ASK EQD : Jamie Stillman
Malcolm X Abram
Welcome folks. We here at EarthQuaker love to interact with folks. We love to hear from musicians, fans, customers, nerds, collectors from the hardcore pedal effects fetishists to the innocent, doe-eyed, pedal curious. To keep the conversations flowing along the Information Superhighway, we’ve started a monthly Q&A feature called ASK EQD.
To kick off our inaugural interactive missive, here are 10-ish questions from YOU answered by one of our Fearless Leaders; Founder, Lead Designer and President, Jamie Fuckin’ Stillman.
Let’s get to the Q’s and the A’s, shall we?
@necrocomiccon: What’s a current pedal you wish you made (strictly from a design standpoint)?
JFS: I have two answers. One is the Fuzz Face, I still think it’s the best fuzz circuit. A more modern production pedal would be the Subdecay M3. It’s a monophonic guitar synthesizer that I think is based on the Korg MS20 in some way. It’s really a perfect guitar synth, I think it’s the best one that exists right now. And it kind of reminds a little of the old Korg X911 which is my all time favorite guitar synth.
@alan_garden: I believe that you care a lot about clients needs. Do you think there is a possibility to make an EQD power supply?
JFS: Yes I do think there is a possibility to make an EQD power supply and we did actually start that process a couple of years ago; like 4 or 5 year ago, and we weren’t happy with the prototype so I just kind of put it aside. But now a lot of things have changed in what’s available so it’s probably something we’ll revisit in the future.
@cmds4410: Do you have any plans to make pedals with MIDI support?
JFS: (laughs) Not at the moment. If I need to elaborate on that, MIDI control is not a thing that I ever use and therefore I haven't paid much attention to it. Because I usually design pedals for some sort of personal use or reason, it hasn’t really crossed my mind. That said, we get a lot of requests for it so it is a thing that maybe we’ll look at in the future, but right now it’s not a concern.
@danniewoehner: Amp in a pedal with F'n fuzz?
JFS: Um ... If they are asking if we would make an amplifier preamp with a fuzz in front of it in pedal form, then sure, it's not out of the question. I’ve made things like that for myself before, but there is nothing like that for EarthQuaker on the horizon. But I don’t recommend fucking fuzz. Probably not a good idea.
@eogas: What's the company's position on hobbyists building one-off EQD clones for personal use? Is this frowned upon? Begrudgingly ignored? Or perhaps encouraged to some small extent?
JFS: I feel like this is a tough one because this is how I got started and obviously we build pedals based on other people’s pedals sometimes. I don't mind that people have reversed-engineered EarthQuaker circuits and then post them on the internet. It slightly bothers when they make PCBs and then sell them for personal profit. But if someone makes an EarthQuaker pedal and then they list it on Reverb or Ebay and they make it look like an EarthQuaker pedal or use the EarthQuaker official description as their own description or say the words “EarthQuaker Devices” in the listing, we will definitely tell them to stop. We don’t like that. But if they want to make one-offs for personal use, then I don’t really mind it.
@ottoggs: Is your graphic design and pedal branding based on Lovecraft?
JFS: I read this question and I had to look up Lovecraft so the answer is no. I will say that I kind of see why they would ask that question. But, no, I’ve never read Lovecraft. The biggest influence on me for the branding and graphic design would probably be like 90’s punk rock flyers, the school of Bauhaus and Swiss graphic design.
@drwicksguitar: Do you like spaghetti and ravioli?
JFS: Yeah, totally. I’m a human Garfield.
@hourglassny: Why doesn’t Astral Destiny have a full wet output? Seems like a no-brainer for an ambient pedal.
