Behind The Tones (Episode 7 with Colin Brittain)

what is going on guys and welcome back to the stl tones podcast today i am joined by none other than colin britton uh we're talking producer songwriter and i think everything underneath and above so colin what's going on man how you doing thanks for having me on man thanks for taking the time man you guys are the busy ones these days so we you know real appreciate you guys sitting down and talking to us um how have you been i mean i have to ask everybody this i feel like it's obligatory at this point but how have you been doing during these crazy changing times are you the type of person that kind of dives into work or are you like me and did it make you twice as lazy um it was twice as hard into work probably well i feel like i've been really lucky you know i know that this has been hard on everybody obviously um but i've been really lucky because my family is really supportive of what i do um my wife i have a new daughter so that's been interesting congratulations because i got to thanks but i've been been able to like you know be i we we built a studio in my house in los angeles like outside of my house so um that's kind of the first thing we did when the pandemic hit was i was at another studio and we were working on this one but i basically just kind of like hit the light speed button on the construction and i was just like let's go let's go let's finish it so we finished it and so within a couple months i've moved over here and i've been able to like stay on my property in la and it's been like you know it's private and so like there's not people walking through all the time so it's a lot safer for artists to come so i've been actually pretty busy and i'm really lucky for that and i know a lot of my friends are as well pretty busy because a lot of touring artists aren't touring anymore so they're just like let's make some music so um you know as safely as we could can do that you know we've been doing that this year awesome so did you find yourself just being able to stay home and have more people come to you were you at any point being sent out to go produce somewhere else or having to go and kind of travel i've stayed in la um pretty much the whole time um actually the entire time and uh so it's it's limited like the amount of of like random traffic that i get through here you know like normal times there's meetings all the time there's people rolling through that that we that i've never met before that come through that and all of that sort of came to a halt but um the bands like papa roach for example i'm i'm finishing up their album we started in september or something like that working under late august working on that album we're just now wrapping that up so you know records have been taking longer to make because the time frame has been stretched out a little bit and uh i've been working more like intensely with the artists that i have relationships with already that i know are safe you know or they'll go get tested before they come in here you know and looks like things are kind of starting to open up a little bit though with the vaccine rolling out and you know so yeah it looks like it it's looking pretty positive i think it's looking like it's going to be a different landscape here going towards the end of the year um we'll get into and obviously we're here to promote uh some really cool stuff that you have coming out with stl tones very very soon and we'll get to that in a second but one of the things i'm personally i mean this is a selfish thing i'm personally because data remember is one of my favorite bands and it happened for a long time march 5th uh marked the release of uh their new record and right underneath there is your name in bold letters as producers so what was it like working with them and and essentially what was it really like working with a band that's really been most like more known for that hitting that mark between hardcore you know like really metal core and you know pop punk essentially kind of melding it too what was it like working with them i mean they're just some of the greatest guys that i know and um the energy with all of them and you know jeremy at the helm he's really like the creative like you know i'd say visionary as far as the the songwriting and recording goes um they're just such a fun group of guys and they they've got just such a lighthearted attitude about everything and they don't take themselves too seriously and the funny thing is is like i wasn't a huge day to remember fan before i got into it not that i wasn't a date or remember fan was just that i i wasn't like super familiar with like their entire catalog and i told jeremy that and he was just like perfect you're the guy for me then because i don't want somebody who does this stuff normally i want to do something that's different i want to these are the songs and he showed me this huge you know dropbox link full of demos that he made with various different producers a lot of them who i know who are out here in l.a or in new york or whatever and um just some really great songs and they didn't really sound anything like you know what i picture today to remember sounding like you know because like when the downfall of this all was like kind of when i think of that they're like that's the one yeah so yeah and so i i was like kind of expecting that and it was just like something completely different and then the first day that he came through because like it started like a lot of the albums i produced it started as a it didn't start off them just calling me like do you want to produce our whole album it was it was like he was out here on a writing trip and uh his a r person stevo robertson who's like a really good friend of mine and he called me up and he said hey you want to do a session with with the data and i was like yeah of course you know so he comes by and um the first thing jeremy's like he goes okay i know what you're thinking i don't want to do what you're thinking like what you think that i want to do i don't want to do