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Photo by Scott Newton/Austin City Limits. |
Check out these equipment picks from artists featured in the December 2001, No.108 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.
MARY
CHAPIN CARPENTER
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Mary Chapin Carpenter plays the same guitars on stage as she does in the studio: two John Greven jumbos--one that’s 16 inches wide at the lower bout and one 17 (www.grevenguitars.com), Lowden L27FC and S7C acoustic guitars, a Rickenbacker electric 12-string guitar, and a 1930s Martin 000-42 that makes appearances at special occasions. She strings the acoustics with D’Addario EXP16 light-gauge strings. Carpenter uses Fishman Matrix Natural under-saddle pickups on all her acoustic guitars, except the Martin 000-42, which has a Fishman Rare Earth soundhole pickup. She also uses a Tone King Continental amplifier, small National thumbpicks, and Herco Flex 50 flatpicks. All of Carpenter’s acoustic guitar tracks on Time Sex Love were recorded using a vintage AKG C 24 mic placed parallel to the strings, "as close to the guitar as possible without inhibiting performance." The signal went through Massenburg mic preamps, a stereo parametric EQ, and a stereo compressor. "In the past," she says, "my mics of choice have been Neumann KM 84s, with one positioned six to eight inches away from the 14th or 15th fret and one about the same distance from the bridge. We normally run everything through preamps, EQ, and compressors." —Karen Iris Tucker
After years of "unnamed and unnameable guitars," Colin Reid currently plays a Yamaha LSX 400 from the company’s Handcrafted series. Calling it "a polite instrument," Reid likes its small body, which feels like the nylon-string guitar he played as a boy. "I like the way it sits under my hand," he says, "and I like the sound. It sings. Tonally, it’s in the middle of the range: there’s not too many low frequencies, and the top notes don’t sound overly bright. And the combination of the guitar and the Elixir light strings, they just have a gorgeous sound." Although the guitar is equipped with a piezo pickup and an internal microphone, Reid prefers the "straightforward simplicity" of the unblended piezo, which allows for quick sound checks. —Kenny Berkowitz Tom Ball plays a prewar sunburst Gibson and a fancy Washburn parlor guitar from the ’20s. He strings his instruments with Martin 80/20 bronze bluegrass-gauge strings and uses Shubb capos and Hohner Special 20 harmonicas. —Ben Elder Kenny Sultan has a slew of vintage guitars including a prewar Martin 000-18, a 1932 OM-18, 1936 and 1952 00-17s, and a 1940 D-18, but his main stage ax is a 1988 Santa Cruz Indian rosewood OM. He also has recent (1993 National Reso-Phonic Style O and 1998 Radio-Tone Custom) and old (1929 wood-body National Triolian) resonator guitars. He uses John Pearse medium bronze strings for his wood guitars and John Pearse resonator strings for the Nationals. Other accessories include Shubb and Victor capos, Herco thumbpicks, .020 Dunlop fingerpicks, a Latch Lake Sliderite brass slide, and a custom glass slide. Neither Ball nor Sultan uses guitar pickups, opting instead for internal Donnell Miniflex microphones (currently distributed by GHS Strings), often used in combination with a Shure SM57 or SM58 stage mic. Recently, however, they’ve been using AKG 535 external mics (instead of the Miniflex) for live performances. —Ben Elder John Mayer chose his Dave Matthews Signature Series Martin acoustic guitar when he stopped worrying about comparisons between himself and Matthews (whose work, he admits, "completely inspires" him). Mayer’s main electric guitar is a Novax Custom Expression with a fanned-fret design (Ralph Novak, www.novaxguitars.com). The treble scale is shorter than the bass scale, yielding much better intonation, especially for dropped-D and dropped-C tunings. Mayer uses Fishman Natural I pickups and D’Addario EJ16 light-gauge, phosphor-bronze strings on his acoustic. On stage, Mayer swears by his Avalon U5 preamp/direct box (www.avalondesign.com) for his acoustic guitar and a Fender Vibro-King amp and Marshall Bluesbreaker distortion pedal (ca. 1993). His main vocal mic is a Neumann KMS 105. "The windscreen is so far from the capsule that I can get right up on it," Mayer says. "I’m one of those singers who doesn’t feel like he’s singing unless his lips are on the mic at all times." —Katie Isenberg John Doyle records and performs on two guitars, a mahogany-body Lowden (www.lowdenguitars.com) dreadnought D-10 and a Martin D-28. The Lowden was built as a lefty, while the Martin is an off-the-rack right-handed model with the nut and saddle switched for left-handed playing. "It sounds great," says Doyle. "I can hear no discernable difference." The Lowden is Doyle’s overall favorite. "It’s perfect for fingerstyling and for low tunings," he says. "I do a lot of recording on the Lowden and play it on stage as well. Most Lowden guitars have what people call a ‘film’ over them. It gives them a muffled, fat sound that’s great for when you’re thumping on that low string. You have this boom that lasts forever." He also plays a short-necked, five-course Trillium bouzouki, made by New Hampshire luthier Robert Abrams ([603] 431-6056, www.octavemandolin.com). He tunes it D G D A D, from low to high. Doyle performs and records using a heavy set of D’Addario phosphor-bronze strings and changes the low E out for an even heavier nickel-wound D’Addario .072. When flatpicking, he favors a light .60-mm. USA nylon pick, which provides clarity without being brittle. When it comes to amplification, Doyle just wants to plug in and go. "I’ve got a Highlander pickup and a mic in the Lowden," he says, "but I never actually use the mic. The pickup sounds great by itself. On the Martin I’ve got an L.R. Baggs Dual Source [pickup/mic combination with on-board blender], and it’s the best sound. I can just plug it straight into a Para Acoustic D.I. and use nothing else. It takes a lot of the pressure off." —Danny Carnahan |
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