Episode 31 - The Even WEIRDER Gear Episode (didn't go as planned)

0:06 Dude. You know, you should start the episode just both of us tapping really bad. I think we had about 3 seconds in there. That was pretty nice. I think with that weird intro we can get to the weird gear episode part. 2. Part 2 We have had an honorable weird gear episode with Dweezil Zappa. That was weird.

0:25 That was just weird guitars, primarily with a weird wasn't really weird, just kind of awesome. Amazing. Truly weird gear. What it means to us. Totally unexpected victory and success for the show. We. Brought it up and and I thought in my mind I was like weird gear and I said I'm into it. I said but is it that cool of an idea? And by golly, was that one of the funnest pods, don't you? Understand, my friend, that weird gear is timeless. Weird gear is timeless and also it's it reminds us of what's so fun about guitar.

0:56 Let's go into the C4 synth from Source Audio. Nice. Let's hear this. Yeah, OK. See that's. It's amazing. There is a lot of weird gear in this studio. Some of it we've already delved into in the last episode. Please go check that out. Yeah. Watch that first one. And if this is your first experience, get ready to maybe share a laugh, find out some tones that you didn't know you needed in your life, and watch us potentially struggle with great joy. Thing is, we spent like 45 minutes before we started these cameras trying to figure this piece of weird gear out. Should we just say what it is?

1:40 Because I don't know if we're going to have time. We're waiting to hear back from our friends at Neural DSP who have nothing to do with this product helping us. It's like hilarious that they're the ones helping us. Shout out to my friend Jamie over at Tone Central Station. This guitar has Can you call it a guitar?

1:56 It's a guitar. This guitar has been sitting there since I started going to a shop. It's a 1988 Yamaha. Is it called AC 10? That sounds correct. Let's show the people. If nothing else, we can show our attempts to try and get it to work before the episode ends. If we get a call from our friend Max from Neural, we're trying to use the quad cortex.

2:18 We should just call Max. He's going to get there Facetiming me. Max Legend, How are you, man? What up dude? It's me and Jared. What's up dude? So if you have MIDI through and MIDI over USB on on the QC, open a MIDI channel on Logic and if you set it to Omni, it'll see everything coming in. You have my number? Like if if I answer, I'm awake and I'm always happy to help. If I don't, I'm probably not.

2:51 Yeah, I got your number. Now you're screwed. Same thing could be true, right? We're going to screw each other. And that's why Neural is the best sponsor of any show ever. Well, we love. Roswell Pro Audio and Neural DSP, those are our two sponsors. Neural sponsoring this episode. You can use no cover charge for a discount on any of their plugins, which now includes architect John Mayer X.

3:17 Oh yeah, got a quick ship Amazon package, and I think it's the cable that we need, hopefully. Oh, look, there it is. Quad Cortex. That's what we're looking for with Max. I think it's as simple as that. Pick up that thing. You kind of got to get a little close and plug in that oh cable. Is this is this your jam stick cable? Yeah, that's the jam stick cable. Dude, I'm telling you what, I'm not going to be one of those guys, but all I'm going to say is if I ever go to a gig, you're not my and I got to plug in my USBC. All right, just turn out.

3:51 The ball. Whoa, dog. Hey, it's like when you're a kid at like the soccer game, you know? And like in Milwaukee, it was the Milwaukee wave or whatever. Be like, they're going for the goal, dude. That's kind of like when you fall. So this is a MIDI guitar in 2026. OK, It easily controls any patch that I want. Let me show you another one.

4:45 That's cool, almost sounds. What's funny is like so clean, like the actual no, it's you don't hear any guitar. Like there's, you don't hear my fingers, you know? Yeah. And you'll notice it's perfectly in tune because it's mini. Oh, that's why I sound so good. I'm perfectly in tune for once. This is the one time I'll ever be in tune. Still sounds kind of funky and it's a little funky too with like, I don't want to say latency, but the way that I hear it compared to like how it comes out. This is like that, the weird acid trip version of like, come to Jamaica.

6:06 Wow, great. This is awesome the. Jam stick. Quite an innovation I would say. Really, actually really cool. And it's also an electric guitar. It's got an input I. Was about to say, So it does, yeah. You can plug this in just like a normal. And this is the MIDI bit. That's cool, man. Pretty cool. Yeah, really cool.

