Recording Gear:

Basses:

  • Fender Jazz Bass Special: my main bass for 20+ years. This one was made in Japan in the early 80s. It’s a great bass and I wouldn’t part with it for anything. It’s on the right in this shot. Here’s me rocking it, back in the day.
  • Fender Jazz Bass Special (fretless): a fretless version of my main bass. I bought this in 1997 (it was built in 1988). It’s in the middle of this shot.
  • Carvin LB76: a six-string bass that I string EADGCF, so it covers a lot of the lower guitar range. I mostly play it fingerstyle, more or less as a baritone guitar. There are several shots of it here.
    [For Sale, email/comment for info.]

Guitars:

  • Squier Telecaster Custom: a cheap-but-good solid-body clone of the more expensive Fender ‘72 Telecaster Deluxe. It plays beautifully and has many very nice sounds.
  • Kay K573 “Speed Demon” semi-hollowbody: an odd beast that a former neighbor of mine found in a dumpster (I’m not kidding). Here’s a picture of it (it’s in the middle).
  • Guild D40C NT acoustic: a joy to play and and one of my main songwriting tools. It’s on the right in this shot.
  • 1935 Sears/Harmony “Old Santa Fe” Gene Autry archtop acoustic. This was my father’s guitar. Here’s a picture of one and some details about the model. Mine is here, on the left.

Effects:

These days I’m using effects in Ableton Live and GearBox for most things, but I still have a few stomp boxes that I sometimes use (especially live):

  • Boomerang Phrase Sampler. I use this mostly as a composition tool, but I also sometimes loop lots of things together and then sample the entire thing. It’s a very intuitive looper and a lot of fun to use.
  • Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive: for those days when I’m having guitar envy or want a grittier sound. Sounds great on the Tele, too.
  • Zoom 506: a bass multi-effects processor. This used to be a staple of my live rig. I used the tuner, the compressor, and the octave effect. These days, GearBox has replaced most of that, but the octave effect is still good and I would still use it live.
  • Zoom 505 II: a guitar multi-effects processor. I use it live for the tuner and a few other effects. For recording, I use GearBox instead.

Amps:

Now that I’m using GearBox’s amp and cab simulators, I don’t have much use for amps, outside of playing live. But I have a few around that I can mic when I want:

  • Peavey Microbass. Believe it or not, a close mic on this thing gets a great sound for recording without having to get loud.
  • Yorkville 400B. Mostly for live gigs and other applications when I need volume. Sounds great. Built to survive a nuclear war. They don’t make this one anymore. In fact, Yorkville has revived the Traynor brand for their bass stuff these days.
  • Kustom Arrow 16R. For the electric guitars. Very cheap, very good sound, very easy to record. It has a nice clean and overdrive channel and a good reverb. It’s surprisingly loud.