PETE THORN SUNDAY LIVE #359

Mhm, what's up folks? How's everybody doing? Been using this thing from the TwoNotes folks for, uh, a couple—I don't know—a couple weeks now. Uh, I must say I'm quite impressed. I'm a fan. Really good. Um, the Reload is incredibly transparent. It seems to transfer your loaded-down amplifier to the power amp in a transparent way, and then the power amp is very transparent, and it all sounds really good. Um, working on a video, uh, and I'm also using it with the Genome software, which is the TwoNotes software that not only incorporates their DynIR cabinets, uh, as well as some nice post-effects, room sounds, delays, and all that stuff, but is also a piece of modeling software. Um, so there's like amp models in there as well. My only complaint—one little complaint—is that it seems—I, I'm not sure if their intention is to like replace their Wall of Sound software eventually with just Genome, because it seems like that would be the natural sort of, you know, like it seems like an updated version. It's a little sleeker and everything. Wall of Sound is the original TwoNotes IR software, you know, that you can run for to add impulse responses. Their DynIR is that kind of thing—speaker simulation within a DAW, or I guess it works standalone as well. But anyways, it's a computer program that's for speaker sim, whereas Genome is a full-on like suite of amplifiers, modeling stuff, as well as modeled pedals, and but then it hosts as well, and it's like I say, a little sleeker and stuff. So it would seem to me like it, it's the all-in-one, one-stop shop sort of, because it does everything.

Here's my only complaint: when you pull it up, it loads up with a 5150 amp model active, um, with a Tube Screamer in front of it. So super gainy, uh, and if you're using it with, you know, that an amp that's loaded down with the Reload box, so you got a Marshall or something running into your Reload, and then you're coming into your computer, you now load up the Genome on a track, and it pops up with another amplifier and a gain box active, and as you might expect, it squeals like crazy, and there's just like, it's insanity. Um, I would think it'd be good if it would just load it up with maybe a DI R active, and then you built from there, or if it was a preferences thing, maybe you could set it like to load on a preset. That might even be a thing that I don't know that you can do, but just when you pull it up stock, whatever. Oh, I'm going to try it the first time, just know that that it loads up with, you know, a lot of gain active in a, in an amp model in it. Anyways, that's a minor complaint. Uh, it's great. Really good software. The effects in it sound really good. Um, been, been having fun getting some good results. What else do I like and tried this week? The VP4 from Fractal. Not really nice. I've got one right here on my desk. You can just see the edges of the foot switches, cuz it's kind of tied in right now. I've got it connected to USB and etc., but, uh, anyway, it's the Fractal, you know, sort of mini pedal board jobby. Just effects, no amps and stuff. Um, working really nice. I'm using it in the video because the, the Reload 2 is actually stereo. It's got a stereo re-amp in it, so you can run an amplifier into it and then add some effects and go out stereo, either into Genome, you know, like digitally out into your, or whatever, into your computer and add IRs, or, or you could run into like two cabinets and, and have stereo effects and stuff. So I'm trying to demonstrate that by using the VP4 to add effects via the effects loop of the Reload. Wow, that's a lot of like technical mumbo jumbo there for the first five minutes of a show.

Um, I went out with my friend, uh, Brian the other day, Brian Hughes, who's an amazing guitar player that I've known since I was 13 or so, maybe 12 or something, in Edmonton, Canada. And, um, Brian brought me a gift, uh, which was an El Dorado Accessories, uh, their handcrafted Pasadena, USA guitar strap. Very, very nice guitar strap, I must say. Thank you, Brian. And, uh, I put it on the, the old seven-string, or the new seven-string, because it's a nice wide leather situation with really nice support, but not too thick, you know, and it's just really comfortable with this guitar. It just feels great. So I think this is where it's going to stay, and it looks great with the gray, the gray seven-string, or silver seven-string—Inca silver to be exact—with the stitching and everything. It's just really sharp with this guitar. So thanks again, Brian. It's a really nice gift, uh, and nice strap. In Pasadena, California, handmade. Fantastic. We love Pasadena around here. Yes, we do. What else? Um, I don't know. Let's see what you guys are talking about. That's all I have for the beginning here. We got Joe here saying, "What's up, uh, any recommendations for a Los Angeles area recording studio?" Um, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's lots of cool, uh, spots still. It depends. I mean, you can go everywhere from good old Stag Street is still there, which is, um, a, a nice, uh, studio that has a beautiful old API. Um, I made a record there, my very first record deal record pro thing in 1996, and it's still there. Same board, I think. So it's been there all those years, and, um, that's a great option. You can get a great deal. Uh, it's over kind of where Sound City is actually, and Sound City's still there. You know, we thought it was going to go away for a bit, but it didn't. It's just got new boards and stuff. They've got the Helios boards in there and stuff now instead of the old Neve, but, um, so you know, check out Sound City, check out Stag Street. They're a little bit off the beaten path. They're way out in kind of deep into Van Nuys, but, uh, better deals to be had out there, you know. I think if you want to do something in a legendary spot, you know, there's still, um, you know, EastWest and, uh, The Village. And I think The Village is—Yeah, did I hear a rumor that they were not going to be around anymore? I don't think so. I don't know. Anyway, Village is legendary. EastWest, um, a little more like, you know, reasonable probably price-wise and stuff like that. And once again, but in LA sort of proper, Palamino is really nice. Um, they're close to downtown. I guess it's kind of, is it Boyle Heights, something like that? Um, close to downtown. Uh, I did something a little while ago there, uh, for, um, my signature amps for Guitar Center, so like PT100, PT-15. We filmed a couple videos in Palamino. Beautiful board, nice collection of old amps and stuff. It's kind of a, you know, very like viby old rock and roll vibe in there, you know. Uh, it's cool, like feels very 70s or something in there, and, uh, in a, in a cool way, you know. Uh, lots of good recommendations. I think check out some of those spots. All right, what else we got here? Thoughts on V63 or V60 LP for neck and middle? Um, I'm using the—I like them both. I mean, I did, you know, to be honest, I never really directly A/B'd. I just tried them in different guitars. The V63 is kind of my favorite. That's what I use in my guitars, and I have no desire to change really. I think it's great. So I'd get a couple of those, but I've had V60 LPs and still have in one of my Strats. Um, the LP, you know, means that they're going to be a little hotter, winding. If the resonant peak—a little lower peak—resonant peak—a little lower peak. That's what the LP stands for. So a little more mids than the regular V60. Yep. I like the 63s though. I think they're really great.

Really cool. Braxall says, "My birthday's today." Happy birthday, dude. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Braxel, happy birthday to you. Many more. I saw Andy Timmons and Dan You from that Pedal Show at Guitar Sanctuary and got only 20 made DNM Drive and Sanctuary Red. Oh, cool. That's nice. Yeah, I mean, both guys are fantastic. Dan and, and you're good people. Good people. Nice folks. Nice folks. Nice folks. Buzz Scrumberger says, "What good timing?" You mean the fact that I was on time today? I was actually on time. I wasn't late. I don't know if that's what you meant or not. Hi Pete from the UK says, "China type, what's up? How you doing?" Hi Pete. You actually like the 2C Plus and what's your—less—you know, what I do. So I've been using that amp a little bit this week, and there's a Mesa 2C+ here, uh, and it took me right back to about 1987. You know, I got a Boogie Caliber 50, the original, which was a four EL84 job, simpler, you know, than a, than a Mark 2C or Mark III or whatever was out at the time, but, uh, it had a, you know, a lead sound that I got used to. And then after that, I got—I didn't have that amp very long cuz I was having some trouble with it. They were a little bit temperamental. I got rid of it and got a Studio Preamp and a 295 power amp, and I, I had that for the next three or four years and used it, and then eventually that got sold, all that stuff, and I got a 5150 head, original block logo one, a PV first run, had the Phillips tubes in it, the whole nine yards. That was probably around '92 or something like that. Uh, I was in LA, and I don't even remember how I got—It's weird like old gear, you know, like what did I do? I had a 12-space rack, two Mesa 212s, Studio Pre, 295 Power. I don't remember where they went. Like I don't remember how I sold those and ended up with a 5150. I must have traded them or something, or I don't know what. Like Naen's in Hollywood or something. Anybody remember that place? I, I just don't remember. But anyways, uh, that's what happened. But for a number of years, that Mesa sort of Mark topology amp thing was what I used, and so this one actually took me right back. I think they did a great job on it, and it sounds—I haven't A/B'd it with an old one like a lot of people have done in videos and stuff, but, um, it's cool, you know. It's, it's a one-trick pony in a way, I think. I mean, because you can't, you know, it's a vintage thing where it was one of the first sort of—is it channel switching? I mean, is the—are you really switching a channel, or are you switching in a gain stage and more gain sort of all Dumble or something into the circuit? I'm not actually sure, but I sort of think that's the way those amps work. You're kind of, you've got a clean sound, and then you're adding gain to that, you know. I, I think, or is it going through a whole—I don't know. Somebody tell me in the, in the, in the chat. It's, you know, they're based on sort of a Fender kind of thing, and then they, they go at gain their own way, but it, it's a really, really good sound, you know, and it's, it's, it's a nice sound to—it's a friendly sound to play. I'll say that, you know, some people talk about how some amps are hard to play. That's what I remember about Mesa. I always used to say that Mesa—the individual notes are the boogies. They're, they, they're big, like big, you know, but the chords could be a little mushier than like a Marshall that's leaner or something in the front end, or a Jose modded or something. But when it comes to single notes, much like, you know, in the way a Dumble or something is, it's just that Fender versus Marshall thing that if you have a gainier amp that you base on a Fender style thing, the individual notes are fat, I think, whereas with a Marshall's kind of circuit—I don't know, you know, the way the EQ and everything is, cathode followers stage and everything—this is the way that it's all laid out, and the way you distort the phase inverter and everything, it's a different sound, but it, it's a, it's a maybe a tighter sound or works for chords in a different way. Um, so both are valid, you know. I think—what's my Les Paul hard case of choice? Uh, you know, I, I think that there's great options from Gator as well as SKB. I would look at the I series. There's other ones that you can get. I mean, there's, uh, Gator actually has some really nice—like I've got a Les Paul Gator case that my Yarn—that is a, uh, um, it's a, it's a bone—a bone—which is just kind of like slightly different. It's not exactly like a Les Paul shape, but he shipped it to, to me in that case, uh, and it was a really, really good like, you know, molded Les Paul style case, Gator case. So you could—I think between SKB and Gator, you know, molded cases, you've got options there. I'm about to get hooked up with Anvil and get one of those double jobbies where you can fly two guitars in one case, um, you know, so that's an option too, but it's not a, not a Les Paul case in, you know, specifically if you just want a one, one-stop shop kind of shaped like a Les Paul. I've got one Gator here that's really nice that's like that—that's a very sturdy kind of, you know—I've shipped guitars in it. Generally, I'll, I'll fly it within a—I'll put it in a box and then send it. Like done that for Classic Rock Show, sent it over to England and stuff and used it on tour. I'll put it in a box with a little bit of like—But it's not even really necessary. It just seems like what you should do when you ship something like if it's in a road case. Okay, stick a label on it. If it's a Les Paul shaped case with a handle on it, I kind of want to put it in a box and tape it up, and then even though it would probably make it just fine in this case, if that makes sense. I don't know. Uh, what else we got here? Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Loving my Fractal VP4 says Zur. Have you spent any more time with it? Yeah, I, I did. Um, not like a ton, but I did a really cool sound for the video this week where I did a dual delay thing that was really prominent. Also added a little bit of chorus, a little bit of reverb. Got into the editor a bit, and I, I really like it. I mean, it's, uh, it's really cool. I love the ease of use with it. Um, you know, I, I, I, I had a moment this morning where I was thinking, could I just use this on my pedal board as my, as my post-effects with nothing else? I've got SD-3000 EVH, you know, which I love the sound of—it's great—and then I've got the H90 on there, but, you know, they're both great, and I love the sounds I've got right now, and it would take some work to get back to all those sounds that I've made, cuz the H90 is some work and the parameters and everything, but this is so much easier to use. Actually, I would say like within the editor and everything, it just makes a lot of sense, and it's like rather than having the two units on my board, could I get away with just maybe the VP4 on my board as my post—like probably, you know—and, um, you know, yeah, so we'll see. I'm not sure that I'm going to do that. I actually have a second pedal board here. I was thinking about putting it on, on my little board that I showed you last week. I think that's under my desk. I thought, well, I could probably put that where my Dig and my, um, uh, Number Reverb is on my board down there and use it on that board. So we'll see, but I do like it. It's, it's really good, and I'm going to use it more, and you'll see it in this video for the, for the Reload 2, uh, coming up where I'm using it for some post-effects. Joe says, "Thanks for checking out my email last week with my pedal board and music area. Meant a lot to me." 100%. 100%. 100%. Uh, can you give them or have you given them that feedback? I will. Um, I might mention it in the video, you know, just as an aside, like a—just be careful when you load this up because it's going to be a gainy preset. I know what you're, you're talking about—the Genome preset that loads up with amp model active, right? Uh, how does the Reload 2 feel compared to the SIR Reactive Load? I think it's very good. The load in it is very good, uh, because it's clearly not—I mean, like I, I recorded an amp, which was the Red Jerino here, uh, through it at a pretty healthy volume. Well, first I recorded the, the, the re—the Jerino not running through it, just running straight into my cab. Then I patched the Jerino into the Reload, matched the volume, so now it's getting loaded down and re-amped through the Reload, matched the volume, played the same stuff, and then I went back and listened, and, uh, I can't really, to be honest, really hear a difference. So that to me says like—I mean, it's so close that it's like it's negligible. There's—it was very, very, very, very transparent. Now when I, if I pushed the volume on the Reload up to the point where it was starting to clip, like the—at least the lights coming on, which is probably not clipping, but getting close to it—I did notice a little difference then when I was really getting up to, you know, it's pretty damn loud by then through the cabinet out in the other room. So it seemed like it was a little darker or something. Um, maybe just as it was running out of headroom, maybe there's some kind of, you know, circuit in there to—I don't know—something, but it, it, it did sound slightly different, and then I was trying to compensate on the knobs, and I thought, let's try and turn it down a bit. That was actually my first attempt at matching the sound, so I turned down the amp a little, and then I went into the Reload and all that and did this. So I did the amp and then amp into Reload. Then when I listened to the clips, I was like, there's no appreciable noticeable difference between these two tones. Yeah. I says, "Got the VP4 myself. Works, uh, great. Very good tones." Yeah, I agree. It seems to be really good. Um, Ben Tom says he's got Brian Hughes' Christmas album. Brian's great man. He's awesome. He was, he was an instructor of mine when he lived back in Edmonton. We were younger men back then, and, uh, then he went on to great fame in Toronto. Went on to work and collaborate, uh, with Lindi Ortega as well as doing his own solo work as well as with all kinds of other folks, and, and we're good friends. So yeah, for a long, long time. Um, uh, uh, okay, let's see. I'm going to move down through the chat and let's see. Been loving the Corg STD-300 plugin after my Benson amp, SIR Reactive Load, OX Stomp. Wondering about a Dig or SD after my SIR Reactive Load before the OX Stomp. You could do that. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. No reason why you can't do that. Totally worth trying. Uh, I mean, the Dig and the SD—you're talking about SD-1 Voos—I mean, you can put them both in an analog bypass mode, which has basically a mixer, it's like analog drive-through, and the Dig has an analog drive-through path too, and even if they didn't, it would work, um, and, you know, sound good. So yeah, go ahead and plug them in. The, the, the both will take a fair amount of level too, you know. You don't have to hammer them, you know. Leave the, leave the, uh, line out on the Reactive Load down about a quarter of the way up, maybe just a little more, maybe no higher than like 10:00, because by then you might be getting into—you don't want to clip the delay, and you, you don't really need more level than that anyway. You can make it up later somewhere else if, if you need a little more gain, but that, that should work just fine. Mike says, "Hello Pete, the voice of calm." I appreciate that. Everybody stay calm and carry on. Yes, you can be in a Ramones tribute band. Sure, why not? I want to be Joey. Uh, I think the V70s are underappreciated. They do that 70s quack, you know. They're a little lower output and stuff, a little brighter and stuff. Uh, so in the twos and fours, sure. 100%. It's always a bit of a trade-off with a Strat pickup. You can't get the, the greasy mids and lead tones, uh, quite if, if you, you know, you have the lower output, or vice versa. You can't get the squeaky and the quacky in between as good if you've got slightly higher output. So you got to find your balance, you know, somewhere around 6k is nice, I think, or a little more maybe, but not much—5.8 or something or whatever gives you the, you know, gives you the, the real open top end thing situation. Yeah. Okay, what else we got here? Let's see. Buzz is making burgers. Run on, make some burgers. Do it up. You have a 50-caliber Tom, at least you say you do. Do you know anyone that can work on it? Uh, I mean, anybody, man. I mean, Friedman could do it over here. You send it over this way. Uh, what do you need done? Send it to Los Angeles. Have Dave work on it. He'll fix it up for you. They're, they're cool. I mean, it's, it's a simpler amp, and, um, it had a great warm lead sound, like real sweet. Yeah. Joe says, "Thanks for mentioning the VP4." And to Earl also, uh, he's saying, "Thanks for mentioning the VP4. Really interested in it." Been going back and forth. It's cool. I like it. Especially you hook up the editor, and then it's just really easy, you know. With the editor, it's just drag and drop and kind of simple. Really like it. Yeah. And yesterday, um, for you Quad Cortex users, I hooked up my Quad. I was doing some stuff. I, I love that thing, man. I mean, I still love it too, and I use it all the time actually, um, and I, I hooked up for the first time the Wah in a patch, and I'd never done this before, but I just used the time parameter on the expression pedal, so you can set the amount of time when you sweep the expression pedal, it becomes automatically active. So like on a Wah, you've got an instant-on Wah as soon as you stand on the pedal and start moving it. It works within a preset, and then you just set the time that you, you know, the minimum amount of, or maximum time—like if the pedal stops moving for a set amount of time, it'll turn off. That's what I'm trying to say. Instantly activates when you start to move it, and then how long until it shuts off after you take your foot off of it. So I set it for about 350 milliseconds, and that seemed to work really well, and it sounds great. Got the gain boosted a little bit on the Wah, so I can just play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, play, stand, stand on the Wah, and it just kicks the front end a little bit and does its Wah thing, and I get off of it in about 300, 350 milliseconds. It seems to just be perfect for cutting off right when you want it to. Works so good. I think in a wet/dry setup, what is the difference between using a splitter on your pedal board to split your signal versus running a line out from the dry head to the effects? H splitter on your pedal board to split your signal. Well, okay, so like me, I think you mean kind of like a mixer on your pedal board. The line out to the effects works if you're going to run the effects into another cabinet with another power amp. Works quite well, right? If you're going to use, um, something on the pedal board to do it, that's generally if you're, like, you know, which is what I'm—

