Equipment Picks from JANIS IAN, OSCAR LOPEZ, JULIAN DAWSON, MARY FLOWER, and COREY HARRIS
plays her signature model Santa Cruz guitar both on stage and in the studio. This small-bodied acoustic was designed in the early '90s, and it has become a regular model from the Santa Cruz Guitar Co. (328 Ingalls Ave., Santa Cruz, CA 95060-5849; [408] 425-0999). Built with a spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides, the Ian model has a black finish and an ebony fingerboard with extra-wide Gibson frets. Although the guitar has a surprisingly big acoustic sound for its petite size, it was designed with amplification in mind, for which it is equipped with a modified L.R. Baggs LB6X pickup. Ian likes the Santa Cruz' plugged-in tone so much, in fact, that she uses it in the studio as well, sans microphone. The only other guitar she played on her Hunger album was a circa 1926 Martin 000-18 on the song "On the Dark Side of Town."
Ian strings her Santa Cruz with a very light John Pearse set (gauges .010, .012, .019 or .020, .030, .040, .050). For off-stage tuning, her guitar has a battery-operated Sabine Stealth tuner built into the top of the fretboard where it meets the body. On stage, she tunes up with a Boss TU-12. For plug-free playing, she uses a Shure wireless VHF system.
Ian uses a range of effects for her guitar, including a Boss digital delay and a Dunlop Jimi Hendrix wah-wah (acoustic purist, she ain't). For vocal looping and effects, she has a Lexicon JamMan, a Digitech Vocalist, and a Yamaha SPX 900. Vocal looping has been part of her show ever since the Breaking Silence album, and it can be quite spectacular. "We were doing a little bit of call and response stuff with an SPX years ago," she recalls. "My soundman started doing it on 'Ride Me Like a Wave.' And then when I started working with Philip Clark, my Australian sound guy, we were talking about, Wouldn't it be great if we could sample but didn't have to deal with a sampler? I called Mark Bookins over at Westwood Music to ask whether he had anything like that, and he said, 'Yeah, there's this great thing called the JamMan; it's really cheap.' And so we got one and boy, it was just an awesome thing. So we started using one, and now we're looking for more because they stopped making them."
For her vocals, Ian carries Shure SM-58 and Beta 58 mics with her on the road.
--Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
main guitar is a Raimundo 145 flamenco, made by Manuel Raimundo of Valencia, Spain. It features a solid spruce top, Spanish cypress back and sides, and a mahogany neck. "It's small-bodied and has a very beautiful, crisp sound," Lopez says. He also owns a Gallagher steel- string (Gallagher Guitars, PO Box 128, Wartrace, TN 37183; [615] 389-6455), which he uses when he performs with guitarist James Keelaghan.
Lopez uses D'Addario J46 hard-tension nylon strings and raves about them, "They play so strong and last for a long time." He usually plays with a heavy flatpick, but on Heat he played rhythm guitar tracks with his nails, necessitating a trip to the beauty salon to have false nails attached.
Lopez uses a Fishman Matrix pickup and a Fishman Pro-EQ preamp on the Raimundo and a Dean Markley ZH-7 soundhole pickup on the Gallagher. For some live performances, he also uses a Trace Acoustic TA 100-R amp. He adds that he likes to have a mic on the guitar during live shows, with its signal going to the house only, not to his monitors.
--Bryan Powell
plays two custom-made Lakewood guitars (made in Germany, distributed in the U.S. by Dana B. Goods, 5427 Hollister Ave., Santa Barbara, CA 93111-2345; [805] 964-9610; www.lakewoodguitars.com) and a Gibson J-200 that has two Bill Keith banjo-style tuning pegs--one on the high E string and another on the low E. "Martin Seeliger from Lakewood built me an absolutely beautiful small guitar, his version of a Martin 000-18," Dawson says. "Dan Penn ordered one on the spot when he heard it; so did Chip Taylor. Martin Seeliger's got something right with that guitar."
"Julian plays two different Lakewood guitars at the moment," says Seeliger. "His first guitar is a jumbo- style six-string made from rosewood with a spruce top. His second guitar is a 12-fret auditorium guitar. This instrument features mahogany sides and back and a European bear-claw spruce top with abalone inlays around the soundhole rosette. The one-piece mahogany neck has a slotted peghead and an ebony fingerboard with Julian's 'J.D.' inlaid in mother-of-pearl. The guitar is very much like our standard Lakewood A-14."
Dawson also owns a Gibson Southern Jumbo that he bought from Steve Forbert. Picato, an English company, makes his strings (gauge .012&endash;.054). "They just last an unbelievably long time," says Dawson.
--Shelton Clark
main lap guitar is a 1931 National model 1 1/2H tricone square-neck. She's still waiting for a good external pickup to be invented, but meanwhile a microphone and the house PA are enough amplification. "It's a real loud instrument, almost as obnoxious as a banjo, and I haven't had any trouble with it," she says. Her other current performing guitar is a 1935 Gibson L-00 fitted with a Fishman saddle pickup. The flattop heard on Rosewood and Steel was made by Boulder-based luthier Max Krimmel (who is no longer building) in 1971.
Since Flower's concerts require both conventional and lap guitars, traveling can be a challenge. So she had Blue Heron Enterprises (PO Box 270, Carlotta, CA 95528; [800] 899-9096) make her a custom gig bag, two guitars deep, with the instruments separated by a foam pad. The whole package is not much bigger than a standard, one-guitar hard-shell case and fits into most aircraft overhead compartments.
--Russell Letson
plays slide on a 1990 National Islander with a Highlander pickup installed (Highlander, 305 Glenwood Ave., Ventura, CA 93003-4426; [805] 658-1819). He fingerpicks a Gibson J-45 with a Sunrise pickup (Sunrise, 8101 Orion Ave. #19, Van Nuys, CA 91406-1438; [818] 785-3428). When he plugs in, he plays a Parker Fly electric guitar and a National New Yorker. For his lap-steel work, he relies on a National tricone for acoustic and a Fender Champ for electric. He uses a brass slide and wears Jim Dunlop metal fingerpicks or occasionally picks with his bare fingers.
--Kermit Pattison
|
|
|
|
|
|