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GEAR
 THE
GUITARS
– After 27 years of being a Fender player (with a few Ibanez and Jackson moments
along the way) I finally
came to my senses
and went Gibson! I LOVE their Les Paul Studio guitars – phenomenal value and
quality with unmatched tone in my opinion. Let me add too that the same can be
said of
Mullis Music in Concord. Every guitar I have but one has come from Randy’s
shop and they offer the best service anywhere. Their selection is great –
featuring vintage guitars – especially Fender and Gibson. Their guitar tech is
Jack VanDerMark – and he’s the go to guy if you want setups or mods on your
instruments – Jack knows his stuff! Having said that , let me get into the
details…
My main electric
is a 1998 Epiphone Korina 58’ Flying V Reissue – completely stock except for a
Roland GK2a synth pickup on it.
It was bought from Mullis Music in Concord NC.
Great playing, great sounding, great looking guitar!!!
My second favorite
is a 1995 Gibson Les Paul Studio. I’ve tweaked the hardware on it a bit:
-
Graphtech Ghost
bridge (installed by Jack @ Mullis!)
-
Graphtech
Acoustiphonic Preamp (installed by Jack @ Mullis!)
-
Graphtech
Hexaphonic Preamp (installed by Jack @ Mullis!)
-
Switched out
amber hat knobs for gold speed knobs
-
Switched out
black pickguard for a gold mirrored one (it’s really acrylic with a foil back
but looks cool!)
-
Modded the pup
switch knob to make it smaller so I wouldn’t keep bumping it when doing 2
handed tapping!
Again – bought at
Mullis Music as was my trusty Seagull M6 Gloss acoustic (not pictured)
 Finally, I have
this really tricked out Line 6 Variax 500. I played them exclusively for about 3
years until they started to break on me. The repair cost was outrageous and
that’s when I decided to go Gibson (reliable and great sounding!!!)
 But
anyway, this was originally
a rather plain looking black guitar with an interesting
white pearloid
pickguard.
I got some paint pens one day and told my 4 kids to have at it! The green is
from my oldest
son Josh, the blue
is from the 2nd oldest son, Chris, the pink from my little girl Ali,
and the yellow is from Andy who was just a little tiny guy at the time!
The back of the
 guitar
has Andy’s foot and hand print plus a
quote that Rich
Mullins used to use with his signature: “Be
God’s” meaning to be God’s man or woman, boy or girl. It’s on the back this
way so when I played it behind my head, people could read it:
 Another thing I
did was scallop
the fretboard and shave the neck down – narrowed it up a bit. You’ll also notice
3 strings on it –
that’s for the
BDGRO tune.
I use GHS Boomer
strings (TNT guage 10-52 and I tune down a whole step typically)
And these great
big DEFEND YOSELF picks:
Yeah –
big and dangerous they are!!!!
THE
PEDALBOARD
I’ll get a pic of
it soon but here’s what’s in “Mission Control” (the thing lights up like a
Christmas tree when the lights are off in the room!)
-
Digitech GNX
3000 modeller
-
Roland GR20
guitar synth
-
Rolls MidiBuddy
controller for synth program change
-
Line 6 Echo Park
-
Boss RC50 Loop
Station
-
TC Helicon
VoiceLive vocal processor
I use Audix OM5
mics, and Ebow on guitar occasionally and the whole thing runs stereo into a
pair of
Bose L1 Classic systems with 4 B1 modules.
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