Doing it's a um. You're saying wet dry though. Yeah, the best way to do a wet dry is to take a tap off of okay. The best—this is I understand a little better now—the best way to do wet dry is to take a tap off the full signal in the amplifier that's coming out of the speaker output. If it's on your pedal board, um, you're not really doing that; you're kind of more just getting because generally if it's on your pedal board, that means you've—you're either doing it preamp, pre the amplifier, or you're doing it in the effects loop of the amp, probably. If it's on a pedal board, that's like my rig; like I run my all my effects. I don't do wet dry; I do stereo rig with the effects running through the amp's effects loops, um, and so that—that's the main difference I would say, you know. If it's on the pedal board, you're probably not doing a wet dry. I mean, you can, um, but like you—you can't like why would it be on your pedal board if you're taking a tap off the amplifier? That's probably going to be a line out box back by your amp so you can take a tap on the pedal board off the signal, which is probably coming from the effect send of an amp, and then you could take a tap and run into some effects and a separate power amp. But you wouldn't be incorporating the power amp sound of your amp then; it wouldn't be as cool, I don't think so. Um, wouldn't recommend doing it that way. The—the having the something on the pedal board like a parallel mixer like I have, either the RJM I have on one little board or I've got the parallelizer from Musicom Lab, that's more a device to do for adding parallel effects on a pedal board, um, when you're using effects loops, I think, um. And the line out box on the—on the output of the amp that takes a tap off the speaker out, you're going to then run into some effects and then go into like a power amp or a mixer and a power amp, then, and then you can then run a couple 112s or even 412s, whatever you want, you know, like all Van Halen and then all that stuff is, you know, that with the advantage being you've taken the tap right off the speaker output of the amplifier at line level; you're getting the full sound of the amp including the output section of the amplifier doing its work. It was just more—more tone, man. That's the way to do wet dry, you know. Now, surprisingly, I mean, there's one more way to do wet dry, especially you're saying wet dry like not even—you didn't mention wet dry wet like a—like a stereo. If you—one way to do it is like Scott Henderson does, which he takes a tap off the output of the amp and then he runs into some effects; it's a Boss simple, um, little processor that he uses that does reverb delay and stuff, and he runs that output right into the front of a combo, a little Fender, at least that's what he was doing when he came here. You can see the video on my channel; it was a Tim and Peach Show with Scott Anderson; that's what he did, and I've seen other folks do that too, um. And you might think right into the front of an amp, that's kind of weird, man. Does it ever work? It sounded great. It's kind of a more lowfi way to do it, but it's cool because you're running right in the front of an amp; you've got then the clean use like a little Fender Hot Rod or something he had, and you just bring up the volume a little bit, and then you've got an EQ section there where you can EQ your effects and stuff. And if you want to run the effects 100% wet, you could—like true wet dry, probably the best way to do it actually, um, and then just have the delay and the reverb or whatever coming out of another speaker that's kind of sitting right beside your—you know, your—your 412 or whatever, and it's compact, and it just works. Good sound, really good, you know. You could use probably a Princeton Reverb or something for that, and it'd probably be—be fine, like more than enough of volume for like a little delay and stuff. Just another way to do it. I wouldn't have thought it would have worked as well as it did until I heard it, and that's the case with a lot of things, right? You got to hear it and go, "Wow, that's cool." Like, yeah, pretty neat. All right, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, Carlos—oh, Chris says, "Sorry, uh, I think it's funny when people say Fender versus Marshall. It makes sense, but the nerd in me thinks Black Panel versus Tweed, since it's all Fender drive." That's totally true. Good point. I mean, there was—yeah, even, you know, the proto-Marshall, you know, uh, brown amps of the early 60s, kind of similar, right? You're right, but it's just easier to say like, you know, a Marshall-style circuit or a Fender-style circuit because Marshall really made it famous. I mean, Tweed's cool; a lot of people used them; more people played Marshalls, so I think that's why people go there because Marshall took with it, and it took it and ran with it. Fender kind of quit doing it like after, you know, you know, we're talking about a six or seven, eight-year period, I guess, where Fender was kind of making amps that could be compared, you know, whereas we're talking about a history of Marshall of the last 50 years or whatever of, you know, the super lead style circuit, the JCM800 style circuit, everything that's kind of all they ever did. I mean, they didn't have a hell of a lot of success, uh, going the other way doing the Fender thing, you know, except with the Club and Country, which was never really a success. Alex Lifeson used it to great effect, but, uh, you know what I mean? Some of these things are generalizations, but you're not wrong.

