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Check out these equipment picks from artists featured in the September 2001 No.105 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.
JOHN
GORKA
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John Gorka’s main road guitar is a Martin OM-28VR equipped with a Martin Gold Plus under-saddle transducer and an internal Crown condenser microphone. The Martin pictured on the cover of The Company You Keep is an early ’50s 0-17. Gorka also plays a small-bodied rosewood Larrivée, outfitted with the same electronics as the OM-28VR, and a Lowden LSE-1 cutaway that pairs the Crown mic with an EMG under-saddle pickup. On stage, he runs all his guitars through a Rane AP-13 preamp blender with two channels of seven-band equalization. Everything gets strung with D’Addario phosphor-bronze lights. Gorka doesn’t use fingerpicks in performance but does in the studio, along with various gauges of large, triangular Dunlop Tortex flatpicks. Other instruments include an early ’70s Baldwin Ode banjo, a concertina, a harmonium, and several electric keyboards stocked with MIDI modules. His many home-recording rigs include an MCI JH110 eight-track analog reel-to-reel and a Roland DM800 hard-disk recorder. —Mike Thomas One of Al Di Meola’s main acoustic guitars these days is his Conde Hermanos, a beautiful, warm-toned nylon-string that can be heard on several of his recent recordings, including World Sinfonia, The Infinite Desire, and Winter Nights. "It records well in any environment," he says. "The low E really jumps out." He also favors a 1948 Martin D-18 he purchased on 48th Street (music instrument row) in Manhattan 15 years ago. "It really sings, really resonates," Di Meola crows. "It has amazing sustain. I’ve recorded with it before, but not too much. It’s like a fine bottle of wine. I didn’t realize how good it was until I pulled it out after years and years and years. It has tons more sustain than a nylon-string." He can be heard playing his Martin on "Soledad" from The Grande Passion. For the majority of his steel-string playing, however, Di Meola relies on his Ovation signature model, which is also equipped with MIDI pickups for live performance. He recorded most of Cielo e Terra on the Ovation and says that "in terms of string skipping and odd intervals, it’s easier for me to get around on an Ovation than on a Gibson or a Guild, which were designed more for country music." In performance, he uses the MIDI trigger to produce sounds ranging from bandoneon to trumpet to Andean pipes. "I’m even triggering electric guitar sounds from the acoustic guitar," says Di Meola. "I can get a Marshall stack distortion sound from my Ovation that is killer! The palette is so wide now. I have a whole array of colors to choose from. It’s fabulous. I’ve got five different units on the floor, so my legs are flying all over the place. I look like an octopus on stage!" He also has two nylon-string Godin acoustic-electrics that are MIDI compatible. On "Misterio," the opening track on The Grande Passion, he used one of the Godins in combination with a Roland GR-30 guitar synthesizer to create a sound he describes as a cross between a tamboura and a sitar. On the electric side, he plays either a Gibson Al Di Meola signature hollow-body or a Gibson Les Paul Al Di Meola signature semi-hollow-body. —Bill Milkowski Photos of Big Bill Broonzy from the 1920s and ’30s show him posed with various guitars, including a plain-Jane Regal flattop and an ornate Gibson Style 0 with a carved top, oval soundhole, body scroll, and cutaway. In later photos, with Sonny Boy Williamson and singer Rosetta Howard, for example, Broonzy is playing a blond Gibson L-7 archtop. During the ’50s, his instrument was a Martin 000-28 that is now part of the musical archive at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. Paul Geremia, one of Broonzy’s guitaristic progeny, observes that Broonzy favored an unwound third string. Furthermore, photos and film footage indicate that he achieved his remarkable volume and clarity of tone without using fingerpicks. —Steve James Glen Phillips performs mainly with two Lakewood M-32 acoustic guitars, which he runs through a Fishman Pocket Blender. For vocals, Phillips uses either a Neumann KMS 105 mic or an Audix OM6, depending on the venue. He uses D’Addario strings and recently switched to light gauge because they are easier on his fingers and help him feel a bit more in control. For flatpicks, he uses "whatever’s around"; in his pocket at the time of the interview were a D’Addario light-medium and a green Tortex. —Lissy Abraham Howard Fishman plays a 1933 Gibson L-00 flattop guitar with heavy-gauge (.014–.060) strings. "The neck won’t hold them forever," he says, "but it hasn’t warped yet. When I was playing on the streets in New Orleans, we had no amplification, so I wanted those fat, ‘piano’ strings. And I got used to them." His six-string guitar-banjo is a rarity: a Tone King. "The dealer I bought it from said it was made before World War I. I’ve never found another one like it, and I’ve never met anyone who knew where it was made. But just in case—because it’s an old, delicate instrument—I use light-gauge strings." Fishman flatpicks both his guitar and banjo with a 1-mm. nylon Dunlop pick. —Hal Glatzer
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