Gear

I often get complimented on my tone and people like to know what I'm using. So, this is for the equipment geeks and gearheads out there.

My main guitar is a custom Telecaster made from Warmoth parts. The body is alder with a quilt-maple top and dragonburst finish. It's chambered and extra light weight at just over 3 lbs. (Nice on my back.) The neck is a thin Wizard profile AAA bird's eye maple with gold frets and abalone inlays. Quite beautiful. I use Seymour Duncan pickups--a Lil '59 in the bridge and a Hot for Tele Rhythm in the neck. I have a 4-way toggle switch so that I can run the pickups together in series or parallel. And a push-pull pot on the tone knob to split the coils in the Lil '59. This gives me a total of 7 theoretical pickup selections (vs. a standard Tele's three.) But actually, I have found that the push-pull pot affects the single coil neck pickup as well (don't ask me how), so it gives me 8 selections. Plus, I found an 'in-between' setting on the 4-way switch between the 1st and 2nd positions (bridge and both together, respectively) that gives me a hidden, magical 9th sound! (I discovered this by accident, but I love it and use it when recording.) You'd never guess, by looking at a Telecaster with two pickups in it, that I get 9 unique sounds. (That's almost twice as much as a Strat!) I can't tell you how deliciously wicked this is. ;)

I run the Tele into a Vox ToneLab LE tone processor. I love this thing! It really helps me define my sound. I've worked with a few different multi-effects pedals, from Digitech to Line 6 to Vox... and this is my favorite one. It gives me the best tones, it sounds consistent from stage to studio, and is reliable (er... the expression pedal went out on me after 6 months. I had to buy a new unit. Vox has discontinued these, so hopefully I'll pick up a couple cheap ones on eBay.)

For the rock and fusion shows, I run the Vox into a Carvin Legacy head (the Steve Vai model, first generation) at a 50-watt setting. This goes into a Genz-Benz G-Flex 2x12 cab. That's basically it. Awesome rock sound!

For solo guitar and looping shows, I run the Vox into a Boss SL-20 Slicer pedal and then two Line 6 DL4s. And then into the PA.

I run some other things too, especially in the studio, where I use different guitars and processors, but this is my main setup.

Now you know. :)