like if you just need a bunch of different backing tracks.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I was gonna ask you.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Have you have you been cracked three minutes?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Have you cracked a way of making good backing tracks that don't have a lead guitar?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you have to force it, you have to use specific prompts.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: So that's another thing I built.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a cloud skill that makes specific prompts.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, can I have that skill, please?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: I will if you go to uh wompermedia.com.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm kidding.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, yeah, I can do that for you.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: I I can I can zip it up.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um just for you, Richard.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Can you zip it up and put it on a zip drive?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds terrible.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'll zip it up for you.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good job this isn't going out on video because I'd insist on that bit being clipped.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I've got to ask you though, Brian, because when I've like I I've got a Suno account, so I I I'm producing a podcast for a client, and they were like, you know what would be good if we had some music for this.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be like, yeah, for sure.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Oh, I want ice ice baby.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, sure, do you want to pay for the rights?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, Well, can you just be$10,000 per episode, please?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I went into Suno and I put in some prompts and I got quite a good little hip-hop track, and I had to license Suno in order to use it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have the pro count, yeah.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it is insanely powerful, and the tones in it are getting better and better.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like the first ones, all the tones, I don't know whether the compression was the same or yeah.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you heard the the song I had on here earlier, which was I mean, I started out with my the song that I did, which is kind of mid-range focus.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: I never could get the production right, and then just for fun, I stuck it in Suno with like very little prompting to see what it gave me back, and it was instant heavy 80s metal.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Yeah, I wonder if anybody will notice if I change the this song.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: No one noticed when I went from there, at least no one said anything.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't until I went to a completely different genre.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyways, you can, but you the thing that most people don't know is you can actually tell Suno, I want a telecaster through an AC30 that's and you can say, I want it bright like Brad Paisley.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: You could say, I want it more crunchy, like uh what's his face from Tom Petty?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, like you can give it those types of props and it will get you that sort of tone.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: For this week's podcast, Bri, could you make the music as if it were played by a group of Czechoslovakian clowns?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I want.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: What is that?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Eastern European clown music.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: A bit disturbing and slightly jolly around the edges.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I can take the song and make it into clown music, you know.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I want.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Eastern European clown music.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's gotta have a little bit of gotta have some borscht, yeah, you know?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, all right, yeah.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not to digress too much, but it's gotta have a bit of micro-tonality, much like the heavy metal priest in Greek, uh Greek Greece.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's a Greek priest called Father Dionysus Tobacchis, who is taking wait, uh that sounds like a fake name.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: My name's Johnny Tobacch.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I own I own a tobacco company.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Dionysus like Dionysus, like the one god of wine.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's spelled slightly different.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Dionysios Tobacchis.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: But he is he is a priest who is bringing power metal into his music.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Is his buddy uh Johnny Marijuanis?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's my buddy.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh okay, and and you keep him out of this.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: His brother's wacky tobacky.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Wacky tobacco.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but Bright, I mean, like you have amongst the most discerning ears.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, definitely on this podcast.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: You're saying I got big ears?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, discerning.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: You hear things that others don't.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Are you finding the tonality of what it produces like at the same quality as what you would listen to on Spotify or um, you know, Apple Music?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: So here's the problem.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: When you really critically listen to it, things change over time, EQ-wise.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I know this especially like in guitars, but you can hear it in voices too, where like I did one song and it started out basically Eddie Vetter and kind of ended up being um oh uh Eddie Monster?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, Allison Chain singer.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Lane Staley.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Lane Staley, thank you, thank you.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so like slowly morphed into something different.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: And the guitarist sometimes will do that thing as well.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: They'll like be mid-range heavy, and then like the EQ would change throughout the song, and then so when you compare parts, you're like, oh, this now sounds different.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: But you can actually, there's tricks around that.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can actually take parts out and have it redo that section.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think the bigger thing that I found on because again, I was just doing this for fun, just trying to figure it out.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: It got so good for a typical listener, not for someone that's a really critical listener, but for a typical listener, it got so good that I could understand how people at some point in time will say, you know what, I want to um I just want to listen to some Foo Fighter songs, like they're hit songs.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, I just want the poppy stuff, but I want all new, as if they made a whole album.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Generate.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that'll be done.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like that, like in two minutes.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: My my closest and longest friend is exactly like that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: He does not care for music, he appreciates that music makes a pleasant noise, which sometimes, if you listen to it enough, your brain recognizes, therefore, the pattern gives you a small dopamine uh increase.