Spun Stories
Interviews with bands, builders and fans of Cottonwood Music Emporium
Hurricane Helene Charitable Donations
In support of the relief efforts Cottonwood Music Emporium will donate 100% of all profits from the sale of Asheville Music Tools effects to charities to support the Hurricane Helene relief.
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Cottonwood Correspondents: Greg Djerrahian of SolidGoldFX
This September, we talked with Greg Djerrahian — the founder of SolidGoldFX — about some of the things that he loves about being in the pedal industry. We talk about the in-house building process, the technical aspects of designing a new SolidGoldFX pedal, and the fabled search for the "golden tone."
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Cottonwood Correspondents: The Beings of Interstellar Audio Machines
September brings you an interview with the Beings of Interstellar Audio Machines, the founders of a new boutique pedal company with some really stellar pedal offerings. They have a ton of effusive endorsements from artists like Santana, Guns N' Roses, and Bon Jovi, and each pedal comes with a unique backstory from the Interstellar Audio universe. Learn a little bit about how they got started and how they create their extraterrestrial pedals.
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Cottonwood Correspondents: Philippe Herndon of Caroline Guitar Company
For the month of August, we have a Q&A with Philippe Herndon, the founder and owner of Caroline Guitar Company, which makes handwired boutique guitar pedals and just launched a new fuzz pedal called the CROM.
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Cottonwood Correspondents: Doug Kauer of Kauer Guitars
Our article offering for July features Doug Kauer, the founder of Kauer Guitars. Kauer makes beautiful boutique guitars, all custom-built in Sacramento, CA. We asked a few questions to try to understand his creative process and perspective on the guitars he builds.
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Cottonwood Correspondents: Nick Greer of Greer Amps
Our Cottonwood Correspondent this month is Nick Greer, the founder of Greer Amps. For those not familiar, Greer Amps is a pedal manufacturer that hand-assembles some of the most esteemed distortion pedals on the market. We asked a few questions to get a perspective of someone who creates the gear that we're all interested in!
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Tech Tips: Vacuum Tube Crisis
This month's Tech Tips will tell you how to make the vacuum tubes in your tube amplifiers last longer, given the current geopolitical situation in Ukraine that has led to sanctions being placed on the import of new tubes.
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Cottonwood Correspondents: Holden Days
For this month’s Cottonwood Correspondent, we have Timothy Andrews from Holden Days, a Southern California-based dreamfolk project. Like always, we sent over a few questions that will get inside Timothy’s process and relationship with music.
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Tech Tips: Excessive Dryness And Fluctuating Humidity Levels Can Ruin Your Guitar
This month’s Tech Tips concerns how environmental factors such as dryness and humidity can impact the health of your guitars, as well as how to solve for this problem.
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Tech Tips: Tube Amplifier Maintenance
Tube amps aren’t without fault, and like many refined instruments and machines, need periodic maintenance to perform at their best and prevent failures - just like changing your car’s oil and giving it a tune-up. With our cars, we understand that changing the oil every 3-4k miles is recommended to keep the car running as it should. However, with tube amps, we don’t have regular maintenance intervals. Despite this, it’s important to understand that maintenance still needs to be performed eventually in order to keep them running smoothly. A lot of questions arise about maintaining tube amps, since we have all been told of the danger caused by their lethally high voltages. With this in mind, here are a few points to keep in mind about tube amp ownership and maintenance.
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Cottonwood Correspondents: Ryan Guzman of Gear Fever
Ryan Guzman runs Gear Fever, a wonderful YouTube channel that offers demos of a wide array of gear in order to make it easier for guitarists to choose products that will help them get closer to their personal signature sound. We asked him a few questions to get a sense of what inspires and influences his content creation process.