Don's Gear

don's gear

C.F. Martin Instruments:

Custom 15 - This is basically a prototype HD28 made in 1983 by C.F. Martin. This is my main axe. It has snowflake fretboard inlay, shaved bracing, custom tortoise pickgaurd, Bourgeois dual pickup system, small vintage style tuners and a whole lot more~!
D28 - My baby. It's a '65 Brazilian stock. Kinda sad as it really stays in it's case more than I'd like, though lately, I've been gigging again with her more. I slapped a Fishman Rare Earth pickup in and it really sounds cool. Kinda like a Sunrise for alot less.

Gibson Instruments:

L48 - This is a late 40's Gibson jazzbox acoustic. Got this at the last vintage guitar show. I felt like I had made it, going through the whole show without seeing one thing that caught my eye-whew!....until the last booth with this guy. Its funky as its been refinished from the original sunburst to a dark walnut. Changed out the tuners to Klusons. Added the correct pickguard and lastly put a K & K duo pickup transducer inside. Sounds great acoustic too!
Epiphone Les Paul – Here’s a goldtop w/soapbars. Nice for a cheapo.
Epiphone Les Paul – Next is the Joe Perry Boneyard w/photo flame tiger stripe top, a Bigsby vibrato and burstbuckers. Pretty cool and way cheaper than the Gibson.
Epiphone 335 Dot Neck – This is a red baby with all stock parts except black chicken head control knobs. Very nice axe and low $.
Epiphone “Howard Roberts” Model – Wine red finish w/gold plated metal parts. Neck mounted pickup and very jazzy. Dig it!
Epiphone Mandobird – A very cool little guy styled after the Thunderbird/Firebird axes. It’s a 4 string electric and really rocks!

Fender Instruments:

Stratocaster - Very liberal term here. I worked for Fender for about a month in the late 70's. No wonder that era turned out crap! This has some the components from my beloved '72 (guts, hardware..). The damn body & neck is an ESP (sorry collectors). I took the ugly Japanese red body and had an automotive painter shoot it tourquoise (yes...). It's a player and I love it. The neck has super wide frets and the rosewood feels just right. Oh yeah, it screams!
Stratocaster - This is a nice vintage 2-color sunburst body & rosewood neck with a mish mash of components.
Stratocaster - OK. I see a trend here with the Fenders. This is a no name body & neck, elecs, hardware. It's natural finished and has heavy strings-raised high for my Ry Cooder imitations.
Telecaster - Well.....this guy is silver metalflake with a brass pickguard. Nuff said? I don't think there is 1 damn Fender part on this one! This is all country. It had a Hipshot B bender on it and is temporarily off. It just screams Don Rich of Buck Owens' Buckaroos. Very nice sounding axe and it's REAL heavy!
Telecaster - This is an eBay basket case Tele body with parts that I brought back to life. Some guy had painted it flat black with white large circles all over it. Very funky. The actual paint job was butterscotch. Well, a week of careful sanding the butterscotch came back! Nice Jap body and parts for little or no money. It now has the original finish, with some relic effects thrown in for good measure, a black pickguard and a Squire maple neck with relic effects on the fingerboard. Pretty cool psuedo 50's butterscotch for $100 investment.
Telecaster - This is a Mexican Power Tele with piezo pickups and a middle Strat pickup for in-between sounds as well as the acoustic sounds. Its butterscotch with a pearl white pickguard.
12 String Acoustic – A pretty cool spruce top, rosewood b & s box. Has their piezo pickup and control panel. Its on my MySpace page soundbite called ”The Dreaded Snake Thing”.

All The Rest (favorites):

DonMo - 2000 Tricone metal body. This is a custom axe that I had made from a picture on a website. The luthier, Don Morrison, is in Australia. I am VERY trusting. For those of you that are not familiar with metal bodied guitars, this is much like the National brand made in the 20's-30's and beyond. It's super heavy and sounds just amazing. It also has a Highlander pickup system that sounds transparent. My brother, Dennis, turned me on to this guy and also suggested that we have him engrave our recently deceased parent's names on it. Good idea as every time I look down on the upper bout, I think of them. Please take a look at DonMo's instruments. You'll be glad you did!
Taylor- Here’s their koa wood acoustic w/the expression system electrics. Very beautiful axe with a great acoustic and electric sound.
Larrivee- This is a beautiful spruce top w/rosewood b & s. Smaller body w/cutaway. Has a piper inlaid on the headstock. I have a B-Band pickup in it.
Gitane- This is their gypsy model guitar, styled after the Macafferri guitar made famous by Django Reinhardt. It has rosewood back and sides with a close grained spruce top. Has the large D soundhole with amazing action, projection and sound. This replaced my beloved Dell Arte' guitar that initiated my friendship with Alain Cola of Dell Arte' Guitars. Alain is a wonderful man and is one of the foremost proponents of Gypsy Jazz. Contact him if you would like to see one of his amazing guitars. I also can't exclude the luthier, John Kinnard of Dell Arte'. His work covers all the bases including mandolins, Gibson style guitars and much more. Very talented.
Grayson - The luthier of this one is an automotive body and fender guy by day and does instruments by night! This is an aged copy of a Gibson "F" style mandolin. Now not just ANY mandolin, but the Father of Bluegrasses mandolin: Bill Monroe. This thing looks and sounds the part down to the cracked off scroll piece on the headstock. Fishman bridge pickup. A wonderful axe and is my main mandolin.
Magnatone - Lap steel. Got this one at a pawnshop for $40. Previous owner had painted it black then splatter painted ala Jackson Pollack neon colored paint all over it. Thank God it was poster paint cause it came off in a jiffy. Underneath was the most fabulous mother-of-toilet seat gray finish!
Chandler- Lap steel. Nice Weisenborn body shape. Solid w/mahogany top and Charlie Christian style pickup. This is a regular in my top 5 stable for gigs.
Luthier Unknown Octave Mandolin - A very cool piece picked up from eBay. My first octave. Tuned a step down from a conventional mandolin, it sounds very "old world". Will use this as flavor and imagine will go to some shows, sessions. It's quite beautiful with an antique sunburst finish, abalone binding, bone nut and saddle and lot's more.
Schecter C1 Semi Hollowbody- This is an interesting axe that I have been looking at for some time now. I had been looking at the reviews on Harmony Central and they all screamed BUY ME. Well I did. I love this guitar. It bridges the gap between a Fender Strat, a Gibson humbucker and an acoustic guitar! It has a piezo bridge system that you can roll into the classic humbucker sound or use on its own. It even has 2 discrete outs for running the acoustic sound into a board or acoustic amp. Very cool job Schecter.
Godin – Mandolin. Solid body chambered w/spruce top, mahogany b&s. Piezo pickups. In the top 5 gig axes. Very nice intrument.
Wechter “Rob Ickes” Model Resonator - This is a very nice dobro with the coveted Shertler pickup system. Another one in the top 5 gig tools.
Line 6 Variaxe - This is the entry-level red solid body. I love it! Sanded all of the red off and finished in natural. In fact I loved it so much that I got the next one here….
Line 6 Variaxe – The top of the line model with an amber finish that’s incredible. Has a tremolo and that incredible flexibility of the Variaxe. The 5^th in my top 5 gig tools.