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: But like he is literally, you could say to him, listen to this.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if it was an AI playlist of techno, he would not notice anything.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: He'd just be like, Yeah, this is cool, man.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I like it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And some people are just wired that way.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: The thing that I found was really cool that I didn't expect was this is taking a song, uh, and maybe it's a song that I've that I've written, and just having it generate electric part, uh solo parts and then learning those parts.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's like it forced me to think differently.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: I would have never put that lead, that type of melody over this, you know.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it kind of forced me as uh as you know, practicing guitar, it forced me to think differently in and playing leads, which I thought was pretty cool because, like I said, there's some melodies I came up with.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: I I would have never thought that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: My my concern, because I've sort of done a bit like this too, is when I was trying to do the demo for the purple ohm fuzz, available from olive-effects.co.uk, I thought, oh, people are gonna expect me to do like a Gilmore-y piece.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know, I'll get AI to write it.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, write me a small four-chord like Gilmore sequence in this key and give me some hooks and some riffs to play.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it generated them, and and I started to look at it and I thought, this is nothing you couldn't have done yourself if you actually stopped being a lazy moron, which I am, and I will freely admit it, and just sat down and thought about it.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, on the one hand, this is a fantastic shortcut for lazy morons, but on the other hand, it's making me that's in the marketing ad copy.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think that is in the marketing.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: If you go to Suno, it's what it says at the top.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but in the other hand, it's the first thing more moronic and more lazy because I'm like, well, it can do it better than me.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: So next time I'll ask it.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I I deliberately completely veered away from all of that for the for whatever I did for the demo.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I gotta say, like, because you know, I was playing with Suno when it first came out and it was basic.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was okay, it did some funny things, but it was basic.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, same here.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've had the account for a while.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've had the account for a while, but it wasn't until I dove into it this weekend.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, wow, this has gotten remarkably better since I last used this.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so I mean, a question I'd ask listeners like if you're jamming, if you're playing guitar, do you care if your backing track is made by an artist or is AI generated?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are, and and we know a few of them, there are people who have made entire livings out of making backing tracks for YouTube, which is difficult.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, as a person, how do you reinvent the backing track 4,000 times?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right, and like uh, you know, elevated jam tracks, um probably the best outfit.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: One of my favorites, yeah.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yeah.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like he has put out so much content in so many different styles.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's basically a massive musical genius, but AI will come along and just go, yep, I've now absorbed everything he's done and everything his 10 nearest competitors have done, and everything their 10 nearest competitors have done, and be able to just replicate that stuff to within 80% accuracy from a prompt.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And for a lot of people, I think that's gonna be good enough, you know.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean, unless you're a musician, you know, because let's be honest, the reason we play guitar is not so we can generate AI music.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, you know, it's because we fill things and we're at least maybe this is me, but I look at all the things I've written over time and it's almost like reading a diary.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful, isn't it?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: When you look at the songs you used to write.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it's like this is what I was going through at the time, and so like it means something, you know.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: Where yeah, I can feed that into AI and say, Oh, I I wanted this to sound like Daken at the time when I was twelve or whatever.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it's cool to hear it come out that way, but it's different it's just different than if you sat down and pieced it together by yourself, which I tried and failed miserably many times, you know.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: So did you actually put in music from when you were younger and get it to do that?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't I mean, like even just old recordings that sounded, you know, record on a boombox, if that tells you anything.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: At what point are you releasing your AI enhanced version of why do all the pretty girls laugh at me?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Why does nobody understand me?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and why does it burn an itch down then?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: Why doesn't anybody like to talk about capacitors?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the thing, and I and you know, maybe he said this because he was trying to, you know, angle for the all all publicity is good publicity type of angle.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know because it's probably been the most talked-about thing that musicians have had to say about Suno.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is when it first jumped on the scene, the CEO was like, Well, I don't actually think that the I'm paraphrasing, but you can look it up the exact quote.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't actually think that musicians like the amount of time that they or like the majority of the time they spend making music.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: I remember that.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, wow, you don't know your audience.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like, what no, actually, anybody that gets especially the point that we are at, look around at our various backgrounds, like, uh yeah, we kind of like making music.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's kind of what we enjoyed doing.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I think this does open up a much broader subject, which which I don't think we're gonna be able to touch on fully, but for me, music is one of the key components to taking care of my mental health.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because I've discovered that with my brain, if I don't distract it, it lets intrusive thoughts in.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they're very rarely pleasant.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Last night, I this was my dream last night.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Last night I dreamt that a well-known sports radio presenter in the UK drilled two holes in my skull and placed metal objects in there to cure my depression.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: That was my dream.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Brian's under us.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh shoot.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: All right, let's let me stop those intrusive life monitors in this house.