NICK SAMPSON: Building custom guitars, the tonewood myth, and perfect guitar setups

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by the 2017 URM Summit, a once in a lifetime chance to spend four days with the next generation of audio professionals and special guests, including Andrew Wade, Kane Churko, Billy Decker, fluff, Brian Hood, and many more. The inspiration, ideas and friendship you'll get here are the things that you'll look back on as inflection points in your life. Learn [email protected]. The URM podcast is also brought to you by heirloom microphones. Heirloom microphones are high-end condenser microphones with something that has never been seen in the microphone industry, a triangular membrane with our patented membranes and our tailored phase linear electronics. Your recording and live experience will never be the same heirloom. Our microphones will help you discover clarity. Go to E-H-R-L-U-N-D SE for more info. And now your host, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 3 (01:06):

Hey guys, welcome to the Joey Sturgis Forum podcast, and today we have great guests with us. Nick Sampson. How are you doing, Nick? I'm

(01:13):

Good. How are you? Pretty

Speaker 2 (01:13):

Good. For those of you who don't know Nick Sampson, he was originally a guitar player in I'm Abomination, and then basically branched out to do some production and worked under me for a number of years and now has branched out on his own, has his own manager and runs his own productions, and he's a badass producer and also an amazing, I'll say, one of the most amazing guitar players I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 (01:41):

Come on. Come on.

Speaker 2 (01:43):

No, you're good, man. You're really good. And I want to start this with something that I find interesting because I noticed that not only do you have a passion for writing music and playing guitar, but you have a passion for building guitars. And I don't know if a lot of people know that about you. So let's talk a little bit about building guitars because first of all, I don't know the first thing about building a guitar, so teach me.

Speaker 4 (02:12):

Yeah. Why would you want to do that in the first place? Why not just buy them?

Speaker 3 (02:16):

Well, when I was coming up, I loved the Ivanez S series and that was my favorite guitar of all time, plus

Speaker 5 (02:24):

One on that.

Speaker 3 (02:25):

Yeah. I hated the fact that it only had 22 frets though. That was like they changed it and I bought it as soon as they changed it. But things like that, like little inconveniences that as a player I would experience coming up, I can rectify those by myself now with, I mean, we have a C NNC mill, and it pretty much, if anybody's familiar with CAD programs, you draw the shape of the guitar into the program, and then once you have those lines, there's a program called Computerated Machining Program, then you can take those lines and convert them into paths for the router to follow. Pretty much so you put a block of wood on this machine, and if you know what you're doing and you screw a few of them up first like I did, you'll be able to wind up with a guitar body that you designed yourself and is all ready to go.

(03:19):

And I really wanted to do it because I have mean as a producer and a guitar player, there's common problems between both things that I think can be rectified. And I've been working on something that's pretty cool for both sides of that. It'll help me in my production career and as a guitar player. So just having the capability to do that is really awesome. I've always been interested in designing things, so it just kind of worked out. YouTube is like a gold mine for knowledge nowadays, so you just type in C nnc guitar on YouTube and you'll find tons of tutorials on how people get it done.

Speaker 4 (04:01):

Do you ever find that some of these custom guitar shops that everyone thinks are so awesome makes some really crappy guitars compared to just your regular run of the mill production line model from your regular guitar company like ESP or something?

Speaker 3 (04:19):

Well, I have more experience with ESP Ivanez Gibson Fender than I do with the custom brands, but what I've noticed, I've had a few custom guitars come through the studio. I worked with the band called The After Image, and they brought in a strandberg boin, and it was the first time I'd ever seen one of those in person.

Speaker 4 (04:41):

Those are really good.

Speaker 3 (04:42):

Yeah. I picked it up and the neck was flat on the back and I'm like, what the hell is going on? This is a flat neck. And I noticed that it was more of a trapezoid shape, and the flat part actually started turning towards the treble side of the neck down. And what that does is guide your thumb to the right spot in the neck to keep your hand posture where it should be. And that's something that's just incredible in my mind because they've been using the tangent circle across the width of a guitar to make the neck shape for so long. But just that alone serves a purpose. A guitar shape or neck is circular for a reason, so it's uniform throughout the entire, it has a consistent radius throughout the entire travel, but this is throwing that out the window and it's like, okay, instead of that, we're going to make your thumb be in the perfect spot so you don't get carpal tunnel and you can play for longer and your posture will be better and you'll develop better muscle strength.

Speaker 4 (05:43):

You had to pick one of the only companies that I wasn't talking about. Thank you, Strandberg, make great guitars.

Speaker 3 (05:51):

I know what you're saying. I've seen an influx of those black machine guitars. They've had a lot of hype for a while, but I see a lot of people copying them now. It was like, it's something that's been in demand for so long, and I mean, I can't blame 'em because so many people want those guitars and the guy just, he can't produce 'em because he refuses to use a machine or mass produces guitars, which is commendable because the guy hand builds 'em. And trust me, you think audio stuff is challenging? Try working with wood because it's ridiculous. It's unpredictable, it moves. It was a living thing at one time. If you set it in a room that has one degree of humidity difference, it will work on you, and then you can't really do anything from there. So I respect woodworkers a lot and yeah, I see where you're coming from. I won't name any names, but I've had my hands on a couple really crappy guitars that had a big price tag on 'em that shouldn't have that kind of price tag for sure.

