Chasing Tone - Guitar Podcast About Gear, Effects, Amps and Tone

It's just the two of us this week as Brian and Richard hold the fort without Blake for episode 638 of Chasing Tone - Two is the magic number for dumbness, Brian has a Fat Sandwich, and drunk testing the PedalHead
Brian lifts the lid on PedalSpice, the browser-based circuit simulator he's wanted to build for years. Slider-driven calculators spit out component values in seconds, saved circuit blocks drop straight into new designs, and neural amp models let you hear your circuit through a real amp before you've warmed up a soldering iron. Richard takes it for a spin, pitches a rival product called "Pedal Salt," and the guys get candid about building software with AI and why good results still take hard graft. And make your brain bleed. So. much. bleeding.
Meanwhile, Richard has found a deeply suspicious internet list of the top 10 reasons to move to Indiana. Gas stations with gum, cities with friendly names like Gary, a state supposedly named after a dog - Brian sets the record straight. Then Brian confesses to a Reverb spree on Way Huge pedals and goes digging for the schematic of the discontinued Fat Sandwich live on air. 
Richard invents the thermic distortion drive. Stu Mac teams up with Scotti Hill of Skid Row on a Rangemaster-style boost kit, prompting a live investigation into a mystery chip. Brian has been trying to destroy the new PedalHead. 
Jim Unnay, Gibson's new Ghostburst, Keeley's new germanium pedal, YouTube drama fatigue, a candy parcel reduced to glittery dust, too many tunings - it's all in this week's Chasing Tone!
Check out PedalSpice: pedalspice.com

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Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/chasingtonepodcast)

Courses and DIY mods:
https://www.guitarpedalcourse.com
https://www.bluesguitarmethod.com
https://www.betterguitartone.com
https://www.wamplerdiy.com

Check out Oliver Effects:
https://oliverfx.co.uk
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https://www.youtube.com/@chasingtonepodcast
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https://www.wamplerpedals.com/
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Brian, Blake, and Richard are back for Episode 637 of the Chasing Tone Podcast - The worst time to start a pedal company, a Guitar Summit gear haul, and Fender cancels hum
Could you realistically start a pedal company and clear $50k in your first year? A Reddit thread and a 60 Cycle Hum livestream posed the question, and the guys have thoughts. Short version: this might be the worst possible moment to launch, but it doesn't matter if you love guitar gear. Speaking of falling in love with gear, Blake shows off a gorgeous player-worn 1965 Fender Mustang in Daphne Blue, and Richard gets genuinely misty-eyed over a 1992 Zoom 9002 ad that made him feel fifteen again.
Then it's a proper Guitar Summit gear haul from Mannheim. Top of the pile is the Wampler Pedalhead, now tweaked and sounding mighty fine, alongside the upcoming Tone King Royce. The Boss EX-4 FX Expander gets the guys excited as a clever sidecar for small rigs - four effects at once, slow gear and slicer included - while the Two Notes Torpedo Captor X Pro is basically a Captor X thats been training with Arnie as it is pumped. There's also a jaw-dropping demo room that ping-pongs between sixteen heads and sixteen cabs at the flick of a switch - which Brian now needs in his life.
Fender has announced it's "solved" single-coil hum with a secret metal plate under the pickguard - which, the guys note, looks an awful lot like a dummy coil that's been around for years (a humbucker plus twenty percent, as Blake puts it). Brian makes  a heartfelt pitch for a full retro mode on the Wampler website, complete with visitor counter and dancing baby Gifs.
Knobless pedals, a skunk that smells like a Willie Nelson concert, missing out on both Google and Bitcoin, the BlackBerry movie, and Brian defending America's spelling one Reddit comment at a time...it's all in this week's Chasing Tone!
We are on Patreon now too!
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/chasingtonepodcast)

Courses and DIY mods:
https://www.guitarpedalcourse.com
https://www.bluesguitarmethod.com
https://www.betterguitartone.com
https://www.wamplerdiy.com

Check out Oliver Effects:
https://oliverfx.co.uk
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@chasingtonepodcast
Find us at:
https://www.wamplerpedals.com/
https://www.instagram.com/WamplerPedals/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wamplerfanpage/
Support the show

