Gear
I have been truly blessed and am very thankful, not only for the
opportunity to share and experience music in so many ways, but also for the
instruments that help me express the music that's inside me.
This is one of the most visited pages on my website so it looks like
someone's getting some use out of it. I love getting email from people
shopping for similar gear and asking questions about the gear I use. Please
feel free to drop me a line if I can help answer any questions.
Since I perform different styles of music, as a soloist and with a variety
of groups, it's important that the instruments and equipment I use are well-
suited to each style, whether it's strumming on the church worship team,
playing with a Jazz quartet or a Gypsy Jazz trio, or performing solo
fingerstyle.
This is a 1979 Gibson ES-175D. It's a great Jazz
guitar. It was the first pro guitar I owned. Right before my Junior year in
high school, I sold a trumpet that I played and bought this guitar from my
local guitar shop. Great tone and so versatile. It's suitable for many
styles of music. The 175 has served me through many, many performances over
the years and it's holding up very well. It's still my main Jazz box.
This is a Fender Strat. It's a remake of the
1960's Strat, in Olympic White. I replaced the factory pickups with a set of
Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups. They work great. I also mounted a Roland
GK-2A divided pickup on it so that I can connect to the GR-33 guitar synth
and control other MIDI instruments (I love playing steel drums on
guitar!).
I hadn't bought a standard acoustic steel-string
guitar for many, many years. I figured I needed something new that would be
both a good fingerstyle guitar and a good strummer. I also needed something
that would project well when I play unplugged. After much (MUCH) playing and
listening to various guitars around the Seattle area, I decided this Taylor
414CE was the one for me. I really like the crisp sparkle and full low end I
get from the 414. I compared it to other Taylors (614's and 714's), as well
as other brands, but this particular guitar just stood out for me. Great
guitar.
Image Gallery
This is a custom-made, Noble baritone acoustic. I
love the haunting sound of baritone guitars and the inspiration that comes
from the lower tunings. Duane Noble (
http://www.dlnobleguitars.com/) built this guitar for
me, with Koa back and sides, Sitka Spruce top, Boxwood binding, Mahogany
neck, and Ebony fingerboard. Duane's guitars are just beautiful; pleasing to
both the ear and the eye...world-class, all the way! His inlay and
woodworking skills amaze me. I had Duane install a
B-Band A2.2 XOM pickup system. This
system is great at capturing the lower frequencies of the baritone while
keeping the highs crisp and clear. It picks up the natural sound of the
guitar very nicely and I'm extremely happy with it. For a closer look at
this guitar, be sure to check out the
Baritone Image Gallery.
I bought this Line 6 Variax Acoustic 700 not long
after they hit the market. I was a bit skeptical, at first, about buying an
"acoustic" guitar that depended so heavily on electronics for it's sound.
However, once I played it, and perhaps more importantly, recorded with it, I
was convinced this was the way to go. It models so many amazing acoustic
guitars and other stringed instruments, all perfectly EQ'ed and balanced,
without the need for any tone tweaking. It's perfect for heavy strumming,
light fingerstyle, and everything in between. If you haven't heard a Variax
Acoustic yet, you really should. The
Line 6 site
has some great audio and video demos you can check out.
This is the guitar I play in our Gypsy Jazz trio,
The Hot Heads of Gypsy Jazz. Gypsy Jazz definitely has a sound all its own.
Playing this music on a traditional steel string guitar just doesn't even
approach the authentic sound people come to expect from the genre. Listen to
players like Django Reinhardt, Stochelo Rosenberg, Biréli
Lagrène, and many others, and you'll hear how important the tone and
volume of these guitars is. High-end Gypsy Jazz guitars can cost thousands
of dollars. I opted for a much less expensive model and then had the
shop put on a professional bridge, tailpiece, and tuners, and had the neck
adjusted to a more traditional Gypsy Jazz action and feel. It has a nice,
dry tone for rhythm playing and can definitely cut through with bright, loud
leads. It's a lot of fun to play.
This classical guitar is part of the Ibanez
Exotic Wood Series. The top, back, and sides are made from flamed Sycamore.
The worksmanship on it is really remarkable, considering the low price I
paid for it. It has a B-Band pickup system in it and an onboard EQ with a
notch filter. This guitar has a tone that perfect for latin Jazz and Jazz
guitar duet gigs.
My wife and sons got me this Washburn Rover
travel guitar for Father's Day. A while back, I found myself in a hotel
room, completely inspired after a Phil Keaggy clinic, and I had no guitar
with me. Torture, I tell you! The next day, I went to check out various
travel guitars so that I could easily take one with me when I travel. I
played many different brands and models but this one stood out in terms of
tone quality, intonation, and playability. It has a full-scale neck, solid
mahogany back and sides, and a spruce top. Great little guitar. I don't gig
with it but thought I'd include it here anyway. If I ever find myself up a
creek without a paddle...I can use this.
I loved the Line 6 Variax Acoustic so much...I
bought the company! Okay. Not really. I recently found myself playing such a
wide variety of styles in several different groups, with several different
guitars; I wanted to find one amp that could be used in all those
situations. This Line 6 Flextone III was the answer for me. It'll handle
everything from bright acoustic to ear-drum-rupturing thrash metal. I love
the tone I get out of it when I'm comping in a big-band setting, and the
blues and rock tones just...well...rock!
This is the Line 6 Shortboard foot controller for
the Flextone III. You really need one of these if you're going to be using
the Flextone in live performances. It allows you to access all of the
patches on the amp, as well as some nice, extra features that you can't
really get otherwise.
I recently upgraded to the Boss RC-50 Loop
Station. I needed a way to record short percussive loops on one track and
then record longer loops over the top of that, on a separate track. The RC-50
is really 3 loopers in one. Each can work independently or can serve as
multiple layers of a single loop.
This is the guitar synthesizer I control using
the Fender Strat. It's a Roland GR-33. Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of
owning a guitar synth someday. It's so fun to play a guitar solo one minute
and then drop into a fretless bass solo or a vibes solo the next. There are
so many possibilities when I have all these tones at my feet.
This is my acoustic guitar pedalboard. I swap
pedals in and out on it, as needed. Pictured here is a Roland RC-20XL Loop
Station, along with an Ibanez stereo chorus, a Boss 7-band EQ, an Arion
octave pedal (great, inexpensive pedal), a Line 6 direct box/power supply,
and a Boss FS-6 dual footswitch controller for the looper. I'll also throw
an Ibanez Tube Screamer, a Line 6 Verbzilla, and an A/B/C switch box on
there for gigs.
This is a Yamaha Stagepas 300 PA. It's the PA I
use for most every solo gig and some combo gigs. At 300 watts, it gives me
enough power for medium-sized venues and it is just amazingly crystal clear
— especially with the Variax Acoustic. The removeable amp locks
(optionally) in place on the back of one of the speakers, making it very
portable and easy to set up. I played "Evita" a while back and used just one
speaker, with the mixer, as my guitar amp. What a great sound. And it filled
the auditorium!
Okay...yeah...I know. It's a stool. Big deal. But
if you're a guitar player, you know how difficult it is to find that perfect
stool. The seat has to be at just the right height so you can reach your
pedals on the floor and you need a foot rest that puts your knee at just the
right height and angle to hold the guitar comfortably. I tried so many
stools and then stumbled upon this On Stage guitar/keyboard stool. I think I
may have heard angels singing when I saw it for the first time. Maybe not.
It really is the perfect stool for me though. And it's a firm stool.
