Sam Ryder - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 586

What's up? How's it going? I'm Sam Ryder and I'm going to show you my tiny little rig before I show today at Schubert's Tavern. It's the Tavern, right? Tavern. Sick. Yeah, I'm buzzing. Welcome. Let's dig in. I think that I met you about 12 years ago and I'm not chatting to the people watching this. I'm chatting to you holding the camera now. So I was with a band called Close Your Eyes and you interviewed me and Jordan and I watched it back this morning because I knew we were doing this today and Jordan has got infinitely more game and patter than I do. I literally don't know what I'm talking about. It's cringe, man. I don't know why I'm telling you this because now people are going to go and watch it and see how cringe I am. But it's so funny. Jordan is like a natural born comedian. I, on the other hand, am an absolute div. But yeah, I'm stoked to see you again, man. It's cool. So let's start with this acoustic guitar. This is a Yamaha acoustic guitar. I got this for free. When I started posting videos on TikTok, I remember Yamaha just hoeing guitars at me. So I've got like a lovely nylon strong one. I've got this. I've got another one at home. And I'm going to be honest with you, Yamaha make decent acoustic guitars. I like this guitar. This section is a piece of, can I swear on this? Shit. Like this, it just, it's pointless. Basically, you just need the volume and you're good to go. They're going to hate me saying that, but I'm very thankful. And I had a lovely rep at Yamaha at the time who's no longer there. But if he's watching this, he's definitely not watching this. But if he is, big love because the nylon strong acoustic I use all the time in the studio. And this is super handy for tour. I've got a nice Martin from like 1956, but never going to bring that out on tour. This is kind of like a road dog guitar, but it does the job. And we've got it in a weird tuning. Actually, this is in, I don't even know if it's an actual tuning. This is E, A, C, G, G, C. It's quite like Iris, Google, those vibes, you know. Yeah. You don't need that drama. You don't need that pain. You don't want that karma. That's a song called armor in the set tonight. And literally that's the only song I use this guitar for. I think these are tens and usually I'd use NYXLs, but I've just moved to Elixir and they just, they sound infinitely better. Like I've come to realize after playing guitar since I was 14 years old, strings really do matter. And I did love the Dario. I still do. I still use them a bunch, but my friend came over who's like a nerd. I love him the best, but he's called Nick. I probably shouldn't say that he's a nerd on the camera, but he is like, he'll agree. He is a total nerd when it comes to, especially Fender and Gibson. Like he knows all the years, all the specs, like even when it comes to like the different machine heads, different ply on scratch plates, he knows everything. So he naturally deep dive strings as well. And yeah, when it comes to like flat wounds on bases, which I've gotten really into at the moment as well. But like, yeah, just on electric guitar and acoustic, Elixirs are something I really didn't like at the beginning, like the coated feel. But now I do, they really like sparkle and they kind of make your guitar feel like it's just been set up all the time. And I'm not actually sponsored or anything by Elixir, but I am using them now. I think that's sick. So the band I was in when we last chatted, close your eyes. This strap used to belong to Alex, the bass player, but I actually stole this. Like it's what was kind of like a not proper theft because I was a friend and I just sort of like acquired it. But he always like when he's, he doesn't work in music anymore, but whenever he sees videos of me, like I literally use this strap on all my guitars just so I know that he's watching it somewhere and it'll annoy him. It's brilliant. So this, this guitar is, I bought, I got this guitar the day that I met you. And I got this in Chicago, Chicago Music Exchange, which is just down the road, right? But yeah, this was Chicago Music Exchange and it was the most money I've ever spent in my life at the time. I think I paid, so this is, this is a 63 Custom Shop Strat and I paid, I think $2,000 for it. So the equivalent of like, I think at the time, 1,600, 1,700 pounds, but like I'd never spent that much money in my life. So I was like touring in a punk band at the time, eating dollar menu. And it was just every penny I'd ever saved in my life buying this guitar because I knew that that was going to be like the last tour playing that like style of music. Cause I like, I grew up playing metal, punk and rock, like rock music, basically enjoying bands like that, playing warped tour. We like toured around South America, Russia, Europe, UK, US. But I, I got so into like different artists and very like strat heavy artists, whether it was like Zach Brown Band or John Mayer, like singer songwriters, Ben Howard, like a bunch of artists like that. And I knew I wanted to make music more in that lane because I'd kind of, I'd done years of touring in the alternative scene. I loved it so much, but just wanted to try something else. So a Stratcaster with like single coils is the ultimate in terms of that world, like a real departure from the kind of Seymour Duncan invaders that I was kind of using before in different guitars like that. So this was