100% Humboldt
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing Northcoast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt
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100% Humboldt
#99. Ron Samuels: From Arcata to Concert Halls: Building World-Class Marimbas
What does it take to make wood sing? We sit down with Marimba One founder Ron Samuels to follow the arc from a Humboldt State spark to an Arcata workshop that supplies universities, symphonies, and soloists worldwide. Ron shares how an early encounter with African-style marimba led to years of hands-on experimenting, nights in woodshops, and the hard-earned knowledge of how to tune a bar so that overtones line up, resonators breathe, and a melody stays clear even when the room is alive.
We dig into the craft behind the music: arches carved into the underside of bars to shape harmonics, resonators adjusted with precision plugs to balance warmth and brightness, and modern tooling—custom extrusions, injection-molded interfaces, and CNC machining—used not to mass-produce, but to stabilize frames and protect tone. Ron breaks down the differences between marimba, vibraphone, and xylophone, and how thoughtful engineering can make an eight-foot, 300-pound instrument feel responsive under the mallets. Along the way, we swap listening notes, from Bach’s cello suites on marimba to jazz vibes and a Rolling Stones classic that quietly features the instrument you didn’t know you knew.
The conversation turns to sustainability with a breakthrough: a synthetic alternative that finally sounds like true rosewood. After years of R&D, player tests, and careful sourcing, the team unveiled material that keeps lines articulate without the harsh ring that plagues other substitutes. It’s conservation through acoustics, a practical path for schools, ensembles, and touring artists who need consistency and conscience. Grounded in Humboldt County’s creative network—engineers from Yakima days, artists, and builders—Ron’s shop also invests locally with school tours and concerts at the Arcata Playhouse.
If you love craft, sound design, and the human stories behind great instruments, this one’s for you. Hit play, subscribe for more conversations with builder-founders and artists, and leave a review telling us your favorite marimba recording or the question you want us to ask Ron next.
About 100% Humboldt with Scott Hammond
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing North Coast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
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Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, Scott Hammond with the 100% Humboldt Podcast with my new best friend Ron. Hey Ron. Hey Scott, how are you doing? I'm doing good, man. Uh glad to have you. Hey, I'm so glad to be here and thank you for inviting me. So your company's Marimba One, is that correct? It is Marimba One.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, that's true.
SPEAKER_00:In Arcata. Arcata? It is. Right there. I got to use my my prop right away. It's like see over there on the map. Yeah, yeah. Well, good to have you, man. Glad to be glad you're here. All right. Thank you. So it turns out you and I were at Humboldt State about the same time. Were you there around 78? Was that your first year? Second year? 76 is when I So you were already on campus before I was. I guess so, yeah. Yeah. Because I had met you early on uh one of my first days, I think, uh-huh at Humboldt State at the uh remember the buckhouse where cluster was in the yurt yurt in the back, they had a yurt. Yeah, and a dome.
SPEAKER_01:Do you remember the dome? They had a dome, yeah. Yeah. Actually, I built that dome with a friend of mine. Oh wow. And helped out on the yurt. Were you in the cluster program?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I was. Were you in cluster too? I was. I was at the last year, right before they closed it down. Uh-huh. Great program.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The people who did well were were self-motivated. Yes, they were. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You had to be a self-motivator together. Yeah, which which I learned later on. I didn't I didn't quite have that one together then. But hey, now you do own a company that's uh world class. But I want to hear the Ron story. So how did you uh how'd you get to this chair today?
SPEAKER_01:So so how how did I come to Marimbas? Yeah, yeah. How did you come to uh where'd you grow up? What'd you do? How'd you wander to Humboldt? So I grew up in in Los Angeles in the San Francisco. Sure. And uh and at the time, every weekend I'd go hiking, go somewhere beautiful as much as I could. And I looked on a map and found uh the California State School that was furthest from LA. And it was Humboldt State University. You too? And so so that was my that that was my uh approach. And so I came here and and and fell in love with being here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, we just got back from Glendora. We were down there for um my wife's from OH, so we went out to look at her old uh stomping grounds. You know, it's funny. I I like LA. I just don't like the people or the traffic.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh. Well, now that I go back I still go back there, my mom still lives there, and I like it a lot more now than I ever did. It's clear, you could see the mountains. See the mountains. There's great food and it's it's fun.
SPEAKER_00:Same for San Diego. I was really surprised you could see the mountains uh uh behind San Diego or behind like Mount Baldy behind the valley there. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:It's pretty good.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So uh what'd you do down there? Just grew up in the valley, Valley Guys? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I uh I grew up in the valley and had you know pretty large group of friends, and we'd all just play in the afternoons and weekends. Nice. Yeah. So what'd you study at Humboldt? At Humboldt State University, uh I was in cluster for a year, which is a which is a interdisciplinary general education program. And uh and then after that, I was an undeclared major, and I took a lot of music classes, a lot of math classes, just on my own. I like math. Right. And uh and that's that's what I did.
SPEAKER_00:I love, you know, clut we were talking about cluster a little bit earlier. What it was was a uh uh for our listeners that may not know what cluster is. It was an alternative general education uh program that was on the quarterly system.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And correct me if I'm wrong, no tests, no grades. That's right, just evaluations. Evaluations. You show up, you put up, and you uh uh participate and you have to attend. And uh it's it's somewhat self-directed, but also uh every every semester had quarter rather, had a different theme. Yes. So uh I think winter was uh hum well, fall, winter was Humboldt County, the core of Humboldt County, and then uh or was it the Great Mind. And then I think spring or or uh winter was Great Minds of the West in history. And then the last one with the fun one was you get to go to the desert southwest for three weeks. Uh-huh. Oh my gosh. That's great. It was great. We want to go back because it was so much we saw so many cool things. And these are professors that had been to the Southwest in the spring and had all the connections to all the people. Yeah, that's okay. And the and the sites.
SPEAKER_01:That's so great.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Good way to get units. So what'd you end up majoring in, Rob?
