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by Guest Author February 14, 2022 9 min read
I’ve been running businesses for as long as I can remember. There’s a story my parents always tell of a teacher breaking up a fight between two kids in the playground and both kids pulling out a little bit of paper with “karate licence” written on it. A short interrogation of the offenders later and a 7-year-old me is in the headteacher’s office for, apparently, being a genius.
Ten Pence each I sold them for, exactly the price of a pack of crisps at break time. My punishment? I was put in charge of the tuck shop, running a team of 4, selling the crisps and drinks at break and doing the stock and take. We could learn a lot from Mr Patten.
The first business I ran that had anything to do with music was a by-product of being utterly fed up with the local music scene. Nobody wanted to book my band and I wasn’t willing to brown-nose anyone that potentially might, or ingratiate myself with the crowd, and so I did it myself with a little help from my friends.
While all the other lads from college were playing Pink Floyd covers and acoustic renditions of “Working Class Hero” for the tenth time that night down the local pub, we had booked our own function room to play in.
We played loud, we shouted a lot, and we had songs like “Countdown to Love”; a brash punk late-night booty call from Richard Whitely to Carol Vorderman, which had a 2 guitar, bass and drum arrangement of the last five seconds of the Countdown clock as the middle eight. There was also “Rocketfish”; a song about a fish with a rocket pack backpack who fought crime and apparently “shall never be dead-ed”. And then, obviously, we did the classic local band stuff; For Whom The Bell Tolls, Teenage Kicks, Where Is My Mind, Turning Japanese…all that.
We captured the hearts, minds, and spirit of fellow local moshers who were also trying to emotionally and physically navigate a deprived scouse spillover town filled with kids in trackies with names like “Danny Mac”, and drive-by abuse from happy hardcore hatchbacks with a hole in the exhaust. Zaney songs, fat riffs, fatter pants: our music brought them out in their droves. Our people were free and we turned our two-fish-and-five-loaves outfit into a steady diet of some of the best underground bands in the UK scene.
Before we knew what was going on, it had morphed into a walk-in crowd of 200-300 people every month. We had a police liaison, we were in national magazines, we’d made the front pages of the local papers for being a menace to society, and I had a full time job for 4 years. For any bands that were knocking around in the early 2000s onwards, Monsters Of Mayhem at The Quayside - that was me.
"The first night we set up where nobody would book our band": Marc, Soundlad Liverpool
From there, I have done equipment hire, studio consulting, live sound, dep’ing, function work…you just end up doing whatever comes up, and to be honest once you’re in, there’s no getting out. I’ve tried and here I am, 20 years later, writing a blog for a business involved in music about a business I run in music.
Most of the work I have done has been live sound, small venue stuff. I’ve mixed different bands of the same sort of genres in the same room (your “rock club” gig), the same band in different rooms (your “tour” gig), and then the same room with country one night and hardcore the next (the “live music venue” gig). You develop profiles in your head. A band walks in with a fiddle player, a lap-steel and 5 singers all holding guitars and wanting a mic, so you go, “right, ‘Callin’ Baton Rouge,’” and you apply that profile. I like to think of it as live production not sound engineering. It’s an imposition on the band at the end of the day but since there’s no objective route to a good sound - it’s bound to happen - you may as well bring something to the table. And you do, eventually. You start to develop a talent for being able to tease out the great things about the band you are working with that night; you learn how to present a cohesive and creative image that fits with the room for the people in it and eventually this becomes your reputation.
See, for most people there is a separation between your job and your hobbies, and music for the majority is a hobby. One night during the first week of a 72 consecutive night booking (with each night featuring three 45-minute sets), our singer was approached by someone who was in a band too, of course, who thought she lacked passion and should “give a little more”. And granted, when you have a further 65 dates ahead of you, your commitment to making sure you entirely encapsulate the spirit of Tina Turner in her version of Proud Mary at the start of your third set, four days into a 72-day gig may indeed seem a little lacklustre to the passionate amateur. The reality, however, for a professional is entirely different. Whether you like it or not, your voice has to last the course. Whether you like it or not, sound check is for 30 minutes and the doors will open at 7:30. Whether you like it or not, there’s other people’s livelihoods at stake.
Don’t get me wrong, nobody in this business got their job down at the local job centre or received on-the-job training from a conscientious supervisor. We all got into this for the passion and all through different means, but at the end of the day there’s a job to be done and the true professional hasn’t got time for all the indulgences of the amateur. The professional is married to their industry in a way the singleton amateur can’t understand - and that’s fine.