really like going down a different fork in the road for me. And I remember everything about like when I went into the shop to play this guitar, fell in love with it and got it. I didn't buy it then and there. I had to go to sleep and think about it, wake up in the morning, couldn't stop thinking about it. And then I got it delivered to the house I was staying just before my flight. So it literally turned up, took it out of the cardboard box, got on the flight and yeah, it's still, it's still one of my favorite guitars. I've got another Strat at home, which is a Dale Wilson, like master built, which is still really nice, but this is a bit darker because of, because of the fingerboard here, it just adds a little more weight to the sound. So a lot better for touring. And also you don't want to bring a 10 grand guitar like Dale Wilson out with you on the road. This is expensive enough to be honest, but it's so nice. I've had such a connection with this guitar. I wouldn't change a thing on this. It's like, it's actually a team built custom shop Strat. So there's been a lot of love and care gone into every bit of the setup, the pickup choices, everything. So yeah, like this for me, it's perfect. The tape isn't perfect, but the way I play every now and then I'll just like nudge this. And because of the setup I'm using, which I'll talk to you in a bit, like a super sensitive with any volume adjustment on the guitar. Like it takes, it takes the guts out of it. If you move it and like tiny bit. So that's why I have this ugly tape, but on it, I should come up with something else. I was going to take the volume pot off, but I don't want to lose it. So basically this lives on the neck pickup. It be honest, man, when I'm playing just by myself and singing, this is where I want this guitar to live. And the neck pickup on this is just particularly gorgeous. Anyway, I don't know if this is on, uh, we'll get it turned on in a bit, but, um, yeah, tone controls all the way up volume all the way up. Uh, always have a whammy bar on usually if, if I'm home again, I don't, I didn't bring it cause I don't want to lose it on tour, but usually have an ashtray cover over this mainly because I think it looks sick, but, um, I quite like playing with those, uh, because where I palm you, it doesn't get in the way, but, um, they do ping off quite easily and I want to keep all the original parts of this guitar because yeah, naturally you don't want to lose them. Tuning is just absolute standard. Um, elixirs, which has actually just been restrung and reset up. Uh, this is actually a surf green guitar. It had the, on the tag at Chicago music exchange, it said it was seafoam green, but it actually isn't. Um, we looked into it a bit further and it's, uh, but I love the relic job on it. So cool where you can see just this highlighting here. And there's a really nice bit right here. See that? It's like these three scratch marks basically, like, but it's just the paint and it's a nitro finish. So you get all this cracking on the finish and stuff like that. So it's not like a relic job in the sort of aggressive nature of a Wilson guitar, but I love this. I love having like best of both worlds. All right, cool. So this is what I'm using on the road at the moment. Super simple. This is actually my first time touring solo with a quad cortex. Um, so I'm kind of getting used to them, but the idea was to, well, put it this way, the rehearsal and prep time for this tour for me was so short because we had so many things to do for the next single, uh, album. We like just announced a Wembley show. So it was hectic before I left. So I basically had four hours to program this and I tried to model my, um, my twin reverb at home, which is a silver face drip edge twin, which is for me, it's the ultimate twin reverb from the sixties, all original. And it just sounds insane, but I couldn't figure out how to do it properly. And the modeling, like when I tried to model it, what I got back, it didn't have the same like impulse response or anything like that. So what I did is found a preset on the, on the cloud, uh, for this, which is actually modeling a deluxe reverb and it sounded pretty nice. It sounded quite close to me. And then I just found, um, people modeling pedals that I use in my chain. So my chain, if I had a proper pedal board here and an amp, it would start with, um, like an 1176 style compressor thing, like a Cali like, uh, compressor, uh, into an EP booster, but all the way down. So I don't actually use really anything in terms of gain. It's just going through the circuit, which is enough. Um, and then that goes into a seat. Yeah. So I've put an EP booster here, like a fake one, essentially say fake, I guess it's modeled from somewhere. So I've tried to recreate my board. Then it goes into a color box. So I found someone, it doesn't sound exactly like color box if I'm honest, because there's so many, uh, kind of, um, my new details into how I'd set a color box pedal at home, but this is kind of close. Um, then it go into a one for euphoria. And again, I'm doing the best I can to make it sound like mine at home. And then I go into, uh, a blues driver. I couldn't find a blues driver, um, uh, replication on here. So I've got a blues breaker, but I, to be honest, I don't think I ever use it because it just pushes too much. And when I find when I push these pedals, like gain wise, and this is definitely like, because I don't know how to use these