A happy accident

Sunlight filtered in through Kyle’s blinds, washing across his face and waking him from slumber. Rolling over, his hand brushed against the piece of paper the band leader had given him last night. “I didn’t even catch the rest of their names.” Kyle thought as he sat up in bed, staring at the scrap.

After getting dressed in some specially made blue jeans and t-shirt, (God his tailor rates were murder) Kyle threw on a jacket and headed out the door, grabbing an apple along the way. “Well the address isn’t really all that far from me, I need the exercise anyway.” He thought as he descended the main staircase of his building.

“Good morning Kyle, going out?” A light blue mare at the office desk called out.

“Morning Lemon Haze, Yep I’ve got an appointment today.” Kyle replied.

“Oh another job interview?” She asked.

“You could say something like that yeah.” Kyle said, scratching his head.

“Well I hope it goes well, goodbye Kyle.” Lemon Haze said, waving her hoof.

“Bye Lemon Haze.” Kyle called, walking out the building door and onto the sidewalk. Checking the piece of paper one more time, he set out in the direction of the hotel.

Walking through the streets of Canterlot had gotten easier over the years, but it was still difficult. Most ponies had stopped screaming or running at the sight of him, but the long stares and judgmental looks persisted. Paths were cleared and mothers unconsciously pulled their foals closer.

Thankfully there were some that welcomed the unusual. Parts of the city had gradually become more integrated. He passed gryphons, hippogryphs, reformed changelings, and even some minotaurs, all going about their days. It was in these neighborhoods where Kyle felt the most at ease. Sure there were still stares, but not at all like the mostly pony parts of the city.

The hotel Kyle sought was inside one of the integrated neighborhoods. Stepping into the lobby he approached the front desk. “Excuse me, but is this where ‘Mane Attraction’ is staying?” He asked the brown colored stallion working there.

“Ah yes, they told me somepony, someONE?” He said, subtly asking Kyle his preferred way of being addressed.

“Someone is fine.” Kyle replied appreciatively.

“Right, they told me someone matching your description might show up here looking for them. Room 203 through 205 is where I believe they are staying.” The stallion informed Kyle, who thanked him and proceeded to the hotel’s elevators.

Reaching the correct rooms Kyle knocked on 203 first. A few seconds later one of the guitarists in the band opened the room door.

“Oh, hey let me get the others.” The gryphon said, squeezing past him to knock on the rest of the rooms.

Soon everyone had assembled inside 203, the small hotel room becoming cramped due to the number of occupants. It was a fairly nice space, with two queen sized beds, a desk, and a pair of cushioned chairs making up the main bulk of the room.

“So, have you considered our offer? It’s Kyle right?” The yellow unicorn mare asked.

“Yeah, it’s Kyle. I don’t think I caught the rest of your names last night though.” He replied

“Oh no worries, I’m Regal Melody.” She said, touching her chest with a hoof. “This is Garvyn.” Gesturing to the dark blue gryphon who lent his guitar the night before. “And his brother Geron.” The light brown gryphon gave a small nod.

“I’m Bass Note.” An orange Pegasus chimed in. Definitely the bass player from last night.

“You’ve already met me.” Mythic Beat said, smirking. “These are our roadies, Forest Apple and Lucky Prize.” He said, waving his hoof to a large brown earth pony and white unicorn.

“So what are you guys proposing?” Kyle asked.

“We want you to open for us at a few shows on our next tour.” Melody replied, the rest of the band nodded in agreement. “Ponies seemed to really like what you did last night,” she continued “If word gets around that you’re traveling with us our ticket sales might go up.”

“Ok, but I have no way of replicating what happened last night.” Kyle pointed out. “Humans have special boxes that shape the guitar signal going into the amp. That’s how we get the kind of sound you heard last night without breaking our amps. Last time I checked Equestria doesn’t have those.”

“Equestria doesn’t, but Griffinstone does.” Geron piped up, “Us gryphons can’t really use magic at all, so we have to use other sources of power for things like lights and appliances.”

“Wait.” Kyle said, “You guys use electricity? Like with ohms, volts, circuits, that kind of stuff?”

