Andy Othling

Don’t Be Afraid of Knobs

andy — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:08:53 +0000

I have two Matchless amps. They’re awesome. I’ve had a Chieftain for a while now, and I feel like I know it pretty well. I feel like I’m in control of it and that’s good. Recently I was able to acquire a Clubman, and I don’t know it as well as the Chieftain, but I’m learning. It’s great, but it’s pretty different than the Chieftain. One of the first things I noticed was how much more present the bass was. It’s just more full or something. But after a while of playing with it, I felt like it had too much bass. Like, it was just too big and was taking over the other “prettier” frequencies.

I had been setting the bass knob at about noon. And one day I just decided to do this:

Does that make you feel uncomfortable? Because it sure did me. But it turns out that I like this amp better when the bass knob is all the way or almost all the way down. I realized that for some reason I felt like it couldn’t possibly be a good thing to have a knob near the extreme values (all the way on or off). Like they were “supposed” to be somewhat close to a 12 O’clock position. But I didn’t have any real basis for that feeling or anything.

So now I’m trying to figure out what other silly “rules” I seem to put on myself or my gear that might actually be keeping me from sounding better. For example, I also seem to hate messing with the tone knob on my guitar. Why? I don’t know. But I’m sure if I start playing around with it I might be able to find some cool sounds and tricks. Same with the volume knob too.

So. There are no rules about knobs! Put them wherever you want. Experiment with all of them. Learn them and remember that there are no wrong ways to do any of this! Unless you are playing with knobs more than you are playing your guitar. That might be wrong!

(Not) Promoting Yourself Well

andy — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:17:46 +0000

The other day I got a message to my YouTube account that perfectly summed up how NOT to promote yourself. It went like this:

Give back to your subs…
I love your creative / crazy take on music and technology… not to mention, how much did your setup cost? Wow!
If you don’t mind… I am trying to get a new book out and am giving away the first 5000 copies! If you would review it… even mention it and your opinion of it in a video, I would love to give you 5 copies to give away to your viewers! See my website or my channel.
I love original music, and yours is really wild… Thanks.

I don’t want to go into depth on all the problems with this message, because I hope it’s pretty apparent. The subject immediately tries to make me feel guilty, which is always the wrong way to start out an interaction with anyone. But the thing that’s most apparent is that this person really only cares about one thing: my subscribers. I’ve got something this person wants, and they don’t even seem to care that a book plug would be completely out of place in one of my videos. In a word, this is just lazy. Find someone with a little bit of influence and just try to use them. This is the wrong way to do it. And bands/artists do it all the time.

So what’s the right way to do it? Well, I can only speak from my experience and my (very) modest success. As with anything like this there isn’t a formula, and it’s going to look different for each person. But I can say that promoting yourself well almost never involves soliciting yourself to people you don’t have a relationship with and asking them for access to their resources.

Let me step back a little bit. I wanted to write this post because I’ve had a few people ask me lately about “how I promote myself”. My first thought when I first got the question was “…I don’t think I really do”. And that’s kind of true, really. I’ve never really focused that much on promoting myself as much I have just making music.

But let me take ANOTHER step back. More often than not, I’m on the other end of the aforementioned question and am curious about how other people have gotten to where they are. There’s a part of me that hopes that whenever I’m reading an interview with someone I admire that they’ll reveal some secret to their success that I’ll be able to directly apply to my life, which will in turn bring me the same level of success that they have. But that never happens. Usually the question of “how did you get to where you are today” does come up, but the answer seems to always be something like “well, it just kind of happened”. In a lot of cases, people’s success seems to be directly connected to certain specific relationships they may have with other successful people or things like that. Basically their story, as interesting as it probably was, never usually gives me any practical tips that I can apply to my own situation.

Or does it? I started to think about a lot of the stories I’ve read and there is one common thread between all of them: the people being interviewed worked hard. They kept working at it because they loved doing whatever they do. Their goal wasn’t necessarily to “get successful”, it was just to get better at what they do. And guess what happens when you do that? You start making connections. Opportunities start falling into your lap simply because you’re out there doing what you want to do.

