equipment

My main acoustic guitar is a 2014 Seagull S6 cutaway with a cedar top and autumn burst satin finish. Nice electronics for plugged in sound. It's a nice sounding guitar plugged in or not.

Other acoustics I have but rarely play much lately are my 1981 Yamaha FG series 12-string. Also I have a 1988 Yamaha APX-10T thinline acoustic with cutaway. Both have natural finish.

Electrics, I have a 1984 ESP copy of a Kramer Carerra, all black with dual humbuckers that are incredibly hot. I rarely play this one since it has a shorter scale length. I have preferred Strat type bodies since the beginning, and I own two Fender Stratocasters.

I have a 1989 American Standard Strat Plus which had Fender Lace Gold sensors until I swapped the pickups out last year for Seymour Duncan Everything Strat pickups. It's candy red, maple fretboard, white pickguard.

I also have a 1991 American Strat Ultra, also with Lace sensors in a HSS, coil splitting and a bright circuit, Wilkinson roller nut and two-point tremelo. This one is blue burst finish with tiger maple top, white pickguard and ebony fretboard. This was my main squeeze until I bought my first PRS in June of 2020.

It's a PRS SE semi-holloy limited edition. It's incredibly beautiful to look at and equally so to play. It has stolen my heart from the Strats for the time being.

I love Fender tube amps. I have two. A 1981 Princeton Reverb and a 2013 Super Champ XD. I also have an old Peavey hybrid with tube preamp section and solid state power amp. It's a dual 12" model, about the size of a Fender Twin, aka huge and heavy, and it rarely gets played.

Preamps, I have an old RealTube II dual channel tube preamp which I sued to use a lot back when rack setups were all the rage. Now I only break it out sometimes when I need something a little different. It does have really nice tube overdrive and when both channels are cascaded, it can get a heavy distortion sound.

I have been surprised by tube / amp emulation software plugins for Reason 11, which is the recording software I now use. These amps take some tweaking to get the sound I like, but I can get a pretty good sound out of them, close to tube sound and responsiveness. Pretty impressive. I use these for the convenience of recording my guitar direct when I am not in the mood for mics or line out recording and just need to throw down some ideas.

Years ago I had a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. The tape transport is a mess on that but the mixing section still works, however, that unit has been retired.

I played around with dedicated input hardware and software for computer based recordings back in the 1990's but latency was always an issue for recording audio. Sequencing and synth control via midi was not much of a problem however.

In 2006 I bought another Tascam multitrack unit, this time a portastudio 2488 24-track digital. This unit is still alive and kicking and was my preferred method of recording by buddy Jim talked me into trying Reason. I know use Reason 11 almost exclusively for recording. A Focusrite 2-input USB unit provides input capability for microphones or direct instrument. I love it, though it took a bit of a learning curve to get the hang of using Reason after 14 years of using the Tascam 2488, but I'm gradually starting to used to it and am working out preferred methods of getting the sound I want.

I had longed for the PRS SE semi-hollow limited edition for over a year until I finally bought mine in June of 2020. Now, I must say I feel content instrument wise. I tend to be a long term commitment sort of guy, and my guitars are no exception.

If I had no financial or space limitations, I might like to own a couple new Stratocasters. One of Eric Johnson's signature semi-hollow Strats is really interesting. Also, a full blown PRS hollow body would be sweet...with a 10-top. Ah, I guy can dream.

Amps? I wouldn't mind grabbing a couple tube amps. I've loved EL34 tubes when I've played them, and there are several manufacturers who have a model or two with EL34's. I might pick up something like that in the future, maybe with a dual speaker configuration, though single 12" combo might be fine. It's not like I play huge venues.