pedalboard Archives - Martin Yam Møller

Ricky Mendoza – The Screaming Hearts

1. Favourite knob or fader or switch on a piece of gear and why?

The gain knob on the Bellari RP220 tube preamp is so damn delicious, especially when hooked to a guitar. What you get is the unique crunch of Neutral Milk Hotel’s Aeroplane Over the Sea. It’s a crunch that I’d been looking to emulate and when I read that Robert Schneider (the producer of that album) did not use any guitar pedals and only used the Bellari RP220 preamp (cranked to the max!), I was determined as a dog to get me one. I found one used and it’s been a love affair ever since.

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

When I had ZERO audio gear, an iPad pro helped me realize sounds that were unavailable to me without hardware (special salute to the independent plugin makers). All I had was an acoustic guitar, a mic, zoom h4 and an iPad (along with affordable plugins). I got so much out of them and being on an iPad didn’t feel like I was on a computer. I still use it for recording, but as my journey rolls on, I have actual hardware that have replaced a lot of the digital plugins.

3. What setup do you bring on holiday or tour or commute etc.?

Lately, I try not to take any music gear to really be present and enjoy the place I am at, but I may sneak one of the Dream Machines (OP-1 Field or the Synthstrom Deluge) and either the ultra portable Martin backpacker guitar or the Screaming Heart guitar.

Another piece of “audio gear” that’s been surprising is an apple watch. Especially as an unobtrusive recorder, it’s been so damn handy to capture ideas and for field recordings (or for recording doctor appointments!). Very handy.

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

Music is an escape and I fucking hate computer screens! I write emails and work on a f’n computer all day and when it’s time to go in to the happy place of making music and writing poetry, there’s no better ware than hard-ware.

I collect typewriters, tape recorders (4 track and 2 tracks), analog preamps, guitar pedals, among other earthly tools. Don’t get me wrong, digital stuff is still super cool, but there’s nothing like the tactile feel of making music with an actual instrument. So, in short, I’ve spent my musical career converting all the software tools into hardware.

As a side note, I recently bought a Critter & Guitari Kaleidoloop and I’ve been loving the damn thing. The reason that I mention it, is because it brings both software and hardware together to make this unique tool to capture sounds and mangle them on the spot.

I truly love this time in our lives where hardware creators make these hybrid software/hardware instruments.

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

At a time when I was desperate for money, I sold my OG OP-1 and it felt as if I had sold a friend. Like Tom Hanks losing Wilson. I deeply regretted it.

Things got better and I got a new OP-1 field and all the gripes and shortcomings I had with the OG were now fixed and I had a new and improved best friend. And if you’re reading this OG OP-1, I am so damn sorry.

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

The Screaming Heart Guitar turns feelings into sounds. She’s a beautiful Martin acoustic-electric and can make sadness come alive, fill the room with angst or make a grown man rage with utter hatred against this cruel world. It is majestic.

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

Another Martin acoustic-electric guitar.

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

The Synthstrom Deluge. It is so beautifully annoying.
It is a magic machine that is both simple and complex. It is a tactile piano roll that is ready to work at the drop of a hat.

What is annoying is my ambition to put in my favorite sampled instruments and make it my go-to instrument that’ll help me create at the speed of thought. A feat that is yet to flourish, but will one day. You’ll see Martin!

When I first saw (21 years ago) how Robert Rodriguez made music for his movies (https://youtu.be/c9-R6Fgzi9c?t=175) I was hooked, now I can achieve this in a super tiny and portable music machine.

9. Most surprising tip or trick or technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

I am floored by how cool the compressor sounds on vocals. I have a Bellari Dual Tube Compressor and the sound is magical (paired with the Bellari preamp). The compressor and I are yet to be besties, but every time we work together it is an adventure filled with joy.

Side note: I always had a compressor plugin that works well, but my goal is to get real-time effects (without computers).

Artist or Band name?

Ricky Mendoza on streaming platforms and when performing live we go by Ricky Mendoza and the Screaming Hearts Collective.

Genre?