6:20 In the 80s they didn't have a USBC. Man, what did they do? How did they plug in their iPhones? Yamaha G10C, We're going to try and hook that up. So I haven't slept since since we turned the cameras off. I went to your party. I was still, I was still holding this G. 10 You know, it's funny as you walked funny when you came in the party.

6:42 I feel like you had the G10 in your jacket G. 10 in my like, hey man, it's like messing with it, but we figured it out. It works. It's it's alive. It's going to happen for us, I think. I mean, if it doesn't then I'm going to I might destroy this computer. So just to put this out there, man, when I saw this at my buddy Jamie, his shop town Central Station, I saw it down there and I went whoa, like what is that?

7:04 That looks like something insane. And like I was telling you, this one was supposedly in the back of a music store, found the back of a music store in Johnson City, TN And it was, it had never been even like out of the case. And you can tell it's like it's really clean. But what's funny is, you know, now we live in the future. You used to think that you'd find a 59 Les Paul in the case. Now you're going to find a 88.

7:29 TO88-G10 mini guitar. Dude, I found a vintage guitar. Really. What'd you get? This so much trial and tribulation trying to figure out how to get it to work but. This is a broom. I think I think the first patch will help us. Me in your heart lookout there's a man do it. No, no, no actions like that far.

8:09 Off. Dude this is pretty cool, though you could do some ugly. You know what's funny? As I'm hearing this which is just like. It doesn't have any pitch. There's no pitch when you hear. It's like one pitch. Dude, at least this thing really sits inside your lap. I got a strap but you're going to have to work on it I found. No, I'm good like this man.

8:29 Let's roll. This patch. OK, so are we only using patches from? This has a patch that's loaded and I have this synth like basically as the send, if that makes sense. So it's just sending what's in here out of here, right? Turn this one off. My heart just kicked a beat. I was like, what? like we could like put on an 80s movie. Put it on mute.

9:32 We could easily. And literally just go. Score any Wow. And if you just hold it, it'll ring forever. Hold up. We found the infinite sustain. It is not. It is not a 59. Let's fall. You just hit one note on your Yum. What's it called? Your 88 Yamaha G10. If you hear it off, you just hear dude, these strings. Everything about this, I guarantee you, has never been touched.

10:35 Well, if you'd like to purchase it, we're going to send it back to the old store now that we figured out it works. If you want to get this thing with the, what do you call it? The receiver. Yeah, the G10C receiver MIDI converter. You we got to link you up with Jamie at Tone Central Station. I don't know it.

10:49 I mean, I'm sure they're out there, but this has the diagram and stuff. I'm not trying to sell it but like. It has all the blueprints. And you literally want this thing. It is for sale right now. It's weird because I got a weird one for you, dude. Yeah, of course. I just built this last night. I was up to like 10 at night.

11:06 Were you really? Yeah. OK, hold on. Take this thing away. Get this thing out of here. Get the Tyler out of here. I actually haven't even like plugged this in yet. OK, so now I'm I'm officially back in the the NCC layer of what's happening all. Right. Just look. First thing. On that back plate. First things first, love the back plate bro. Look, I went naked.

11:28 Hey, hey, you know what's funny? Some people would see that be like, I can't take it. Get a plate on that guitar. It'll be fine. OK, Yeah, this is OK. This is one of those things. It's one of those things. Right up the Batman. You're going to give me one of these guitars? I'm sorry about this. Do I need to tune it? I don't think so, apparently.

11:46 What is going on? This is a True Temperament neck, Anders, who I met at the NAMM show, right? He's like, I make True Temperament guitars. I was like, Anders, I'll be reaching out to you. We'll be talking. He sent me this, I put it together. There's an entire video on my channel assembling this guitar with pretty much great ease.

12:05 This really slotted right into a DID. You have to mess with like a lot of stuff right now. No, I just adjusted the intonation slightly. Wow. To pull it up a little bit. OK, it's not going to play perfectly because I just set it up last night, but it should get the job done, which I don't know what the job is. With these days, I'm telling you. Is it always in tune?

12:24 Is that the deal? I think so, but also like when I look at this neck, if if none of you have played one of these guitars like me, the first thing you go, is there something wrong with my vision? Somebody's listening. What could you describe these frets as? Like you. Just honestly, my eyes are going like like, it's like they're crossing.

