Episode 30 – Living Out Your Dream, with Evan Haymond of OC Pedal Co.

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0:08 Welcome to the Pedal Collaborative podcast. We're so glad you're here. 0:22 Hey everybody, how's it going? Welcome back to another week of the Pedal Collaborative podcast. 0:27 I'm here with my Co host Alan. Hey everybody. 0:30 And we have a guest this week, Evan Heymond of OC Pedal. How's it going, Evan? 0:35 I'm doing well. How are you? 0:38 Good, good. I am. 0:39 I feel like it's been a little bit since we've been chatting about getting you on here so. I'm glad I've been. 0:44 I've been anxious. I've been excited. 0:46 Yeah, because we lined up the schedules to talk. So yeah, we were. 0:51 We were talking a little bit before Alan joined us to your first pedal. Got got a chance to take to the paces. 0:57 We'll have a video of that dropping, I think either before or after this episode. I was. 1:02 Sort. Of revealing Alan that we have we're recording in advance, believe it or not, people so well. 1:09 I like that, you know, you said it's either going to drop before or after this episode. It's. 1:13 Going to be next week one of the It's going to be the Monday of the. It's either going to have happen or will happen. 1:17 Yeah, it will happen at some point. Yes, you'll get to see, you'll get to hear and and see the pedal that we were talking about. 1:23 But Evan, really appreciate having you on, man. I wanted to get into a bit so you you have a good background as a player and now you're a builder. 1:32 So I wanted you just kind of talk a little bit about, you know, how you started OC Pedal. Is it OC Pedal company or OC Pedals company? 1:40 It's a great question. Like on the LLC, it's like OC Pedal Co and that's it. 1:45 OK, but the the initial like the impetus was, was Orange County Pedal Company and we would always just go by OC Pedal Co. 1:53 And so it OC Pedal Co is always just an easier to say. And so that's. 1:56 Kind of where we're at. I'm going to say that for the rest of. 1:58 The I'm just lazy is what it is. That's great. 2:00 No prediction. Cool, cool. 2:03 So, yeah, so how did you go from, you talk about your background a bit, I guess, and then a little bit about getting into building? 2:09 Yeah, so the background, I, I feel like it's probably a very similar sort of like origin story for anyone where, you know, 12:00-ish years old. 2:20 I went to my parents and was like, hey, I want to, you know, play guitar. And thank God my parents, you know, we're very supportive of that, you know, and they're like, OK, 2:28 cool. And so I got a a little guitar for Christmas, one of the Squires and Anne and all that. 2:35 They found me a teacher, really cool guy named Robbie Lochner, who I eventually ended up touring with, actually for a number of years in my 20s. 2:44 But yeah, so I kind of started doing that and I would do the garage band thing with friends and I realized I wanted it to be more than just, you know, a hobby. 2:56 And so come college, you know, age, I wanted to do absolutely anything I could to not have to go to school. 3:05 And so I remember, I remember very, very vividly ditching my 4 hour ethics class halfway through when they would take second, you know, attendance and I would go, I would go on auditions and I 3:20 would start playing because I've, you know, I'm a Southern California sort of native. If we want to, you know, use that scripture. 3:27 And I would just go on these auditions in Hollywood and get hired by this, you know, kid whose mom and dad are paying the the bill and need a backing band for their, their child that's going to be a 3:37 star. And you do enough of those, right, that eventually, you know, either one of them actually does make 3:43 some wave in the in the music industry or somebody sees you and goes, OK, I want you to play on this gig or this recording. 3:53 And so through that process, I met a lot of great people both in tour world and in recording world. And so one of my best friends and best kind of collaborative partners, Darren Smith, I met doing 4:08 that and he brought me in on like every record I've ever gotten to do. So we did a bunch of K pop stuff for years that eventually, well, that that you know, yielded some 4:19 cool results. We got like a billboard #1 award and a gold record and all this kind of cool. 4:23 Stuff. Yeah, very. 4:24 Cool, Yeah, yeah. And so that was fun. 4:26 It, it was weird because I, you know, growing up, the time that I've grown up and I was a little concerned, you know, I'm like, am I never gonna get, you know, to, to have a song or a, a record 4:38 that I played on be on actual disc? You know, that, that it was kind of, you know, it hurt my heart a bit. 4:44 And then, you know, thank God, you know, in that part of the world, they are still very much about physical media. 4:51 And so every single record I would play on would come out on CD and then there would be a special edition and then there would be this and that. 4:58 And so a lot of great experience there. And that eventually transitioned into like film and TV stuff. 5:04 And so we never did a bunch of, like, movies or anything. We did a couple little short films, and that was fun. 5:10 But the bulk of what we ended up doing together recording wise was TV. And so the, the main one that people would probably know and recognize is that American Pickers show 5:23 on The History Channel. Yeah. 5:24 And, you know, it's the, it's the show you turn on when there's nothing else on. And you're, you know, you're sitting there scrolling on your phone and you're like, what did they 5:30 find in this guy's garage, you know? But you can't turn it off. 5:33 Like as soon as it's on, it's going to be on for hours. Exactly. 5:36 And, and that has benefited me considerably. So that's, that's nice. 5:42 We started that, I don't know, like a decade ago. And it's one of those things where, you know, thank God, there's a little bit of money in my mailbox 5:48 every, you know, every quarter. And so I've been very lucky to have kind of that first life as a musician. 5:55 But through that, I started, you know, I should also mention in parallel with all this, I, you know, I got married and, you know, I have a kid And, you know, we were buying a house, doing all that 6:05 thing, all all the things that, you know, adults do or whatever, right. And then I started coming to the realization that all, you know, all these adults had been, you 6:14 know, throwing my way when I was a kid, which was, you know, OK, but what happens when what happens when? 6:20 And I realized I, you know, I could have, it was kind of a fork in the roadside situation. I can either continue on this path and, you know, not be home very much or have to bail on family 6:31 vacation at the drop of a hat because, you know, there's this record happening. And I don't want to miss it because it could be a good opportunity or I could try and find something 6:40 else to both be home a little bit more and be present a little bit more, but also not have the same, I don't know, pressure attachment that you have when you're doing something so artistically 6:53 draining. As, you know, having to show up at these studios and write songs and have people, you know, not like 6:59 the song you wrote and or, you know, get fired off a gig gig, God forbid, for whatever reason. And so this was a very nice, almost therapeutic way of kind of making that transition into, OK, I 7:11 can sit alone in my garage and I'm home, you know, so if my wife needs me upstairs with the kid, I can go help out and do what I need to do as a, as a dad and still be in the music business. 