My Guitar Gear
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I currently use a black 2005 Fender Standard Stratocaster on which I recently put a newer 2007 Fender maple neck. I changed the original maple neck because I prefer medium jumbo frets to the vintage that were originally on it. It originally had a white pickguard but as I'm a big Pink Floyd fan I changed it to black one to emulate David Gilmour's legendary Black Strat that was used extensively through the 1970's and early 1980's. It was also used at the Live 8 concert and on his last solo your. I've also changed the stock tuners for some 'Wilkinson Deluxe' vintage Kluson-style tuners. They are very smooth and hold tune extremely well and have split post shafts. The guitar has a solid alder body, 6 screw vintage style tremolo system, 3 single coil vintage staggered pickups and has that classic Strat 'quack' tone - in short, it plays beautifully. It's a great guitar with a superb sound. You can have bell-like Mike Oldfield tones and then switch into searing AC/DC riffs with the stomp of a pedal. A great guitar for all styles. At the moment I am using D'Addario 0.09 - 0.42 as I've read great things about them on the Fender Discussion Page.
*Update 10/05/2008 - I recently had the Strat fitted with some GFS Premium Vintage Alnico pickups to replace the stock ceramic ones and the difference is amazing. The mids and highs are really sweet and not as harsh as the originals. The tone just oozes vintage and the GT8 still gives me the flexibility to play all styles. I also had a tone mod done which now gives me a tone control for the bridge pickup while the middle & neck share the other - highly recommended! I have also shortened the tremolo arm as per Gilmour's guitar and found it a lot more comfortable too!
I have also have an Epiphone G400 SG. It is a Gibson authorised copy of the 1962 SG Standard. It has a mahogany body and a set mahogany neck with 22 frets. The pickups are Alnico V Classic magnets designed by Epiphone USA and the tuners are made and stamped by Grover. The finish is Cherry Red and the top has a wonderful grain to it as it is capped in African mahogany which gives it a striped appearance. The guitar itself is very light and has a wonderful beefy neck. This is another example of a 'budget' guitar that exceeds the norm. I trawled the Epiphone forums for tips and made sure I got a model with an EE serial number. These are supposed to be the best for workmanship (over 8 factories have made G400's for Gibson/Epiphone) and quality control. It's a great guitar for rock & blues - nice fat, warm sound with lots of rich sustain. At the moment it is fitted with Gibson Brite Wires.
For effects I use a Boss GT-8 with expression pedal. I also have the optional FS-6 dual footswitch which allows me to assign almost any function to it (Tuner on/off, fx on/off etc). You can get a huge range of quality sounds and effects out of it and fairly simple to program, and there are loads of parameters you can change. You can also have 2 different preamps per patch which gives tons of possibilities. I previously used a Zoom 606 II and then a Boss ME-50.
For home playing/recording I use 2 x Alesis M1 Active 520 monitors which are FRFR and work very well with the GT8. For 'Jam Sessions' the amplification I use are 2 x Behringer B212A 450w powered speakers. These are more suited to the Boss GT8 (rather than a traditional guitar amp) as they are Full Range speakers and don't colour or muddy the sound from the GT8 onboard Amp models. They are also extremely loud! I also have a Behringer Xenyx 1002FX mixer which has built in 24 bit effects. I mainly use just the reverb & delay for vocals.
I use Adobe Audition 2 and Sonar 6 Producer for recording purposes. I have some songs posted here : http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=762394
My main musical influences are AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield, Fish & Marillion. I like to play Classic Rock. I jam with friends - see : http://www.myspace.com/sundaysreasonuk
I started playing guitar when I was 18 on a Marlin Sidewinder Strat copy. I then progressed to a Yamaha RGX-112 Metal Strat copy and played this for a couple of years. I then had a lapse and only started again with a Squier Strat a few years ago.
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