This time on Dipped In Tone, Rhett and Zach are digging into today’s best nitty-gritty gear news. Tired of trawling Reddit and forums to figure out what’s going on? Tune in for some authoritative takes from your two favorite tone fiends.

First up are the new Line 6 modeling offerings, including the compact, affordable stompbox that’s making waves across the industry. How does it compare to its big brother, the Helix? Is there any hope for a bean-shaped POD revival? Time will tell…

Our hosts touch on the craze around vintage PAF pickups (which was fetching $2500 for a pair), and compare the Gibson and Fender economy lines: Who makes the better entry-level instrument, and are the budget models starting to lap their more expensive counterparts?

Later, the duo runs down the best-in-class Ed Sheeran signature looper before moving on to the landscape of legacy brands. Is Marshall still relevant outside of their barbershop-ready Bluetooth speakers? How is Hiwatt beating them in the race to digital? And what will happen to our favorite gear companies when they’re bought up by investment portfolios?

Stick around for all this and more, plus an update on Zach’s “Gotta Catch ’Em All” Tubescreamer hunt.

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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 are joined on this episode of Dipped In Tone by soft-spoken jazz guitar master Julian Lage. After Zach shares some last-minute production headaches with Mythos’ new Herculean Deluxe, Lage sits in for fascinating, spirited dive into how he thinks about tone, composition, and his new record, Speak To Me.

The gang unpacks just about every aspect of Lage’s playing and sound. They touch on Lage’s relationships with his amps and dynamics (“I have to get overstimulated by an amplifier,” says Lage) and get the details on his Collings signature model—plus, of course, what ‘good’ or ‘bad’ guitar sounds mean. “No sound is empirically good or bad,” says Lage. “It’s just how it fits into the narrative.”

Did you know that Lage gets to know his guitars by doing direct into his DAW, and that effects pedals kinda terrify him? He doesn’t like transcribing, either—he’s got a unique take on studying Robben Ford solos. Listen in to find out why, and hear about the best guitar lesson his father ever taught him.

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Dipped in Tone is:

Rhett Shull  https://www.rhettshull.com/

Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals  https://mythospedals.com

Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/

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.

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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!

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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.

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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 shitty, 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!

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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!

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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.”

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Big thanks to Sweetwater for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://sweetwater.com for all your musical gear needs.

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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.

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Big thanks to Sweetwater for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://sweetwater.com for all your musical gear needs.

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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.”

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Big thanks to Sweetwater for sponsoring this episode. Head to http://sweetwater.com for all your musical gear needs.

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Dipped in Tone is:

Rhett Shull https://www.rhettshull.com/

Zach Broyles / Mythos Pedals https://mythospedals.com

Premier Guitar https://www.premierguitar.com/