I just got a VP4 hoping to put on my board for all my mods, delays, and reverbs. Yeah, I think you will be happy. You know, it—it seems really great. I'm going to get more into it and keep using it. I—I—I really do like it though, and like I say, the first video it'll show up in is this, uh, video for the, uh, um, Reload 2. Yeah, I mean, there's a part of me that thinks that I should just design a new board or something and start like, you know, I—I love doing pedal boards; they're fun. So it's like maybe it's time to do a new one where it's like, okay, what's the latest and greatest as far as switching and the VP4 and like pedals and how do I make this easier? Because the one thing is when I—with my board the way it is now, love it, the tones are great; I mean, I'm really happy with the sounds and the—the everything I'm able to get out of it. Man, does it take me a long time to program. Whoa, like it's like it's a—every time I get into doing a—a set of music, it's extensive, the programming and the—it's like, you know, really gnarly. And when I'm doing stuff on something like the Quad or, you know, now I see the VP4 using it just a little bit, I can work so fast. I can get like—it's like four times as fast I can get sounds together and do things and route things and make things happen, um, you know. I've done whole shows, um, a few times even with an amp using just the Quad in 4 cable method. It works really good, and it's so fast. You know, really good. I still love the sounds I get out of my pedal board more, you know, like in—in at the end, but boy, it's a tedious process. I've—I've just got to have the editor for the Musicom Lab switcher hooked up via a cable; I've got to have to the computer; I've got to have the, uh, uh, H90 editor hooked up to from the computer to the pedal board via another USB cable, and then, you know, I need to tell the switcher everything. I guess you got to do that no matter what, but I got to tell the switcher what to do, you know, for every single pedal and every single thing: this MIDI message for this pedal and this for this and this for this, okay? Like, and then you do it all, and then maybe you made a mistake, and you got to go back and fix something. And the problem is right now with the Musicom Lab editor, as much as I love the switcher and stuff, that just doesn't talk in real time. So you know how most, uh, like your VP4 editor or your, um, Quad Cortex editor or whatever, you know, um, they—they communicate in real time. You make a change on the unit; you make a change on the editor, and it reflects on the unit. That takes some programming, um, like, uh, like on the software, the developers write a lot of stuff doesn't do that. So like this—the editor for the Musicom Lab doesn't update like that. When you make a bunch of changes in a preset in the editor on the computer, you then have to send them to the unit, and then the unit reboots, and you have to do that every time. So you—you can't make a change, and then it like just starts working like right on the—on the floorboard. And that process is—it's—it's a wonderful unit; I love it; it's super reliable; it's been a great switcher and everything, but that process takes a long time, really long time. You know, if everything's in one, which is what—if you're using something 4-cable, a Helix or an Axe-Fx in 4-cable or whatever, and you've got one editor up and it's doing all the MIDI and all the switching of like your amp head, uh, and you're programming everything in the one thing and you're naming everything in the one thing and all that, it's just streamlines the process, you know. And you start asking yourself like, would my life, you know, like, would the sounds be any—like, how much different are they if I have all these individual components all talking to one another? I'll make a—I'll make a—I'll make a, um, weird analogy, but it's like, uh, and we won't get into talking about this because it's not something we should talk about on the show, but the health care system in the United States. If you have a—you know, it's—this is my experience anyway—if you got health insurance that's just like whatever, Aetna or like, you know, Blue Cross or something, then you want to go to like a UCLA doctor, but you like this specialist over here for something, and then you want to, you know, uh, see, you know, this person over here for this and stuff, you know how it is if anybody out there is in the states trying to get all those—oh, I got to get this test result from my doctor or a requisition from this person; they need to send it over here for this lab that's not affiliated with them to get—oh, they need to, you know, fax it—fax—like what's that?—they need to whatever to us, you know what I mean, uh, in order to—and so you're trying to get all these different entities to talk to one another and make something happen, and it's like a nightmare; it's like a nightmare. I will say that if you are with something like Kaiser where it's like one organization and everything's integrated in one, you know, you get a test done here, here, here, and you open up the app or on the computer and you look at it; there's your test stuff from the last 10 years or whatever, right? And you know—oh, you—I need to request a refill of a prescription because they's in the same, you know what I mean? There is—there's something to that where everything's inside one organization and everything works. I don't know why I thought of that, but it's—it's a silly analogy maybe, but you know what I'm talking about—that where everything's communicating with one another and it's all in one place. So that's—that's the big advantage I think to, um, something like using an Axe-Fx 4-cable for all your effects and stuff while you're using an amp. There's a reason a guy like Steve Vai does it, you know; that's what he's doing—Axe-Fx for all his post effects and everything and, uh, and it's, you know, doing the—the MIDI and stuff like that. So it's changing the Synergy stuff and, uh, you know, you can have everything within an editor and get everything to communicate, and it sounds great. So a lot to like about that. Yeah, uh, I says, "Yeah, this is a good point too because I'm not even using it for this, but the drives are great." Yeah, yeah. Traditionally, I think, you know, the, uh, Axe-Fx, the drives for, you know, a long time been really, really good. Excuse me, I burped. Oh god, sorry about that. 293 people online; you're all hearing me burp. Uh, let's see. All right, let's move on. There's a super chat I got to grab. There. Looking for a pedal that isn't always popular: a ring modulator. Yeah, they're kind of super niche, right? Have you or any others had experience with the Red Panda Radius? I know Red—Red Panda, but I haven't. Yeah, ring modulator. It's almost got—it's like the cousin of, you know, octave fuzz or something, but it's a little less, you know, it's—it's a little more atonal, I think, and that's the reason why it's a—it's a really cool effect, but, you know, it's a super niche because it just does that thing where it's kind of—doesn't really make musical intervals a lot of the time, so I think that's why. But I don't really know. I—that—so maybe you're making the point you've heard it's more musical; maybe it's a little less—it's a little more octafuzz sounding and a little less, um, atonal. I don't know it though, but good luck with it; hope it works out. Okay. Let's see, uh, Jim says that there's a—VeilTone and Hotone have a firmware update for the NAM player and coming soon for Sonic Cake Matra Box. That's all above my head, but I think what you're talking about is that open-source amp modeling stuff, um, that's supposed to be really great that I haven't tried yet. Amp—AMP capturing, right? Am I right? And maybe that's what Hotone is kind of embracing. Uh, I was watching an older video—the Chandler TG2—nice unit. Think about getting either one of those or a Paul Wolff Sunset Sound Pre. Have you ever tried the Wolff? No, that's interesting. Is it—I didn't even know that existed. So is that like the preamps that are in the custom consoles in Studio 1 and 3? Tell me more; I want to know. Um, Chandler TG2 is great though. Have you ever had to wake up a speaker or speaker cab after it was in storage? Well, if it sounds funny, it might be, you know, maybe moisture got to it or something; you never know, um, right. I mean, speakers are kind of weird; they're—you know, it's paper; it's like when you think about it, it's so fragile in a way, and it can just get weird over time. So could be a thing, you know. Uh, every time Leon Todd plays a '79—I don't want to buy a set of Sir Landau pickups—so those are the V63s; that's what they call a V63 now. You can get those and pop them in your guitar and sound just like Leon Todd. You got me hooked on P90s again. I'm always bouncing back and forth between P90s and a good humbucker. It's a great sound, man. A P90 is, uh, you know, a lot of times I think it's the right choice. Yeah. Uh, when pairing a V30 with a Greenback in a 212, does the sensitivity difference matter? It's kind of—but it just depends. You're going to hear the V30 more prominently for sure; it's about 2 dB different—one or two, right?—the sensitivity, and the V30 definitely dominates a little bit. But if it's a horizontal cabinet, then it's more of a thing. If it's a vertical, put the Greenback in the top and the V30 closer to the floor like I do in my Signature 412s, um, you probably have a better—better result, um, but you know, it's—if you're mixing them anyway, like, who cares? I don't know. You gotta—gotta try it and see if it bothers you, but you—it's definitely a thing. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mike says, "Cheers from Greece. What's up? I'll see you over there in a while." Hopefully, being in Athens—come on out to the show. Just saw the promo with you, and if I missed it, I apologize. So what's the story with you playing with Satchel Vai? Is it a tour? Uh, yeah, we're—going on tour, um, in uh, June. We start in the UK, and uh, it's a blast; love it; having a great time; it's a—it's a neat challenge, and I also feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be. It's really cool, like playing the music that I grew up, you know, loving and new songs as well that are really good, uh, and, um, it's just like I—I don't know, man. I still can't believe I'm doing it, to be honest. It's—you know, that—it's just a—I try not to let it be lost on me that it's—it's such a great opportunity, and, um, just having a terrific time. So, uh, what are the little things people don't notice about Joe and Steve's playing? Joe is very, very tuned in to dynamics, especially on the guitar, you know, um, at least with the kind of the way he's working now. I would say like it's kind of, you know, he's really sensit—like he's like the volume on my guitar for this part has to be at three, not two and a half and not three and a half, right here. It's part of why he uses speed knobs on his guitars a lot, um, so he can see the numbers and have a visual reference. It's really clear; he's very, very tuned into that kind of stuff. Um, I would say that Steve is—is he has incredible ears and is very—everything is noticed and—and, uh, there for a reason, you know, like the—so like little things rhythmically, you know, he wants that—it—that way, like, and so that's something that I've learned, like little—like he—there's—there's details where, you know, you could think that it's improv or something, but it's not. It's like, you know, I mean, there's probably a lot there that is too, but there's little details of—he wants things very—so he's very—everything's happening for a reason, like within the composition and everything. So when a note's ringing or, um, you know, like—like for example, you know, if I was to play—because this happened a couple times in rehearsal—if I was to play like a partial voicing of something, but he really wanted—there's supposed to be one more string on that or something, he'd know—he go, yeah, just let that—like, you know, I mean, I'd really—he—he—I really got nice props about the—the amount of preparation I'd done and the amount of work I'd put into the parts and stuff, which was so nice—she was, you know, I really—nice compliment about that and, um, being really prepared and learning things, but there's—there's only so much you can—you know—so close you can get, I think, and then there's always going to be things where with somebody like that they're going to say, "Oh, this is actually supposed to be like da da da," you know, and, um, he's very—you know, it's—it's all his music; he's put a lot of time and—and thought into it. And also just the amount of time that he invests into, um, things is very inspiring, like, uh, you know, for example, like—like the vision of something like the—the—the—the Teeth of the Hydra piece that he plays on the Hydra guitar, right? Can you imagine like the amount of time that he had to put in in order to perform that and like, first of all, just having it built and the—the vision of—oh, I want—here's where I want, and, you know, the fan of the necks, you know, how far they fan out and like exactly where everything is and how, you know, what I mean? Like, just this crazy idea of like, you know, doing this thing and then writing the music and, um, always, you know, sort of pushing it forward, not doing the same thing again. He's—and then just the amount of time—now this thing's constructed and stuff and it's working the way he wants to—now he sort of has to learn how to play it like the way that he's envisioning in his head. It was an idea in his head brought to, um, fruition, you know, and—and, uh, so it's, you know, yeah, if you—you know, it didn't—he didn't just pick it up and play it, you know. It was like he—you know, he just will work on things for months, I think, practicing every day to get to the point where he can do it, you know, still like, you know, like pretty—very inspiring. It's like, you know, I think for him, moving forward is like his drive. Like, if—if he were to stay stagnant or in one place, that would be not something that would even occur to him; he has to keep pushing. So, um, and what about else about playing? I don't know. I mean, there's two things, you know, just how, um, yeah, how tuned in those guys are to—to what they're doing. I mean, both of them are like that, you know; Joe's like that too—so tuned in to like, you know—I—I really enjoyed Joe's, um, one thing that he does is his ability to move around the neck in a way that, um, kind of utilizing open strings and stuff, and I've gotten very inspired by that, um, you know. I'm—I'm learning things already like because it's such a valuable opportunity to learn, but just watching and going like, "Oh, that's so cool how he's like utilizing the open E and B strings and stuff to ascend or descend down the neck while he's playing other stuff and incorporating all those notes and stuff." And it's like that's a—it's—maybe that doesn't sound revolutionary to some of you, you know, or it's—and it's not like it's revolutionary to me, but you forget things sometimes, you know, that it's like, "Oh, that's a great way to do that." And—and it sounds really cool too, you know. So I was watching him do that, trying to pick that up on that every day in rehearsal, like that's such a neat technique he's got there for moving around—kind of—kind of really cool. Uh, let's see. Wes says, "Been listening to Lucer lately, and his delay setup is really interesting; he runs multiple delays—analog mono into a digital stereo." Yeah, I mean, Steve was kind of one of the first guys to do the circular thing, I think, you know, or utilize that Lexicon thing, um, you know, where you've sort of got multitap like delays that sound like they're kind of going in a big circle through the stereo spectrum and stuff, and it's almost, you know, crossing the line between, um, reverb and delay because it starts doing this sort of wash that, you know, isn't a reverb, but, you know, starts to have some similarities to it. So I love stuff like that; I love circular delay. I've been using it on my, uh, clinic tour, uh, or, you know, dates that I've been doing. I don't—if I could call it a full tour, but I've done a bunch of clinics, uh, over the last little while, and circular delay was something that I incorporated in that. So, um, I guess I have done that. Yeah, uh, it was all about guitar sounds and how to, um, you know, be inspired by tone and stuff, and then, uh, some of, you know, I had all these kind of very different and unique guitar sounds that I would incorporate into a piece of music or two pieces of music actually—three, sorry. Uh, how many? Six pieces of music that I played in the clinic. I got to get back into doing it too; I got to put more of those—I'm going to forget what I was doing because I—I—I like doing the clinics. Uh, okay. Hey, what else? What else? Um, do you tour with a small rack to house your wireless and power—regular conditioner? Yeah, um, it's a FourSpace; it's not exactly small; it's—it's way over heavy-duty—kind of like 2-inch foam; it's—it's too much kind of for what it is, but it's the rack I—

Had so, um, you know, this would be a four-space as well, that's sitting right here and would probably work just fine. It's just not a shock rack, and it's a—the one that I have on the road is really deep and big, but it's got my Axiient wireless in it, it's got a power conditioner, and uh, and it also has had different other things filling the other two spaces: either a power amp—that's what's in it now—a matrix power amp, which I'm not using kind of with Classic Rock Show, but I did use it recently for Classic Rock Show, um, for a one-off, uh, to power the the quad Cortex. I flew out and did a fly date in the Caribbean and used my quad Cortex on that gig, and I powered a rented Marshall cabinet with the quad, um, and the matrix power amp. Uh, I've also had the the Waza, um, tube amp expander in there as of late. You know, a couple years ago I was using that on the road, um, load down the SL68 there, and uh, so yeah, but technically I could probably trim that rack to two spaces, you know, at this point.

Um, let's see, will I get a good price at Norm's Rare Guitars? Yeah, I mean, uh, you could go in and, you know, do a deal. Just don't know what, you know, things should cost and stuff, and then I'm sure they'll be fair. They've been around forever.