So here’s how you promote yourself: create. Figure out your passion and do it. And don’t quit after a month because things haven’t picked up the way you wanted them to. I’ve been doing these Ambient Songs for about 3 years now, and I can say that in my case a large part of any success I have is due to those. I didn’t start because I knew they would help in that area, I started because it was/is fun and a good writing exercise. I love doing them.

So promote your art by doing your art. You’ll get better at what you do, and eventually people will start to notice. Work hard at it, and then you might find yourself in the right place at the right time to make it work. Don’t waste time spamming people and trying to use them. Don’t try to guilt people into supporting you. Get good at what you do, and do it a lot. Unfortunately that’s the only real piece of advice I can give on promoting yourself, but fortunately I do think it’s the best way to do it.

Pedalboard Update

andy — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:00:33 +0000

I’m not usually a huge fan of posts like this, but I wanted to try to pre-empt the questions that will inevitably come from the next video I post. Here’s what we’ve got right now:

That’s right, it’s gotten smaller. I went from the Pedaltrain Pro with a soft case down to the PT-3 with a hard case. Here is the signal chain now:

Diamond Compressor
Malekko Vibrato
Boss TU-3 (using the Bypass output)
EHX Micro Pog
Ibanez TS-808
Timmy
Fulltone Supa-Trem
Goodrich L-120 Volume
EHX Deluxe Memory Man w/ Tap Tempo
Strymon El Capistan
Line 6 Echo Park
Boss RV-5
Strymon Blue Sky

The only things missing from the old setup is a third dirt pedal and my Super Hard On clone. I found that even when I had three dirt pedals on, I would only use two of them. And the boost was so rarely used that I don’t really miss it.

I have been wanting the Malekko Vibrato for a while now, and I figure that even if I don’t end up using it a whole lot, the fact that it’s so small makes me feel ok for only using it sparingly. I like it so far.

Patch cables are two Lava Cables kits, a few George L’s, and one Hosa pancake cable between the 808 and Timmy. When I moved all the pedals over, I took the time to test every cable and I ended up having to repair the majority of my George L cables. I was having major connectivity issues, but now everything seems pretty solid. Also, I’ve not had to fix a single Lava cable since I assembled them. They are much more reliable than George L’s in my experience.

Everything is powered by two Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2+ power supplies. The Malekko Vibrato and Diamond Compressor are both running at 12 volts.

The El Capistan splits the signal into stereo.

The Boomerang looper will sit next to the board when I am using it.

The Memory Man and the El Capistan both have Mini Expression Knobs attached. They’re sitting sideways as you can see, which is kind of weird but I got used to it.

Anyways, that’s pretty much it. Let me know if you have any questions!

Pre Gear-Selling Checklist

andy — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:00:52 +0000

In my last post I mentioned that crazy cycle that some of us get into with constantly buying and selling gear like a revolving door. It’s really hard to get out of because I think what happens is that we get a new piece of gear and we expect it to be amazing right off the bat, and if it isn’t then it’s gone for the next thing. We get impatient and we don’t really learn the ins and outs of that thing, be it a pedal or amp or whatever, and we get rid of it without giving it a fair shake. Or maybe what’s happened is that we’ve had something for a while and we feel bored and impatient with it and are tempted to look for something else.

So one of the things I wanted to do was have some sort of system to determine if it’s the right time to sell a piece of gear. Here’s roughly what I’ve come up with:

Put a new set of strings on your guitar, and use that piece of gear again. I’ve started changing strings more often (about once a week) partly because it keeps me happy with my sound and keeps me from putting something up for sale that might not be the problem.
Isolate that piece of gear as much as possible. If it’s a pedal, take it off the board and use it by itself and then with other guitars/amps if possible. If it’s an amp, just plug straight in. You may find that something else is causing the problem.
Completely re-explore all the options on that piece of gear. I find that pretty quickly I fall into a default way of using a pedal or amp and stop exploring it. If I stop being happy with it for whatever reason, I do my best to go back and go through everything it can actually do. Maybe my tastes have just changed and I just need to start using it a little differently.
If this is a tube amp in question, try to experiment with different tubes. Right now I’m trying to build up a little tube collection so that I can easily determine if any tubes are going bad or if something else might just sound better.

