"You only live once... have some fun with it!"
-Deej SG
I've had so many people ask about my gear, both for playing AND for recording, that I figured I'd better put together a dedicated page to save my fingers from getting worn out typing it over and over... Lol! So here it goes:
My main practice amp is the Blackstar HT5 tube amp. A couple of things I absolutely LOVE about this amp are the MP3 input and the awesome gain/distortion. Blackstar's gain hits me just right in the depths of my soul... I describe it as "the best *clean* distortion ever" because of the beautiful clarity... just right for *my* ear! The MP3 input on the back of the amp is unaffected by knobs on the amp. It is a clean passthrough with an internally set volume and EQ, so then your phone volume becomes the only control. Just plug in your phone, plug in your guitar, balance out volumes and play along. Now you just need a single decent mic to drop in front of the amp to record everything! UPDATE: Though the original Blackstar "Blackbird 50" speaker sounds great, I've gotten increased clarity and volume by replacing it with a Celestion G12M Greenback. Great upgrade!!
Audio from backing tracks ultimately comes from YouTube videos typically. I play the backing track videos on an iPhone and run the headphone output from the phone into the MP3 input on the Blackstar amp. This works great for playing at home or wherever you have a good Wifi connection, however, there are times where Wifi is lacking or unavailable. In those cases, I prepare by playing the tracks into my computer and exporting MP3 audio only. The freeware "Audacity" is easy to use and works great for this purpose. I then use iTunes to copy tracks back to my iPhone, create a playlist, and play the audio-only tracks without the need for a Wifi or Cellular data connection.
Next are the effects. Of course there is the gain and reverb built into the Blackstar amp, otherwise I've got very few actual "effects" pedals all mounted to the "G-Mega Bone" pedal board by Gator. I like the curved shape of The Bone as it gives a little more ergonomically friendly pedal access. True effects include just three pedals: Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer, Boss CS-3 Compression-Sustainer and Boss DD-8 Digital Delay. The signal path starts with a Lehle volume pedal into a Dunlop GCB-95 Crybaby Wah pedal into the Ibanez Tube Screamer into the Boss Compression-Sustainer into an iSP Decimator II Noise Gate and then to the amp. The Boss Digital DD-8 Delay runs through the effects loop on the amp as it seems to have a far better effect response through the loop. A Voodoo Pedal Power 2 Plus power conditioner provides isolated power to each pedal thereby reducing pedal hiss or other unwanted noise. And a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner is run with a tuner output line from the Lehle volume pedal allowing you to back pedal volume to the off position while still providing a signal for 'silent tuning'.
And naturally there are a couple of Gibson SGs (I know... surprise!) On the left is a 2012 Gibson SG Standard with a pickup swap. At this time, I have a set of vintage pickups in this guitar: DiMarzio "Fred" Humbucker (1970s) in the bridge and DiMarzio PAF Pro Humbucker (1980s) in the neck. The middle axe is a PRS S2 Custom 24. The "S2" series are made in Maryland with some top notch parts and tonewoods. I'm on my 3rd pickup swap and finally have it sounding like I want with a DiMarzio Titan (bridge) and Breed (neck). This axe sounded fantastic out of the box, but was just slightly lacking to my ear... but I really LOVE it now! And my most most played axe, "The Beast" on the right is a 2011 Gibson SG 60s Tribute model. The stock P90s just weren't meaty enough for me, so I pulled those out and put in a set of DiMarzio Distortion Humbuckers and it was magic to my ears! This guitar was my first when I started playing in 2010 and has gotten more airtime by far than the other two combined... Something special about it... just connects right to my the core of my soul..! I got lucky finding the tone in my head with my very first pickup swap on that one... and my soldering job has held since 2010 so I guess I did ok!
Below is a tile showing the audio & video recording chain and equipment.
I've had several years of experience running larger sound and video
equipment, so when it came to my own setup I developed kind of a
miniturized version... It's relatively cheap and works extremely well..!
I'm told that tone is 75% in the fingers... but anyway,
that's pretty much the main stuff. Jam On!
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