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, it's like I really like the challenge, the the repetitiveness, and the kind of dopamine reward circuit that you get.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I've said this before.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: When you're learning a new song and you get the riff down timed and phrased perfectly for the first time, there's a release of a chemical in your body that makes you go almost as tingly as when I'm having my special sexy time.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, we all have them.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, to me, and it's a little different.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's like I can take something I've played a thousand times and the feel of playing that riff or whatever is hard to explain.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's like it scratches an itch of sorts.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Back to super special sexy time again.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: But uh a hundred percent bright, and it's really hard to like quantify that to non-musicians because to non-musicians, it's just do the magic thing, or you know, uh talking about the guitar again.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you can play fast, cool, you know, like no no no, it's not about that, it's everything around the playing of the fast.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what I think.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: I still I have yet to shift on my I know that AI music is is gonna find an actual acceptable place in society at some point, and I think it's gonna be in music that nobody cares about.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be in 100%.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of music, more music.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, probably instead of Taylor Swift, it's gonna be AI, if I had to guess.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: If they've just simply if Macy's decides they don't want to pay for it anymore.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, and will anybody notice?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're a record company and you have the and I'm using Taylor Swift generically because she's huge and you know, no one listened to no one listens to Taylor Swift's songs for the guitar work.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Not that they're good, not good guitar in there.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: Probably some of the greatest session musicians in the world.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm saying she's writing the songs as a girl singing songs about whatever her songs are about.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I I could see a record company saying, oh well, if we just you know, it's good enough now, if we just replace her, we get all the money.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, exactly that bright.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a big money machine for them.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like they still need the face, though.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be generated, but it can't be generated live.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: But what if they just find someone that sings sort of like that and have them go tour?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's probably gonna happen at some point.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, because because live music still makes good money for musicians.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: I can see a future where a stage show is a robot whose skin is made entirely out of pixels, so you can just basically map anybody onto that robot, and they perform on stage, and it's like 80% as accurate as what's an interesting but scary thought, yeah.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it it like you're already seeing it with the ABBA thing with the holograms, and I haven't seen it, but my wife hasn't.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: She said it was absolutely amazing.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: You've got KISS doing the holograms thing, they're talking about bringing back David Bowie as a hologram, which I know, Brian, you are 100% gonna go and watch when that happens.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, yeah.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so let me know, you know.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's nothing like watching something that doesn't exist.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's great.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: So so again, though, this kind of makes me think a bit about what we've discussed previously about like TVs and sizes, and it's like if you've got a 70-inch TV or a 14-inch TV, once you start watching the program, you're in the program, it doesn't actually matter.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel that's gonna happen with like robots at some point.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: You'll go there, you're like, this is a robot, but once the music starts and once the performance starts, if they get it good enough and they don't just fall over and start spinning in weird breakdancing moves and decapitating each other, then robot music could be a real thing.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: That I mean, that is a good thought.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: I I guess my thought was I wondered if they would just find someone that wants to be in the music industry, basically pattern use using machine learning, just take their voice, like we do guitar tones, right?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: Because we do that all the time with guitar tones.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Just take their voice, and then now create a bunch of AI music with it, and then the person that you created their voice, like, all right, we're gonna pay you$100,000 a year or whatever.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're no longer gonna make$10 billion a year.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's I'm stretching the joint.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: But you get but you're gonna live comfortably and you're gonna be right, and and you're gonna get to do what you want to do.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: We can send you on tour now, then that's the question of scale, right?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: That could work, but is it gonna work on a Taylor Swift scale?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it gonna be we're gonna have we're in a record label and we're gonna have a hundred of these artists and they fill 2,000 cap rooms and that's our new model.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Good point.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because I do think at that scale, enough people like be like, uh no, that's that robot girl.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's that robot dude, you know, like most people that are going to multiple concerts a year, uh, even if they don't quite understand it the way that we do, or the listeners of this show do, they're still going like festival people are an interesting crowd, right?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're they want to see an actual person.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: There's something interesting about seeing a live person performing the song.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it's like, I don't know what it is.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh, here they are in real life flaws and all.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but see the risk, it might not go well.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of it.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Seeing a show.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: I have an interesting slight angle on this.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been to a concert and watched somebody else enjoying the artist and being like, but they can't possibly mean as much to you as they mean to me, because you feel that that artist has a deeper personal connection with you because you found their music at a difficult time in your life or at a good time in your life, and as a result, you really resonated with it and you became a super fan, but you're not prepared to accept that other people are also super fans.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is a phenomena I have absolutely experienced with fans of the cure, because the cure is kind of like depressy music that people come to when they're going through a difficult time, growing up into an adult from a child, and there's something that Robert Smith has found that absolutely resonates with people going through like bodily and age shift changes.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result, the fans are like, Well, there's no way you love him as much as I do.