SPEAKER_01:Uh I never was declared major. Actually, uh yeah, I never was a declared major. And uh I I went to school off and on. I'd I'd go to school for a while, and then I'd stopped going and work for a while. I did uh forestry work, like watershed rehabilitation, and uh just back and forth until I got interested in in uh in playing the marimba. And then you got into music. That's right. Yes. How'd you get into marimba? You know, I I actually heard I heard the marimba at a festival and it was it was African-style marimba, which is dietonic, and that's the white keys as opposed to like white keys and black keys like you find in a piano. And it was uh in on ensemble format. So it was a group of instruments and all playing these in interlocking rhythms. Wow. And I thought it was really great. And so I came back and then I re-enrolled in at Humboldt State University and started taking marimba. And what I discovered that was more classical marimba, where you're reading music and reading rhythm and and uh so I played so I studied for a year, and then I uh I was, you know, I wanted to buy one and I realized there were more than I can afford. So I just just sort of on a lark, thought I'll just go ahead and try building one because there's so much to play, so much fun to play. Did you build it at Humboldt State? No, I I I I built it in my living room and other people's garages and anywhere I could. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. My bad. So were you playing at this point too? Um I uh well at that point school ended and uh it was summertime, so I couldn't get into school to practice. So I just uh I I dropped out again and uh and and and and basically started making my own instrument. At that time, things were remarkably inexpensive around here. And so rent was very cheap, food, everything was inexpensive. So I was like, oh, I could I could you know take some time and do this. And I got I actually worked for Delarte for a while during that period of time.
SPEAKER_00:So we just had Michael Fields on.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you did.
SPEAKER_00:What a great guy.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So you know Joan and the whole crew? Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I was I worked on one of the roadshows. Aaron Ross Powell Oh, wow. The one that where they toured California and LA and it was malpractice.
SPEAKER_01:And so uh we went up all the way up to Canada and down to LA. It was fun in Sacramento.
SPEAKER_00:It's got a lot of stories. They're pretty deep. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice man. So uh what did you do after college then? Did you just start building marimbas?
SPEAKER_01:Um so yeah, so I I built I built a marimba and it came out like, you know, pretty horrible. You know, and uh and so uh and so I I I decided, okay, I need to like learn how to work with wood because I never really worked with wood before. So I got a job in a woodworking shop and uh actually ended up being there for five years. And uh, you know, making some money and and uh and in the evenings I was essentially using that shop and for a while I rented my own shop just to like, you know, okay, I gotta learn how to to tune the wood. Wow. And so 'cause 'cause part of mermid making is you're actually tuning a vibr you you're tuning this wood to vibrate in a very specific way. And uh so any wood can vibrate. You just have to like figure out how to how to correctly mount it and then how to tune it to make it sound musical. Aaron Ross Powell Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So it's a unique uniquely crafted instrument. Aaron Ross Powell It's unusual, yeah. It's an ancient instrument. Aaron Ross Powell Will it season with time, like a good Martin guitar?
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Um Yes, but it'll season if you send out an instrument, like two instruments of of good quality, and one of them's to um a really good player, and the other would be in an uncontrolled environment, like a school where kids could have at it and do anything they want to it. And if you send them out and they're both equal, and you get them back and you check the keyboards, the one that was played by like a conscious, deliberate musician is going to sound much better than the one that was chaotically played. And we could tell when we get them back how often, you know, to a certain degree, how they are played. Because a good player will actually develop the keyboard by where they strike and go, oh, this is the area that I I love this sound. When I hit this piece of wood, this particular note, this is the sound I love. So they're gonna work that spot and and actually develop it.
SPEAKER_00:So you took the Marimba vision right out of college and started doing this. This is lifelong. You didn't go to the Navy or do anything else.
SPEAKER_01:I did not go to the Navy. Yeah, yeah. I hadn't thought about that.
SPEAKER_00:Good to know. Yeah. Yeah. Not that anything's wrong with the Navy. No, no, no. Yeah. No, I love it. Um so I'm I'm gonna do uh uh the AI section of our show real quick. Oh wow. Just what AI has to say. Just we're we never really w whip this out too early, but yeah. I think it's it's it's really great. So um uh Ron Ron Samuel's story begins in Humboldt County, where the natural beauty and creative culture nurtured his early fascination with music and craftsmanship. Fair?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Sometimes AI lies about stuff and gets it wrong. Yeah. He's from Tennessee. No. That's not true. Um Samuel recognized early the limitations of the available marimbas in the United States. Okay. I imagine that to be true. They were a very limited source sourced item, right? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:I mean I mean I'm not sure about that so much. I just recognized that that they were really cool. And I didn't know they were limited or needed to be improved or anything.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell Many instruments suffered from inconsistent tuning, poor materials, and unreliable construction, which hampered professional performance in education.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So yeah, over time I I grew to understand that.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Ross Powell, there's some crap in the market, in other words.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, yeah. People who say it's really great but really haven't worked out the bugs.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, I want to get a marimba on Amazon. Yeah. Yeah, maybe not. Uh-huh. Um taught himself the intricacies of instrument design, wood selection, and acoustic optimization. That's a cool phrase. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I I I did know that was a thing. Uh and then you found in 87 it says you found in Marimba One. That's right. Yeah. Wow. So you guys are like old. That's right. Yeah. Silverbacks. Almost almost as old as Steve Cole. That's right. Hey Steve. Is Steve still working with you? He is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Want to hear my Steve Cole story? Uh I'd love to. If you're just joining us, by the way, my new best friend Ron Samuels from Marimba One, which is in Arcata, which is in California. And uh I I get the sense that you guys are like the um I don't know. I was I would say Martin Guitar. That's not even that's too big. Maybe a really specialized Marimba source for for the marketplace of musicians.