And that’s pretty much it. I like this mindset a lot and I think it’s helped me hold on to some gear that I otherwise might have sold, which enables me to learn the gear better, which enables me to use it better, which ends up inspiring me to play better. Imagine that!

What are some things that you guys do to troubleshoot or decide whether it’s time to move onto something new?

Opinion vs. Opinion vs. Strangers on Internet Forums

andy — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 23:03:50 +0000

I got a nice refreshing email from a good fellow the other day. It included this wonderful line:

…it’s so difficult to parse out who knows what they’re talking about and who is clueless on the message boards, so I am hesitant to take advice from anonymous online users.

I know where this guy is coming from, and I know why he’s come to the conclusion that he has. I used to be really into some of the forums. I didn’t interact all that much, but I followed a lot of the conversation. As a result, I found myself persuaded to buy into some of the hype about pedals and things. But then I also found myself in the same spiral that so many of the people on those forums seem to suffer from: continual buying and selling and transition. I was never completely happy with anything.

I got really sick of it. I was wasting money, and I missed having a stable set of gear that I was intimately familiar with. I’ve since stopped looking at those forums for the most part, and I’ve really honed in on a relatively stable setup that I’m really happy with. But getting this email I think helped me figure out why those forums messed me up (and presumably others).

Everybody’s got a really cool opinion on the internet. You can post a thread and ask what the best overdrive pedal is and people will flock to it and start giving you two word replies with a make and model. Great right? I don’t really think so. The problem here is that the wrong question was asked and the wrong answers were given. It’s the wrong question because there is no such thing as “the best overdrive pedal” and the answers were wrong because they’re based on another person’s opinion without any context.

A little while ago I saw this poor kid post a thread on The Gear Page asking what the two best pedals for ambient swells were. The answers started rolling in and the overwhelming majority stated “Strymon Timeline and Eventide Space!” which of course happen to be latest and greatest and most expensive delay and reverb pedals at the moment. And from what I could tell the kid just said, “ok cool, thanks!” I felt pretty bummed that this kid is most likely going to drop a thousand dollars on two pedals just because there was a consensus of people that he didn’t know on an internet forum.

The point I’m trying to make is that we need to figure out whose opinion we value and whose we take with a grain of salt. In most other life aspects, we value opinions of people because they have proved themselves to be wise and experienced on the pertinent subject. But for some reason we get sucked into following the anonymous internet horde and get into the cycle of buying and selling things that we didn’t even need in the first place. I’m not saying that these places are all bad, because they’re not and lots of people find them useful for lots of other things, but I just don’t see anyone talking about the kind of obvious problem that crops up in these kind of places.

Going back to the kid who wants ambient swells, the more constructive question for him to ask would have included a description of the sound he’s going for along with sound clips, former experience with things that he either liked or didn’t like and other things like that. And the responses should include mostly the same things. If people want their recommendation to be taken seriously, it should include context that helps guide the asker’s eventual decision or opinion. I realize that this kind of thing does happen on these forums, but I wish it happened more.

So here’s my advice: find a few people whose opinion you really value and see what they do. Maybe they’re good players or friends who just know their stuff. Then use those people as a filter for other opinions that you find on places like internet forums. And before you buy the next greatest delay or overdrive pedal that’s getting hyped on the forum, get some grounded opinions from someone whose advice you trust.

How One Knob Changed The Way I Use Delay Pedals

andy — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:29:01 +0000

I like delay pedals. I’ve had a lot of them. But I’ve always struggled with the really fancy ones with all the presets and a zillion different sounds. I always ended up using just a few sounds and I never really found a good way to manage more than a couple presets live. This isn’t to say that there weren’t more than a few good sounds, because there were, I just wanted to keep things simple. So I don’t have any of those pedals anymore.

But I did still want a little bit more flexibility from my delays. What I discovered through trying a bunch of them is that the parameter I wanted to manipulate most was the amount of repeats. Sometimes I just wanted a subtle few repeats, and sometimes a really long trail. But I didn’t necessarily want to make different presets just to change the feedback amount.