12:41 It's so weird. It's like I'm looking at Van Gogh fret board. It's like the melting clocks. It's a Jackson Pollock fret board. Is that who it was? Jackson Pollock was a melting clock. One of those Who's the guy who lost his ear? Van Gogh, Yeah, but no, Jackson Pollock was like the it's like that.

12:57 Like you're you're Satriani. I got you, remember? Anyways, enough about the art what we're doing here for this guitar. And it's a testament to this neck, though it is a little piece of art. I've picked seafoam green. I hope you like that. Yeah, it really matches my my personality. Should I just try and play it? Yeah, just see what happens, I think. First, OK, First, it feels weird on my hands because you know, like you're used to having like the frets, you're used to having that, and right away it feels like some spaghetti noodle frets.

13:26 And the idea is that since a guitar neck is naturally out of TuneIn certain areas. This one's going to tune. This one, no matter what chord you play, wherever you are, it should be perfectly in tune. like. It's like a big warm blanket. It's it's sterile in a good way. Yeah. So like the thing I'm noticing like we're just like tuning the strings because these are fresh strings. So if it's out a little bit, it's it's just me and the tuning.

14:12 But like the feel of it is really weird because and what's cool about it is your fingers. It like it slides. If you see where my fingers are, like when I make these chords, it's almost like it's it's basically set up for the way that my kind of. Stretching your fingers like you normally wouldn't. Yes, exactly.

14:30 Let me It just doesn't feel the same because it's almost as if, like, the pressure's different. Yeah, it's weird. Dude. There. Give it a dance. Try that thing out. Let's see how it does. Let's see what she How's that feel? It feels like I would never need to be in tune this well. Try and play like a lick on it. I keep, I keep kind of like sliding into those little grooves like I won't play this.

16:05 This is definitely a tool. It's a tool for sure. But a beautiful It's really weird. Intonated. You notice too like and I'm looking at the front board. It's always like right on that G string where it's always like. They're purposefully making that a little flatter, yeah, if that makes sense. What's the Chili Peppers song? That everybody.

16:37 Yeah, I think that this would be awesome to have in the studio as a tool. Like you're laying down rhythm parts super like, especially like close groupings, notes, you get that thing really cool. Let me see that thing one time. I just want to RIP a fat lead on. Plug in, plug in some hot licks, will you? perfectly in tune that like I crave the little out of tune This.

17:20 You're never in tune, is what we're learning. I'm never in tune, so play again 1234. Feel as we like to say that word feel constantly, constantly on this podcast, but that could be due to the fact that we haven't felt it too much before. Maybe we get used to it after we play this thing for. 20 years, I can't cast it out because I know that it's obviously incredible and the craftsmanship and the engineering that went into it, incredible.

18:41 I think I would need to spend more time with that. But weird gear? Absolutely. That's what you got to do with weird gear. You got to not dismiss it. You got to spend time with it. Be critical. Make sure you know its limitations and its value. And a total disclaimer, even though I might be sitting here, we might be sitting here saying it like this thing's tough to use.

19:00 You got to try it. Try all this stuff. If you can get your hands on it, try it. Check out True Temperament here. I'll click that off your hands. Gimme, what are you? What are you about to show me now? Look buddy, I just everybody has to try one of these once. It's not necessarily guitar related. But what is this you?

19:14 Play it like a guitar. Here you go. Is this like a weird breathalyzer? Yeah, just bend over and it's all right. The Automatone. A weird gear essential for any studio I must say. Oh, I was ready to. Crank that volume, Sir. This is ridiculous. Hold on, how do you hey play an A note? You're holding up to the mic. Dude, that's like the studio, like the missing link where you're like, what do we need on this track? This one, yeah.

20:29 Are you bringing me a pedal to try? I got a pedal for you. What do you have? This is a very weird fuzz. This is probably the most offensive fuzz that I own. I'd like to hear that. So I'm going to just go ahead and turn it on, kind of like a squawk and angry. Oh dude, plug it in. Come on, plug it in. like a broken.

21:06 Like something's broken. OK. And so the thing about this, it sounds like the law machine that we did in the first Weird Gear episode. Right. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I. Think you were even playing something similar so. Was that really. Oh, dude, I remember that. Yeah, that's like my. So this also has a filter on it, which is what makes it truly weird.

21:30 Go ahead, That's weird. So it's like a filtered or a filter? Possible fuzz? Yes, a filter envelope. Octover thing. It's got an envelope, which is why I like it. There it is. Oh, that's cool, man. That's the kangaroo. I think it's really cool, yeah. I mean, that's like something I I don't think I could ever use in a in a live scenario, but.