SPEAKER_01:Um yeah. Well I I wouldn't consider us like exclusive, like, you know, out of range, crazy expensive. Right. But we're definitely highly specialized and focused. I would say uh I mean, honestly, more than any other manufacturer, I believe. I must use the word jag. You're the jag of jagger.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. So Steve Cole. What are you thinking about Steve? Let's talk about Steve Cole. Um when when I was before I was married to Joni, which I have been for 45 years, um I lived with Janet and Steve Cole when they were building Yakima Rooms. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. And he would work six days a week, twelve hours a day.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so uh uh faithful and diligent. And the guy would ride his bike to work every day in the rain. I'm going, who is this guy?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And they turned me on to really good music and just, you know, I was a college room housemate.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:And uh I think a pretty good one probably at the end of the day. I was probably pretty responsible. You did your dishes and swept up. Yeah, I didn't really clean. Maybe I did. So I grew I I actually raised rabbits and I wouldn't make a rabbit stew. I'd put him in a crock pot with a can of soup. Yeah. Come back and have a student's feast at night. Uh-huh. Yeah. So they they got into raising rabbits, I think, after that. But just uh a lovely guy and have known him through the years. And uh, you know, uh understated.
SPEAKER_01:Hey understated. Yeah. So so Steve Cole, there was my understanding, there were there were two people who really founded the company, Steve and Steve Cole and Don Benducci. And Don, yeah. And Steve was the engineer. And and I met Steve, um, I think it was maybe 2000 or 2001, I'm not really sure. And I was I went to Freshwater Stables, I was getting truckloads of manure for my garden. Right. And uh Was it free? It it was free. Yeah. And and uh and Steve was there. I recognized who he was, but I never we'd never talked. And so we just started talking while we're shoveling our manure into our in our trucks. And and so he had he had just sold Yakima and Steve has a like you're saying, a real love of music. And he's also an excellent singer. He's got a very low bass. Oh, he's got that low voice. Yeah. And so he, you know, I invited him over just to check out what I was doing. And and really we've been working together ever since.
SPEAKER_00:That's really cool. So he he transitioned right over from making uh Yakiman. Yakima was a rack system that uh competed with as Thule. Yeah. And it uh you have a you can see him. There's two in the whole world, those are the two.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There's there's knockoffs, but those are the guys. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and so like you're saying, Steve is just this really wonderful, kind, gentle person that's got like heart of gold. Yeah. And he brought these really interesting specialties from Yakima that he's really set up over there to Marimba One.
SPEAKER_00:That's cool. Yeah. So you're engineering parts for for marambas and and specialty sort of I can't imagine what they would be, but okay.
SPEAKER_01:So so so um he he brought over a lot of he's he's a he's a he's a really interesting guy. And so if you need to like glue some strange materials together, he'll figure out the correct- how to do it. The correct properties of the glue you need. But what he started with with us is is extrusions and injection molding. And extrusions are where, like with the little kid, you have the lump of clay and you put it in the little holder and you press the lever and a little heart or star comes out. That's extrusion. So pushes it out. And so we started designing up our own extrusion so we could be really deliberate about what we were making. And then he started designing up these injection mold parts that interface with the extrusions and they're like engineered pl plastics like nylon, acrylic, things like that. Wow. And uh um so he started doing that. And then um and then sometime later we we started purchasing uh C and C machinery. Okay. And so we'd put our extrusions on the CNC machinery and machine it out in various ways that were designed to interface with these injection molder parts. So Steve developed these whole systems of frames. We we'd work together on the concepts and he would like Steve would work it out and then we'd figure it out. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Invaluable.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, really great. That was all part of c creating the assembly line, which is uh a poor way to say how you build these Trevor Burrus.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like we we we batch everything out. And uh and so you know, everything is um we have like really good drawings, you know, documented out and you know, okay, we're gonna make a run of these, you know, these frames, you know, today and these resonators tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00:Trevor Burrus, hey Dick, could you could you bring in the marimba real quick? The one that you bought today? That's right. Just kidding. That's that's that's funny. Um they're actually pretty big and pretty heavy, right?
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. So uh a typical marimba for us is just over eight feet long. Wow. Yeah. So and it's probably close to 300 pounds. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So if I was to tell Siri to play some marimba music right now, what what would come up? Would it be Dave?
SPEAKER_01:Would it be uh Yeah. Chick career. I wish. I wish. It'd be more like a cont contemporary classical music. Okay. And so but if you're to call something up on Ciri, like um a really beautiful some beautiful pieces on Marimba would be like, okay, Siri, play the Bach cello suites on Marimba. And uh there's been a number of people who've recorded those. Oh wow. Yeah. So that'd be like a good place to begin. And then there the the music, there's there's been quite a bit of music written for the Marimba. Oh wow. That's would be can like contemporary music. And uh some of it's solo, some of it's with like drums and all sorts of instruments.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Ross Powell So who's the Marimba dude or the Marimba chick that's known for coutures and just plays a symphony.
SPEAKER_01:I mean that that's a great question. I mean there are it's gotta be dozens, but yeah, yeah. Um there's what what's really happening right now is there's a whole younger generation of players that are coming on. And there was some pioneer players, you know, that are older and uh who who really elevated the whole level of of Marimba. And uh and now these younger players, they're like they're doing what the older players, you know, were excelling at. It just, you know, just sort of uh at a very uh the younger players are are really amazing. That they're really something.
SPEAKER_00:It sounds like bluegrass and then Sambush and Newgrass and all the other stuff that took off from there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that that's that's a great analogy.
SPEAKER_00:And then you have fish and string cheese incident and uh all the other guys that took off with a theme. Uh-huh. Cool. I want to play some tonight. Hey, uh let's hey, you wonder what the bell is for. Yes. Let's play for a minute. Okay. So you're playing today for a Dick Taylor milk chocolate bar, 55% with Alexandria Farm. Alexandria Farm A2 milk. You know those guys up in Smith River? Great milk. Actually, they're yeah, they're great. And they also are in uh Ferndale, too. They have a farm down there. Uh these guys are buds, they're supposedly really Oh, it's hazelnut, too. Uh-huh. But it's not quite yours yet, because you have to answer some questions. Okay. Are you ready? I'm I'm nervous. Are you a little excited? Yeah, I'm pretty excited. Are you? Okay, it's your heart a little bit. Yeah. Okay. Question number one. Hey Ron Samuels, what's your best day ever? Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Um Well, the best day ever that actually comes to memory right now for me was what's today? It was actually well, the my best day ever was when I married my wife, Kelly, for sure. That's correct.
