Episode
Too Many Knobs? Perfect. Shea Sterner of THISHEAVYEARTH
- Podcast
- The Tone Mob Podcast
- Published
- Jun 1, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 5124
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/FPMN5052999647.mp3
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Summary
This week on The Tone Mob Podcast, Blake hangs with Shea Sterner of thisheavyearth, a Portland-based builder making heavy pedals, brutal solid-state amps, and gear that looks like it crawled directly out of a fantasy-metal record sleeve. Shea shares his path from punk and metal scenes in Pennsylvania, to recording experiments in Texas, to learning repairs and circuit design in Salt Lake City, and eventually launching This Heavy Earth in Portland. The conversation gets into acid-etched pedals, self-taught PCB design, the FleshRot amp and preamp world, Ampeg VH140C inspiration, HM-2 chainsaw tones, baritone guitars, and why solid state deserves a much louder seat at the table. They also dig into building a gear company with your spouse, NAMM stories, fantasy artwork, plugins, small-business chaos, and the joy of making sounds that can swing from beautiful to absolutely disgusting with a single stomp. Check out the brand's offerings HERE https://www.thisheavyearth.com/ Support The Show And Connect! The Text Chat is back! Hit me up at (503) 751-8577 You can also help out with your gear buying habits by purchasing stuff from Tonemob.com/reverb Tonemob.com/sweetwater or grabbing your guitar/bass strings from Tonemob.com/stringjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices