C.F. Martin Instruments:

• Custom 15 - This is basically a prototype HD28 made in 1983 by C.F. Martin. This is my main axe. It has snowflake fretboard inlay, shaved bracing, custom tortoise pickgaurd, Bourgeois dual pickup system, small vintage style tuners and a whole lot more~!
• D28 - My baby. It's a '65 Brazilian stock. Kinda sad as it really stays in it's case more than I'd like, though lately, I've been gigging again with her more. I slapped a Fishman Rare Earth pickup in and it really sounds cool. Kinda like a Sunrise for alot less.

• J45 - This is a 1955 sunburst Gibson acoustic. Nabbed it at a local shop a while back. I really love it as it just screams to "play me". Kinda battered. Has a custom ordered L5 neck with the large block inlays. Stuck a Fishman pickup piezo in and replaced tuners with originals. Also replaced all plastic with bone for tone to the bone!
• AO Mandolin - 1920 A style mandolin. Black finish. This is a worn little guy, but has by far the sweetest tone I've ever heard for a mandolin. Every note is articulated. Nice action and overall great mojo! Has a Fishman bridge pickup for Deep Purple type tones.

• Stratocaster - Very liberal term here. I worked for Fender for about a month in the late 70's. No wonder that era turned out crap! This has some the components from my beloved '72 (guts, hardware..). The damn body & neck is an ESP (sorry collectors). I took the ugly Japanese red body and had an automotive painter shoot it tourquoise (yes...). It's a player and I love it. The neck has super wide frets and the rosewood feels just right. Oh yeah, it screams!
• Stratocaster - OK. I see a trend here with the Fenders. This is a no name body & neck, elecs, hardware. It's natural finished and has heavy strings-raised high for my Ry Cooder imitations.
• Telecaster - Well.....this guy is silver metalflake. Nuff said? I don't think there is 1 damn Fender part on this one! This is all country. I have a Hipshot B bender on it as well. It just screams Don Rich of Buck Owens' Buckaroos. Very nice sounding axe and it's REAL heavy!
• Telecaster - This is an eBay basket case Tele body with parts that I brought back to life. Some guy had painted it flat black with white large circles all over it. Very funky. The actual paint job was butterscotch. Well, a week of careful sanding the butterscotch came back! Nice Jap body and parts for little or no money. It now has the original finish, with some relic effects thrown in for good measure, a black pickguard and a Squire maple neck with relic effects on the fingerboard. Pretty cool psuedo 50's butterscotch for $100 investment.

All The Rest (favorites):

• DonMo - 2000 Tricone metal body. This is a custom axe that I had made from a picture on a website. The luthier, Don Morrison, is in Australia. I am VERY trusting. For those of you that are not familiar with metal bodied guitars, this is much like the National brand made in the 20's-30's and beyond. It's super heavy and sounds just amazing. It also has a Highlander pickup system that sounds transparent. My brother, Dennis, turned me on to this guy and also suggested that we have him engrave our recently deceased parent's names on it. Good idea as every time I look down on the upper bout, I think of them. Please take a look at DonMo's instruments. You'll be glad you did!

• Dobro - 1936 Wood body. CA made, sunburst single spider coned. Picked up at world-class addiction enabler Bob Page's Buffalo Brothers Guitars (like 50% of all of my axes). Hade some neck issues and after a little TLC from Kenney Blackwell, expert guitar doctor to the stars and non-stars like me, it's back and screaming. Fishman transducer helps w/volume.

• Dobro - 1970 Metal body. Single cone biscut, plain chrome. This is a killer (sorry Randy Snoddy-I know that's your term!). Has action like an electric, cool black to yellow to black sunburst on back of neck. Changed keys to vintage style Klusons. Picked up from my friend Ben Elder of KPFK's Wildwood Flower radio show: 7:00am to 8:00am Saturdays. Finest bluegrass and roots music you'll ever hear. Also Ben is THE expert on Weissenborn guitars and their imitators.

• Dell Arte' - This is their gypsy model guitar called the Anouman. This is styled after the Macafferri guitar made famous by Django Reinhardt. It has walnut back and sides with a close grained spruce top. Has the large D soundhole with amazing action, projection and sound. Lastly a Big Tone pickup. This also initiated my friendship with Alain Cola of Dell Arte' Guitars. Alain is a wonderful man and is one of the foremost proponents of Gypsy Jazz. Contact him if you would like to see one of his amazing guitars. I also can't exclude the luthier, John Kinnard of Dell Arte'. His work covers all the basses including mandolins, Gibson style guitars and much more. Very talented.

