| Matt
Nathanson
Matt
Nathanson’s main ax is a Taylor 655 12-string with
maple back and sides, equipped with a Sunrise soundhole pickup and
Highlander undersaddle pickup. He also plays a Collings D2H and
a Brian Galloup Northern Light (www.galloupguitars.com),
each equipped with a Highlander internal mic and undersaddle pickup.
He uses a Raven Labs PMB-II preamp/blender to mix the multiple sources
in his guitars, and he strings all his instruments with DR strings
and transports them with Calton cases.
On the
road, Nathanson also uses a Raven Labs True Blue semiparametric
EQ, which he primarily uses to boost the low end of the Taylor in
an effort to balance the brightness of the maple. "It’s
really hard to convey to sound people: ‘Look, I’m not
in Poison. You need to boost my low and pull my high or it’s
gonna sound like I’m playing razors.’"
—Andrew
DuBrock
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| Cindy
Cashdollar
Cindy Cashdollar’s
main acoustic ax is a mahogany resophonic made by luthier Paul Beard
(Beard Guitars, www.beardguitars.com).
"The Beard’s got a deep resonant bottom and a balanced
top," she says. "It’s equally great in the studio
as well as live, which is very important to me." She strings
it in G tuning (G B D G B D) with either stainless-steel or bronze
John Pearse strings gauged .016, .018, .026, .036, .046, .056. "If
I’m doing a G6 tuning (G B E G B D) and I’ve got to
quick tune up that low D string to E, I’ll change the .036
to a .034," she says.
Cashdollar amplifies the Beard with an active Fishman Resophonic
pickup and prefers AKG C 1000 S condenser mics onstage and Neumann
KM 85, U 47, and U 87 mics in the studio.
Her vintage collection
includes a Weissenborn, a National Tricone, and a square-neck Stella.
"It’s got such a funky sound," she says of the latter.
"It sounds like a train coming into the station. I also just
got a new National Reso-Phonic Baritone Tricone. It’s such
a beautiful deep sound, and that’s been very influential in
the new stuff I’m doing because of the really low bass. I
tune it in C (C G C E G C) with a .062 on the bottom."
Her electric arsenal
includes a Danelectro baritone guitar, customized with a high nut
for slide playing, lap steels by Rickenbacker and luthier Frank
Campbell, and a triple-neck, eight-string Remington in C6 (A C E
G A C E G), E6 (B C# E G# B C# E G#), and E13 (E G# D F# G# B C#
E) tunings.
—Andy
Volk
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| Peter
Finger
On Blue Moon,
Peter Finger used a Lakewood M-32 guitar with Indian
rosewood back and sides and a spruce top. In concert, he plays a
similar model equipped with a Japanese-made M-Factory pickup system,
which combines a Sunrise magnetic pickup with a soundboard transducer
and an external preamp/blender. "My playing has a lot of dynamic
movement, which is often a problem," he says. "If I set
the guitar up so it sounds good on the quieter parts, then it sounds
really bad when I dig in, and if I set it up for playing hard, then
it doesn’t sound good played softer. But this pickup system
really works well over a large dynamic range." He also owns
a Kevin Ryan Mission Grand Concert, and having built his own guitars
early in his career, he hopes to get around to making another soon.
"I have the woods set aside," he says. Playing exclusively
in E B E G A D and D A E G A D tunings, Finger uses custom sets
of D’Addario EXP strings gauged .014, .018, .024, .030, .039,
and .056. He uses metal fingerpicks that he tapes to his fingers
using medical tape and a plastic thumbpick. If a gig requires he
bring his own amplification, he relies on an AER Acousticube. Blue
Moon was recorded with Dirk Brauner tube microphones (www.brauner-microphones.com)
and TL Audio tube mic preamps using a PC-based hard-disk system
with Soundscape SS 810-I software. The only added effect was a touch
of TC Electronic reverb.
—Teja
Gerken
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| Bernie
Leadon
Bernie Leadon
guesses he’s got ten acoustic guitars, ten electrics, and
another 20 "weird things I don’t use much." On Mirror,
his main acoustics are a 1938 Martin D-18, which he loves for its
wide string spacing and sweet tone, and a 1956 Gibson Country Western,
with a short scale and "really mellow, forward sound."