Speaker 4 (06:53):

Yeah, I've just noticed that they have, I mean, with the exception of these really good brands like Strandberg or something, I've noticed that these homemade guitars have balance issues and there's always something wrong with them that the big brands have figured out a long time ago. So how do you make sure, how did you overcome just the basics, like getting a balanced guitar or one that stays in tune, things like that, how you overcome those things? How come or how have you been able to overcome that? And then these guys that charge $5,000, how did they not figure it out?

Speaker 3 (07:31):

Well, I mean, it's kind of common sense to a certain point. I mean, the guitar has weight, most of its weight in a certain area, which is the body. Sometimes the body's lighter than the neck, but that's not good because you'll have neck dive on an sg. Your tuning machines are a lot heavier than you think they are. The neck will dive if the body isn't light enough. So you have to find the center of gravity or the fulcrum point rather between the weight shift. So what I did in the CAD program, I have, there's a material analysis, and once you make the 3D model of the guitar, you can assign a certain density to it. You look up the density of the wood that you'll be using or combination of materials, and you'll get a density. So you have a weight there, and then you do that for every piece of the guitar that you build.

(08:20):

And some of it's guesswork. I got lucky with mine. I ended up putting the fulcrum point, which is the upper horn where most people have their strap. I think it's in line with the 13th or 14th fret, but when you have it there, if you've ever taken a pencil and set it on your finger and found the fulcrum point, that's what you're looking for when it comes to balance when you're standing up with a guitar. So I actually got pretty lucky with mine, so all the material analysis and stuff wasn't too necessary. But yeah, stuff like that, intonation is a huge thing that sometimes you'll get these guitars that are supposed to be real nice guitars and they're real expensive, but the bridge is too far forward. And in my experience, some of these bridges, if you go by what the manufacturer says to as far as distance between for the saddles, a lot of that stuff is wrong.

(09:17):

Moved mine back an eighth inch from what they had said on a hip shot bridge. I guess you can't trust everything you read online, but I ended up having to buy shorter saddles for one of mine because I couldn't get it to Intonate. But now that I know that, that's just one of the things, and I think some of these smaller guys are like, they don't have the wisdom that these companies have. That's something that you pay for when you buy a guitar from Ivanez or Fender or Gibson. They've been doing it for years and they know exactly what they need to do. And some of the people that try new ideas, maybe those companies weren't doing those ideas because they didn't work or it was going to sacrifice some other part of the guitar.

Speaker 4 (09:54):

Well, I just think that people should realize that just because it's boutique doesn't mean it's good, and just because made by a big company doesn't mean it's bad. In fact, it's probably the mid-level for one of those mass made guitars is probably better than the majority of homemade guitars. But then of course, some of the boutique companies make the most exquisite instruments you could ever find. Of course. But in general, I think that unless you have, if you find a guitar maker that really cares and is really smart and really talented, you're better off staying away.

Speaker 3 (10:33):

Yeah, I agree with that. I firmly believe that you should get your hands on something before you actually commit to buying it. And that's one thing that does suck with the boutique market is that you really don't get a chance because a lot of these guys have waiting lists that are years long and the hype is up. You want the guitar, you can't wait to get it, so you put your deposit down and then you pay for it and you get it, and you might not like it. You might like a thinner or thicker neck. But what I try to focus on is more of functionality and practicality and my designs. I don't want to be held down the way guitars are designed now, you have a piece of wood with holes in it, and these holes accept certain components and people are changing their mind on which pickups and which bridge and which pots, which capacitors, which everything sounds good. I just want to be able to change all that on the fly and it's possible with what I've done. So hopefully once it's all figured out and r and d ready for the market, I'll unveil it and make it happen.

Speaker 2 (11:38):

That's awesome. I would say that there's probably some large issue with mass production, right? I mean,

Speaker 3 (11:44):

Oh, actually it's

Speaker 2 (11:46):

The thing.

Speaker 3 (11:46):

It's with the design. Are you talking in regards to the design? I have

Speaker 2 (11:50):

No, in regards to the other manufacturers who are faced with the problems of having to meet the quota needs and the things like that where you're not necessarily concerned with that as a custom. If you're building your own guitars and you don't have to make 3000 of them by the next quarter or whatever, you can change the quality level of the guitar drastically because there's no mass market concerns.

Speaker 3 (12:24):

Exactly. Yeah. More time can go into planning the design, choosing woods that will work good for the design and the tonal characteristics that the customer's after. You just can't do that when you go to Guitar Center and pick up a Les Paul. You can't.

Speaker 4 (12:39):

No. No. You can't do that if you go to a guitar center, but you can do that if you go to the LA custom shop for Ivanez or something.

Speaker 3 (12:46):

Yeah. Well, I mean, I luckily got to visit that place, but your average guy isn't get a chance to step into lag.

Speaker 4 (12:53):

No, no, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (12:55):

Yeah. But I mean, it would be cool to make the average guitar player be able to modify their own guitars, and if they want that cool new ever tune bridge that just came out, why not make it possible for them to put it in their guitar and not route a giant hole in it? That's the business right there. I think that's where it should be.

Speaker 5 (13:16):

Well, there is a lot of trial and error in that stuff too. I mean, I'll give you an example. I built a custom guitar with Warmoth

Speaker 6 (13:21):

And

Speaker 5 (13:22):

I bought a bunch of things that I thought would've been really awesome. And I mean, this is 10 years ago, maybe even longer. And as soon as I got the guitar and I slapped it together and got everything set and put together, there was immediately a couple of flaws of things that I thought would be cool that I wish I could have changed, but I'd already sunk 17 or 1800 bucks into just the parts, and I had already waited six months to get the guitar, and it was like there was no going back. I couldn't change that reverse headstock to a normal headstock. I didn't like the tension on the low E string, for

Speaker 4 (13:51):

Example. Oh, you chose the reverse headstock bummer.

