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Check out these equipment picks from artists featured in the July 2001 No.103 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.
PETER
KEANE |
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Peter Keane tours and records with a 1937 Gibson L-00 and a Kalamazoo KG11 of similar vintage. "My first album was recorded on a ’50s J-45, " he says, "and I was looking for something that would have a funkier sound. Paul Geremia told me, ‘You should look for an L-00. They’re really good guitars for your style, and you could probably get one fairly cheap.’" He strings both guitars with D’Addario phosphor-bronze light-gauge strings. He uses Golden Gate medium thumbpicks and brass Propik #2 fingerpicks, although Keane was originally a bare-fingered player. "That was a big point of pride for me," he says. "Mississippi John Hurt didn’t use fingerpicks, so I wasn’t going to use fingerpicks. Then, when I started playing with the trio, I had to go to fingerpicks, because I needed more dynamic range." He uses a Dunlop chrome-plated brass slide ("the kind that looks like a spark plug socket") and he does his strumming with a Fender extra-heavy flatpick. The pickups in both of Keane’s guitars are double-coil soundboard transducers, custom-made by Michael Sanders and glued to the bridge plate inside the guitar. —David Hamburger Sharon Isbin plays a 1988 spruce-top Thomas Humphrey Millennium guitar. She uses hard-tension strings that are a mixture of a few brands, and her action is set as low as possible without creating string buzzes. She amplifies her guitar with a Shure wireless SC system so there are no wires and no permanent electronics mounted on her guitar. The Shure system has a built-in mic that is placed in the guitar’s soundhole along with the unit’s transmitter, which is wrapped in foam. The signal is transmitted to a box that houses the Shure receiver, an amplifier, a 15-band graphic equalizer, and two Celestion speakers, and the whole system is powered by cell batteries rather than AC power to avoid ground hum. The box, which is placed about ten feet behind Isbin on stage, is ported to provide omnidirectional sound for orchestral performances and solo concerts in halls with more than 400 seats. ––Mark L. Small Jim Brunberg and Jeff Pehrson of Box Set sing the praises of luthier Roy McAlister (40 Eucalyptus Dr., Watsonville, CA 95076; [831] 761-2519; mcaguitars@aol.com). One of Pehrson’s two main guitars is a McAlister mini-jumbo with a Sitka spruce top and goncalo alves back and sides. (Goncalo alves is a dense Mexican hardwood whose sound qualities McAlister compares to those of hard-rock maple.) Pehrson’s other performance ax is a Gibson J-100 Xtra. Each instrument is outfitted with Fishman electronics. Brunberg owns a unique small-bodied McAlister that features a European spruce top and eucalyptus back and sides. For live work, he employs a pair of Guild F65CE thinline acoustic-electrics and occasionally whips out a Kentucky mandolin. Both guitarists use Dean Markley strings and Dunlop Tortex picks. —Mike Thomas Denis Azabagic plays a guitar with a cedar top and Indian rosewood back and sides built in 1997 by Dutch luthier Otto Vowinkel. He uses Hannabach high-tension (blue label) strings. —Stephen Dick Adam del Monte plays flamenco and classical guitars built by Francisco Manuel Diaz of Granada, Spain, and a Clarita Negra classical guitar built by Boaz Elkayam (Boaz Elkayam, 9522 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Chatsworth, CA 91311; [818] 772-8464; www.boazguitars.com). He uses La Bella 2001 strings. —Stephen Dick Fabio Zanon has used guitars built by Sérgio Abreu, Daryl Perry, Reid Galbraith, and Roberto Gomes. He generally uses the Abreu for recording, although an Ignácio Fleta can be heard on his Villa-Lobos CD. He uses Augustine Blue Label strings or Imperials with Blue Label basses for live performances and Savarez basses for recording. He uses false nails as a matter of convenience but is trying to switch to natural nails. —Stephen Dick On Rough Luck, Ray Bonneville played a Gibson J-50 equipped with a Fishman bridge pickup and miked with a Neumann U87 and an AKG 451. He also played a 1930 National steel guitar and an early ’60s Epiphone Century electric guitar on the album. He strings his acoustic guitars with heavy gauges on the low end and lights on the top: from low to high, .056 or .058, .046 or .044, .034 or .032, .020 plain (never wound), .016, and .011. On stage, Bonneville plays electric archtop guitars (generally Gibsons or Epiphones) fitted with P-90 (single-coil) pickups played through Fender tube amps. "It’s a wonderful, full, round sound," he says. "I use tremolo quite a lot and a little bit of reverb." He modifies his instruments by replacing the bridge with a Tune-O-Matic bridge and lodging something under the pickguard so that it doesn’t jiggle and buzz when he slaps the guitar. "I’ll take a pencil with duct tape around it, sticky side out, and stick it under the pickguard," he says. "I’m not a guitar collector. To me, they’re tools." He uses a custom-made steel slide built by a friend who works in a machine shop. "He actually measured my finger," Bonneville recalls, "and routed out a piece of steel. It fits snugly on my finger, and it’s got a rounded tip. It’s quite heavy; it has some mass, so it gives me some sustain." Bonneville does not use fingerpicks or even his fingernails, but hits the strings with the flesh of his fingertips. "For years I played with a flatpick," he recalls, "and once in a while I’ll still strum out a shuffle. I tried thumb and fingerpicks, but the plastic between my fingers and the strings was always bugging me. I wanted to get close to the string, to feel it vibrating under my hand." —Simone Solondz
Excerpted from Acoustic Guitar magazine, July 2001, No.103. |
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