Matt in the USA!

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Hello and welcome, welcome, dear listener.

Once again, to the guitar nerds podcast,

I am your host, Joe Brent,

and joined this week by Matt Knight.

Hello, Mr. Joe.

Hello, Mr. Matt.

You are back.

You're back from the United States.

This is the start of your,

you've got loads of travel going on at the moment being Mr.

important at boss.

And you know, you know, you'll know Mr.

nip.com at rowlands.com.

You've got, you've got, you've got,

you've been to the United States of America.

You're going to Japan soon.

You've got your jet setting.

It's also a time of guitar shows here in the UK.

We've got the Birmingham guitar show,

known as the guitar show,

which is the biggest in the UK, dear listener.

That's happening very soon.

We've got the Synth and Pedal Expo,

the month after that.

There's so much going on.

You're going to be at all of those things,

plus jet setting it around Japan.

I love it. You know, it's in my life now.

I bet it is.

I've sacrificed all that is good.

No, it's, it's been great.

It, it, the time, time flies when you're having fun.

And I could be doing a much worse job.

It's very true.

So it's nice to be doing something that you enjoy

in traveling around.

And yeah, my first time to,

properly to the East Coast of America.

Really?

So you've only ever been like,

West Coast, you only have a do sort of like California.

California.

California.

Yeah, no, I'm just on a massive fan of the red,

not chilly papas.

But nowhere exists outside of California.

Well, I don't think that it does for them.

It's their only subject.

No, I'm not talking about California.

30-year career, 40-year career.

40-year career.

Unbelievable.

Yes, thanks a long time.

Yeah, so I have been to Nashville,

which I don't know if Nashville Councils,

I think Nashville might count as East.

I don't know where they defined this.

Most of our listeners are from the US,

but I couldn't tell you where anything is.

Well, to be fair, I don't know how that comes about.

I, me and Amy were, this is the exciting things

that I discussed with my wife in the pub.

We were told about American.

I was like, I reckon I could name all 50 states.

Do you?

I don't think I could name any.

Well, not to 48.

Wow, that's not bad.

That's not bad.

Which was not bad.

But then you'd know what ones you missed.

I missed Kentucky.

Oh, I just didn't deserve.

That's the one, though.

Because that was Kentucky fried chicken.

And, oh, it was some, what one was it?

Is it one of the ones that, see,

the ones we're going to get,

are the ones that they make movies about.

So anything that doesn't have films about,

you're going to struggle with,

which means probably, it's probably East Coast stuff.

I reckon these coast is really hard.

I don't know how many films are set in Maine.

I think that one's not there.

Delaware, there's not.

I went through Delaware on my journeys.

The ones I missed were,

did you get the two carolinas?

I did get the two carolinas.

Was it Alabama?

No, yes, Alabama.

You didn't get Alabama.

No, I missed Alabama.

Do you get the one that they can't pronounce?

Arkansas.

Yeah, Amy was like is.

A. Kansas.

And I was like, no, it's not.

She's like, it's felt the same.

And Massachusetts.

Yeah, that's a weird one.

Yeah, the East Coast is full of many states.

The way I remember it is,

the East Coast is where the states have shape

and the West is where they're all just squares.

True.

Very true.

And they get bigger.

The further you go out, I think people just got bored

and just started just saying, oh, this is all ours.

Yeah, first time at the East Coast,

I support my American colleague

who's taken over the boss role more full-time in America.

Right.

Visit some dealers, which we'll talk about.

Just spend some time with him and do a bit of business out there.

So went to a couple of big dealers.

So I can share my experience of that.

But what I found really interesting is that side of America is like

old America and old by the standards of America,

250 years of their independence, I guess,

from the UK, obviously much older when you go back to

Native Americans.

But in terms of building design,

nothing is really older than a hundred years old.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah.

How old is your house?

A hundred years old.

Over a hundred years old.

Like, no, I think.

Living in like a 1930s house in England is pretty common.

I mean, how old is Joe?

You've just got to be nearly 150?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I can't remember what mine was.

I think it's 1890.

I can't remember, yeah, something like that.

Yeah, I think what I said to the guy I was with,

he was like, yeah, a lot of the houses you see there,

they're built out of wood because, you know,

brick doesn't do particularly well in earthquakes.

And I said, I don't think wood does particularly well

in any other environment.

So yeah, it's, it was interesting.

It was a good, it was a really good trip.

How many states did you do?

How many states did I do?

Five?

Five.

Well, that's, that's a lot.

Five states.

Because of course, you would have gone to Fort Wayne

in Indiana for sweet water.

Fort Wayne in Indiana.

Yeah, so Indiana.

Illinois.

Right.

So we should cargo.

Pennsylvania.

Drove through Delaware to get there from

Maryland.

So we did like Maryland, Virginia.

And then across and then over to Indiana and

Illinois.

Well, and what was crazy was

Chicago, the so Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

All border.

The lake of the great lake of, oh my god, what's it called?

The great lake.

The great lake of North America, which is called

the great lake, the Michigan lake.

Well, oh my god, what's it called?

I can't think what it's called now.

And clearly, you can't google it quickly either.

I cannot.

But there's a huge lake.

Right.

And we flew from, we flew from Indiana to,

we basically flew from Fort Wayne to Chicago to go to

CME.

So you fly over this lake, which is so massive,

that it's just, it just, you cannot comprehend the size of it

of someone coming from England.

So this lake is 308 miles long.

Well, Lake Michigan, Lake Michigan is, it's 22,300 square miles.

It's basically, I don't understand how we could,

the plane journey was only an hour, and most of it was flying over this lake.

I'm like, there's more water than flying from the UK to Amsterdam.

It's definitely something that I feel sort of American listeners will be like, yes,

and what?

They're just the scale that Americans exist on it.

And I think, I guess, dear listener, if you're in the US,

try and understand that.