Speaker 5 (13:55):

Yeah, I wanted to try it. I thought it would be cool. I let the internet influence my decision, and then when I got one, I'm like, I absolutely hate reverse, and I never ever want to play one again.

Speaker 3 (14:05):

Yeah, they're different for the look and everything, but I mean, it depends because if you would've had a Floyd Rose nut on that guitar like a Floyd Rose tremolo, it wouldn't have mattered because your fulcrum for your strings is clamped so hard that what's going on past the nut really doesn't matter too much. Certain things like that will change the way that that stuff happens. Headstock angle, for example, you ordered it from Mout, you said, right?

Speaker 5 (14:34):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:35):

So I'm assuming it was just a flat saw plank that they, fender necks are a lot different than Ivanez or Gibson. Next,

Speaker 5 (14:41):

I got it made to Ivan as specifications because I grew up playing an S, and I've got my 10,000 hours of guitar playing on an Ivanez S series from 96 or seven with a wizard one neck, the thin good one that he discontinued. That is absolutely the best guitar neck ever made, in my opinion, at least that I've ever played. And so I grew up playing that kind of guitar. So I wanted a cool flying V because I was playing in a metal band at the time, and so I tried to have a make it to Ivan as specifications, but when I got it back, the neck was too thick and just everything felt a little bit off. And while I love the guitar and it played great, there was just a lot of design things I think I screwed up. And if I had to do it again, I definitely know what I would change.

Speaker 3 (15:22):

Yeah. The funny thing about Ivan as Nexus, I ran into this issue too. If you're trying to use a standard truss rod that Fender or Gibson uses like a dual action, the height of the rod is too much because you only have so much room in a neck. You have the fretboard wood and the neck wood glued together, and before you glue those together, you route a channel in the top side of the neck blank, which is usually three quarters of an inch thick. And most of those truss rods are just under, they're probably a little less than a half inch thick, maybe like 475000th or so tall. So you have that, and then you start carving your neck away and you want to make it a wizard neck somewhere around three quarters inch total. So that means that the neck wood has to go down to a half inch.

(16:11):

So now you have 40 thousandths of material behind this rod that's exerting crazy amounts of force to counteract the tension of your strings. And what could happen is that that rod will just bust right through the back of the neck. So Ivan has uses lower profile truss rods that it's a different design. They're about a quarter inch, maybe a little taller than that, but that allows you to bring that neck thickness down and things like that that takes a while to pick up on. But companies like Mout, I think they're Fender standard. If you buy a guitar from them, it's going to have no headstock angle unless they have that as an option. Now, I'm not sure, but fender necks, they don't do scarf joints. A fender neck is made from one billet of wood as opposed to an Ivan as neck. They'll cut an angle on top of the headstock, flip it around and glue it back together. And then that gives you the headstock, which is at an 11 degree angle or so, and that provides even string pole behind the nut instead of having your, because the strings in the middle of the neck are going to be higher, and when they come down to the tuning pegs, they have to have some kind of angle to hold them tightly in that nut slot. So with the

Speaker 2 (17:24):

Question about this, the whole idea of a nut, because I saw something on Facebook the other day.

Speaker 3 (17:30):

I know what you're talking about. It looks sick.

Speaker 2 (17:32):

Yeah. So tell me about this. Do you know about this? Are

Speaker 3 (17:35):

You talking about the brass modular

Speaker 2 (17:37):

Nut

Speaker 3 (17:37):

Thing that

Speaker 2 (17:38):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:38):

Okay. I'd have to have real experience with it because everything that I've learned and picked up on, I've basically been taught by what I've learned. That nut slot should be really close to what your string gauge is, and that will ensure it won't move side to side and give you intonation issues. The fulcrum point of the nut is where the string first meets the actual nut material, and I was taught to file that slot downwards at an angle, so that fulcrum point is sharp, but then the string has an angle down, so it kind of holds tightly in the slot with those, you can't get machining cutters that will machine brass without breaking consistently that will be able to give you a tight slot like that. So what he had going on was a rounded contour and it was on a base. So I mean, that might give you a little more freedom, but I can imagine on that low string, that nut shifting side to side and those pegs, but who knows? I mean, it could be revolutionary. I love it. I think that's great because that would make manufacturing the guitar so much easier and designing the string spacing would be a lot easier if those are threaded, which I assume they are, you could even put a really fine thread on those and adjust your nut height like that. And that's brilliant because that's something

Speaker 2 (19:02):

I'm going to send this, I'm going to send to Al and Joel just so they know what we're talking about here.

Speaker 4 (19:07):

Yeah, I just know you're talking about nuts. I have no idea what else.

Speaker 5 (19:11):

I think I saw this on my newsfeed the other day.

Speaker 2 (19:13):

Let me just say this. Okay, so here's the thing that I find interesting about this is that okay, with a nut, you've got the entire, it's one large piece of something, some kind of material. It could be bone, it could be plastic, whatever, and all of the strings contribute to the vibration of this little piece that's connected to the woods. So by having this broken down into modular units and having an individual unit per string, now the vibration's not contributing to the entire piece. And we're talking about micro amounts. This nuts not moving. It's moving by very tiny amounts glued to the wood. But if you separate that, I wonder if that imparts something to the tone or at least the intonation, because I feel like, dude, it has to,

Speaker 4 (20:06):

The different, every type of nut that you get has a completely different effect on the way the guitar sounds. So it has to have a major effect.

