Libby Kirkpatrick

Libby Kirkpatrick owns two acoustic guitars—a 1999 Shanti D-35 built by northern California luthier Michael Hornick ([209] 795-5299) and awarded to Kirkpatrick as her first-place prize at the Telluride Troubadour songwriting and performance competition and a 1981 Alvarez Yairi DY53 that she bought used in 1992. "I only take one with me on the road," she says. "I leave the other at home and miss it horribly. Right now I'm missing the Alvarez, but I figure the Shanti is the baby and deserves a little more mothering before I put it in the closet." On both she uses medium-gauge phosphor-bronze John Pearse strings which she plucks with her fingernails and a variety of medium-gauge flatpicks. She's fitted the Shanti with a B-Band (www.b-band.com) under-saddle pickup and internal microphone, and she runs the two signals into two direct boxes with a stereo Y cable.

—Derk Richardson

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Yonder Mountain String Band

Adam Aijala plays two Collings guitars, a 2002 D-2H and a 1998 CJ, equipped with L.R. Baggs saddle pickups and Joe Mills internal mics, which he runs into a Pendulum preamp. Jeff Austin plays a 1996 Flatiron Performer mandolin with an L.R. Baggs bridge pickup and a Joe Mills internal mic running through a Pendulum preamp. He also uses a Shure Beta 57 or 58 microphone. "That way I can step up to the mic for solos to get a more woody tone." Dave Johnston plays a Bill Bannister BR3 banjo with a Gerald Jones pickup mounted on the rods and a Shure SM98 condenser mic mounted on the pot. He runs both signals into an Avalon U5 mono preamp/DI. Ben Kaufmann plays an Eminence upright bass made by G. Edward Lutherie with a slightly modified Dave Gage Realist pickup and a Fishman bridge transducer between the G and D strings for fingerboard noise and attack. He runs the Realist pickup into an SWR SM-500 amp, while the Fishman goes through an Avalon U5 preamp. Both signals are sent to the front of the house, where they are mixed by engineer Ben Hines, who the Yonder Mountain members say is the key to their live sound.

—Candace Horgan

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Danny Barnes

Danny Barnes' guitar collection reflects his geographical shift from Texas to the Pacific Northwest: alongside his Collings D-2H, built in Austin in the early '90s, are several Washington-made Tacoma instruments. His stage guitar is a Tacoma Roadking RM26CSB, a cutaway model with a tobacco sunburst and Tacoma's distinctive teardrop-shaped off-center soundhole. "That guitar has a very interesting midrange when you play it acoustically," says Barnes. "It reminds me of this old archtop that I started on. You know how in orchestration you don't really waste a lot of time playing in unison unless you are trying to say something in a basic way? Sometimes if you have two guitars playing the exact same thing, it's muddy. But with that guitar, you can have a duet with a dreadnought, and it has a very interesting voice."

The Roadking has a Fishman Prefix Plus pickup and preamp system; in particular, Barnes finds the sweepable midrange, low rolloff, and phase reversal to be very handy for fixing problems onstage. In the studio, Barnes uses the same mic positions for the Roadking as he would use on a guitar with a standard soundhole (you can hear the instrument on Barnes' new CD, Dirt on the Angel, on "Kitchen Floor Waltz," the duet with Bill Frisell). Elsewhere on the disc Barnes picks a Papoose P1, Tacoma's little tenor-voiced guitar, and plays slide on a 1929 National single-cone resonator guitar with a Bakelite neck.

Barnes' five-string banjo, patterned after Orpheum banjos from a century ago, is also made by Tacoma, as part of its imported Olympia division. "It's really a laboratory instrument," Barnes says of the banjo. "It's like having a guitar with a movable top. If you get the right bridge, tailpiece, string gauge, and head tension, you can get a really good sound out of an inexpensive banjo."

—Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

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David Russell

David Russell's main instrument is a 2000 cedar-top made by German luthier Matthias Dammann (phone/fax [49] 850-7760). "Matthias is a friend," says Russell. "I've had several guitars by him in the last eight years or so. Whenever I've wanted it a little bit better on the first string, or tiny little details like that, he's been able to do what I ask. This one he made for me in 2000 is just great; I'm really happy with it. He plays very well himself and he knows what he's looking for. On the Bach album there are two different Dammanns. Manuel Barrueco lent me his; I used it on the Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro and also on the Spanish album [Reflections of Spain]. I used my Dammann on the Lute Suite and Aire Latino." He strings his Dammanns with D'Addario Pro Arté strings, using normal or low tension for the basses and high tension for the trebles. Russell prefers not to amplify his guitar in concert unless he's in a very large venue or is performing with an orchestra. "I only amplify when it's really necessary," he says. "But the guitar is a tiny little instrument, and if you're playing in a 2,000 seater, you're miles away. There's this little guy way down there on the stage."

—Patrick Francis

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Rory Block

For the past five years, Rory Block, who calls herself "a one-guitar woman," has been playing a Martin OM-28V guitar strung with Martin MSP-4200 medium-gauge, phosphor-bronze strings and fitted with a Martin Gold Plus under-saddle pickup. "The sound of it is beautiful and it plays beautifully," she says. "The feeling of the fingerboard, the size of the neck, the way it responds to me, it just fits me." It's the second OM-28V she's owned (the first one was damaged), and by the middle of 2004, she's hoping to have her third: a Rory Block signature model OM, which will feature a blues-themed inlay, custom electronics, and extra-hard Dunlop fret wire. For a slide, she uses a socket from a set of socket wrenches, which she wears on her third finger. In addition to the Martin, she still has her first guitar, a nylon-string Galliano, along with steel-string acoustics from Alvarez, Gibson, Michael Gurian, Ovation, Ivon Schmukler, Eric Schoenberg, Tokai, and Yamaha. Onstage, Block uses a CAD E100 mic (www.cadmics.com) on the guitar and a Sony DPSV55 signal processor for digital reverb. In her home studio, Block's engineer Rob Davis records her guitar with a Shure KSM44 mic, a Demeter Tube DI, and an HHB vocal processor. Block eschews picks, using only her bare fingers to attack the strings.

—Kenny Berkowitz

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