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Episode 16: Featuring John Snyder of Electronic Audio Experiments
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Charles, Chris, and Bryan are joined this week by John Snyder of Electronic Audio Experiments. They field caller questions about D&D, aluminum guitars, the Winter Olympics, long dogs, and more.
If you'd like Bryan, Charles, and Chris to answer your question on an episode of Amplified Nonsense, call (513) 334-3803 and leave a voicemail.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to Amplified Nonsense, a podcast that is technically about amps, but is mostly driven by your random voicemail questions. Your hosts are Charles Henry of Silktone, Chris Benson of Benson Amps, and Brian Sowers of Sour Sound Transformers.
Special Guest Introduction
00:00:21
Speaker
And this week we have a special guest, John Snyder of Electronic Audio Experiments. My name is Emily. I'm here to keep these three on, well, I guess four on track. And
Listener Engagement Reminder
00:00:31
Speaker
before I get too far into it, you can call into 513-334-3803 and leave your own voicemail questions for our hosts to be considered for future episodes. That's 513-334-3803. And that number is also in the show notes. Welcome John to the podcast. How are you doing?
Hosts' Past Interactions
00:00:49
Speaker
I'm so good. Thank you for having me today. I'm very curious about what sorts of questions folks going to have for us. um We're just trying to keep it all barely contained here. um But, you know, this is this is a group that has a ah unique propensity for bizarre nerding out. So I'm just kind of curious to see what we're in for tonight.
00:01:08
Speaker
That's a weird way of describing dick jokes and fart jokes. That is what we we're getting it out of our system. You know, um we're going have a clean slate.
00:01:20
Speaker
but I'm just sitting here. I'm not doing anything. hi John. Hey, John. Yeah. Hi, John. I feel like I talk to all three of you independently a lot, but not ah not together a lot. So this is actually really cool.
00:01:36
Speaker
Have we ever all been together before? I know I've been with John and I've been with John and Brian. No, in my backyard, like three years ago, we we were at like a little campfire together.
00:01:48
Speaker
Yeah. And Jesse was there too. Yeah. Yeah. I remember Chris burning that ah knockoff Benson cabinet. here we yeah yes in the in the In the Benson branded fire pit. Like it was it was kind of poetic. I think that was produced in the Bronson factory.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yeah, it was made out of 2x12s with butt joints nailed together. And someone had acquired a Benson badge and put it on this hideous cabinet that weighed about 65 pounds.
00:02:22
Speaker
It burned nicely. Well, it was made out of 2x4s. how How did you get it? I saw it on Reverb.com. yeah So you bought it?
00:02:34
Speaker
And I bought it. Wow. The guy had to address it to Chris Benson's man. Yeah, because I knew i knew it wasn't going to be the last time I saw it because I was certain that it was a bad sounding cabinet.
00:02:49
Speaker
Oh my God. Burning it is cool. I feel like you could have used it as like ah like ah like a bathroom stool or something or like ah like a trash can. i have another very shameful cabinet that's actually being used as a bathroom stool.
00:03:01
Speaker
Oh, did you did you make that cabinet or is this another reverb find? I cannot talk about it. did someone but Did someone on the podcast make it? No.
00:03:15
Speaker
No. I will show it to you in person and you'll laugh at the story that I tell about it. Okay. Looking forward to
Charles' Tokyo Stay
00:03:22
Speaker
it. But I did not make it Which it sounds like everyone might be in Portland in April. Yeah. Indeed.
00:03:29
Speaker
i can't wait to tell you guys the story about this because the story also has lessons. I'm looking forward to it. Charles, have you figured out your... Oh, it's getting complicated. Yeah. What are the dates for the the pedal show in Portland? Do you know? For that for the pedal show in Portland?
00:03:46
Speaker
the The pedal thing? Yeah. We're doing one of those stomp box exhibits. ah there There are presently not dates for the Portland Synth and Petal Expo. It's just as April 2026 on the website.
00:03:59
Speaker
so if there are perhaps they've not been announced. Yeah,
Pedal Naming Inspiration
00:04:04
Speaker
i might come hang. I don't know if I'm going to present at it. it it um I'm kind of overexposed at this point right now. I love hanging with everyone and the rest is a pain in the ass. so I might come do that, but ah I'm not sure if I'll be back in America by then. so And then Mayu's coming back with me this time, I think, so i don't know what going look like. I'll figure that out. Well, where are you now? Charles, where where are you now?
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah. Are you out of the country? yeah it's i'm still yeah i I genuinely don't know where you are. Oh, I'm still in Tokyo. I moved to Japan. Oh, damn. i loved how you said Tokyo.
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah, why? I didn't know you moved to Japan. exactly These guys are with me because it's like all I talk about. But ah the, yeah. so Yeah, the listeners don't know that.
00:04:58
Speaker
yeah right they They don't know. I'm telling John, our guest that we should be talking to. Would you like ah me to cue in a question for John?
00:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, this before this goes any further off the rails. I'm going to start with the nerdiest question. Hey, this is Matthew from Alexander Petals. This message is for John Snyder.
00:05:22
Speaker
John, i know you often look to Dungeons & Dragons for inspiration, at least for some of your petal names. Sending and Prismatic Wall are D&D spells. Do you have any forgotten, lost, or forgotten spells? I'm thinking specifically of spells that were available in older versions of D&D but are no longer part of the modern editions.
00:05:42
Speaker
I'm a big fan of Sticks to Snakes, which is not in the fifth edition. It's kind of dumb. It's a lot of fun to actually play. Thanks. You know, it's ah unfortunately, Matthew is referring to an edition of Dungeons and Dragons that might as well be prehistorical played by by cavemen and such. There's so much cool lore out there and I have no idea what any of it is, ah but, you know, that's OK. Like, I think if you were playing the earlier editions, like you just it's a completely different game from what it is now. And there's a lot of cool stuff and I just don't know what any of it is.