Speaker 3 (20:15):

A lot of it has to do with the density and the materials property to reject absorption of the sound. If you watch a YouTube series, PRS put one out called Rules of Tone, he'll have all their different nut materials and he'll drop 'em on the table and show you how different they sound when they hit the table because of the different densities of the material. And the whole goal is to make sure that the energy stays inside the string between the nut and the bridge for sustain. Because if you hit your string, you exert the energy on the string, the waves start to travel up and down it. If that energy can leave that area, your string is going to sustain less than if it were to stay in there and feedback and continue to vibrate that string. So I think that that,

Speaker 4 (20:59):

Have you ever used graph text saddles or a graph deck nut? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:03):

For instance, the past few builds have

Speaker 4 (21:04):

Gone. Yeah, they kill it.

Speaker 3 (21:05):

Yeah, they're nice.

Speaker 4 (21:07):

Yeah, they get rid of a lot of stuff you don't want, which is completely different than other kinds I've had. So yeah, I think that, I don't know. I don't know anything about building guitars, but that seems to me like it would be a major change.

Speaker 3 (21:24):

Yeah, Graphtec's a really awesome company. Their website's killer because I'm dealing with different dimensions of nut width and a margin between the first and last strings and the edge of the neck and all the time, and they have really good dimensions about everything. There's lots of good documentation about the material, their tusk material that they use. And I mean, I've used a bunch of different nut materials and the tusk is my favorite right now. I can't find anything else that I would like better, but I mean, there's always more things to try.

Speaker 4 (21:54):

So do you set up the guitars for all your clients?

Speaker 3 (21:57):

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you know how it is, you pull the guitar to the case after a tour and there's green gunk on the bridge saddles and it's way out of tune and the neck, the truss rod is just cranked so hard because they have an 80 gauge string on there and it keeps going sharp. Yeah, I definitely have to do that every time bands come in. Some bands are good about it if their guitar players are into that, but I've noticed that a lot of guitar players just don't care about, I mean, they care about their setups. It's just like they don't care to learn everything there is to know about setting up a guitar. And that's important for recording because if your neck is bowed, if you have too much relief in your neck, you will throw your intonation off completely. And that's a big problem too, because you can adjust the bridge all you want, but you're not going to get it into margin because when the neck is bowed, it's not on a flat plane. It takes a circular radius kind of plane, and then that moves the frets in relation to the nut and the bridge. So it's a balancing act for sure. But yeah, I try to make sure that every guitar that comes in is set up to its full potential before we put it on tape.

Speaker 4 (23:08):

Yeah, I've noticed it's not just guitar players who tour or anything or anything like that. I think even guys who take it to their own techs or a guitar center or who try to do it themselves typically end up just doing a really, really bad job, but I end up having the same tech come out every single time to do it. So I figured that with you, knowing as much as you do, you probably nine out of 10 times end up fixing the guitars for them.

Speaker 3 (23:37):

Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 5 (23:39):

It's a really good and useful skill to learn. I mean, I think probably in my experience, seven out of every 10 bands that I've ever recorded in my career, I've had to do some sort of setup or intonation or tru route adjustment on the guitar just because no one knows how to do it. Well, no one can play guitar to begin with place anymore.

Speaker 4 (23:57):

That's a different topic. If they

Speaker 5 (23:59):

Can't play the damn guitar, how the hell are they going to learn to set up because they don't even know what a good setup or a good action is, or it's just way out of the power of their abilities and their brain to comprehend that sort of thing. So you have to do it. So I got a fun one here, Nick, for you. I had a friend who used to take guitar lessons from me many years ago, and he's a machinist guy or whatever, an older guy. He built a guitar out of magnesium and he brought it over and it was a very interesting thing to play. He was like, I heard all these aluminum guitars, and they sound like shit, check this out. I made a guitar out of magnesium and he hit it with a wrench or something, and it had kind of a really nice tone to it versus the aluminum one he had brought over. And it was interesting to play. It was definitely, it's a guitar made out of fricking magnesium sound. It sounded cool. It was kind of metallic sounding. I dunno how to explain it,

Speaker 3 (24:52):

But

Speaker 5 (24:53):

What do you think about something like that?

Speaker 3 (24:54):

That sounds pretty radical. I mean, that only experience I've had with magnesium with a fire starter. My dad bought me one when I was like 12, and he basically just taught me about, it's just a survival kind of thing. It has a little piece of magnesium and you scrape little ships of it off and then there's a piece of flint that you strike and it burns very hot and very fast. So

Speaker 5 (25:16):

Yeah, I was warned.

Speaker 3 (25:19):

Yeah, it's a cool thing though. I'd like to see that. You could email me a picture of it or something. That'd be cool.

Speaker 5 (25:24):

Yeah, I mean, I kind of lost contact with him and I mean, maybe his email still works, but I mean, this is probably seven or eight years ago,

Speaker 6 (25:32):

They

Speaker 5 (25:33):

Had made it, and I don't think they ever came to a full production run or anything like that. It was just kind of two guys out of their house and bootstrapping it. They didn't really have a lot of money to play with, and it was kind of just their hobby, and they always tinkered around with guitar their whole lives, but they never really took it super seriously. But they're more into building and things like that.