JFS: (chuckles) There’s two reasons. Number one - and for me the most important reason is - I’ve never used a pedal full wet in my life. I don’t like the way a full wet reverb sounds, I don’t like the way a full wet delay sounds. So that’s why it doesn’t interest me. But, I recognize the need for it. Especially in studio use where people like to have a full wet signal they can mix as they please, I get it. The other answer is from a design standpoint I did try to do full wet but there's a volume drop at 50% that I couldn’t get around and I didn’t really like it and it also made the circuit significantly more complicated. We were trying to price it affordably and it already had a million other cool features so full wet and stereo were ideas that had to be taken off the table to make it an affordable, easy to produce pedal.
@dontshoothoopes: What would an EQD guitar be like? Amp? If EQD were a label, what artists would you bring onboard?
JFS: I actually make a lot of guitars in my free time. I can say an EarthQuaker guitar would probably incorporate: a Jazzmaster type body and tremolo, Fender scale, 10-inch radius neck with a vintage Fender Medium C profile, rosewood fretboard with block inlays and binding, and locking tuners. For the electronics, I would go with either humbuckers with a Les Paul wiring arrangement or single coils in a Telecaster arrangement. Yeah, so that’s what I think an EarthQuaker guitar would be like. I think I’ve made a bunch of guitars with all these specs over the last 10 years, lol. I’m a big fan of Fender style guitars and the general Les Paul pickup arrangement.
For amps, I feel like I have three perfect amps. One is something solid state; my number one choice would be the vintage Music Man HD130 or something like a Sunn Beta Lead. In the tube amp world; I’d go with something like a ‘65 Bassman circuit for a clean amp or a Sunn Model T for a loud, dirty amp. From a sound perspective, what I care about is that it can keep getting louder, louder than you’d ever want it to be and have it stay relatively clean. That’s why I’m so fond of the HD130, you can keep throwing gain and sub octaves at it and it just takes it without giving in. If it’s going to break up, I like the way that a Vintage Fender Bassman or the Sunn Model T breaks up more than I like what a Marshall does. I like to have the pedals do most of the work and I like the amp to have a lot of low end. So, big headroom, lots of output volume and a lot of low end. Pretty much the opposite of what a Marshall does, though I have grown to really love the Marshall Super Lead.
EarthQuaker does actually have a record label and we are putting out local (Ohio) bands with goals to release records based on EQD sessions and releases from my old record label. Maybe people don’t know but I used to run a record label (Donut Friends Records) a long time ago. I would say (the label) would primarily be like more in the experimental, indie rock and heavy metal world.
@5klove: How often do you make a pedal bc it’s something you want on your board VS making something for the market? Examples?
JFS: 100 percent of the time and examples would be every EarthQuaker pedal, lol. The market is obviously taken into consideration, but I’ve never worked on something that I didn’t want to use myself.
Bonus Question!
@robbyisdope: Afterneath is one of the best modules in my synthesizer rack (because it has a wizard on it). Are there any plans for bringing other pedals to Eurorack, or maybe creating a whole new capability just for modular synthesizers?
JFS: The short answer is yes. We are actively working on more stuff for the Eurorack format.
Has it done well?
JFS: Compared to the numbers we see on pedals, no. But in the world of modular synth, I think it has done pretty well. It wasn’t a smash hit, but it’s a way smaller marketplace that isn’t heavily effect driven. We went into it thinking that if we sell 1000 of these it will be considered a successful product launch and it has done close to to that so I’m not disappointed in it at all.
So occasionally throw a new Eurorack out?
JFS: I could see us doing it more regularly but it takes a lot for us to launch a new product so I would expect us to suddenly release a whole line any time soon. Hopefully at least one a year. I can see doing more pedal conversions like the Afterneath, but I’d love to focus on developing new products specifically for the Eurorack format.
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Follow @earthquakerdev on Instagram to submit questions for the next ASK EQD and our upcoming Tech Q&A with Lane Sparber.
Malcolm X Abram is a recovering reporter and music writer and a proud 40 year guitar noodler. He lives, works and plays in the bucolic dreamland of Akron, Ohio in an old house with two dogs who don’t really like each other and way too many spiders.
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