I've made alot of changes to my stage set-up since my last entry. Having tried all the possible combinations of acoustic guitar pickups: piezos, microphones & magnetic in various combinations, I've simplified to just a Sunrise pickup(magnetic.) Also, I've let go of my Martin guitars in favor of my Gibson Nick Lucas re-issue. The Martins sound great in a room but by the time you go through an amp and a PA system you are dealing with another animal. The Martins started to feel stodgy and the Gibson is still fun. I realized that what i was looking for was not really acoustic anyway, but more of a jazz/blues sound. I go through the pre-amp that comes with the Sunrise into a small tube amp. Simple set-up. Just plug in and go. I've toured with other singer/songwriters and watched them go through soundcheck hell. Feedback through the monitors, a thin trebley sound, and the volume so low that that see your fingers moving but have no idea what sound is going out to the audience! My small tube amp is warm and acts like a monitor. This way I can be inspired by the sound and give a good performance regardless of what the everchanging cast of soundmen decide to give the house. The amp I use is a Sano. I found it for %100 at Chelsea Guitars in New York in the "nobody wants me bin." 1-12" speaker, tremolo. maybe 15 watts. Sano was an accordian company in New Jersey. These amps have the perfect blend of clean sound and warm tube distortion. A full sound made for accordion and therefore perfect for acoustic guitar. Most electric guitar amps have a sound made for blaring, blistering rock dudes, which I guess I probably am not. I've since accquired two more Sanos that I plan to use in stereo with my trio. Ebay is a dangerous thing! That leads me to EFX boxes. I'm going through an obsession with them now. On some songs I've been using a Teisco electric that my friend Flip Scipio in New York set me up with. It's a beautiful pointy thing with 4 pickups, a whammy bar, and tons of switches from the 60s, Japanese, more is more mentality.I have two and one has a Lo A string on the bottom so that when you play the 5th and 6th strings together it sounds like an octaver pedal. Throws off your thinking and makes for some cool sounds. Of course, this led me to the wah-wah pedal, and the electro-harmonix Memory Man delay (gorgeous warm analog delay and vibato.) I used to believe that dry and flat was equal to purity and that reverb was equal to falseness and hype. I've changed my mind. The electro-harmonix Holy Grail reverb box is beautiful. I also found a very rare pedal from England called The Able String machine. It somehow follows your guitar notes with a 70s analog synth sound. I love this thing. Well, as I've said before my music is "Folk-Hendrix." One last thing I need to mention. For a long time I've wanted to somehow add sound EFX in the middle of certain songs as a background mood thing. I have used this a few times in my recordings (see "Gypsy Cab" from "Loose Ends" and "Chinatown" from my Atlantic album.) The hi-tech way would be a sampler triggerd by a foot controller-I played a show with an act who had their own pro-tools man at the back of the stage triggering drum loops and samples. Did I mention that my show is both Lo-Fi AND Lo-Budget! I once rigged up a cassette deck with a cassete sound EFX tape in it that I turned on and off with a footswitch. It worked in soundcheck and burnt out the deck by showtime. Now I've discovered the Lo-Fi Loop Junky from ZVEX. I've loaded in 20 seconds of beautiful New York traffic and chaos to blend in here and there in my songs. If you feel like you're in the middle of the city during my shows, it's not just the lyrics. That's enough for now.I may be starting a separate website for Sano amps.I'll keep you posted.