that and so i was like okay cool so i was like well i have this other idea that is kind of started it's like a guitar heavy like post malone riff that i started on a piano and uh he was like i love that and i was like oh okay and then one thing turned into another and then um we did a bunch of those and then i flew to florida and then we just hit it off with the rest of the guys and it became this thing so it's like an ever evolving door of just me in and out kind of getting to know the guys and everything and dating for a while if you will um before you do the full record and so you know this record came out and i know that there was a lot of like loud metal heads that were really angry about it uh about it not being like you know chuggy breakdown stuff a lot of that but there there's a lot there's a fair dose of that on there actually but yeah i listen to a lot of it you know it's it's it's a it's a really deep record as far as like the creative the soundscapes go jeremy was really adamant about breaking out and doing what bring me kind of has done in in their own way like bring me horizon sort of did the same idea where they broke out of that metal core lane and started doing more pop music and they're the biggest band in the world right now it's just about you know what i mean so like i think jeremy was like you know we've done that we know how to do that this is part of our sound we're not abandoning that we just want to expand our horizons to to you know do our version of what's next for me creatively and that's what we did on this record and we went full bore into it and i think that a lot of people got caught off guard by it and i was just like you know what that's fine you guys can blame me you know like i don't need the affirmation from everybody you know i think it might it might if it took yeah exactly that way we could just blame it on you and it's much easier than blaming it on the band that we love so much but i i legitimately tell bands when i go in the same thing with all time low a couple years ago i remember just like like guys if you want like this the the straight ahead thing that you're known for you should just go do what what that is but i was like if you come to me like i'm i'm i'm a weirdo like i think about things in a different way and sometimes it's it works sometimes it doesn't but i'm gonna give you like the off-the-wall suggestion to try to push everybody out of their comfort zone and then see where we end up and a lot of bands that doesn't work for and i tell every band that by the way but like a lot of bands that doesn't work for but you know i've been fortunate enough to in my career to have been associated with some really talented artists who've been able to take what few suggestions i have and be able to take them in their own way and make something completely different that's challenging for their audience and that's really what we're seeing with the day remember i think is like a lot of people like it but then there's a lot of people who are hating it and so it's very polarizing for people which is fun for me i like that controversy never hurt any record as far as i've as far as i can remember yeah so um all right but uh which is awesome by the way i love hearing that story out like i said i'm a huge day to remember fans so that's really really cool that i get to talk to somebody now that's involved in that uh but moving on to this preset pack that you have coming out explain that to me how'd that go what kind of tones can we expect from that sunny true love hit me up about man this has been like seriously this has been an ongoing like relationship between me and sonny and now james um over there at stl for like i'd say that's the better part of 18 months year and a half almost two years now um when he first reached out to me i was just like yes i would love to do this but if i'm gonna do it i want to make sure that it's like really really good you know like all the way can i say on here i don't even know yep probably not all right you're good so i want i wanted it to be really good and i wanted to be something different because i've been using the stl tone hub thing for you know over two years my friend zach cervini's got a pack out that was out last year and um i personally think that it's the best guitar plugin that's on the market right now and i noticed that a lot of their preset pack and it's very useful for me i use it all literally all the time in fact uh the day to remember song um viva la mexico if you listen to that record the chorus heavy guitar tones are i think half of them are stl toned up tones oh wow yeah that's really that's really cool yeah because we we were we were recording in their dressing room on tour and we had already made the record but we were doing some touch-ups and i was if neil was like man this you know wish this guitar tone could sound a little different it's a little honky right now it's like all right what about look we didn't have amps we were in a dressing room so i was like what about this thing they were like that's dope and so you know it's super useful so i i wanted to make sure that that it was something that like really could be different that's not the same as as all the other presets that are in there right now i wanted to have really a unique thing and so it took a while because i don't really have a lot of time to just sit down and mess with guitar tones it's always i'm working on a project for an artist so it took me a long time to finally like be able to go through all my albums and pick the right ones and you know send them over and get that worked out but they did such an amazing job it's like the technology whatever you guys are using over there is just some magic sauce i don't know uh i wish i had something to do with me and i could take any credit whatsoever with what they're what they're doing over there but i agree with you it's absolutely amazing i get to no you could take credit for it and i would not know the difference unfortunately everybody watching is gonna know for a fact that i don't because