Guitar Stuff

1978 Epiphone Les Paul - This is an older (more mature) version of the guitar pictured above. It really does all of the same things as the other Les, but has a slightly different look and tonal quality. This guitar is equipped with DiMarzio pickups which tend to sound a little sharper in tone than the 2001 Custom model. The pickups are so sensitive they sometimes capture sounds in the room, so I have to be careful if I'm not recording directly to digital recorder not to pick up things like TV. This can usually be filtered out with the noise gate on the GNX 3. Despite its age, this guitar is actually set up well to cover some of the newer bands like Fuel that use the Les Paul as a building block for their sound. The only thing I find strange about this particular guitar is the tuning machines. They are an opaque olive in color which doesn't come close to the guitar's color scheme. I was at a guitar expo in Fort Washington, PA a few years back and saw this in a dealer's stock. Some bartering later, I ended up trading a Peavey Bass and Steinberger guitar for it. While in list price I probably gave up too much to get it, this served as my main recording axe until I purchased the 2001 model when Zapf's music was going out of business. With all the music I was able to get out of it, I still find it to be a good deal.

2004 Galveston Triple Neck - Affectionately known as "The Monster" this guitar combines a Stratocaster style body with 6, 7, and 12 string necks. This is not for the faint of heart weighing in at over 25 lbs. It's also one of the more versatile guitars you'll find. You can activate one, two, or all three necks simultaneously to create a huge 25 string sound. You can play a rhythm piece on the top 12 string neck and solo over it with the other two. One of the nicer aesthetic features is a root beer colored curly maple top which no picture can accurately seem to capture. The six humbucking pickups on this giant produce a sound range from a chorusy 12 string to the gritty, dirty sound of a low tuned 7-string guitar. Since there aren't many triple neck guitars in production, this one is sure to hold it's value.

2004 50th Anniversary Fender Stratocaster - Like the one above, this is another versatile rock instrument from Fender. The sound has a slightly different shape with more midrange than the other Strat listed above. It has a smooth vintage style v-shaped neck, vintage gold tuners and gold tremolo arm (not pictured). The guitar was made to specs of the original to commemorate Leo Fender's 50th anniversary of starting the company. As you can see when looking at both pictures simultaneously, the headstock is 1950's model and considerably smaller than the one made in the 1970's. This guitar serves well for replicating vintage 60's and 70's guitar sounds along the lines of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and their guitar contemporaries. The sound is can range from silky smooth to a very crisp bite with a lot of clarity.

Digitech GNX 3 Guitar Processor - Nothing I know of on the market under $1,000 changes the shape of sound quite like the GNX 3. It can be used as an 8 track digital recorder, a signal processor, guitar tuner, amp modeler, almost anything you'd buy a separate pedal for is all rolled into one on this unit. I really use it for two purposes, recording and changing the shape of the sound that each of the above guitars makes. In order to do this, I'll start with a clean sound and then add one piece at a time until I've "built" the sound I'm looking for. Once this is done, I can then save it on one of the 65 memory banks and call it up when I need it with just the touch of a pedal. For songs that require more than one type of sound, I'll put the two or three that I'll need next to one another in memory so I can switch from one to the other with just a tap of a pedal. Recording is basically done the same way. I can use the tap pedals to start, stop, and pause the recording process. It also has a built in drum machine that helps with maintaining the rhythm of the song during recording. It's probably the one piece of equipment that makes the most difference in the quality of sound and recording I'm able to produce.

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