Speaker 3 (25:53):

Once you get into building, you get a newfound respect for the instrument, and even the people who put 'em together, because there's so many variables that will, I mean, one thing about your design change could completely change the entire sound of the entire guitar. So there's so much work and r and d that goes into this stuff. I love to see people experimenting. I've seen guitars made out of aluminum. The 3D printed guitars are cool.

Speaker 5 (26:20):

Well, I got one. I saw a guy that had a toilet seat converted into a guitar. No shit. It was like he cut it off and he put strings and a bridge on it and pickups on it and glued on a neck, and he had a fricking toilet seat guitar, and on the top, he had the little thing that screws in with some toilet paper. The band was called The Heils or The Hevel or something like that. And I forgot what label they were on, but again, this is like 10 years ago, and that was one of the craziest guitars I've ever seen. It didn't sound terrible, but it was a legitimate toilet seat guitar.

Speaker 3 (26:50):

It didn't sound like shit.

Speaker 5 (26:51):

No. I mean, I only saw them once live and the record sounded pretty good.

Speaker 3 (26:55):

That was a good joke, Eric.

Speaker 4 (26:56):

Thanks, dude. Yeah, I enjoyed that one. Oh

Speaker 3 (27:00):

Man,

Speaker 5 (27:00):

I totally missed that.

Speaker 4 (27:02):

Yeah, dude, that just flew right over your head.

Speaker 3 (27:05):

No, I've seen stuff like that before. I've seen coffee cans. Cigar boxes are a big thing. It's like a

Speaker 2 (27:11):

Cinder made a cardboard guitar

Speaker 3 (27:14):

And it sounded like a damn strut, and that was insane. You

Speaker 5 (27:17):

Going to make the 500 series lunchbox guitar now?

Speaker 3 (27:22):

Honestly, low output guitar. That's kind of what I have, honestly, and not even joking. I have something to that kind of format.

Speaker 5 (27:31):

You've got me captivated because I'm kind of in, always wanted to get a new guitar. I've always been unhappy with the ones that I have. I love my S series, but again, it's only 22 frets,

Speaker 6 (27:42):

And

Speaker 5 (27:42):

Then all of my 24 fret rgs have that stupid bolt on neck bullshit where you can't get your hand up to the 24th fret. So I had to have 'em all scalloped out, and there's just always some sort of compromise or trade off that I hate the SI don't like the pickups. I wish I could throw something in there that sounded good, but you're very limited to what you could get, and it's, there's no cavity, and I wanted to throw some actives in there. I wanted to play some rhythm guitar metal shit, but it just wouldn't work. You couldn't throw a pair of EMGs back in the day into a nineties. Ivan as s, it's literally, there's just no room.

Speaker 3 (28:17):

Yeah. Yeah. That's what I aim to do. I'm trying to develop a form factor, just like API did taking the five 50 EQs from a console at first, and then they release them in 19 inch rack format, and now they're in these little tiny formats and you can have eight of them in there and pull 'em out. If you don't like 'em anymore, put something else in there. That's the whole kind of concept that I'm going for. I'd like for guitar players to be able to be curious about new pickups or new bridge and not be intimidated about the fact that it's hard to put in or impossible to put in and what they have.

Speaker 5 (28:53):

If I didn't have to solder them, I would literally own in every single pickup on Earth, just so I could flip them out in a session, be like, here, let's try this pickup. Yeah, that sounds like shit. Let's try this one, guys. Yeah. What do you think? All right. That's a guitar. Hit record.

Speaker 3 (29:04):

Yep. Yeah, that's how it is. Think of a DB 25 connector and how it has that kind of fit when you push it in. Yeah. Each pickup, well, you could use five channels, but there's a north, each coil has a finish and a start. So there's, in a humbucker, there's two coils, so there's four channels right there. And then you have a ground, which can be common, but I'm developing a wiring harness that will support up to three hum bucking pickups, because you don't need any more than that.

Speaker 5 (29:37):

I need eight.

Speaker 3 (29:38):

Well, there's a company called SFI that makes quad coil pickups, and they're really sweet. Interesting. Yeah, they have a 20 to 20,000 response. They're insane. They're absolutely nuts.

Speaker 5 (29:52):

I can't wait to just high and low pass that when I get it into the computer. Anyways, so

Speaker 3 (29:57):

Yeah, he sells 20 to 20,000. 20 to 20,000. Yeah, no shit. Awesome.

Speaker 5 (30:03):

That 16 K sounds awesome on that solo.

Speaker 3 (30:06):

Yeah, the clean tones would be sweet.

Speaker 5 (30:09):

Definitely

Speaker 3 (30:10):

Some sparkles. But yeah, there's all kinds of new stuff coming out, and it's a shame that people can't embrace it to its fullest because there is that gap between buying a pickup and having the pickup in your guitar playing. You have to take it to somebody, maybe it won't fit because the legs are too long. That's the kind of stuff I'd like to alleviate and just make it Okay. I have a set of single coils, a set of EMGs and some P nineties, and I'd like to use them on one song and make that recording session be able to happen without any soldering or anything. And even changing your bridge that the ever tune. I don't know if you guys have talked about this at all, but any of you have experience with it?