The album also features a 1952 Gibson J-45, 1968 Gibson B-25 12-string,
and 1920s National Triolian wood-body resonator guitar strung with
light-gauge electric strings. For electric rhythm and lead, he relies
on a pair of 1953 Fender Telecasters, from his days in the Eagles,
as well as a 1956 Fender Stratocaster, 1958 Gretsch Country Gentleman,
and 1985 ESP Telecaster. Leadon’s other acoustic instruments
include a 1920s Gibson banjo, 1920s Weissenborn slide guitar, 1930s
Regal resonator guitar, 1930s Kalamazoo mandocello, 1936 Martin
T-28 tiple, 1950s Gibson A-50 mandolin, 1981 Gilchrist mandolin,
a couple of slope-shouldered 1950s Gibson J-50s, and a pair of new
Martin D-18 Golden Eras.
Leadon recorded Mirror
"by hand," tracking live ("leakage is your friend,"
he writes in the liner notes) and creating the final single-speed
glass master by using old Ampex recorders, tube amps, and absolutely
no digital equipment ("No digits were harmed in the making
of this recording").
Leadon uses Fender medium
flatpicks, and when fingerpicking the acoustic, he uses either Fender
heavies or nothing at all. He strings his acoustics with D’Addario
phosphor-bronze lights.
—Kenny
Berkowitz
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| John
Jorgenson
John Jorgenson used
a variety of guitars on Franco-American Swing, but his
main instrument was a 1942 Selmer Modèle Jazz, a 14-fret
oval-hole guitar that is very similar to the guitar that Django
Reinhardt played. In fact, Reinhardt may have actually played it.
Jorgenson bought the guitar from Westwood Music in Los Angeles in
the early 1980s. "Fred Walecki, the owner of Westwood Music,
bought my guitar from a French musician named Moustache, who was
friends with Django," says Jorgenson. As part of Reinhardt’s
endorsement deal with Selmer, he was allowed to periodically pick
a guitar from the showroom. After playing the guitar for a while,
he would usually give it away as a gift, and it’s possible
that the guitar Moustache sold Walecki is one of these guitars.
Jorgenson also plays
an unusual custom-built guitar by Maurice Dupont (www.acoustic-guitars.com).
"Usually the Selmer-style guitars with the large soundholes
have 12-fret necks," he explains. "The guitar Maurice
built for me has a long-scale 14-fret neck, a large D-shaped soundhole
with an internal resonator, laminated Brazilian rosewood sides and
back, a bearclaw spruce top, and multicolored purfling. It’s
not an official signature model, but people who ask Maurice for
a John Jorgenson model will get a guitar just like mine."
On some of the rhythm
tracks, Jorgenson played a 1982 Ibanez/CSL (www.ibanez.com)
12-fret D-hole Selmer-style guitar. Rounding out the stable of guitars
was his Saga Gitane DG-250 (www.sagamusic.com),
a relatively inexpensive Selmer-style guitar made in China. "I
was really im-pressed with the sound and workmanship on these guitars,"
he says. "One thing that has been keeping this music from becoming
more popular has been the lack of good quality guitars for beginners.
I’ve been working with Saga to come up with a model that is
a little closer to a real Selmer, which I hope they will bring out
as a signature model."
—Michael
John Simmons
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| Muriel
Anderson
Muriel Anderson
plays a Muriel Anderson model classical guitar built by Nashville
luthier Paul McGill (www.mcgillguitars.com).
On New Classics for Guitar and Cello, she also used a classical
guitar built by luthier John Price (www.luthiermusic.com)
on two pieces and a Larrivée steel-string guitar she won
at Winfield in 1989. She strings her classicals with GHS La Classique
high-tension strings with nylon supreme trebles and her steel-strings
with GHS Bright Bronze light-gauge strings. Anderson recorded the
album with Sony C48 microphones. Onstage, she uses an external Neumann
KM 184 condenser mic as well as the D-TAR Timberline pickups installed
in both her McGill and Del Langejans steel-string harp guitar. Anderson
shapes the pickup sound with either a D-TAR Solstice or an L.R.
Baggs Para DI preamp. "I’ll use mostly mic, if possible,
depending upon the room," she says, "and use the pickup
to fill in the low end, which works really well." Anderson
uses Ultrasound amps if a gig requires her own amplification system.
Other guitars in her collection include a nylon-string harp guitar
built by Mike Doolin (www.doolinguitars.com),
and steel-string flattops by Kevin Ryan (www.ryanguitars.com)
and Morris (www.morrisguitars.com).
—Jim
Ohlschmidt
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