The rest of the rest...: Lastly, there's a mahogany uke, Harmony banjo, Dean 1/2 size acoustic for the road, Rogue D18 copy and mahogany cutaway Rogue acoustic with Fishman electronics, Rogue F style mandolin with a K & K PU, Fullerton acoustic with B-Band pickup, Jay Turser resonator with a piezo and a humbucker, Johnson metal body, Gold Tone Weisenborn copy, Whew! I THINK that's it.

Amps:

Carvin - This is their little vintage 33 watt guy. I just love the sound. Carvin makes a quality amp for a great price. This was my main amp with several bands and now it proudly sits in my office/studio and acts as a great cup holder.
Fender - Deluxe-'71. This is a silverface screamer. Has a vintage JBL and will move into the much coveted "primary amp" status. Now I just need a gig!
Fender – Cyber Champ. Very versatile little box. I like!
Fender – G-Dec Executive. A cool little digital amp with tons of presets and bass & drum patterns too!
Behringer – Acoustic amp. I like!
Ultrasonic - Acoustic Amp. This is their 30 watt model. This is a great, flexible acoustic amp. I am blown away by its sound and ability to make all of my axes sound unique and cool.
Johnson - Very interesting green tolex on a very retro-vibey cabinet. Solid state 15 watts-LOUD. Sounds nice with a slight overdriven swing sound with jazz boxes too.

Effects:

Lets just say that I have tons. I named my first band "Effects" so need I say more? Well, what I will say is that I do use quite a bit of signal processing. I like echo, some modulation and now and then a really ballsy distortion. Life needs spice and so does my playing!

Currently using: Dunlop Tremolo, Prescription Electronics Univibe, Fulltone Fulldrive (simply awesome pedal), Boss Digital Echo, Boss volume, DOD EQ, DOD Octave, and probably more that I fail to remember. All of this is housed in a Warwick powered pedalboard with additional power by Godlyke.

I also have a small rack that houses a lighted power conditioner, Barcus Berry pre-amp, Behringer parametric eq and lastly my Nady wireless that goes to acoustic gigs mostly.

I have traded out my Digitech GNX3. for a Boss RC-20 Loop Station. Now I really don't want to slam Digitech as they have tons of great gear, but this Boss looper replaces the only effect that I liked on the Digitech. Nuff said?

Acoustic Processors:

A quick word about amplifying acoustic instruments. If you HAVE to plug in, then by all means do it. Try to use a decent preamp and eq to help with the tone. Piezos are ok if you like a percussive sound, just try to balance it out with a mike or a transducer in conjunction with the piezo.

For floor processing, I have a small Anvil briefcase with the following: Stewart preamp, a Fishman pre-amp, a Aphex acoustic exciter, a Yamaha acoustic multi effects unit, a BOSS volume pedal, a BOSS tuner and lastly, a DOD compressor used sometimes. See above for the rack stuff.

The absolute BEST way to amplify your axe's volume is a microphone. Period. A decent condenser will do wonders. If you have nothing but a Shure SM57, then by all means-use it! It's the standard at most clubs, etc. I use a Carvin tube and an SM57.

Recording:

I am now entering the world of digital recording with Digidesign's Pro Tool and the M-Box. I have about 200 hours of reel to reel tape and need to lock myself in my studio for about a month in order to transfer. Not looking forward to this at all!

Also using Fostex’s 8 & 16 channel digital recorders for fast, easy and fun recording.

Lastly, I am loving my Apple iPod for portable tunes that are never-ending.

My Current Stage Setup:

Contact:

Feel free to email me if you have any questions or comments regarding any of my gear mentioned here. I love gear and I love talking about it even more!