HardLore - HardLore Explores SWEETWATER Headquarters

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

We're in Fort Wayne, Indiana today at the legendary SWEETWATER headquarters! The nearly ONE MILLION square foot facility houses the largest music retailer in North America whose customer service is as legendary as their inventory.We were joined and guided by our Sweetwater Representatives/Sales Engineers of over ten years, Tad Shaffer and Jozy Franco for a FULL tour of nearly the entire facility. Thank you to Tad, Jozy and Sweetwater for having us.Edited by Steven Grise (@iamoneonenineseven) • Title sequence by Nicholas Marzluf (@marzluf)______________________________HardLore: A Knotfest SeriesJoin the HARDLORE PATREON to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes: https://patreon.com/hardlorepodJoin the HARDLORE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/jA9rppggef______________________________Cool links: HardLore Official Website/HardLore Records store: https://hardlorepod.com______________________________FOLLOW HARDLORE:INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/hardlorepod/TWITTER | https://twitter.com/hardlorepodSPOTIFY | https://spoti.fi/3J1GIrpAPPLE | https://apple.co/3IKBss2 FOLLOW COLIN:INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/colinyovng/TWITTER | https://www.twitter.com/ColinYovng FOLLOW BO:INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/bosxe/TWITTER | https://www.twitter.com/bosxe______________________________00:00 - Start03:11 - The Sweetwater Music Store14:04 - The Grand (Canyon) Audtorium20:26 - Sweetwater's In-House Studio24:02 - The Mythical 2nd Floor28:00 - Sweetwater University30:40 - The Warehouse35:07 - The CANDY37:21 - Sweewater Guitar Quality Control51:38 - Sweetwater Music Academy53:55 - MITCH GALLAGHER  HardLore: A Knotfest Series, Fueled by Monster EnergyEdited by Steven Grise • Title sequence by Nicholas MarzlufJoin the HARDLORE PATREON to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes.Join the HARDLORE DISCORD for community discussions and to participate in our future Q&A episodes.FOLLOW HARDLORE: INSTAGRAM, TWITTER, SPOTIFY, APPLEFOLLOW COLIN: INSTAGRAMFOLLOW BO: INSTAGRAM, TWITTER For sponsorship opportunities, email us! [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, welcome. It's Hardlore Time here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. How you doing, Bo? Where the hell are we? We are at Sweetwater HQ. This is the mecca of music stores. Any touring band knows you need stuff from Sweetwater to be on the road. If you're on the road, you're probably using something that you or somebody in your band order from Sweetwater. It's kind of the Amazon, for those who might not know, kind of the Amazon of music stuff, but in with much less derogatory connotation. Everything is treated with love.

If you order something, you get a phone call, you get chocolates in the mail. It's unbelievable. And we wanted to go to the heart of where this incredible service takes place and see what the operation is like, see what the ins and outs are like, we're gonna show you every single aspect

of a day at Sweetwater headquarters. Let's go in. But the problem, Colin, I feel, is we just don't have any guys, you know? That's true. We're gonna wonder. Oh my God. Is that?

This is, Stephen, come here. This is unbelievable. There's a family going in. There's a family going on. And then, behind them, it's Tad and Josie. Hello. Fellas. Hello.

How are you guys doing? Good. How are you? Now, I talk about Tad on the show all the time. Likewise. But for those who don't listen, Tad has been my rep and my entire family's rep for about 20 years now. Josie probably, Tad, 20 years. 12 to 15. Something like that. About. How long have you worked here, 10?

A decade? Just about. Yeah. Same. Yeah. Both of us have... There you go. So 20 years. 20 years. Combined. Combined. So let's... Do you guys mind showing us around Sweetwater HQ today? Let's do it. Thank you so much. This old... This is unbelievable. My God. Welcome. talking about yeah this is not what I expect no we expected this to be a series of cubicles maybe a receptionist some storage I expected a very efficient warehouse no we have all that still yeah we still have that okay we still have that

all right perfect Tad it's so nice to finally meet you after all these years after all the many memes I've made about you and Sweetwater in general do those get around the office yes my kids have seen them too They haven't saved. They do. They Google my name and brings up this man, I have a kill for this man. Okay. That's very confused.

I've done meme contests in the past. I haven't done one in a little while. Who won? Like Bobby from Signs of the Swarm. He's good? Yeah, he's pretty good. I have a Josie shirt. I have this on a shirt.

You got shirts? No. So we got, we got, we got shirts. on the Team Josie. Now it's in storage and I couldn't find it. But oh, and stickers. There you go. Lots of stickers. Well, I got memes that I made. So this is an actual store?

Yeah. So people can come here and shop anytime. Yeah, it's the largest music retail store in the U.S. In the US? In the United States. Yep. So we opened this side of the building in 2021, I believe. Right after COVID.

Right after COVID. Oh. And so we had a smaller music store area, which we've converted to our merchandising and marketing and all that other stuff. But, yeah, so this is new. We got the world's largest pedal display back there as well. We're going to have to take a look over and. We need that. Tad and Josie, I have a question for you.

What you got? How did we get assigned to you? Yeah, how does that happen? Is it like Hogwarts? Is there a sorting hat? A sorting hi-hat. It just depends. It could be completely random. It could be somebody that leaves and it just gets assigned to you. I think I worked with Taylor first.

Yes, you did. Just through that and it's kind of you and your mom and everybody. Yeah, it's just all random. I wonder if you have my dad. I think I've talked to your dad before. Yeah. Now that is, I didn't know that. Well, we work off referrals, right? So like a lot of that is word of mouth, which is the reason why we have a bunch of mutual friends at this point.

That is unbelievable. You know. Everybody get one. to two-day home delivery on the house? Well, well, yes, actually, for the most part. If we have it in stock, if it's in Arizona or in Fort Wayne. Oh, man, that Arizona facility?

That's great. Yeah, it's great. Change everything. Well, being in Chicago, I order something, if I order something before noon, I'm getting it. The next day. Sometimes the same day. I've gotten stuff so fast.