For us, just the scale that you exist on is, it's unfathomable,

unfathomable to us.

We can't, we can't imagine that sort of thing.

You know, you can drive all the countries in the United Kingdom in nine hours,

you know, so it's, I mean, that's the thing, you know, 300 miles, I mean,

how long would 300 miles get you?

Like your house to my house?

Yeah, about that, yeah.

And that's like half of the country.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So yeah, it is, it's the scale of the vastness of space in America is beyond me.

Yes, it is, it is.

That's what I think what really gets me is spending a lot of time in LA,

it's very built up and you don't have that same thing in some of the smaller places.

You just have lots of nothing.

Yeah, it was also very cold.

When I landed, it was the coldest I've ever felt.

It was with the wind chill in English, please.

Baltimore in English, Central Celsius.

It was minus 23.

That is so ridiculously cold.

But it doesn't get below like minus two or three here.

Yeah, I think that would be considered extremely cold here.

Well, I mean, we got like a weather warning as soon as we landed on our phone.

Like, be warned, don't go outside.

But what's crazy is the efficiency of the road clearances.

It hadn't actually snowed for like two weeks.

They cleared all of the roads every pathway.

It was completely clear, not slippery.

Every road completely clear.

But all of the snow had just turned to three feet of solid ice.

So either side of every road in power was just walled of ice.

Now we're like, yeah, it hasn't melted since it snowed like two, three weeks ago.

I was like, is it normal like this?

Now we're like, no.

Yeah, very cold.

Well, so on this podcast deal, and we called this podcast Matt in the USA,

and we are going to be talking about some of the things,

purchases that Matt made and places that he saw guitars and bits of gear that he saw as well.

We're going to do a little continue from last week as well,

where we were talking about hot takes because I've been watching a lot of subway takes on Instagram.

And I wanted to ask you, dear listener, for your hot takes on guitar gear,

I might ask Matt for a cup or put him on the spot as well.

But we've got some fantastic ones from you.

We had Philip on last week, and we went through a few of them.

Some of them getting him a little bit hot under the collar.

So we're going to see how those go this week.

But I guess, you know, like, first of all, actually, before anything else,

I just wanted to mention Matt, I went to ACS Custom the other week.

Get some earplugs.

I was, well, see, I have, so, okay, first of all, a couple of things, very first of all,

I do think the hearing is, I'm a friend of John O.

the, you know, one of the main fellas behind ACS,

and I've known him well for quite a few years.

And I've mentioned this before on the podcast, dear listener,

but talking to him makes me really realise how much as musicians,

we undervalue the protecting our ears.

You know, hearing is the most important thing.

It isn't something we should underinvest in,

or not think about at all.

Earplugs are very, very important.

And to be honest, good quality earplugs are important,

because yes, we can, you can shove some 50p foam expanders in your ear,

but you're actually ruining your experience of music as well.

You're protecting their sure, but of course,

you're only protecting as long as those foam things actually keep a seal,

which isn't really how they work.

They don't always work, so they're not 100%.

But also, really, you're ruining your experience of music,

and that's why getting molds is so good,

especially with plugs, because then you get the filters in plugs

that can give you a 12 or 15 or 17 or 20 decibel cut,

depending on, you know, whether you're a drummer or a guitar player,

depending on whether you're using them for going to gigs,

and you can change those filters as well.

So I kind of think those sorts of things.

I just have a couple of 15s in mind that I use for going to all gigs,

and because they're molds, they go in,

and I put them in at the start of the night,

and I'll keep them in whilst I'm drinking,

talking to people as well.

And it just lowers everything, keeps my hearing safe,

and means I can enjoy a show.

I just think, I think it's a really easy thing

to invest in that's really important,

that maybe we don't think about enough.

Have you ever got molds, Matt?

Have I ever had molds?

No.

No.

I said, you're answer with that.

No, I don't need it.

I always, at Birmingham Guitar Show,

I think ACS have often had the booths,

they do, and I keep going up every year.

I'm being like, oh, this looks really cool.

I just like the idea of having custom molded.

I always think actually maybe just some custom molded ear plugs,

whether or necessarily, I wouldn't ever use them for...

It is.

Yeah, but that's just the molded ear plugs.

Yeah, exactly.

And I have both sort of in ears and molded plugs

for going to shows and for practices,

where I might not necessarily use in ears.

I really think getting molded plugs is a bit of a must-have.

You should check them out, because actually,

this is, if you're in the,

you get obviously ACS or an international company deal,

and you can go and get your moldsome wherever you are.

But if you are in the UK, then yes,

and you're coming to the Birmingham Guitar Show,

ACS do have a stand, they will be doing molds,

and I think it will actually be John O,

will be one of the people they're doing the molds,

which is pretty cool.

Kind of one of the guys behind the company

who will be actually doing the molds for you.

And, you know, they're super cool.

You can choose any color they must have, like, 40 colors.

That's fun.

You can make sure you get, you know,

the white color for you.

You can even have your name,

like it sort of lays it onto the sides of them,

if that's the sort of thing you forget often,

then, you know, have your little name.

Have your name there?

But I had, you know, I had my molds are in a neon yellow

to match my strap locks and my pletrums.

And your current beanie.

My underbeanie, I'm wearing right now.

But, yeah, you know, so I do think they're a good idea.

And for what it's worth, Matt, if you were thinking about them,

Guitar Nerds 15 is the discount code, dear listeners.

We're doing 15% off with ACS.

They were lovely enough to give us that discount code for our listeners,

which is pretty cool.

That's all for anything in their range.

So you can do it in monitors, if you want, you can do plugs, if you want.

But, you know, they're really good.

But, yeah, you can have a,

can the, or in is and, and,

had, like, ear plugs, two separate things.

They are.

Yes, they are.

They're so molds, you can change the filter in them.

So you can change the, the different level.

But monitors are all different.

So they, they probably do 10 different sets of in-ear monitors.

And they will, they will vary in the amount of drivers that they have,

because drivers at that size tend to deal with a frequency bands.

You might have a 2, didn't we just bass and treble, 3, 4, 5, you know,

however, many bands of EQ, which is delivering a varied quality of tone.

You also have, like, ambient ones that singers might

use, which will have ports, so that they still have a degree of room sound

involved in the, in the mix as well.

So there are, there are different ways you can get.

And I actually, I think, in-ear monitors go in slightly further.

So they do a slightly different

mold with, in-ear monitors to, with plugs.

Right.

You can, it, you, once you've had them done,

they're scanned and they stay on record.

So you only have to have them scan once.

You could get molds and you could get plugs from that scale.

Ah, yeah.

Which I mean, that's so clever.

It's never going to change is it?

So if you lose them, it's easy enough to all the spares.

Exactly.

I have to go through it.

Actually, funny enough, Matt, it does change.

You've got to, you have to update them.

I think it's once every three or five years, something like that.

Because when I, I lost mine and I was like,

oh, can I get these done?

And they were like, no, it's gone past the point.

You need to have them reject.

Because they just, they want it to be a perfect seal.

And as our bodies change and grow,

as, you know, we vary and wait and everything else.

So do our ears change in size.

So they need to, they need to make sure it's a perfect seal again.

So that's okay.

I didn't know that.

Or that's just a clever excuse to get you to remodel your ears every three years.

Yeah, it doesn't cost you anything to have them.

Oh, it doesn't cost you to actually go and have the thing.

You pay for the product at the end.

The service is just part of it is how to get you there.

So yeah, I was just really impressed with the

service. I went to there, like, they've got like an HQ and tile yard,

which is this lovely sort of music studio place in North London,

dear listener, just has loads of studios and other bits and

bobs as a company is all operating in a similar area.

So I went in there and it's really good,

because I could go in and have the moulds done.

And what they do is they, they, they basically,

the first step is they check your ears for any, you know,

tic-tacs or anything like that.

That's okay.

Yeah, and then then they fill you is with goo.

It's like a gun thing.

They fill you is with goo.

Leave that to set for a few minutes.

Then they pop that out, taking a, you know,

like a minimal amount of your brain with it.

And then those, those moulds go into a scanner,

like a 3D scanner, which scans them onto a computer,

so that they can then send them off to their factory

to be made into the actual silicon or whatever the material is

that they use for the plugs.

And then, so whilst they're doing all that scanning,

you can then use, you can then check the different

in-ear monitors if you're having monitors done,

because they've got like 10 different types.

And they'll have like a generic sort of plug on the end.

So it won't give you the same experience,

but you can put them in to get an idea of the EQ differences

from set to set.

And then they have like a listening post.

So they have, they have, is it Cubos?

I think they're really high quality one that's better than tidal.

So you can, you can put on your favourite record

and listen to that and get an idea of the variation.

And they also have a bunch of guitar amps and a drum kit set up

and all plumbed into sort of an in-ear rig.

So you can put that in, try the different ones there,

try playing along and see how that feels

and how that sounds and make your decision off the back of that.

It's really good.

It's really, really kind of a nice experience,

really thorough, really personalised.

They've got these little dongles where you can go through

little colour swatches and choose those.

That's pretty good.

Oh, that's nice, not bad for that whole process

and everything you get is pretty good.

Yeah, it's a nice little day out in London,

but yeah, so I've got a set on the way of new in-ear monitors.

And as I say, dearless, no guitar, it's 15,

if you're interested.

Or, you know, if you want to message us for a chat about ACS

and the things they do, I really think at the very least.

Plugs for gigs and, you know,

for going to gigs and performing is just a cool thing.

I do have some better than the phone,

up from the phone standard,

cheapies, but not anything more expensive

or detailed as that.

Did you go to a lot of gigs, Matt?

You do a lot of shows as well.

Yeah, that's true.

Shows is the one, isn't it?

And that you say, you don't want to,

you don't want the straight decibel cut.

You actually want the harsh frequencies

taking that of everything.

Exactly.

And it's not necessarily the volume that kills you.

It's the ridiculous behind-its.

Yeah, it's all of those like the crash symbols

in your left or right ear for hundreds of gigs

that's probably going to make it worse.

That is the problem.

That's the thing.

That is the problem.

But yeah, definitely worth checking out.

Anyway, I had a great time there.

It was a lot of fun and cool that they gave a discount code

for our listeners as well.

I thought that was very nice of them.

But let's talk about your US stuff.

I want to talk about some of the things you got.

So did you make any purge?

How do you want to do this?

Do you want to talk about the places you went

or the purchases you made or a bit of that?

I can talk about both.

Okay.

I can talk about both.

So yeah, we ended up, this is not a deal of related,

but we ended up, we had one day free,

and we were the nearest place that we were,

well, we were basically, we were right near Washington, DC.

Right.

So we were like, should probably go to see the White House.

It's one of those things that for English people,

I think you've seen it on millions of TVs

and film programs.

And I really wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial.

I thought, you know, such an impressive statue.

I was like, oh, I want it to go.

So we ended up making friends with someone

at the bar in the hotel who gave us a phone number

of someone who agreed to pick us up the next day,

which was very strange.

And it sounds so sketchy.

Oh, I applied us with whiskey, and then the next...

Well, you just drunk, and you just met somewhere.

Yeah, basically.

We met someone at a bar who then knew the person

who worked behind the bar, who then handed us a phone

with an already like connected phone call.

And this guy was like, okay, I'll pick you up tomorrow at 12.

I remember like, yeah, sure, whatever.

And then the next morning hung over,

we were like, is this a good idea?

I don't know why it did, this dude is.

And we were like, oh, we'll see, we'll be brave.