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: How do you know, buddy?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: How do you know what I do in my private time?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: I've never experienced that.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Me either.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Usually it's more of a like, oh yeah, that guy gets it.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: He understands.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: We we we're on we're in this together.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I get yeah, I guess to me, it's more like that person the art that they created speaks to me so heavily that I identify completely with it.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess I've never thought about how George Lynch played that note, that that solo just for me.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: See, he likes me more than you.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying it's that way round.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying, you know, no, yeah.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Some people I'm not saying it doesn't exist, yeah.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they feel that they are more special to an artist.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and I got this from listening to another podcast, uh, the the Wonderful Chatter Bix podcast, uh, where one of the hosts is a massive Cure fan.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he was talking about, he's like, I actually wouldn't want to meet Robert Smith.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And this guy, by the way, David Earl, he's a very famous comedian in all of Ricky Gervais's shows, but he's a huge Robert Smith fan.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, I actually wouldn't want to meet him because I wouldn't want to let myself down, and I know he would let me down because he'd just be like, Yeah, did you see the football earlier?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Or I'm gonna go for a pint.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And he wouldn't say something profound, or vice versa.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I I've said this before like in our industry, we get to meet quite a few people.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: You learn pretty quickly, so they're not all going to become your friends, so you stop trying to impress them, contact them all the time, or all the other stuff that you kind of do if you're a bit of a fanboy.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think you start off a bit like that.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: You start you start off that way, but then you you realize they're just a dude.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: They're just a dude who's like, yeah, sure.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Great, great gear.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: See you later.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and then sometimes you sometimes you hang up on them whenever you're like recording podcasts.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever, dude.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, it it is a kind of a weird turn to make because like we all start out as fans first of something.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, something you heard a song at some point and you're like, I love that song.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then that led you to eventually making music at some point.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we start out as a fan first.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then the deeper you get into the music industry you do learn like even the your biggest heroes do all the same things that you do.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's and it's a it seems like logical we should know that.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: But for some reason we as fans put people up on pedestals when it's like yeah we're back here grilling flapjacks like that's what we're doing.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not any different than anybody else's thing.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: Tracy Guns was kind of like that for me.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know I grew up like idolizing the guy.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: But to actually know him as a person you're like he's just a dude like me.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah like not not not in a bad way but like he's off that pedestal and more and more real if that makes sense.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah well and he's made himself very accessible in a way that some of his peers have haven't exactly yeah I I and I love that about him actually I you know that I have more respect for him doing that than a person doing the opposite I'm famous you don't you don't get access to me.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly no he's he's he's one of the most genuine dudes I've met and it's it's it's but it's you know when you're just hanging out with him eating sandwiches and stuff it's like look at that everybody eats sandwiches don't they?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Even Taylor Swift eats sandwiches you know how dare you no she doesn't she has people that do it for her feed me my sandwich this would be a a pretty good time to mention two uh weird celebrity things that I've picked up in the last week one we have a show over here called Gogglebox right and and what that show is and as an American you may find this hard to take on board it's people watching TV talking about what they're watching.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: So they're just like watching a show how my boss that's you no that's just YouTube.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna react to this it basically is right but we have a celebrity version and on it they introduced two people and they were like and here's Josh and Jake and I'm like that's the goddamn singer of the the Queens of the Stone Age and it was it was uh Josh Hom and uh Jake Shears from the Scissor Sisters just like sat there talking about TV which was like blew my mind a little bit but fine um I would love to see a version of I was gonna say I I'd love I'd love Brad and Brian over here it's like we're gonna eat some spicy hot chicken wings and talk yeah yeah that I'm good with that too I would love to be on that show that that would be a better show.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: The second one that we cannot fail to mention is the World Cup halftime show.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we won't talk about the sports but there was a halftime show that ran on for 30 minutes or so where it included Madonna um Justin Bieber the guy from Coldplay uh Chris Martin and oh what was Shakira.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I gotta say you couldn't have picked a duller lineup for a football match.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: What you needed was anthrax megadeth and Metallica like that sport needs rock and instead Justin Bieber comes out and there's an amusing little intro by the guys from Ted Lasso minus one point for that show now uh and Justin Bieber comes out playing a lovely uh acoustic guitar singing some kind of weird sports hallelujah ballad I'm like have you look at how people who play football what they listen to they listen to we needed NWA we would have been difficult for sure but we needed gangster rap we needed hardcore death metal you know we don't want Nambi pamby ballads and flowers and Madonna music yeah also Madonna came out she came up with two football players who will mean nothing to you but one is Ronaldinho and one is the original Ronaldo they were wearing oh yeah Ronaldinho and Ronaldo yeah those are real people those aren't AI generated the trouble is is they've obviously aged put on a bit of weight and they dressed them in the the most ridiculous outfits that made them actually look like telly tubbies I'm like you've got Madonna and two telly tubbies flanking her this is not a good look for music.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the highlight was the Muppets now there there is a puppets are the highlight of anything that they're on the like Jim Henson Muppets Jim Henson Muppets yeah I mean there is a joke to be made that you know at the World Cup there were a couple of strange orange haired puppets and the Muppets were there but I'm not gonna make that joke when was that Richard I didn't uh I didn't even know it was happening.