EQUIPMENT PICKS FROM FRENTE'S SIMON AUSTIN, JIM NICHOLS, STEVE EARLE, PAT METHENY, AND SCOTT NYGAARD
plays an acoustic-electric nylon-string Yamaha APX-10N that he bought in 1992 and a Gibson Howard Roberts hollow-body electric that he's owned for more than ten years. The Yamaha has a built-in pickup system that Austin modified. "We adopted it and put a new chip in [the preamp]," he explains. "It's got a slightly different stereo image, and it's quite warm as well." He describes the modified system as "just a bit more articulate, a bit more sensible. A lot of those [acoustic-electric] guitars are voiced to play a certain thing and fit into the EQ and the PA in a certain way. It's safe and kind of boring, whereas this guitar's a little bit more jumpy."
Austin's choice of strings are Savarez nylon strings for his Yamaha and light-gauge (.010-.046) D'Addario steel strings for his Gibson. With the Gibson, he uses a Boss chorus pedal, an MXR preamp ("I swear by them--they're really good," he says), and a rarely employed Rat distortion pedal.
--Bryan Reesman
used three different guitars while recording Jazz and Country--a Taylor 815C jumbo with a mustache bridge, a 1969 Gibson Johnny Smith electric, and a Robert Ruck classical guitar borrowed from producer Dean Kamei. He also has a Godin Multiac, a 20-year-old jumbo steel-string built by Dexter Johnson of Carmel Music, a Bill Hollenbeck archtop, and a Guild that he keeps around the house. For amplifying his acoustics, Nichols has been using the same Sunrise pickup for 15 years, which he runs through a volume pedal and directly into the PA. When effects are needed, he uses a Boss SE70 multi-effects unit.
"I'm used to very low action and light strings on all my guitars, which makes glissandos and hammers and pull-offs sound cleaner," Nichols says. He usually strings his acoustics with extra-lights (.010-.049) but uses heavier gauges when recording to get a cleaner sound and better intonation. Nichols uses and endorses Picato strings.
While many jazz players prefer flat-wound strings on archtops, Nichols prefers regular round-wounds or, occasionally, half-rounds. "Flat-wounds seem to go dead quicker and don't have a lot of high end. And even though you wouldn't think so, there's more resistance when sliding on flat-wounds--there's more friction because you're sliding on a continuous, smooth surface, whereas with round-wounds you're only touching the outer edge of the winding," Nichols relates. He uses large Ernie Ball thumbpicks. "I round off the point a little with a file and trim a small amount off the back hook so that it doesn't catch on the strings," he says. He never uses a flatpick.
--Dylan Schorer
enjoys talking about his instruments. "I'm going through a major Leadbelly period right now," he says. "So I'm playing a lot of 12-string. I bought one of those Kottke model Taylors, and I've tuned it down to C and it sounds like a B-52. I'm from San Antonio, and to me it's like a bajo sexto that'll stay in tune.
"My main six-string was made by John Dillon in Pennsylvania [Dillon Guitars, RR #4, Box 115A, Bloomsburg, PA 17815-9124; (717) 784-7552]. It's the first guitar I ever had custom built. It's basically an S-style 12-fret, and it's black, which I like in a guitar. Then I've got a Santa Cruz 12-fret. I'm playing mostly slot-heads. I've got an early '70s Martin D-18S that's been sort of rebuilt so that the bridge is in the right place and everything. I think the early '70s Martin slot-heads are a lot better guitars than the 14-frets. They still have that pickguard problem where they curl up and all that stuff--you have to fix that--but they're not quite as out of whack as the 14-fret ones are, for some reason. Then I have a Gibson J-160E that I use a lot, especially when I'm just playing acoustic guitar rhythm parts on the rock 'n' roll stuff.
"Then I've got several mandolins: I've got a [Gibson] F-5. It was made in '89 in Bozeman, and it's a good one. I've got a 1912 A model--that one's a killer mandolin, a little prettier sounding. It's got a blonde top, and it's really dried out and plays really perfectly in tune. Then I've got an H-2 mandola, and I just got a National. I've been looking for two years for a really good National metal-body mandolin, and it's beautiful. It's a chrome one with the primrose pattern on the engraving, and it plays perfectly in tune.