I've never gotten that. It's unbelievable. That's on me. He's waiting. Yeah. And he's ready. That's what I believe. Yeah.

I believe an order comes in and you run as fast as you can across the floor. Like, get it out. Go! Go back! And that thing's out the door same day. Yeah. So that's real? I hit a button.

Okay. Yeah. So, yes. You have a Colin button, a Claudio button, a... Uh, uh... Collins' mom. Yes. Okay. I didn't even see that.

So this is the biggest pedal display in the world? Or the U.S.? I think so. I think it just in general. Because it's on both sides as well. Oh my god. Never even heard of these. I know that one.

You know that one? Arm's Way knows that one. This one's really good. Amp in a box, noise gate built it. You know what we should do? What's that? Plug them all in. We've done that.

Really? Was it sick? It's the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest pedal board. You'll see part of the pedal board over there yet. This is the coolest place in the world. Yes. Did it sound good?

I don't think so. Straight to the amp. And... And all the month. The best. Okay. What head was, were you using? I think there were martial steps, right?

You have a move. I'm pretty sure. Rock, well, we had to document the entire thing. It's a very, like, intricate process. Yeah. So they had to take pictures and videos of them even plugging in the cables. Sure. To ensure that signal is passing all the way through for Guinness.

Do you know off the top of your head how many pedals it was? Oh, I have no idea. I think it was like five. Yeah, it says over there. Holy. So we'll see that for sure. Yeah. This whole time we were joking about.

this kind of being like Willie Wonka's factory. It's so much sicker than Willie Walca. Yeah, you guys are just... You have more stuff than he did chocolate. Yeah. Less deaths. Less deaths. Well, we'll see. We just guess.

Maybe. It's important. Hard attack from deals and savings. That's good. Oh, this is deal. This is outstanding. This is crazy. Colin, I gotta play the one riff, I know.

He's gotta play the Faith More songs. Somebody's getting that shit. Pick your poison. Oh! Oh! Nice. What? That sounds like Metro.

It's like Rush, dude. That's what he was doing. That's on the Loney Rush. It's a river dance. All right. Only 40 grand. You have 40 grand? Oh, man.

Let's live. All right, hit me with some epic. Oh, shit. It's awesome. It's awesome. Oh, good. This is unbelievable. I mean, all due respect to Guitar Center,

we were just talking about this. Guitar Center is a needed thing for touring musicians. You know, it's an important thing. It's an institution. This makes a motherfucker want to move to Fort Wayne. It's unbelievable. Nobody's ever said that before Sweetwater.

Do you guys live in Fort Wayne? Yeah. We're all here. You're all out here. You're from my way, right? Yeah. That's right. Yep.

Chicago land area. You live here. I live here. Did you move here for the game? Yes. Everyone who works here lives here. Straight up. There's no remote employees. And Amazon's right across the street. Correct. Are those the big two?

I guess. Got to be in the town. Any... Well, there's hospitals and stuff there for a big, but any tension? No. No fights. Sharks and Jets. Plead the Fed. Yeah. Plead the Fed.

Yeah. Does you guys don't ever ship through Amazon? We don't ship through Amazon. We only ship from our warehouse. Yeah. We sell through Amazon. Sure, yeah, of course. None of that's interesting. And then do you fulfill it through here?

Yes. Yeah. So we see all quality control and everything on our on before. Hey, I've never got a wrong order. Yeah. I've always gotten candy. I've always gotten a DM. I always get stuff I, the thing with the pop filter

replacement that you just got me, you're crazy, man. It'll work? Yeah. How did you know that? Pretty good. God, good. The sales that you guys enjoy. drums oh let's get in there yeah of course you gotta get in there I gotta cause

a quite a ruckus no pun intended you got those yes you do wow that's all I got are you in bolt thrower what's up you're in bolt drawer I have I did play in bolt drawer Warmaster was you know it was a session that's gonna be so loud it's could be so funny to imagine what he thinks he's hearing versus what it were actually hearing when you showed me playing Make it a perfect drum solo from something and then show that. Pretty good. Just that audio.

Great. Feels pretty good. Really, really good. Love to lead. Love to get out of it. Now we need to go to like a guitar room so I can- Oh, that'd be awesome. Friggin' riff.

Services and repairs too. Yeah. So is it just like a normal repair shop? No. We have something back here. You take a look. Is there anything you won't do? Absolutely won't do.

Here? Yeah. Not really. Not really. What? Hello. Howdy. What is that?

What does he do? You printing people? You making more sweet waters? Yes. This thing is basically like a big front leveler, you know, would be able to do level crown and polish on guitars. This is like a very accurate version of that. Machine basically,

down to the thousands versus just kind of doing it by I, I. Can I open this? Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure. Put the guitar in here. This little pokey finger pops out, scans along the fretboard of the guitar, goes down the string path of every, of all the strings, and records everything, all the frets, everything, and the leap of the neck,

all that stuff. We get a bunch of info about it. We manipulate it, tell it where to cut. And then this little turny blade. here start spinning and it turns every single fret typically five passes all the way down machines them to be perfect within a few thousands of each other so this so it sets up guitars pretty good sets up guitars pretty good oh yeah that's cool wow unbelievable I'd never heard of such a thing okay you get your guitar spot dude I didn't get my guitars play

you get your guitar spot thank you everybody everybody else okay let's get up in here for sure I'm gonna need something. I need something real expensive. I need something with some hot pickups. You guys are a d'onable dealer? I just, I'm looking at amps. I'm trying to see what we can play out of it. Oh, whoa.

Steven. No fun. Get this. So this is a, is it an actuator too, or is it just? It's a switcher. Just a switcher. You select. Is this on?

I know. Now he is. There you go. Wow. There you go. So you select what head do you want to? The what cabs? This is incredible.

I don't think Sean would, he wouldn't play a 65-05. Marshall's great. Sean would prefer a Marshall. That's what Sean wants. W-WSMB. That's fun to say. Is that right? Yeah.

Cool. Pretty fun. That's good. Thank you. You can only play that at Sweetwater, right? Yeah, that's the... You can't play that outside of Sweetwater. That's what I heard.