What's my opinion on new speakers for 70s Fender Twin and Super Reverb? Um, H Super—I'm not—I'm such a Celestion guy, you know, in the Super because of that, I would go Alnico Golds because I love those, and they they just sound really good in a 410 I think. Um, and then in the Twin, I mean, you know, you could look at various stuff from Eminence and Warehouse and and uh, and Jensen, you know, see what it would be close to it, you know, an original, what would have come in it, probably a, you know, JBL D120 or something. There's no real recreation of that now. Um, if you want to make it really heavy, you could put two EVs in it; it probably sound great. Um, but if you want a nice-sounding speaker that'll just work well, I think, uh, in the Twin you could go for the Celestion A type, which was kind of supposed to be their American-style speaker I think, you know, and they're they're about a 50-watt power handling. You put two of those in there, they should be just fine, and um, I like that speaker a lot, just a good-sounding speaker to me, so give that a go maybe. Yeah, I'm kind of like, you know, I'm like Michelando in that respect; he'll just put, you know, V30s and Deluxe Reverbs and things, just go with it, go with this selection.

Yeah, uh, what vintage guitar pedals do you use, if any? Uh, it's a great question. What would be considered vintage that I have? I have an old Phase 90 that's ended up on multiple different pedal boards, like a 70s one, and it sounds great. It does the thing. What else have I got that—oh man, that might be it. I mean, I I don't really have—there's so many great new ones, you know. I feel like I have an old Memory Man, but I don't use it. Um, vintage—I don't even use like old clones or Tube Screamers or anything. I I use all new stuff, so there's so much good new stuff. So yeah, not not a hell of a lot. I don't I don't have an old Range Master or anything. I've got a no-longer-made 65 Treble Booster that's probably over 10 years old at this point. It's not vintage though, but it's my—it's kind of my favorite—the Color Boost from uh, 65, great-sounding treble booster.

I bought a Fender bridge with a 2 and 1/16 string spacing; the quality is not good, made in Taiwan. It fits the Gibson humbucker spacing, but not the Strat single-coil spacing. Hm, weird. Um, any bridge suggestions? Yeah, I mean, get the SU—the new SU is exceptional. I mean, it stays in tune like amazing. So not sure that it's available—not sure—not sir that it's available—I'm not sure, sorry, uh, yet for aftermarket, but it's great. It's really great. Yeah, uh, we'd be doing a proper review of the SL15 if they want me to, you know, um, I—yeah, I mean, I'd love to. I was the one that actually suggested, but you know, when they were coming out with it, I'm like, "Get me that amp for a couple days so you at least have something on the day of, you know, at the damn show." And they were like, "Okay." So they got it to me, and then I just did that quick clip that you saw. Um, but you know, at the end of the day, man, it it sounds like what you heard in my clip. I I played a few different tones; um, it's it's an SL, it sounds like the bigger ones, basically. John did a really nice job of making it, you know, it's a Plexi. I mean, it it sounds like a Plexi with a nice post-phase inverter master that you can use it at just about any volume, so there's not much more to show, I would say, to be honest. I mean, it's sort of like you heard it in the video that I did, I think, um, you know, what to expect, I would say, out of that video, so I—it might be kind of redundant, just sort of my opinion. Uh, uh, I just didn't have time to do a full video when I did it, 'cause I was leaving on tour and stuff, and um, you know, that was what I was able to put the time into is I just had like a few hours, and so that's what I knocked out, and there you go.

Is it possible to get a poor man's power station using a regular Torpedo Captor with the line out into a power amp to control the volume? Sure, yeah, you can totally do that. You know, even a—um, yeah, Torpedo Captor, an old original, sir, reactive load, you know, I have—well, it's outside hallway, but you know, the original one with the line-out box, you could use that, um, a lot of different ways you could go, you know, and then go into something like a Seymour Duncan Power Stage or something, and that's what you've got. Then it's a little re-amp setup. Pete Thornne—I think Vincent was thinking of that—pedal shoulders version of wet/dry, which is a two-amp setup, splitting the signal pre-wet effects, pre-wet splitting a signal pre-wet effects, and then sending each separate signal to its new own amp. You can do that. Um, yeah, I mean, they're going to be guys they're using pedals in front, probably for drive then and running, you know, effects on one side and doing—I mean, I I live in a little bit more of that distorted-amp land, I think maybe, where, you know, I'm tending to split after the preamp of something or even after the entire amp because I like that sound, you know, but those guys they do a lot of stuff with drive pedals and distortion pedals and stuff, and just a different way to do it, you know. Um, I I'll just say, I mean, I prefer the the the the best way I think is after the the preamp at least, you know, for adding the, you know, because I'm running distortion and stuff, so it just works better for me. But if you were to do it on a pedal board like post-drive and delays and stuff, and then yeah, running into clean amps, you could you could do that too. It's just different ways to do it; no right or wrong way, you know.

Um, I'm probably really far back in the chat right, so let's see—127—yeah, I'm about a half hour back, so I'm going to move down a little bit, uh, and uh, just kind of move quickly through here a little bit, and I'll grab that super chat that uh, I've got to get to. I use two amps always on through radio. Can I achieve the same split with an HX Stomp if the amps have ground lifts? I mean, yeah, yeah, basically, sure. Yeah, yeah, you just got to lift the second amp. You're not going to be—you know, it's going to be buffering and everything going through the uh, the the HX Stomp, and you won't—yeah, essentially be the same sound. It should be anyway.

Have your PT-15 and love it, says Carl. Thank you for the super chat, Carl. Appreciate that. The V1 tube went bad once, and I put a 12AX7 while uh, new Electro-Harmonix tube arrived. Made the amp sound a bit more compressed. Have you ever tried this? Will it hurt the amp? Um, well, V1 is a 12AX7, so it won't hurt anything. I mean, you can use a 12AU7, you can use a 12AY7, an AT7, a 50—what's it called—a 5751 or whatever—the the lower-gain 12AX7, you can use all that stuff. It won't hurt the amp as long as it's just a good-quality tube, and you know, you you can get different sounds for sure. You you say it made the amp sound more compressed. Um, what what kind of tube did you put in? That sounds like maybe the sort of effect of a JJ ECC83, that sounds a little darker most of the time to me.

Yeah, uh, Lauren says, uh, with regards to my my health care uh comparison to a modeler for all your effects, which is a silly comparison, but I guess it I guess it sort of applies, that's why argaiis are not as great and can be but not nearly as bad as it can be. Yeah, I know what you're saying exactly. At the end of the day, you know, it's the best out of a bunch of not-great choices, I think, in many ways, at least if you're healthy. Yeah, you're not wrong about the healthcare here's jacked up. Yeah, it's just like for those in other countries, I don't know what they go through, but it's like the the get—just getting—but forget about the costs and all that, just getting different people to talk to one another here, you know. You need to get a test done over here; you need to get a referral for, and you're going to go see a specialist, and you got to get the referral from your general practitioner or whatever to go—those three—getting all those three entities to talk to one another if they're not part of the same organization is really not fun, you know, and then you're getting bills from all over the place, and like, that's hard to keep track of, and etc., etc., etc. So, uh, yeah, Mark says, "Don't get me started on healthcare." Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's a it's a joke. It's a joke. Anyways, uh, Digitech Hyperphase is a pedal that I really dig, but it's not popular, not your typical phaser. That's cool. Another great one is from the Phaser from Seymour Duncan. I made a phaser a little while ago that does like 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12-stage phasing on the switch and stuff, and it's the closest pedal—if you put that on the four-stage mode, it sounds exactly like my old vintage Phase 90, like really, really good. Um, and plus it does all that other stuff, so it's really good. So look at that one too. But uh, yeah, some sleepers out there that, you know, just haven't been super popular. Yeah, uh-huh. Okay, what else we got here? Let's see—rats ate the sneaker or the speaker paper, says my knees hurt; could be in a garage, you never know. Yeah, yeah.

See here, there's Ryan. Hey, man, what's up? Yeah, we haven't seen you for a while. Nice to see you again. Sorry I missed a lot of shows, taking care of mother, and that's uh, what's on my honeydew list. Hey, man, you got to you got to put that number one. I—we get it, but nice to see you. Yeah, okay, what else we got? Let's see—moving down, moving down. Just inherited '83 Gibson Futura. I remember those. Uh, yeah, I remember those—those Gibsons—the Corvus, that was the other one—the big brother of the Corvus. Needs new pickups. What for a 24.75 Gibson to compliment a ser PTHh—excuse me—so it's two humbuckers. Um, I don't know. I mean, you know, you might want to do something different, like a—if you've got a PTH with the kind of my more sort of vintagey pickups, maybe you want to do something a little hotter in that one or something. Have some fun, like the classic, you know, JB/59 combo or something for a hot bridge pickup or or even um, you know, if you want sir—I mean, I I quite enjoy these days my um HSS plus or SSH plus—is actually how you say it—single-screw hot plus—that's a fun one. So you could get one of those and then a a Thornbucker neck or S uh or an SSV neck vintage neck for sir pickup or, you know, you try something else by like a, you know, set of Bare Knuckle or something or uh, but yeah, I mean, that guitar is kind of a hot rod, you know, it's—they're kind of crazy. Is it silver? Remember they—most of them were silver, right? Or maybe it's black. It's kind of fun. Um, maybe you want to go full metal with it and go like, you know, Super Distortion or something, you know, uh, or something inspired by that. Yeah, I love my pickups, you know, obviously the other small pickup manufacturer I give—always give props to—there's some great ones out there, but Rewind is great, as well as um, uh, Pariah. I love those—all their Van Halen pickups are so fun. So look at some of those. Uh-huh. All right, let's see—first time using PT-15 IR at a front of house on Friday. The guy running the board said the signal was too hot. Sounds like he was running into a microphone input. Yes, it's just a gain adjustment on the board. He—he must have taken a TRS to—did he—so here's—I'm going to guess this is my educated guess—he ran the line output on the back of your amp into a DI and then ran the DI into the snake on the stage, and then at the desk he was running into the mic input, and he was expecting to see -30. It's a line output, so you don't need to do that. I mean, you can literally take the—you can take—if you know, a lot of stage boxes will have some quarter-inch as well as some XLR—but long story short, you should have been running into the line input on the board, not into a—you know, some people will transform things when they don't need to, like take a line output and then they run into a DI, which isn't what it—you know, probably took the line out, ran it into the quarter-inch input on a DI, so you're taking an already low-impedance signal going into a high-impedance input, changing it into a a low-impedance input that he's sending to the desk and plugging into a mic input that wants to see -30. That's the only explanation because it's going to show up about -15 or -12. Um, so that's why he said it was too hot because that's—that's exactly what happened. I know, tell me I'm wrong. It's just getting to know your ins and outs. It's a—you know, you need to tell them like this is like a keyboard—pretend it's a keyboard—that level, you know, what would you do if somebody showed up with a Nord or whatever and ran it to your desk? Treat it like that. Yep.