00:06:14
Speaker
So unfortunately, I feel a little bad that I don't have any of those references. But one thing I will say to try
Challenges in Naming Pedals
00:06:21
Speaker
to keep this a little more on track Not all the references that we do are strictly D&D. I think Sending is the name of a D&D spell, but it's also a reference to this book series called The Abhorsen Trilogy by this author, Garth Nix.
00:06:33
Speaker
Awesome fantasy books. It's about necromancers. It's very cool. And since this isn't about amps, that's probably all I'm going to say about it before we derail even further. Well, I know you're a big fan of swords.
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah, swords are cool. What can I say? Swords are pretty rad. Yeah. You stole all the best petal names.
00:06:52
Speaker
Hey, John. John, do you remember when I texted you? i think it was two or three weeks ago. And I wrote, i keep thinking about how coolness and technology wise us pedal makers are basically just sword enthusiasts.
00:07:08
Speaker
Yeah. You really want a scimitar for that. I know a wizard who makes the best one. Blah, blah, blah. what did i so i don't even remember what i said to that i totally forgot that all of your pedal names were swords sword and dagger related yeah it's you know having a theme like a naming things sucks and so to be like here's a huge bucket of references that you can pull from to name things uh it feels really good to be able to do that you know to sort of have that be like a solved problem I really admire like Philippe from Caroline Guitar Company's ability to name stuff where it's like, here's a word that has never been used for a guitar pedal before, and it's instantly evocative without being super on the nose, you know, like wave cannon.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's a distortion pedal. You know, you would not have come up with that independently, but it's like super evocative or in Hawaiian pizza. Extremely evocative. Yeah, exactly. um You know, sweet and savory, you know. Yeah, naming stuff's hard. I think we were just talking about that last week. Yeah, something's
Origin of Company Name
00:08:08
Speaker
not real for me until it's named, but it's so hard to come up with a name. The amps are a little harder. The pedals so far have just been fuzz and overdrive. I mean, I i think...
00:08:19
Speaker
think expander is a very evocative name because it is a control on a lot of things. you know um I like it. I think it's a good one. yeah But it's also not an expander circuit. Yeah, definitely yeah and it's not a studio expander. But only like two people in the world have asked me that because...
00:08:38
Speaker
I think most people don't use studio tools. So yeah it's been fine. I asked these guys last week, I'll ask you, did was your business ever almost named anything else? Like how did you come up with electronic audio experiments?
00:08:52
Speaker
so this the I feel like in retrospect, the origin story is a lot dumber than I remember it being um the back ah about like 10, 12 years ago, there was ah there was ah a really active guitar pedal and amp community on Tumblr. um And I think a big part of that is because of the blog Atomium Amps. um It was one of the guitarists in that band Rosetta doing like cool, like, you know, sort of like teardowns of amps and stuff like that. So I had a blog that was just called John's Electronic Audio Experiments.
00:09:23
Speaker
That was it. That was the whole thing. And then i was just like, well, if I'm going to sell things with my name on it, I guess I'll just reference the blog that has like 100 followers or whatever. You know, it's this very tiny community that it stuck. And by the time I realized it was an absolute mouthful, it was way too late. Yeah. I love it personally. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, it's a step up from like John's pedals. That is true.
00:09:45
Speaker
That is true. It's like, you know, it's so easy. Like I, I'm kind of jealous of people who could name stuff after their names. Like some folks here, like John Snyder is like one step above a witness protection name.
00:09:57
Speaker
Like, you know what I mean? There are so many John Snyder's on the planet, which is cool, but also, you know, just like, you know, I can't be like, yeah, this is Snyder sound, you know, like it doesn't sound good. It's not evocative.
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's weird how something has to like roll. like i didn't I didn't like my name as a as a business name either. I almost did Charles Henry Amps. It just sounded weird.
00:10:19
Speaker
Sounds like a founding father, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sounds dumb. It would work for like Hi-Fi or something. Like, ugh, Charles Henry Amps. Some dickhead But yeah,
00:10:31
Speaker
but yeah no I don't know, using both your first and last name comes off extremely pompous to me. yeah yeah And I'm also like going through my head right now after saying that, trying to figure out who am I calling out without and trying to call them out like No, it does. Whose foot have I put in my mouth in this very moment?
00:10:55
Speaker
But there was already
Olympic Sports Identity
00:10:56
Speaker
a Henry brand in in hi-fi, and now there's, I think, now there's a Henry in guitar amps too. And then, yeah, it was just weird. But went the other way with it. I'm happy with it. For some reason, I knew that you could have a successful amp company named Benson already.
00:11:14
Speaker
yeah There it is. you heard it here first, folks. No, I i actually hadn't. Having any sort of sort of success was not in my mind when I named my company. It's like, oh, yeah, it'll never make a blip on anyone's radar.
00:11:32
Speaker
Psych. Well, that's the thing too, like back then, the idea of being as big as you are, you know, or like the idea for myself being, you know, anything more than five or 10 amps a year, ah just never factored in, you know, because it was always like, this is the thing I'm doing and I make them and maybe I have some help from people. i never thought it would go big. So why would you call it like a a name that doesn't reference you specifically? It just never factored in. I'm sure it's the same for you.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, totally. but Yeah, it was a blog. That was that was it. Yeah. Back to the D&D thing. um but So have you played D&D like person and stuff like?
