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Our battle-weary hosts have returned from the scorched trenches and badge-strewn wastelands in Anaheim, California, and they’re ready to recount what they saw. Welcome to the NAMM 2024 airing of the grievances. Zach and Rhett are coming at this from two different angles: Zach as a vendor with Mythos Pedals, and Rhett as an attendee and noted YouTuber-about-town. This year marked Zach’s first on the vendor side, an experience he calls “trial by fire on the show floor.” It ain’t cheap to showcase at NAMM, and Zack has some ideas for how to give participants more bang for their buck. The worst feeling in the world, after all, is dropping a mountain of cash to travel to the show, only to stand alone at your booth for four days. (By the way, three days might be a better fit.) Rhett and Zach share their horror stories—from pushy salesmen in suits to awkward physical confrontations—and forecast some possible solutions before they turn to the auction of a Mark Knopfler guitar for an insane sum. Why are vintage guitar prices shooting up, and how are scalpers screwing up the gear market? Tune in for the juice. Head to stewmac.com/dippedintone for 10% off your order!Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/dipped-in-tone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone   Dipped in Tone is: Rhett Shull  https://www.rhettshull.com/ Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals  https://mythospedals.com Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/

Rhett and Zach kick off the new year with renewed commitment to an old habit: making a daily to-do list, or as Rhett calls it, “the shit list.” The guys debate the finer points of which stationary makes the best to-do list backdrop before they’re joined by Tom Murphy, the preeminent craftsman of guitar-aging and namesake of Gibson’s high-end Murphy Lab. Murphy, who has been with Gibson for 25 years, takes Rhett and Zach back to the starting line, when he and his friends would buy, trade, mod, poke, and prod any guitars they could get their hands on—Murphy quips that his entire career is in part penance for an early botched attempt at refinishing a ’68 Les Paul. Murphy eventually found his niche in aging: “Who else is gonna take a razor blade and make a bunch of lines on a guitar they just refinished?” Along the way, Murphy digs into the labor and pricing considerations with heavily aged instruments, including when a third-party guitar sale made him realize he had to raise his rates. His aging and restoration work involves balancing considerations of aesthetic, tone, and playability all at once, which he likens to “the spinning plates guy at the circus.” “Which one can you afford to let fall?” Murphy says. The magic of his work, he explains, is in accentuating the natural properties of the guitars: “Our finish doesn’t make them sound better, it lets them sound better.” Murphy’s story involves soaring highs, like catching ZZ Top in a tiny club in Houston in the early ’70s, watching Billy Gibbons thrash the very guitar model he would later spend his days working on. But stick around to hear about the dramatic lows, too, like when he witnessed a guitar’s finish shatter before his eyes after a freezing, snowed-in night in Boulder, Colorado. Murphy doesn’t have plans to retire at the moment, but he has one caveat: “I just don’t wanna be found slumped over a guitar,” he chuckles. Big thanks to StewMac for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://stewmac.com/dippedintone to get 10% off! Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/dipped-in-tone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone   Dipped in Tone is: Rhett Shull  https://www.rhettshull.com/ Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals  https://mythospedals.com Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/

Intervals bandleader Aaron Marshall joins Rhett and Zach for this installment of Dipped In Tone, which is essentially a crash-course in touring, merch design, road-ready rig planning, and keeping your head above water as an unsigned act. The trio start off with a deep dive into Intervals’ focus on high-quality merch, and Marshall outlines his design and marketing philosophies. Increasingly, these elements are the lifeblood of any band that wants to make a living in music: “A touring band is just a traveling T-shirt shop that gets to play music for 40 minutes,” Marshall quips.Marshall expands on his DIY expertise—Intervals has self-released all four of their full-length records, and still managed to thrive and build a name for themselves. Obviously, that requires a lot of hard work before outsourcing things like management and booking. “You have to take it to your wit’s end,” says Marshall. Marshall explains how Intervals has managed to maintain a top-level live production without label backing, and why, after literally tucking his tube amps in to a tour van bunk bed, he won’t take them on the road anymore. (“Glass is crazy to be touring with,” he says.) Part of the band’s low-frills magic is a “go along to get along” attitude as an opening act, which includes foregoing specific pieces of gear to make their lives—and the lives of everyone involved in a tour production—more easy. While Intervals leans toward the gnarlier side of the rock spectrum, Marshall connects his playing back to the classics, and shares why he thinks it’s important to keep a healthy, back-to-basics musical diet: “Playing the blues and learning how to play rock is like eating broccoli at every meal.” Stay tuned til the end to get the details on Intervals’ upcoming 2024 release. Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/dipped-in-tone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone   Dipped in Tone is: Rhett Shull  https://www.rhettshull.com/ Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals  https://mythospedals.com Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/