In another one of these famous stories from my childhood, I put two wires from my Tandy Electronics Lab in the neutral and live sockets of my bedside plug, secured them in place with my Thomas The Tank Engine night light and blew every fuse in the house when I switched it on. My Grandads fault. He was a huge radio enthusiast and a bit of a legend in the amateur radio world; he taught me everything I know. I’m going to let you in on a little secret now. Ham radio guys are like the illuminati of the electronics world. They’re embedded in every facet of the electronics and signal processing industry. They have little ways of spotting each other, little emblems they wear, and they have code names that start with things like “G1”, or “M7”, or “2E3”. The headquarters of the Radio Society of Great Britain are actually situated in a hut in Bletchley Park which, for the uninitiated or anyone who hasn’t seen “The Imitation Game”, was a top secret facility during World War II where Alan Turing created the world’s first computer to help crack the German codes. Turns out if you can build a radio you can build anything, and everyone in the business knows this.
Starting a pedal company? It’s in there somewhere. In our first year-and-a-bit as a company, SoundLad Liverpool has built nearly 750 pedals, an absolutely cracking start and we appreciate every sale. But in a wider view, we’re still quite a small outfit. From what experiences I have had so far, I think I can probably do the old man thing and offer up a couple of pointers, but I certainly couldn’t give a definitive guide because I’ve got no idea how it happened! So for the “skip ahead to the good bits” types:
by Jim Button April 18, 2023 12 min read
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by Jim Button June 24, 2022 5 min read
super fun trem, decent sound, huge volume. havent spent a lot of time messing about with it, but did have a play with the slide and drift feature which are a nice bonus. cant wait to have more time to play around with it.
Boost Guitar Pedals are great as always, fast delivery
been playing it a few days now, and have it set up so it works with with whatever i thow at it. its in my chain after OD but Before Distortion. feedback dial is great and can have it very far clockwise before it sends you in an infinity loop, mix is a bonus, i haven't messed about with the shapes much yet because i found a dreamy setting i dont want to change. would highly recommend isolated power suppy, it did not like daisy chain or cheap single wall one, but works smooth with isloated brick
Boost Guitar is great again to got it within 24 hours of shipping
Perfect for that traynor amp growl on bass. There’s a lot of scope with gain and EQ controls (which sound ace wherever you dial them in). Had the Tronographic Rusty Box before this which I regrettably had to sell; this is a perfect (and smaller, less power hungry) substitute.
I spent months searching for an affordable vibe pedal that actually sounded authentic.
Not only does this have the very sound that I was after, without a ton of tweaking, but it is priced reasonably too. It is not at the cheap end of the market, but for a hand-built pedal with dual speeds this is unbeatable.
The sound is spot on. Warm and rich with the throb missing from many of the lower-priced pedals. The second speed makes it easy to switch between chord and solo settings.
The delivery was amazing too - ordered in Friday afternoon and delivered on Sunday morning!
I can’t recommend this highly enough to anyone looking for the best univibe around.
add another 5 stars, im no pro but i know what sounds i like and the Bloom is the sound i like. ive had Boss BD2, donner dumble drive, Tumnus and Tumnus deluxe but to me The Bloom tops them all. its a well built easy to dial in. having full gain is so clear and not nosiy. only tried with my strat single coils atm. the distortion isint the best but im comparing it to the Drunk Beaver Batv2 and have a feeling that its a layer distortion for another distortion pedal. fuzz is lush. the chip and fat switch really bring it to live and gives you more options for sound. i cant believe this is made by 1 guy. To me Drunk Beaver are up there with the best pedal makers. could send hours going on about the great things. and im only useing a boss katana mk2 no tube amp but you can get some faux tube headroom with the right switch. if you like the demos, well i got good news, it sound way better in person
Boost Guitat Pedals are great too, fast delivery, great communication. couldnt ask for a better store
Bone white Davies 1611
The Bleak District Tapescape is one of the best delay and ambience style pedals ever invented. The controls are all intuitive but highly flexible, the sounds are rich and detailed, the modulation can go from dreamy to nightmarish very quickly, and all of that inside a small footprint with a low power requirement. It's difficult to get a bad sound out of it, honestly.
Add in that Boost shipped it out quickly and it arrived with a nice note written on the invoice, is there anything else you could ask for? Definitely will be buying more from both Boost and Bleak District in future.
Part came as described. Website was easy use.
very cool pedal
Awesome service and communication all along!
Will gladly order again
I ordered a set of strings from Boost, that did not initially turn up. After contacting Boost via the website they immediately sent out another set (no questions asked). Both sets arrived a few days later (Thanks Royal Mail!). Boost were prompt in dealing with the issue (gave) me a set of strings and got things sorted out. Highly recommend you use these guys.
My favourite strings, at a great price! Very reasonable postage rates and speedy service. My first purchase from Boost, but will definitely not be my last. Hassle free, excellent...
Jazzmaster happy🙏
I didn’t know that particular manufacturer from Italy, but I definitely recommend their "Vintage Vibe”. It’s simple, intuitive, it looks awesome, the build quality seems impeccable, and most importantly, it sounds fantastic.
Pre-ordered the Tapescape through Boost Pedals. Great pedal, great order experience
Thank you. I'm very satisfied !!!