SPEAKER_00:Hear that, Kelly?
SPEAKER_01:And uh um and right up there is when my children were born. So that's how many kids did you guys have? Uh with three kids. Nice. How long have you been married? We've been married for uh since 20 uh 11. 2013. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Nice.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I know. That's great. That's cool. And and my s yeah. Do you want to hear my second best day? Yes, I do. Yeah. But there's those those first ones are all like right in there. You know, it's I guess it's really about family. And uh and then and the next one was uh, believe it or not, just a week ago. Really? Yeah, I know. Sorry. That's uh great. That's yeah, it's fresh in my mind. There's probably there's probably a lot of other ones back there, but I forgot about that.
SPEAKER_00:This one's cleaner and fresher.
SPEAKER_01:And so uh at so at at Marimba One, we've been working on creating a synthetic alternative to using rosewood because the we use rosewood from Bailey's in Guatemala on all our Marimbas and xylophones. And um and rosewood, this particular there's different rosewoods around the world. The one we use is extraordinarily resonant and warm sounding. And uh warm sounded at the base end, at the top, and it has this brilliance. And there's really no other wood that can do that with such a great tonal range. And the wood is is uh is very limited. It's restricted on its cutting because it's been overcut. So so I set us out several years ago to to develop a synthetic material that would mimic rosewood. And and um and other marimba companies out there have these alternatives but to rosewood, but they really don't sound musical. They're they ring super long, so when you're playing music, everything bleeds over into everything else and they're super bright and uh nothing like rosewood. So we set out to develop this synthetic alternative to rosewood, and we just sort of like launched it at a trade show a week ago. Wow. And and we spent like we spent years doing this, figuring it out, lots of trials and tribulations. Sure. Yeah, all sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00:And so it it launched. It's it's it's real, it works.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it it actually uh um yeah, it was really cool. People uh people at the show were like were very appreciative and grateful for it. They said, wow, this is the first time we've ever heard anything that sounds like rosewood that's not rosewood.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Ross Powell An Endangered Forest or thanking you everywhere. Yeah, yeah. I suppose you got to really source this stuff really carefully.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it's not cheap. Aaron Ross Powell It's not cheap, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And it's it's an ordeal to procure. Aaron Powell So was Steve part of that RD project? Aaron Powell Yeah, he was. He was, yeah. Yeah, Steve, and it involved Steve, another engineer we brought on, uh local engineer, and then several of my tuners. Um and in other so other people that sort of run like the the back logistics organizations around you know, you know, buying stuff, sourcing it. So yeah, it was a lot of people. I bet they'd say you're a great leader.
SPEAKER_00:It sounds like you're the guy.
SPEAKER_01:Um well that's yeah that's a compliment. I don't know. You have to ask them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What do you guys think? Yeah. All right. Question number two. Yeah. Worst day ever for all the candy bar.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00:It's not candy, by the way. Jody gets mad when when I call this candy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's like gourmet. It's it's gourmet. It's a$500 bottle of scotch, but it's a chocolate bar. That's right.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, what's the worst day ever? Like in my life? Or you know. Um Well, um gosh, let me think here. Um I mean, how how does one really answer that? I mean, it could be it could be super personal. It could be um cultural. Yeah, political. Yeah, no kidding. Okay. Physical. Right, right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um somebody answered it and said that you know, I don't really have one. All my days have been great.
SPEAKER_01:I I wouldn't say all my days have been great. Um, but I don't feel like I I honestly don't feel like I have a day that stands out there as oh, if only that day had never happened. An iconic, terrible day. I I've not had that. Okay. That's good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's good. Yeah. Um hey, question number three. Dodge that bullet. You're getting there. Yeah. Um you could have the whole day with Kell Kelly, right? Yeah. And it's uh nine to nine, a.m. to p.m. Yeah. It's in Humboldt.
SPEAKER_01:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00:What would you do with what would you do with your day?
SPEAKER_01:Uh well, that's really easy. So we would, you know, we'd make like a nice, you know, nice breakfast, just tasty homemade kind of breakfast, and then we'd uh we'd grab the dogs and we'd more than likely head up to the beach. Nice. You know, good drive from West Haven to Trinidad along the beach, look at the ocean, and then and then or you know, maybe go to Clam Beach or go w go to one of the further northern beaches and just go for a nice long walk. Like it. And uh um, you know, let the dogs run free and and uh look at the surf, listen to the surf, you know, just have fun. She's off.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I actually get that. I've been doing a Saturday Sabbath walk and uh clam beach and Little River and Yeah. With Joni without Joni, just praying and kind of just turning everything off. And uh it's great. It's uh transformational, actually. It's great. It it really is. Turn it off, man, and get out there.
SPEAKER_01:It it's so it's so amazing what we have just moments away.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's miraculous. We discovered that we were right at the north end of McKinleyville.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:Dows prairie. And we can for COVID, we had our date nights right up like you said, West Haven to Trinidad on Scenic Drive.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:And it was just park the van, pull the doors open, turn on Led Zeppelin really loud.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. And just look at, you know, our Maremba music. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Look, you know, follow the sunset.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. No. And because when it's refracting, there's you you'd think you might be in Southern California. And then the sun sets and it's 20 degrees.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I I think we have the most beautiful sunsets here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I really do. And you know, cloudy days are actually the best best sunset days. Uh-huh. Not fully clouded and fogged, but just spotted clouds are just the show just goes on and on. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You get so many colors.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, one more question.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. What do you find fulfilling in your life?
