Thursday, March 22, 2007
Scott’s Equipment
Here’s a quick run-down on the gear that I use:
-Guitars: My acoustic guitar is a Washburn, although I don’t know the specific model. It’s black, and it sounds best when I put nice strings on it. Currently it has Musician’s Friend brand strings on it, because I’m cheap. My electric guitar is a beautiful Epiphone Les Paul Classic with a transparent blue finish over a quilted maple top. It was a present from my wife for my first official Father’s Day. It also has Musician’s Friend brand strings at the moment, because I’m very cheap.
-Amp: For a long while, I didn’t use my amp much, because A) I didn’t really play guitar all that often outside of church and B) when I did play, I used the TonePort, because it was easier and more versatile. However, since preparations for the Big 3DU Show got underway in earnest and I decided using an amp would be preferable to using the TonePort in a live situation (not to mention the TonePort would serve me much better as a recording interface), my amp has gotten quite a bit of use. It’s a Fender Blues Junior, and I’ve found (and documented in the Blog) that it has a wonderful tone to it, no matter what kind of guitar is being used. Sounds great clean, and overdrives beautifully.
-Effects: Since the above-mentioned Amp Epiphany, I’ve also come to a new appreciation of my pedals, especially the Visual Sound Route 66 Compressor/Overdrive. Combine that with the new star of my pedal lineup, a Danelectro D-1 FAB Distortion box, and I can easily go from quiet, sparkly clean to loud, sparkly clean to overdrive bite to chunky distorted rhythm to fat, biting crunch with a few stomps. I also have an Arion $10 pedal tuner that I keep in my pedal loop just in case. I used to own an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Distortion/Sustainer and a hideous-sounding Morley Wah, but I can’t find either of them. Not that it matters much, since I never really liked either one. The TonePort also has a bunch of nice effects, although its main shortcoming in that department is a lack of stompability and a rather limited effects chain mechanism; you can only have one OD/Dist effect in your chain at a time and stuff like that.
-Computer Stuff: Ah, yes, here is the key to my music-making ability: a Line6 TonePort UX1. It’s my amp, my effects board, and my USB interface, so I can get real guitar tone into my guitar and make it sound the way I want. I plug it into my super-budget model Dell Inspiron B120 laptop and run it through REAPER, the best audio workstation in the world. I also have a huge stockpile of VST effects and stuff that I can play around with.
-Keyboard: I do have an Evolution eKeys 37 that I use for MIDI stuff, but I loaned it to Jesse. It’s cute.
-Mic: I have a Behringer XM8500 mic that opened up a whole new world of recording for me because it actually worked with the TonePort when several other mics wouldn’t. I think it does just fine, too. The real problem I have when recording vocals is that my voice isn’t the best for recording.
That’s the long and short of it all. I’ll add more stuff when I get more stuff, i suppose!