i make all the i make all the actual tone videos for it and so i'll sit down here with a guitar and just kind of make a video playing stuff like and it gets released with it the date comes out so people have an idea of how to use it and uh yeah when they listen to me talk for like at least like 10 to 12 minutes they know i'm not the guy actually doing the signal processing for sure but but uh no but yeah i i agree with you 100 men and i think there's this big misc i'm glad you said that about it being part you know on the album because there's a little bit of a misconception out there that these are being made by artists and being made by producers like you but they're not actually being used on albums they're just for people who want to make demos at home and you guys are using real lamps and huge studios and mult you know multi-million dollar you knows worth of equipment to come up with stuff like that and the reality is i've talked to a lot of people and they're like no it's on the album it's it's it's there we actually use it uh you know when it's needed and it's why not need it sometimes because it's yeah because the studio it's good it's that's really good that's really what it is it's that good it's um you know there's like this whole conversation about like digital versus analog right i think that there's a place for both of those things and there is something to be said about like recording something in and it hitting your converters and like hearing that back but i'm just not sure if that really matters enough to like have it you know like we've we've put up i mean my engineer the other day he was like you got to check this out so i used one of those tones off of this band called teenage v distortion i was like how are we gonna i don't know how this is gonna work and he a b the song in the mix with the the two main guitars and he flipped them back and i literally blind tested and i couldn't tell the difference right it's almost indistinguishable at the end of the day it was completely indistinguishable you know right so i was just like well i mean they've they've done it they actually have done it so right i think i had a giant smile on my face when i was trying it out yeah i bet i get it does that i've seen it and it happens to a lot of people when they first start listening to it and they start playing through it they kind of look over there like what like is that actually happening right now is this a plug-in because if you i don't know if you remember when plugins actually came out we had like amplitube i think in the very beginning and uh and there was another camera what it was it was some weird yeah well guitarik was there guitar rig was actually one of the ones that was getting better first and i agree but i remember when amplitube was there and it was all that we had and so it's a god it sounded like garbage but i remember when i had it though i thought it sounded amazing which is funny because if you actually look at tone that like me as a growing up as a metal guitar player a rock guitar player back then i thought it sounded like money dude i was like oh this is so good this sounds awesome and now i listen back to it like i'll listen to tone that i like a year ago and i'd be like god that was such garbage tone what was i thinking yeah but um but yeah we've come basically we've come such a long way to the point so you just can't even tell the difference anymore when you plug in you play the response is almost exactly the same yep uh so we're getting we're getting pretty pretty darn good um what kind of uh so what kind of breakdowns of tones can we expect from what were you going for like the whole thing with this preset pack of everything you would use in this video were you trying to hone in on a certain genre you know i think um i was trying to get like will putney was actually the one who who called me about this first he introduced me to sunny and um and it was while we were working together on a day to remember he did um he produced a song called last chance to dance and it was like really heavy song and i remember i'm a big fan of will putney i think he just he's in in his lane of what he does i mean just want a grammy by the way as am i here i'm a huge fan um it just what he for what he does he is literally the best that there is like his tones are incredible so i've always really admired his work and he called me one day he's like dude would you be interested in doing this preset pack thing and i i started scrolling through a lot of the presets um not his necessarily but just like other people's presets and stuff and i noticed that there was a a lot of like one thing um there's a fair bit of diversity i know that you guys have now but there was there was a lot of like you know metal core stuff a lot of like 5150 stuff so i on this pack i intentionally was like i would like to give people something that's not only useful for guitars but stuff that you cause i use guitar amps on like synths and i use them on vocals and i use them on like a lot of different stuff so i wanted to give people something that they could use like kind of not just on guitar parts and then with the guitar parts i wanted them to be able to use it on like you know more indie sounding stuff more pop stuff not just like you know because i mean you guys have got so many great like heavy amps already like will putney's amp thing i use that more than like his amp tones specifically in his preset pack i use more than almost anything in fact i'm pretty sure that that's what was on viva la mexico was his amp tones oh was it really yeah yeah because like they're so good and it's just like if i already have like wilbon easter i already have like the really heavy distorted stuff that's incredible so like i don't need to make my own why would anybody need that they already have that so i went a little bit more grunge a little bit more like we've definitely got some like rock presets there's a couple metal presets in there but i'd say it's mostly like indy to pop so like heavy rock to grunge that sort of space