One of the questions I get asked most often is how I get the sounds I get either for gigs or for my videos. So I thought I’d try to point you in the right direction if you want to learn more about the gear I use.<\/p>\n
I have 3 Les Pauls, 2 have a slimmer 60’s neck, and 1 is a ’59 VOS (Virtual Old Stock) Gold Top. The blue one has Lollar Imperial Low Wind pickups, the Black one has a Seymour Duncan Saturday Night Special in the Bridge and ’59 in the neck. The ’59 has Gibson pickups that came with it.<\/p>\n
You might also see me with a beautiful Paul Reed Smith (PRS) that was a gift and is one of the most amazing guitars I’ve ever played.<\/p>\n
I occasionally use my 1998 Fender Telecaster with Lindy Fralin Blues Special Pickups, also strung with Ernie Ball Regular Slinky strings. I also have a G&L Doheny with the stock pickups – great sounding guitar.<\/p>\n
I also sometimes use my Gibson 335 which is several years old and has Lollar Imperial pickups in it.<\/p>\n
The reason I change the pickups in my Les Pauls is that the original pickups are too high output for me. Same for the 335, the ’57s that were in it were too hot and I couldn’t hardly get a clean tone out of it. The pickups in the ’59 Goldtop, however, sound incredible and I see no reason to change them!<\/p>\n
I use two “strats” made by Suhr Guitars, and they are just standard strats… “Classics” is the term Suhr uses, I believe.<\/p>\n
Generally speaking, I’m not a big fan of the necks on modern Fenders… but I do have an original 1969 Strat that I got from Norm’s Rare Guitars in LA.<\/p>\n
It has incredible tone, and I live with the vintage neck shape on that one \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
I also have a Tyler Studio Elite, a Tom Anderson Cobra, and a couple of other guitars that have showed up over the years. But, in general, I’m not a guitar collector. I have what I need for any type of gig, and I don’t look any further. I have backups for guitars I take out on gigs, that’s why the duplication (I have a backup for just about everything.)<\/p>\n
My acoustic is a Taylor 410CE from 1998. It sounds beautiful and I have no need for any other.<\/p>\n
When I play bass I use a Squier Vintage Modified 5 String. It works great and gives me the tones I need. Many of my jam tracks have that bass on them!<\/p>\n
I have several amps that, aside from my Nace combos that I play at home, I hardly ever use anymore.<\/p>\n
For all of my videos now the tone you hear is an Avid Eleven Rack on the “Super Reverb” emulation. The Eleven Rack (11R) allows me to play direct to the recorder with no speaker cabinet and that means a nice clean recording with great sounds – in many cases as good or better than I can get taking the time to mic up a speaker cabinet.<\/p>\n
While the 11R is clean, I use a Boss Blues Driver pedal for a little grit, and sometimes kick on a Tube Screamer for a little more grit. That’s about it.<\/p>\n
And for gigs I use a Kemper Profiling amp and I’ve profiled all of my favorite amps so they all come with me everywhere. I control it from a standard MIDI controller and listen through my monitors – no amp or cabinet on stage at all – or I can pipe it to a power amp and guitar cabinet.<\/p>\n
It makes soundmen very happy because they don’t have to deal with stage volume, and it makes me happy because it sounds the same every night no matter what.<\/p>\n
Of course you hear my 11R every time you see my videos, but I found a great video that shows off some of what the 11R can do:<\/p>\n