00:12:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So, man, I've always wanted to. That's rad. It seems so intense. and I don't have any friends. So. <unk>s So ah so my me and my wife and our two closest friends are about to start. In fact, this coming weekend, we're starting the third campaign in taking place in the same world. Wrapping up the second installment in this world was like it was it was like a whole experience. Like people people died. The world changed, you know, like the the the. I don't I there's no way I can explain the story, but it's like you have this like kind of depth of highly personalized collaborative storytelling with an element of randomness to it. And yeah, like D&D is about, you know, going into dungeons and fighting monsters and stuff like that. But if you have the group where you can kind of like let go and trust the experience of crafting a narrative in real time. And if you have a bunch of people who are really ah geeky about history and geography and cultures and languages and, ah you know, even like sort of pseudo arcane science to underpin like the mechanics of a world, it's incredible stuff. It's impossible to explain it to somebody who hasn't done it. But outside of all of of the the pedal and gear stuff, like it is my passion in life. it'ss It's really, really special. That rocks. How how long does the campaign take to finish and how many people you you play with? So we, right now our group is ah is four people. The first campaign in this series was a total of six people. Six is a lot for a table. I think three to four players is kind of the sweet spot.
00:13:45
Speaker
um But the second campaign started in 2019 and it ended at the the tail end of of last year. So, you know, it went for, what is that, six years? And we played over 200 sessions in that time. meeting about every other week on average and playing for about like, I would say five to six hours per session. There are some people like if people who have kids and stuff like that will be like, okay, we're going to have our like one game night a month and might do like a full 12 hour day. um That's pretty intense and like is a lot of work and coordination to do. But yeah, you know, we usually should get together, start late afternoon, make dinner, play until late evening.
00:14:21
Speaker
it's ah It's fun, but it's also like, was one of the things that gave me a sense of social closeness during like the darkest parts of the pandemic too. Especially because I was doing a lot of the pedal stuff by myself at home too. You know, there would be days where I'd drive parts out to Brad's workshop and he lives like an hour away from me. And I would literally just dump parts on his porch and be like, see you later, dude, going back home.
00:14:45
Speaker
And so my family lives kind of far away. My wife's family is all the way across the country. And so being like, oh, we've got the game group that's getting together like every week or every other week was like genuinely a thing that kept us going for a while.
00:14:55
Speaker
Damn, that's awesome. Yeah. So if you've if you've never played D&D, it's so good. I've played it in the form of like Baldur's Gate. This is so much more wholesome than the ah notions of D&D that were circulated around society, at least in America, like when I was a kid, which was anyone playing D&D was dropping LSD and worshiping the devil.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, hey, who's to say you
Heaviest Gear Stories
00:15:18
Speaker
can't do both? I mean, he didn't say you didn't he didn't say they weren't doing that. Yeah, i mean, assuming that's what the 12-hour sessions are, right? It's just like summoning believers. but e else above Thank you. I don't know I can't say that. Yeah, no, it's just a 12-hour jack fest. Speaking of that, anyone been stroking lately? Oh, my God.
00:15:41
Speaker
So what were you doing during the pandemic, Charles?
00:15:49
Speaker
brief One track mind over here. my God. To not slander my my dear sober vegan friends, no no LSD or demons were summoned, but you know but you make your you make your out there you make your own fun. The real demon was the friends you made along the way. ah so it's funny me When there was only one set of footsteps, that's when the demon was carrying you.
00:16:19
Speaker
Shall we take another call? Yeah, let's get into it.
00:16:24
Speaker
Hey guys, it's Dave. I've got a two-parter for you. Firstly, in light of the fact that you guys just made a, you know, nearly 900 watt amp that weighs over a hundred pounds, I was curious what the heaviest piece of gear that you've played shows with, like, more than once is.
00:16:44
Speaker
Outside of, like, you know, an Ampeg 8x10 fridge cab kind of thing. Like, i had a Music Man HD 130 2x12 combo that was so heavy I needed to like use a hand truck to move it around like that kind of thing.
00:17:00
Speaker
Also part two um if you were going to be an Olympic sport which Olympic sport would you be? Okay bye.
00:17:11
Speaker
That's an easy one for me. call curling. I was just going to say curling. was just going to say curling. Okay. So everybody gets to go around and take turns and give their explanation why curling represents them. Okay. All right. And then best one wins. Then whoever, whoever the, the next runner up gets biathlon.
00:17:30
Speaker
was going to say the loser gets a figure skating. they'll buy on And ski mountaineering. Okay. I'll stop. All right. Mountaineering is cool. that's That's actually really cool. I like the idea of curling only because I don't understand it at all. And I i i strive to understand myself and I try. And so curling just makes me think, you know, just keep trying.
00:17:54
Speaker
That's beautiful. That's the one to beat. All right, Chris, what do you got I like the idea of curling because you don't have to be, I mean, i don't want to slander the curling, the sport of curling, but it appears that you don't have to be in any sort of meaningful physical shape to do it. And you just have to be able to bend over slightly.
00:18:15
Speaker
Oh, and move a broom fast. Yeah. Move a broom fast. Yeah. Wait, but they don't they don't broom their own thing, do they? One person throws it and the other... They don't really even know what it is either. but I don't know how it works, but it looks it looks like a guess.
00:18:35
Speaker
yeah Wait, so do you want to be the thrower or the sweeper? I feel like the sweeper, that seems like a, you know... you have to do both? You have to do both? Yeah, sometimes you have to do both. Some people throw it and then it's also sweep, but they have to take turns throwing it.
00:18:52
Speaker
But they don't take turns sweeping. They don't have to take turns sweeping from what I can tell. I just love that the we're all ignoring the innuendo. Are we?
