So after a week long stint of “Best Of” while we are continuing to move in, paint, and wire the new building with top secret gadgets (ok – I made that last part up) we were finally able to shoot 2 brand new podcasts in the new building on the new “stage”. To top it all off – the first episode in the new building is also the 50th episode of Chasing Tone. I know what you are asking – did we celebrate? Yes, yes we did – with B’s and G’s. #trashbagBsandGs Without further ado – the highlights of today’s episode:
Intro Music: Travis talks about the gear he used to record the intro music. Which was: a Don Grosh Retro Classic, an Amp 11 (Love Pedal), and a Budda Super Drive 30. The sound was supposed to “kinda honky” so when the full band comes in – the music would transform in to a nice big full sound.
Chasing Springs: Recently Travis changed the amount of springs (from 5 springs to 3 springs) on his Don Grosh Retro Classic. Which, according to Travis, changed his tone – especially in different pickup selections. It created a more “open and airy” type of sound which Travis enjoys more. The tuning stability is still surprisingly awesome! When Travis and I were playing around with it – he was really trying to wreck it – and the strings bounced right back to normal. Consider me impressed!
New Pedal Day: Travis recently purchased an Rocket Effects – Archer from one of our listeners, who also let him borrow a tall font Big Muff. Both are killer sounding pedals with some definite tone! I personally received the TC Electronics Poly Tune 2 Noir – which is a pretty awesome tuner. It’s small/ compact – super bright and accurate. A big shout out to Stefan from TC Electronics and the rest of the TC Electronics crew for hooking me up!
How Brian Starts Designing a New Circuit: Brian, as we affectionally call him around here – BW, first starts off with the tone he hears in his head. Then he just starts chasing those tones. He starts with pedal “building blocks” (like J-Fets, certain op-amps, etc – he thinks will work) and thinks will get him close – and then starts tweaking it until he gets in the ballpark of what he hears – and then he fine tunes it even more!
So all that’s all for this week – until Thursday Tone Chasers!
– Max