SPEAKER_01:Um let's see. Uh w what I find fulfilling is is uh I mean honestly, like e every day I'm I I really am grateful to to being married to my wife, Kelly, who's just this fantastic person. I really do. And so I feel like, you know, just the luckiest guy. And uh and what I'm doing feels really fulfilling. That's cool. Because I get to uh you know, I'm really I'm passionate about it, I'm super into it. And uh there's this whole infrastructure that's set up to do what this like purpose developed to set up to build these really great instruments. So get to keep doing that with all these really really great people at my business.
SPEAKER_00:That's cool. I was thinking we'll talk about legacy in a minute, but uh some of these instruments are gonna be out there for decades, right? And yeah, they'll be out there longer than us. Yeah. Yeah. Because they'll they'll season with time and get better. And so you'll you uh your legacy will live on, it turns out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, at least that's part of it. Through the instruments, yeah. Yeah, I love that. That's cool. Hey, uh let's change it up here. So hey, turns out winter winner chicken dinner, my friend. Whoa. Yeah. And you have to share it with Kelly. Absolutely. Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much. Oh yeah, enjoy that. Yeah, thank you, Dick Taylor. Yes. Yeah. Oh, especially, especially thank you, quality body. We forgot to talk about them. Uh-huh. Uh these guys are actually one of my sponsors, and they're great guys down on uh they're on West Dell North. And uh Ross Creech is a good friend of mine, and these guys are killing it. Uh-huh. Sophia. Seems like a pitching body work on cast. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's uh not really what I want to do, but hey, um, one day you two will probably need bodywork. And that there are other guys that are amazing. Yeah. And good guys job suppliers, community dis contributors, they're they're cool.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we we need it all to make it work, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We need a team, uh, team of good businesses. Hey, let's talk about Humboldt for a minute. Yeah. Just the county in in general. Yeah. In terms of what do you see uh what what do you see down what do you see as our issues and then what do you see down the road for the county? Um I don't know, demographically, population issues.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Uh um as a business owner, as a resident. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's very expensive these days to be here, the opposite of when I started making my business. My gosh, yeah. And so yeah, cost of living here is super expensive. Everything from fuel to food to to rent to buying a place. So I think that's a big deal for a lot of people. Yeah. And uh yeah, it's it makes, you know, it makes it challenging.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. When I have uh when I see five at nineteen on gas still, I'm going, Yeah. You're who are you kidding me? Yeah. And my boss my former boss in Texas uh texted me b gas pump pictures on his actual cell phone. Yeah. 219. 219. You're kidding me. You're just killing me, man. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. Good luck trying to rent or buy a place. I mean, it's just um I think you're right. It's if it's become very expensive to live here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. In Humble County has always been a place you have to really want to be here to be here. And it's very true today economically.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's a tough place to um make a living. I think survive is a better word. Uh-huh. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We did it on one income with nine kids. Wow. Which is um I don't know if that makes me special, but it's you have to bust your ass. Yeah. And yeah. Um get used to it because there's I guess there's handouts, but there's if you want to grow and you want to provide, uh huh, you're gonna have to work hard as you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:As a as a business owner. I imagine you had a lot of long days.
SPEAKER_01:I had a lot a lot of very long days.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Coming home just shredded and Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Starting modestly early but working late.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And in on the weekends.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Ross Powell Especially if you get something going that's like a cool idea. I imagine if something starts to get traction, then you're gonna stay on that RD, whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Originally it was it was like, okay, I gotta figure this out for this next group of instruments. It was like development on the fly. And so I'd I probably had to ship date, so I'd work like crazy to make it all happen. And then just always to to sort of tackle different things. It was f usually it was to instrument development. That's really what it was. Yeah, figuring things out.
SPEAKER_00:So when you say you batch them, how many do you do in a batch these days?
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Well these days um these days everything is in production all at once essentially. And so the Marimba can be broken down into the tone bars that the rose of tone bars that are tuned that you strike with yarn wrap mallets, and then hanging below the tone bars is a corresponding resonator, and that's tuned to the same frequency as the rosewood tone bar. And so um so you imagine like if you're blowing a bottle of beer and you get a frequency and then you drain some liquid out of it, the frequency gets lower. Sure. So all the resonators, all the resonators have plugs in them. And so the lower the frequency of the tone bar, the the deeper the plug is in the resonator. And so you wouldn't think so, but we've worked like years and years and years getting those relationships really dialed between the frequency of the piece of wood and the frequency of the resonator. Cool. Just to squeeze out uh a little more sound. How are those regulated with foot foot pedals? Aaron Powell No, that would be the vibrophone. Okay. So so uh so the marimba, they the resonators just hang directly underneath the uh the bars. And there's there's a lot of tricks you can do, particularly on the low end. Like you could shape the sound if you have a really bright sound, you could build out the inside of the resonator in different ways to emphasize the fundamental, that's the lowest frequency, and maybe attenuate the overtones. Okay. And uh so yeah, so the so the vibrophone, that'd be like think of like Gary Burton or or Mil Milt Jackson, and that has the damp damper pad and the vibrophone, instead of being rosewood, it's it's aluminum. Aaron Ross Powell, those are all aluminum keys, right? Yeah. And we make those as well.
SPEAKER_00:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01:And xylophones. And xylophones, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What's the difference there?
