So as many of you who have seen me many times live will attest I'm a gear junkie. I have more gear as an acoustic player than many drummers! It's a problem yes, but I'm seeking councilling for it!
Anyway, here's what I'm currently using in my touring rig which I've now streamlined for ease of set-up and tear down and to make sound men all over the world happy.
Main guitar: Larrivee DV-09 Handmade by Jean Larrivee in Vancouver Canada. This is the nicest guitar I've ever played. I tried out around 60 guitars when I went shopping for a new guitar about 18 months ago and this one jumped out as easily the best sounding and playing guitar in the bunch. I swore I would never spend this much money on a guitar since I'm so hard on them but I just couldn't say no! Plus I got a great deal on it so here we are. The electronics I had installed are Fishman's Naturaltone under saddle pick-up which has great response and accurate tone as far as under saddle pick-ups go with very little problems of feedback at high volume. This guitar is strung with Elixir nanoweb 12-56 strings!
Back-up guitar: Jalkanen by Wechter GRSC. I used this guitar for a really long time as my only live instrument and it has served me well for an affordable and durable guitar. It's seen better days but can still easily find it's way into the live set-up in a pinch without any problems. The main reason I bought the Larrivee as a replacement was the natural tone for recording was lacking in the Jalkanen but live it still kicks butt!!! It has a Fishman PREFIX system in it which sounds great through my rig. The strings as always are Elixir nanoweb 12-56's!!!
Rig: Samson guitar wireless into Line 6's XT Live floorcontroller/preamp (which is the coolest piece of gear I've ever owned for it's versatility and ease of use. Don't know how I ever lived without it!!!). From the XT Live the signal passes through a BBE Sonic Maximizer 362 which no guitar player who is serious about thier tone should ever be without. I've been singing the praises of BBE to players for more than a decade. It really puts glasses on your ears!!! You have to hear it to understand how important it is to your sound. From there the signal is split with a ABY Switch box with the A channel going into channel 1 of a stereo DI BOX mounted to my pedalboard. The B channel goes into a Boss LoopStation sample pedal and then into channel 2 of the same stereo DI BOX. This gives me the option to monitor the loop hotter than the regular guitar signal for timing purposes without having the front of house signal hotter. For my vocals I use a Shure BETA 87A mic into a TC Helicon VoiceLive processor with a bypass vocal channel direct to the mixing console and the effected voice into a second DI BOX mounted on the other side of the pedalboard. This allows the mix to change the amount of effects including full vocal harmonies created by the voicelive based on the response of the room. Each room has a different response to effects and harmony volume so it can be adjusted on the fly when it's seperate. All of these goodies are mounted into a custom built 2-tiered Mike Driscoll case which I designed. It's big and a bit cumbersome but when I'm playing I love it more and more.
Assorted other goodies: I have tons of stuff lying around here that was once part of my rig and as I streamlined it has passed into rehearsal gear! Here's a list of some stuff
Alesis 3630 stereo channel compressor/gate/limiter-Awesome piece of gear, discreet, silent and worth it's weight in gold. I still use it for drum compression in the 80's band I play in.
ART Power Conditioner- also a good piece of gear with lighted front for rack use used with the above unit live.
Lexicon 200 Multi-effects- Also killer piece of gear used with the above in an SBK 4 space rack for current live use with the 80's band.
Yamaha MX200 1204 mixer- Cool little 12 channel board with 4 output bus mixes I use with the 80's band. It also has a custom Clydesdale case. Man do I love EBAY!!!!
TC Electronics MultiEffects- This was out of my old acoustic rig and has now been relegated to collecting dust in my basement. It's got one of the best "live" reverb settings I've ever heard but has become obsolete with the XT Live in my rig.
POD PRO XT Rack mountable w/footcontroller. This unit still works great but has been replaced with the XT Live. Will sell for the right price!!
Guitars:
Fender Players Series 98 Telecaster-easily the best electric guitar I've ever played. More versitilae than anything out there and plays like a dream. American made and Canadian Played! Lots of dings in this beauty but it stills treats me right!
Epiphone Les Paul Standard: My back-up guitar with the 80's band. Really a piece of junk I salvaged with new schaller tuners, new seymour duncan 58's for pickups and a lot of time!
Shechter diamond series 7-String- I rarely use this beast anymore. Just too heavy sounding for what I play and a handful. Solid walnut body looks incredible and plays really fast. May keep this around in case I need to get heavy in a hurry!!!
All my electrics are strung with Elixir nanoweb 10-52 electric strings. The 7-string uses an extra 61 on the bottom end.
There's a few other things floating around here including an 8 channel yorkville rehearsal pa with pulse 12's as monitors and pulse 15's as mains and an awesome Multi-Case 16 space Studio rack case with floating hardware and soft casters. Love that thing. Now I just need to fill it!!!! If you have any cool gear you might want to sell, I'm always looking-at the right price!
