AMADA Classical
This classical nylon 6-string guitar made in Czechoslovakia (at that time) was the very first guitar I ever bought. I was having my first guitar lessons with Mr. Vassallo and this was basically the guitar that I made exams with, although I am still using it on my recordings.
ACADEMY Electro-Acoustic
When time was passing by and I was having my first band experiences, I thought that considering the styles I was playing, I needed a semi-acoustic guitar. The academy its not a first class axe like a Takamine or Martin can be but still gave me what I was looking for, especially in the recording sessions, with a lower budget. As you can see it has a round rosette in the middle and is equipped with an active pre-amp on the side giving the sound that extra oomph!
CMG Custom
You can search all over the globe for another like this one without finding any. That's because it's a custom made guitar and in this case I'm not only the owner but the manufacturer as well. Since you don't buy that much CDs of mine my daily bread is woodworking. Being as well as a hobby, guitar building always attracted me, as a matter of fact my true first guitar was a self build one but lacking in quality, so I dismantled it and left it aside.
CMG represent my initials and it has a set of Grover lock machine heads, Les Paul 3-way switch to operate a custom made neck humbucker pickup made of two single coils and another bridge humbucker from Rainbow products. The latter is a cheap but quite an amazing pickup, which gives the guitar a unique fat and aggressive sound especially in the bass notes.
IBANEZ RG 450
Oh yes here it is. I personally think that when you mention Ibanez when youre talking about electric guitars, you are surely mentioning one of the best. RG models, which means Rock Guitar, where build for a single purpose, ROCK! The 450 model it's not the Rolls Royce of its kind but it surely gives a very good quality sound. My next step is arming it with a pair of stunning Di Marzio pick-ups but this will be on the next album.
So it consists of a set of Floyd Rose tremolo unit, Gotch machine heads, two humbuckers one neck position and one bridge position and a single coil in the middle controlled by a 5-way switch aiming the second and fourth positions to use both humbucker and single coil simultaneously. Black scratch plate to cover all electronics.
CMBG GL300b
Although this might look like another custom made guitar, it's not. Originally it's a Marlin Bass guitar. The history of this guitar started when a friend of mine gave it to me but in a state of disaster. We were having some fun in the garage where we use to rehearse. It was the "Velvet" period and Steve, the real owner, was jamming with it and suddenly the strap button broke and the bass fell on its neck breaking in two. He was on holiday here so he didn't bother that much. He was going to throw it away so I took the opportunity to try to fix it up, and I did.
CMBG again meant my initials although I kept the original Marlin serial. Originally it had a red metallic color but I changed it into white. You can notice the red star "Rush" logo on the body. After being a Rush fan for all those years, what can you expect! The major alteration made to the bass was eliminating the bridge pick up with a Di Marzio Fender Jazz pick up. It also had an LDJ/LDP set of pick ups in the middle controlled by a 3-way switch that I added as well, but I returned to the idea of using the Di Marzio pick up only leaving all other electronics there.
DIFFERENT STRINGS Custom Bass
This custom bass guitar is the same previous Marlin you just saw. When I recorded the album was white, as you saw it but after I finished the album I realized it needed a re-vamp and a new neck because it was starting to re-shatter. I had a piece of maple that I converted into the neck you see. Although, I still used the same fingerboard the old neck had. The body had a re-vamp as well into black and installed the Di Marzio Fender Jazz pick up in a better position and eliminated the useless LDJ/LDP pick ups.
Basically these are all the guitars that I use. Actually there are two more. An EKO 6-string acoustic, which needs to spent a little time in my garage for a decent refurbishment and another nylon 6-stringer, Calvin Cramer, which it's more a concert classical. I might use it for some recordings in the future.
ROLAND E-28
This is a very simple keyboard. It's one of the smallest in the Roland range but for my recordings, thanks to MIDI and Soundfont technology, I use dozens of sounds through my PC. For example, I purchased a high quality Steinway recorded soundfont for the piano. Others that I think I can't be without them are the Hammond B3, Mellotron, Mini Moog, true strings, Prog leads and synths and some other great modern pads.
LANEY GC120
The advantage of recording in a pro studio will definitely be the usage of a valve powered guitar amp. The GC120 is a fully transistor made amp. It's very powerful and clear but I think it lacks the power/warm sound of the valve amp. So far this is my big amp, in the future we'll see.
TORQUE T30
This little amp is a 30-watt full transistor amp. It's my early stage amp that I use to rehearse at home with, although I still use it a little for recording guitars. It has the advantage of a multi-connection like keyboards, guitar, mic and line out.
DIGITECH GSP 2101 Artist
For the moment this is the brain number 1 because number 2 is of course the PC. All the analog sounds recorded, like guitars and bass, are passed through it. The Artist is a studio tube pre-amp and processor as well. One can use its own sounds or creating any custom sound possible. Its bundled with lots of effects like reverb, chorus, flange, distortion, compressor, delay, noise gates, pitch shifters a great EQ and more. I personally use the original sounds because there's a lot but in case I wanna change something than I refer to brain number 2, my PC.
GRUNDIG V303
This little fat one is an integrated stereo power amplifier. Its original purpose was for my stereo but it so powerful that I felt guilty in purchasing another power amp for my DAW. The speakers made to measure for it were 200 W but it can handle easily even 300 W per channel. At the moment it's connected to my monitors, a pair of KRK RoKit 75 W 8ohms, great monitors for my purposes.
Well that's basically my stuff. I have not photographed other miscellaneous articles like my mics, the Beyerdynamic TGX-58 dynamic mic, ideal for instrument micing and the Rode NT1-A condenser mic, great for vocals but I use it as a second mic for intrument recording. On the other hand I can purchase alot of other stuff but nowadays with computer technology I'm using alot of software instaed of hardware because it's cheaper and I can concentrate my work on a single machine. Of course this is possible by having alot of memory and disk space.