Brian, Blake, and Richard are back for Episode 636 of the Chasing Tone Podcast - Brian meets one of his guitar heroes, the YouTube drama llama, and a groundhog the size of a dog
Never meet your heroes - unless you're Brian, who finally got to hang out with George Lynch this week. Even better, Brian handed George a Terraform to cover chorus duty, and George promptly threw it straight into his chain and out onto the stage before a gig, leaving Brian sweating bullets that his own duct-taped personal unit would pick that exact moment to misbehave. It didn't, the crowd loved it, and the guys land on a new mantra: distortion plus chorus equals glorious.  That opens up a wider chat about meeting your idols...
Then Richard breaks out the drama llama. A guitar-YouTube storm has been brewing around negative reviews, clickbait, and undisclosed business interests, and it's snowballed into a whole situation. The guys pick it apart thoughtfully: whether building a brand on negativity is a slow-motion soul-crush, why you have to be upfront about the companies you're tied to once you're a public figure, and how algorithmic slop (Richard's phrase, and he's sticking to it) rewards exactly the wrong instincts. Blake offers the brand's-eye view - you pay a creator for their time, skills, and audience, never for a glowing review - and Richard, naturally, invents a website called Guitar Mafia to fix the whole thing. He's joking. Mostly. But definitely. 
There's plenty more where that came from: PRS rolling out Land Rover Defender-inspired Silver Sky guitars, Guitar Summit season descending on Germany, a tiny new Vox AC mini amp begging to live in a camper van, and an Electro-Harmonix Echoflanger with Adrian Belew's name on it. There are also rumblings of new amps on the horizon that we can't say too much about just yet...
Tiny Terraform typefaces, groundhog day, skunk squatting, Shatner of puppets, a Tesla driver busted for shredding, and the great A-Team van color debate...it's all in this week's Chasing Tone!

We are on Patreon now too!
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/chasingtonepodcast)

Courses and DIY mods:
https://www.bluesguitarmethod.com
https://www.betterguitartone.com
https://www.wamplerdiy.com
https://www.guitarpedalcourse.com
Check out Oliver Effects:
https://oliverfx.co.uk
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@chasingtonepodcast
Find us at:
https://www.wamplerpedals.com/
https://www.instagram.com/WamplerPedals/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wamplerfanpage/
Support the show

Brian, Blake, and Richard are back for Episode 635 of the Chasing Tone Podcast - Killer guitar songs, app overload, and the mixing trick that shouldn't work

The guys kick off with the hardest songs they've ever had to learn as Richard's wrestling with The Killers' "Mr. Brightside," a deceptively simple arpeggiated riff up at the 17th fret that turns out to be an absolute finger-twister at 150 BPM. He panics when his pro-guitarist mate describes the song using a four-letter word unfit for any broadcast medium. Brian reminisces about slinging down a Steve Vai song at a high-school band tryout and never going back.
Blake digs into some Bullet for My Valentine, and everyone marvels at Geddy Lee somehow playing wild Rush bass lines while singing a completely different melody on top. Then the guys look at this week's big debate: are apps ruining guitar gear? Richard makes the case that the moment an app sits between you and the pedal, it kills the experience - a pedal has five knobs, so why reach for your phone? Modelers, amps and power amps get a pass, but single pedals should just work under your feet. 
There's talk of younger players going more analog than the hosts - buying tapes, old cars and Boss pedals - and whether modern rock has tipped into full cosplay, from Greta Van Fleet to costumed acts like Castle Rat, Ghost and Sleep Token, where the image increasingly outweighs the music. Richard geeks out over a production trick he found via Matt Berry on That Pedal Show.
James Blunt, Flanders and Swann, The rest is a monopoly, the jet engine turning 100, and dancing widdershins round the maypole...it's all in this week's Chasing Tone!
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Brian, Blake, and Richard are back for Episode 634 of the Chasing Tone Podcast - Marcus King melting faces, the great acoustic guitar rabbit hole, and Ola Englund's Pedalhead preview
Brian's hair may have entered a new era, so naturally the guys workshop his new mullet before anyone's allowed near a guitar. Once they get there, Richard is buzzing about Atomic Habitz at the Newport Jazz Festival - how could you not love Marcus King ripping through Funkadelic's "Red Hot Mama?" Turns out the kids really are gonna be alright. 
Then it's down the acoustic rabbit hole: jangly Taylors, warm Gibsons, giant SJ-200s, and why buying an acoustic is a far more personal affair than grabbing a Strat online - though Richard's happy with his Acoustasonic Jazzmaster for now. His new, rockier, punkier band has also left him with an actual blister on his picking finger from blasting Green Day's "Basket Case" at 170-plus BPM, which of course means a proper chat about Helter Skelter, Ringo's blisters, and whether that little band from the UK ever amounted to much.
Gear-wise, Ola Englund's tasty preview of the Pedalhead has everyone chomping at the bit, the new ToneX board gets a bigger screen, and there is Bullshine talk. Richard also somehow bends his high E clean over the pickup, and the eternal "how many guitars do you take to a gig" debate rages on. Brian gives us his signature hotdog eating impersonation. 
The demented Tele, your custard is our pudding, 50p Oreos, Stevie Wonder, Shotguns fired...it's all in this week's Chasing Tone!
We are on Patreon now too!
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/chasingtonepodcast)

Courses and DIY mods:
https://www.bluesguitarmethod.com
https://www.betterguitartone.com
https://www.wamplerdiy.com
https://www.guitarpedalcourse.com
Check out Oliver Effects:
https://oliverfx.co.uk
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@chasingtonepodcast
Find us at:
https://www.wamplerpedals.com/
https://www.instagram.com/WamplerPedals/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wamplerfanpage/

Support the show