Chris Benson of Benson Amps (Vintage Reissue)

This week, we’re digging way, way back into the vault for a proper Tone Mob reissue.

While I was in Nashville helping move the Stringjoy shop, I needed something special for this week’s episode and decided it was finally time to revisit one of the oldest artifacts in the archive: episode two. Yep, the second episode ever.

In this early conversation, I’m joined by my good buddy Chris Benson of Benson Amps, recorded in the sweltering attic of his old Portland house with no AC, a couple of SM57s in hand, and probably far more sweat involved than any podcast should require. At the time, Chris had just quit his job to go all-in on Benson Amps, and listening back now, it’s a wild snapshot of two guys at the beginning of their own strange little journeys in the gear world.

We get into amp design, low-wattage magic, speaker efficiency, tape echoes, plate reverbs, why some “bad” tones work better in a mix, and the beautiful sickness that makes guitar people obsess over all of this in the first place.

It’s raw, a little scrappy, very early-internet, and a whole lot of fun to revisit now that the show is well past 500 episodes.

So here it is: Tone Mob episode two, reissued. Enjoy.

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