7:23 But kind of it's more solitary. It's very like old school tinkerer guy in the garage. 7:29 And I love it. So that's kind of how I wound up where I'm at now. 7:32 Yeah, no, that's awesome, man. Yeah. 7:35 And it's cool too. I I appreciate it. 7:37 I know you sent along and I saw a letter about everything with the pedal, which I never got that before. 7:41 So any other builder we talked to step up your game? Heaven gave us. 7:45 Like I know right that. Was really. 7:46 No, you know what? What it really is is I just, you know, never shut up about myself. 7:50 As the people around me know, I love talking about myself because of my massive ego. So yeah. 7:58 Well, that's perfect for a guest, so you I. Suppose yes. 8:02 So getting into you building. So that makes perfect sense to Alan and I can both relate to getting married and making decisions to 8:10 like stop playing as much and do things like what we're doing now, which is reviewing pedals and talking to pedal builders instead of playing all the time. 8:18 But so getting into actually pedals, so I know we have played with the Buena Park Boost and then you have another one we'll talk about a SEC. 8:26 But I guess talk a little bit about. So everybody sort of has like their first circuit, their first pedal they put out there. 8:33 And we were talking before Alan hopped on a little bit about the pedal, which I can, I can give a little bit of my review in this too. 8:38 But what made you start with a boost? And was it you talked about that because? 8:44 It's really no, I got, I got, you know, it's a really, you know, it's, it's kind of lame, but there's a, there's a rhyme and, and reason for it. 8:53 The, the first thing I should talk about, because I, I, you know, did all this Babble about like I did this and I did that. 8:58 And then I talked about the, the mindset and the reason I got into pedals. But I, I don't think I addressed the, the very first kind of pedal thing I did and that was fixed a 9:06 pedal. I sold something on Reverb and you know, the dude messages me back and goes, hey man, it showed up 9:13 broken. And immediately my heart hurts for two reasons. 9:17 One, because I'm like, oh shit, there goes a sale #2 I'm sorry to curse number two. Number two, I get, I get kind of not offended, but I get a little bummed out because I'm like, this 9:28 guy's going to think I'm a scam artist or something. Sending him. 9:31 Broken stuff, yeah. I don't want my Reaver to take. 9:32 A hit 100%. I'm like not. 9:35 Not my feedback, no, I am. So those guys are the scammers. 9:40 Like it. It wasn't broken. 9:41 They just didn't like it. So then they just threw it on the ground and said it's broken, you know? 9:45 That was, you know, I always have my suspicions And and this guy, you know, he was very commutative and very forthcoming. 9:51 He goes, look, I I work in shipping. This thing was shipped really well. 9:55 I know that. But the foot pedal was broken. 9:57 And, you know, something very, very simple foot pedal. And I go, oh, yeah, OK, you know, send it back. 10:02 I'll give you the refund. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to deal with this. 10:05 You know, again, you have a kid in the house, you have all these like real life things going on. I don't want to, you know, have a have a customer services battle with Reaper. 10:13 And so he sends it back and I'm kind of sitting on it, sitting on it. And, and at that time was when I was going through all the not crisis that I mentioned earlier, but 10:22 all the kind of different, you know, things are swirling around differently for me. And so I buy a, you know, a cheap soldering iron on Amazon and I go, OK, I'm going to fix this foot 10:33 pedal. And again, really, really easy. 10:35 You open it up, you, you know, you de solder 22 lugs and then put the new one and you're like, Oh, it works. 10:41 But that was enough of a motivating thing for me to go, OK, I'm going to try and, you know, build one of these. 10:46 And so you Fast forward to me actually answering your question with boost. You, you, you asked why a boost and kind of why, you know, or, or how I started getting into that. 10:58 And the lame answer to that question is I, I wanted to build in pedal board order. You know, like if I'm going to start a company and I want to kind of create, you know, a line, I 11:07 want to do this line in sort of a pedal board order. And, you know, you had mentioned, we talked about the, the next pedal coming up that that is a 11:15 little bit of a departure from that, but you know, it's still kind of follows the, the trajectory. So I was like, OK, a boost is going to be good because this is a little bit more than a boost as we 11:24 were talking about before we started. It's, it's a boost, yes. 11:27 And it it functions in the way that you need it to, but it also adds harmonic content. And it's almost like a buffer even when it's in its lowest setting. 11:36 The the pedal I can compare it to that's already known and out on the market is the JHS Prestige. And that's kind of how they build it. 11:44 And mine sounds different. Mine's a little bit brighter and it does this and that, but very, very similar functionally in terms 11:51 of kind of like the buffer thing when it's in its lowest setting. And then as you start to crank it up, you can really slam the front end of an app. 11:57 So yeah. Yeah, no, OK. 11:58 No, that I firstly, I don't know if you know this, but we actually started the podcast with a signal chain series. 12:04 So our first like 9 episodes were like going through like the traditional like we start with like our compressor, then we move to like our gain section, then we move to modulation time based, 12:14 etcetera. That's great. 12:16 So I love that as a reason. And yeah, I can totally second everything you said. 12:21 I was impressed with two things. One, the like buffer quality. 12:25 It's this is such a thing. And actually Alan will laugh at this because I sometimes I'm skeptical of this, but having played 12:31 with your pedal, I can confirm this. It is like a tone sweetener when it's in your signal chain. 12:35 It does that little thing kind of like the 29 pedals, Yuna as well, which is that 1 I believe is a real thing. 12:43 But I do. It's like, yeah, it makes your tone sweeter. 