I was like, being brave, I remember it's just being

outright silly.

But by the time we were like, maybe this is a bit too risky.

The guy was like, come on my way.

So we're like, okay, we're in for it now.

And we got picked up by the nicest man.

The nicest driver I've met ever.

He was super, super nice.

So a massive shout out to a guy that's never going

to listen to this podcast called Odell,

based out of Washington, DC.

He grew up there his entire life.

His dad was in government.

And I was like, oh, what do you do?

He's like, I work in private security.

I was a member of the police force

and I've moved into private security.

And I was like, oh, great.

So we're safe with you.

And he went, now I'm not allowed to bring my gun with me.

So you're on your own.

I was like, okay, that's a kid's stuff.

Pedro is around all the sites, DC.

Couldn't see the White House because it's all blocked off.

But we saw, yeah, the Lincoln Memorial,

the reflecting pool next to the Washington monument,

which for me was kind of strange,

because it's that one scene I remember from Forest Gump

where he's doing the speech after coming back

from the Vietnam War.

And Jenny runs out into the reflecting pool

and it was frozen over.

And he was like, I've never seen that

because it was just so cold.

So it was, yeah, there's crazy.

One of those like, yes,

never say no kind of experiences.

So yeah, we ended up doing a bit of a tour of DC,

which was really cool.

And literally very cool,

because it was minus 20 degrees.

So yeah, we ended up,

so the two big retailers that went to,

I think worth talking about,

especially for UK listeners are sweet water.

So sweet water is like next to GC,

they're like the US's biggest retailer.

Yeah, they're the big ones that are real.

And I think GC is really focused on stores.

I think GC have over 300 locations.

Yeah.

And other source of many a meme around service and stores.

So we did go, we went to, we did actually go,

went to it, we went to a guitar center in Chicago,

but it wasn't necessarily anything to write home about.

It was pretty bog standard store

with everything you kind of expect.

Yeah.

But sweet water.

So sweet water is in Fort Wayne, Indiana,

which for reference is like,

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Having a store in the middle of a massive field

that takes two hours to drive to,

it basically, it's impossible to have a location,

that remote in England.

I think it would have to be right at the south.

No, probably as far west as you could get in Wales

for it to be that remote, like really, really far out there.

Basically, the whole town works for Sweetwater.

We went there and I was so impressed

with their business operations.

I think we were talking about this with them,

and I think you'd agree with this, Joe.

So big part of Sweetwater,

which we do not have in Europe or the UK

for our sort of non-EU listeners,

is they focus heavily on outbound phone calls.

So when you buy something,

say, for example, you went on to Sweetwater right now

as a first-time customer and bought one set

of Ernie Ball Strings.

You are assigned a sales engineer,

and it's that person's job to be your best friend

for the rest of your life.

And they will phone you when you might

want a new set of Strings or you might buy guitar

and they're like, they'll phone you back

and they're like, how are you getting on with it?

And they make something like 14,000 outbound calls a day.

It's the same, it's unbelievable.

I was like in England.

What is the size of their workforce

to be as fast as massive?

Just on tele-sales.

Just on sales, it's like,

you'd be lucky if a guitar retailer in the UK

employed a person for tele-sales.

I think it's 300 people.

Well, I tell you, it was super impressive.

We got a tour of their business.

When you joined, sweet,

if you go to work to save John Pajoy,

you were like, right, that's it.

I'm gonna move to Fort Wayne.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna,

I wanna go back to my retail routes in America.

You have to go through 13 weeks of sweet water university

before you're even allowed to pick up the phone.

You have to go through 13 weeks of training.

Wow.

13 weeks.

So far.

Oh, fully paid.

Well, 13 weeks of fully paid training.

So you could just fail it and take the money.

You can fail it and take the money,

but it'd be pretty stupid

because you'd be stuck in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

There's not much there.

But it was super impressive.

I think it was 300 people.

And I just couldn't believe like,

because in England,

imagine if you had a store like,

we have relationships with customers when we worked

in Gack or Anderson's

and you might phone them occasionally and be like,

oh, just had this in, you might be interested.

It might be one phone call a day, maybe.

If they are on the phone at least three hours a day.

And the more business you develop,

the bigger your, they call it like a house or a street.

So like after you reach a certain number of clients,

you get like a helper.

And it expands and expands and expands.

Oh, so you build a team based on your clients?

You build a team of people based on your clients.

Well, which is crazy.

And then you earn,

and they didn't give any figures.

But one of the guys was sort of gave us like a rough estimate,

very rough estimate.

And he was like,

oh, you must get paid commission.

And he was like,

yeah, there's some people on here making

certain figures commissioned.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

That's absolutely.

I was just,

it was the operation itself was might, just mind-blowing.

But what's really interesting is they've built like

the sweet water store,

because it's online right,

the whole business or the one online.

Sweet water is online,

but I think their main focus is it's cheaper

to keep a customer than drive new customer.

Right. So it's better for them to make sure you are 100% happy with no matter what

you purchase, then try and constantly market out to new people. So if you buy set of strings,

you get signed a Sweetwater Sales Engineer and they will be with you and they'll phone

you and all of that. I think the big thing as well that makes Sweetwater I guess famous

for their deliveries is every package gets candy, gets sweets, gets like sweets in it.

Yeah. The operation of how many sweeps they send out is so massive. They hire three people

just to bag sweets. And he said the amount of sweeps they ship out is now reaching nine figures.

It's like what? Like the amount of money that may be like, but we can't get rid of it. It's

this what makes us. It's so far to the point that you're sweet. If you told your sweetwater

engineer that you only love Lafay Taffy, which is I tried for the first time, it was awesome.

They were like, they will make a note on your order. So anytime you order, you'll only get the

sweeps that you want. I was like, that is just a level of craziness like their every guitar.