Speaker 4 (30:55):

I've experience with people telling me that I should have experience with

Speaker 3 (30:58):

It. Yeah, it's cool, man. You got to check it out. It's pretty revolutionary. It keeps the damn thing in tune. There's nothing more to it. You can beat on the strings as hard as you can, and it will not deviate from that tuning. It's insane. But I mean,

Speaker 5 (31:15):

Yeah, I saw one at Joey's and it kind of blew my mind. And I don't know, part of me is really scared to pick it up because I've learned to play with such a hand sensitivity over so many hours of guitar playing. But the other part of me is like, man, think of all the shitty guitar players that come in that can't, they monkey power grip the fret, and every note goes a quarter step sharp. And the typical intonation problems guitar players have because they suck and they don't actually learn how to play properly. And it would really be, I think, amazing and alleviate a lot of those problems.

Speaker 3 (31:49):

Yeah. Well, one of the things that I think people are intimidated by the evert tune, they shouldn't be, because you can set the thing up. And when I say set up, I don't mean screwdrivers or anything. I'm talking turning the tuning pegs. If you want the guitar to respond to your bending, just like any other guitar, all you have to do is tighten your tuning peg until you reach, I guess they call it zone two. It could be zone one, I don't know. But once the damn string starts to go sharp, you back it off a little bit and then you're in a normal guitar mode. But if you don't want the string to bend at all, if you're recording clean cords or cord ring ounce or something, just slack, all the tuning heads and then your guitar, it's a piano at that point. So it's so ridiculous. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:35):

Zone one, zone two sounds like an airport parking deck or something, but that's cool. So do you ever think that guitar will be innovated or guitar innovations will come to a point where guitar is no longer a fucked up instrument that just is badly designed and such?

Speaker 3 (32:52):

Yeah, I mean, a lot of those come from, I mean, intonation issues, and that comes from wood moving, like I was saying, how the neck relief can cause intonation issues. Wood has been used for a while because it's hard, it's durable, but there's downsides to it. It absorbs moisture when it gives that moisture off. It moves it, it's not stable. A piece of aluminum or something would be. But I think once guitars, aristedes is using, they're injection molding their guitars with some crazy

Speaker 4 (33:25):

Aristedes. Let me just say something. I just recorded one of those with monuments on my creative live class, man. Those are good.

Speaker 3 (33:32):

Those

Speaker 4 (33:32):

Are really, really good.

Speaker 3 (33:34):

And that's one of the new breakthrough non-wood guitars. They're making guitars that have not one lick of wood on them. The fretboard I've seen in one of their builds that had a rich light fretboard, which is like a hemp paper pressed with a phenolic resonant under high pressure. So if you think about it, it's kind of like a tree, but not really. But there's layers and they're all compressed together over time, and that stuff is very strong. They make countertops out of it, and it outperforms granite and cantilever tests and all kinds of things. They claim it's stronger than stone, which is insane.

Speaker 4 (34:10):

Lemme just say that these Aris tds guitars are fucking loud as hell too. Playing them unplugged, they're considerably louder. The ones that I was around sound about as loud as a hollow body does.

Speaker 6 (34:25):

Wow.

Speaker 4 (34:25):

Unplugged. I mean, they put out a lot of volume and they sound phenomenal. So maybe that is a step into the future.

Speaker 3 (34:34):

I fully support alternative materials for guitars because a lot of these exotic woods are becoming harder to source, and it's becoming a political issue, and you're using certain woods and it's not worth it, man. Gibson.

Speaker 4 (34:46):

Gibson.

Speaker 3 (34:47):

Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:49):

Did I just cough? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:51):

Did you?

Speaker 4 (34:52):

I don't

Speaker 3 (34:53):

Know. It could have been a cackle. It sounded like a cackle.

Speaker 4 (34:55):

Yeah, I think it was a cackle, but yeah, I know those legal issues, they're crazy.

Speaker 3 (34:59):

Yeah, I mean, it's not worth extincting a species of tree just to have a black fretboard

Speaker 5 (35:08):

A lot On a second. Hold on. I'll extinct the rhino so I can get that rhino horn nut on my guitar. I'm more than happy to do that. Sorry for all your rhino activists out there.

Speaker 4 (35:18):

Yeah, some RiNo. I'll be that guy. Someone's got to bear that. The podcast that you're going to get us all killed. Yeah, here it comes. Here comes, right.

Speaker 3 (35:27):

Yeah. But I mean, alternative materials are, I think that's where it's at. I think people should experiment with that more. And I am biased because I hate working with wood. It annoys me really bad. I'll have a blank of wood sitting in my humidity control. I'll measure it, measure the moisture content, and I'll come back a week later and the thing will be twisted like a Twizzler, and I'm just like, damn it. I just wasted a hundred bucks on this wood. I, I'd like to alleviate that.

Speaker 4 (35:53):

You would think that's something that came around for use in the 15 hundreds, 16 hundreds, 17 hundreds. You'd think that we would've figured out a better way to do it by now. Better materials to use.

Speaker 3 (36:07):

Yeah. Well, guitar players are stuck in their ways. I mean, people are still buying Strats and Les Paul's. If you go to a guitar center, that's all you'll see is Strats and Les Balls. I guess that's why, because people buy 'em. But I mean, come on. There's so much more stuff to mess with.

Speaker 4 (36:22):

I mean, they made televisions out of wood in 1600, but now we've got much better materials for televisions. I figured that they would figured it out by now with guitars too.