12:46 It's like OK. Sure, sure it does. 12:49 Sure it does. I did like with the Buena Park, it's a little bit as you press it and you talk about slamming amp, 12:55 it's a little bit of a drive with that JFET circuit there. Yeah, which I really always enjoy because for me, like a totally clean boost is kind of like. 13:04 Yeah, what am I going to? Do with this yeah my amp is always on the edge of breakup as like a default mode so having something 13:10 that I can slam with a little bit of sparkle I I really dig what I was getting out of it so far so. Thank you. 13:16 Yeah, so that's cool. That makes sense. 13:19 I love also now knowing you have another pedal coming. So, La Habra, you're really into your California naming. 13:28 Conventions. Oh God, yeah. 13:29 It's getting, it's getting crazy. It's getting out of hand. 13:32 So talk a little bit about that guy. What's going on with the next one here? 13:35 I know it's on pre-order right now, correct? It it's on pre-order right now and if I'll speak to that before I dive into the pedal itself. 13:42 pre-order is something that we're seeing more and more in the industry Among some of these, you know, more what's, what's the word people use? 13:49 Not Ma and PA, but a small business boutique that's a boutique or small business. These all these kind of companies seem to be offering pre-order and you know, like any good new up 14:00 and coming brand. I stole the idea from others. 14:02 I, I, I love the idea of a pre-order because it's like the ultimate way for a client base or a fan base. 14:11 If we even want to, you know, take further and and we see with some of these companies, there is a real like, you know, lather that people, you know, get for for them. 14:21 I love the idea of a pre-order because it's the ultimate way to support the brand that you're into. You know, people don't realize it, but it costs a lot of money to make these things, to have a 14:34 website that's functional and to, you know, employ people, which I'm not doing yet. All these, you know, things behind the scenes that we as consumers trying to take for granted. 14:44 And so a pre-order is a great way to, you know, see what they're offering. If you're that into it, get your money in and that money goes to to basically fund and make sure 14:55 that these things are brought to market. I mean, they're going to be anyway, but it's the ultimate kind of support system. 15:02 It's you know, it's Kickstarter without the, the third party, you know what I mean? And so I, I first wanted to basically say a big shout out for anyone that's pre-ordered or is 15:12 thinking about pre ordering or will be pre ordering. It's hugely helpful and it's, you know, it, it, you know, it makes my heart sing every time I get 15:22 that little notification in my e-mail. The pedal itself is a distortion pedal. 15:28 I wanted, I wanted an OverDrive pedal, you know, again, pedal board order and let's, you know, boost, OverDrive, distortion, all these kinds of things. 15:37 But as I started messing with the circuit that I was playing around with at the time, and I'll talk to that or talk about that in a minute. 15:46 The the, the thing I kept coming back to was like, this sounds really good in one particular setting. 15:54 And you know, of course, that's, you know, cranked to 10, it's dime and you go, OK, well, this is, you know, what it has to be. 16:01 And so that's all to say there's no gain knob. You don't have a choice in, in terms of how much gain you introduce. 16:08 There's a toggle. I still wanted to be, you know, somewhat of a human being and give you, I didn't want to be a 16:14 complete monster. So you can kind of toggle and change the, the gain structure, but the gain level is fixed. 16:21 You get a tone knob because again, I'm not a complete monster. And then the, the, the volume knob, because we, we need that to set, you know, whatever gain level 16:29 is is required. If we're using a clean pedal platform or an already overdriven amp, this thing should work for you. 16:36 The kind of final way I would describe it is it's almost like fuzz for people that don't like fuzz. What I. 16:41 Need. That's not. 16:42 That's not. OK. 16:43 And I'm very similar. Like I love fuzz in certain contexts and I can appreciate it of course, but I've always found fuzz 16:50 is hard to incorporate in like a live setting for instance. So if I'm going from my kind of bass sound, my clean sound, which is still distorted and it's still 17:00 sparkly and I kick a fuzz in, there's something that happens where it almost feels like a complete scene. 17:05 Change it. It's like I don't I'm not existing in the same realm anymore. 17:09 Now, from a technical standpoint, I think that has everything to do with how much kind of compression and just how annihilated the signal is because of all the, you know, the fuzz and the 17:20 the the gain staging it goes through. And so this thing is really, really hot, really heavy, but it still feels somewhat natural. 17:27 And so that's what I really love about it on the site I said it's, you know, kind of 80s and 90's rock tones. 17:33 And that's what it really feels like to me. There's like this kind of subtle mid scoop thing going on. 17:38 It's, you know, sizzly bright when you turn that tone knob all the way up, it's dark. It can be when you turn it left. 17:44 It's a really, really cool pedal. Obviously I'm biased, I build it, but I've been using it a lot, as I do whenever I build something 17:51 new and it's really working for that type of stuff. As far as where the circuit came from, that was all very kind of organic in its evolution. 18:02 Jeff Schroeder, people know him from Smashing Pumpkins. He was in Pumpkins for a billion years. 18:08 But more than just that gig, the guy's a brilliant musician and artist and, and I'm very lucky to, to now be able to call him a friend. 18:16 He had kind of commissioned a, a DOD250 type circuit from me because he really likes this is my assumption. 18:26 He really likes that type of circuit for, for just kind of pushing a little bit and overdriving the the front end of an already hot amp. 18:33 And while I was working on that project with him and getting him a couple of those sent over, I was like, I've never messed around with, you know, I, I had been living in transistor world. 18:44 I hadn't been playing with op amps as much. And so I was like, OK, this is a great excuse to continue the op amp, but, you know, play. 18:50 And so I kind of took that DoD 250 core and just, you know, threw a lot of the old conventions out the window. 18:58 And yeah, that's how we wound up with the La Habra. So again, I'm biased, but I think it's pretty pretty cool, pretty heavy. 19:05 No, it's it looks really cool. And you know, when I when I first saw it and I saw, you know, Paul and I were talking about it and I 19:11 saw the the game toggle, I was like, oh, that's ballsy. I like it. 19:17 I like it because I mean, you're right. It you're, as I'm assuming, like as you're designing a circuit, you can find that sweet spot, but 19:25 then you start thinking to yourself like, well, I don't want to, I don't want to pigeon hole the consumer into only being able to use this. 19:31 Well, why not? Why not? 19:34 Why not say, hey, it's going to sound the best here. It's kind of like what Bill Finnegan does with the client, right? 