It’s the most wonderful time of year: the “year in gear” season is finally upon us, and we’re celebrating with this special in-person episode of Dipped In Tone. Zach and Rhett gang up at Zach’s place to rundown the best of the best of musical excellence and oddities in 2023. The guys start in with their favorite stompboxes. Rhett tips his hat to Old Blood Noise Endeavors’ Beam Splitter, Hologram’s Chroma Console, and Universal Audio’s 1176 pedal, which he runs as a hard-clipped overdrive. Some might say it sounds s****y, but as Zach notes, “Shitty is pretty in the mix!” Zach’s “boring” picks include the Nobels ODR-1, his collection of new Tube Screamer variants, and the Poly Beebo. Along the way, they talk about the magic of going back to old gear they’d written off in their younger days, and dig into the root causes of Zach’s discomfort with more experimental playing approaches. Rhett sings praises for the new Orange OR30 and remembers its early 2000s predecessor, the AD30, and he and Zach agree on the superior, “8K” quality of Two-Rock’s current offerings over nearly every other amp on the market. Out of this year’s axes, Rhett favors both Fender’s Vintera II ’60s Bass VI and the Mexican-made Jason Isbell Custom Telecaster, plus the Collings 470 JL—Julian Lage’s signature. Zach spotlights his PRS SE Silver Sky, and a gorgeous Gibson Custom Shop 1959 ES-335 Reissue. Be sure to stick around for the end, when the duo call out the year’s biggest disappointment in gear, which Zach describes as “baby’s first modeler.” Big thanks to StewMac for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://stewmac.com/dippedintone to get 10% off! Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/dipped-in-tone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone 00:00 Introduction and In-Person Episode 01:21 Year in Gear Discussion 03:15 Shifting Focus to Patreon 04:14 Sponsorship and Gift Ideas 05:34 Tube Screamers 06:02 Old Blood Noise Beam Splitter 08:28 Reevaluating Gear 10:36 Nobels ODR-1 12:57 Hologram Chroma Console 16:23 UA 1176 Pedal 19:45 Poly Beebo 25:06 JHS NOTAKLÖN 26:05 Two-Rock Classic Reverb 45:40 Discussion about the quality and vision of boutique amps 46:10 The appeal of vintage-style amps and custom builds 47:35 The Orange OR30 amp and its unique characteristics 48:30 The versatility and appeal of amp modeling plugins 49:53 The Fender Bass 6 and its unique features 52:39 The PRS Silver Sky SE and its value for the price 56:29 The Collings 470 JL and its exceptional sound and playability 01:01:16 The Gibson 1959 reissue custom shop 335 and its quality 01:02:46 The Fender Jason Isbell Telecaster 01:05:42 Disappointment with the Fender Tone Master Pro amp

This episode of Dipped In Tone features Rhett flying solo with veteran jazz guitarist Oz Noy. Born in Israel, Noy started gigging at age 13, and 37 years later, he’s still going strong as a celebrated live musician—including a 17-year run at New York City club The Bitter End. Noy explains that he grew up with a foot in both jazz and rock music worlds. The former taught him intricate playing, while the latter schooled him on tone and sound. “I was playing heavy metal on one hand,” he says. “On the other, I had a hollowbody guitar and I was playing bebop.” When he moved to New York, he was “shellshocked” by how advanced and impressive the jazz music scene was. Noy played in a trio, so to fill out his sonic palette, he began leaning on effects as “almost another instrument.” Not all of it has been intentional—he found a signature sound thanks to a happy accident with a tremolo pedal while gigging in Japan. While he still loves old, loud Marshalls, Noy says Two-Rock amplifiers have radically changed his approach, and he even uses Fender combos on the road. But aside from running his amps into a Universal Audio OX, Noy explains why he’s still not impressed with digital amp solutions. Noy’s most important advice for players? “You gotta go out of your house and play live,” he says, explaining why it doesn’t cut it to just home-record clips for Instagram or YouTube. And while he sings the praises of his favorite modern jazz players, he tells Rhett why he thinks that rock and blues guitar-playing haven’t evolved much since the ’70s: “There’s nobody that took it to the next level or invented something new.” Big thanks to StewMac for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://stewmac.com/dippedintone to get 10% off! Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/dipped-in-tone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone

On this week’s Dipped In Tone, Rhett and Zack are joined by contemporary jazz guitar legend Adam Levy, the thoughtful, soft-spoken accompanist known for his work with Norah Jones and his own jazz trios. Levy’s new book, String Theories, which he co-authored with fellow sideman-to-the-stars Ethan Sherman, collects a series of tips, challenges, and reflections for guitarists to deepen their playing. “I need it to sound like Solomon Burke is singing,” Levy says of his style and philosophy, centered on leads and mid-register tones. His formative playing experiences were on a Gibson ES-335, and Zack and Rhett wonder why the semi-hollow remains Levy’s go-to over, say, a Les Paul or T-style guitar. “[We] kind of put guitars in buckets: ‘This guitar does this, this guitar does that,’” says Levy. “But a lot of it is just what you do with your hands anyway. I feel like the instrument itself is maybe just a third of all that stuff.” Levy says that as the years go on, he gets “more like myself” when playing. A piece of that, he says, is stepping back from guitar music altogether. “Go on a guitar fast for a month,” he says. Levy says that removing the distractions of analyzing for specific tones and gear can create a clearer relationship to music. “All you can really notice is, ‘What’s the mood? How does it make me feel?’” Similarly, Levy warns of the dangers of overanalyzing your playing: “A little bit of reflection can go a long way,” he says, but “you don’t want to get so reflective that you shut yourself down.” Finally, the trio dips a high-class vintage rig complete with a Gibson ES-125 with a floating wooden bridge—which shocks a sense-memory out of Levy. “It’s beyond, ‘I can hear that guitar,’” laughs Levy. “I can smell that guitar.” Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment! Big thanks to Sweetwater for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://sweetwater.com for all your musical gear needs. Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/dipped-in-tone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone   Dipped in Tone is: Rhett Shull  https://www.rhettshull.com/ Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals  https://mythospedals.com Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/

Zach goes it alone on this episode to interview session guitarist, 6-string storyteller, and prominent YouTuber and online guitar instructor Tim Pierce. As a player, Pierce’s guitar has spent decades at the top of the charts by way of songs by Bon Jovi, Goo Goo Dolls, Phil Collins, Madonna, Dave Matthews Band, Bob Dylan—whose recent Shadow Kingdom features the guitarist holding down the rhythm—and so many others. Pierce discusses his biggest influences and favorite guitar sounds, seeing ZZ Top in their early stages “at their finest”—“I was floored”—and tells how he learned how to play rhythm guitar “on the job.” He also shares advice for crafting excellent guitar parts. These days, Pierce says his session work is mostly for friends and family. Instead, he focuses on his popular YouTube channel, where he posts interviews, tips, and more. It’s a passion for the guitarist, and he and Zach get deep into the nuts and bolts of his YouTube life—from how many thumbnails can he makes for each episode (a whole lot) to how he comes up with his ideas for videos. “I did one thing for decades,” Pierce says of his life as a guitarist for hire. “That I knew I could do … I just wanted to be a recording guitar player.” About 15 years ago, he says he reevaluated his goals and says he “discovered some people who were doing business online” who inspired him to give YouTube a go. “It just seemed like something, with all my limitations, that I could pull off.” After a decade doing full-time sessions and building his online presence, Pierce eventually switched to becoming a full-time YouTuber. Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment! Big thanks to Sweetwater for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://sweetwater.com for all your musical gear needs. Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone Dipped in Tone is: Rhett Shull https://www.rhettshull.com/ Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals https://mythospedals.com Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/