Folk-Punk

Selfie?

Where are you from?

From the border between Mexico (Coahuila) and Texas (United States). Got the best of both worlds. Currently reside in Austin, Texas.

How did you get into music?

At 35, I was at low point in my life. I was getting a divorce and my passion (up to this point) was making independent films (I had made 2 films). So, I had no more money (making movies was an expensive hobby) and I had all the time in the world, so I bought a guitar and decided to learn how to sing and play guitar at the same time. Thanks to the wonders of ultimate guitar (the website), I learned some chords and some punk songs. As time went on I discovered a sort of a “fraud”.

The “fraud” was that many of my favorite songs used the same chords that other songs used (and many of them used the same chord structures). This was a huge revelation to me.

I had also read that the most popular songs in the world were written in the key of C and G. This simplified things even more for me.

At that time, I had begun to write poetry and one day, in my small apartment a chord structure started playing in my head. As I was playing the chords with the guitar, I sang the words in melody and like magic, I had invented a song.

I couldn’t believe it. In one sitting and in about 4 hours of work, I had a song. In contrast, each of our independent films had taken about 4 years to make. I was stunned and it was a glimmer of light in those dark times.

I began making more and more songs and that has snowballed into 3 full-length albums, tons of of live shows and collaborating with some amazing humans along the way. It’s been 12 years now and it’s been an incredible journey so far.

What still drives you to make music?

Music is life and there is no life without music. It sounds cheesy, but there’s no way around it.

Even though my genre is Folk-Punk, I love making ambient music. As a kid I loved movies so damn much that I would buy the soundtrack to a film to continue the experience into my daily life.

These days, I’ll turn on my music machines and just get lost in drones, in ethereal sounds and just play (no recording). Just like the thousands of meaningful conversations we’ve all had with our loved ones, it’s a deep connection, I feel like I’m connecting with myself at a very deep level when I play.

It sounds pretentious, but here’s the practical reason: Some days are just too damn rough for me. Sometimes I’m really overwhelmed with juggling everything that has to do with life (work, business, family, etc) and having a space where I can just go in and play music for the fun of it is so damn stress relieving. It really is therapy for me.

How do you most often start a new track?

If I’m playing guitar and there’s something that excites me, whether it be a riff or a chord progression, I’d get my most recent poems and start joining the words with the music. Most of the time, the tracks won’t work but I don’t judge. I just let it happen, record the track on my voice notes app and let it sit there for a night.

I come back the next day, listen and if it excites me, I’ll develop the tune. Otherwise it’ll go into the sea of archives.

How do you know when a track is finished?

Until satisfaction levels are at 100. But it’s interesting (with the passing of time) to hear something that was done in the past and think, “I could’ve done better”. I try not to judge too harshly because as time passes, I’m a different person with a lot more knowledge and more experience so it is very unfair to judge my past self like that.

I like to think of my past work as a diary and to be proud of the work that I could (to the best of my abilities).

My main goal is to make the music that I wish my favorite artists could make if they were me. And since, they’re not, I have to make that music myself but still honor how my favorite songs sound and try to capture that sprit.

Show us your current studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

I’ve made little labels all over my office that read “Don’t think. Feel.” This is from the legendary writer Ray Bradbury, who had this sign over his typewriter
(https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ij8ziAN5pTU).

Another label I have around the office is “surrender control”. This is from author Michael Singer. I’ve been learning to be part of life and try not to control every damn thing. It’s a struggle but that’s where I’m at.

Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.

The latest record is called THE NEW HURT and it’s a 32 minute trip you won’t forget. It’s got songs about emotional breakdowns, rough sex, death and journeys into the unknown.

Take a listen and if you like it please add it to your favorite playlist (it helps a lot).

You can listen or watch the music videos here: rickym.org

Mike Berndt – Pedal Of the Day

1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?

I tend to lean towards the Feedback areas of pedals that can perform that function, so Feedback knobs, on Delays especially, and Gain knobs on dirt pedals would probably be tops. If you can mix the two and get an overdriven or distorted signal to feedback into self-oscillation, with the possibility to get completely out of control, that’s my happy place.