19:38 Or like the KTR, it's like, here's a switch, don't ever use it, but it's there, right, right. You know, so, so can you tell me about like those two settings on the gain structure so that. 19:48 Yeah. Can you? 19:49 Explain that. First of all, I, you know, thank you for, for all that you've articulated in a way that I, that I 19:56 don't think I could have and I built the damn thing, But I really, I really love that because we're, we're, there's so many different points I could go off on before I actually answer the question. 20:10 I love the idea of. It was scary saying like, OK, I'm not going to put a gain knob, but you're right. 20:17 It's like we all have these pedals and we dial them in certain ways and we find that we continuously dial them in this way or that way. 20:24 And, you know, no matter our best efforts, you know, we can't change what we like. And, and so as I was playing with the Circuit, that's what I really, really liked. 20:32 And you know, going back to the kind of traditional DoD 250 thing, the heart of it is an op amp, very similar to how that circuit works. 20:40 And Ying Wei, you know, Malmstein, who used that, the DoD 2:50 to, to great effect, if I'm not mistaken, he would always crank the, the gain to, to 10. 20:49 And so internally, circuit wise, that's essentially where it's sitting. It's, you know, I, I stole the idea from him in that it sounds best there, it sounds tightest there. 0:00 And so we're going to lock it there, leave it there and, and force you to kind of play it there. 21:02 To actually answer your question, the gain toggle, it's changing the clipping and so when it's and I'm probably going to mess this up now just off the top of my head when it's out. 21:13 So when it's facing, when the toggle is facing away from the pedal, you're getting this really, really gnarly hard clipping from LED lights basically. 21:22 So if you were to open the back of your pedal while you're playing it, you would see these orange LE DS lighting up as you're as you're playing it looks pretty. 21:29 It looks pretty bad ass actually. And then when you move the the toggle, it disengages the orange LEDs and it engages simply off amp 21:40 clipping. So that's just you annihilating the off amp, which sounds you know, it sounds a little darker it's 21:46 less compressed. So it's. 21:48 Weird, it's like fuzzy area too. Yeah, yes, yeah. 21:51 It's weird because it's like it's more open, it's less compressed, but still really heavy. It's such a strange beast. 21:56 But it, you know, once you play it, you kind of realize you're like, OK, it's limited in in feature set. 22:02 You know, if I were to go shopping on Sweetwater and, and I'm looking for features, this is not, you know, my pedal, but this it really is effective. 22:10 And that idea of not having a ton of features is something that I love. And as a player, I really appreciate it. 22:17 You know, a great example of this is divided by 13. You know, the, the amp company I had been playing divided by thirteens on tour for a long time. 22:26 You know, when I, I was touring for Jack Russell and his version of Great White, the the 80s band, and, you know, I got hired for that gig and it was one of those things where I had three days 22:36 notice. I needed to get a bunch of amps to Detroit in like, you know, in a day, essentially. 22:42 And so I run over there. His shop was in Newport Beach. 22:45 I think they've since sold to rock, but his shop when he owned it was in Newport Beach. And I just, you know, me and my, you know, now wife, girlfriend at the time we ran down there and we 22:57 go, OK, I got to get these amps to, to, you know, Detroit or whatever. How do we do that? 23:03 You know, I've always been in a fan, you know, touring around with, you know, some, some combo amp or something, or there's been something provided, you know, And so how do I, how do I do this? 23:13 And he goes, oh, don't worry about it. You know, I'll ship everything out for you. 23:15 So he's a really, really cool dude, a great supporter and a big advocate for simplicity. And so the, the particular amp that I used was the JRT 915, nine and 15 being the, the different 23:29 wattages that you could swim between. This thing had four knobs. 23:34 That was it. It had four potentiometers. 23:36 Two of them were volume knobs to blend different kind of preamp tubes. And then the other two were like kind of tone shaping knobs. 23:43 That's it. And so it's such a far cry from what we have today. 23:48 I'm not knocking anybody or anything, but I, I love using the Rev heads as an example. These things are amazing. 23:53 They have all these channels, they have all these buttons where you can just dial in your sound. I, I'm not that good of a guitar player, you know what I mean? 24:01 Like, I'm, I'm OK, but like you give me more than four knobs, I start, you know, having a panic attack. 24:07 And so the idea of four knobs to shape your tone and that's what you're left with. That's your choice. 24:12 It allowed me to skip all the technical stuff and just dial in a sound that I could work with and play. 24:21 And so from a company perspective, I kind of stole that from from Fred over it divided by 13. Here's something simple. 24:28 Buy it or don't. You know, it's, it's up to you. 24:31 But you know, the one thing I can promise you, besides the fact that it'll, you know, stand up to a beating and it'll sound good, is that it won't get in the way of you doing what we're all there to 24:42 do, which is play. And so, yeah. 24:44 No, which is fantastic because I think how many times do we get lost in creativity? And by that I mean lost in knob fiddling and trying to find the the exact sweet spot, you know, you 24:58 know, Paul, Paul and I are working on a bunch of different videos right now and one of them is involving a, a pedal from a company that was has a year involved with the name of the company, you 25:09 know, from the early 80s. And it's like the, you know, the tone knob I put in one spot and I've messed around with it trying 25:17 to just so I can hear the differences. But yeah, it's, it's the cut knob. 25:21 I have it all the way off. That's it. 25:23 I don't want it anywhere else. I don't. 25:24 Like it anywhere else. Which one? 25:26 You just sent me that recent video you made. I was like, oh, it kind of sounds better this way. 25:29 I, I mess around with mine all the time. I kind of just take that. 25:32 But but we get, we get lost in, in the, and all of the options, we get lost in all of it. And some of it's great, you know, to, to throw a shout out to another California company, Maris and 25:46 the the brains that are inside of their big boxes. Yeah, you can get lost in that forever. 