They aim. This was the crazy thing. That's good to be the warehouse. And they aim over four hundred

dollars. They take a photo of every single guitar, but over four hundred dollars, every single guitar

within an hour of arriving to the warehouse gets booked into the service department, gets opened,

checked, set up the 55 point set up. Wow. Photographed and then sent to their like guitar area.

I was going to ask about set ups because that's something that I think a lot of UK retailers really

do not invest in. And it's a problem. It is a problem that causes an awful lot of returns,

especially on cheap guitars. I think that's really impressive that they do that. 55 point is

pretty good. I did wonder if a company, considering what you've told me about suites, I did wonder if

they'd have like a plaque machine or five. Oh, right. Is that how they do? No, no, no. It's a premium

option. It's a premium option because that's how over here, who does that peach do that, don't they?

It's a premium option. But if so, I you won't see you. I'll show this for you, Joe, but

listeners won't be able to see, but he's just taking his pants down. Every guitar gets a card.

That has the name of the person who inspected it. It has 55 points. So let's, for example, they

has it gone through the 24 hour climate acclimation and handling.

Has it? Have we checked the neck joint, the binding, the nut, the bridge, the strap buttons,

and then they check things like the action, the neck relief, they polish it, they pack it,

they double pack it. Every guitar gets double packed. Everything has its full service,

everything gets stamped. Any notes or anything, they actually draw on the thing to be like,

oh, we've noticed that there's a damage here or damage there or floor. It was so impressive.

I bet that saves. I bet that saves 100% of returns. They said they were

again. Because returns could be that someone didn't like the instrument, but I mean for

40 returns, that must. They are way below industry standard. But what's crazy is that if,

for example, they unbox a bunch of guitars from a company and they all notice, I don't know,

they get 100 in and 50 of them are faulty. They will inform. Within the hour, they will inform

the company to be like, we've just received these, we've checked them and they're not right.

And quite often companies then send the someone down to go and like, check them out.

Really? It was crazy. And yeah, you can then, if you buy something, you can have it

placked. You can have specific set up requests. What do you think about placking?

You think it's worth it? Yeah. So the guy I was with bought a PRS SE, which I usually

wanted. We should explain what placking is just in case a listener doesn't know.

Placking, a plack machine is a laser measuring tool that measures every single fret and then

automatically with the power of robots, files every fret down to its perfect level.

It's an incredible process. And actually, I was skeptical until, yeah, I played my American

colleagues, PRS SE, that he bought from Sweetwater and paid for them to fit a GK pickup

and have it placked. Oh, they do that as well. They do mods.

They do mods as well. You can buy a strap and three sets of pickups and one of Floyd Rose on

it. And they'll do all of that for you. I don't think there's a retailer in the UK that would do

that. I mean, we used to, but then again, it was a bit like, yeah, maybe we can, we maybe

we can fit you in if we've got someone who can set that up next week. But that's like,

but not only that is sometimes it's like same day service, which is it was just honestly,

it was it was a mind blowing operation. It really, really was just the level of care and detail

they go over every single order was just crazy. But the whole Sweetwater building, it's got a massive,

it's like a massive community center. There's like studios you can hire. There's a big stage in

the center area. They put gigs on. They do lessons. There's teaching booths. So teachers come

there and teach. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. They got it. It's not near anything. So surely it's just

a really insular community of this. I think it death colty for me. They apparently with the last

time they did gear fest, which I think was 2021. Right. They had more custom than summer now.

Wow. So a lot of people travel quite a long way. But he said it was really interesting.

Some people will go on holiday. They'll pass through Fort Wayne. They'll go to Sweetwater and

then they'll ask to see their sales engineers. They might have spoke to them for 10 years on the

phone. Never met them. Oh, wow. Honestly, it was a level of business that I was like, it was,

it was so impressive. Yeah. It was so impressive. I couldn't, I just couldn't believe.

Just made me, there's a lot of great retailers in the UK. But I sort of sat there going,

I don't know why you wouldn't buy guitar from Sweetwater. If you lived in America and you wanted

to buy something, I don't know why you wouldn't buy it from Sweetwater. In terms of like general

guitar gear, I think there's other reasons and more boutique shops and things like that. But

if I was going to, if you wanted something new, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I mean, it was kind of like

even the US guy that I was with, he said, he's had his sales engineer, Sweetwater Sounds engineer

for 10 years or whatever. And last time they spoke, he's like, oh, yeah, at some point I'm going to

upgrade my studio. I'm probably going to get some new monitors. That guy made a note. And then

at one point, they got a new brand of monitors in him. So I've just got these monitors in, you

should check them out. You know, if you want them, be really interested in your deal and sold them

some monitors. But it's just crazy. And it really is that out that sales Sweetwater Sounds engineer.

And not only is it phone calls now, it's emails and texts. Because some people don't call me just

text me. Yeah. And they do it over text. They're sending like thousands, if not tens of thousands

of texts. Oh, yeah. Because the US still use SMS, don't they? They're very text based

rather than using a platform. Yeah. It was great. And they had the store from a square footage

perspective. It wasn't really anything. It's pretty big. Don't get me wrong. It's pretty big.

But if you've ever been to Tome and Tome and it's like a lot bigger in terms of square footage

in terms of an actual store. But they have a lot of pedals out on display, a lot of guitars out

on display. Anything that they list online, obviously, you can get in the store. Today, like

isolate their high end stuff. Because of course, they were they're a store that they're a business

that probably sell more entry-level vendors than anything else. But do they sort of have like

Murphy Labs and custom shops and PRS bits and bobs separated? No. No. It's all sort of like jammed

in together. I must admit, the guitar department was a mix of a bit of everything. And they do a lot

of high-end gear. So, for example, when I was there, they just received the Martin 3 millionth

guitar. So they made 30 of this crazy one. They announced at NAMM $300,000. And they were like,

wait, we basically sold it straight away. Yeah. One customer that's bought the two and a half

millionth one for $285,000. You just phoned them up and be like, you know how you've got 2.5 or

you've got to have three. And they're just like, whatever. So, you know, they do have some really

expensive stuff there. But what was crazy for me is they've actually got a whole, it's like a whole

retail store, but they've got a separate section just for used, like a separate shop. Oh, they do

use stuff as well. They do. Of course. Because didn't they introduce like Sweetwater Bucks or

something like that? Yeah. So, like Gear Bucks, which I think is the same thing that Mark talked about

when he came on that we ever restarted in Jesus' name. It's a very American thing, isn't it?