“Yep, we use all of that. Magic Crystals don’t really have much of a market back home though, they don’t work outside of Equestria and magical energy converters are super expensive.” Geron explained.

“Do you use vacuum tubes?” Kyle asked, the gears in his head already turning.

“Most of our amplifiers are powered by vacuum tubes, there’s a few newfangled “transistor amps” floating around but those are still like a brand new thing, I don’t know much about them.” The gryphon continued.

“Well that solves my replication problem, humans use tube amps too. And I used to build those little stomp-boxes back in college.” Kyle said, still surprised that he never heard that gryphons use analog technology.

“We still have that amp you played out of before, and some old backup equipment from our Griffinstone tour in storage. Is that enough of what you need.” Royal Melody asked to Kyle’s enthusiastic nodding.

“Oh yeah, I can absolutely work with that.” He said “Guess that electrical engineering degree isn’t worthless now after all.” Kyle thought.

“How soon is your next show?” He asked, knowing that what they were asking for was going to take some trial and error to get right.

“Our tour isn’t for another few months at least. But we have a live radio concert in two weeks.” Garvyn said.

“Are you on board?” Royal Melody asked expectantly.

Kyle thought for a moment, processing all the information.

“So you want me, to open for you, with songs in a genre that is completely brand new, with absolutely no plan and just hope this all works out... Let’s do it.”

“Glad to hear it.” She said, producing a bag of bits. “You saved our show last night so we all thought a little thank you was in order. It’s only 300 bits but hey, once you play a couple shows with us there’ll be a bigger cut.” Royal turned to address Garvyn. “Could you take him down to the storage unit so he can grab what he needs.”

“Sure thing boss, follow me.” He said walking towards the door. Kyle following closely behind the blue gryphon.

“So how long have you guys been a band?” Kyle asked as they walked down the street. The storage facility was about four or five blocks away from the hotel, so they had room for conversation.

“Probably close to ten years, we started when we were youngsters and just never stopped.” Garvyn replied, “It was really hard starting out because a lot of ponies still had prejudice against gryphons. Thankfully now with Princess Twilight’s friendship school and everything those opinions started to change.”

“Yeah I have some experience in that regard, the first few years I still had ponies run off screaming I was a monster. Even now I sometimes get fearful looks, that...that’s rough.” Kyle said, shaking his head and looking down at the ground.

The facility was plain looking, just some large stone rectangles, with rolling metal doors marking the individual units. After retrieving the proper key from a mare at the front desk, Garvyn led Kyle to a unit at the far end of the lot.

“Here we are, this place should have everything you need.” The gryphon said, unlocking and lifting the rolling door.

Only about half full, the unit had a mix of bass and guitar amplifiers lining the back wall. Two combos, two pairs of heads and some speaker cabinets. On the left side was a mixture of mic and lighting stands, and on the right was boxes of various audio mixers, preamps, and other equipment.

Kyle began looking over the amps, the combos were mid size, covered in some sort of tweed material, roughly about 2 feet tall and three feet wide. Peeking around the backs he saw they had two 12 inch speakers and seven controls each, one combo having a reverb unit and the other sporting some sort of tremolo circuit. Judging by the number of tubes they had Kyle guessed they were about 25 to 45 watts.

“Flyer? Never heard of that brand before.” He remarked after seeing the nameplates of each amp.

“It’s the Griffinstone branch of an Equestrian company. You probably know them as Fender.” Garvyn explained.

Moving on to the heads and cabinets Kyle saw that they were pretty standard. With four 12 inch speakers in the cabs and the heads being Marshall-like in appearance. The company was different of course but he knew what they were.

Grabbing a box half full with spare preamps and a few mini mixers Kyle turned to Garvyn, “This should be enough stuff to tinker with at my apartment.” He said.

“Alright, I guess we’ll be at the hotel if you need us. Hope all this works out.” The gryphon said.

“Oh yeah, most of the stomp boxes I need started out as faulty connections in mixing boards. So I just need to play around with these things until they make a sound I like.” Kyle said, turning around and following Garvyn.

The pair went their separate ways soon after exiting the storage lot. Garvyn headed back to the hotel and Kyle made his way back to his apartment building. He had a lot of work to do.