Name a hay-preed riff. Beholder of Justice. I think that was pretty close. Yeah, it was good. Let's move on because otherwise we'll noodle all day. We'll open up the noodle shop. I just want to point out the cafeteria, a cafe, something called the Downbeat, I don't know, sorry Craig.

Downbeat got his own diner. What do we get? We're working on something next, okay? That sounds awesome. Thank you, Chad. You're welcome. Come on now. Whoa.

What is this? This is our performance theater. So people come in, do trainings in the morning. It happens two, three times a week with all sales staff. On products? On products, specifically. So that when there's a new release, we're aware of it, we know what it does.

We know if it's going to work with your application. Do you guys film or stream them or do anything? Or is this only for internal? All internal. Sometimes they'll do stuff and they'll put it out, but mostly it's all internal. Is this where Mitch Gallagher does the product stuff? I am Mitch Gallagher from Sweetwater.

I am Mitch Gallagher from Sweetwater. I'm Mitch Gallagher from Sweetwater. You're going to show me that later and it's going to blow my mind. Maybe. The acoustics in here are very interesting. Well, that's what we brought you in here for. Yeah. Now, hypothetically, if we were to do a live podcast in here.

There was a guy who did a live... Get people to Fort Wing. Dude, after they see this... Yeah, true. Motherf-f-fri-are moving to Fort Wayne. Just host a festival here. We have some venues around town. Yeah, there we go.

Yeah, if you guys wanted to do a fast, like, we have an empathy in the back, parking lot. Yep. Coheets played there. Coheed's played there. Yeah. Shaky Graves will be here this weekend. Oh, wow. Todd Rungrid was here last night.

Oh, last night. Oh, we missed him. Sorry. This is, we recently did a hauntler episode where the vibe was intense. This is the opposite. This is the opposite. I walk in here. I feel great.

I want to deliver a keynote in here. You can. I should. You should probably deliver the one and only spin kick on that stage. As is tradition. And then, when you get done, this yell really loud. Okay. We won't talk until then.

All right. If we wait here long enough, I will rip the biggest fart possible. Okay. So the cool thing is there's microphones that ceiling that can, yeah. So do it again. Whoa. Do it again. Hello!

It's fake? Yeah. Yeah, there's not a real grand canyon here that you can believe it. What do you have the like red rocks? What is drums? Apollos. Oh, just like different delays. Yeah, so different delays.

So if you wanted to track drums in here, you could. It's minimal, right? Aha. If you want it to be muted, it can be completely quiet. If you want it to just go. Balls. My back hurts. Now how, okay, so there's room mics picking this up that are

not feeding back, by the way, which is pretty impressive. Yeah. Yes. Who set this up? Russ Berger. Who's Russ Berger? He designed this room and our studio. He designed studios.

Does he work here or is he a studio designer? He's a studio designer. So someone probably thinks I'm an idiot for asking that question. It's okay. Yeah, but like if you get hired to design the theater for the place that sells every guy ever their music gear, you're probably a fucking gangster. This is awesome. This is unbelievable.

This is really cool. I wish they won't know how. They won't know how dead it is in here, which is unfortunate, but just imagine you're in a... Isolation time. It's a perfect room, acoustically. And then like... And then you hit the fucking Sound City reverb button.

And you're in an echo chamber. What does it say? Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon. Ouch! That's amazing. Yeah, that... You knew that was gonna blew up.

Ouch! He just... Little dead. A little dead spot right here. Nobody would have heard that. Now, in terms of bands that you read, were there any that you got where you were just like, that's crazy.

This is the dream. Holy shit, I get to sell stuff to this guy. I mean, like, I've been doing this 15 years. Yeah. So it's interesting when stuff goes like full circle. Like I've been listening to like Aaron Marshall for a really long time. And then Ricky over at 64 recommended me over two

them and it was just really funny because then we tracked their whole record here as well and they wanted yeah speaking they won a Canadian Grammy for it recently so uh that was pretty sick but then other things like other people like suicide boys yeah I didn't think I would ever talk to those guys but they're great and then they become friends thousands stories with tad you know yeah same it's just you know food fighters or even coheed like it's just just wild sometimes so who is the band that got you into music Just in general. Shot out of a can of mine's Led Zeppler.

You know what I mean? Deboar Gear. That'll be one right there. We should have done that in there. Yeah, we should do that in there, actually. The Oneiders. Oh, really? The O'Neaters.

Great movie. That thing you do, was it? Great song. That was it. That's all right in the beginning? It's nice. Let's, uh, we'll see. Radio is, by all means.

You got a plaque on the wall for that Canadian Grammy or what? Not yet. Sure. So they gave away parts of the pedal board like influencers and stuff to give away, but this is one of 34 boards. One of 34. And they were all changed.

Yeah, 319 pedals. 319. Was this the start of it? Did you start with them up? Well, this is just a fuzzpored. Oh, yeah. That's a fuzzy board. How did you power it?

How many power supplies was? I can't even. I have no idea. I might say it in there. Because that's crazy. Like the millie amp draw alone. Yeah. Well, every board has its own dedicated power supply.

So it's just a matter of. of plugging him. So probably 36. 319 pedals, 34 bolts. I would assume 34 power supplies. That's awesome. Who got to play this thing? Rob, Rob Scallion. He sounds like a real rap Scalion. Yeah, just right up. Look at that. You get that pick of it? That's the whole thing. That had to have sounded like absolute dog. You can check it out. We'll send you the link. Because the wah had to be on, right? So it's just like, well, yeah. Even at the beginning of sack of laws. I mean it's not just a couple. Okay. What is this? This is our studio. Look at that. That's Sean. Hi. Hi Sean.

