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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 |
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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..
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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
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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
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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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