I don’t remember how, but eventually I stumbled across this guy from Dan at this1smyne. It’s just an expression knob. What that means is that it’s just a controller and depending how the pedal you’re using it with is set up, you can make it control whatever you want. It’s connected via a TRS cable to the pedal you want to control. This was basically perfect for what I wanted to do; it’s a simple knob that can be placed wherever I want that can control the most important parameter for my delay pedal. Neat.

But here’s ultimately what it did for me. It allows me to have the simplest setup I can have while still having all the control that I want. As I mentioned before, I appreciated the flexibility of the big multi-sound preset delays, but there was just too much going on. With this knob, I can get a solid sound and tweak it on the fly as much as a like, giving me enough flexibility that I don’t need or want presets anymore.

So that’s why I use these little guys. I love the flexibility and simplicity they give me. They ultimately help me do a lot with a little, and that’s what I want. Watch the video below to check out exactly how I use these knobs in my current setup. And be sure to visit Dan’s website and take a look at all his cool stuff!

On Herdim Picks And Not Competing With Those Who Rule

andy — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:32:57 +0000

I bought some new picks. I always need to buy new picks, because I always lose picks. I buy 10 and immediately lose 9 of them and then hold on to that last one for dear life for months until I finally get off my butt and get some more. Usually I get the yellow Dunlop tortex ones or if I’m feeling crazy one of the Jazz III variants. But this time, just for fun, I ordered some Herdim picks.

Herdim picks are a little bit famous, and after a few days of playing with them I know why. Some of you might be thinking how can a pick be famous? Well, because they’re what Mr. The Edge from U2 uses. Now, I’m not really a huge U2 fan, but I will agree with the rest of the world that his tone is pretty top notch. So I figured I’d just see what these picks were about. Mr. The Edge actually turns the pick sideways which causes that textured stuff you can see to sort of pull against the string which results in more than the traditional amount of attack on the string. You can use the word “chime” if you want to but I won’t. I didn’t really buy these picks because that’s what I wanted to do or because I’m a devoted Mr. The Edge disciple (even though the riff on Sunday Bloody Sunday rules), but mainly because I just wanted to try something different.

And after a few days of using these picks, I don’t know if I’m going to use them anymore. Of course I experimented with the whole holding it sideways thing, and I have to admit that it’s pretty cool. I now agree with those people who say that these picks are more important to getting that “Mr. The Edge tone” than any of the guitars or amps or even the Deluxe Memory Man. And that’s kind of why I don’t know if I’m going to keep using these picks.

Here’s the problem: Mr. The Edge found and completely owned a technique that is so unique and cool that it’s pretty much pointless (in my opinion, anyway) for anyone else to do it better or more uniquely in any way. Furthermore, his gear and even the way he writes his riffs melds so completely well with his picking technique that they almost come as a package. You can’t use this pick without at least trying to play the Where The Streets Have No Name riff. And even then, it won’t sound nearly as good as when Mr. The Edge plays it. Furthermore, I feel like trying to incorporate this technique into a different style or context will just result in more comparisons to Mr. The Edge where it will quickly be determined that he rules and is still way better than you.

The other example of this that comes to my mind is Rage Against The Machine. Not just Tom Morello, but pretty much everything about the whole band. They were so innovative and unique that whenever I hear a band or guitarist who was obviously hugely influenced by them and wants to be the next RATM I feel a little embarrassed, because no one will ever be as good as them at what they did. It’s like they created their own genre of music and made it completely impossible to improve upon it in any way.

I’m not interested in being the next Mr. The Edge or Tom Morello. I’m going to keep playing with these picks for a little while, but if I feel like they’re just going to put me in a category where I have to compete with U2, then forget it. They win. Who am I kidding. I’ll be better off trying to find my own unique technique or style that I’ll completely rule.

PS. If you’re offended by my use of the phrase “Mr. The Edge”, then I’m sorry. But you have to admit that trying to use “The Edge” in normal conversation sometimes results in awkward phrasing. I find it funny.

I Know How To Stop Buying Overdrive Pedals

andy — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:42:22 +0000

For whatever stupid reason, I’ve been on The Gear Page a few times this week. I can’t stand that place anymore. For being a music gear forum, I can’t believe how antithetical it is to actually playing music.