Rhett and Zack kick off the episode with a chat about which video games they’re loving and Rhett’s cross-country adventures with his wife before Eli Lester, owner of Two-Rock Amplification, joins them for an in-depth exploration of his amp-building philosophies. Lester walks Rhett and Zack through his origins in amp-building, repairing instruments and amps in the back room of the shop where he gave guitar lessons. He played in rockabilly bands and had an affinity for old ’50s and ’60s Cadillacs that needed work, but he couldn’t afford to pay someone to fix them up, so he had to learn to do it himself. In his freshman year of college, he’d buy old amps and rent books from the library to figure out how to repair and mod them. Eventually, his voracious fandom of Two-Rock amplifiers helped him connect with the brand’s founder, Bill Krinard. On Two-Rock’s building philosophy now, Lester says his approach is more about feel more than sound. “We build them for the artist, not the audience,” he says. Two-Rock’s obsession with delivering high-fidelity sound goes into every piece of the amp; Lester says each part is manufactured to spec in California, and part of the brand’s high price tags is thanks to how well they treat their employees. “We’re all tinkerers and geeks,” Lester grins. Later, Lester explains how they design high-wattage amps that don’t blow your eardrums, and how Two-Rock is “tipping their hat” to Dumble-style amps. Building amps for a job is indeed hard work, but Lester wouldn’t have it any other way: “I just get to build my dream guitar rig, that’s all I do.” Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment! Big thanks to Sweetwater for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://sweetwater.com for all your musical gear needs. Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone Dipped in Tone is: Rhett Shull https://www.rhettshull.com/ Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals https://mythospedals.com Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/

Josh Scott drops in to chat about all things JHS, going back to his early days doing debunking deep-dives into vintage gear—“I love the mythbusting element of this stuff,” he says. “I love telling people … this is not witchcraft…. The tech of a Big Muff is from the ’50s.” He continues: “I know that we need to feel magic. I like it too.… But I love that element of proving simplicity of all this stuff and making it digestible to younger players and taking the chaos out of decisions. So, for me, that’s where the collecting started happening. Everything I’d ever heard anyone say about a pedal, I immediately needed to find the pedal and see if it was true.” And while the trio have plenty of inside-baseball stuff to cover, from how they’ve approached their YouTube content to how they tackle endorsement cold calls to branding—“products are not that important in the long term. Brand is more important than products.” But Josh is here to talk about his relaunch of the Ross brand and his YouTube documentary about the brand. The story, he says, is “more important than the pedals even. I just love the stories and stuff. The pedal circuits were the easiest part of the whole thing. It’s awesome to have worked so hard and to see the impact that just a good story has. We got inundated with messages … saying, ‘Man, I cried about pedals.’” “I just really love the history element,” he says later, “so much that it feels like this really natural piece of being able to tell those stories and then move the story forward … One of my favorite things to do is taking some classic thing and replicating it perfectly. Like, I love the science of that.” Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment! Big thanks to Sweetwater for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://sweetwater.com for all your musical gear needs. Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone Dipped in Tone is: Rhett Shull https://www.rhettshull.com/ Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals https://mythospedals.com Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/

Zach and Rhett kick things off with a catch-up on recent projects. Rhett celebrates his new 100 watt Two Rock Classic Reverb Signature, which recently terrorized a couple sitting in the front row of one of his gigs. Then guitarist Ariel Posen logs on to, first and foremost, clear up how to pronounce his name. He gives a quick tutorial: just say guitar, add “ee” and “ell,” then take out the “guit” sound. Posen and Rhett swap horror stories from working on film sets, where they were expected to do way more than their job descriptions covered. Both agree that the film life is infinitely worse than touring. “I don’t know shit!” protests Posen. “I’m just a guitar player, dude!” Posen discusses how he got into playing slide in standard tuning by learning George Harrison leads (blues slide guitar was never his thing), but Canadian guitarist Kevin Breit inspired him to try open tunings, a process with “a lot of trial by fire, lots of, ‘oops, sorry!’” Blake Mills’ 2014 record Heigh Ho prompted Posen to chase lower tunings, although Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Big Wreck lit that same candle years earlier. For the open tuning-curious, Posen suggests starting in open E. Posen talks about how he wrote his new record, and the honesty and simplicity behind his favorite lyricists like Jason Isbell. Finally, the trio dig into how to stack and squeeze the best sounds from your fuzz pedals. (Is a mini version of the Mythos Argo fuzz pedal coming? Zach doesn’t say yes—but he doesn’t say no, either.) Finally, the crew dips a slick Americana rig that draws a trio of impressive scores. Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment! Big thanks to Sweetwater for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://sweetwater.com for all your musical gear needs. Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone Dipped in Tone is: Rhett Shull https://www.rhettshull.com/ Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals https://mythospedals.com Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/