25:51 Totally different way of doing it. And it's a totally different pedal than a boost or distortion or OverDrive or the things that you're 25:58 bringing to market. And so I, I love, I love the simplicity of it. 26:02 And, you know, looking at the graphics, you're going to switch over to aesthetics. The graphics from the Buena Park and the La Habra are just, they're just gorgeous. 26:14 They're simple. They, to me, Paul and I haven't talked about this, but to me, they don't look copied. 26:22 It's not like, oh, it's just some other dude doing his own pedal thing. Like no they they look original. 26:27 That's a very, very good point. That's a very good point. 26:30 Cuz a lot of brands, I feel like there's basically the people who copy JHS and the people who copy Chase Bliss, right? 26:36 It's like the two types of aesthetics you get out of new pedals. So kudos on making something that does not look like either of those and has its kind of own 26:44 distinct little flair. Thank you. 26:45 Thank you. No, I mean, it's, it's, it's hard, right, Because, you know, first you're trying to come up with an 26:51 original circuit that's not so original that people like be like, I can't incorporate this, you know, because we're all, we're all after a vintage tone, right? 26:59 And so we need to, we need to get that it needs to be presented in in a newish way, but it can't straight too far as far as aesthetics go, you know, once you've once you've finished the circuit and 27:12 it comes time to deal with all that, it's a very similar game. It's like you don't want to straight too far. 27:17 You don't want to make it look like something, you know, that nobody's ever seen. But at the same time, you're right, you don't want to copy. 27:23 You know, for me, my big 2 are Earthquaker and JHS. You know, I love the way both of those companies are run. 27:30 I love the aesthetics, I love the the offerings. And I wanted to be very careful to, to pay not homage, but like take the best from each and, you 27:43 know, have it kind of congeal into whatever it is that I'm doing. And so I, I wanted a little bit of a, you know, a simple aesthetic in, in the same way that JHS, you 27:52 know, the, the emperor, which will always be my go to JHS title. You know, it's like you got the Penguin, you know, it's just the Penguin. 27:59 And I, you know, I'm not hardcore enough to just give you a, a logo. You know, they're, they're far, you know, they're far cooler than I am. 28:08 But, but you know, the, the logo that somehow lies into the, the city or, or, you know, whatever we're doing. 28:14 And then the, the very alliterative title is, is kind of my thing. And it, it's been a nice thing to kind of fall into. 28:23 I want to talk quickly. It's the same, it's the same kind of path, but nobody's asked me about it yet. 28:30 The La Habra logo is the little kind of 1950s modern, mid century modern kind of star thing. Well, you mentioned you started talking about the graphics and I was about to ask you about about 28:43 the La Habra, so please. No anyone, anyone that's ever been to La Habra, there's this bowling alley. 28:49 It's, you know, it's like La Habra bowl 300 or something is the name of it. And it's, you know, it is a, a monument in the city and it has this beautiful old neon sign And 29:01 they, you know, it, they, you, they used a great effect, that little mid century modern star. And you saw this everywhere at the time. 29:08 But there's something about the fact that like, that's still kind of a beacon in the city and still kind of a, a relic of a particular time. 29:15 I'm like, I would love to, to be able to incorporate that star in a pedal that's, you know, La Habra eccentric and everything just kind of aligned on this one, which was cool. 29:25 And that's so that's where it comes from. That's really cool. 29:28 That is fantastic. I also with the with the Buena Park Boost, I do like the shade of pink you chose. 29:34 While we're talking aesthetics, it stands out. I That's important to me. 29:39 Thank you. That that was a that was a living nightmare. 29:42 Actually, it's it's funny because I never thought I would be debating between different pinks on, you know, in any sort of, you know, context. 29:51 But but my poor wife, you know, she would see these packages being delivered on the front door because everything's done out of the house, you know, these packages being delivered on the front 29:59 door. And she'd be like, sweet Jesus, are these more swatches? 30:03 Like more color swatches? I'm like, yeah. 30:05 And so I'd be sitting there. I probably looked like Richard Dreyfuss in that Spielberg movie where he's doing the close 30:13 Encounter, where he's doing the the mashed potatoes. Like my family had to think I was like psychotic because I'm sitting there with two different pinks 30:21 that are probably the exact same shade going like, one of these is right. One of these is right. 30:25 And eventually, you know, we settled where we settled. But here's something you know, potentially interesting, but probably insanely boring. 30:33 No matter what pink you choose, The thing is so difficult to photograph because depending on the light, you know it's coming out of salmon pink or you know, which you don't want, or if it because 30:45 it's almost like orange or something, or if the light is too strong, it's like it looks white. It doesn't have the same definition. 30:51 And so this, this pink basically was the one that that photographed the best. OK. 30:56 So that's that's how the decision eventually was made. Well, I think that's, I mean, like, I don't think that's boring at all. 31:04 I think that is that is a level of thought process that that happens. And it's great to know about. 31:10 And I I can appreciate it because the the amount of times that I have to take like 30 different photos of whatever junk I've got here at the house because it just doesn't pick up the right way. 31:17 It's like, it's not really that color. I want to change it, you know. 31:19 So I love that you took that time, you know, to your wife's chagrin, with all the pink swatches that you have in your house. 31:26 Yeah, I mean, also like good job coming out with your first pedal in pink. Thank you. 31:31 That's that's pretty hardcore right there. Yeah, you know, the again, this this kind of chapter of my life was so not planned. 31:40 It's it's I felt something changing and I just started kind of falling into it. And my, my for as obsessive as I'm being, you know, about like this has to be right and this has to 31:52 be right. There's also this kind of contrasting element of just go for it, you know, we'll go for it and see 32:00 what happens. And so that's kind of that's me making the the pink statement where it's just like, here you go. 32:05 Like this is what it is. And it's like, here I am. 32:08 Yeah. And it reminds me one of my big, one of my big kind of inspirations, if we want to use that word, is 32:16 a is a local Taco place and it's kind of a chain, Wahoo's Fish Tacos, if anyone's ever been there. And you go into the the Taco shop and it is like it's tacos and and you know, just bomb food, but 32:31 but skate culture and surf culture inspired And I love how, you know, pink is actually a major part of kind of both cultures. 