23:35 It's sort of the refrain for every single piece of weird gear in both these episodes. I've never. I'd probably never use. That here's the thing. Here's the thing. In a tracking situation in a. World. Dude, that's pretty funky. Dude. There's a box of fun there. Shout out to Jamie, my friend Jamie over at Tone Central Station here in Nashville. I called him.

24:00 I said, Jamie, we're filming some weird gear, what do you got? And he brought a box phone, dude. OK, That's the first thing I wanted to check out. It's a company he said called. Open it up. Hello, Dial Tones. That's the name of this company. Dial tone. And from what I think I know is whoever this is, is taking old phones and making pedals out of them, but we need to plug it in just to see what it does all. Right, let's see what.

24:30 It does. So wait, Hello, hello. We have to see if. I'd like to order a pizza. So the inn, I guess it does. It has its own power. I wonder if you can talk and do it. I think that's what's going on here, right? I don't know, but yeah, it's got the battery. There's nowhere you can plug your guitar into it, I guess, but this is. Wait a minute.

24:51 This just goes straight into the amp. Oh really? Turn it up. Say something. Hello is anybody there is anything happening? No. Is there a thing on the top? Should. I try the battery and if. It isn't for some reason. We're going to just take out the phone. Yeah, the actual handle. OK, 00. Hello, I don't even think the phone or anything dude is this supposed to stutter the signal? Oh, hold on.

25:25 So we need to. We need to put that into an amp with some some gain dude. I'm trying to talk into the phone to come out like, hey, So what are you doing next Tuesday? I'm going through a flanger right now. Yeah, hold on. Right. So yeah, we need to put this in the signal chain. Put it in a chain, baby. Oh, potential.

25:42 Damn, see we got to get rid of these new phones and go back to these old. Schools. I mean, there's got to be a way to plug the guitar in. Yeah. All right. Now open it up, 'cause we can hear it? That's what it does. It it stutters your signal, yeah. So what is the point of this? I don't know. Is it for just controlling a constant tone? I don't know dial tones like without looking online and trying to find see this is we're breaking our own rule. We're not doing the work and figuring out how this works. What you get is not very, I would say like it's not. In inventive.

27:03 You know, because you could have put another in. For the phone, yeah, very, very, very poor quality. OK. So yeah. So yeah, a. Lot of people have problems with dial tones, guitar products, but here's the thing, I can't get enough of them. I got to find out what are the releases. I will find out how.

27:23 Dial tones were coming for you, man. We're going to figure out how to make this thing work. Thanks for letting us use this in the thumbnail. All right, so that's that. That's that, that's. This is truly weird gear I. Haven't been stumped by gear in a while like this. Grab that other pedal. Yeah, grab that thing. What's this bad boy?

27:40 I don't know. So my friend Jamie, he said that, he said I got this pedal and he goes, I can't get a usable sound out of it. Oh, so is that weird gear or not? Well, as long as the pedals usable. I think that that's our main parameter right now. So it's called the X7 high gain. OK. It looks scary.

28:01 It looks like it's going to be an insanely. The game's all the way up, OK? Dude, just you know what, I'm sick of this. Just send it bro. I'll send it. You ready? Go ahead. That's pretty cool. Yeah, turn. Hey. Hey, turn the presents up more. OK, let's Sick. Such a disgusting. That was disgusting. OK, that pedal is pretty cool.

31:05 It's not weird. I don't know if it fits on the weird gear episode. I don't think it does. Gathered a box of weird pedals and this one snuck in there I think. It's not game should. We go in and see. See if there's something to see if. There's something else maybe over in this corner because I got, I got something a little weird all. Right, let me see what you got.

31:21 Oh by the way, shout out to Dazzle Guitars again. Not necessarily a weird guitar. This guitar sounds awesome. Dude, it looks kind of weird it. Looks weird for sure. That thing's thick, bro. Fat. It feels like a nice piece of furniture that. Thing's cool, man. Beefy neck got the juices on the back there too. Love it.

31:39 What's it say on the back? Music is wind. Whoa, cool. Yeah. Shout out Cody Sick works on Joe Perry's guitars. Yeah, I met Cody when I did the Joe Perry shows. He was tech and show. Me the Vega trim stuff, which Kent Crawley, our guy. Big candy, The Vega guy. Yeah, never, never tried one. Lots of good stuff in this guitar here. Very sick.