00:19:02
Speaker
I'm not ignoring it. Yeah, who has the one-track mind here? Yeah. Oh, my bad. I mean, it's a sport that's played on ice, so I just assume it's like heated rivalry, right? Oh, wait, but the question wasn't what sport do you want to do? It's what sport do you want to be?
00:19:22
Speaker
It was the question, yeah, but I like your answers. So you have to be curling. Yeah, what does it mean to be to be a sport? You know, that might be that's above my pay grade. John, I don't think you answered.
00:19:36
Speaker
No, he thought curling too. Yeah. What's the reason why curling, you identify most with curling? here's's Here's a window into how my brain works. Dave very thoughtfully asked like what Olympic sport we would be, and I've instantly forgotten all Olympic sports.
00:19:50
Speaker
yeah So that that's yeah that's that's how my brain that's how my brain works. Man, that's the tism. That is the tism right there. Curling and ice skating were the only ones that popped in my my head. Yeah.
00:20:01
Speaker
Yeah. You know, like what is, like, the, I mean, ugh. I'm not going to sit here and like Google a bunch of stuff. Biathlon is genuinely very cool. I did watch this crazy speed skating video a while ago. It was like some amateur competition, but the skater in front just like sprinted and lapped everybody, and everyone was so locked into like the pace that they do, the track that they were just like, oh, this person's in the back now, and then that person won by lapping everybody. It was very funny to watch. it was like ah it was like ah you know I don't think it was an Olympic level. It was like high schoolers or something. Yeah.
00:20:35
Speaker
kind of a crazy strategy. What was the first part of Dave's question? He was talking about heavy stuff. And I spent so much time thinking about my answer to that question that I, I forgot about the other stuff. So I think the, the, for me, that answer is absolutely, uh,
00:20:50
Speaker
ampeg v4 and then i had this pv cab and i think it was from the the festival series amps it wasn't the tall 412 it was like a it was just kind of a regular proportioned oversized 412 that had four scorpions in it and i had two of them it was so ungodly heavy but you know it sounded really good so it was worth it those scorpion speakers are cool or at least i thought they were cool do do do Does anybody with a legitimate professional opinion on magnetics want to tell me why the scorpions are bad? Have
00:21:24
Speaker
have you ever listened to one? Yeah, they're sick as hell, dude. I don't know what to tell you. i They don't sound good. I mean, I do like the fact that reconing them was literally like you could just pull the magnet off and then put a new kit on there and stick the magnet on and go. Like, you know, I mean, they were definitely designed to be repaired, but I just, ew.
00:21:49
Speaker
I don't know, man. i saw this sound I mean, like maybe that's like age difference. It's just not the sound that really resonates with me. like Like, why would you play a Scorpion when you could play a JBL, which I don't really like JBLs to be honest. So why would you play a JBL when you could play a Fane?
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's kind of where my brain goes. it's Like, I would rather play a Thane that is of that type, that class of speaker or even like a Gauss speaker.
00:22:14
Speaker
But i consider or even Altec, the white frame Altec. Sure. 417, I think is the guitar model. I can't remember. But that stuff is still better than a JBL, which is still way better than. OK, another one.
00:22:30
Speaker
Why play a Scorpion when you could play an EV? I mean, that's that's kind of where I ended up in life. And now I'm just an EVM 12L just freak. But, ah you know, but consider the following. Right. You're in your early 20s. Your your brain hasn't fully formed yet. ah You don't have any tinnitus whatsoever.
00:22:47
Speaker
The sound of ah of a scorpion, PV Heritage VTX cranked up as loud as it can go, Boss Heavy Metal 2 in front. You will never hear that sound before in your life or afterwards because then you will develop the tinnitus that you will have for the rest of your life afterwards. um that's that was That's me.
Dungeons & Dragons Campaigns
00:23:04
Speaker
That was me. And you know maybe I've just been chasing that dragon ever since. I think of it as the beef jerky version of all of those speakers.
00:23:12
Speaker
name brian And guess what? beef jerky is pretty cool and it's pretty cheap i mean i just feel like what you're saying right there is like pizza like pizza is still pizza and pizza is good but that's like saying that like bad speakers are still speakers and speakers are good and i would disagree with that yeah i mean part of me wants to disagree and part of me wants to agree i i could see how the scorpion i i'm I'm looking at a Black Widow in my studio. I know Black Widows don't sound like JBLs.
00:23:48
Speaker
But, I don't know, there's something cool about playing like a 70s PB. sure. Amp. Which is not the speaker. Tone is in the hands.
00:24:02
Speaker
Their very first, the very first tube amp they did, I think it was the first one, was like the VTA, VTA 400. Oh, VTA. Oh, yeah. I think it's VTA. It's VT something. Yeah, it's Super Festival Series. They called it a 400, but it was and it was supposed to be 200 watts, which I don't think it was.
00:24:20
Speaker
um But that's the one where it has two preamps on the front and then has that jumper system. So you'd have two preamps and you plug into one and it would go to the power amp and work.
00:24:31
Speaker
And then had those two plugs where you would put a little jumper cable in and it would run preamp one into preamp two into the power amp, which is completely stupid. That's inspired. Except it sounded awesome. Yeah. It sounded so awesome and just really unique, really totally different. Yeah, man, Hartley was just designing some cool stuff, but like back then for sure.
00:24:54
Speaker
they were They were absolutely cooking. I mean, a lot of the old PV trans tube patents are also really fascinating to kind of see the thought process behind what they were doing. And a lot of it was kind of brute force and rudimentary, but it was it was really, really well done. As as far as, ah you know, like, so like,
00:25:11
Speaker
when i came up in in like learning about all this stuff for me it was it was sort of post 08 crash gear deals on craigslist you know and so being able to buy like a vtm or a butcher or something like that for 200 bucks uh was awesome because you could just modify them all day and the dip switches on the vtm made it so that like you could even cook your own mods onto the dip switches and try a bunch of stuff in real time they're awesome they're they're very very cool that was the the white snake amp Also, early, his hero's gone.