32:41 And while I'm, you know, very sports challenged, like if you put me on a skateboard or a surfboard, I'm going to injure myself, I will gladly steal cultural elements and try and kind of fit into that, 32:56 especially in the Orange County kind of aesthetic. So nice. 32:59 Thank you. Thank you. 33:00 Nice, I like sports games too, so now I'm wanting fish tacos. Yes. 33:04 Oh, dude, yeah, talking fish tacos is dangerous. Just now I'm like, oh man, that sounds great. 33:09 Right now, yeah. So the last Taco place I went and no see was Los Jollos. 33:13 Yeah, there in Anaheim, There's there's. So many good places. 33:17 And, you know, my biggest issue is I am the king of like not leaving my house and just like post mating things. 33:27 And so there was a period there, like after the holidays where I was just there was a like there were burritos on the doorstep for every meal. 33:34 You know, you would open it up and go, God, here we go. That's been the hardest habit to break. 33:38 And so, you know, as I got your mouth's watering with Taco talk, now I'm, like, trying to resist the urge to spend copious amounts of money on, you know, something being delivered in the next 20 33:50 minutes. See, I'm jealous because where I live, you know, parking a test. 33:55 I'm not, I don't. I'm kind of like in the sticks and so we don't have very. 33:59 Yeah, I have a lot. I have a lot more Taco access than you do. 34:01 I actually had tacos for lunch today, so I'm I'm good on my Taco, but also I could eat tacos like for every meal with different Oh yeah, in it. 34:09 So I'd be fine with that. That's right. 34:11 It's the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah. 34:14 Yeah, all, all of this Southern California stuff makes me want to be there having St. Tacos though. 34:19 And not in Pennsylvania, where Alan and I are both located, right? Yeah, that's the thing, right? 34:23 Is, is, you know, California, especially recently, has gotten a a bad rap for like, it's expensive and it's this and it's that. 34:32 I couldn't live. Always on fire. 34:34 It's always on fire, dude. No joke. 34:37 My kid, my poor kid, we were watching, we were watching LA get decimated. And, and we're far enough away, but obviously we have so many friends and, and people that we work 34:47 with that were seriously affected. We on occasion we'll get fires where we live. 34:53 We kind of live in the hills here in Orange County. And you know, my poor kid, he saw it coming over the hill one time. 35:00 And again, we're far enough away that we know we're not going to have to evacuate. We know we're not going to do this or that, but it's a, it's a trip to kind of see that. 35:08 So, yeah, if I, if there's one thing I hate, it's it's that. But I suppose there's something no matter where you live, right? 35:14 There's the there's tornadoes or there's this or there's that. There's fires, earthquakes in our case as well. 35:20 But but what you really get the the positive, the silver lining is, is the food. Yeah, it's we're we're rocking over here. 35:28 I mean, I will say we don't really have any natural disasters where. Are you good over there? 35:32 Nice. We're we're good. 35:34 What'd you say, Pennsylvania? Yeah, we're kind of like central Pennsylvania. 35:38 Well, like kind of by Phillyish. You do have one natural disaster that is that Hershey theme park. 35:43 So that's, yeah, it's a form of natural disaster. I didn't expect that. 35:51 That was good. That was sharp. 35:53 I should George Costanza it out of here right now. That's the that's the funniest it's going to get. 36:00 I was going to ask a question and I'm stuck on Hershey Parks and I forget what I was going to say. Well, getting back to Pedals, I want to, I want to get into our section of the podcast whenever we 36:10 have guests where Alan gets to ask three questions that we didn't prep you for Evan. Oh heck yeah. 36:15 They're they're all music related, so it should be easy because it seems like we're in fellow Traveller space here. 36:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Alan, you want to you want to queue these up? 36:24 I am looking for them right now, Paul. They're on the document I sent you beforehand, so. 36:31 That's all. It's all politics related. 36:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you feel about tariffs? 36:38 It's like, oh God, who did we go for? Right. 36:43 And why and? Why? 36:46 Please give me your dissertation on. Yeah, No, I'm right there with you. 36:50 No, so we've got some quick fire questions that we that we do. They're they're pretty much all pedal related, so no worries there. 36:56 So, all right, so first question is, what was your first pedal? Oh good question. 37:03 It was, I am not going to remember the model but it was a multi effects unit. It was a zoom board. 37:13 I can't agree for the life of me I can't remember was that the brand or the the name of the the? Unit, it would have been the brand. 37:19 Yeah, it. Would have been the brand so it had these 3 little you know foot pedals on it and what you know what 37:24 acted as a volume knob or wad depending on whatever and it was the most lo fi thing in the world. But it was just so exciting to it was just so exciting to get something more than clean guitar or 37:38 the shitty little Fender practice amp distortion. Yes, yes. 37:43 My guess is just based on our approximate ages. Was it the Zoom G1 series that? 37:49 Sounds right to me. That sounds right to me. 37:51 Yeah, I, I, that's what I can picture in my head when you describe that. So. 37:56 As an aside here, I am still blown away by the fact that zoom makes a guitar effects and multi effects because I know them as just like, you know, like sound recording stuff. 38:08 You know, I actually almost just bought one of their cameras and recorders and I'm like wait a second. 38:12 That's why the. It's why it almost sounded wrong coming out of my mouth. 38:15 I'm like, wait, was that a model or you know, But no, it's now that you say it, it's like it, it was the same company. 38:21 That's a trip. Yeah, they actually still get recommended every once in a while, like on forums for like people 38:26 getting started. And I kind of forget they exist too, because I think of like the handy, the the recorder and stuff 38:31 because like that's I think we're all familiar with and it is weird. They do have effects, and they actually get a lot of play in the synthesizer community. 38:39 Yeah. I mean, and as I remember, as I recall, that was the kind of stuff in that unit that shined, right? 38:44 Because, you know, you weren't getting any high quality, you know, not to knock anybody, but you weren't getting any high quality like OverDrive circuits in there, right? 