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah that was last week don't worry about it it's done okay good it's all done um now look I I'm gonna just go very seriously for a second because there are two bits of sad news this week one um is the bassist Jennifer Finch who died at 59 um I think from cancer from what I remember uh who was the bass player for L7 who were one of well if not the originators of the Riot Girl movement in the in the 90s the kind of I'm glad you said it like that because I've never been entirely sure they have so many R's I didn't know how to say it.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Riot girl I think but L7 were absolutely groundbreaking and they kind of broke through mainstream British media at the same time as Nirvana and for a lot of my friends they were right up there with Nirvana at the time like if you had Nirvana written on the back of your 1970s Belgian like uh army jacket you'd also have L7 and smashing pumpkins written on the back you know so uh very very sad uh but from a guitar perspective and a personal perspective knowing what I've been chasing Wayne Charvel passed away uh aged 85 and I I don't think it needs to be said how much we all love the work of uh of of Charvel guitars over the years it's it's a brand that I absolutely aspire to own a fantastic example of one day.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well there was a documentary I saw about Jackson and Charvel and like that whole situation at the time it's fascinating on YouTube.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know the name of it but look it look it up it was pretty cool.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh you definitely checking that yeah it's very interesting I guess they're kind of partners yeah absolutely I mean like started out working inside rivals and then yeah and then I think Charvel bought Jack or yeah bought Jackson Jackson Ball yeah and then that led to the Gibson WRC that we've talked about so much on this podcast Fender ended up buying them all uh which we should probably not mention Fender other than to say we will mention them in a minute.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah I was gonna say it's gonna be tough podcast not Fender yeah but rest in peace both um Jennifer Finch and Wayne Charvel and much love to all their friends and families anyway absolutely that bit um we kind of had to do that that was too sad so I'm now gonna go into um well actually no Bright you've had you've had some you've had some renovations done in your room and also I believe you've got some new pickups I did.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: So as you'll notice as you watch this no one's watching this week's uh it's gonna be hard on an audio podcast but I used to have pyramid foam as um sound absorbers on my walls right and why did I have that?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because 15 years ago that's what I bought that's all I could afford and every time I moved you know shops where I had my studio I just took them with me and put them on the wall and then um I so I started thinking the other day I'm like you know I've had this same setup for a long time and I'm kind of bored of it and I probably should actually buy some good sound absorbing materials and and do it properly.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I saw that's what I started doing.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Pulled the pyramid foam off put some good sound pan uh absorber panels on there and um yeah it's a little bit lighter it's a little bit lighter I'm gonna get rid it's been black and charcoal colored and I'm in a different phase of my life you know once I hit 40 uh once I hit 40 I decided to uh you know make things a little lighter and uh at the risk of I don't want to look like JHS of course but I do think I'm gonna put a lot more white stuff and get rid of some some darkness you know lighten it up a bit spruce it up a little yeah I I so I I like what you've done with the panels Bri they look great uh amps are always gonna be dark so you'll always have that contrast what I really like though which you haven't mentioned is he's put LED under lighting on his pedal shelves.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh I did uh that is true so and it's not done yet I'm gonna put him on both sections right now they're just on one section and uh the whole idea was really just I thought it looked cool when you turn a camera on it that was really the only gist of it you know yeah what's that got to do with pickups um that has nothing to do with pickups but that's all about the the room updates uh pickup wise so I'm friends with a guy named Matt Bigler and if you're Nashville you probably know Matt you almost definitely know the guitar player he works for because he's a tech for Diamond Rio so he works for Jimmy Jimmy Olander and he's built Jimmy guitars over the past he's built guitars quite a bit he's built several for Jimmy and um he is now making pickups as well it's Bigler pickups.com B-I-G-L-E-R in case you're curious so these are a little more vintage he sent me a couple the 60s is one set and another one is a 52 bridge and a 51 neck but with some other things that he did with it and it's the same exact thing that he puts in Jimmy's guitar or that he's putting in Jimmy's neck's guitar he's building.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Nice so I haven't I just got them today so I had no don't have them in anything.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well I'm I'm guessing by the fact you've said bridge and neck these are just telecaster pickups you didn't go for the strat option why why why would I buy pickups for a strat that makes no sense what am I gonna do with that are we talking like classic styling as well so lipstick coverage or uh yes these are I mean he can he can do other things sure um but these particular ones yeah they they're they look I I'm a fan of I'm a fan of the classic telecaster pickup look I think it it it makes the guitar what it is.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: Wait if you once you take that cover off it's a different sound and it's not a bad sound but now it kind of strays from what a telecaster should sound like yeah so you know I'm not a not against it but at least for what I do I kind of want to a little something a little more traditional.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: So so these are going in my um my blue fender with the G bender on it.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah yeah yeah so so that's what because I just have the stock I think it's a Mexican fender from years ago and so I'm gonna put them in that one.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I think now Bri it's the rule that if you actually say fender you have to spit at the floor afterwards.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's no no no no you just owe them a dollar.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh right yeah I always think we need like a spittoon sound good uh when are you wiring them up?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: Do you need any hand soldering?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know because I'm gonna finish the I'm gonna finish my room first.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna finish the room and then uh I have some more course things to do.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Basically I have to make some money first.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of the that would be before I do the fun stuff I gotta do the money stuff first.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I would quite like to know what that money stuff's like it's been a while Bri well that and of course we have the uh the pedal cab coming out here so here soon.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: No the pedal cab was my April Fool's joke Bri the pedal head is what we're releasing.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry I meant pedal head it's oh so it's finally getting released closer yes yeah we're getting closer so so uh when we have a lot more releases coming up too so we really do by the way we have we have a ton of things coming up yeah we had to park once yeah and oh hmm ah and and came up with like 10 new designs so you're gonna get that's how it went that that smooth those three those three well that was my impressions of us all so yeah um yeah every sound's a new pedal being born uh basically that's how Brian works now I just I I just created the circuit generator where it just takes random circuit blocks and assimilates them uh not assimilates uh assimilate you will be assimilated all right Brian Six yeah and then so it spits out the other side it spits out the other side of finished circuit so that's that's basically what we're doing.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know you moved to Finland.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm no no no I wouldn't do that gotta you gotta play through it.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay look but you also need some stuff that works with the pedal cab and the pedal head we're we're about 35 minutes in so that means it must be time to talk about part 11 of the Fender lawsuit Channel oh my goodness yes it keeps going it does it keeps going on and like have you ever seen a company like shoot themselves in the foot so much?