00:25:44
Speaker
Oh, that I did not know. BTMs and the base was usually like a the PV, what, Mark mark two Oh, yeah, the Mark II and Mark IV. Awesome, awesome. i might be thinking of Mark four Yeah, those things. You gain it up and it sounds like you're kind of underwater.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yep. Those things are great. The Century is also a very good one. Dave's question, heavy stuff. Yeah. ah I have an answer, but it's kind of a silly answer because... I've never played guitar in a band that ever played out.
00:26:16
Speaker
um and I've always played drums. But my last band, which admittedly was quite a long time ago, ah So I play drums, obviously, but the guitar and bass setup was a late 70s high watt DR-103, high watt full stack, so two 412s, an orange 8140 on an orange full stack, and the bass side was a vintage Ampeg SVT on an Ampeg 810 cabinet alongside of a Sun 300T on a
00:26:49
Speaker
four fifteen two eighteen stack You played drums, obviously. and I played drums, yes. So what my job was, was I would set up all the way to the front of the stage. Like I would literally give our singer like a foot and a half of space. I would go all the way the front of the stage.
00:27:07
Speaker
And every cymbal I played was 22 or 24 inches. And I had no volume control. I'd just play it absolutely full out as loud as I freaking could because I had this wall of destruction behind me going at all times.
00:27:22
Speaker
Damn. It was loud. Aspirational. Yeah, that's wild. I got a little bit of ringing in my ears still. I bet. I haven't played a ton of PVs, but I think the mace is probably one of the heaviest amps I've ever had to do anything with. Yeah, those those things are gnarly. Those things are so heavy.
00:27:40
Speaker
That's a great amp. I got one in the next room. I didn't know you had one. Damn. ah Supposedly, it's the the phaser circuit. It's a copy ah a copy of the Oberheim phaser. Actually, that makes sense because it's an optical six stage. so that would that would track the the Heritage VTX also has. That was one of my first two amps growing up.
00:27:58
Speaker
um And the cool thing about those is that you could freeze the LFO so you could pull the rate pot and it would stop the LFO from moving. And so then you could use it as a fixed notch filter and do the the sand black church thing. And it sounded incredible.
00:28:15
Speaker
i I have a Nashville with, I think the same phaser circuit in it. And i literally had to fix that in mine because ah it had some weird, I see that went bad that just froze to the other. ho And then every time you turned it on, it would sound different because it would just be in a different phase or something.
00:28:33
Speaker
That's kind of sick though. It was kind of cool, but then I fixed it. Yeah. Very underrated phaser circuit. Really good. Too bad you can't make them anymore. oh Oh, OTAs?
00:28:45
Speaker
I mean, the whole... It's all optical. Oh, right. Cadmium. You can buy Vactrals that have a data sheet that says Rojas on them. They have not been tested.
00:28:56
Speaker
So you know if you want some plausible deniability, um you know go nuts. But they... the the they the The whole problem with those is that they have cadmium in them. For those of you listening at home, cadmium is very toxic. And for a long time, you could make the argument that, well, the cadmium was on a little wafer of resistive material that was encapsulated in epoxy. And that epoxy blob was on a circuit board inside a big metal chassis in an object that is very unlikely to be thrown into a landfill. So... You could make the argument, I think this is true for a lot of audio gear, that ah the like, you know, heavy metals and toxic compounds are way less likely to make it into landfills that get into the water supply and make our lives worse. But, you know, the problem is that if you have those kinds of loopholes, then way bigger companies are going to find a way to use them for themselves. And we can't be having that. So no more cadmium for
Discussion on Heavy Amps
00:29:47
Speaker
the rest of us. But that was like a valid argument you could make for like the EU export market for a while. Like if you were making an LA-2A, the percentage of cadmium by mass in a rack-mounted compressor in a steel chassis is vanishingly small. And so it's functionally the same as not having the cadmium in it, but it is still there. So, you know, so it goes.
00:30:07
Speaker
So what's what do you lose? with the Because they're still making Vactrals. Yeah. that's That's the part that I don't have a good answer for. i mean there are what isn' the I should rephrase my question and say, do you know specifically what the cadmium was used for?
00:30:22
Speaker
I mean, I'm assuming it's light detection on the the LDR aspect of it. Yeah. So cadmium sulfide is the material that's used to make photoresistors or at least the most popular material for most of the history of electronics. There are lots of materials that respond in different ways to light. You know, certainly there are a lot of semiconductors that do, which is why you have like phototransistors. They're not that different from how an LED works, but in reverse. Right. And, uh,
00:30:48
Speaker
that all works well except you can't use them for linear resistive parameter control because if you've got a photo transistor and you've got a signal across the collector and emitter um if that signal exceeds more than the saturation voltage of the transistor then it's going to be uh it's going to distort and so you can't for example stick a photo transistor where you would put a resistor in a circuit um you have to you know you need something that's going to be linear and a cadmium sulfide resistor on the side of the resistor behaves like a resistor um you know None of that transistor non-linearity is going to crop up in any meaningful way.
00:31:23
Speaker
So the issue is that that substrate provides linearity in response to light versus other substrates that have non-linear characteristics associated with them. Exactly. and they're pretty much just good for or off. um You know, if you want, like you could even take like ah like the H11 F1M optocoupler, which is really popular for MIDI. You could make a compressor by PWMing that, but you have to keep the voltage across the sort of resistor side of it below about 300 millivolts. um Otherwise, it gets like horribly distorted.
