Roman Belonozhko
Ridgefield, WA
Shnobel Tone
www.shnobeltone.com

How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place?

I started playing guitar when I was 14 years old so Ive been at it for over 20 years. I was born in Ukraine, which is a small Eastern European country, and at that time it was still part of the Soviet Union. Growing up I had uncles from both my mom’s and dad’s side that are musicians and I grew up with seeing them play and perform, and was around a lot of music in my early days. Eventually I wanted to pick up an instrument, and I gravitated towards the guitar. I also have siblings that are musicians, and growing up we played a lot of music together, and even had a band with my brothers called Sons of Day.

Who have been some of your major musical influences, past or present?

I really liked the band U2 when I first discovered them, and it was all because of The Edge and his relationship with the delay effect. Then I discovered guys that are very creative players, but are not as well known, like Gerry Leonard and Dominic Miller, then discovering Jeff Beck and how he plays…it was just mind-blowing how his technique is so different, but he has total control of the guitar at all times.

What led to the start of Shnobel Tone? How long have you been in business? How big is your operation/how many employees do you have?

In 2011, I started making demo videos on YouTube of pedals that I had at that time. I kept on making videos, and one thing I noticed is that there were not that many videos that compared pedals side by side, so I made many videos comparing similar and sometimes different sounding pedals. That has been something that I still do even today.

In 2015, I saw an idea on Instagram about someone showing an edited image of a volume pedal with a tuner on the face of it. I thought it was an great idea, so I started messing with volume and tuner pedals, and eventually came up with a modification. I announced it to the world on my YouTube channel, started taking orders and it became my part time job modifying volume pedals and installing tuners into them.

In 2020, I launched my original pedal called the Daily Driver Overdrive, and I’m exited to be releasing more original pedals in the near future.

Shnobel Tone is a very small operation – I work out of my home and its me and my wife Isabel for now, she helps me with customer service, emails, phone calls and shipping.

Did you have formal schooling, or are you self-taught? Take us through that story:

For guitar I took a few small lessons from a family friend when I was starting out, it was basic stuff like chords and bar chords and I would later use books and internet videos to learn more stuff on the guitar. In electronics, I’m learning a lot lately – I never went to school for it, I read a lot online and I work with people who help me design and lay out the schematics for a pedal. I usually spend lot of time trying different components to get the sound just right, and I’m always excited to learn something new everyday.

What drives you as far as new pedal creation is concerned? How long does it typically take for an idea to come full circle and become a demo pedal? What’s the process behind new gear, and the eventual release of it to the public?

I love to approach an idea from a fresh perspective, and think of new ways of doing things that weren’t done before. For my pedal called the Daily Driver Overdrive, it took about a year and a half from an idea to a finished product. Before releasing a product, I like to test it and spend a lot of time testing and trying the pedal into as many different amplifiers as possible, to understand how it behaves and what it sounds like into those amps.

What are some of the biggest concerns facing your profession today?

A lot of the technology that is being perfected and sounding really good is modelers, more and more people are moving to using units like the Helix and Kemper. And analog pedals are slowly showing less and less demand as time goes on.

Where do you see pedal building going in the future, especially amidst the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic?

I think there a lot of great companies that are making really amazing stuff, people are always going to be interested in great and unique sounding pedals. It was interesting to see people get back into playing guitar during the lock down, and I think its a great time to dig into developing circuits and take advantage of this time to create even better products.

Who are some of your favorite builders in the industry right now?

I really like what Analog Man is doing, Chase Bliss Audio makes some great innovative stuff and there are many other small companies that put out some amazing stuff.

Name the last 5 records you listened to:

Coldplay – Everyday Life
Rivers & Robots – Discovery
Plumb – Candy Coated Water Drops
U2 – How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – Fly by Wire

Klon hype: Love it or Hate it?

I don’t have any strong feelings about the Klon. It is an expensive pedal and it’s taken on a life of its own. That’s the used market, people willing to pay a lot of money for them and it seems to hold its value.

Any last comments, or anything you’d like to talk about?

I would like to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my story.