Doug Levin started playing saxophone at the age of 10. His earliest influences were guitar players like Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Steve Vai, whose sonic explorations would inform his love of effects and pedals. His love of music expanded and his broadening musical capacity led him to play with such greats as The Manhattan Transfer, Buddy Guy, and many more. His musical journey eventually took him to Oberlin College and Conservatory where he met his HornFX partner, Aaron Janik. 

In 2016 they created HornFX, a unique resource for the horn player looking to use effects. Its reviews, books, articles, artist pages, and effects databases are specifically geared to inform any horn player about what effects and pedals might best provide the sounds and capabilities they are looking for.

The goal of HornFX is to give the most comprehensive, complete, well-thought-out information and advice to the pedal-seeking horn player. 

Aaron and Doug also give lessons and consultations, build curriculums for middle school, high school, and higher education, build custom pedalboards for musicians, and work with some of the most accomplished musicians in the world to develop, build, and refine their effects set-up.

This was a special episode…Doug and I had been talking about how we could help saxophone players now, especially in the age of COVID 19, to refine their performances using effects pedals.

The link to his full biography, along with more Resources for this episode, is on our website.

In this episode, we talked about:

•  how solo saxophone players can use effects pedals to enhance their show
•  Doug’s advice for playing vocal melodies with effects pedals
•  Live Streaming; how to sound great using effects pedals
•  the different roles the performer takes when considering which pedals to use
•  how to think like a producer and play less
•  tips for using effects pedals with jam tracks
•  Doug performed a ton of demos
• and a whole lot more!

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