38:53 There were all these cool kind of like synthetic effect things that I remember going like, I don't know how to use this, but this sounds bad ass. 39:01 And so, yeah, that doesn't shock me at all. Yeah, well, apparently it offended Paul so much that he went off camera. 39:08 He just I'm having I'm having Wi-Fi issues. Don't worry about it. 39:10 I'm still here. I can hear you guys. 39:12 That's our. Natural disaster, We have two natural disasters. 39:14 We have Hershey Park and we have. Comcast. 39:16 No Comcast. We have Comcast. 39:18 He had tacos delivered, that's what it is. He's just turned the cameras off so that there's no evidence. 39:22 Just showed up. That's right. 39:23 Question #2 what is your current favorite pedal? It can be yours or it can be somebody else's. 39:29 Oh, you know, just so that I'm not super gross because like I'm the king of sounding gross when it comes to promoting things. 39:35 I'm not going to mention mine. I'll I'll, you know, I'll mix that from the the conversation favorite pedal that that's not mine. 39:43 God, there's a few good ones. I really, OK, I really love the universal audio, the the Ruby and and if we can make it an 39:56 interchangeable thing, also the dream. The reason being is for years, you know, there would be these digital, you know, platforms that had 40:05 amp, you know, simulators in them. And none of them responded correctly. 40:11 You know, they they were snapshots. They sounded, you know, tonally pretty awesome in some instances. 40:17 But if you were to back your volume knob down, the response wouldn't be what it should have been, you know, like through a real amp. 40:24 And if you're on tour and you have to play a bunch of different songs, you know, with a bunch of different kind of vastly different tonal shifts because, you know, these records that you're having 40:34 to play are so different, you know, maybe that's great for you. You know, you leave your volume volume knob at 10 and then you play based off of how the board or or 40:41 the the setup the rig is operating For me, I am so like I need that kind of tactile. You know, my volume knob at 7 sounds different than my volume knob ten thing going on. 40:53 And the universal audio amp simulator pedals were the first ones that I could say, OK, I don't need to bring an amp just get because this feels and responds properly. 41:03 And so yeah, if if there was a in desert island pedal or something, you know that that's probably my go to right now. 41:10 Nice, nice. Well Evan, you'll be happy to know that the review video I did of the Point of Park is with the 41:18 Dream because that's where I go to. I agree with you, those things are great. 41:22 It's the first time I truly felt like an amp SIM, felt like when I plug into my amp and honestly like 90% of the time now I just use that. 41:30 I, I love it. Well, it's, it's funny. 41:33 It's funny that you say that about the dream. That's the one that like when I build these things, it's basically built on that platform. 41:39 So like when I'm hearing how things respond, that's what I'm using. And that's not to say that I don't then don't throw it on to a real Fender deluxe or something. 41:48 I have one that kind of sits, you know, off to my right in the garage and, and I, I test with all these kind of different what, what's the word? 41:57 It's almost like controls, all these different controls. So I know how it's going to respond out in the world. 42:02 But man, the dream is just so it's just so versatile and it, it's so effective in terms of like, I, I can really hear where I'm at right now. 42:11 It's like putting it under a microscope. And so, yeah, love it, love it, love it. 42:15 Very nice, very nice. All right, last question. 42:17 Who inspires you to try new gear? Oh, who inspires me to try new gear? 42:24 Well, I mean, that's a that's a tough question. The, the first one, the first, the first kind of response to that is I, I have that natural thing 42:35 that I think we all have where it's just like, I like switching it up and well, I'm sorry. I like the idea of switching it up because I find that I buy something and I go, this is gonna be a 42:47 game changer. And then you're like, I just incorporated it in a way that I would have used this other pedal for. 42:53 A great example is the Ajax song. I bought one of those and there was a like a week where I was kind of going through a crisis because 43:02 I'm like, do I not use, I don't use analog gear anymore? What's going on? 43:06 And and it turns out that it's like, well, no, you know, that it doesn't function that way for me. It's going to, it's going to kind of be a post effect processor and it's going to, it's going to be 43:16 my, my delays and verbs. And if I'm in a studio and I need like a different amp sound, they, they have all the amp sounds in 43:22 there and I can do that. But yeah, I kind of just, you know, I love, I love new stuff off and acquiring new things and trying 43:29 new things. So there's that kind of inherent thing. 43:32 But in terms of people, lots of people, I mentioned Jeff Schroeder earlier and we've become friends and friendly and he's been an awesome supporter. 43:44 He'll talk about things I'll see on his Instagram or in the past he's talked about things. And I remember I bought a, a guitar based off of seeing him with pumpkins at an arena show. 43:55 He had this Rev star that sounded killer, this Yamaha Rev star and that inspired, you know, he what he was getting out of it was like, I'm missing that in the rig. 44:05 And so, you know, I went home and I went reverb shopping and and found it. And so he's a great example, a recent example as a kid growing up, Rusty Anderson from Paul 44:18 McCartney band and then a bunch of cool 90s bands that I love like Edna Swap was one of my big ones. He was in that band. 44:27 I would see him playing things and I'd kind of blindly, you know, buy the the stuff he was using and I probably didn't even use it properly. 44:34 But you know, he was he was someone that inspired me to to try things. And it was about that time that, you know, things were getting serious playing wise. 44:43 And, you know, thank, thank God for for him and for I'm sure all the other musical influences because that they really kind of pointed me in in the direction of like, oh, this person uses this 44:55 for this and this person uses that for that. And it kind of, you know, in the same way that you're playing style is kind of a Stew of all of your 45:02 influences. My tonal life has been shaped by, you know, all those kind of formative people as well. 45:11 And then, you know, like newer people I'll see on Instagram. So. 45:14 Yeah. Totally. 45:16 That's awesome. Those are great answers. 