"With the Train band, we use strictly external microphones, and when I'm playing with the rock band I use a Gibson Chet Atkins SST, 'cause we play so loud that that's the only thing that really works. But for the acoustic set--even when I'm out playing with the electric band I do about a six-song solo set in the middle of it--I use the Dillon, and I'm experimenting with some kind of internal microphone and pickup combination. My Santa Cruz and my Martin don't even have pickups in them. My tendency right now is I either play the SST or stick a microphone in front of a good acoustic that I love."
--Elijah Wald
new album with Charlie Haden, Beyond the Missouri Sky, features an array of acoustic guitars built by Linda Manzer (PO Box 924, Station P, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4X 1R9). Metheny's main guitar for the project was a Manzer classical, which is heard on "Waltz for Ruth," "Our Spanish Love Song," "Two for the Road," "First Song," "He's Gone Away," "Cinema Paradiso Love Theme," and "Spiritual." Metheny says, "She reworked that guitar for me. I have this three-quarter&endash;size Ibanez practice guitar, and I love the neck on it because I can really play it. I asked Linda to make the classical a short-scale instrument with a three-quarter&endash;size neck. Now it is very comfortable--especially for playing chords--and has a very tight sound."
Metheny used Manzer's steel-string, which he calls the Linda Six, as the dominant voice on the cuts "Message to a Friend" and "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress." The record also debuts an acoustic sitar-guitar built by Manzer. As on the old Coral electric sitars, a special bridge creates the sitar effect by causing the strings to buzz as they vibrate just above it. The instrument features the same body as the Linda Six. Metheny's brooding piece "Tears of Rain" showcases that instrument playing both lead lines and a chordal accompaniment track. Finally, on two songs he adds electric parts with his Ibanez Pat Metheny model guitar.
Metheny's acoustics have a variety of pickup systems installed, many of which have been customized by Mark Herbert of Guitar Works in Boston. The Linda Six has a Takamine pickup, since Metheny wanted the kind of dark sound you get from large piezo slugs, Herbert says. There is an Ovation pickup in the Manzer classical, with an electronics section designed by Herbert. The sitar-guitar has a Sunrise soundhole pickup, and the Pikasso has Fishman transducers and a lot of custom electronics and EQ designed by Herbert.
--Mark Small
derives his expansive guitar tone through careful trial and error. His main guitar, a 1956 Martin D-28, "wasn't even what I was looking for," he says. Without a dominant background in bluegrass, Nygaard originally leaned more toward smaller-bodied guitars for their more balanced sound, but wound up buying the dreadnought in the mid-1980s anyway. Following that, he added a Steven Andersen concert model in Brazilian rosewood with an Englemann spruce top, which he "fell in love with at first" and still uses on some recordings. But when Nygaard joined Laurie Lewis and Grant Street and needed that bigger, bluegrass guitar sound, he went back to the D-28. "It was sort of a revelation," he says. "I had forgotten how much I loved it."
Nygaard strings the Martin with medium-gauge phosphor-bronze D'Addario strings. For picks, he formerly used a Fender heavy, but became discontent after wearing through "three or four a night." Although he's experimented with natural tortoiseshell, he currently plays with a large Dunlop JazzTone 208 pick, which is extremely thick and rigid. He uses the rounded shoulder of the pick, which also contributes to his trademark sound.
On stage, Nygaard amplifies his Martin with a combination of an external mic and a McIntyre pickup (McIntyre Guitar Co., 719 Louise Ave., Charlotte, NC 28204; [704] 358-9497) mounted inside the guitar underneath the bridge. The pickup signal runs through a GDR preamp/volume switcher by Greg Raskin (a model not made anymore), either an MXR six-band graphic equalizer or a Rane 30-band GE-30 unit (depending on how much gear he wants to carry with him), and a Fishman Dual Parametric DI. He finds that with EQ, the McIntyre gives a good sound that lacks the "rubber-bandy" quality of some piezo pickups.
--David McCarty
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