Yeah. So, basically, you can trade your gear into Sweetwater. And rather than giving you money,

they should put it into like a Sweetwater wallet. And then you can just accrue that money.

So, I had a lot of second-hand gear there. Which is where I bought my first thing.

Finally, 40 minutes into the podcast. So, we're going to speak about a piece of guitar here.

I think it's important to talk about retail. Oh, yeah. Come on. We've seen, you know, this is

season seven of weekly episodes. There are hundreds and hundreds of episodes of guitars. We can,

for 40 minutes, not talk about a specific amount of gear, I think. So, there was lots of stuff.

There was some crazy stuff there, but the guy was like, oh, I've got an analog man,

King of Tone, like, fully boxed. And I was like, oh, it's cool. And I was like,

went over and checked out a few bits. They've got this massive pedal wall, pedal display.

And I saw like another analog man box. And I was like, oh, what's that? And it was an analog man

sun face, which is their fuzz face, yeah, clone. But it's the rare RCA transists. They do

like a lot of different versions of the lot of different transistors. But this was like a rare

version with these RCA transistors from 1967 that they now, they discontinued and they do a

different one now. Right. And I was like, looked at the price in the box and went, seems like

incredibly cheap. And then I'd like went on reverb and went, it's definitely too cheap.

So I spoke to the guy I was with and went, do you get any sort of discount here? And he was like,

yeah, I guess we're like, can I get a discount on this? Yeah, no problems. I got it even cheaper.

I don't think they, I don't think they care and or and all mine. And so yeah, the first thing I

picked up with this analog man sun face RCA transist to variant, which I got back and was just like

plugged in and went, yep. Plunk that straight on the straight on the pedal board. It was sounds so

good. And what's crazy? I do wish analog man would do it in the big round chassis though.

Yeah. But I guess they, I guess they're trying to be

crank them out a little bit more. But the thing is there's a level of customization on the

analog man website. And what's crazy is I opened it and it still had the original receipt with

the guy bought it in like really 2018. So it's got a couple of odd features in it, which is

because it's got no nine volt input, it runs on batteries. Yeah. It's got an on and off switch on

the fuzz pot. So you turn the fuzz pot all the way down. And that's right. There was some of them

that had this. Yeah, just they do some of them with a little LED and some of them with it as part

of the knob, which is weird. So the fuzz knob turns all the way down and clicks off to turn it off

and then it also, which is a kind of bizarre kind of bizarre control, but they have a clean,

it has a clean pot on the front, which adds in more clean signal to the fuzz.

Right. So it basically can be used, I guess they say it can be used to preset the sound as if

the volume knob was rolled back a little bit. So it gives like a kind of variation on the

fuzz sound. That's a really like that is cool. But then inside it's got two more trim pots,

which I don't know what they're doing. I was like, I'm not labeled. They're not labeled. So I'm like,

I'm not and there's a bit of paper inside that says, do not remove. So I was like, I won't touch this

because I don't want to break it. And I'll tell a story about something breaking in a minute.

So that was the first thing I picked up. And I was like, now I've got to carry it. I bear in

mind. I went for a week. I was like, I'm going to have to pack the smallest suitcase possible

for like domestic flights. So I was in a tiny suitcase, which had already like filled to the

filled to the brim. So yeah, the the the analog man fuzz face. And I had one so for you.

That's so awesome. I had owned one before, but I don't remember enjoying it as much as this one.

So yeah, it was really really cool to own that quite cool to have the retro

transistors in there, you know, the old 60s germanium transistors in there and pick it up

for a for a crazy price. Hmm. Very nice. That is very cool. Okay. So that's that's that's

the first purchase. That's sweet war. So that was sweet war. One shop one purchase. One shop one

purchase. I guess as you were there, you would have also done the other two major things. So

guitar center and and Chicago music. It did. So we went over to Chicago later on in the trip.

So we did a guitar center there had some good coffee for America for a place that pride itself

on coffee, which is we were talking to you there. They drink a lot of coffee. Their coffee is

generally pretty lame. Yeah, their tea is also terrible, which is which annoys me because

that definitely always be tea over coffee and their tea is bad. It's all that liptons rubbish that

they have. Yeah. And people who put half and half in like what? Just put milk on nothing.

However, they do donuts very, very well. They're donuts are way better than any donut that we

ever get in England. Yeah, but they don't use scones, do they? They do not until we went to this

like boutique coffee place and had an actual proper coffee in Chicago. And I was like,

hex coffee for anyone who lives all goes to Chicago, hex coffee highly recommended.

So we went to a guitar center there and like I said, guitar center was guitar center was cool because

it had it did have some weird second hand bits in it. Right. But the rest of the store was pretty

average. Yeah, it's just it's a big box mover, isn't it? It's not for us. It's not for

gear collectors. It's for people who want to play a straight or an epiphoneless ball. Yeah,

exactly. But Chicago music exchanges like the polar opposite to a sweet water in terms of

size of business or how they do business. But in terms of like service and just the coolest

shop that you could go to. It's the shop I wish I could work in. I mean, they have chandeliers,

you know. Yeah, it's just a gorgeous shop. The coolest boutique gear, loads of great guitars,

expensive through to like, you know, your standard ones, but everything is good quality.

