“It’s like saying ‘Oh man, I love Dale Earnhardt. That’s why I drive a Chevy, you know, just like Dale’s.’” Instead, he’s just ...
...a musician, sharing what he learns with those of us who don’t have the time and resources to do the same experiments.
When asked why he started making the videos to begin with, he says, “I have noticed that knowing the answer without having any proof doesn’t always work the same as when you actually capture it on videos. ...
...So I try to make sure to capture stuff on video as much as I can.” They have a surprisingly great production value, for a man who admits that at the beginning he actually didn’t own a camera.
Instead, Lill gave me a gift for free—the knowledge that speaker cabinets and tone settings matter more than the hunk of wood and strings in my hand.
This is valuable information, given the amount of time I’ve spent hunting for guitars and not messing with tone knobs.
“I’ve seen a lot of different approaches to how people convey information on the internet, and the way that I’ve chosen to go is as unbiased and as kind as I can,” he says.
“It doesn’t really matter whether someone believes me or not. It’s just a guitar.”
Lill says, “The Anderson Tele has been my number one since high school.” The other guitars and bass are for specific sounds but aren’t used as often. Lill notes that he only uses the bridge pickup in the telecaster.
Lill uses a 2001 Boss CS-3 compressor pedal to even out the different volumes of different guitars.
That goes into an Xotic RC Booster for solo volume and a 2020 Nobles ODR-1 overdrive (painted black) and 2017 Paul Cochrane Timmy V2 (white tape added to read “Jimmy”) for a bit of grit on his tone.
Then signal hits a 1990s Ernie Ball volume pedal and 2018 Sonic Research ST-300 Turbo Tuner Mini for volume and tuning control.
“The tuner, CS-3, and delay get the most use,” he says.
“Tremolo is usually for the Bass6. Everything else is just in case.”
“I’m working on figuring out my amp situation right now,” he says.
“I imagine one of these three will end up being my main amp.”