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell So okay. So the xylophone is actually back to rosewood, but the xylophone, the proportion of the tone bars is much narrower and longer than a marimba. Oh right. And just just the sheer proportion of itself gives its gives it uh its own unique sound signature. And also when when you tune, do you do you play guitar? I do. So so when you stretch a string, the harmonic series is this mathematical, like proportional event that occurs. When you pluck the string, you could like take a tape measure and map out where all the harmonics are. And but with uh with marimba bars, it doesn't work that way. Depending on how you if you take a marimba bar and you flip it over, you'll see this arch. And depending on how you shape that arch, you're actually positioning the overtones. So marimba has a different overtone positioning than does a xylophone. So xylophone tone bars look like found objects in a way. You could say, oh, I could see how someone walking out in the woods picks up the what really almost looks like a stick and starts hitting on it and goes, Oh wow, this actually rings. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So there's profound difference. So back to Humboldt. Yeah. What do you like about living here? Oh besides it being expensive. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um I mean, um I I I I love being here. It's so beautiful. The air is great to breathe, like a the ocean, the clouds, the sky. Yeah. And uh good reminders. I I I live in Arcata, so you know, if it's not raining, I'll ride my bike to work. That's cool. And so it's it's it's a it's a primo spot. Like when I travel, I'm always so happy to come home. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I I'll tie in a quick story. Anytime I get off an airplane, uh-huh, and we just got back from from Burbank and opened the door of the airplane. Yeah. And after you get the jet fuel passed, you're going, oh, it's Trinidad. I could smell air. And all of our kids, adult kids would come back, uh-huh. Go, Dad, the air here is mind-blowing. Uh-huh. Yeah. It's better than Boise, Idaho, or Amsterdam, or Medford or blah, blah. So it's uh that's another point of thanks because it's considered to be one of the most pure air sources, like up Trinidad Way, they measure there's a uh there's an air uh machine.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh. Air measuring machine. That measure, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It measures the air quality. It's uh pretty pristine. Not always.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But um yeah. Anything else you'd say about Humboldt? What do you see as our opportunities going forward?
SPEAKER_01:Um actually that's a great question. Um I think um I think I like sort of my time and I lucked out because there was all this talent from Yakima. And uh there's there's some there's a number of older, you know, you know, Yakima people who actually work with me. And so all this talent. I think there's there's a lot of talent here that is unusual for our population base. So it'd be engineering talent, uh, design. There's there's so many artists here. I I I think it's a a very really creative place. And I and I like I lump in engineering in the creative realm. Yeah. And so I just think there's just a lot of very creative people here. So it it makes it makes unique things possible. Yeah. That that really wouldn't be possible elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00:And um yeah, I think it's a halayashi down.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Is that close to where you guys are?
SPEAKER_01:It is, yeah. Down the by the pub. It's like a couple stone throws away from the district, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The pub district, yeah. Yeah. I saw a show there the other night, Robbie Folk, who was at the end of the yeah. Oh, yeah, with Jenny Scheinman. Oh, Jenny Scheiman. Oh. Plays the fiddle. Yeah. She's she's phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah. Now she she really added to his whole deal. I uh I wasn't clear if they were touring together or not, but she's played with a couple people. Love you.
SPEAKER_01:I I I believe they were because actually I ran into her on the airplane when I was flying to a trade show a week and a half ago, and we were going both going south. Okay. So she told me she was going to meet Robbie Folk's, I think, in LA and and start on going tour with them right then and there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. What a nice, what a great show that isn't. And that whole pub district is gorgeous down there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:The Playhouse. Yeah, the Playhouse is so much for the community.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's really good. She keeps uh, you know, Jackie keeps a really affordable show. She does. She does. Twenty bucks for this guy. It's like a this guy's a bargain. Yeah. Um that's kind of to your point, not only are there local uh creators and creative people, but those very the same, the self-same bring other creative folks through town, like the the Troubadours to come and play. Yes. Yeah, it's great. It's really great. So what's your personal music taste? What do you like to listen to kind of like go to on the car on the way home tonight? What would you top three or four that you play in?
SPEAKER_01:So uh I um uh you know I love The Grateful Dead, so definitely listen to the Deadhead. Um Deadhead. Uh and I actually r very much enjoyed listening to Bach. Okay. They're kind of similar. It's kind of similar. I I I'm I'm a big fan of the cello. So I listened to uh you know, like the cello suites and in uh um Oh, I got a show for you.
SPEAKER_00:Dirty cello. She's amazing. Is that right? She played at the Eagle House a couple months ago. Uh-huh. And they're they're uh they're not big yet, but she's great. She could do Hendrix and and rock and roll on this big old cello. And she's really this band's really, really good.
SPEAKER_01:Oh wow. I'll definitely have to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, if you ever get to see them, they're playing in Oregon here shortly.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:But uh quite good. And I interrupted you, sorry.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, that's good. Well, in uh yeah, so what else? Um I like listening to like to to string orchestras. You know, I sort of have uh you know, in in different jazz music, I've been I've been lucky enough to be turned on to a lot of different jazz through through a lot of the players we work with. And so a lot of jazz virophone and that just morphs into other jazz in general. Yeah. And uh yeah, I I mean I I don't often get to do this, but if I can, it's usually on a long driving trip, I'll like really focus in on some specific genres of music. Deep tracks. Yeah, like the drive from here to San Francisco.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Yeah, no, no, yeah, no doubt. I um yeah, just kind of curious. So you really kind of eclectic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's a a broad mix. You know, we discovered the summer, and I've seen a lot of shows since I was 14 in San Diego. Uh-huh. Um String Cheese Incident. Uh-huh. Gosh, they're amazing. They are. They played it at the Brit Festival in Oregon. You ever been over the border in Jacksonville? See a show? I've never seen a show there. Oh, dude. It's great. It's a fifty-year festival. It's great.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:And they started uh June with with uh all of June is uh uh symphony and orchestras. Uh-huh. And then it starts up July 1 through late September and it's um uh they've had it at everybody. Willie Nelson, Steve Martin, and you know, all the all the reggae bands and all these. So string cheese there, they did like a three or four-hour show and they were Oh, that's quite a show. It was great, man. Uh-huh. A lot of tie-dye. If you didn't have tie-dye, you weren't really dressed for the occasion.
SPEAKER_01:All right, all right. Did did you stand out w without your tie-dye?