• Grayson - The luthier of this one is an automotive body and fender guy by day and does instruments by night! This is an aged copy of a Gibson "F" style mandolin. Now not just ANY mandolin, but the Father of Bluegrasses mandolin: Bill Monroe. This thing looks and sounds the part down to the cracked off scroll piece on the headstock. Fishman bridge pickup. A wonderful axe and is my main mandolin.

• Magnatone - Lap steel. Got this one at a pawn shop for $40. Previous owner had painted it black then splatter painted ala Jackson Pollack neon colored paint all over it. Thank God it was poster paint cause it came off in a jiffy. Underneath was the most fabulous mother-of-toilet seat grey finish!

• Luthier Unknown Octave Mandolin - A very cool piece picked up from eBay. My first octave. Tuned a step down from a conventional mandolin, it sounds very "old world". Will use this as flavor and imagine will go to most shows, sessions. It's quite beautiful with an antique sunburst finish, abolone binding, bone nut and saddle and lot's more.

• Schecter C1 Semi Hollowbody- This is an interesting axe that I have been looking at for some time now. I had been looking at the reviews on Harmony Central and they all screamed BUY ME. Well I did. I love this guitar. It bridges the gap between a Fender Strat, a Gibson humbucker and an acoustic guitar! It has a piezo bridge system that you can roll into the classic humbucker sound or use on its own. It even has 2 discrete outs for running the acoustic sound into a board or acoustic amp. Very cool job Schecter.

• Carvin - This is their little vintage 33 watt guy. I just love the sound. Carvin makes a quality amp for a great price. This was my main amp with several bands and now it proudly sits in my office/studio and acts as a great cup holder.
• Fender - Deluxe-'71. This is a silverface screamer. Has a vintage JBL and will move into the much coveted "primary amp" status. Now I just need a gig!
• Ultrasonic - Acoustic Amp. This is their 30 watt model. This is a great, flexible acoustic amp. I am blown away by its sound and ability to make all of my axes sound unique and cool.
• Johnson - Very interesting green tolex on a very retro-vibey cabinet. Solid state 15 watts-LOUD. Sounds ok. Actually have miked it at the Coach House when gigging with a blues project. Nice slight overdriven swing sound with the Epiphone Emperor.
• Marshall 1 - I always have had Marshalls and now that I'm old and weak, I have had to pair down to this poor little rack-mounted, single space preamp. Kinda sad....

Lets just say that I have tons. I named my first band "Effects" so need I say more? Well, what I will say is that I do use quite a bit of signal processing. I like echo, some modulation and now and then a really ballsy distortion. Life needs spice and so does my playing!

Currently using: Dunlop Tremelo, Prescription Electronics Univibe, Fulltone Fulldrive (simply awesome pedal), Boss Digital Echo, Boss volume, DOD EQ, DOD Octave, and probably more that I fail to remember. All of this is housed in a Warwick powered pedalboard with additional power by Godlyke.

I also have a small rack that is covered in blond Tolex to house an older ART multi effects unit for basically its stereo reverbs and delays and an ancient Ibanez analog delay. There's a lighted power conditioner, Behringer parametric eq and lastly my Nady wireless in a soft rack that goes to acoustic gigs mostly.

I have traded out my Digitech GNX3. for a Boss RC-20 Loop Station. Now I really don't want to slam Digitech as they have tons of great gear, but this Boss looper replaces the only effect that I liked on the Digitech. Nuff said?

A quick word about amplifying acoustic instruments. If you HAVE to plug in, then by all means do it. Try to use a decent preamp and eq to help with the tone. Piezos are ok if you like a percussive sound, just try to balance it out with a mike or a transducer in conjunction with the piezo.

For floor processing, I have a small Anvil briefcase with the following: Stewart preamp, a Aphex acoustic exciter, a BOSS volume pedal, a BOSS tuner and lastly, a DOD compressor. See above for the rack stuff.

The absolue BEST way to amplify your axe's volume is a microphone. Period. A decent condensor will do wonders. If you have nothing but a Shure SM57, then by all means-use it! It's the standard at most clubs, etc. I use a Carvin tube and an SM57.

Recording:

I am now entering the world of digital recording with Digidesign's Pro Tool and the M-Box. I'll let you know in about 6 months if I am going to toss my old Teac 40-4. I have about 200 hours of reel to reel tape and need to lock myself in my studio for about a month in order to transfer. Not looking forward to this at all!

Also trying the Sharp MiniDisc recorder for remote taping. So far, pretty amazing results.

Lastly, I am loving my Apple iPod for portable tunes that are never-ending.

Contact:

Feel free to email me if you have any questions or comments regarding any of my gear mentioned here. I love gear and I love talking about it even more!