Hey Sean. I'm not anybody. Sorry. No, that's not true. That's not true. Sean. How you did? Oh, good to meet you. Colin. How's it going? Welcome. So good. This is Stephen. He's holding the camera. How's it going? Fantastic. What a beautiful place. Yeah, welcome. Yeah. Please. What are we got? What we got? Show us. Yeah. There's a session next door here but we got this is where I spend a lot of time so oh hello atmos certified have you guys heard atmos before yeah I love that most cool but only like in theaters yes and but never in a environment not in like this no I won't and then I know that like a sonos atmos is probably not quite a different yeah is there anything you can show us yeah

can you fucking up real quick yeah sit here it's in the middle red in the middle mixed position okay You can see the green dots are when there's a signal. That sounds so good that Beethoven would have been like that. Yeah, that sounds good. I can hear again. Mine got. Yeah. Now, are you, having done this for a while, are you, like, numb to this, or do you still hear a mix?

I get goosebumps every time I hear. I can't. It's obviously, it's not going to hit on the recording, but every single one of those, those signal inputs that you saw on the screen and every one of these speakers correspond and when stuff would come in I thought there were people behind us that was unbelievable this was awesome great good answer unbelievable thank you so much they're doing a session here I'll take you into studio a though okay cool all right thank you this is our mic lockers you know there's 400 microphones in here so it's like you got a lightsaber this is for your brother

He's gonna lose his mind over this one. Oh, wow. I know that. So we have the access to all, anyone could ever want. We have some vintage, most of it's new stuff, but like everything functions, we're really. And if a band is like, oh, this pedal would be cool,

they can go run and grab it over there. But we'll trade our pedals, we kind of love pedals. I'm better. Yeah, it is. It's like this stuff. Oh, wow. Just sort of like a little tech shop and spare stuff

Strings and nuts and bolts and picks You got picks back here, Josie? This is unbelievable. How do you not... Have you just played with everything so much that you're kind of like, yeah, we got that? Or do you wait? No, I mean, we're...

Obviously, we're spoiled here. Like, there's like too much stuff. But we have spent a lot of time fun in the things that work really well, and that's kind of what's in all of our studios. and so there's extra gear that kind of flows in and out if we need a first session or whatever. And so, yeah, we get an opportunity to try things and have people come in and show us stuff. So, yeah.

What's your go-to guitar head when you're tracking something rocking, not necessarily heavy, but just... I don't know, we mix a whole bunch of tones together. So, like, that rack of 5 a amps is usually all going. It's just a blend. Wow. Yeah, unless it's, like, really heavy stuff, then that new Uber Ultra has been pretty much. That thing's great, yeah. Cool, very cool.

We have an old over the snake skin, which is kind of cool. Bad ass, Jake the snake. All right. Well, guys, this is insane. It's overwhelming. I just didn't, I didn't know. Now you do? Yeah, I thought it was a warehouse.

All right, we're upstairs now. There's a sign here that says a racquet ball court this way. So here we go. You should be like racket, like the locust or something? Yeah, yeah. making noise. Okay, it's real. It's an actual racquetball court.

Now... Dark-soled shoes. Oh. I got bouncing soles. Those aren't shoes. They're good. Exactly. Damn.

People play racquetball? Oh yeah. This is the opposite of that theater. Hap! Anybody ever track anything in here? Totally. Really? Rob Scallon's track some stuff in here.

Oh! Go get a guitar. Go get a guitar. Go get a guitar. Wait, this would be the Christmas, ready? Is anything unite people more than the halve? No, no. It's like a universal language.

I watched five guys out there like, just like choppers in their heads. What a thing? This is crazy. Do you ever play any more? I played indoor soccer in here. Aeros soccer? Indoor. Indoor soccer?

Arrow soccer. Arrow soccer. Some wild. People rents it for different things, too. So like they're set up for like Jiu-Zitsu. and other. Are you a roll? Sorry.

I'm sorry. Oh, wow. I said, does anybody want to roll? Sweet water yet again delivered. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Before we had after the screen, do we do a natural black.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. We have multiple, like, cafeteria-type areas upstairs. So we have multiple, like, cafeteria-type areas upstairs. So this, we have about 500 salespeople, so that's including Tadden myself. So about out of 500, we got you guys. We got you guys. Yeah.

How many, there's 500 of you guys? Yeah. All throughout here and upstairs. We got the cool ones? Yeah. But there's levels, right? And you guys are. Your senior?

Yeah. Well, now. Senior. Yeah. Hey, congrats. Appreciate it. Thank you. I know this picture so well.

That's my fucking boy. I know that. My favorite thing, and maybe you can give me some insight on this. When I go to Sweetwater and it says like, do you need help? You are always, do that on purpose? Yeah. Absolutely. So you know my cookies?

Yeah, so if email on the site, it'll come right to us. If you call, it comes right to us. Yep. But if I'm not logged in, you're still there, Ted. It's always there. It's the cookies. It's always there. Perfect.

We're going this way. We're going this way. Oh, my bad. So we don't get to your office. Sorry. Sorry about that. Jesus, Chris. Look at this.

If you need a haircut, a massage, if you need a, your hair dyed, any of that stuff, you can just swing. We really do. We have a doctor on site as well. So if you need prescriptions, just like a mini clinic type thing? Awesome. Have a cold or something. Do they take your insurance? That's pretty good.

And the slide. Of course. There's a Waldo up there somewhere too, but he said, what? Yeah. On the wall? Yep. I know where he's at. Oh, I'll find him.

Oh, I found him. Oh, I found him. You did. You ready, Steven? Get ready, then. So pick my feet up? Yeah, yeah. don't really have a choice.

Woo! Oh! Oh! That was so fun. So whenever you get hired here, you have to go through 16 weeks of training. To even... Four months of training.

Yeah, to even become a sales engineer. Yep. So, because you gotta know what you're talking about. Yeah. You're embarrassing. So are there, I'm sorry. Please. Oh, you're good.

Are there, are there like, that was not funny? Is it good? Are there like, like, total layments who can pick this up and start? Like, is there anybody? It depends on who it is. I mean, if they can get stuff quickly, yeah, but it's pretty intense. You need a background in music for sure.

You have to kind of know at least what's going on. Okay. Not every non, you know, you got to be forced sensitive to be a Jenna. Totally. You know. This is paddowans. These are paddawan. You guys.

