I’ve had a few questions about drum gear, a few questions about bass gear and I’m finally getting around to guitar gear. I was fortunate to have a few years playing guitar on stage and in the studio in different musical scenarios. This had a big effect on what I like in a guitar rig. I had a very narrow taste in guitar tones when I first started out. I had a Strat and a Marshall and that was it for me. Then I found myself playing in a stripped down R&B trio and felt like my sound was closer to silverware banging on plates then butter on the tongue. Fast forward a few years and I’m touring with the Roots and needing to widen my palate to cover everything. Eventually I began down the slippery slope of buying, trying and buying more gear. For the past few years I’ve got it down to one guitar that does most of the work. I have a Les Paul custom with recently installed Joe Barden Two Tone humbuckers and both pickups are coil tapped. It’s a big, heavy, dark sounding guitar with bright pickps to compliment it’s natural tone. When the pickups are coil tapped I can get a great single coil sound from either pickup. It’s pretty fresh. Another good thing about the Bardens is the very low noise in any setting. I don’t know what they’re doing over there at the Virginia factory but they do it well. For years I played with Gibson Vintage Reissue 11-52 strings but I’ve stepped it down to 10′s to ease the stress on my wrists.
I’ve had the same pedalboard setup for a while now. It starts with a Boss TU-2 tuner, an Ibanez CS9 chorus and then an Emma Transmorgrifier Compressor. This is pretty much the same front end I use in my bass rig. I really like both the chorus and compressor in just about any setting. The chorus just sounds “right” to me. I don’t know how else to explain it. And the compressor is versatile enough for anything. I bet it would work on drums and vocals too. Next up is a Fulltone Ultimate Octave. That’s the secret weapon on the solo in my song “Not Today”. After that is a Hughes and Kettner Rotosphere. I’ve tried to find a descent replacement for this pedal because it is horribly noisy but nothing comes close with it’s sound. The same thing goes for the next pedal, a Line 6 DL4, except for the noise. I wanted to replace this pedal because it doesn’t like line level signal. When I would use it in my effects loop it would cut my volume dramatically while engaged. It has to be in the front end before the amp but it sounds great and there’s nothing like it. Last on the board is a Lehle Dual A/B switch which leads to two different amps.
On stage I have two amps. A Mesa F30 for distortion and a Mesa Lonestar Special for cleans. I use a Keeley modded TS9 just before the F30 to blend overdrives to get a more mid-forward sound. The F30 then runs into an EVM12L loaded Thiele 1×12 cab. It may be a single 12″ cab but it slays a lot of 4×12″s when it comes to tone. The Lonestar runs into a Weber Blue Dog loaded open back 1×12. I compared this amp side by side with quite a few other amps and this was my favorite. One of the benefits of using small amps is that it enables me to drive the amps hard without being too loud on stage. I got into using separate amps for clean and dirty after hearing the control Mikey from Incubus had over his sounds. It’s great to have a good closed back cab for overdrive and an open back for cleans.
Add a good Côtes du Rhône and you have my current stage rig on guitar. I use a lot of different things in the studio. That where anything goes as long as it gets the results. Most of the time the Les Paul is where it starts but the rest is a free for all. Thanks to everyone for the interest and thanks for the questions.
Tchuse!