And they had a lot of pedals, including a lot of used pedals. And I picked out a couple.

And they were like, yeah, just just grab a guitar, just go over to one of the demo boost plug

it in where you go. I was like, what? And I'm like, yeah, just, you know, what should take

whatever? I was like, what? I was like, you know, it wasn't like walking, you know, it wasn't,

I will show you how to use it. And I was just like, yeah, just, hey, if you want to sit down,

they've got leather couches in there as people just grabbing stuff off the wall, just sit in there.

It's like the ultimate casual wow vibe. That's so different from how we work. So what are

guitars unlocked to a wall here? Dear listener, like in a guitar shop, you'd have, you'd have little

locks on there. I was very impressed that things didn't seem to be very locked or, you know,

tied down in any way. So yeah, they had a couple of, so they had a cool bed loads of cool used

pedals, but I grabbed two. You made two purchases. Now I grabbed two pedals and I purchased one

of them. So the first one, which I've never plugged in, but it was very cool to see. I've never

plugged one in before, so to say, it was the Roland AG5 funny cat. So this is pre-boss. Never heard

of that. The funny cat is a, the funny cat does not even sound like a name, the boss of Roland

would ever give to a battle. Oh my goodness, what is this? I've just looked at it. The funny cat

is a Roland product from 1973 that is a harmonic mover and soft distortion sustainer.

What does that mean? It means that the normal side of the SOS, the SOS, the normal side,

basically minimal overdrive with lots of compression. And when I mean lots of compression, I mean

a lot of compression. Yeah, it reminded me a lot of a CS1, but with a bit more gain.

It actually sounded really good. I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. But then you hit

the harmonic, the harmonic move aside. And it is a filtered, like an auto filter, like touch

wire fuzz. Oh, God, this sounds dreadful. And I tell you why it was so strange. I can't

really describe how it sounded apart from, yeah, it's like a fuzz, a filtered fuzz with an auto

while then combined with the distortion and sustain of the other side. And you get like a,

you get like, actually, it was one of those things I plugged in. I was like, you know what,

if you had that in the studio, you would grab it. Yeah. And you got to get a riff out of this.

This is cool. And it was a kind of cool inspiration machine. But I was like, ultimately,

should I buy it? And I was like, and then I went for five minutes. I went on reverb. And there

was a couple for sale for the same price in the UK. And I was like, you know what, I could probably

buy this again. So a harmonic mover and soft distortion sustainer. I think we should try and

describe how it looks to people as well who haven't seen it. It is a very large silver box.

That is wedge shaped, a wedge shaped silver box. It's almost like someone wrapped in it to pedal

because only the middle bit has any sort of graphics on it. And all the knobs are on the back.

Yeah, they're on the top of the pedal. And I think it's also top mounted jacks. It's also top

mounted jacks. I think again, the circuit is tiny, but the box is massive. So I think they must have

been looking at maybe some of the 70s electric harmonic stuff. Yeah, it feels like it's got

it was if Roland, if a Japanese company made an electric harmonics pedal is how I very much feel

about this. Not super rare, but not common. Yeah, you can find them. There are a couple for sale

on Reverb right now. For not crazy money. This was the thing about buying stuff in America though,

Joe, before I move on to what I actually purchased is you look at the price. They do your deal.

You're like, that's a great price. And then they're like, so that plus sales tax, I'm like,

just add the tax on to the tax. Every other country on planet earth and the tax America.

It caught me out every single time. I don't know how a country functions where no one can

actually see the price of things. It just doesn't make sense. I'm like, why don't you just put

the tax on it so I can see how much it costs. So yeah, it caught me out every single time,

which was incredibly anyway. Okay, so you didn't go with this very cool rare-ish Roland product

from the 1970s. So I did buy an even rarer product from the American 90s, which I've just put

a link in the chat. Not this specific one actually. This one's a bit more of a crazy later version,

but I bought a S.I.B electronics. I've never heard of them. Very drive. So S.I.B electronics were a

brand in the mid to late 90s, early 2000s that made, predominantly in that period,

three main pedals, the very drive, the fat drive and the echo drive, all of which have the same

concept, which they are a valve driven circuit. So they have a, they require main power,

kettle leads straight into the back. Remember that fact. A main lead straight into the back that

drives a proper transformer, that powers a valve, that then drives the rest of the circuit. So

they have a fat drive and a very drive and then the echo drive, which is actually a short delay

with gain. That is the most famous and rarest one because that was the key component to the like

no Gallagher guitar sound. Right. See. Later on in the, I guess in the early 2000s,

they're really hard to find because they didn't make many. They were all handmade and they

didn't ship them. I don't think they probably had anyone that was actually shipping them into the UK.

So the only ones that you tend to find tend to be US or Japanese voltage. They only made those

ones between like 97 and yeah, probably the early 2000s. They then moved to a brand. I think

J. Rocket purchased the brand or the guy worked for J. Rocket and there was some S.I.B.

electronics pedals that came out later on. Right. He handmade a few in the late 2010s and then

the whole company's gone dark since then. But there was really only a short period where they were

making pedals. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, I have to plug it in because it's like a brick.

It's literally, you could build a house with it. It's that big and that heavy. And I plugged it in

and went, that's it. That's the drive sound I want. But wait, you said mains. You said mains.

Oh, yeah. So it plugs in with a kettle lead directly into the back. But can you change it?

Well, UK. So I was like, oh, I only, I only after I purchased it. Oh, no, back to the airport. I was

like, wait a second. America runs on like half. Yeah, America. I was like, bugger. My pedalboard

has become even more work, even more ungigable because I'm going to have to power it via mains.

Wait, a step. Have you seen the site? A good quantity step up. I've got one already because I've

got one that powers a, like the Japanese American power strip because the Roland DC 50 that we

talked about a couple of weeks ago is Japanese. So it needs a step down transformer. So anyway,

I've got the step down transformer. The next day, it's still a bit jet lag. I'm going to plug it

by my new pedal. Where's it going to go on my pedal board? And the front of the, so the back of

the step up transformer, you plug a kettle lead in and it will step down the input voltage 240.