You got to be sweet to be sweetwater. Is that in the book? No. You just came up with that? Oh, my God. He's good. What's the next guy? Yeah, please.

So this is our training center where we'll have large format type discussions and things of that nature. Sure. Especially if we're doing a new product in bailing or something like that, where we can have the entire staff in the same capacity as the performance theater that we were in before. Holy Lord. But, you know, in a larger scale, like you can rent this room if you want as an employee. So we've had like super smash bro tournaments and everything. You got Mario Kart in here? Oh, of course.

Colin, are you a smash bro's guy? I don't think it's hard. So I think that's something I could beat your assing, probably. Like Mario Kart for you. We had to set up, you should have told us. Now, when you set something else this like this up for JBL,

are they pumped about it? Like does John Bradshaw-Lafield himself come? And test the, and to see here the quality? Well, we have a JBL rip on site as well. So he has his own reps. Yeah, yeah. Of course he does. He's great here.

An acolyte, if you will. Yeah. So same thing, we video all these in the same, like just like the other room as well. And then people have rented this room for music videos and stuff like that. Anybody throw a spin kick in here? You'd be the first probably, yeah. These are tight.

Oh, God. The slide. So this is what I was expecting. This. None of that. I was expecting a big-ass room with partitions exactly like this. And we've not been in the room yet where Mitch Gallagher does the product demonstrations? I am Mitch Gallagher from Sweetwater.

No. You're, dude, you guys are sure. Your guys are safe. Well, there's another, remember, there's a million square feet of warehouse still. And that's where we're going. One million? Well, there's two, 500,000. I have lived in a thousand foot apartment.

That's at least 500 times the size. Mathematically. Mathematically. Mathematically, we get there. We could walk through the back. The warehouse. Yeah, this is what I was expecting. Something I was going to ask, is this the kind of place like kid growing up in Fort Wayne wants to get a job at?

Is it like a good place to like start working in? You know what I mean? There's actually a bunch of people that are sales engineers like ourselves. Yeah. That started in the warehouse. Right. Years ago. And then we're kind of moving the way up to become like an assistant, you know, customer service,

and then move on to be like a sales engineer at that point. More slides. Oh, yeah. What's the time cut off for your order shipping same day? 2.3 p.m. 2.3 p.m. Eastern Standard? It's quarter to three. Yeah.

So all the guitars. They ship out of this warehouse. You don't have any in Arizona. It's because this warehouse is climate control. Right, of course. So humidity controlled, temperature controlled, all of that. So you can regulate it appropriately. Otherwise, you know, with the goose guitars that are ranging from $500 to $10,000.

Could be a disaster. Yeah, it could be nuts in Arizona. What is the most popular guitar? Oh. Strat? It's hard. That's tough. Yeah.

It depends. It depends. Really? It's like Tim Hinson and his guitar came out. That was it. That was the guitar. And it just changes. Yep.

So it'll fluctuate depending on the season as well. Like typically in the wintertime, people are buying acoustics. Yeah. They're at home. By the fire, chilling. Cozy. You know, doing their thing. During the rest of the year for the most part?

The shred. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. So, wait a minute. Everything's human labor, right? There's no robots here. No. Well, there's robots in different capacities. But yeah, but just, but not like when someone, when somebody orders this

one of these slitters. Somebody comes to pick it. Wow. But there's like robots for like sorting and stuff like that. Of course, yeah. Sure. But not like the Amazon. No. Now a couple of questions.

Sweetwater's legendary customer service. How, when did that begin who, uh, spearheaded that how did it because you guys are kind of the only company that the phone call thing it was chuck chuck sir yeah they had the owner of the company started that um 30 years ago i think so he uh he started recording in his in his home and then traveled around in a Volkswagen so if you'll see like the Volkswagen buses all over the place okay he would do mix downs uh for live shows do them all same day and then give them to the band the following day so he He did that continually and then when people would show up to his studio at his house, he needed

something to show that it's actually the studio. And there was a creek in the backyard that was just had sweet water. So he called it sweet water. Really? Yeah. And so he started that and then really just kind of people started asking for Kurzweil keyboards from him because he was doing sampling before pretty much anybody was doing sampling. And so Stevie Wonder got a hold of him.

He started sending out all these doing. different samples and then people started asking him, can I just buy this from you? So from there, oh, well, I need a drum kit. I need a guitar. Wow. I need a PA setup, right? And so then it's the continual relationship building and that entails lots of phone calls and a lot of communication. When in that process did it entail the candy? Oh, I don't know that question. Who's who's putting that old man candy in my, it's not you? No.

Some cases it can be. Is that in here? Yes, it is. You want to check it out right now? Candy's in this room. I'd love something sweet. I'd love to see it. Okay.

I'll be honest with you. I've never eaten. But every time I get it, it means something to me. You know? Is that one bit of honey? Yeah, that's... I choose to believe it's still you guys, though. I don't...

I've done it before. I've packed up a whole box of candy and sent it to Bad Omen's or Mark Rebrier. I take bags of candy of the shows and festivals. That's funny. It's funny. people, you know. Hey, I'm from Sweetwater. Yep, literally. Dig in. Yeah. You know, you show up at a venue at the bag. They know. They know. No passing it right this way, sir. Yep. Yeah. Keep it going. Keep it going. But yeah, we could head up there

real quick. Okay. And then we can check out their guitars in a second. I would love to do. So, we got the pallets of the candy. Palates of the candy. Palates of cane. Oh, here you go. Here you go. Here it is. Grab what you want. And this is dated. So these do this every day. Oh, this is. You only want a bit of honeys? We can make that happen. Of course. So they individually do those, and then we pack them in the box when it ships. Like some thousand people are going to see this.

I hope you know. Yes. Now, let me ask you, bit of honey, tutsie roll, laffy, do they know what you're doing? Are they sweetwaterhead? You got a tutsie roll wrap in there? That would be hilarious, actually. That would make sense. They're getting the money.