probably yet. People are so good at these and I'm not, but, um, I find the way I'm doing it at the moment. It just introduces this a very digital top end, which I don't like. Um, so then I'm going into a poly octaver. Uh, I'd use a Pog2 at home, but I get something kind of similar on this and that's not always on, but I use it a lot. And then into a vibrato, I'd use one of the Wazzacrafts, uh, Wazzacraft, I don't know how you say it. Um, custom, uh, boss vibratos at home, proper Mac DeMarco style, like very slow rate and medium to high depth. Uh, I don't use it all the time, but on the right songs, it's just gorgeous. Uh, tremolos on pretty much for the whole set. I use a, uh, what do I use at home? I've seen this pedal every day of my life. I can't remember who makes it. Um, but anyway, a trem's a trem. To be honest, most of the time I use the trem circuit on the actual twin because it's lovely. Um, and then, yeah, this is a 65 deluxe amp model I'm using. Uh, then a delay, I'm using a mono tape delay, which is basically like eighth notes synced to temp. So I've got all my tempos set for every song. Um, quite a lot of sort of modulation in the repeats. I use a space echo at home. So I've got like that unit set up on top of my amp and again, you can't really get that exact feel, but it's quite close. I also, um, try and recreate settings that I have on a carbon copy here. Uh, which to be honest, I probably should have just bought and chucked it on here, but I like it self-oscillating right to the point of like too much. So you know, all that sort of stuff. Um, again, really hard to, to fake that without the actual pedals. So many, I can't even get that out of, um, like different delay pedals. The carbon copy just absolutely nails it. It's one of my favorites. Uh, then I've got a dotted eighth delay, which I sometimes chuck on. It's the same settings as the, uh, the eighth delay. I just kind of chuck that on just if I want a little bit more movement. Uh, reverbs. So at home I just use, uh, I say at home, in my studio, if I've got my amp out, which I never, I never bring my, if I had a twin reverb, I'm always using the swing circuit on there, probably sitting around four. Uh, the magic spot I like. Um, and then I would stack that with reverb pedals. So think like a big sky or sometimes a I like like adding a big wash verb at the end of the chain to be a holy grail. Uh, and that's usually I'd dime that about 11, 10, between 10, 11 o'clock. Um, and yeah, that is basically it. Uh, I know that these things can be amazing, but this is the first time touring with a quad. I also like in the studio at home, I use an axe effects some again, sometimes if I need to just dial in something very quick, but for the most part, man, a 57 and a Royer in front of my twin reverb with that pedal board chain that I've just mentioned, um, other pedals that would be in there would be a shallow water, um, for like this weird kind of, uh, unconventional vibrato and also a timeline and a Mobius. Um, trying to think anything else I've got on that board. Um, fuzz factory, Zvex I use sometimes and, uh, a big muff and that's, that's about it. And the last thing I use, sometimes I bring it out on tour. I didn't on this run because I wanted to keep it just super simple is a chroma console. Um, they're just amazing, but to be honest, my favorite way to when I record guitars now, most of the time, um, DI, I'm just going for a phase where I love the sound of a DI. So chucking it straight into a TG two, uh, channel strip, absolutely cooking it on the way in through a chroma console as well. And I love doing that with baritone guitars, but actually going further than baritone guitars at base six is a love at the moment or rubber guitars going into a chroma, into a TG two, getting absolutely fried. And that's my favorite guitar at the moment. Um, yeah, let's talk about Mike. So this is, uh, let me get this model for you. This is a nine six five. So this is Sennheiser's condenser version, essentially of this Mike nine three five. Um, usually to be honest, I have two nine four fives that have gone missing and we found these in the units. I don't know where they came from, but they're spares. I love the nine four fives over these, but again, their spares, um, in case this goes down and this can sometimes be too harsh. You need to spend time in sound check, just taming some of the high end. Um, but condenser Mike's good because just get a little bit more power, um, and ability to sing away from the mic, which I like to do in little ad libs and atmospheric bits in the set. Um, and it's, it's great. Just like being right up on the grill as well. It can take it. Thank you so much for checking out, uh, this very small amount of gear that I've got with me. I appreciate it. So lovely to see you again, man. Um, yeah, my name's Sam Ryder. Uh, check out our new single. Oh, okay. Coming out 23rd of May. Um, album comes out later in the fall. Uh, we've just announced the sharp Wembley arena in London later in the year to coincide with the album release, which is berserk. Uh, first saw some 41 at that venue. That was my first ever show. So it's amazing that we're like getting to that level, man. I'm so grateful. Thank you. It's blowing my mind. Uh, we've got Glastonbury, uh, in the summer, in the UK, if you want to come and join us there and, uh, other things I can't remember, but bless you. Take care of yourselves and I'll see you soon. Peace. Love you. Bye.