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes uh why would you do this to me?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: But like this isn't just them shooting themselves in the foot Bri.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is them shooting their feet off with shotguns then taking those shotguns and ramming them up the bloody stumps of their legs and shooting up their legs at themselves until they blow the whole leg off right that's a good point.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like someone said I got an idea this finer thing's working out let's make it not wow you know what we've gotten the company to its largest point in history we've done like right out a billion dollars of revenue that's never happened with a guitar brand before I can't believe it or things have never been better how can we mess this up I mean I I just don't understand what the end game is so i'll I'll just recap on the news they've they've threatened uh toe man they are actually suing toe man I believe countersuing or how countersuing because I yeah I I'm that's that's they're definitely fighting to man and making points that they're not a small boutique builder but in fact one of the largest music retailers that doesn't make a difference to the customers trust me Fender um no and uh they already positioned themselves as like yes we know we're the big guys that can absorb the hit that's why we're doing it that's right secondly they've gone after Yamaha now yeah like if there is one company that you don't want to go after it's one that can chase you on a boat then then on a motorcycle and then come and beat you around the head with a saxophone before playing a sick riff like not to mention if they go vintage they made bows somebody could shoot you with vintage Yamaha bows as well I thought you were like the speaker company then I thought really um so bow and arrows that that really really is is a a bold move because like for years the go-to guitar of any guitarist like you want to learn guitar first guitar you should buy is a Yamaha because you you're gonna get something that's just really well made for the money and they are a super strong brand.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now the third arm of this is Fender have also threatened a ostr an Australian company that sells secondhand guitars and it's threatening them to not sell their secondhand Fender clone type guitars I think like seriously at this point Fender does just look like a giant Godzilla of of of a a company just breathing fire on anything that moves I was just doing a little check-in here to see I'm not sure how Yamaha is broken up if it like I know it's all the Yamaha corporation and they got all these different divisions under both for musical instruments and boats and all that stuff.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the musical instrument division according to Google is alone is a$3.1 billion dollar company.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes you have to sell a lot of stratocasters to get to$3.1 billion roughly what Fender's been reporting.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah right and we all know how this game works those with the most money generally win.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um that is how the law works and also unless your pot name is Paul Reed Smith in which case you say I don't care I'm Paul Reed Smith.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's because yeah you come in on a Harley and you beat the shit out of whoever's messing with you stick your middle finger up and we go I'm Paul Reed Smith and then that would be the greatest line of I'm Paul Reed Smith bitches and that's it we're done oh I hope I hope he gets involved in the legal you can see Paul doing that though that's the thing like he's uh he's an interesting guy.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well we've talked about it before he kind of already has yeah he's he's he's already whipped whipped some ass once yeah you know he he he's the hero but uh I mean look again Fender have tipped me into becoming a Paul Reed Smith fan again like I have been pro Fender anti PRS not anti PRS but not really interested right up until now when this tipped me into a I'm gonna get myself a silver sky you know what I would like I would like for someone to make like a product that's available on Amazon that just slips over the headstock covers the fender logo with a different logo exactly just I've got to give a shout out to and I hope he's a listener um and I'm gonna get his name wrong because I'm gonna say it from memory but I think his name is Arturo Arturio who made a Fendajo uh sticker so kind of like Fender logo but with a Mexican twist to it.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely do really sorry if I've got your name wrong dude I'm doing it from memory I know what you're talking about yeah I think that's it yeah I'm trying to get it right so but yeah that's a great idea the uh the headstock sock I love it right the head sock sock I was gonna say the defenderizer but I like the head sock.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh take that too the defenderizer head sock I love it there you go yeah I honestly at this point this is what's weird though right a lot of people are saying I'll never play Fender again I'm not gonna have anything to do with Fender ever again so quickly isn't it I didn't see me ever buying one yeah I'm done buying them but what I'm saying is the elephant in the room is they're extremely hard to avoid and if you are a musical instrument enthusiast and you were buying musical instrument products you might be buying Fender stuff and not even realizing right because that's how entrenched in the music gear industry that brand is that's true.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just because it I saw somebody literally post their newer Asian made Jackson they're like this is way better than anything Fender ever made in the first place and I was like buddy built at Fender's child news for you.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: Fender owns Jackson homie sorry like and that's an obvious one there's less obvious ones too they have like harmonicas and all this other stuff under other some brands and it's um the point is is like it's kind of gonna be difficult for you to actually truly never buy anything from Fender again if you are still buying stuff for your current crop of instruments.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: But you know again this really is the poop in the punch bowl because there is no doubt that everybody loves their products until they get soiled.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they've been soiled to a point where like you say bro you you wouldn't even look at one now.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: I look at my Fender guitars now as like will will someone mock me for playing this?
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know will if I take this out live will will a museo be like you're playing Fender they won't and I'm just Well the YouTube comments definitely will because I've already got that Yeah.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's like I've never ever seen such a prestigious brand crater their reputation this quickly amongst their loyal followers.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: Not like it isn't just like Gibson heads, although Gibson have released a Fender Scale uh instrument.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just know yes, they have that's the thing.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like if that Brent Mason guitar wasn't a gift from Brent, then I would get rid of it and have someone else build me one exactly like it.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: Just because it but I mean that like you know, we have a good idea.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: You've never really been a like big brand guy, like you've never been like I only, you know, you the best, right?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: You get I actually like the Whitfield guitars better.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're by far, I think, way better than the Fender stuff.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're really really, really something next level.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: So how do Fender get out of this?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Stop.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: All they would have to do is stop.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then really, though?