Yeah, they're getting the money, but are they like, are they, order are they psyched do chuck and tutsy roll have a relationship i would assume so at this point maybe pretty fascinating we're probably bigger than titsy roll i'm got to i got to imagine i got to imagine titsy roll seeing these orders to fort wayne and they're like the f***ing is going on there yeah i like laughing taffy they're going to account for that in inventory no you're good we're missing one laugh one laughy taffy i think this is what i expected all of sweetwater to be yes oh already We haven't even done the guitar.

Oh, where the surfaces yet is unscratched. Yeah, we still got a little ways to go. Mm. That's fresh. Now, if you're next day airing stuff, do you, like, we have to detune when we fly with stuff. I never do. You never do.

It's a myth. Totally myth. Really? Yeah, they're gonna break the guitars anyway. The air pressure doesn't do any. They put dogs down there. Yeah. Doesn't do anything.

It's a myth? Yeah, of course. You never detune. Literally never. What about all these headstocks that are breaking? That's from mishandling. Oh, really? They're throwing the case, it's hitting just right, and it's snapping.

Air pressure is not going to change tension on a string that much. So Sweetwater, the official stance is that if you detune for a flight, you're an idiot? It's my stance. Well, even from here, like, we'll ship a guitar to California, they'll pull it out, and it's perfectly in tune. After two, three years. I've been wasting my time my whole life. Don't, I guess, don't detune. You're actually doing more damage, because you're taking all the tension off the

Don't say that. What's that? Hello, how are you? Hi, I'm Bo. Good to meet you. Good meeting you. Nice to meet you. Standby is so we get the mic.

Oh, yeah. I'm just signed the second shift manager here. Awesome. I'll show you guys a little bit about the gallery. Thank you so much. Sounds great. All right, so we'll swing around the corner here where it all starts. And wow.

Oh yeah. We're just looking at that. That's crazy. So that all the way down is where they store stuff before. processed it's called non-con okay so so is this guitar inspection world yes sir cool so we'll start with the super boring stuff but kind of where it all starts so this is called holding so when stuff comes off of a truck if it's not a priority to us we're going to send it to those shelves back there get it out if it's something that we want right away we want it to come

to us so we have all of this organized in order of priority so stuff for this to the left is already purchased by a customer and we want to process that first obviously very paid for it let's get it out the door and then next since we sell individual cereals online and we show you the actual picture and weight of your instrument we want to make sure that we have as many available i'm going to drop that off right here as many available of each item as possible like at least up to the four that you can see online so that's what we do next so if it's not available up to four let's do that And then if I order a guitar, yeah, right now, yeah. Maybe if I ordered it at 10 a.m. this morning, Eastern time.

Yes. Does it move from somewhere over here to somewhere over here to somewhere over here? And how long does that take? So if we already have it in stock. Yeah. Yeah. And you buy it. Our inventory guy who lives over here instantly sees a pop-up on his list.

He goes and grabs it from the shelf, brings it in, marks it with a different color mark depending on what shipping you got. So if you paid for express shipping. Well, I got I ordered through TAD so I have either next day or two day air. So that's instantly coming into the line. It's marked with a red and green line. That way the whole team, they're all trained on this, look for the red and green lines. Pull those to the front and do those first. Yeah. So typically a guitar takes about two hours to get from front to back. And which of these have been ordered already? So all of this is in order of priority. Right now we're all caught up on what we would call negatives. That's the stuff that's

Okay, good job. Just waiting for FedEx or UPS here. This stuff is not processed yet. Okay. So this is waiting to be processed. This is all that stuff that we're looking for that we don't have four of on the web. Gotcha.

So because we're all cut up, now we're on that. So red and green, Christmas? Because it's like Christmas? Every time you get something from Sweetwater? That's-Tad colors. It's Christmas every day when you're opening a guitar, so. Hey, man, my brother. All right, so our inventory guy,

make sure that he's grabbing the right palette in the right order. And he puts it into unbox rollers. Look at that. So these two gentlemen here are guitar handlers. Beautiful. And what they're doing is taking those guitars off the pallets and scanning them in. They're going to confirm that we let it acclimate for 24 hours.

We don't touch them before they've acclimated. And then they're going to make sure that it has its case, gig bag, and accessories. They're going to initial it, put the card with the guitar, and then they all go on these carts that we've designed. Now, was there an incident or incidences that made this process? Would somebody order a PRS and get a less ball and then this job is born? It's more so a way to ensure that that doesn't happen. Sure.

I don't know that was a reaction. It was more of a how can we be more efficient with grabbing a guitar or a box and making sure it all stays together while it goes through this whole process from front to back, right? Beautiful. So, yeah, we designed these carts. Now several vendors actually use the same cart designed. Hey, hey, all right. Instrument, box.

Do they acclimate here? They acclimate in the box before they ever get opened. Yes, because the warehouse is perfect temperature, as we know. It is, indeed. Somebody's going to have a good day. It's a pretty good gig when we get to come into AC and perfect humidity. It's just like, we'll take it. That's too shabby.

So after they fill those carts up, they get pushed up to inspection, and that's what this whole line here is. This is inspection. Yes. So this is where our tech twos and tech threes are going to live. So these carts all go to the front, and our inspectors pull from the front to the back. You ever ride one of these bad boys? What's that?

You ever ride one of these bad boys? Not officially. No. Of course not. Not on the clock. Come on. So as inspectors grab these guitars, they're going left to right on the cart front to back on the carts.

They're on the row. They each have their own band to tell where they are to make sure when they come and put that back, it's going to the right spot. Every time they pick one up or put it back, they're double checking that cereal on the guitar in the box again, making sure nothing is mixed up. We'll walk around here so we can see an inspector in action. I would love that. Oh, I'd love that.

Wouldn't we love to see that? We'd love to see it. All right, gentlemen, putting you on the spot. Got a tour. Hi. Are you inspecting? This is Isaiah. As we speak.

