Welcome to Life With Strings Attached, I’m your host, Jamie Gale. In this episode, we’re stepping into a space that is, depending on who you ask, either full of possibility… or full of uncertainty.

My guest today is Sourabh Pateriya, founder and CEO of Soundverse AI, a platform working at the intersection of music, technology, and what it means to create in a world where the tools are changing faster than ever before.

Sourabh’s path is an interesting one. From engineering to design, from Spotify (where he co-invented Basic Pitch) to working on conversational AI with Samsung’s Bixby, and now building a company focused on ethical, artist-first AI music creation… his work sits right at the edge of where creativity and technology meet.

But what makes this conversation worth having isn’t just the technology.
It’s the perspective behind it. Because before all of this, Sourabh was a musician, someone who understands what it means to make something from nothing. And now he’s asking a much bigger question: What happens when the tools of creation become accessible to everyone? And more importantly… what happens to the role of the artist?

This is a conversation about access, about authorship, about ethics… and about whether we’re building a future that expands creativity, or reshapes it entirely.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached and Boutique Guitar Showcase:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase

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Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Today’s conversation takes place in the workshop of Steve Klein. Someone who, for more than half a century, hasn’t just built guitars, but has continuously rethought what the instrument could be.

This isn’t a conversation about legacy. It’s about what’s still unfolding.
Steve is one of those rare builders who never settled into a fixed idea. While many define their work and then repeat it, he’s continued to question, redesign, and push forward. Still chasing new forms, new functions, and new ways the guitar can meet the player.

What struck me most being here is that the thinking hasn’t slowed. If anything, it’s sharpened. There are still ideas on the bench. Still questions being asked. Still things to say. And that’s where we begin, not with where it started, but with where it is right now.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, and I think you will too.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached and Boutique Guitar Showcase:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase

Support the deeper conversations:
🔗 The Business of Guitar – Patreon

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to Life With Strings Attached, I’m your host Jamie Gale.
There are certain figures in guitar making whose influence runs so deep, it begins to shape not just instruments, but the way we think about them. Ervin Somogyi is one of those voices.

His influence can be felt across generations of makers. Names like Jason Kostal, Michihiro Matsuda, and Raymond Kraut. Each carrying forward a piece of that thinking in their own way.

In this conversation, we move far beyond the guitar as an object, and into the philosophy of sound, perception, and the quiet discipline of listening. We explore what it means to truly understand tone, why hand skills have been undervalued in modern culture, and how small, intentional changes can unlock profound differences in an instrument’s voice.

Ervin reflects on a lifetime of questioning, refining, and perhaps most importantly, remaining curious. This is not a conversation about certainty. It’s about exploration, humility, and the long arc of learning how to hear.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and I think you will too.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached and Boutique Guitar Showcase:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase

Support the deeper conversations:
🔗 The Business of Guitar – Patreon

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to the 100th episode of Life With Strings Attached. There are certain conversations that stay with you. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, they’re the ones you get to return to. For this milestone episode, it felt right to come back to where it all began by welcoming back our very first guest, William “Grit” Laskin.

Grit is one of the most respected voices in modern guitar making. But more than that, he’s a thinker whose work continues to shape how we understand the guitar, not only as an instrument, but as a vessel for meaning.

Recorded in Grit’s Toronto workshop, surrounded by the raw materials that eventually become instruments capable of moving people, this conversation feels both grounded and expansive. It reflects on where we’ve come, what has changed, and what still remains unresolved.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached and Boutique Guitar Showcase:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase

Support the deeper conversations:
🔗 The Business of Guitar – Patreon

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to Life with Strings Attached. Today's episode is recorded live in Anaheim, California at The NAMM Show as part of the 125th anniversary of NAMM within the 10th annual Boutique Guitar Showcase.

As part of these special anniversary events, we moderated a three part series of panel discussions on the unwritten future of guitar.

This second part features Francisco Cresp of Neural DSP, Larry Fishman of Fishman, Chris Griffiths of D'Addario and Eli Lester of Two Rock as we discuss 'Experience Filters in the guitar world, live from the BGS Booth at The NAMM Show 2025.

Our panelists are some of the most influential people in the guitar business today. I hope you enjoy this special three part series on Life with Strings Attached.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached and Boutique Guitar Showcase:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase

Support the deeper conversations:
🔗 The Business of Guitar – Patreon

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

In this episode, Robin Stummvoll returns to the podcast to talk about the release of Verso Instruments’ latest design and the broader ideas that continue to shape his work.

Robin is a designer and luthier whose work consistently challenges how we think about guitars, materials, and musical interfaces. This time, our focus turns to the lap steel. An instrument with no fixed archetype and enormous expressive potential. From innovation in tuning and construction to the physics of sound, perception, and play, we explore how curiosity drives both design and music.

Our conversation also moves beyond instruments, touching on childhood creativity, learning through play, emotional connection, and why making sound matters. Especially in uncertain times.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Robin, and I hope you do as much as I did.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached and Boutique Guitar Showcase:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase

Support the deeper conversations:
🔗 The Business of Guitar – Patreon

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to Life with Strings Attached. Today's episode is recorded live in Anaheim, California at The NAMM Show as part of the 125th anniversary of NAMM within the 10th annual Boutique Guitar Showcase.

As part of these special anniversary events, we moderated a three part series of panel discussions on the unwritten future of guitar.

This second part features Bob Taylor, Ola Strandberg and Sheldon Dingwall as we discuss 'User Interface' in Guitar Design, live from the BGS Booth at The NAMM Show 2025.

Our panelists are some of the most influential people in the guitar business today. I hope you enjoy this special three part series on Life with Strings Attached.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached and Boutique Guitar Showcase:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase

Support the deeper conversations:
🔗 The Business of Guitar – Patreon

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.

Welcome to Life with Strings Attached. Today's episode is recorded live in Anaheim, California at The NAMM Show as part of the 125th anniversary of NAMM within the 10th annual Boutique Guitar Showcase.

As part of these special anniversary events, we moderated a three part series of panel discussions on the unwritten future of guitar.

Our panelists are some of the most influential people in the guitar business today. I hope you enjoy this special three part series on Life with Strings Attached.

Watch the video version on YouTube:
🔗 YouTube Channel – Life With Strings Attached

Learn more about Life With Strings Attached and Boutique Guitar Showcase:
🔗 Boutique Guitar Showcase

Support the deeper conversations:
🔗 The Business of Guitar – Patreon

Thank you for listening and supporting the ongoing conversation between music, makers, history and the future.