31:58 What you got, baby? Oh, you bought AB Bender? Where'd you get? It instantly. I saw. I saw it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait. This is a shout out to John Bollinger. Oh, shout way out to John. Way out to John. Dude, John was the inspiration. John was the inspiration for me. Getting this look at this on the back Fender B.

32:16 Bender. I never noticed that little alliteration but it's great. Fender B Bender, come on. Wait, when did you get this? Where? It literally came in the mail a couple days ago. I'm doing a video with Sweetwater. OH. And is it brand new? No. No, it's used so they have a Sweetwater like the gear exchange.

32:32 Oh. Sure. And I bought it from some guy. I've been scouring the web waiting for one of these to come. You got a strap dog? Oh. Shit a strap for the bee Bender. Let me tune it while you're strapping up. Wow dude you have a cool bee Bender guitar now. Yep, we got them. I've used it. Did you? Tune this thing because it's perfectly in tune Yeah, I've.

32:53 This one I actually spent some time with. Oh, you did? Yeah. Pull up, dude. OK, so I just saw that shout out to John Osborne. Uh huh yesterday. Well now I don't know what it'll be when this this episode drops, but he just released that Fender B Bender. Oh I saw that too. B benders are all the rage.

33:11 But yeah, see B benders boy. All right. So is it ready? Yeah. She got little WD40 but other than that it's good. kind of stuff that I've been finding with the B Bender is because I don't play country type stuff normally and I'm not, I don't have that vocabulary. But the vocabulary I do have when I play kind of more rich harmonic chords or just different types of chord progressions, dude, it's just like a magical sound. Well, like also like if you think about it like once you get used to this, because probably like most of you watching, this is my third time with the beheader ever. Yeah, but when you you could do like pre bending stuff like you could do this like 'cause she a little WD40 dude. Just wait a second.

34:36 What you got, I got to get. It so squirt it. Hold that. Oh, there we go. Boy, that's. Right dude, squeak. No more dude going squeaking is going to be me with these E7 legs. That's exactly what I was talking about when I was like, I'm finding chord progressions that maybe I would play and they're just more interesting.

35:33 This thing's awesome. So if you play A, play me like AAG to like that G with the bar or the D and then F So I'm going Expect some more jams out of this. Oh yes, this is awesome. What? Do we got next? This is a good one in the arsenal. The guitar arsenal. What you got? Oh, what is that? It's just a. Little amp can.

38:06 Hey got my amp can man. Dude, can I jam with you guys? Got my amp can. I brought my amp can, what is that? Let me just. Is that speaker? It's a speaker dude. It's an amp can. Dude, quick, get the Roswell Pro audio microphone over here. Whoa, wait a second. And that all that noise went away. This is me and you at the NAMM show in 2004.

41:06 It's got a beautiful queen sound. You could. Really do a lot with that platform. Yeah, that's a, that's a platform. If I was hey, if I was like camping or like you know, off the grid and bring some batteries in the amp can. This is the weirdest Gear episode. Is that thing heavy? Looks like it. Looks like a damn paint you.

41:21 Could murder somebody with it. Is this a paint bucket made? This thing is like this is a solid 20 lbs. Yeah, it's wild. This is like JJN, like, Oh yeah, you want to pump, we'll do the pump and then we'll do the. Amp you want to get the pump. You want to get the biceps and the triceps. Where did you get this?

41:40 Dude, I can't. OK, hold on, you better zoom in on this. It looks like that is melted bro. Oh yeah, you see that somebody? Somebody was was shredding so, so hard. Yeah, we might have melted the amp can. Weird gear. This is the weird gear cake man. Yeah. So thanks to Neural DSP, by the way, for helping set this up. Helping just overall positive energy is what I needed from you and Neural and everybody to make this happen. So I just want to thank everybody involved. Yeah, thank you, Neural.

42:12 It's, it's funny because Tyler and I started thinking, who can we call? Yeah. And now we're just calling Neural. They're like, oh, no, Tyler's calling again. Oh, God. And we're asking him the most random questions. Hey, guys, we got this synth guitar from the 80s. Can you help us hook it up? Yeah. And this was, like, on a Friday.

42:27 Like, they're done at work. You know? What a great. I don't know how they answered, but they did. Dude, they're amazing.