Sorry. Isaiah is actively inspecting. I would love to see you inspect if that's... So, well, this is the go-to chord. When you pick up a guitar to see how it's doing, what do you play? I mean, obviously you gotta start with some simple open chords. tablet boards down but um i don't know probably something like any of these nice voicing tasty pretty voicing up here on the neck i like beautiful that's beautiful i didn't know that was possible

i'd consider that inspected but i'm not a professional when whatever model from whatever maker comes in is like oh i know i'm going to have to do this to it because they all come this way do you You know what I mean? Yeah, you get used to certain ones. Yeah. Interesting. Works. Yeah, definitely. When he does need to bench an instrument, if you find something, then he's going to turn

right around. Luckily, he's got a tech three right behind him. Wow. There's a tech three every three benches, so they're not every other, but. So he's got a good spot. He's got a great spot. Yeah. So, Caden here's a tech three.

And what they're doing is all day long as these tech twos are finding issues, so they bring them to them. They're answering the questions of whether it passes or fails. If it's a quick fix and they can do it in like a minute or two, they're gonna do it right on the spot. So if that's a quick wet stand of a scratch and they can buff it, they'll do that. If it's a quick filing of a fret

to get some buzz out, they're gonna do that. If it's something that's gonna be a little more of an extensive repair, they'll just have them kick it out. Yeah. And they'll sign off in their card so they can do that. Everything that they can't fix, we usually sell at a discount. If it's beyond what sweetwater accepts as the quality we're willing to sell,

then we're gonna send it back to the vendor. Sure. Or send it elsewhere into the ether right no more so after these guys are finished with their carts they're they're gonna push them on up to the photos six so there's two studios here and two on the other side and if you look in here you'll see that famous white brick wall that all of our shots are floated against iconic um the photographer is going to he's going to place it on the stand the photographer will take a few shots of the front get some detail shots some bigger shots

See the whole thing. Then he's going to flip it around. He'll do the same thing on the back. You ever do portraits? Portraits, like with a face near the time. Like humans. I don't know. Like two adorable podcast hosts?

I don't think we've tried to yet. If you'd like, we can try it. You want to do that with that. All right. Hey, Lily. Would you mind taking a super quick snapshot of these two lovely podcast hosts? Hi, Lily. How are you?

Hey, Lily. You too. Bug you on your stage here. I'm sorry. Where should we go? So I think where do you guys have your photo tape? I mean in front of the wall for sure. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Do you want the guitar, the front or the back? Well, can I turn around? Yeah, absolutely. Sorry to invade your space here. You're good. You're good. If anybody who's going to be down, I knew it would be you. All right.

Lovely smile. Oh. It might not be the best lighting. That's okay. Yeah, sure. It is just set to the guitar. I don't have gloss. We're basically a human guitar.

I didn't put on my gloss today. You're good, but yeah, you're going to fun of you guys. Nice. Incredible. That's outstanding. Please add that picture to the photo on the site of that guitar. Please. All the tiered text, what you say, are they all musicians?

Oh, yeah, everybody. So most people here probably are. Yes. Every single person in here is, at least now. We have had people start that weren't. Yeah. And then they quickly kind of get on boarders. Yeah.

Who's the best guitar player in the room? Oh, God. There's different, actually supervisor Tony is really freaking good at shreddy stuff. Yeah. So he's like a Satriani guy. There we go. The guy that we stopped for Tech 2. He said he's not a shredder, but he's like a fast grass.

I saw those fingers. I saw his mind. He's good. Yeah, he's good. So this team down here is also handlers, this whole area is Reeboks. Oh, okay. And they are the final eyes on the instrument. So they're the final ones to check that serial.

Once again, make sure it's correct. And then they're going to pack it back in the box that came in. And on top of that, they're going to add extra bubbles and then shake it as hard as they can and make sure that the angriest UPS driver could kick it off the truck. And it'll probably be okay. And what else do they add? They add bubbles, they make sure it has its accessories. Who's the candy person? The candy person comes after this.

Really? So when you guys walked in, you saw all the stations where they're packing boxes and side of boxes. that's our double pack team and that's where the candy goes in so it's outside of the guitar box in case we don't want the candy to damage the instrument sure sure sweetwater candy guitar damage sure yeah so good yeah but we double pack it there then the candy goes in fascinating yeah so they pack it up then they scan it onto a palette but before they do it gets this final strip of tape that says guitar gallery that means ready to go that means we inspected it it is good to go and if at any point that tape is broken it goes back through the whole thing again really yep that's our seal of approval basically unbelievable a literal seal of approval literal yes if you've ever felt uncomfortable ordering from something from sweat water you're a fool all right so this is where our ops side starts the operation side okay this first area here where you see all these cases lined up against the wall and over

here on this stands this is where we test all the cases that we sell against all the instruments that we sell. Totally. And we get measurements of every single case in different areas. And we're able to say exactly how each instrument's going to fit in that case. Whether it's a good fit or whether it's like a certified tour fit, where you can kick it off the tour bus, throw it across the stage, it's going to be good. Wow.

Huge. Another added thing that we have with this is we have a relationship with Gator where if there's an instrument that there is not a case in existence for, we can take the measurements that we always do, send it up the road to Gator. which is literally right up the road and say, hey, let's make a case for this. Wow. And then all of a sudden, we're the only ones with that case.

Make a case for a great partnership. I like the way you do business. So we look through here. This guy's doing what we call invoices. It's Brewer. He's also got a lovely nature documentary. Pumping in the corner, keep him awake. So this is kind of where we give the customer

a white glove experience. If they've ever had maybe a previous issue where we messed up, we're gonna own that and give him like extra care this next time. Very nice. The other things that he's doing in between that is if customers have a hyper specific question. So they're like, I want to buy this Yamaha,

but what's the width of the nut, or what's the width of the fret board at the 11th fret? Ah, just for whatever reason. Whatever reason. I've called before and definitely had to ask about clearance under a temple board. Right. Because I wanted to put something under it.

Yeah. And I got, I don't think I got a hold of somebody. And we asked about it. I don't remember. It was a couple years ago now, but it was definitely like, oh, give me a second. Yeah. This is a guy that's going to do that. I had no idea.