Let me know what uh, what you think about that if I'm correct. Ben Tom says, "Luke uses the PCM70 circular delay setting." Yeah, it's a great sound. It's kind of like a stereo delay with one more tap up the middle, which is why if you say he uses an analog or mono delay, like you can run a mono delay up the middle and then have a stereo delay going, and one will feed into the other, and then it'll start to go around and do, you know, because that—if if the mono delay is first and then it feeds the other ones, then it'll start to, you know, bang bang bang, dang dang dang dang all over the place. Uh, what's the best way to record an amp with just your iPhone mic? You know, the new iPhones are kind of amazing when it comes to to that kind of stuff, uh, because they got these great microphones in them that are—you know—but yeah, the best way to avoid that is to use something like the Shure—I think it's called the VP88 or something like that maybe. Um, let me see here. Um, you're going to love this idea. Yeah, it says the V—MV88 video kit—they're 249 on the internet uh, about now. That little microphone is a little stereo jobby. Oh, there's some other ones here too; there's lav ones you can get and stuff, so I'm just looking here, but um, they make a few now, but the the one I have that works great is the MV88, and so it's just a little microphone, comes with a um tripod if you buy the little kit and stuff. You plug it into your iPhone, and uh, it it's got its own app, and you can set the level. It's got like a—it's got like a little gain adjustment and stuff, and it'll it'll allow you to record with the iPhone, get a killer sound, you know, great representation of what the amp sounds like, you know, with the mic in front of it or even in the room or whatever you want. It's just a very, very good high-quality microphone that has an integrated app that allows you to adjust level, and and it shows you meters right on the screen and stuff. It's it's really nice, so go that way for more control and better results. Uh, yeah, okay, what else? What else? What else? Uh, you're saying the weird thing is—I think this is you saying—"Yeah, the weird thing is in a full band it sounds fine." Well, the reason is because in the full band the limiter's kicked in, and it's lowered everything, so now you've got this lower level, and everything sounds balanced, but with your guitar you probably hear it more obviously, like, and kick in and drop the level of the, you know, so it's going to have a a release time on it, and when you start playing like with a full band, it's going to drop the whole level; it's going to hold it there because there's a steady, you know, 97 or 102 or whatever you guys play at your practice space, you know, the whole band playing, or if you know you're going to see a show, that level doesn't stop, I mean, for the whole song, and then it's keeping that limiter on and keeping it it at a lower level, so it just kind of automatically adjusts. If there was a way to adjust the input gain on an iPhone, you know, you could do this with the mics on the iPhone, but there's not—that's the thing—it's just an auto thing that happens. It would be nice if there was a way to switch it into some sort of manual mode. There is new amazing stuff on the iPhone—like I don't know if you guys have seen, but on the 16s they've done amazing things with the mics—there's a a Michael Blue thing where he sings—like there's a a way now to basically um remove all the background noise and everything from the mic signal on the iPhone. So if you take the recorder and you sing into it and there's room ambience and stuff, you can now eliminate that with stuff on the phone, and and in addition to that, like if you've got a—so there's a Michael—about Michael—there's a a single that he did when the iPhone was released as kind of promo for it where the track he had on his phone playing and he sang into the phone like this far away, and they put it out as a single; that's the take is him singing into the phone. So what you got to do is you got to go in and remove the music using their app, and it leaves the vocal completely—like no artifacts—it sounds perfect. It's wild. It's like really interesting. Um, so I could—I wish there was a way I could show you this right now, but there's videos of this online that you can go check out, but there's a—there's a—you know, you can go in and basically record voiceover on your iPhone—any kind of extra stuff, you can remove it. It's it's really cool. The mics are ve—very, very high quality, so they're getting there. I mean, it's—they've made amazing Strats, you know, and iPhones. You're hearing me talk right now through the display mic on my new Apple display. I bought one of these, you know, 6 months ago or whatever, and I I quit using—for at least for the time being—my SM7B and stuff just because it's a pain in the ass to use sometimes for the streaming with the streaming software and um and my, you know, my interface and all that, and I was, you know, I was run into trouble and issues and stuff, and I was like, does anybody care? Like, not one person has said like your voice doesn't sound as good as it used to, you know. So this is just the the the mic that's in the in the Apple Studio Display because they've come that far where they're really—they know everybody's doing this stuff—everybody's on Zoom and doing live streaming, doing, you know, that stuff, and they put—they put time and thought and effort into, you know, the the mics on these things, and I think it sounds probably fine, right? I don't know. Somebody give me a little feedback on it actually. If you notice if it sounds any different than than the old one, nobody said anything. I started doing it about a month ago or so, something like that maybe. Yeah, ever since I got back from my trip, I haven't been using the the the other system for my voice. Uh, okay, what else we got here? Let's see—just see—oh, super chat, sorry I missed this one. Son of Power says he picked up that 6A78 cab. Want to mix and match speakers? Any recommendations on wire or for vintage Marshall cabs? I don't know gauge, I mean, you know, in in the cab, um, it's really short run, so it's not super important, but I would ask an amp tech, somebody like Dave—you know, ask Friedman what he would use. They don't generally go crazy with thick-gauge wire and, you know, but the—my circ cabs have really nice, you know, beefy—I mean, I'm sure probably 16-gauge or 14-gauge or something's fine. I think my—my long-ass speaker cables that are like 80 ft long that run from in here all the way into my other room are 13-gauge, kind of a weird gauge of uh, of cable, but like I think like a standard—let me see what I got here—this kind of long cable that I have going to this one amp right here, I think this is 16-gauge, I'm pretty sure, which is just thicker than what you're going to find in just about any Marshall cabinet. I think—I think that's what this is—pretty sure. Yeah. Oh, now I got it, 'cause now I can't get it plugged back in very easily. Oh, this room of mine, you guys—it's bonkers. Am I going to get back from this side? How can I do this? Let's see—let's see—we will plug that in right there. I don't want to not do this right now, 'cause then I'll forget, and then I'll have an explosion. Yeah, there we go. What—what the deal is is with my amp switcher—I have too many amps in here for my switcher. I've got eight that I can switch between, but I got more amps than that. So with my switcher, I've got uh, number six on my switcher is all of this stuff right here, so like the Top Hat or that little Friedman up there, the Jamino, the Synergy stuff, and for for these amps I'll just physically move the input cable—this is coming from the switcher—and the speaker cable from head to head to head depending on when I do it, then I just select on the switcher amp six over there, and it gets me to one of these. Everything else has got its own dedicated switch, so that's why—yeah, too many amps. Um, yeah, yeah. Did you know that Amanda has her new channel now called Good Stuff? That's cool. Amanda Kums has a channel, Good Stuff. Tell your friends. Let everyone know out there, folks. Arthur says, "I don't know enough about MIDI; I really need help." Dude, it's a—

It's just a learning curve. I don't know how else to, you know, it's a pain in the ass, but you essentially have, um, 16 MIDI channels that you can set devices to. So if you got your delay unit and your reverb and your modulation unit and they're all different, you can set them to channel one, channel two, and channel three, for instance. So that then out of another device, you can talk to those three units individually and tell them different things, right? So that's MIDI channels. And omni means it'll send on all channels and channel 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, all the way 1 to 16. That's like for sending to individual devices. So maybe you want one unit to go to program 53, and you want your reverb to go to program 7, and you want your modulation to go to program 2. That's why you set things to different MIDI channels, so you can tell all those things to go to different presets. A program change is that generally when you're going to change the preset on a unit, that's what a program change is. So you want it to go to program 7 or preset 7 or whatever on a certain unit, you're going to send it a program change.

A MIDI CC, or continuous controller, is when you want to send, within a preset, generally on a unit—this is generalizations here—but within a preset, let's say you want to change something, um, if it's a multi-effect unit that's on preset 53, and you want to disable one of the effects in the multi-effect—let's say it does like both delay and reverb in one unit—there's probably a way to send a MIDI CC to disable one or the other of those, like the delay or the reverb. You know, MIDI CCs do all kinds of things; they're they're a way to—that that's that the programmer takes into consideration when they design the unit. But like a MIDI CC on a Stryman pedal can do all kinds of things, like, um, enable bypass or, you know, turn on and off the bypass, right? You can send it a CC, and you can tell the unit to turn on and off, so that you're not actually like changing a preset; you're just turning on and off the unit, you know? So I'll do that all the time, you know, with with different things, like to, you know, if I if I want a unit to come up on a preset, but I don't necessarily want the effect to be on right away during a sound, I don't want to turn it on halfway through the song, but I don't want to change a whole preset to do that, I can do that like videos via a MIDI CC. Some things like the PT 100, for example, you can channel switch the PT 100 via MIDI program change or MIDI CC, you know, that there's there's, you know, some there's some crossover there, I guess.

So basically, you've got MIDI channels—this is the basics, because there's more than this; there's banks and things too that where it gets, and then I start getting confused—uh, originally back in the day with MIDI, it was like they didn't probably foresee that people were going to ever use more than 99 presets or 128 presets. Was that why they picked 120? I don't know, but they did, um, you know, so but then things started having way more, like 256 presets or however many, like Axe Fx and stuff. So then they needed to have a way, because the preset thing was limited to 128 with MIDI, um, I believe they needed to have a way to tell the unit to go to the next bank up above 128, so I think that's like MIDI banks or something they call it, right? So that's another set of numbers that they've got, you know, you're going to go up to the upper set of presets, and then you're going to go to preset blah blah blah, you know? So so there's that. But if we just consider the basic stuff, you basically got your MIDI channels that you got to talk to your different devices with; you got program changes, and that's to tell units to go to to whatever preset you want them to go to; and then you got MIDI continuous controller, CC messages, and that is to tell units to do all kinds of other stuff, like enable bypass or tap tempo or, um, you know, within a preset to change things. So that's it; that's my MIDI lesson. How boring was that? Oh, but that's okay; it's all right, Arthur. It's not your fault; everybody needs to know this stuff; everybody needs to know it.

Would you be able to recommend a good parallel mixer for stereo post effects that would work on a pedal board? Yes. So either the RJM, which has two sends and sets of stereo returns and not a lot else; just it's very basic, but it works really well; or the Parallelizer, which is a little bit more full-featured from, um, Musicom Lab, and that's what I'm using on my main board. It's got three sets of sends and returns, a dry through switches for all that stuff right on the top of the unit, which come in really handy, so I can turn off my effects like right from the mixer; I could just, you know, or I could shut off the dry path right from the mixer. Um, I've also, as of late, been using it to even turn off the dry path and use, say, my H90 as a serial effect processor. So so if there's something that I want to do that parallel doesn't really work for, um, you know, give me an example, you want to do a stereo split where you you've got your guitar on one side and then a delayed version of it on the other side, so you can get a wide effect; can't really do that if I'm running my parallel system, right? So I'll have my mono up the middle still, my dry signal, and then yeah, that wouldn't work. So you can do it if you shut off the dry path and then use an effect like the H90 to do one side dry, still running through the unit, but it's not delayed, and then the other side delayed. So things like that you can you can do with the something like the uh the Musicom Lab works really well; Parallelizer it's called; highly recommended.

Uh, Pete, do you have any Moryw pedals? You know, I never had a Mlyw pedal; I've never had a Mly pedal. They, of course, did the the Bad Horsey by Steve Vai, very popular for a long time, um, and they had other units in the kind of interesting their optical, you know, way of uh they they didn't use a cable and and stuff like that like other companies did, uh, but yeah, I've never owned one. I might have had—there might have been a time when I had a a one with a boost on it or something; I seem to remember a W that also had a switch that had a boost on it. Maybe I did have that, but it's going back so long that I can't really remember. Yeah, yeah. Uh, they've done exhaustive tests, says Benton, with heavier gauge wiring inside of cabinets, and it made no difference. If you're worried about safety reasons carrying the signal, you could go a little heavier. Yeah, a little heavier gauge you say, but you wouldn't worry about it. Yeah, I think you can just go with—it's such a short run that it's, you know, yeah. Um, and Tom says, "Also wouldn't worry much about the wiring as long as it's making a connection; working; the original 60s and 70s Marshall cabinets basically had lamp cord wiring." True story, and it works fine; true story. Uh, let's see what else we got; what else we got. If you can track down a scumbag M65, they're pretty cool; they make them 65-watt ratings, but it's more of a 25 back. Yeah, they're called—I think they're actually called—Are they called M65? Maybe they are. Yeah, they are M65; that's right; it's been so long since I've—The scumbag M65; Scumback you mean, right? I still have them in in a cabinet or two around here. Yeah. Uh, let's see, looking for a replacement Tune-o-matic uh bridge and tailpiece for my iPhone. Uh, any favorite replacement parts brands? I like the the um pigtail stuff, you know, um, they—this is that what it's called, pigtail? I think, or the—what's the one that's a locking? Is that pigtail, or maybe I'm thinking of um I'm thinking of Tone Pros. Pigtail is a different company; I'm not sure if that guy's active anymore. No, I don't think so, uh, but the the Tone Pros; good stuff; you can get at Stew-Mac; here's called the LP LPM04 two-pneumatic bridge and tailpiece set, and it'll lock to the posts with a little Allen screw; that's really nice. So uh, they make different ones, but yeah, look look no further than Tone Pros; I think that's a good choice.