Speaker 3 (36:33):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (36:34):

Guitar

Speaker 3 (36:34):

Players are stuck in their ways, though I am guilty of it sometimes, but I'm trying to alleviate that. I'm trying to make sure that I keep an open mind for the future because I mean guitars, they're getting crazy, man. They're changing. So

Speaker 4 (36:48):

I think all it takes is playing on an instrument or a few instruments that are made with an alternative material that actually sounds better than what they're used to, and that can open your mind. I think that a lot of the time what happens is that the guys will try a guitar made with alternative materials made by some shitty builder, kind of like we were talking about earlier

Speaker 3 (37:13):

In

Speaker 4 (37:14):

This show, and then just have the idea that stuff's all crap, which I kind of thought for a while too, because I used to try guitars made by different boutique shops made by weird materials, and there always sounded like garbage. But those aristes sound incredible.

Speaker 3 (37:34):

They

Speaker 4 (37:35):

Really do.

Speaker 3 (37:36):

It's a density game, honestly. You're trying, I mean, depending on what you're going for with the instrument, the electric, I'm going to go ahead and say it. I know there's this tone wood debate, and everyone says the wood does make a difference to an extent, but if you compare that to how much a bare knuckle juggernaut pickup versus the next bare knuckle juggernaut pickup, you buy the inconsistency between those two. How minuscule it is is more than what your wood would do, honestly. So many different things that can affect the sound of an electric guitar. If you're talking acoustic guitar, it's different because the sound is made by the wood moving. There's pressure waves being created by the wood moving. You're depending on an electromagnetic interference in your pickups to be transduced into three ramp, push back out of speakers as pressure waves. So it's two different ball games when it comes to that.

(38:29):

And you can see the Les Paul is designed in such a way, it has neck angle, and the acoustic guitar was the predecessor to that and the loot and all those. And in order to get a parallel string plane on the fretboard, they had to raise the bridge up to put it in an angle, and that's how the Les Paul looks. Some people are used to that, but fender, when the strats came out, everything's flat. The body, the plane to the top of the body, the back of the body and the top of the fretboard are all parallel. And that's a lot different than what the Les Pauls and the acoustic guitars and everything else had been before it. So

Speaker 4 (39:09):

They also sound completely different.

Speaker 3 (39:11):

Yeah, and you can attribute that to the way that they're built. How much of the string's energy is the body wood absorbing? How much is it reflecting? How much is it? There's so many different variables when it comes to that. It's hard to pinpoint what exactly what it is, but

Speaker 4 (39:31):

So do you subscribe to thicker strings, denser wood, thicker tone?

Speaker 3 (39:36):

I think, well, most of the action that happens, if you change your string gauge, it's going to make a huge difference in the way it sounds. The way I look at things like that is if you take 'em to the extreme, say you're putting a one 10 gauge base string on your low in tuning it to G or something, that string's going to be extremely tight and it's going to have a really round, low sound to it. It's going to emit very clear low frequencies because the string can move to recreate those frequencies better. But if you have a nine gauge string and you tune it to that G, it's going to sound like absolute dog dick. And just to look at those extremes, you can tell that there's a difference between a 64 and a 68. It might be minuscule, but it definitely is a difference. I try to get the tension,

Speaker 4 (40:23):

But you know what, there might be where the difference also might be, which I guess scientifically what you're saying also makes perfect sense, and I agree. However, you also need the physical player to be able to hit hard enough to activate the heavier string. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (40:41):

That's true. That's definitely true. I've always been a really hard player. So when I'm in drop A, I think I use a 68 through 13 gauge, and then I have a one third. It's probably like a 20 or something like that. I prefer heavier strings because what I'm looking for in a guitar tone is that note I want the note I want, if you're playing a G, I want to hear a g, I don't want to hear a bunch of string rattle and a faint remnant of a G note that's get it coming through the pickup. I'd want to hear that woolly note sound, because when you feed that into an amp, if that is more present than all that other string garble stuff that comes through, then that's what's going to hit the amp first, and that's what's going to get amplified first thousands and thousands of times. So it's a game between string gauge and pick size. I mean, all kinds of stuff. Pick up how close your pickups are to your strings, how hard your bridge saddles are, how hard your nut saddles are.

Speaker 4 (41:41):

I've always subscribed to heavier, heavier, heavier, thicker, thicker, thicker. But I've always been a really hard player, and the best players I've ever recorded have always been super hard players. So all that has really helped my best guitar tones have always come out with super hard players, with super thick picks, super thick strengths. But Andrew Wade was showing me how he gets a way better tone out of a medium heavy pick, and he was describing that. That way it doesn't over attack the strings to the point where it ruins things. And I guess that might come from what I was saying earlier. I guess if you're dealing with players who don't hit that hard, maybe giving them super thick picks and super thick strings is actually to their detriment.

Speaker 3 (42:31):

Yeah, yeah, that definitely. When I record octaves, for example, I have a 60 gauge, or I guess it would be 60000th of an inch or so thick pick. And because I want it to flop, because I don't want the pick to be so sturdy that it's the string in the middle of the octave and causing a gross noise that I don't want. So a thinner pick for octaves is definitely what I'd be using. But if it's gt note, I guess you would call it like an open bow kind of thing, I'm going to make sure that they have a thick pick and it's going to be going, and it does depend on the string gauge, because if it's a thick pick with a light string, that's bad, that's going to sound like crap. So you really have to balance it between what you're doing, but it all comes down to is the player comfortable? Does it sound good? And you got to make sure it's right.

