e q u i p m e n t
 
 

Bitches brew, one and two..

Mike's bitchin' guitars
Bitch 1) A Japanese made Fender Stratocaster guitar built in late 1984, the original pick ups have long since been replaced with Kinman Trad. AVn's. It's been maintained and modified over the years by Brenden Mason at Real Guitars, including flattening out the original alarmingly rounded fretboard. Tony Brittenden checked out the serial number to determine its age and discovered it's exactly the same age as his daughter, Rowan, so these days it answers to the name Ro. (Ro means heron in Japanese). I use D'Addario XL 125 strings
Bitch 2) My 'other' guitar is a Morris (Groovin’ Power Acoustic) guitar, which is a solid body nylon-string guitar also made in Japan. I thought Morris had ceased trading, but apparently it's re-emerged recently, although I suspect this particular model has been discontinued. Its output used to be exceptionally low, but Brenden's managed to boost it considerably. Due to its solid body it's unaffected by feedback-type overtones. I use D'Addario Pro Arté normal tension strings

 

1) The classic Martin head stock 2) Gorgeous George Martin

George Martin
I've always wanted to own a Martin guitar, well, since our 2000 visit to San Francisco anyway, so when I had the opportunity I went ahead and bought one. I couldn't afford the top of the range, so I bought the DCXIRE model with the Fishman prefix. I figured I'd be mostly playing it amplified so I've got the lightest strings on possible (with the mandatory wound third) so it feels like an electric to play. I thought I'd be writing a swag of strumming songs, but that hasn't happened yet. When I do my solo gigs it's with George and my crappy Fender Champ. Custom weight strings D''Addario - 10, 13, 18, 28, 38 and 48..

 

Mike's amps
The Fender “Hot-Rod” Deluxe 40w-RMS guitar amp. B-Type, combination tubes and digital. A powerful and pretty flexible amp with just the one 12" speaker. It's not as detailed as the sister amp, the Blues Deville, which has four 10" speakers. A drawback with the Deluxe is that both channels share the same tonal circuitry, so I've by-passed the distortion channel (which only sounds great at one specific volume) in favour of the Boss Blues Driver pedal.
I use the Fender Champ for my solo gigs, and it works fine with George Martin, as long as I don't push it - I would rate it at about 10 watts. It has the advantage of being very light and has a case.

 

Mike's pedalboard
The pedalboard was devised and constructed for me by Dale Sherlock, who also supplied the power supply and the Tremit. It has a useful feature in that the pedals are held in place with velcro, which allows me the flexiblility to swap the pedals around at least once if I get bored. Going clockwise from the top left: 1) Sherlock Regulated Power Supply 2) Sherlock Tremit, which duplicates the Fender tremolo 3) Boss Blues Driver 4) Boss CS-2 compression (signal boost) 5) Danelectro Dan-Echo 6) Boss Chorus CE-2 7) DOD Juice Box FX 51 8) Boss Digital Delay DD-2 for my vocal mic, so I have to de-earth my guitar amp

 

Bill's guitars
On the left, the bass guitar many think is the same one Bill had in the '70s - but no. It is the same stripped back vintage L-series type Precision, and I believe the serial number is quite close to his original instrument, but it's been Bill's for only a decade or so. (See the full story on the Guitar Horror page).
In the middle, hiding behind Bill's stool, is the down-tuned Yamaha J-525 E nylon-string guitar, which Bill uses for the blues set and on the right is the Yari 978 Classical acoustic guitar, recently damaged by Paul Culnane's brother, which Bill employs for the Living On A Volcano numbers and his instrumentals.

 

Bill's amps
On top is (pic) Bill's Carlsbro Sherwood Classic 100W, especially designed for amplifying nylon-string guitars. It's been knocked about a fair bit, most famously when we went to Lindeman Island a few years ago and the Qantas groundcrew decided to cut it in half with their fork-lift! Amazingly, Dale Sherlock managed to stick it all back together again and it still works like a charm - mostly. We run an unbalanced line from the Carlsbro into the PA which gives Bill's nylon-strings a bit of spread. Bill uses the amp more like a stage monitor. Bill's bass amp is the trusty Fender BXR “two-hundred” PR-286.

 

Robbo's drums
Robbo's kit was made for him by Paul Barter at Barter Drums, now located in Tasmania. It consists of a 5.5" snare drum (now with POP maple hoops), a 12" mounted tom, a 14" floor tom and a 20" bass drum, plus a Pearl travel conga and a djembe. When he's in the mood he'll use his quinto and conga or his Korg Wavedrum. He has the usual selection of ride, splash and crash cymbals, plus a China and sizzle.
Robbo has got a cute white Gretsch kit as well for the smaller gigs

 

Daryl's keys and amplification
Roland A90 keyboard + sustain pedal (incl. Wurlitzer, acoustic piano and Hammond sounds)
Eon powered speaker
Behringer 6 x channel mixer and Roland 10 x band graphic EQ

 
 
 

The PA
Behringer mixer XENYX 1204 FX JBL 2 x EON 15P/230 Powered Speakers Shure 58s Quik Lok S-173 spkr stands

 
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