Any recommendations for a multi-outlet solution? Two heads, PS100, two 18vt hardwired pedals, and a pedal power station? Thinking a brown box for the two heads and decent power strip for the rest. Uh, what are the heads, PS100? Uh, I use the Radial ones right now; I'm very—I love them; they're great. So the Power One from Radial; look at that, but I don't know if you need the brown box; I mean, only if you've got vintage heads, really. Yeah. Uh, two 18-volt hardwired pedals; yeah, you could just use the wall warts on something like the um the Power One; it's got three outlets on the front, a USB jack so that you can, you know, power like your phone or something from the front; charge your phone; that's very nice. So I got—got in my rack right here, and I believe—don't I have another one up? I think I got another one up there behind my—like I had two, and I used it a while ago 'cause my other one—I had one that broke—is now repaired that I'm using for something else, but anyway, I've got two of the Radial Power Ones, and they're terrific; highly recommended; I just love the jacks on the front, plus the USB is like extra bonus; it's great. There's probably like eight on the back and three on the front. Yeah, I think it's 11 total outlets. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I've got a Caravan amp, and sometimes when I turn it on, I get radio broadcast—you mean amp? Any thoughts what I could do about that? Probably just some weird grounding stuff; take it take it to a tech and see what's going on; weird ground. Uh, yeah, there's a super chat up there; I got to grab that in a second. Yeah, Black Lev says, "Many of those Duncan pedals are super cool." Yeah, they fly under the radar; it's good stuff. Uh, somebody else here recommending—Stephen says the Shape Shifter is his favorite tremolo from uh Duncan; they did a nice job on a lot of pedals; good stuff. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I did a video on the Polaron; that's what the phaser is called; great-sounding phaser. Yeah, yeah. Will there be a Sure video coming soon for the microphone? Um, I should do something for it, actually, and just compare it to a 57 basically, so you can hear the difference. It's really cool; I've been using it on my cab, and I I I love the clarity of it; it's just clear, and it doesn't sound as colored as a 57, which is—might sound like—I mean, the 57 color is sort of the whole point to use one, but I am enjoying the—I'm talking—we're talking about the—sorry, I didn't even say here—the the new Sure guitar amp microphone, which is really cool. Um, it's a dynamic, I think, kind of a bigger diaphragm, and and it's in a nice sort of ergonomic enclosure that lets you drip it down the front—drip it down the front of it—rip it—hang it down the front of an amp, and uh and it's just cool 'cause it's like you don't really need a stand. I'm using it on a stand; I'm using—actually using it on—which doesn't work that great, actually, but I'm using it on my Dynam, which allows me to move it, but because of the design of the—Nothing's perfect—because of the design of the mic and the way it is, it actually doesn't mount on the Dynamo that well, but you can't have it all, I guess, but it—I could still move it back and forth a little bit and to one side of the—I just can't go the other way because because of the design of the microphone, but I like the position I have it in now, anyway, so it doesn't matter; blah blah blah; I should do something for it. Yeah, yeah. I was using my Sure PT15 today, says Dan; great amp; I love it too. It always surprises me when I plug into it; I'm like, "Damn, does sound really great"—still sounds great. Uh, I thought uh thought about what you said about sentimental value—your first guitar—like a Jackson. I built a guitar in high school in '85, similar to an EVH Explorer style; still love it. That's awesome. Yeah, it takes you back to when you did it, right, when you were a kid. Got some super chats up there; I'll grab those right away.

First thing I do if I got a signal that I thought was too hot would be to find a signal path I could use to match that signal. Yeah, that's a good way to put it—like, why is it too hot? Shouldn't be, you know, like, why is it—oh, maybe I'm going into a mic input, and that's why, for sure. Yeah, yeah. It's not on you to back down your—Yeah, there's no adjustment on the PT per se other than the knobs on the front and stuff like that. It might be cool to have a, you know, it just be more electronics though and more stuff to add, but we we didn't put a another level or whatever for that—the the line out—um, but I generally find that when I've got the amp set in a comfortable range, you know, when I'm using it with the masters and stuff that it's going to show up anywhere from minus 5 or t to minus 12 or something like that out of the line output. You know, if I plug it in right into line input of my interface, it'll be just right. If I plug it into a microphone input, it's definitely going to be hot, and I'd have to pat it, and at that point you're doing a bunch of dumb stuff because it's like you don't want to, you know, if you just come in at the right level—which mixers are designed to do, right?—they've got the, you know, line inputs are plus 4—a line input on a mixer, which is going to be—some some mixers will have a quarter-inch input for an instrument; that's pretty rare; that's like, you know, definitely semi-pro stuff or like, you know, little mixers that you're designed to plug a, you know, an instrument right. It's generally the quarter-inch input on a mixer is going to be minus 10 to plus 4, depending on the mixer; the mic though is going to want to see minus 30 because it—it's got—every mixer has like a, you know, gain on it; it's got some sort of mic preamp built in to boost up the level of something like a 58 or whatever, so those are generally minus 30, you know, so it's really low level. Um, yeah, that's why you need that gain on the channel and stuff to boost up microphones, but you plug into the line in; they're already hot low-impedance signals um and at, you know, some sort of approximation of line level usually, and that's what the output of the PT15 is; it's not super hot; it's not like it's coming in plus 4; you probably see it at about minus 12 if you're plugging into a a line-level input. Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay, described a 2016 Fender American Elite HSS, great condition for a very good price; think of swapping the Shawbucker for a Thornbucker, but which one? Um, I mean, probably across the board the Thornbucker Plus is the, you know, surefire bet; that's what goes in the bridge on my my HH model. Um, you can't go wrong with that one; it's just a nice Alnico 4, 8.7K, PAF-ish friendly thing that goes with single coils great and is really fun. Yeah. Uh, okay, what else we got here? Uh, yeah, uh, here's a somebody that uses that MV88; excellent for bedroom live recording; that's that Sure microphone I was recommending for iPhone; good stuff. Yeah. Um, have you checked out the Seymour Duncan pickup booster? I haven't. Um, seems like kind of like a, you know, a clean booster sort of that you can voice, you know, to to get some more gain. I don't—What is it—got tone on it that allows you to kind of boost different frequencies, or is it just clean gain? Just not sure—a way to buffer and alter the sound of your pickups. Uh, have you been using the TC Mimic with Satfi? No, although I thought about trying some different stuff over the next few weeks here, um, because I do want to do some stereo-split kind of stuff, so um I thought about trying the Mimic as well as some other things just to make sure that I'm doing the best way, so I'm going to try some things; going to experiment a little bit. Yeah. Uh, let's see; sounds crystal clear; this is the audio on my microphone; crystal clear. Good; it sounds—your mic sounds good. Yeah, I think, you know, just fine, you know; the room treatment helps more than the mic itself. Well, you know, I I think though that they have really come a long way with the mics in the—like to the point where they've got Michael Bublé cutting vocals using the the internal mics on Apple products, so it's it's—they're pretty impressive. So uh and Ebar says, "Yes, same; built-in stuff is much easier to use; the webcam I bought had no mic, so I use the SM7, but it's a pain." Yeah, I mean, I literally have—It's great; I mean, I've got my SM7 plugged into a Cloudlifter plugged into a mic pre plugged into a compressor plugged into the input of my UA interface into a Manley Voxbox to add a little uh more compression, a little more gain, and I'm doing all this stuff, and it's like I was like, "This is complicated," because it's just UA and streaming sometimes is difficult trying to get it to talk to one another—UA console and whole setup—and I was like, "I think I'm making this more difficult than I need to," and I just started doing this instead, and not one person has said anything, which tells me like, you know, we do this with our guitar rigs too; it's an important thing to remember; it's like sometimes you're going through all this trouble, and it's like, "Man, at the end of the day, if the audience isn't noticing something at all—like if not one person is noticing, you know, whether you've bring like all this stuff or maybe a simpler rig—and this stuff everybody's like, 'Yeah, you sound like you always sound; you sound great.'" Or whatever, you know, it's like what's the—like am I just doing this to make myself crazy? So yeah.

Thoughts on KT66 power tubes? The original JTM45, sort of a British 6L6 that's got its own character. Um, probably sort of more trouble than they're worth these days, uh, you know, it's hard to find; I'm I'm not even sure who's still, you know, who makes a KT6 KT66 anymore other than in China—KT66 power tube—um, so you can still get a bunch of Mike Matthews, kind of, you know, I guess JJ's got one; there's a fair amount of them; looks like, but they're not inexpensive; looks like the JJ's at Tube Depot are 55 bucks each; Gen X ones, Mike Matthews are 67; 47 from Stew-Mac; that's a Tube Amp Doctor; that's probably a PSVein or Sugang or something made. Um, the Tube Store—let's see—they sell a Shuang, a JJ, and the Gold Lion, so that's a Mike Matthews, a, you know, soft tech basically, uh, JJ and a Shuang, and those are the ones that you can still get. Um, Shuang—this is a pretty old review, but I think that it still applies—like the the information; let's take a look here and see—power tubes; let's look for KT66; see what you can get. Yeah, uh, they have—they've got some NOS Gold Lions for 400 bucks each, so if you've got an old, you know, uh yeah, I wonder if they got more than one, but too much to ask for a match pair, right? If I click on it—prices per tube; order two or more for match sets—oh, they—I don't think they're in stock; email me when they're in stock; it's just on their website; kind of funny. Um, I'd say the Sugong at $49.95 would be the way I would go at this point, that or the JJ, but oh, currently not available in the USA due to new tariffs. All right, never mind; never mind; can't get that one either. How about the JJ? Let's see, tube stores in Canada; I wonder if you could like have somebody buy them up there and send them to you as a gift. Uh, there's a JJ for 63 each; those you can get; it's probably your only option at this point, so they're going to be 120 bucks. Well, anyway, you asked me what I thought of them; I think they're expensive, you know; it looks like about plus tax it's going to be 130, 140 bucks, and then shipped, you know, it's like it's a lot. If you've got a Marshall, a a uh JTM45, that's what the way you got to go though, you know; you can get them to—you can—a competent tech can make an amp like that work with 5881s or 606s too, but if I had a vintage one, I guess I would uh I'd be looking at these. I don't know; I mean, I I sort of think that my favorite Marshalls anyway are EL34, so you know, it's kind of the way I would go—EL34-based stuff, but yeah. Uh, all right, what else we got here? Let's see; I got to grab those super chats that I I haven't haven't hit; there's two of them here from Alex, so I'm going to head down the chat. Uh, is that Mark IIc reissue on your shelf? Yes. Um, so demo soon? Yes; basically, can't say more than that, but there's—Yes; yeah; it's really cool. Um, I do like it, you know; it's a sound—it's like, "Oh, there's a reason it's a it's a classic"—it's its own thing, but it's a good—it's a trick, and it's a good trick; that's for sure, you know. Uh, another super chat—sorry—how did I do that? I knocked myself out of the chat; that was dumb. I'm not sure what you're trying to edit now; Siri's talking to me; all this technology; it's a little too much for a Gen X dude that just plays guitar and has a high school education. Uh, I need a replacement traditional bridge for my '68 Strat. Go to—Wilkinson—the Wilkinson 54 thing is really nice; their their vintage bridge. Um, let me just try and find out exactly what it's called here. Uh, you know, I I I love the SU as well—the new SU—really really good, but they do make this uh vintage—vintage ST guitar tremolo bridge—is that it? Go traditional trim; Wilkinson Gotoh; I'm just looking at the different ones here; boy, they're really not expensive; really reasonable; Winton vintage cell full-block tremolo bridge; these are like $26; is that true? They're so cheap; vintage bridge with a steel block; that's Wilkinson; probably go that way; it's 52 bucks at Guitar Fetish. Um, that or, you know, the SU is is really great, but I'm just not sure that they're—they've made them available; I just—they stay in tune so damn good, the new SU, because it's it's a little different than everything else, um, but it it uh it really stays in tune great. Why is it so cheap though? Wilkinson the VSVG—oh, no, that's a—This one isn't quite like a—This is a—Yeah, seeing Wilkinson Gotoh; it's a it's a different thing, anyway; hard to go wrong; I'm just—I'm a fan of the new SU because of the tuning stability; I'm just not sure that it's available uh as an aftermarket product or only on their guitars yet; I know they intend to make it that way. Uh, yeah, okay. Uh, what else we got here? What else we got? What else we got? Uh, my 4500 style uses 6550s or KT88s. Yeah, KT88s; you can get from there; they've been a little tough to get too, but there was a U for sure—this is a JJ uh KT88—Galax—let's see—KT88—I I think there's basically a Mike Matthews variant, and then there's the—Yeah, Ruby Tube sells um quad of KT88s for—JJ's for 240 bucks; this ain't cheap—like KT66s and 88s are—they're just—

More expensive for whatever reason. I don't know why. You can buy single JJs from 6120. Yeah, they're they're 60 bucks each. Basically, the JJ, that's probably the way I would go for a KT88. Um, yeah, yeah. What else? What else? What else? Uh, Wilkinson is still a two-person company. They're great. I love Trev and all of the team there. Nice people. He is a great guy. Bent says you talk to him, he's super nice. He's awesome. They make great stuff. Still using his, you know, uh, bridge on my um, uh, blah blah HH and and HSS models. You know, the locking bridge. Yep, good stuff, good tone, good stability.

Bruce says, "If you were to start your own four-piece hard rock band to record and tour with, who would you call to play drums and sing?" Oh man, I can have anybody I want. Be Matt Log, but he's he's plays with this little band called AC/DC, so he's probably not going to want to do it. To sing, man, how about that Dino cat? That dude can sing, man. Woo! Maybe my buddy Jesse Smith. He's fantastic. Classic rock show. He's so good. All right. PS: Vein ElectroHarmonics JJ, All Cell KT88s. Yeah, there you go. Uh, those are expensive tubes. Yeah, it's just kind of part for the course these days, I guess. I mean, you know, I don't think I would build something that used KT88 just based on the fact that yeah, it's going to cost. Yeah, just go with uh, um, you know, 6L6 or 34 or EL84s or 6B. But I I've got a pair of for my power station, a pair of 6550s that I have in the other room just in case.

Um, love my power station. It's awesome. Still using it. But, you know, dare I say, I mean, I'm can probably use the reload a lot now too, because that sounds so transparent. They're both great. Um, and the power station, you know, true tube power amp and all that, doing the re-amp. But I am that impressed with the the the two notes, the reload too. Sounds so good and pure, and it's got the advantage of the stereo power amp and kind of the ease of the direct outs and stuff. I mean, the power station has that too, but it's just kind of like there's an ease of use thing with the the the reload that's really I'm I'm quite impressed with it. It's very, very good for those of you out there looking for a re-amp situation.