On this episode of Dipped In Tone, Rhett and Zach chat with special guest Warren Haynes. The Gov’t Mule leader talks about the band’s latest, Peace… Like a River. This record of originals was recorded simultaneously with 2021’s Heavy Load Blues, in the same studio, using a completely different set of gear. “We setup all our normal Mule toys in the big room with the high ceiling, we setup a bunch of vintage gear, small amps, and old guitars … in the small room,” Haynes shares, as he details the differences in each rig and talks about his go-to blues rig, which includes vintage Gibson amps—“they were flying by the seat of their pants, a lot of it was experimental,” he says on why they’re some of his favorites—a Supro, Alessandro, and more, plus a slew of vintage guitars, including Danelectros and Gibsons. “The surprise factor was part of it,” Haynes says. In the course of talking amps, Haynes might have let the cat out of the bag about a special project. What does it take to be effective when sitting in? “A lot of times,” Haynes explains, “I’m just trying to find something that fits and stay out of everybody’s way.” Pragmatically, he later adds, “Really, the most important thing to remember is that the song’s gonna be fine without your part, so there’s no reason to feel like you have to do anything. When it comes time to solo, that’s a little bit of a different story.” He later reminisces about sitting in with Bob Dylan, and, during his time as a member of the Allmans, having Eric Clapton join the band onstage. Big thanks to Sweetwater for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://sweetwater.com for all your musical gear needs. Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/dipped-in-tone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone   Dipped in Tone is: Rhett Shull  https://www.rhettshull.com/ Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals  https://mythospedals.com Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/

This episode starts off with Zach and Rhett catching each other up on their 4th of July festivities. Rhett’s was classic: he treated some visiting European friends to fireworks off a dock, barbecue, smoked wings, more fireworks, and a bunch of beer. Zach, meanwhile, was knocking on doors to tell neighbors to knock off the mortar shelling in the middle of the night. To each their own. Then they’re joined by Nathaniel Murphy, the Chicago-based guitarist who has racked up nearly 400,000 followers on Instagram with jaw-dropping videos of solo guitar work. Rhett doesn’t mince words—he says Murphy is “one of the best players out there.” Murphy’s videos break people’s brains, they say: no one can work out how he’s playing all the parts by himself at the same time. Plus, Murphy works full-time now with Chicago Music Exchange, where he brushed shoulders with Noel Gallagher and Carlos Santana within a few days of one another this summer. Murphy shares how he came to the U.S. to coach soccer for nearly a decade before being hired to do video demos for CME. He was busking downtown Chicago, too, and within a few years, CME brought him on full-time to cut videos. When it came time to join Instagram, he registered with his infamous handle, @ZeppelinBarnatra. Murphy breaks down how the moniker came to be when he entered a contest to win tickets to Led Zeppelin’s 2007 reunion concert. Murphy names his favorite all-time guitar—Noel Gallagher’s Gibson J-150, which Gallagher recently signed for him—before the crew reflects on how to behave when meeting your guitar heroes. That leads to a discussion of U2’s The Edge, whom Rhett and Murphy defend from detractors. They also agree that Teles are the most versatile guitars out there, but Zach, ever the contrarian, dissents: “To me, there’s a reason why all the dudes that played Teles back in the day switched to Les Pauls,” he shrugs. Murphy talks about his current favorite players, like Justin Derrico, Stephen Taranto, and Michael Romeo, then the trio dissect different picking techniques and go long on Blue Chip pick manufacturing processes. Rhett, who groans that he has the touch of a blacksmith when it comes to guitar playing, praises Murphy’s sensitive playing. But even Murphy, with his prodigious playing, says he gets overwhelmed watching other players’ styles. In guitar playing, as in life, the grass is always greener. Big thanks to StewMac for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://stewmac.com/dippedintone to get 10% off! Subscribe, like, and leave us a comment Sign up on our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/iaCee5 Support us on Patreon for access to our discord server and other perks! https://www.patreon.com/dippedintone MERCH: https://teespring.com/stores/dipped-in-tone Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/dippedintone   Dipped in Tone is: Rhett Shull  https://www.rhettshull.com/ Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals  https://mythospedals.com Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/