and then like production tones too like stuff that could i try to do like a bunch of like um you know effects presets and stuff like on there's a couple there's one in there that's like this really deep tremolo like people will pull that up and be like why the hell are we gonna use that for but if the the few people who you find to use for really oh man we can put that on background vocals and put a reverb after it and that sounds amazing you know right right so i try to get a little bit more creative with it and not just be like standard just here's your here's your diesel guitar head you know right right right so there there's lots i have a feeling just like everything i do i tend to like kind of bend the rules a little bit i have a few and just like we were talking about with the day to remember record there's going to be a little bit of pushback there's probably going to be some people who are going to open that up and go wow why the f did i buy this this is not this is not this what i expected but if you're if you're creative like i'm sure you'll find a use for it because it's it's really interesting stuff to me i think it's cool i get the i get the awesome pleasure of opening it up and then showing it to everybody and with the guitar by itself by the way there's no context to anything that's going to yeah so i get the daunting task of taking that and being like this is how uh this is how you could use that but i think that's uh that's always gonna be the difference between people that are uh using it as something that's creative in a mix context as opposed to people who are really looking for a glorified practice amp because i think that's been the big line that's been dividing people when it comes to these types of plug-ins is yeah of course you know a producer like yourself and other famous producers are going to be using this in the studio and that's it's a tool for them as to where a lot of guys that are listening to stuff online as they watch the demos and what they're looking for they're looking for a glorified practice amp that they can plug into and it sounds really cool and you get that cool interface and it pops up and it looks you know dope and and that's really what they want so you know listen to use that for that i mean this yeah all right great this this is a great practice amp like it's going to sound like a really crazy practice amp i think oh definitely and i believe that i just say but as far as the tones that you're talking about that are like going to push the boundaries a little bit those are the ones that would make most sense when you're like creating something overall right you have like a from a composition aspect yeah but but i think that like creating something for a record and just sitting there playing a riff that you're writing or maybe you're you know practicing or whatever like all of it's the same it's all inspiration right so like if you're sitting in your room and you're on your laptop and you know it's just in some somebody in his bedroom or her bedroom or whatever messing around with amp tones and they're just learning to play green day songs or whatever it might be and they pull up one of my presets i mean they might be like whoa that sounds crazy like that's different than i expected but i like how it responds to the guitar and i like how it makes me feel and so to me there's no difference between that and somebody who's making a you know grammy-nominated album pulling up my preset pack and being like oh that inspires this idea it's the same thing it's all the same feeling at all just it's just where does it end up you know it might push somebody to i'm hoping on any level and this goes with them not just stl this is just like in my career in general like sort of one of my goals is like to make as many people feel the joy of music and inspiration of art that that i felt when i was a kid and still feel you know like i just feel like that was such a positive influence in my life and i just want to share that so definitely super cool man i'm i'm really excited about that pack i can't wait for it to come out so i can see all these songs that you're talking about um when you like when you're approaching something let's say you're just sitting in a room and i'm gonna write a song right you're not working for a band you're just gonna make just the song uh where do you where do you approach this from do you approach this like guitar minded vocals is that what like where do you really run into the you know gate first i mean like you know i can just show you i guess i guess it's like you know i saw john mayer do something like this one time it was really interesting and this is kind of how it works you pick up whatever instrument compels you to pick it up and then you find a chord i feel like this chord today there's a tv on the wall it's black and there's nothing going out of it into my mind i don't know what to sing about just like the tv on the wall you just sing in some and and if you've met and it's like a form of meditation so then tv on the wall all right it's black there's nothing coming out of it that makes me feel numb whatever i don't know you could literally just pull inspiration from anywhere that was a terrible example i just i think it was a great example what i mean i guess my point is is like i don't i really try to like tap into the source and john mayer said it's like a ouija board and it's kind of what it is it's like meditating if you just like you know if there's not an artist in here who's got a preconceived like thing that they want to write about and you're just trying to find something to write about and there's no starting point literally it's just i'm a melodies guy i'm not always like the best con lyrical concept person because i've i've you know limit my brain that's not saying that i don't do that but because i've had a lot of concepts that i've thought of actually like um that song looks like hell on a day to remember album that was one that i thought of because i walked outside one day and i saw the fires were burning here in