What were your best memories of your shows with Draco? Big influence on us. Thanks, man. I mean, um, great memories. Uh, you know, Draco was like, uh, this is a fellow that I used to play with that if you're into, you know, rock in Spanish, in espanol, uh, you would probably know. Um, he's a bit of a legend and uh, amazing cat that I learned a lot from, and I had a good time uh, playing music with. Absolutely very spur-of-the-moment, super creative guy, really great performer, and really like to have fun, you know, uh, and really be in the moment. And he's kind of fearless and not afraid to take chances on stage. This guy, I learned a lot about stuff like that from him, about just go for it. And um, you know, he was also one of the first guys that I ever saw that was rejecting the move towards technology that was supposed to make things better that maybe wasn't, you know. He was the first one I saw that ever pulled a pair of in-ears out, maybe the only one I ever saw that got so dramatic about it, but pulled a pair of in-ears out and kind of threw them on the ground and said, "Screw these things! Like if this is what making music is, I'm I quit. I'm I'm going to go paint instead," because he's a good painter, you know. He wanted to be a part of the room and hear monitors and not use those things. Maybe he grew to like them later, I don't know. But at the point that he had a major meltdown with them one day, and I appreciated it, cuz I didn't really like them either. And he made me think like, well, maybe I'm not crazy, you know. The disconnection aspect, and you know, he's very into for the visceral right reasons, you know, making music to be in the moment and stuff like that, and he was feeling like they were pulling him out of it. It was all wrong. So, um, I learned about the sort of cyclical effect between the audience and the band, of the energy of the crowd and the band feeding off of it, and the audience feeding off the band, and how that can be a thing in a live show. That's at least how it should be, I think, you know. This is also pre-smartphone and pre-everybody holding phones up all the time and all that stuff when I was playing with him still. You know, that was still the old model of live shows and music business and stuff like that. And like I say, just new stuff like all that was just coming in around 2003 or four or five when I was playing with him. So I spent a few years with them, and also I just some of my best memories were um, South America, cuz that would be some of my first. Yeah, that would be my first trips to South America playing music, places like Argentina and Colombia and Chile and uh, Brazil, and realizing that man, these people are very tapped into art and music in a way that, you know, that the United States sometimes are, you know, and feel, especially in the bigger cities, you know. Sometimes people's been there, done that, you know what I mean? Um, as far as shows go, because they get such, you know, a variety of stuff, and there's such a variety of options, people are over-stimulated, and maybe they don't pay attention to art and music cuz everything's a little more like, I don't know, like down there it felt like the 70s a little more, is the only way I could describe it. Like there'd be people crying at your show, you know, that kind of thing. Or maybe it's just cuz they were really tapped into that artist too. But you know, I'll give you an example. If you if you go on YouTube and you uh, Google Rush Rocking Rio or something, you know, you can see the way that the Brazilian fans respond to a band like Rush where they're singing all the solos or the notes or they're, you know, and they're just so loud and so into it and so passionate. You know, most most my friends that tour the world will say, you know, South America, probably best audiences in the world, you know. Um, they're just so into it. I had people, you know, come up to me after a show just like literally almost sobbing and stuff. I remember somebody who gave me a book of poetry once. "I want you to have this. I brought this for you," you know, things like that, like really sweet stuff, you know. That was my first. Nobody knew me from Adam back then either. It was just 2003, four or five. I'm just getting going, being a into the, you know, professional touring sort of business and uh, playing for some of the biggest crowds, you know, that I played. You know, Draco would be, we did a festival for 140,000, probably still the biggest crowd I've ever played for in uh, Colombia, the Rockel Park festival, and it was uh, incredible, you know, incredible. And I he taught me how to how to do that stuff, really. He didn't teach me, but I learned being with him, you know. I'd played stuff before, you know, I'd been on tours, big tours and stuff like that before that, but this was on another level. It was a bigger crowds, and it was also so spontaneous. He would change set list all the time, and a lot of improv and want to extend sections and do things, and maybe that was my first band where I really had to get like, you know, flying by the seat of my pants. Had to learn how to do that stuff on the fly, and uh, I loved it, man. I loved it. I loved going those places and and playing with him, you know. It was hard sometimes too. It wasn't always the easiest touring, and there was a lot of chaos and kind of um, you know, with scheduling and just things changing and um, just you know, it was a little cluster [ __ ] at times, you know. But uh, I learned about that too, about how to just relax into that and not expect everything to go as planned, and how to alter uh, you know, my plan and how to, you know, gear shows up and you're in a place that's, you know, sketchy gear or whatever, and you just kind of make it work. Do the show. Nobody cares. Like just get up and perform. Don't be so worried about the wrong stuff. There's people here. As long as your guitar works or whatever, let's play, you know. And he helped me with a lot of that. So that's that. Yeah, yeah. He's a fascinating cat for sure.

Do you think a new nut is necessary with a re-fret on a Les Paul guitar for your project? 499 super chat. Thank you, my friend. Um, yeah, it's always a good idea. Yeah, new nut. Get get a new nut for sure, cut properly. I mean, if somebody's doing a re-fret, if you're if you're trusting somebody to do a re-fret, then trust them to do a nut, because you know, the re-fret is a much bigger job than than a new nut. Although a new nut is precision and has to be just so, and on a Les Paul especially, you know, the fan of the strings and everything requires that the a good nut can make or break the tuning on a Les Paul. I'll say that, you know, if it's done right, can be you can keep that guitar in tune relatively easily, you know. Uh, stainless steel, I wouldn't do on a Les Paul. I don't like it on the Les Paul, so um, tried it once and it was too weird on that guitar. Just I would go with traditionalist nickel frets on that guitar, in my opinion. On a more modern guitar, you know, super strat styles and stuff, sure, you know, you can get away with it and stuff like that, but I would say not not on a Les Paul, just my feeling.

The new Sir Bridge is not locking like the newer Wilkinson is it? No, it's a vintage style bridge. But I thought you were you were saying like what's a uh uh a good vintage style bridge? The SUR is a vintage style bridge, and then Wilkinson also makes a vintage style bridge too that's like a a uh, I think I have one right here. I was looking for it online, but I know I've got one here. Let me see one sec. Drawer right here, that's very difficult to get into. I believe it's what, let me see one sec. Year one. It's called the Year One. This is it right here. So this is a Wilkinson bridge. On the saddles, you can see a little printing on the each individual saddles. It says Year One, and this is supposed to be like a '54 strap bridge, and it's got a nice big steel block on it. So if you want a six-screw Wilkinson, this seems really cool. Um, say, you know, go that route or look for the Sir, the new Sir, which isn't, you know, it says Sir on the base plate and stuff like that, and it looks but it looks like a they make a six-screw and a two-post version of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, what else we got here?

Um, Tom says, "I think my power station is 66." Yeah, you probably have the 50-watt version then, which is great too, you know. I have the 100-watt uh, 6550 version. It's a little more high power and all that. Um, 100 watts, you know, instead. But yeah, the tubes are a little harder to find and expensive, although you can get them. Draco Rosie. Yeah, that's the guy I used to play with. Mhm, yeah. Uh, okay. Hey Pete, uh, you just mentioned Matt Log. He is from Florence, South Carolina. Yep. Uh, I don't know him personally, but we have many mutual friends. He's a great cat. He's an old friend of mine. We've played together in numerous bands and stuff, and he played on my last solo record. He he's the drummer on Dirty Town. If you watch the Dirty Town video, he's in it. You can see him recording the the uh the parts on there. So yeah, he's great, man. Great drummer. One of my favorites. We've said for I always say this, but but you know, our circle of friends that have played with Matt and known him for many years have for 20 years said, if AC/DC ever needs a drummer, he is the guy. He is so the guy. And now he's doing it, which is like a very full circle kind of thing, you know. If you just stay in this game long enough, it's amazing what happens. You might have to wait until you're in your 50s, but it's amazing.

I get what he's saying. One of my buddies used to play guitar for Jill, just got on tour, and he said the vibe just got shitty. What's that about? Um, what are you guys talking about there? Sorry, I don't know. Uh, is that like uh, what I was talking about about Draco about technology and stuff, or is that about something else? South American people are so passionate about their music. They're like Philly sports fans. Yeah, art in general, you know. I think folks in South America are just serious about it, you know. Any thoughts on roasted pine on a Strat or Tele? Interested in those new LSL era series S&T style. Uh, haven't tried them, so I don't know. Never never tried a pine guitar. Not sure. I miss the days of everyone holding up a Bic lighter. Yeah, it was magic times, you know, for sure.

More of a tech question maybe says Matt, but how much RAM do you need in your computer to do music production? Um, like, you know, I think 32 is generally the what have I got in this? I don't even know. I've got different I've got 64 in this one, so probably 32 minimum, you know. Mine's 64. 64 gig. How was it to play with Cornell? That's how I found you, says Terry. Uh, it was amazing, you know, time in my life. Once again, just a great time, learning experience where I was also just very comfortable, having a blast. Um, was some of my favorite live memories for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brazil concert was the first one that I saw sing the solo to Master of Puppets. Yeah, they sing the solos. They sing the melodies and the solos and everything. It's amazing. Have you ever used your Synergy stuff live? If not, why?

Um, it's great. I mean, I have it in here for, you know, demoing the various modules and things that they get me to do, but um, to just truth be told, I mean, I I haven't really used an amplifier other than a SUR on stage since 2008 or nine. So um, they're just my live, you know, the sort of benchmark of my rig is the been PT-15, SL68, PT 100 mostly. I mean, it's been 85% PT100 um, live since going back so far. Just very comfortable with it live and augmenting it with pedals for the various sounds I need. They're never not enough power. They're reliable, sound great. Um, what more could one want, you know? Uh, I used a Kelly as well, Melissa Aridge for one tour, but that was made by Sir, so I've only used Sir since 2008 or nine I think on stage. Now in the studio, I used all kinds of different stuff for different sounds because it's fun, and there's not that, you know, the variety is nice to have in the studio. Yeah, but it's still mainly Sir. I mean, I'm still, you know, PT100 and SL68 and my 15 over here, those are the main amps that get used in my studio. So I've got other flavors for different shades of high gain, the Sano. I love, you know, this one. I love um, now that Boogie, you know, some different like flavors of gain. Um, the Top Hat for my AC30 thing, Friedman up there, the J uh, Jel, that's a really, really nice-sounding amp, and my old Marshall of course, you know. Yeah, for different just varieties of stuff.

Great to see everyone this afternoon, says Mark. Nice to have you here too, Mark. Take care, man. Thanks for being here. Um, I'm going to hang for another. Well, I've been on two hours. I'm going to hang another 10 minutes or so, then I'm going to go. I'm really tired today for some reason. I'm sorry if I I think I'm maintaining pretty good, but I am like exhausted. But I've got work to do. I'm going to get some stuff done, but I am I'm kind of out of it. I think I need to change my contact lenses. I think I've been wearing them too long. Does anybody have that where it's like they just they if if you wear them too long, like too? I wear mine cuz I've got crazy lenses are very expensive for my awful eyes. I wear them for um, a few months at a uh, you know, and I use the really good uh, hydrogen peroxide cleaner stuff on them and everything to keep them fresh, but I can wear them for a few months at a time that I'm supposed to change them. I think I'm overdue a month on these or something, and I just feel like they're um. Does anybody else get that? If you ever just curious like I I feel like heavy like and just like my eyes are like and I think it might be partially that. It's weird how your eyes really can fatigue you, right? It's almost like when allergies fatigue you or like different things can affect you, and one of the things I notice is with my eyes when they're if I'm blinking a lot or they're, you know, the contacts aren't clear or I'm just feeling like it it really starts to it uses a lot of energy. I don't know how else to describe it. Weird thing, but something that I've noticed with them. I think that could be going on right now. I'm finding it a little hard to read the, you know, it's like work, read the screen and stuff. It's weird.