SPEAKER_00:Actually, I uh I think I wore my Woodstock tie-dye. Oh well. Do you know that I was born at Woodstock? Were you really? No, I I gotta ask that way. Were you yeah, no, I was conceived there. My wife goes, just stop. Just it's not Hammond, Hammond Trail, Hammond Bridge. We own the whole thing. Jody goes, just please stop doing this to people. So uh Yeah, string cheese, I was really impressed. And then uh they came and did they never do the same set. Uh-huh. Which makes it interesting. Yeah, which makes it really fun. My office mate saw them ten times this year to see them, I think she said eighty-two times in her lifetime.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:So they've been around 30 years plus. Yeah. So they just started playing and didn't stop for an hour and a half.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:Twenty-minute break. Yeah. And did it again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Just song to song.
SPEAKER_01:Just yeah, that's great.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Improvisation. Quite good. And uh yeah. That's and people, it's a little bit like church. It was pretty friendly. Uh-huh. There's like a kind of a vibe there. And you know, I had to scoot a guy in front of me out of the way. He he didn't have a ticket. Uh-huh. What are you doing here? Get out of here. Uh-huh. You know, there's love and peace, but there's also order. So just move it, Chief. Uh-huh. Get out of here. Uh-huh. Anyway. Um, I must be getting old and commenting like that. Uh any other takes on Humboldt that you like about uh the county?
SPEAKER_01:Um Yeah, I you know, I love the people here. It's I mean everybody's here because they want to be here, or most people are here because they want to be here, I'd say. Yeah. Well said. And uh and there's a lot of just really fine not every place has that kind of deliberate intention to to where you are.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So yeah, you you could feel it. Does everybody want to be in Reading when it's 127? Right. I don't maybe not. Yeah. No one's gonna go outside. Yeah. Why yeah, you're not going out there. Yeah. Not till uh midnight or after to the swim in the pool. Uh so a little bit more on uh uh you. So uh at the uh when you're in production, I had a production question, I it slipped me, but um how many employees? Oh we got we've got over 20 employees. Wow. Yeah, so you guys are like real McCoy full on humble business. Yeah, I mean we're yeah, we're we we take it seriously.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_00:So will you will you uh uh create another branch someday, or do you see this as being a a one-off for for a lifetime in terms of just its scale?
SPEAKER_01:Oh that's interesting. Um you know, essentially everything that we do or in a way, it's not it's it's a it's it's not necessarily done. Like there's a lot of things that a bit are like solid, you know, we feel really confident, or there's like no warranty problems, but we're still open to changing things if we discover something. Wow. So it's not so much creating like a whole new you know, a whole new product or something, but I guess things that we're interested, curious about that if there's problems we want to deal with. But then there's always new instruments is you know that um that make it super interesting. And um because we set up this whole system so we can we can do other instruments in uh like and so the Marimba vibrophone xylophone fall into the it's called the mallet percussion category. So it's you know you're you're striking it with mallets. And there's and uh so there's some other uh instruments in there, like there's the bells, it's it's a hilarious word called Glockenspiel. The Glockenspiel. The Glockenspiel. What does that mean? Um I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Glockenspiel. So Glock, I think it may be um German. I'm not really sure, actually. But pretty sure that's Germanic, yeah. And so you know, it's the I would consider that instrument tonally and musically the opposite of the marimba. Like the marimba in the particularly in the bass end is this really like warm visceral sound that I mean that's really the reason why I make it that I wanted to make marimbas. I just love the bass end. Yeah. And uh because it you could feel it and it's got this great, really great feeling to it. So the Glockenspiel's the opposite. So that's like, you know, that's like a big hesitation on my part. We don't make those, you know, but but maybe one day. And uh You never know. And uh but we we did a really fun project. Um we started it maybe two years ago. And uh it's a marimba, but so a marimba like a piano, low notes are on the left, high notes are on the right, white keys, black keys. So you have that like, you know, it's all it's a cultural reference. So so so I I came up with this instrument where it it it it it diverges from that layout. And it's more like in a sort of uh we call it the jewel marimba, and the notes work off diagonals. And uh and so that was a super fun project because um what makes the projects most fun, I think, at Marimba One, is when it inv the most people it can involve, the more fun and interesting it is because everybody has a lot of unique talents. And so there, you know, it's the tuners, it's the engineers, it's you know, the actual assemblers, like everything. And so so that instrument became um in a in a in most businesses, like you sort of prep you plan out, okay, product development, right? We're gonna like do this, this, you know, on this calendar schedule. So it just sort of happened, you know, and everybody was like, oh man, you're doing this to us right now. But it turned out everybody got on board because it was so interesting. Prototype. Yeah. So I said we built like, you know, a dozen of them now or something. And uh so um that's been one of the more fun things that we've done in a long time.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. Yeah. Cool. Changing lives through sound. I like I like what AI came up with here for this. Uh-huh. All right. Uh that's good. Crucial role the careers of countless musicians. That's a pretty big order, but probably true.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I mean, we're we're making people these really nice instruments.
SPEAKER_00:Uh credits Marimba One for enabling him his expressive range and technical precision. Um similarly, precut uh percussion ensembles in institutions like Juilliard School. Yeah. And Eastman School of Music. I don't really know what that is, probably pretty big.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh rely on Marimba Marimba One instruments for both teaching and performance. Cool.
SPEAKER_01:That's like the San Francisco Symphony, LA Phil, Chicago Symphony. A lot, you know, a lot of symphonies have our stuff and universities. Cool.
SPEAKER_00:You guys have done business with like the some of the big boys.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but everybody's just the same when it comes down to it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Just want to buy a good marembo.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and and and give them what they what they expect to get.
SPEAKER_00:That's cool. I love that, man. So you probably traveled and met a lot of seen a lot of these folks that use the instruments then.
SPEAKER_01:Um yeah, over the years I have.