But anyways. Just a cursory glance at the threads in the effects forum will reveal lots of things, but one of the things that always sticks out to me is the crazy overdrive search that so many people are on. Sometimes people even think it’s cool to make this huge list of all the overdrives they’ve ever owned as if it’s some kind of badge of courage. So many people seem so constantly unhappy with their overdrives. I can understand the frustration because for the vast majority of guitar players, having a pretty good drive sound is pretty important.

But here’s the thing… when I see those crazy long lists or those people who are always buying the newest pedal in the hopes that it will solve all their tone problems I can’t help but step back and make an observation: how many pedals will it take without a change until people realize that the pedal(s) might not even be the problem? I mean, people don’t keep trying different boutique brands of car oil hoping that it will fix their transmission problems.

I’ll just cut to the chase. Do you want to stop buying overdrive pedals? Do you want to magically be happy with the ones you have now? Here’s what I did: invest in a nice amp.

I was never that crazy about overdrives, I’ve still got my trusty TS-9 that’s going strong despite some duct tape repair that happened years ago. But once I bought my Matchless Chieftain, I quickly discovered that even the TS-9 sounded pretty great through it. I have about 7 overdrive/distortion pedals that I keep around and all of them pretty much sound great through the Chieftain. But this wasn’t the case before, really. I went through a lot of amps, and the Chieftain is the one I’ve kept around the longest, and I don’t really see it going anywhere for a while.

Now please PLEASE don’t see that last paragraph as me telling you “if you go buy a Chieftain, you’ll immediately be happy with everything and everyone and your life will have meaning again.” What I’m really saying is that I spent a lot of time figuring out what the right amp for me was. It’s most likely going to be a different amp for you. A lot of it was simple trial and error (which is code for dropping a lot of money flipping amps) but I eventually got to a point where I could formulate a list of exactly what I wanted in an amp. Here’s basically what it looked like for me:

Reliability. I wanted something that was built super solid and was made with care.
Simplicity. I kept getting amps that had way more features then I would ever use. Mainly this meant that I only wanted/needed a single clean channel. I didn’t even necessarily need an effects loop or on board reverb, even though the Chieftain does have both of those.
Sound quality. Obviously this is where it gets very subjective. I did a lot of research and it seemed like the general consensus on the Chieftain was that it kind of leaned toward a Marshall flavor. That sounded perfect to me, because like I mentioned in my last post, the most influential tone for me is a Tele into a Marshall JCM900. So I wouldn’t be copying Mark from Dredg, but I’d be getting a little of that flavor and staying real to my major influences in terms of how I wanted to sound.
Looks. This might seem silly, but I was contemplating spending more money than I ever had on an amp. I wanted it to look awesome. And I wanted to be able to pick my color scheme. I’ve always wanted red on an amp.

So here’s all I’m trying so say. If you find yourself flipping through overdrive pedals and want to stop, go to the source, which in my opinion in the amp. Save up your money, do some research, and try to make a list like I did. Hopefully you’ve already got that guitar you love. Now make sure you feel the same way about your amp. I promise you that once you do, even the old TS-9 will sound pretty good.

Get Back To Your Influences

andy — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:02:25 +0000

I read this book a few months ago called Quitter, by Jon Acuff. It’s basically about working toward your dream job and quitting the one you have now that you might slightly despise. It’s great. You should read it if that sounds good to you. But anyway! There is a part where Jon talks about discovering exactly what your dream job might be. His suggestion is basically to look back on your life and try to pinpoint the skills or passions that you developed and maybe forgot about or didn’t think would be a viable “career path”.

I say all this because it kind of relates to another thing I’ve experienced in these past few weeks. As I mentioned in my previous post I pretty much disassembled my playing, mostly in terms of gear, and then put everything back together slowly. And that worked out pretty well. But the other thing I wanted to do was bring back more of purpose to my playing. I started to notice that when I sat down at a music store to try something else, I would kind of struggle to find something to play. And I think that came once again from not spending my time on the guitar well.