l.a and the sun was like this little bead coming through this like apocalyptic looking and i was like it looks like hell out here and then i brought that up to jeremy and he's like that's a great song song title like we should do that so lyrics aren't always my first thing that i think about um but melodies and like chords and structures and stuff like that i literally just pick up a guitar or piano or drums even sometimes and just like hear it and you just don't think about it and all of a sudden it just kind of pours in and the more you do that the easier that that sort of comes you know what i mean right right so that's the best way i can explain it cool no definitely man that's so obviously obviously you've worked with a lot of um really cool people uh where were you along your career when you kind of looked around and you're like oh man like i'm i'm here like this is i'm actually doing this right now like what did you ever have that moment where you're in the room it's just like a certain person you're like this is i'm actually doing this like i i mean i've had a ton of those moments like throughout my career um and it was before you know honestly like before i'd even started like producing at any kind of level really you know my band we got a record deal i remember that was crazy you know going to la for the first time you know going to europe for the first time going to like you know playing like warped tour back in 2012 um yeah you know it it's all been a blur for me like it seems like it's taking forever and also like it's happened in a flash and i i know that's how it goes so i there's probably like the coolest moment of my career was so far or at least not to me with the coolest moment but like one of the standout moments was this band one okay rock who i work with um who i've worked with on a bunch of records um they took me to they flew me to japan one time um just as like a thank you for you know i've been to japan a bunch to work with those guys but they were just like come over and check out our tour you know just to say thank you for for helping them out on this record and so they they had me play on stage a couple nights with them and it was for like 30 000 people and that was wild that was probably the wildest thing i've ever done it was just like i've never experienced that level of like you know because it's like you you play you you do all this music and you put it out and it's like you give your entire physical body and soul into this this art form and you really pay for it physically you know my back hurts whatever like it's it's not healthy and then um you see the energy coming back at you for the songs you wrote you know and they come and it comes back at you in full like and 20 000 of them just like screaming at you and it's just like this is crazy so that was that's like little bits like that are really important for me to i think keep going and that's why a lot of times i'll go you know out on tour with bands that i'm producing or working with like i did remember like papa roach for example you know like i go out and and uh join them on the road for a little bit and you know write songs and stuff and it's just get to see the show get to see the reaction and get see fans like really physically engaging with the music that you've conceived is i think important for me that's that's really cool that's really cool to be able to participate in the experience of not only producing the record and being in the room and kind of you know obviously being part of that process but being able to go out and like the band members would experience what it's like watching everybody receive that vibe that you get down you know that's really yeah and i mean yeah it's like even if you're not like playing on stage like i'm just standing on the side of the stage and you know watching these people crowd surf and just like totally lose their minds to this music and you're like i had a part of this and this is this is what i'm here for so um i just let you know you're on the right track that's all yeah no exactly yeah and i think it's it's interesting to see that different take on that because you see somebody like will putney who has fit for an autopsy which is an amazing like metal band i'm like you know obsessed with that band but they go out on tour and they got another guitar player because will putty stays back any any reason you know what i mean so and then you have you who's not in the band but you're like yep i'm coming too i don't blame will putney for that i mean i toured for a long time and and in on small tours with my band you know before i moved to la and um it's a grind so i have a band that i started with my friend elijah called american teeth um and we we just signed with fearless last year and uh you know so i'll play shows with him from time to time it's just the two of us like i'll do all the music and he does all the vocals and it's like we kind of you know it's just to do us so we've got a really great drummer and i've played like a couple shows with them but like when it comes to tour time like actually going on the road for months at a time like i probably won't be doing that i'll probably we'll probably have to hire somebody because so i don't blame will for that you know the studio is where i'm the most useful i think gotcha gotcha throughout your career obviously just like any other musician whether you play guitar whether you're singing or you're just a songwriter uh you tend to start doing those things differently as you get older you have a different view of the world you know kids come into play you know marriage things like that will always start changing how you just i guess essentially emotionally perceive everything have you found that you produce differently uh now as opposed to when you started your career has it really turned into something different or do you just keep the same approach i mean i think it's everybody approaches stuff differently as you as you grow like i wouldn't say that there's any like one thing that's really changed changed how i mean