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

For years now, all of the demos I record have run through a Universal Audio Apollo Twin Duo, and I recently upgraded to the Twin X Duo. The preamps are so nice, and the plugins you can get replicate so much vintage gear right at your fingertips…it’s pretty incredible. The functionality / ease of use is perfect, it’s almost a plug-and-play type of situation, with as big or small of a learning curve as you want.

3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?

Well, we haven’t really left or gone out or done anything over the last year, but usually when I travel for a vacation, I just bring along an acoustic guitar. I’m surrounded by electronics and hardware and pedals the majority of the day, and vacation is a time to get away and take a break from all of that. The acoustic lets me get back to why I started playing guitar in the first place, lets me focus on the raw energy that those instruments bring, and opens up or reinvigorates a passion for stripped-down music that can sometimes get lost in the world of effects. Been using an Alvarez AD60SC for about 16 years now, and still love it, but really want a nice Martin or Taylor or something along those lines at some point.

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

I use some plugins with my UA Apollo Twin X Duo to clean up and finalize the audio for Pedal of the Day’s demos, but there’s something about having an actual rack of gear right in front of you that just can’t be replaced by a computer screen. Having a Teletronix LA-2A, Studer A800 and an actual vintage Tape Echo unit here in the studio would be rad. As for the opposite, they’re making pretty much everything you can think of into some form of plugin or patch these days, and there are many devices which let you run your analog effects straight into your recording, so the sky’s the limit there.

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

TONS of gear. I wish I could keep every single pedal or guitar or keyboard that I have ever owned, but I don’t have the space, and I wouldn’t make any money!

During the last Covid-infused year, I have had to get rid of some long-time favorites, but I think the ones that really hurt were my Moogerfooger Delay, Phaser,

Mooger Foogers LowPass, Murf and 12-stage Phaser

Low-Pass Filter and MuRF. I’d like to say I’ll have them all back again someday, but even since I sold them last year, the prices have skyrocketed, so those might just be gone for good.

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

I think all gear can be inspiring, even a piece that you may find boring or dull at first. With pedals especially, you need to sit down and really get to know them, how they act/react, what their key functions are, any hidden features or treasures they hide, waiting to be discovered, etc… Part of the fun of this line of work is the constant exploration and uncertainty about each effect, and since we all use them differently, there’s really no wrong way to go about that.

I think the demo community provides a lot of different perspectives on how each pedal can be utilized and exploited – the companies themselves seem to enjoy how different all the demos sound, as we each are giving an individualized interpretation of the effects, and come up with sounds the original designers might not have even thought of.

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

A vintage Fender Blackface Deluxe Reverb, a cheap-ish guitar (maybe a Strat or Tele) that I could mod and customize, and a Delay pedal. I have enjoyed swapping pickups and wiring out of guitars over the years, but haven’t had the time or focus to do so recently, and think that would be fun to jump back into.

The Deluxe Reverb is a perfect pedal platform, plus you already have the Reverb and Vibrato built in. Delays are by far my favorite effects, so it wouldn’t even really matter how wild or crazy it was, just something simple to get started, like a Boss DM-3 or a Way Huge Supa-Puss, something along those lines.

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

Years ago I bought a couple of old Ibanez rack delays from the ’80s, a DM1100 and a DM2000. They each have this Hold function that can be controlled by and external switch, and the DM2000 has one for its Modulation settings as well. The DM1100, when it’s set the way I have it and you play a note or chord and hit that Hold, it takes the audio and continually ramps it up and down, with a thick, seemingly uncontrollable modulation sound that is different every time. It can get super annoying, but also adds a certain layer of chaos into the mix that is just lovely to experience.

9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

There isn’t one specifically, but I love to dive into the more complex pedals (Microcosm, H9, ZOIA, etc) and see what hidden treasures await. The designing and execution of musical ideas over the last couple of years has been astounding, and I’m glad to be a part of bringing these sounds to people everywhere.