45:17 Thank you. Thank you, Paul, you still with us? 45:20 I am still with you, Yes I did. Your burritos come that's. 45:23 Right. Yes, they did. 45:25 That's that's what I was doing. No, so I was going to say, Evan, thank you so much. 45:30 That was actually also to that last question, probably the most concise, actually and thorough answer anyone's had to who inspires them. 45:36 I feel like whenever we throw that one to people, it's like the it's the IT is like the curveball question of like, wait, let me think about that. 45:43 And also in the era of social media influencing, it's like, am I being influenced or am I being marketed to? 45:49 Which one is the Yeah A? 100 percent, 100%. 45:53 Which one is the reason I? Love how you brought in these players from before the Internet age where they didn't even know that 46:04 they were influencing you 100%. Well, I, I still get, I don't know, like there, there are days when I feel young, you know, and then 46:14 there are other days when I feel like I'm getting a little older and, you know, I'll hear some of these kids, you know, because I've taught guitar for a long time too. 46:23 There'll be these, these kids that I've taught that'll, you know, talk about, you know, Rhett Scholl or somebody. 46:29 And I'll be like, you know, not who in terms of I'm so great. And, you know, I can be oblivious to, you know, other players because I've since looked him up and 46:38 go like, Oh, this guy's, you know, a badass musician. But it's just such a different world. 46:43 You know, people can can get traction on the Internet in a way that just didn't exist when I was younger. 46:50 And so all of my influences were like, you know, I got this record from my friend, you know, who probably downloaded illegally on like, Limewire or something. 46:59 And. Better days, man, Better days. 47:02 On it Pirate Bay or whatever and, and you know, you fall in love with this album and then you start, you know, Google searching like who who played on this or better yet looking through the liner notes 47:13 of who played on this and I don't know it to me it felt very different It felt very analog and that's still kind of the world I'm I'm living in I'm learning though you know, that's the thing that 47:26 that running a a pedal company has taught me is that like, oh, this is a very, very different world now and I need to. 47:35 It is and I imagine it's tricky. It's probably tricky for you and you know for others, you know small start up, you know, pedal 47:42 companies on how do you how do you do it? You know, because you may have people emailing you all the time and trying to to tout their 47:52 influence on the market, you know? Yeah, it's a it's a weird thing for sure. 47:58 You know, I'll have these people that will reach out. And first of all, you know, I'm not knocking anybody or, or whatever. 48:06 Send me a message, you know, whatever you want to talk about, as long as it's not a psychotic. I, I, I get the message of, oh, are you hiring interns a lot? 48:15 You know, to, to that the answer is, is no, not at the moment. Thank you. 48:20 You know, reach out in the future. I'll get people going like, hey, you know, I, I have X amount of followers. 48:28 I, you know, if you send me a paddle, you know, this and that. And I'm not a, I'm not above that. 48:33 Certainly, you know what I mean? But it's like, whoa, OK, a lot of people want free, free shit. 48:40 So it's, it is a weird world to navigate. It's it's made more difficult by the fact that I remember when social media was first to think your 48:49 reach seemed to be a lot farther. And now it's like the, you know, Meta, for example, has gotten very, very conscientious of like, oh, 48:59 there's money to be made here. And if you're not advertising, especially as a business, that the algorithm does nothing for you. 49:07 So it's a, you know, it's, it's interesting. And again, especially in a world where brick and mortar isn't what it used to be and the Internet is 49:15 harder to to navigate than it used to be. It's kind of like, oh God, the biggest challenge is getting eyes on this. 49:22 Yeah, you know, because I, I whenever a pedal is in someone's hands, whenever people are using it, whenever people are seeing it, I've had great response, great feedback. 49:30 But challenge, the real big challenge is how do people see this? Yeah, well, you know, I, I hope the, the, the 60 people that are going to listen to our podcast, 49:41 they'll all check it out. But no more, more. 49:45 I love it. I every single one of you, I love it. 49:49 I'm excited to see the full video that Paul's got in, you know, in the works on the Buena Park Boost. 49:58 Did I say that right? Because. 49:59 That's it. That's it. 50:00 Yeah, that's. Correct, I said Buena. 50:01 I keep saying Buena Vista by accident just because that's what keeps. Happening. 50:05 See, I'm I I think I said it the other day. I'm jealous of that, that I you should have come up with that idea. 50:09 That's that's good. But yeah, yeah. 50:12 Buena Park. Maybe we do. 50:14 Maybe we can talk later about doing like a pedal collaborative limited edition and call it the Buena Vista. 50:21 There you go, there you go. And it can be one of those alternative pinks that's just slightly different. 50:28 Or we can, it could be the same pink and we just say it's like a limited pink. That's right, no one will know. 50:35 Yeah, just photograph it in different lighting. That's how we do that. 50:38 Different warmths to your ring light and you're good to go. That's right, no joke. 50:44 But cool, Evan, where can people find you? Make sure we link back to your things and people get to hear your pedals and follow you and see what 50:53 you're up to, especially if you're early in the signal chain. So that means yeah, yeah, yeah. 50:57 In theory, there's more. Yes, there's lots coming and I have some ideas. 51:04 There's ocpedalco on Instagram. I think that's Ocpedalco. 51:09 And then there's the site www.ocpedalco.com. And so if you want to order, we are strictly direct to consumer at the moment on the site. 51:18 That's not to say I'm not open to distribution. So if any, you know, small businesses, any brick and mortar stores are interested in carrying the 51:27 brand, please, please reach out at either the site or the Instagram and I'd love to talk to you. But yeah, those places are good resources to see what's going on. 51:36 And then, yeah, live pedal if you're interested in anything you see. Very cool. 51:43 Awesome. Cool. 51:44 We will link to all those in the show notes. And Evan, look forward to chatting with you more, seeing what comes next. 51:50 And thank you so much. Thanks for having me this is. 51:53 Fun, man. Yeah, I really appreciate your time and keep on with these circuits that you're that you're 51:59 producing. And we can't wait to check out the La Habra once it's released. 52:04 I I want to to be able to not have any option on my game and be happy with that 100. Percent be happy or else that's that's. 52:13 Kind of. That's right. 52:14 Be happy or else. Anyway, thank you guys so much, this was fun. 52:18 Thank you. Now everybody go and get tacos. 52:21 Eat tacos. Yes. 52:23 Bye. © 2025 Spotify AB Legal Privacy Cookies