i haven't like i i wouldn't say like having a family or like having you know getting married or anything like that or having my daughter has really changed anything creatively for me on how i approach bands i mean other than to say i've i've been as i've done this more and more and it's just like developing relationships i'm probably easier to i read people easier and i can kind of pick up on what they are expecting maybe a little bit easier but as far as my approach my approach is not is entirely supportive of the artist like always and that's that's kind of been my mo from day one and i know a lot of producers who who've got like their thing that they do but i i really try to keep myself super open so that's why i'll get you know i get approached by bands sometimes who are you know maybe smaller bands who don't really know what they're doing and and they they're like you know we would love to work with you and i'm like all right what are you guys trying to do and they're like we don't know we do you have any ideas and i'm like no you know i'm only as good as the band is and uh and i want to make and i want to maintain that you know what i mean i don't want to i don't want to try to make it about me and and my what my vision is because i'm a supporting role i feel like right yeah i completely understand that um how experimental are you as far as like effects go uh when you're let's say this guitar are you the type of person who's just gonna like think about that effect go and try and find you know different pedals things like that experiment so you kind of get the right vibe that you're thinking in your head or do you just have like a go-to set of stuff in the studio that you will just use only to find the type of effect or sound that you're looking for if that makes any sense yeah it does i i don't um i mean i think like it depends on like the project so like if you're if you have a you know a whole album so like we could keep talking about data remember we go back to that one that one was so eclectic and so like full of there's just different kinds of everywhere so like it wasn't there wasn't really there wasn't really like uh because there wasn't any once we crossed so many genres there wasn't like one specific thing that worked the entire record most of the time so there's a lot of different experimentation you know i tend to like as i'm recording an album or like a you know a set of songs figure out maybe what sort of all right well this amp sounds really good for this one kind of thing with this pedal we know that this works with this guitar combo so you just keep that in the back of your mind and like but as far as like effects go you know i'm pretty wide open with that stuff now i do have stuff that i think that like if i have a particular reverb like this thing called the ghost echo which i'm sure you've heard of it's like the um the ghost echoes like one of my with through uh earthquaker devices it's like one of my favorite rebirth pedals so i use that a lot so i have things that i like to use a lot but i we get pretty weird up in here like we there's no rules you know somebody brings in an extra pedal we're like let's go you know and sometimes we'll just have um i call them toys r us days and we just walk down to the the base exchange the amp shop base exchange down here in north hollywood and um you know we'll just like roll out a bunch of dough and just buy a ton of pebbles and we have no idea what they do and then we just come and play play with it you know play with it and then we just return the ones that's that we don't like you know so but we wind up keeping you know usually we wind up keeping you know 75 percent of the pedals that we get just because like so it's it's cool to do stuff like that i feel like you know for me it's like inspiration okay i keep getting inspiration that's why i buy stuff like i feel like it's just oh man this one little petal might be good for this one part of one song right and then it becomes like a thing that we remember and we talk about you know yeah see i i i'm really glad that people like you exist and i'm sure if there's any guitar players like me they're glad to because like i'm a complete meathead like i don't i like does it chug you know what i mean like other than that i'm like i don't know like does it say reverb on there push that button oh there's some reverb cool like i just don't know what i'm looking like if you said hey come up with like a really good like spatial tone with you know reverb and delay i wouldn't even know where to begin to tell you i bought a reverb and like a wampler pedal like a year ago i used it one time and it's still sitting on my little base right there i haven't touched it hey look that's that happens too there's stuff that i bought that that you know we've used only a handful of times um you know that that's part of the the process i think that like the biggest thing is like when you're creating stuff you know you don't like limitations that you're like okay let's just say you don't have money you don't have a lot of money to spend on stuff so buy the stl because you're gonna get you're gonna get everything out of sdl out of that first of all everything that you possibly could need and the thing that i love about the stl stuff by the way is and one thing that i didn't even know existed until i was messing with it a little bit more and something that i like to do a lot with delay tones specifically and this goes for vocals too like like put that amp on vocals man just turn the game down a little bit and and you can use on the reverb pedal which sounds to me like it it sounds like a strymon pedal to me it's which is great it's like the cleanest delay there is but but you can put it you can put the little switch that says pre or post amp and that's a huge deal breaker for me because like if you can't if it's only post amp like right a lot of my delay tones go into the distortion you know what i mean gotcha yeah because when you're thinking about it you're running an amp right you put the delay pedal before the