And then on the front are two sets of plugs. Oh, Matt, I did this. I did this with my

dintes. One is 110 and one is 240, but I assumed wrongly that they were both passed through.

I assumed that one would just output 110, but would give you a UK plug. So I did this with my

Japanese record player, my, my Mark II techniques in back in December of last year, blew the whole

thing up and spent 350 quid getting the entire thing with circuit boarded because it fries everything.

So yeah, the front has a US plug output. And then a UK plug output, but the UK plug output is

passed through. So it passes through the input voltage to the output voltage so you can plug.

And then I suddenly remembered that's what I did at the Birmingham guitar show last year when I was

pairing some of my old rack units and the Brighton guitar show, sorry. So I quickly unplugged it,

nothing to mine. Nothing smell burnt or, or popped. So I plugged it into the normal voltage

and the light doesn't come on. And the light is, the crazy thing about this pedal is the light

is always on. Oh, there's no like honest. So I was like,

Bucker. That's like one very rare and expensive brick. And I got a good deal on it. But I was like,

it just so happened that a few days before Dan Coggins had emailed me and been like, oh, I've

just so you know, if you want to mention it, I've put my repair rates down up until March,

if you know anyone needs anything repaired. And I was like, just so happens. I now own this

really annoying brick. And I spent all night, you know, when you just worry about something, I spent

all night googling it. And someone else in the UK had done the same thing. I found this old reddit thread.

And someone commented, the company that still makes the transformers are still going. And they've

got a proper like space jam 95 website. And I actually went on there and message them. I said,

I've got this now. Yeah, we can make you one at 75 bucks. And we can make it in 240 as well.

So I messaged Dan was like, because he was like, you'll never get a replacement transformer

because it's too custom. Yeah. And they're like, no, we can build you one. And so I've sent it off

to Dan to be looked at and we might end up putting a 240 volt transformer. So not all is lost.

That is so good. I thought you were surprisingly cheerful about what was a really tragic story.

I was very annoyed that night and tired. And I was like, I cannot believe I've just plucked it.

All the plane home was like, don't plug it in. Do you know what I did as well? Joe, the first thing I did

before I plugged it in was printed out a label on my little label maker that said 110.

Exclamation. And then I put it straight into 240. And so I bought, yeah, the analogue man fuzz face,

which sounds great. And the very drive, which sounded great for the five minutes that I actually

plugged it in in America. And it will go on my board if it gets fixed. And it is, it's

four and a half inches wide by seven and a half inches tall. And I think weighs about

six pounds. Because it's got this, it's made out of cast. It's made out of steel.

And has a full transformer in it. Well, yeah, absolutely ridiculous. Back when no one cared

about the size back in the 90s, they don't care about pedal boards or size of pedals. That was the

dream. That was the dream era. That was the dream date. So it was, it was a good trip. But CME was,

I wish we had more time there because we landed in Chicago. And we went, we went and saw reverb.

We went actually to the reverb, went to Mark Packham's hometown, as it were, to the new reverb

offices. And landed in Chicago, went straight to reverb, straight to CME, and then back to the

airport and flew home. So I was in Chicago for like eight hours. But the guys were like, oh, you have

to check out the vault. And next time I, if I'm lucky enough to go, I want to check it out. They bought

the old bank across the street. And they've turned it into like a dedicated guitar store called

the vault that just has loads of cool and interesting bits of kit in it. So even more, you know,

everything from like a 51S choir or a 59 Les Paul to sort of, they have got, I think they've got

like a, there's a video on YouTube where I think it's like a D18, like a Martin, but it's got a

B-Bender fit to it. Yeah, they've got some crazy stuff in there. So yeah, definitely worth checking

out if you're in the Chicago area, great store. And as we've always said, Joe, just the amount of

awesome stuff that people can pick up in the US compared to what we are stuck with. Oh, come on.

In the UK, we've got, I say stuck with, you know, you pick up some, you pick up some bits, but

there's just so much more of it in America. I think the thing, the big brands for me that we really

miss over here that are annoying because they're my favorite. So, you know, Silver Tone and

Dan Electro, not having access to those. Not really at the sort of price point that they,

they get them. If we have them over here, it's because someone's brought one over in the 60s and

and they know that it's rare over here. And so it goes for a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a shame. I do like that they have access to those brands, but then, you know, they probably

have less access to Freymus and Hoffner. Those brands that were really big burns. I mean, you know,

a few of the other stores that we visited were all kind of what you'd expect kind of similar

and the kind of same sort of stuff, but those two like really, really stood out. I'd love to spend

more time on holiday as it were doing things like thrift stores or, you know, pawn shops or things

like that where, you know, you might pick up a few more things, but just the amount of second

ampedals, like very rare to go into store in the UK and then have that many second ampedals.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, we've got, we've got more things to talk about, Matt, from your trip.

It's with some other bits and bobs. So we're going to head over to Patreon, dear listener,

patreon.com forward slash guitar. As you can join us there, of course, every week for an extra

episode. And before we go, I just want to thank our top tier patrons, but it's because without you,

none of this would be possible. So thank you very much to Rob Grant, Eric Hema, Karabougon,

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Jeffrey Wright, Joe Patek, Phil Rodomsky, Dave Lee, Ross Edwards, Jason Warton, James

Door, Jake Gray, Derek Rich, Abe Matthews, Christopher Losef, Steven Bork, Robin Smith,

Cytopia the band, Andy McKenzie, Brad Page, Rob Nordvik, and of course, Mugh, Gravit.

Thank you. One and all. And yes, we'll be back next week with more of this guitar

surgery. That will. Goodbye.

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