00:31:53
Speaker
um I tried to make a compressor using that part because in in theory it would have been very sick, you know, our guitar yeah. oh yeah. um But the problem is that you have to attenuate the voltage way down to basically nothing and then amplify it a bunch. And so for a feedback compressor, it's basically useless. Yeah, you're basically running like a compander circuit in order to actually use the dang thing.
00:32:15
Speaker
Yeah. And now granted, this is true for a lot of diode ring compressors as well. The functional signal level across those is super low. But for reasons that I don't fully understand, and maybe one of you guys knows more about this. Almost certainly one of you knows more about this than I do. the The diodes just don't add very much noise when you're doing it, probably because the impedances involved across a conducting diode are so low that you're not adding any Johnson noise.
00:32:38
Speaker
I would also assume that their but the diodes are biased on so that they're operating in a linear region anyway. Yeah, you get like a kind of linear-ish region. But yeah, that's ah that's an underrated technology. And I'm actually surprised nobody has made a diode compressor for guitar.
00:32:52
Speaker
Like a diode bridge? I've been thinking about it you somebody is Somebody's got to do it. Yeah, I know. I thought um deciding not to say the statement I was going to say. um I'm pretty sure. Yeah, anyway.
00:33:05
Speaker
you So you've been thinking about it, Chris. You like that? You like that deflection right there? Yeah, we I've been thinking about it. You should do it. I think it's probably a lot of R&D and a lot of build out for the detection circuit for it. Yeah, diode compressor sounds super cool.
00:33:21
Speaker
the ah the the The detector circuit is, mean, that's ah that's a dark art on its on its own sort of thing. Yeah, but Chris is way into detectors. I mean, or at least that was a couple of years ago you were. Maybe you hate them now.
00:33:34
Speaker
No, i i've I love detectors. The one you did for the florist is very nice. Thank you. Yeah, I i like it. At some point, we'll make a compressor.
00:33:46
Speaker
But I really want to make sure that I'm adding something new to the pile, which is what I try to do with all my stuff. And i haven't really, like... come up with like a killer way to do a new take on compression although there is some like optical stuff that I don't think anyone's done and when I show it to people they're like oh that's cool I don't want to I don't want to spill the ah spill the whatever I've still never dove into compression circuits or anything.
00:34:17
Speaker
I do the same thing. I think about what can I do that's new, and then I start learning about it, and then I come up with ideas. But before I really dive into it and learn about the circuits, it's hard to think of a new way to do things. So I haven't gone down that hole yet.
00:34:30
Speaker
It's hard to be original, you know? Yeah, it means yeah it's super hard. Well, it's it's kind of easy in guitar land, honestly, but... Yeah. In pro audio, it's ah it's a little more difficult. There's a little bit more thought put into that stuff.
00:34:44
Speaker
In pro audio too, you have an industry that supports very much. So like the word I wanted to say was regurgitation. And that sounds much more, much more negative than I'm i'm thinking. But yeah, recycling of ideas is very common in pro audio. I i really think that some people should do some some very new things that have never been done before in pro audio. That would be nice.
00:35:07
Speaker
I mean, like if you're doing a guitar compressor, ah Charles, if you ever want to go down this rabbit hole, um build a Valve Wizard Engineer's Thumb. It's a really good DIY design and learn what makes that tick.
00:35:20
Speaker
And then if you can't make something that sounds better than the Engineer's Thumb, don't bother. Yeah. That's wow. Because like that, that design, that design is, is idiot proof in a really, really cool way. Feel free to pick my brain about this offline. I would be happy to yap at you about compressors,
Guitar Compressor Innovations
00:35:40
Speaker
uh, forever. Like if you're, if you're not trying to learn about the technology and everything, like that's a good one to be like, what is the smart way to do this? And how can i then break the smart way to make something that is interesting on guitar? Because that's what all of our careers are kind of built off of. Yeah, yeah, right on. I might pick your brain about bucket brigades because I'm ah i'm in that rabbit hole right now. so I'm so, so sorry. know.
00:36:03
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Very, very sad. Yeah. We'll see if I ever come out of it. It's like a rite of passage, you know, yeah like I like jet, like genuinely, because BBDs are, it's like every kind of electronics happening all at the same time.
00:36:15
Speaker
You know, if you treat it like an analog system, you'll get burned by digital stuff. If you treat it like a digital system, you get burned by analog stuff. Once you get the analog and the digital sort of working together, then you're in a power nightmare and you know, and all those things feedback on one another, literally in a way that I think is very, very cool. But also is is like kind of ah ah a supreme challenge for an engineer doing the kind of stuff that we do. So they're really enticing for that reason.
00:36:40
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what see if I can come up with anything different. Yeah, at least with the two of you guys, you actually released your analog delays. mine Mine never got off the breadboard. Like, oh my god, it works. I'm done. Let's move on to something else. I actually gave away my analog delay prototype to my friend Anthony DaCosta, so technically it is released.
00:37:02
Speaker
Nice. yeah I mean, I remember playing yours and being like, yeah, this is really good. And then you made ah you made your delay that sounds arguably better and doesn't need all ah of this other technology to do it. And so it's like you kind of broke the game in a way that works for you.
00:37:19
Speaker
you know Thank you. Yeah, ah i I just got really frustrated with the bucket stuff. I really like the analog delay that I came up with, and I might maybe do a short run of them at some point. But...
00:37:31
Speaker
God, the PT one that we made, I just... It sounds great. And it's like more affordable and you know more consistent by using that. And the chips don't cost $7 a piece. Yeah.