Speaker 4 (43:27):

So I have a question for you about producing other guitar players because you're an accomplished guitar player, accomplished guitar builder, accomplished producer, so you could easily just take the guitar and play most of the stuff that your clients bring in, I'm sure. But how do you go about coaching guys when you know that you could just take the guitar and do it yourself? What are some of your strategies for trying to get them to be able to actually do the job? Or do you just take the guitar

Speaker 3 (43:58):

In the past? I definitely have taken the guitar in the past. I've played on multiple records, but I try to make people leave the studio a little bit better than they were when they came in. So when it comes to riffs and stuff, when I hear a riff and I think, oh, wow, that could be really cool if we did this or that. I'll kind of keep quiet about it. But when we go to track to scratch, I'll ask if they'll give me the guitar, and then I'll lay it down what I'm thinking, and if they're feeling it, then I'll sit there and show 'em what I did to change it. And a lot of the time, people will just be like, okay, well go ahead and track it, and then it'll stay there for the scratch and they'll have time to learn to work on it while we're doing the scratch for the other stuff and tracking drums and bass and all that stuff.

(44:46):

But I mean, I'm not ashamed to ask people to, if I can write on parts, most of the time it comes out cool where they're happy about it, and I've written solos. I've done it all, but at the end of the day, people are coming to me as a producer to make their music better. So if I can do that, and they're cool with me having writing input, and I mean, in some cases, playing input, I'm not going to say that when you come to record with me, I'm going to take your guitar and play everything, but if you want me to, I'm definitely down. But I'd prefer not to because it's, it's something that, it's your record, it's your sound different. People pick differently. They sound differently. It would be wrong for me to do it all the time, but I definitely, I have in the past.

(45:37):

But I try to make, I'll help 'em out with writing things if I think that I can make the part cooler, and then I'll explain to them how I did that, which scales that I used to make that part happen, how I analyze the rhythm part and the next chord and the progression to make a cool cross chord melody for a nice change. I try to get involved and let people kind of, I dunno, teach 'em a little bit. I try to become a little bit of a guitar teacher if I need to be. I mean, I record people that will shred my face off before. So I mean, I can't get too crazy with it. But

Speaker 4 (46:16):

Yeah, of course. So we got to wrap this up. We have one question that we ask all our guests and just want to hear your take on it. Do you have any advice for up and coming producer engineers who are trying to make a name of themselves in this super, super crowded market?

Speaker 3 (46:32):

What I would say is to, I mean, don't ever stop trying to improve because no matter who you are, there's always new things to learn because people's tastes are always changing, and audio equipment's always changing. Someone who's used to mixing, if you were stepped in a time machine from 1970 to 2015, you would know a lot less about mixing than a lot of the younger guys that have laptops, because so many things have changed and there's different ways of doing things, and you can't ever let your ego get in the way of that. Also, building your confidence is a big thing because mixing is people trusting you and your opinion to get something done. If you have confidence in yourself and know that boosting that 200 hertz on the snare or not boosting the 200 hertz on the snare is going to get you where you want to be, then I think that's very important, because if you're not sure about it, then you're going to battle with yourself and you're going to be sitting there for hours playing with things. You just have to educate yourself on what you want to accomplish. The information's out there. There's tons of avenues to get that done. But yeah, just be confident. Keep putting out solid work and don't slack.

Speaker 4 (47:50):

Yeah, I think don't, slack is one of the biggest ones.

Speaker 3 (47:53):

Yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:53):

Yeah, definitely don't slack. Well, dude, thanks so much for coming on. It's been enlightening. I still am not going to try to build guitars, so I'll just let people like you do it.

Speaker 3 (48:04):

Let me know if you want one. We'll hook

Speaker 4 (48:06):

It up, man. I have no, it's weird. There's some dudes that are just wired internally to be into that kind of stuff, or this dude, Matt Brown, who was just on the podcast, came on the Creative Live, who's like a drum tech kind of guy. You guys are just wired for this kind of stuff. I could not care less about building guitars or the science behind it, and I'm so glad that people like you exist because you make life possible for people like me.

Speaker 3 (48:35):

Well, yeah. Thank you. I'm glad. I mean, I'm glad to be that guy for you. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (48:41):

No, glad

Speaker 3 (48:41):

To be your man.

Speaker 4 (48:42):

Yeah, thank you. I'm glad you're my man too.

Speaker 3 (48:45):

We're men together.

Speaker 4 (48:46):

Yeah, that's right. Alright. Alright man, well thanks so much for coming on the podcast. It's been great having you on.

Speaker 3 (48:52):

Alright, thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks Nick. Alright, man, take it easy.

Speaker 4 (48:55):

You.

Speaker 1 (48:56):

The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is brought to you by the 2017 URM Summit, a once in a lifetime chance to spend four days with the next generation of audio professionals and special guests, including Andrew Wade, Kane Chico, Billy Decker, fluff, Brian Hood, and many more. The inspiration, ideas, and friendship you'll get here are the things that you'll look back on as inflection points in your life. Learn [email protected]. The URM podcast is also brought to you by heirloom microphones. Heirloom microphones are high-end condenser microphones with something that has never been seen in the microphone industry, a triangular membrane. With our patented membranes and our tailored phase linear electronics, your recording and live experience will never be the same. Airland. Our microphones will help you discover clarity. Go to E-H-R-L-U-N-D, do SE for more info. To get in touch with the URM podcast, visit urm.com/podcast and subscribe today.