Pretty cool. All of this area is returns. Oh, no. So all of these carts are specifically for returns. All of these benches are returns tech threes. So they're doing what tech twos and tech threes did on that other side, but specifically for returns. Gotcha. Now, if it comes back at some perfect condition, they're going to run it through the whole process again,

clean it up and we'll still sell it. If it's got anything wrong with it, we're going to sell it out of a discount. And if it's, once again, if it's beyond what Sweetwater is willing to sell, we're going to send it to the ether. It's going on the way. What's the return policy?

If a customer just doesn't like a guitar. You just handle it. It's 30 days. Amazing. 30 days. Outstanding. Have I ever returned anything? Nope.

You're one of the good ones. You're one with good ones. I got to do. Just show. Trial and error. Yeah, truly trial and error. Nice. I just deal with it, you know?

Don't deal with it. I know a guy. I'll be like, yeah, I don't need this, but some guy does. Anthony does. Yeah, Anthony. So that's the whole guitar gallery. Fantastic, thank you so much. I truly assumed it was a guy would pick it, check it out, strum something.

I don't even know, I didn't even know they did that. I'll be honest with you. I figured it's in a box. They can't, they're not opening my box. not opening my box you know they're doing way more a lot more than that yeah yeah so you feel pretty at ease ordering your guitar from sweetwater absolutely what's next guys I think we're gonna have you guys head over to the shop let's yeah yeah yeah thank you so much so much thank you for your time this is return

land yeah the island of misfit toys that's right this is unbelievable yeah You stand on one of the aisles and get a picture of it? Oh my God. Jesus. So notice a lot of youngsters walking around, a lot of instruments. What is rock camp? So we have an entire lessons facility. If you wanted to learn how to be vocals, learn an instrument just in general, DJ, production, anything,

you can come to the lessons department. But also we have rock camp. So you can learn how to play a song with a band, and then you have the ability to be a music. You have the ability to be able to go on stage in our pavilion outside for a first show on a full line array with the band that you created in a short period of time. First gig, real console, great engineer. Yeah, and recording your song too. Like actually creating, hearing something. In a studio built by Russ Berger.

That's crazy. When I was a kid, I made my mom right to Legends of the Hidden Temple. because I wanted to be at Space Camp. Wish I was at Rock Camp. Yeah, 100%. Didn't go either way. Bring it back. Hidden Temper.

You could go to Rock Camp. I could be a camp. We could go to Ralph. We could be counselors. No, no. I don't know enough. How long is Rock Camp, do you know? I think it's three weeks.

Wow. Does that sound right? So, we have a summer to be able to, like, really dive into you and understand the track and they be able to play it. So can you sleep in the studio or is it? You go home. No, you go home.

Okay. I'm sorry if you don't know this, but like, do all the kids show up? And it's like, okay, who wants to do a metal band? Who wants to do a country band? Like, how do they? Yeah, they talk once each other about what their favorite band is, who their favorite artist is. There was a little, I think it was last, maybe a couple of years back.

Somebody had mentioned Pablo from Chelsea Grin. They're like, oh, it's my favorite artist. And so the lesson staff reached out to me and said, hey can you maybe get him to autograph a drumstick or something we've faced timed them just completely made his day so like we can make stuff like that happen just based on the relationships that we have you know so again every touring man in America uses sweet water in some capacity yeah and it's probably these two guys making it so you're this place is literally keeping guitar music

alive 100% that's outstanding yeah this place is it literally it literally It's better. Yeah. There he is. Hello, how are you? Hello. Such an imposition. Hey, what's up?

How are you? Mitch. Hey. Great to meet you. Nice to meet you. How are you? Good. Hello, sir.

How are you? How are you? Colin? Nice to meet you. We'll do it again. Yeah. We bought a lot of stuff because of Mitch. So thank you, Mitch.

Watched a lot of exhaustive demos. Wow, thank you very much. Fantastic. How much intensive study goes into every single one of those? It varies. You know, some products take some work to dig through them. Some are faster than others. But I've done about 3,000 videos at this point.

You sure have. See about 2,914. So that's, you get a little practice. Yeah, big time. But yeah, it takes some prep time. Anything really fresh, or I guess, anything really rewarding that you learned working on one of those?

Man, always, there's always something that you pick up. Midi, controlling MIDI and learning how to program something, the PC change and the CC change, like all that stuff. Look how old that badge is pretty good. Right, just my eyes are going to be left pretty soon. It's just going to be like, holding in my eyes.

My last badge was like that. It's like the Marty McFly joke. It's where it's completely gone, I was going to quit. Right. Right. Yeah. One of year old badges. Wow. Unbelievable. Well, I thank you. my dad thanks you my brother thanks you my mom thanks you my mom thanks you my thanks you heard you might be available yeah yeah we're old we're old Gallagher heads they walked up before they said anything to us like is Mitch

Gallaghery yeah I said we'll see what can do that that's right had the bend the knee man keep me back here in the cave you know any videos coming up you're psyched about yeah you know new products I can't sure I can't say before they they come out but yeah and it's just always so much cool so yeah and real top of your head is there anything you got done with when you were like I need one of those A lot, too many things. Fair enough. Good things, yeah.

Lots of good stuff. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for your time. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Take care. Enjoy your stay here.

Thanks, Mitch. Yeah, thanks, much. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. One of the Black Box studios. So what was that? So it was where he shoot, like larger discussion type format, content and whatnot besides the stage in the studio.

So. And says, this is how you. Wow. Sit right here, Connell and get a different monitoring. Hi, I'm Mitch Gallagher. I know a lot of sh**.

You said when we were setting this up that we could go anywhere? Yeah. Didn't believe you. Didn't believe you. Well, there you have it. The best ending to the best day possible. Tad, Josie, thank you so much. Thank you guys.

I'm speechless. Yeah, we really appreciate your guys time and generosity and patience over the last. last 10 or so years working with us individually. Yeah. I've been good, right? Oh yeah.

So have you. The best. Thanks, Matt. We've been good. Sweetwater, it's so much more than a store. It's a community. And you may just develop a friendship for life with your sales engineer. So log on today and see what handsome face or beautiful face

or ugly face, greets you. And either way, you might have a friend for life. You can cut the other thing. Bye.