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Photo byAlso Mauro. |
Check out these equipment picks from artists featured in the January 2002, No.109 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.
VICKI
GENFAN
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Vicki Genfan’s main acoustic guitar for recording is something of an anomaly in the Gibson line. "It’s somewhere between a Gibson LG-1 and an LG-2," she explains. "The guys at Gibson couldn’t say for sure, so I refer to it as an LG-1½." Her on-stage guitar is an Alvarez Silver Anniversary model equipped with a TrueTone pickup system developed by Christopher Grener (currently available from Oceana Sensor, [757] 426-3678, www.oceanasensor.com). It’s a series of two different mics—one for high frequencies, one for lows—with a midrange sensor underneath the bridge. "I can blend these three sources from inside the soundhole," says Genfan. "In addition, Chris installed the L.R. Baggs LB6, which is a saddle with six individual sensors cast right into it, one for each string. There are two outputs on the guitar—one for the LB6 and one for the mics and sensor. Depending upon the acoustics of the room I’m playing in, I can blend the two sources differently." She also plays a Guild 12-string and uses D’Addario medium-gauge strings. —Bill Milkowski After years of wrestling with cheap guitars, Otis Taylor now records with a 1949 Gibson L-50 archtop, which is "a little funky but a lot easier to play." On the road, he uses a late-’40s Epiphone archtop, which he likes because "it’s good for strumming." Both guitars are strung with flat-wound D’Addario mediums. He also plays a five-string Ome banjo, a Blue Star electric Banjocaster, and Hohner Marine Band harmonicas. —Kenny Berkowitz Kelly Joe Phelps’ road companions are a Gibson J-60 with raised strings for lap-slide playing and, for straight guitar work, a Guild DV-52. The main instrument heard on Sky Like a Broken Clock is a 1947 Gibson J-45, which Phelps says may be his best-sounding acoustic instrument but doesn’t work as well as the Guild with his amplification rig. Like many acoustic slide players, Phelps uses a Sunrise pickup, but he
recently installed a new Seymour Duncan Mag Mic—a combination of magnetic
pickup and internal microphone—on his Guild and he’s "fallen in love with
it." Says Phelps, "I like the magnetic pickup system much more than the
under-the-saddle thing. It still doesn’t sound acoustic—I’ve given up
trying to make a guitar sound acoustic on stage—so now what I am looking
for is a very pleasing tone that has a lot of strength and clarity, and
magnetic pickups certainly have given me that. They suit the way I play—a
lot of it is thumb driven, so I need a fat bottom end." —Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers Gene Bertoncini uses a Grand Cabaret guitar built for him by John Buscarino (2348 Wide Horizon Dr., Franklin, NC 28734; [828] 349-9867; www.buscarino.com), who says his guitars are not classicals but rather "jazz nylon-strings designed to give clear, balanced tone, especially for extended, close-voiced chords." It has a two-piece carved Indian rosewood back, rosewood sides, and an Engelmann spruce top. Buscarino uses scalloped lattice bracing on the tops of all his guitars to contain feedback. The guitar has a rounded cutaway and a 20-fret, 650-mm. scale. For amplification, Buscarino implanted a strip of piezo film material between the bridge plate and the underside of the top, which makes the entire top active. An L. R. Baggs preamp is Velcroed inside the guitar. Bertoncini uses a Polytone amp and La Bella Professional strings. —Ron Forbes-Roberts Ken Hatfield uses John Buscarino’s standard Cabaret model, which is very similar to Bertoncini’s but is slightly smaller and has a cedar top. (See entry above for contact info.) The guitar is equipped with an RMC pickup system and on-board four-band preamp/EQ. He plugs into an AER Compact 60 amp and sets all his tone controls flat. He uses a Demeter VTDB-2 DI unit when plugging into a PA. Hatfield strings his guitar with the Concert Gold Set #40 by Luthier (www.luthiermusic.com), which features phosphor-bronze–wrapped basses. —Ron Forbes-Roberts In performance, Olaf Tarenskeen plays a semi-acoustic Arch model built by Dutch builder Theo Sharpach (Achterste Aa 14, 5571 VE, Bergyk, The Netherlands; phone/fax [31] 497-541278). The guitar has a cedar top, rosewood back and sides, a 22-fret neck with a 650-mm. scale, and a Florentine cutaway. The neck is thinner than a standard classical’s, and the body is about half a regular classical’s depth to eliminate feedback. It is equipped with a Fishman under-saddle pickup and on-board preamp, and Tarenskeen plugs into a powered monitor system built by Masterblaster. He also has a cutaway Ramírez with a cedar top that he uses for recording. He strings all his guitars with Savarez mediums. —Ron Forbes-Roberts Freedy Johnston is a strong believer in the sound of the vintage
Martin. "I rented a Martin in the studio for every record I made," he
says, "so I finally just bought a 1968 D-28. It has all kinds of mojo
going on. Even new Martin guitars—there’s something there that’s superior.
I sound like a Martin endorsee, don’t I? But I definitely believe this.
Give me an old Martin any day." —Drew Pearce
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