amp usually so unless it's in a effects loop which most amps don't have or a lot of amps don't have you you're going to have it into the distortion and so there's that there's that feature on on there on the stl tone hub thing which is is just mind-blowing to me and that really opens it up so if you don't have a lot of money let's just say you have limitations okay you don't have a lot of money um don't let that like limit your creativity you know what i mean limitations are are it's like you know it's it's just an obstacle in in a course it's like mario kart you're driving through and you gotta there's a wall you just gotta go around the wall it doesn't mean you gotta stop you know people i think a lot of times they they think oh well i don't have money so i can't make these you know great tones or i can't do this and you know for me like i don't know there's limitations all the time and sometimes i intentionally put them on myself like like i'm like okay i'm not going to use any guitars in this song none whatsoever you know what i mean like right right let's do that and see where that gets us oh this be and what that does is it shakes it up for me it's like well i usually reach for a guitar for this kind of energy so we're not doing that today so how can i get the same energy with something else and that's again where this stl tone hub thing can really come into play you know you can put that on a synth or a vocal chop or some like that and it will do the same thing that a guitar is doing it's in the same frequency space it's just not an actual guitar you know right right i mean i think that's really cool especially from a creativity standpoint you know especially even for people who aren't going to do that full you know the full gambit and run it on vocals and stuff like that but if you click on one of your presets it's going to have you know a completely set thing for you that you never would have thought of going in and manipulating if you hadn't done it for us you know right so i think it's really cool that we get to click on something and just have a completely different take on what a guitar tone could sound like for something so i think that's really cool and insanely useful by stl tones i think they're killing it with that and just like diversity of artists i did i did uh an interview with zach cervini too not not too long ago a little while back and it's the same thing you know it's everybody kind of looks at it as one thing and then guys like you guys come along kind of really change the game of what you can use these packs for and what you can apply these um you know these these plug-ins too as far as just being free guitar people think it's just oh i get some guitar tone i play and then i just walk away it's like well when you have producers like you guys coming in and putting stuff in there they're like oh wait like i i've heard the music that he's producing i've heard the stuff that he's coming out with and that's so and if he's making a preset pack what can i do with this preset pack obviously the limitations are endless really you know what i mean i i think the thing that's that's cool about preset packs is that because i've heard producers be like oh i don't use presets and i'm just like well then you probably waste a tremendous amount of time or or you don't put out a lot of music because you're too busy tweaking knobs and stuff and you know no no no shade on any of those guys it's like i i respect people who like have to do everything from scratch but to me it does not matter to me if it's a preset or not i don't give a i don't give a damn it doesn't matter like sac cervini's got a preset in his thing it's i think it's called never anywhere or something like that i think it's like a nothing nowhere preset but it's just a clean amp with a with like a quarter note triplet delay on it um that's it there's nothing else to it but i think for some reason just works for me a lot of times and so i'll just pull that up if i need like a clean like u2 sort of guitar tone and i don't want to have to set the delay because you know when you're creating stuff especially if there's an artist in the room time is a huge i mean this is a it's a real thing like time is a you know is serious that's a that's one of the limitations that you really do have to work with and our artists are typically very impatient um just by nature and um so you know you you've got to keep momentum going or else you lose their attention and therefore lose the creativity which means that you could lose the song at the end of the day so you got to keep going and that's what i think is really special about stl towns is you can just like you know all right i've got a synth partner i got a guitar part that i man i really need this i have this cool idea so like whatever gets me to that idea faster is by far more important than like you know whether or not i created it myself and had time to plug in stuff and do all that so it's really like changed my songwriting game as far as just being able to like oh i have this idea boom and then it's done and as long as it takes me to play the song that's how long it takes for the idea to get onto cubase you know what i mean that's great nice man what a time to be alive as a guitar player um this it's endless and people like you guys are just coming in and just killing the game for us and giving us just opening our eyes to so much more um dude i'm gonna let you go and uh enjoy the rest of your day uh it's a really nice day out here in socal finally so yeah sure i'm sure you're looking forward to getting outside there thank you so much for taking the time and joining us man this is awesome really looking forward for those tones to come out for all of you guys watching or listening uh those tones will be out soon so keep an eye out for that i sounds like it's going to be really creative really amazing so that's something that's going to be really useful for everyone so thank you guys for joining us thank you so much for joining me sir and i will see all of you guys on the next one you