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Tim O'Brien
and Darrell Scott.
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Check out these equipment picks from artists featured in the January 2001 No. 97 issue of Acoustic Guitar magazine.
TIM
O'BRIEN AND DARRELL SCOTT |
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On Real Time, Tim O’Brien plays a mandolin, mandola, and bouzouki built by Michael Kemnitzer (PO Box 264, Central Lake, MI 49622), because "they’re loud, sweet, and responsive, and they work really great live." His guitar is a 1950 Gibson J-50, and his banjo is a five-string OME Minstrel. All of O’Brien’s instruments are strung with GHS phosphor-bronze strings. For these sessions, Darrell Scott alternated between a 1996 Gibson J-60, a koa 1993 Taylor K-20, and a one-of-a-kind mandolin, the first and last ever made by repairman David Anderson. "He made it for himself back in 1975," says Scott, "and found out it was so much work, he never wanted to tackle another one." Scott also plays a Gibson Earl Scruggs banjo and a 1934 Weissenborn Hawaiian guitar. He strings them all with D’Addario medium-gauge phosphor-bronze strings. ––Kenny Berkowitz Guitarist Steve Dawson’s main guitars are a Larrivée LJ-05C mahogany jumbo with a cutaway and a Hawaiian guitar built by Neil Russell (Celtic Cross Instruments, 1441 Jamaica Rd., Victoria, BC V8N 2C9, Canada; [250] 721-0712). "It’s pretty much an exact copy of an old Weissenborn," says Dawson. He uses standard or dropped-D tuning on the Larrivée and usually keeps his slide guitars in a low open-C tuning (C G C G C E), with occasional variants like C G C G C D. Both instruments are equipped with Sunrise magnetic pickups. Dawson also plays a square-neck Dobro he amplifies by mixing a D’Armond guitar pickup with a McIntyre contact pickup. His effects include a wah-wah pedal, a Dunlop tremolo pedal, and a Danelectro delay pedal. On stage, he runs the signal from his guitars into a 15-watt Fender tube amp, which is then miked and sent to the PA. Jesse Zubot plays a 200-year-old violin that is "probably from Hungary," and his main mandolin is an F-5 copy made by Peter Sawchyn (Sawchyn Guitars, 2048 Montague St,. Regina, SK S4T 3J7, Canada; [306] 522-3134; www.sawchyn.com). ––Ron Forbes-Roberts Merrie Amsterburg calls her 1967 Danelectro Convertible, with its flashy design, lipstick pickup, and incredibly low sticker price (she bought it for around $200), the "poor man’s acoustic." "What I like about it for the stage is that it sounds cool and is less finicky and delicate than a traditional acoustic guitar—it’s made of masonite, so if you wanted to, you could set your drink on it," she says. On stage she also plays a Flatiron bouzouki equipped with a Barcus Berry bass pickup, a 1960s Harmony Monterey mandolin with the pickup from an old Sears Silvertone, and a reissue Fender Bass IV tuned like a baritone guitar. All of the above plug into a Fishman Pro-EQ, Boss PN-2 tremolo/pan, Boss RV-3 reverb/digital delay, Ibanez LS-10 Dual Loop Selector, and Boss TU-2 chromatic tuner. ––Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers Greg Brown’s main companions on stage and in the studio are a 1940s Gibson J-45 and a pair of Lowdens, a mahogany jumbo O12 and the smaller rosewood cutaway F32 C. Brown has tried many different guitars on the road, but he says, "In terms of the way I like to play and the portability I like to have, a Lowden or a Gibson with one of those Fishman under-the-saddle pickups run through a Demeter direct box has proved to be a good little rig for me. It’s just so basic and simple, and I can almost always get a good tone. Occasionally I’ll have to put a mic on it too, if the PA is a little thin or something." Last summer Brown played a gig picking a Gibson Melody Maker electric with a full band, and he’s intrigued with the idea of performing solo with electric guitar. On Covenant he played "Blues Go Walking" and "Living in a Prayer" on an old Danelectro owned by Bo Ramsey. For electric work, Brown enjoys the classic tones of his 1960s Fender Princeton amp. Brown mostly plays in standard tuning, but he has made occasional forays into tuner twisting. "When I was writing the Poet Game songs," he says, "that was my first real exploration into tunings. They were real basic—open G [D G D G B D], a little bit of open G with the low string tuned down to C, some open D [D A D F# A D], and then both E’s down to D. On Slant Six, there were a couple songs in open G and a couple with both E’s down to D." The songs on Covenant are in standard except for "Waiting on You" in open G and "Living in a Prayer" in D A D G A D. Brown has also been using D A D G A D in his current project of arranging traditional songs like "Pretty Polly" and "Samson and Delilah." In the past, Brown played with metal fingerpicks and then exclusively with a flatpick, but these days he prefers the bare-fingered approach. ––Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers Excerpted from Acoustic Guitar magazine, January 2001, No. 97. |
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