I used to learn new songs all the time. I would pick songs up by ear really quickly. I’m still pretty good at it, but I just don’t do it nearly as much as I used to. So I decided that I wanted to learn some songs. Once I started thinking about what songs I wanted to learn, I kind of just started going back to where everything began for me in terms of guitar playing. Not to the beginning, because then that would mean that I would be learning Van Halen solos again, but to the point where things clicked and I thought “that’s the kind of player I want to be. That’s how I want to sound.” And for me, that was this:

Mark Engles is my guitar hero. No band has so quickly changed what I wanted to play on my guitar more than Dredg. I won’t go into why right now, because that’s not the point I want to make (but it mainly has to do with stereo delay and playing a telecaster as hard as possible). I had learned a few of the songs off that album (Catch Without Arms) before but I was kind of intimidated by a lot of them. But I’m currently working through the whole album and have a majority of them learned. And I’m having more fun playing guitar than I have in a long time.

I was feeling pretty stale, and something needed to change in my playing. So in addition to rediscovering my gear, I went back and rediscovered why I was even playing guitar at all. Because I think I’d lost it a little bit. Now I remember that what I want to do with my guitar is make people feel the same way that I felt when I started listening to Dredg. So if you’re feeling a little stale in your playing like I was, take some time to think back to why you even started to play guitar. What was that album where you couldn’t stop having your mind blown by the guitar? Who was that guy with the magic fingers who just turned everything to gold? Maybe you should go back and get your mind re-blown and remember why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Also, just for fun. This is a live version of my favorite song of all time (The Canyon Behind Her) from my favorite album of all time (El Cielo) from my favorite band of all time (Dredg). Maybe you’ll hate it but I don’t even care.

And a fun fact too… you see those JCM900 heads behind Mark? At one point I had the exact same thing. Two JCM900s running stereo into a 1960A cab. I took the logos off too, just like he has them. It was cool, but at some point I just said “who am I kidding?” It’s stupid to try to be exactly like him. So they’re gone. But that setup rules so much.

Put Your Pedals Away

andy — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:41:12 +0000

I’ve been having a hard time playing guitar lately. I’ve been stressed out and haven’t had much time to play, so I put high expectations on the time that I do get to sit down with my guitar. I got to a point where even just a half hour with my guitar was frustrating. I hated the way it sounded, and I hated the things I was playing.

But in all honesty my time playing wasn’t spent well. I would sit down in front of my pedalboard with too many pedals on it and really just make noise. It’s almost like you’re trying out your own gear at a store to see how it sounds and decide whether or not you want it. Some days your drives sound pretty good. Some days they sound terrible. Turn on some delay and see if that helps at all.

I didn’t really know what to do.

So I took everything apart. I took every pedal off my board, put them in their respective boxes and put them in the back of my closet. I unplugged every power cable and put the power supplies in a drawer. I put all my guitars and amps away too.

And everything just sat for about a week. Occasionally I would have the urge to play but didn’t feel like putting everything back together. Plus I still just had a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth. But eventually I pulled a guitar and my Blues Jr. out, and for a few days that’s all it was. I found it to be really refreshing, I was relearning my guitar and my amp. I was paying attention to the way my pick was hitting the strings and the way the amp responded to different attacks. It was nice. It was fun.

I had to play at church the next weekend. So I pulled out my small pedalboard and brought back only the pedals I would need. I think it was only about eight or so. So then I did the same thing as before, I did my best to re-learn them. I felt like I’d regained control of my guitar and my amp, and now I could focus on the little boxes. I really tried to learn the characteristics of my overdrives. I tried settings I hadn’t tried before. I tried a different order. I focused on one delay and figured out how to get the most use of it.

So I played that weekend and I felt really good about it. I liked the way I played and the way I sounded. And even now I’m having more fun than I was before. I’m learning songs and playing along. I’m not frustrated anymore.

I admit, this all started out as a little bit of a tantrum. I was frustrated and I just said ‘well then forget it!’ But it turned out to be really good for me. I was able to section out the different pieces of my playing and get re-acquainted with them separately. I should have realized how necessary this was before giving up and putting everything into my closet, but that’s how it goes I guess.

I know that a lot of you really like pedals and amps and guitars and tubes and all that stuff. I do too. I feel like some of you might like that stuff more than the music you make with it. I just want to make music. That’s why I was frustrated; I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t able to create the things that I wanted to. The answer for me was to get rid of most of the gear for a while. I want to play music, not pedals. If that’s what you want too, maybe think about putting them away for a little while.