Mark says, "Worst show I ever went to was Pink Floyd in Texas Stadium in '80. Had a camera with a zoom lens, and I got good pictures, but I never even seen the show. You were working on the taking pictures on the wall tour the whole time, I guess." Um, yeah, yeah. Audience at the uh, Russian Real YZ was insane. Yeah, it's so cool, you know. Oh, you're going to Shibuya today? What guitar shop should I hit? Oh, congratulations. I'm so jealous. Guitar is art. Um, I would say what day is it? Sunday. Um, Hyper Guitar should be open. I'm sort of pissed off at them. I feel like they're kind of [ __ ] now, even though I bought a guitar from them once, but uh, it's still a great store, you know. They just I just don't like the people that work in there. I like the owner. He's nice, but the dudes that have been in there, they just I I love going to stores in Japan, and people are generally so nice, and in there they've just got attitude, and they I don't know, man. There's something wrong with them, but um, so. Oh, sorry, I said Hyper. I didn't mean to say that. This is where you can get in trouble. Hyper Guitars is lovely. Hyper Guitars is now in Harajuku, which is great because it's really you can walk there from Shibuya. So Hyper is great. I was I meant Guitar Trader, which is in uh uh, Daikanyama. So Daikanyama uh, just sort of is it north or is it west of Shibuya? Northwest of Shibuya, sort of west really, I think. Um, you can walk there. It's a nice walk. I like to walk there from Shibuya. It's just something I like to do. If you go there, also go to the Sataya bookstore, the great big bookstore that's in Daikanyama, because it's fantastic, and there's lots of kind of trendy shopping around there. Something that's kind of nice. Uh, so that's Guitar Trader. Just not a big fan of the folks that work in there, but it's a nice store. I'd love to talk to the owner and just kind of have it out with them and also the people that are in there so that I've got an understanding with them when I go there. So had a couple bad experiences there with the last trip that I went there, you know. I bought a guitar there that was expensive, and it's like I feel like I should be a valued customer at this point. I haven't had that experience walking in there the last couple times. They're almost like, you know, eyeing me up and then like they don't they don't know who I am. But it's not like don't you know who I am? I don't feel that way, but I feel like because I'm a customer and bought an expensive guitar there, I should get a little bit of like, okay, we know he's not a. But anyway, they should treat everybody, whether or not I'd bought anything there with a baseline of like, as opposed to a suspicious eye, treat you with a a baseline of respect of like everybody's a potential customer, right? I mean, I've worked in music stores. I used to treat everybody the same, you know. So anyway, great store though. There's a lot of cool stuff in there. It's a small store, but just you know, don't get don't be surprised if they're not the nicest people.

Um, what else? Sorry, got off on a tangent. Hyper Guitars. Go to Hyper Guitars and be prepared to be prepared to be amazed. That's a beautiful store. The new one in Harajuku, it's great, and it's only a few blocks from the new Fender store, which is incredible. So it's a multi-floor, like five or six floor Fender extravaganza. It's not to be missed, you know. So. So those are the two stores in Shibuya. There's a some other good stores there. Um, there's another store. Let me see if I can find it. Um, look on Google Maps here really quick. Um, Tokyo, Japan. Okay. Uh, well, the Ishibashi is kind of, you know, it's a big it's like a, you know, Guitar Center or something, uh, but it's great. The one in Shibuya is really cool, so you could go there. Niko Niko. Nice store. Last time I went in there, a lot of stuff, really cool. Not a ton of vintage. Um, more like a lot of like Fender Custom Shop from over the past 20 or 25 years or so, which could almost be considered vintage at this point, but um, nice nice store, Niko Niko. So you could check that out. Um, what else? What else is in Shibuya, which is also a newer, you know, it's a new shop, the EBE store. So Ike Ebe, right? Uh, you could check that out and see what you think. Uh, so IB, Ishibashi, those are the big sort of chains, but great shops to visit. Fender flagship store, pretty amazing to check out. Um, the ESP store is neat. It's old school, but it's it's cool, you know. It's fun. I mean, you could hit all of these in one day if you run around and really, you know. G-Club is kind of cool. Doesn't get great ratings on here, but it's kind of cool. They've got vintage in there on one floor. Hoochies. Love Hoochie. Underrated. Great guitar tech in there. Not a big shop, but it's cool, and they sell um, their own brand of guitar that I'm spacing on the name of now, and they're really cool, and they're shameless sort of, you know, copies of Gibsons and stuff, and they're really cool. Uh, looking I've seen a few in here that I've never even seen before actually. But yeah, uh, Hyper Guitars and um, you know, the the the vintage stuff where you'll be like, "Oh, cool, beautiful," you know, '64 SG or whatever. Um, that's going to be Hyper Guitars and also uh, Guitar Trader. Have fun. Have a good time. Enjoy. I'm jealous. Wish I could wish I could be there looking around with you. Okay, few more. Few more. Speaking of Rush, I want to hear Alex Lifeson live with the band again. Got a copy of Envy of None. Uh, we may see that happen. Yeah, could be. Love Alex. Love it. Love it. Thank you so much for such a deep and amazing answer. Oh yeah, you're welcome. That's to the Draco uh, question. You played with two superheroes of mine, Draco and Cornell. A lot of crossover there, you know, with with any of these uh, guys. There's a lot of crossover guys and girls, you know, that are these um, kind of like front people, superstar can hold the crowd in the palm of their hand, um, artist personalities from Draco to Cornell to, you know, Don Henley.

To Tioshi Nagabuchi, uh, to Melissa Ethridge, you know, uh, to Michelle Pnerf and Milan Farmer and stuff, there's a lot of crossover between all these different folks I played with. In different cultures too, you know, there's a real similarity between them all because, at the end of the day, the the the, you know, what they're doing out there is the same: they're getting up in front of a crowd and singing their songs that they created. And um, that requires a certain kind of personality, I think, and that sort of spans across cultures and language and everything else, you know. That's it—it transcends that, I should say, you know, uh. It takes a certain kind of person to do that kind of stuff, and I've learned a lot from them all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, okay, just another couple comments here, and then I'm going to split.

Can you give a quick overview of the difference between Thornbucker, Thornbucker Plus, and Thornbucker 2? So, Thornbucker is about 8.4, 4 8.3K—the most sort of PAF output typical. Thornbucker Plus is like a hot PAF, you know, 8.7 or so, and it's a little more kick through the mids. Nice for the bridge position on a Strat-style guitar. You could get away with a Thornbucker, just the regular one, on a on a a less Paul, but in a Strat-style guitar—I always found 25 and a half scale—I wanted a little more heat, for whatever reason. I don't know why that is, but I I feel like a all mahogany 24 and three/4er scale guitar is a hotter guitar, you know, like the tone of the guitar. Your average Les Paul with, you know, or your average Gibson with even T-tops or whatever in it, they can they they got a bark and they've got mids, and they just do that thing. But you, if you were to take those same pickups and put them in an older body Strat or something, what I came to realize was like, sounds a little underpowered sometimes, just a little. So I found that I liked a little, just a little more kick, so that's the hence the Thornbucker Plus. And then the Thornbucker 2 is different in that it's a different magnet, Alnico 2, so that warmer kind of spongy low end, uh, sweet top end. Works great with gain, um, it's the Van Halen kind of thing, you know. A little more Alnico 2, it's that '78 style, you know, our own wind and stuff, but that's what it was inspired by, you know, that uh, winding a PAF about as hot as it that you could possibly wind it if you were to do a rewind and with an old Alnico 2 magnet. Slightly different sound. That's it. Yep. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay.

Um, thinking of, speaking of Power Station, I I should say, uh, Rick saying just yesterday he put a Gold Line KT80 in it. They're a little long, so they didn't fit. Yeah. Um, yeah, they don't—the only thing like they're really made for a 6550 and a KT88. If it's is a little fatter, you know, and that that's the thing about a Power Station: it's very narrow in there. So, you know, I think they were really designed to be, you know, this vet line or so-tech or whatever, 6550. It's a kind of a longer, looks like a big eel 34 or something. So that's kind of—so you're a little limited, unfortunately. God, my belly is like growling. Um, let me see here. 6550, um, like maybe the JJ, um, it's just it's, you know, the problem is in these things: they they don't make them anymore, and then you're in trouble, you know. Those fat—you could see the difference between like a God, even Electro-Harmonix ones are like three, like $400. It's like so stupid. Um, maybe that's for a matched quad or something; I'm just not reading it right. Um, but any of those sort of fat bottle tubes like the Tung-Sol 6550 looks more like a KT88. Maybe the Rubies, maybe they work. TAD 6550 Red Base Premium, $76 at Tube Depot, uh, maybe that works. The TAD Red Base, might want to look for those. But yeah, just don't don't don't do a KT88 and think it'll, you know, you're going to order those and they're going to be expensive, and then you'll put, try and you fit the pair in your Power Station. I bet they don't fit because of the big bottle. Yeah. Uh, yeah.

Um, and Trolls T Journey, sorry, I never know how to say your name, uh, say you're saying that it bothers you when people sing the solos—you're there to hear the band. I know what you mean, but you know, if everybody's singing, they're just into it, is better than just holding up a phone and blocking it, right? So hopefully the solo is loud enough that it won't matter. Loud ass ba—oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, oh, you're saying Sir Kelly Explorer style? No, I meant that I use this, the Jim Kelly amplifier, but I like the Kelly Explorer style. Why was it called a Kelly? Jackson Kelly? Who was the original Kelly that, like, where'd that name come from? Is he interested? Feel like the Jubilee doesn't get the love that it deserves for higher gain tones. I just never really bonded with those, but I mean, they're a favorite of Bonamassa, obviously. Slash used them for a while. I don't really hear the Slash sound out of them; that's the thing. But his sound is more gnarly. Uh, I mean, I remember seeing like, I think like Black Crows and stuff, different bands using those. Did you ever get the GK fixed? No, I haven't. It's still just sitting there. That's on me. Also with parallel on the bridge humbucker volume tone to be vintage wiring, no bleed. Didn't—I don't know what that's about, but probably true. Uh, right. Uh, please hit the like on the way out, says Mark. Yes, please, please do that. Thumbs up if you don't mind, if you don't mind. Down to the bottom of the chat here, uh, Jr says, "Always enjoy your soothing baritone." Why, thank you. I appreciate you being here from week in to week out. U last week, next week, I mean, last month, next month. What's week? Senshu rishu? Last week, next week in Japanese, month? That's right. Still learning. I'll get it. At least I caught my mistake. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh, getting a Zen Drive, will it let me get anywhere near a Dumble-like tone? I love the Zen Drive, to be honest. I used it on Guitar Nerd on the solo for uh, 10th Street, and I love the tone of that. So that's what I use my 335 through the Zen Drive, and I think it's a snazzy, expensive kind of sound. Uh, I I think I used it into my old basement, yeah, basement head, and it's just—yeah, 335 right in the Zen Drive into the basement and added some, you know, sauce in the mix, and they sound good. I think a really nice sound. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Uh, anywhere else did Vire Satch get to noodle on your signature Sers yet, or the seven-string? Uh, not really. I don't think either of them picked up my guitars, although we talked to guitars a lot; we're kind of showing them, you know, but you know, I I didn't really play their guitars either, and they didn't really—we kind of got in there and just went to work. But um, I'm sure that'll happen. I am interested in, you know, chance to get to nerd out with those guys on guitar gear. Come on, fun stuff. We We talked about stuff a little bit, you know, guitars and uh—oh, that's interesting. Somebody says Tim Kelly of Slaughter; that's where the Kelly uh, came from. That's cool, thanks for the info. Yeah.

Uh, love your demo vids; still watch the old ones from uh, you and Tour at TC Man. That was fun; that was a trip where I went to Aarhus, you know, in Denmark. Probably one of the loveliest countries on earth. Uh, love that place. Wow, the food—oh my god, those people know how to live, and they're very nice, highly intelligent, and uh, just really had a great time that week making videos with Tour. And I I enjoyed that, you know, it's like those things are—he left TC not long after that, and he went to UA and stuff, and you know, these these little opportunities I get in this life to do: "Hey, you want to go to our house for a week and make some videos?" And you know, and uh, you know, we'll hang out and eat good food and stuff, and it's not lost on me. It was very fun and special, and that's kind of the second career, you know, that YouTube and this, you know, gave me with you folks and stuff. It's a good place to end and wrap it up today, but it's never lost on me how, you know, our little community here and and also just the opportunities that I've been afforded to go do things like that. And uh, that was a long time ago now, 2017, 18, something like that, 19 maybe. Um, and you know, I I'll probably not do that again, you know. I won't get to, you know, to go do that exact same thing again, so it's good to soak up these things as they as they happen because it was a really fun week and uh, yeah, you know, that's it. You know, appreciate it as it comes, cuz it's not forever; nothing is, right? All right. Um, everybody have a terrific week and uh, loudest, most painful amp you ever played? Could be high watts, you know, if you if you really—they got that mid-range that's like, turn them up loud, it'll pummel your ass, you know, um, but it's a good sound. Yep. Um, yeah, it's not that it's not a good sound; it's just it's it's gonna—you're going to end up Pete Townshend with your ears pummeled into oblivion. All right, everybody, I got a split. Um, everybody have a a terrific week. Freddy says, "Thank you Pete, always great to check out your stuff." Thanks, man. Video coming for the reload; I'll get that done. There's a bunch of other stuff coming too. I've got so much to do video-wise; I I really got to, you know, I got to jump on it and get because before I know it's going to be time to go on tour. So, but uh, I'm going to do it; going to get it all done; gonna be great. Okay, everybody, thanks so much. I'll see you same time, same place next week. Rock on.