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think within a year it would be like, okay, they're all done.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's because there'll be something else in the news news cycle that takes people's attention.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: The reason this stuff works is like continuing on.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I literally thought when this started, I was like, well, this will be out of the news in two weeks because that's how guitar news works.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's always something new to talk about in some capacity.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason this keeps getting brought up is because they keep giving us new things to bring up.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if they would just stop, and I know I know that some of this all happened at the same time and it's now just getting revealed, you know, months later.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, it's uh it's it's not helping them.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um at the same time, do I think that the mass consumers that let's be honest, Fender typically caters to know about that?
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: My dad kind of knew about it.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's a guitar player, but he doesn't follow guitar stuff outside of what even what I do, you know, to a degree.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: He just likes to play guitar.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I heard there was something, some fender was doing something.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: What what are they doing?
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's gonna be 90% of their customer base.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, and and also new customers that don't care about it.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: My brother would love to learn to play the guitar, and if I let him loosen a guitar shop, he'd just go, I want a fender strat.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he just would not care.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of this hinges on the fact that there are a lot of new buyers out there, and even if you try to explain to somebody who doesn't quite yet have like the passion for the industry that we do, if you were trying to explain to your brother, like, oh, you don't want a fender strat because they're being mean to the rest of the industry, he'd be like, probably like, oh, they are that's weird.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I'd like this Fender Strat.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right, like so it's it's a weird thing because we care a lot and we understand the damage that it's doing to a company that we like, like we all like Fender.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have I know people that work there that I really like, yes, and I like and I like the company, uh I like the products, of course.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like I love my telecustom, and I know that like they haven't made a money any money off of that thing since uh 1974 when they first sold it, but still see there's a really good lesson for us all in this about leadership, because you you can have a company, a country, a region, uh an organization that's staffed entirely or filled entirely with wonderful people, and all you need is the leader of that organizational unit to be an idiot, and it tarnishes everybody underneath them, so you just don't get to look at the people underneath them, and I think that's why in life it's always better to lead by example than it is by fear, and Fender are trying to lead by fear here, and I don't like that.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing how how much they've turned because it it was always a weird anomaly where people would rip on Gibson's quality control, and that's been hit or miss over the years, it absolutely has.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, even as a Gibson fan, I can admit like they have had their share of problems.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but what was more secret is if you talk to retailers, you know, different people that are in the supply chain for musical instruments, they'd be like, Man, seems like 30% of the fenders we're getting are just needing a lot of work.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's literally been hit or miss for the last five or six years.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: At least maybe longer.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe longer, yeah.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: But like if you go and get you know, uh an American pro strat or whatever, you you assume a certain level of quality, like it should be playable, stay in tune, action reasonable, out of the box.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: And like I've been lucky, my Pro To Strat, one of the greatest guitars I own.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: But then I've also had a couple of hit and miss fenders, and I went and bought that cheap Silver Sky.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it did have a bit of a tuning stability issue with its its nut, which I fixed.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was a real simple fix.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if if you'd have bought that guitar and taken it to a guitar shop, they would have done the same.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: But the quality of everything else in that guitar for 500 bucks is insanely high.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like the the finish, the fit, just everything about it makes you think you know, maybe people haven't been lying when they say the big name brands are really doing a number on you because you are just paying for that name and a colour that you can't get on other guitars.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know, you you pay as your money, you take your choices, as they say.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I feel as a marketer who is completely um well 99% buffoon, I would say that Fender have done some pretty bad damage to their brand here.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I hope they I hope they reverse it.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I don't I honestly don't think it would take that much.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: They could go, sorry, this is not working out.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're reversing courses, we're not gonna pursue these anymore, and then it would become old news within within a year.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, let's hope they do that.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'll tell you something else I've seen uh the other day.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Warm audio mystery boxes are being talked about by everybody.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: Have you guys ever done a uh a mystery box?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was really tempted by the Chase Bliss one uh that I think started this uh in at least most people's brains here a few years ago.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just because you know they're and Warm Audio did the same thing.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like they they made it kind of irresistible.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you're gonna get at least this.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're gonna get at least get more than your money's worth.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: So give it a try.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a hard proposition to argue with.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of like it, but never do anything like that, I don't think.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe once or twice in the past, but I I I think we should do a womper one, Bri.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should do a womper one, and what pedal we got the most stock off?
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just check.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone just gets that pedal.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's genius.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: You also got one.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: People ended up with a lot of ring mods off of this one.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they just get rid of all their old dead stock.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah, ring mods are cool, but they are polarizing, and you gotta really have a spot for them in the song.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, then they're not like an always-on pedal unless you barely notice it.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um what else have I got to say?
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like hot pepper jelly, only useful in a situation or two.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: Delicious, but that's a perfect analogy.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: I am pretending I am standing by my comment that uh hot honey is the new pulled pork.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, and I don't have a problem with that anymore.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: I've come to love that.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um next thing you know, you won't have an accident anymore.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's never happening.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I read a really interesting story about uh biggest douchebags in music, and one and all three of us were on my where are we at on that?
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh well, one story related to Iron Maiden.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently, um the manager of Iron Maiden fired their first guitarist, Dennis Stratton, when he discovered that he was listening to the Eagles on the tour bus.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, that's not metal, you're off.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, that is such a terrible reason for that.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's one of those things like your music tastes are too varied.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're out of here.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: How dare you have multiple experiences and inputs so you can make wider ranges of music and have better choices in life?