SPEAKER_00:That's pretty cool. Yes. Where's Eastman School? Eastman School is in Rochester, New York. Okay. It's upstate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a sister from up that way. Oh yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Never been up there yet. Wanna go? Well, cool. Hey, let's talk about uh let's talk about your legacy. And uh so I always at the end of the show I usually talk about uh what do you want to be remembered for? Uh Joni's dad, who's really plucky, uh uh guy from LA. Who are you and what do you want? We'll start with that. Who are you and and what do you want, Ron Samuels?
SPEAKER_01:Well um, you know, who am I is something I'd like to think that's evolving and changing every day. That's a good answer. As best I can, you know, but it's sort of stuck in stuck in my my ways. And you know, I'm sure who is it, yeah. Um you know, uh who am I? Um Well, I I believe that I'd want for everyone to live a uh uh um uh ethical, creative and life that allows them to, you know, to be fed and housed and be comfortable. And so um I mean but really who I am, that's sort of a crazy question. Yeah. I you know, I have no idea who I am. Aaron Ross Powell That's good. And evolving. Yeah. I'm evolving into, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Who am I? Like I'll I'll never do it that way again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So that's good. Yeah. I've learned the lesson. Yeah. Yeah. That's not who I am. Yeah. Um and so at the end of life, at your celebration of life, what what would we what would you hope people would say about you?
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell Well, if it's people I built instruments for, they'd probably say, he emailed me a bunch. You know? What a clarity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He emailed a lot. Um so those people would say that. Um I I think people um let's see. Well, on my family side, like, you know, I would think they f would feel I would hope, I would really hope that they'd feel like well loved and cared for. You know, and and uh um yeah. I r you know, that's really important to me. Work at that with my wife and kids. You know, um in uh you know, and then on sort of like the the instrument side, that the whole side of my life. Uh um, you know, people might say that I loved and cared for the instruments I've been building all these years too. I you know, I don't that that's what my hope would be. And there's the work family that are part of that. Yeah. I'm sure too. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:The team.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. The outrageous team that's like on their their they are the A-team.
SPEAKER_00:I uh had lunch with my friend Ron Pellegi, he used to own the Tri City Paper back in the day and several years ago we were at uh Rick and Fire somewhere.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I said, So what what's your life about? He goes, Scott, I just take care of people. Uh-huh. And I go, wow, that's profound and simple and brief. And I thought, you take care of people. That's good. Uh me too. I want to take care of people. Like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My people. The ones that God's put in my life. Uh-huh. I want to take care of those guys.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, so uh similar answer. So what are we putting on your gravestone? What would you do a little brief thing, provided you were given that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Uh I'm not gonna have a gravestone. I'm just gonna be composted out there. And also a good answer.
SPEAKER_00:No wrong answers here. Uh-huh. I like that. Yeah. So any parting shots, anything you wanna uh oh let how do how do we get a hold of Maramba One?
SPEAKER_01:Uh you just look us up on on uh social media or find a website and Chat GPT. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You're gonna say Google it, I could say chat it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's gonna be the next level.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, you you could find us there and in you know, see a lot of the things that we're doing.
SPEAKER_00:Do you do community-related things like in schools or to tours or I uh Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. We we we give tours and we we put on mini concerts almost always at the playhouse. Okay. And artists that come through. And uh yeah, we give, you know, we um we uh you know, we support the Eureka Symphony and and in local schools, build some instruments for actually for tuna high.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah That's neat.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's because they're school school related in that way.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. So do what uh it kind of begs the question. So a a traveling marimba player, will he or she bring their own instrument?
SPEAKER_01:Um not if they could help it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. It's like a Hammond B3 organ, it's as big as this desk. It is. And heavier.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's an ordeal.
SPEAKER_00:So if there's low resident marembas, it's it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and uh um if it's a vibrophone player, they're small enough where you can you could you know bring your instrument with you. Trevor Burrus, Jr. I could set those up. Yeah. And uh or otherwise, you know, if someone's coming through here or another venue, we'll we'll supply them with the instrument.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell So tours the factory, get schools or kids or groups?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. We've given we've given many school tours to the factory and and uh yeah, a lot of kids and you know it's interesting. Uh I sort of remember groups, and uh one time I I gave a tour to uh a group of like I don't know, it was it was these are like senior, senior citizens on their 80s, you know and and and older. And what was so interesting is they actually asked the most interesting questions. They were the most engaged. Wow. And I was going, wow, that is so interesting. I would not have suspected that. Yeah. Yeah. Good.
SPEAKER_00:I bet it's an educational fun thing. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So we can find you at marimba1.com or somewhere in that. That's where you find us. Yeah. Good. Well, hey, thanks for being here. Hey, thank you, Scott, for inviting me here to do all this. Yeah. I'm gonna go I think I'm gonna go home listen to some marimba marimba music right away. Okay. Yeah, because why not? Yeah. Maybe some dead too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, so so one place where you can hear marimba music that we've all heard it, is uh Rolling Stones under my thumb. Yes. And so there's Marimba on there. You go, oh wow, check that out. Yeah, and that's like and uh and then you could hear it in a lot of different music.
SPEAKER_00:Any other songs come to mind? I was gonna say any dead songs with Marimba?
SPEAKER_01:Uh none that I can think of. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I bet there's one out there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Somewhere. Yeah. We did make instruments for Mickey Hart. Yeah. I guess I use them for the with the dead. Yeah. Really?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Specifically for Mickey.
SPEAKER_01:For yeah. And those are those are ballophones. Okay. And uh for for a while I was making ballophones, which are uh with with gourds as resonators. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah, they're fun instruments. That's a specialty thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um Hey, well, hey, appreciate you being here. And uh hey, uh if you would like, you could love us, like us, join us, uh, donate to us. Uh I've got uh we're all over Access Me uh Access Humboldt TV, and we're on YouTube and we're on all the podcast uh platforms. So uh make a comment uh on Ron and I. And thanks for joining us. Scott Hammond with the 100% Humboldt Podcast, my new best friend Ron Samuels. Thanks, Ron. Hey, thank you, Scott. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you. All right, all the best.