00:37:44
Speaker
I think... I'm so probably spilling the beans here, but obviously there's nothing special about the PT. Just sort of like there's nothing special about a bucket brigade, in my opinion. it's You're basically taking like a...
00:37:57
Speaker
a disgusting mess and then cleaning it up with a bunch of filtering and companding and i think that's what people are actually responding to so i think the next delay pedal we make isn't even going to use a pt we're just going to like have a digital high fidelity digital engine and then use the same kind of filtering and uh analog companding and we're just going to call it good and then people get even more upset online Dude, have you have you played the auto BAM or is it the BAM? I can't remember which one. The auto machines digital delay is no exceptional. It is so good. It's more of a tabletop unit. and So pedal people don't know about it, but it is doing like the old school digital delay emulation thing. And it just sounds amazing because the people who designed these old digital delays knew exactly what you're talking about here. You know, like in In the BIM, it's got filtering, it's got compression, it's got limiting, it's got all the analog stuff that makes the delay sound good because the delay should be as neutral as possible. And if you're lucky, you get cool artifacts like bucket loss or aliasing or something like that that make it more interesting. But it is the it is the seasoning that that makes the dish, you know? Oh, it's a 12-bit system.
00:39:08
Speaker
Yeah. And it sounds so, so, so, so good Interesting. So, you know, like that thing, that thing is like crazy underrated. I don't know why I don't have one. The reverb is also really good. I borrowed both of them from a ah friend of mine for so long that I thought I owned them. And then he was like, Hey, I'm moving. I need these back. And I was like, whoops, but they're, they're, they're wicked. Good. I'm highly recommended.
00:39:28
Speaker
I'd never heard. It looks cool though. Yeah, what are they running it on, STM32? It's a combination of stuff. The the Reverb actually uses an FE1 for the input diffuser only because the all-pass filters on it sound like, you know, I mean, it's literally a Keith Bard chip, so they sound like an Alesis, you know, all-pass filter network. But then they're using like a 12-bit pick for most of the DSP. I mean, like, it's it's ah it's a very strange system, but it does the thing.
00:39:52
Speaker
Crazy. I love this stuff. Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. i've yeah I've never heard of this and this is really unique. This is really unique. Market research, baby. yeah they're talking, even on the description here, they're talking about kind of what we just were, where it's like analog processing and using digital just for like the delay function.
00:40:12
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. Yeah.
Digital Delay System Discussion
00:40:14
Speaker
Here's one more question for you all. hi this is Justice from Fuzz Amp. This is a question about Alu Neck Instruments.
00:40:22
Speaker
I love my Alunex Tally that I'm using. I was wondering if could talk about some of the benefits or maybe even the drawbacks for those who aren't as familiar. Love all you do. Thanks for hearing me out.
00:40:36
Speaker
All right. Aluminum necks. Yeah. I think, am I the only one who has ah any aluminum guitars here? Yes. And you also are also the only one whose aluminum neck guitar I've played.
00:40:48
Speaker
That's true. I've only played one in my life and it was very enjoyable. you did was it the it was Was it my Travis Bean that you got to play? ah Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that one that that one is like kind of the reason that aluminum guitars are even considered good. Travis Bean was the first one to make like production aluminum guitars, and he was like a motorcycle mechanic.
00:41:09
Speaker
But also, he was machining all this stuff by hand. But I think... The reason that these guitars are really good is those particular Travis beans are good. There's two reasons. One, neck through construction pretty much always sounds better, especially if you've got something as rigid as aluminum.
00:41:24
Speaker
The sort of hand wavy science behind it is that ah aluminum is going to reject the vibrations of the strings coupled into the bridge for a longer amount of time. And so you get more sustain. That's the short version of it. Whereas wood being a softer material will dampen the vibrations and lower your sustain. That's the that's like the simplest TLDR explanation. But I think the real magic of it is their pickup design was exceptional.
00:41:48
Speaker
The sort of assumed lore is that the early Travis Bean pickups were basically Fender wide ranges. But there are some other like really like low impedance humbucker design. um You know, there's there's some unique stuff to them that somebody who's more educated and in pickups can tell you more about. From what I can say, kind of like having measured them and and spent a lot of time playing them is that they're very low inductance. And so the resonant peak is high and it makes them super clear and articulate and the output is super high, which makes them fun for just plugging into an amp and and punishing the front end. My Travis Bean can swing about five volts peak to peak on a hard strum.
00:42:22
Speaker
So it's, ah you know, it's a really it's the instrument I use to stress test things that come in. But then like kind of since then, you know, the those guitars were commercial failures because despite all of the reasons that aluminum is good, it actually has a greater thermal expansion coefficient than wood does. And so under 1970s stage lighting, um the guitars would go out of tune and. Part of the reason i might want my pet theory that aluminum guitars came back one just, ah you know, more access and cheaper machining, but also LED stage lighting doesn't cook people when they're performing live and their aluminum guitars don't go out of tune.
00:42:58
Speaker
Putting all that together, I think there's like a pretty, a pretty compelling case for using one today, but also it attracted a lot of for lack of a better descriptor, counterculture weirdos, right? You have things like the Obstructors guitars, um which are more, they're just as much like an art project as they are a guitar. You know, it's a functional instrument, but it's an instrument that really inspires you to play in a different way.
00:43:22
Speaker
And of course, you have all the contributions of companies like Electrical Guitar Company, Robot Graves, um Illuminati, who all put their own sort of artistic and design spin on it. um You know, ah EGC has been able to keep the actual like Travis Bean legacy going for a long time, which was really meaningful. It's a neat thing, but ultimately it's like the sustain, the unique pickup design, the the sort of visual aesthetic of it, the relative indestructibility of of an aluminum neck is all really
Aluminum Guitar Necks
00:43:50
Speaker
meaningful.
00:43:50
Speaker
One other tidbit about the pickups I also just remembered is they typically have huge bottom like steel plates on the bottom, which redirects the field upward. It makes it more intense. But again, somebody who knows more about magnetics would be able to say more about that than me. I just have a vague idea of how they're constructed.
00:44:07
Speaker
Anyway, that's the aluminum guitar spiel. I love them. I think you pretty much just covered everything. yeah the I've only ever played one, same as Chris. I played an EGC at Oakland Guitars. Oh, nice. Cool shop.
00:44:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's a cool shop. Johnny Rocks. It was cool. I know a lot of people who swear by the necks. I know a lot of people who've taken those Illuminati necks and swapped them into their strats and stuff, and they swear them all the mojos there and all that, but I've never played any of those. so i think like the the i like an aluminum aftermarket neck but i think a lot of that a lot of what people are hearing is a brass nut you know um which is is not nothing i really like a brass nut on like a telly or something like that but i also just i like treble so you know they're very bright i mean yeah brass nut or not like they usually have stainless frets from what i've the ones i've played i've played egcs i've played travis beans um
00:45:04
Speaker
There was like a point where like all the Doom guys in Portland started playing EGCs. So they were around for a while. I mean, cool. Very cool. But just like a very different feel. The density, because they're so heavy. There's this thing when the pick actually hits the strings that I could never really... like you know, gel with it's, it's, it feels like a very dense guitar and the strings are, it almost like feels isolated from the guitar itself. If that makes any sense.
00:45:32
Speaker
Um, but, uh, cool. Just not, not my vibe. Sure. Great. Well, I think we have time for one last short, but sweet question.
John's Dog Finn
00:45:44
Speaker
Hello, John. It's your friend, Alec. I'd like to know what it's like owning the longest dog in existence. Thanks. I have to paint a picture here. My dog, ah his name is Finn. um He is like a border collie, German shepherd and a bunch of other stuff mix. He just has really, really, really long legs. You know, he just ah he's kind of like torso head of a border collie and then like kind of German shepherd long legs. And he's lanky. He's an absolute moron. He has like some of the mental faculties of a border collie, but he doesn't have anywhere to put that information.
00:46:21
Speaker
You know, And so like he's just kind of stressed all the time. But, you know, very he's a very he's a very sweet dog. But also he is an absolute moron. Where is he? ah Why is he not on camera? know yes hang on Bring your doggy work. it All right. Hang on sec. Where's my dog?
00:46:40
Speaker
I'll get a screenshot. I keep seeing those cute Japanese Shiba Inus everywhere. Oh, getting like massages, like ear massages and or just hanging on the street being cool. with Here he is. bu He does look like a border collie. That thing's huge. You're not going to put it on, put them on your lap.
00:47:00
Speaker
Oh, look at that Who's a bull. can Can you pick that dog up? Can you like step farther back in the room and pick it up? ah Oh, he does have a really long legs. He does have really long legs.
00:47:12
Speaker
I'm sorry, buddy. What's going on? You smell so bad, dude. What's up? You absolutely stink, dude. What a cutie. If I'm just sitting, he'll he'll just kind of stand on me. And ah you know he likes to he's kind of got the working dog thing where he likes to punch to get attention. And off he goes. He's like, all right, I don't want to be on camera anymore, dad. You're exploiting me.
00:47:33
Speaker
But yeah. Anyway, for those watching at home, listening at home, that's all. He's a long dog. I don't know. own And he smells so bad.
00:47:44
Speaker
Very different than than this guy who's literally just asleep on my workbench. Wow, absolutely conked out. Yeah, it's that's what he does. He's he's geezer.
00:47:57
Speaker
that's This is what he is. He's geezer. Oh, my God. Man, you and Kurt both both having dogs named Geezer is awesome. Well, his dog was named Sneezer. That's right. Kurt's a Sneezer. Wow. Yeah. I'm slandering this dog.
00:48:11
Speaker
Sneezer was a good pup. I think, if I remember correctly, Kurt told me his dog's name was Sneezer Butler. and i And I was like, oh, art my dog's name is Geezer Muttler. Yeah.
00:48:24
Speaker
So obviously the same the same reference, obviously. Incredible. Actually incredible. Kurt came into Portland once. um and He's been here a couple of times, obviously. So yeah, one time Kurt came in. It was right before i was recording the High on Fire record. and um We hung out and i had Geezer. And i ended up taking him back to, I forget what venue they were playing at. and i But I brought Geezer in with me because we had to look at a cabinet on stage.
00:48:54
Speaker
And i I just I brought him into Roseland. It was Roseland, which is kind of like a, don't know, I guess midsize venue here. And ah I actually took his leash and just like clamped it, gave him some lead and clamped it on a ah rail or something to the side of the stage. And he chewed the leash off and was running around. And I'm on stage looking at this cabinet and ah um I think it was Jacob that that found him and like picked him up and was like, whose dog is this? And I was like, wow that's my dog. And he was like, you're not getting him back. And then just like everybody just ran off with him. And me and Kurt were like, okay, cool. Let's just work on this cabinet now.
Podcast Closing
00:49:33
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode of Amplify Nonsense. Our goal is to release a new episode every other week, so please subscribe wherever you listen. If you have a question for Brian, Charles, and Chris about amps, pop culture, or relationships, please call 513-334-3803 leave voicemail.
00:49:50
Speaker
three three four three eight zero three and leave a voicemail If you enjoyed this episode of Amplified Nonsense, please leave a rating and review. Thanks again and we'll see you soon.