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: But look, I don't think it did them any harm because they then recruited another amazing guitarist.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of those old rock and roll stories where like I didn't I didn't like him because he liked the Eagles or whatever.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, was that really it?
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or did he like did he like blow up the bathroom on the tour bus too many times?
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's the real story?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and listen to Eagles.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, Yeah, let's run with the Eagles thing.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's go with that.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: This guy really stinks the bus up.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: We can't have him on here anymore.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was chatting to our good friend Jamie Humphreys, who's currently touring with Britt Floyd in Texas.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, no, he might be he might be in is Alabama in Texas.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh why are you laughing?
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: I uh is Germany in France?
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just curious.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like these are all places that uh Italy's right in Ireland, right?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sub suburb of Ireland.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: So uh he he's in Alabama at the moment and he's he's enjoying quite the tour life.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like saying we've got this really plush bus, and like there's a wall that comes.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I wonder if one of you needs to go for you know, number twos, no number twos on the bus.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way it works.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way it works.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I've had people tell me not all of some dumb buses have a chopper and like bubble ads, not true.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think some bands just institute that rule, and no matter what the bus is equipped with, we don't do it.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it it's no one wants to spell your feces.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, especially whilst driving along for eight hours, but yes, like for men of a certain age, then you've got to get your timings right.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: And do you all do you all synchronize?
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you all end up having like it's the poo hour?
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're not gonna You know what you probably do because you're all eating at roughly the same time, yeah, and doing the same sort of yeah, you're right, you're right.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: But he was telling me that one of his stage moves is to let off a noxious puff of gas at the bass player and then give him a nod, like, yes, buddy, that was me uh after doing it.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: So can you go and just talk about breaking the fourth wind?
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, wow, yeah.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: He's having the time of his love, though.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: It is unreal.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: So the stink faces the bass players making not what you think it is, not because of the riffs.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a real stink face.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, anthrax have a new single out, Edge of Perfection.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's really, really good.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: The Rolling Stones have their new album out.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I've been listening to it, and I gotta say, like they prove that it is still possible to relate to the simple things in life: a crunchy guitar, a good riff, a good bass line, and a singer that can deliver some power.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, foreign tongues is the album.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: I highly recommend you guys check it out.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: They also did a little bit of a joke on us all because there is an owl there is a track, Divine Intervention, that features Robert Smith.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone's like, oh my god, I can't wait to hear Robert Smith.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's the singer of the cure, by the way, Bri.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, singing with the Rolling Stones.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: He's not singing, he's playing guitar.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: Totally different.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's totally different than singing.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Did you guys know that?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: Playing guitar is kind of different than singing.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's new to me.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I have another article, but it's probably a whole episode's worth of conversation about the ten most misunderstood guitar pedals that became modern classics.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we should touch on that one next week.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good topic.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_02: Probably so.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: Probably so.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know what else is a good topic?
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um our beautiful, wonderful executive producers?
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: Who whose turn is it to read the list?
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's probably mine.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, go for it.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give a big shout out to Bill Bays, Andrew Adkins, David Tyndall, Dave Trombetti, Eric Wilson, Vidar Frostad, Michael Freer, Sean Arbo of Gunstreet Wiring, Rick Calhoun of Honey Picks, Patrice Fournays, Dylan Tox Tone, Missouri Electrical Box Company, Kevin Harrington, Barry from Grez Guitars, Tom Kelly, Jake Young of Man the Helm Podcast, Pigsy, John O'Neill, Robert Carr, Hunter Hudson, Rob Stokes, Nick Spano, Sasha Sir, Jay Stratton, Harry Post, Grumpy Mike, Harvey Pettles, Allison Carroll, Bum Laser, Anthony Stevens, Atta Plays Guitar, Philip Carter of 40W Podcast, Christopher Logan, Jason Inglehart, Dylan Lewis of Leeward Sound, Josh, James Thompson, Colin Littlejohn, Machete of Odin, Derek Lyons, Darth Bagel, Dustin Romero, Wizard of Waz, Crappy Tom, Bud Cole's sentient ponytail.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, what?
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: DJ Farns, Kyle Vianna, Robert Hahn, John Hill, Nick Call, Kyle Ray, Your Face, Dave Evangelista of the Guitar Dads Podcast, Roxy Gwynn, Derek Howe, Churchill from Grim Girl Plus, Ross Edwards, and William Price.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a good one, boys.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_02: We'll talk to your winner next week.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_02: Later.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: Chow, chao.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening to the Chasing Tone Podcast.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, shoot me an email at podcast at womperpedals.com and I'll personally get your email.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: You can reach Blake at infotonemob.com.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_02: Richard is Richard at WamperPedals.com.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to support the show, the easiest and free way is just to share this episode with a friend, leave a rating and review wherever you listen.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: Helps more than you know.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_02: Be sure to check out Blake's other podcast called the Tone Mob for even more guitar topics.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: If you love pedals, of course, check out wamplerpedals.com.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: If you're curious about designing and building your own guitar pedals, head over to guitarpedal course.com for step by step courses.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: And for bonus content, behind the scene discussions, and extra fun, join us on patreon.com slash chastingtone podcast.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks again.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: We'll talk to you next week.