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As a live and recording musician for the past 30+ years, I have accumulated a good amount of gear.

There's a lot of stuff I have used that I no longer own, such as my very first ever amp, a 4x10 Fender Bassman ( I broke it. <sigh>), or the pair of giant carpet-covered Cerwin-Vega folded-horn cabs I used (pictured on the instruments page) back in the 80s that I eventually got tired of lugging around, or the 3/4 Upright bass that I'd had to sell when poverty stricken, or the beautiful red Hohner fretless P-bass clone that I accidentally left on a curb (I still get mad at myself about that years later!) and when I realized what I had done and went back to see if it was still there it of course wasn't, or the 1x18 ElectroVoice cabinet that I had to sell because when the driver blew I couldn't afford a replacement speaker, or the 2x15 Crate cabinet that was in my car when my car got stolen and which was no longer there when the car was found, etc, etc.

Every musician has gear that, like some-time friends, drift into their lives for a while, and then go away again...on one level they are only tools, but it's strange how attached we can become to the items that helped us define ourselves as artists and craftsmen. I miss every piece of gear I no longer have, even if it wasn't great gear to have. 

However, all the stuff pictured on this page here are things I still own, use, and work with today.

My new (and crazy over-the-top) HYPOTHETICAL live setup

This is pretty much what my new expanded live setup can be.

For most gigs I will take much less stuff, but if I want all the firepower,

this is the way I roll:

New toy! EH Nano-Looper 360!

Electro-Harmonix gear is almost always terrific, and

the Nano-Looper 360 certainly is.

I gotta say this device is cool. It's "360" because it has 360

seconds of memory (6 minutes total) and they can be divied

among 11 separate memory locations!

New Wireless MIDI controller!

This is a Numark Orbit...it's meant for DJ's I guess, but I am

using it to control Ableton Live remotely. It utilizes bluetooth tech to send

MIDI data...pretty sweet device for only about $40!

E-Bow (for my bass!)

If you don't know what these do, check it out online here: http://www.ebow.com/home.php

The E-Bow is basically a magnetic actuator that, positioned just so over a metal string, excites it to vibrate, much like drawing a bow across it. You can get very horn-like or bowed effect sounds using one on your guitar. I'm using one for the bass, and it's so cool--a whole host of new sounds come out when using one. 

New Thang--the Vitoos VLP8 effect looper/switcher

If you have a lot of effects, as I do, you have access to a lot of different sounds.

But one of the frustrations that musicians who use effects experience is that one can get MANY more sounds,

just by re-arranging the order of the effects into different chains. Typically, you get one chain called an "effects loop" that goes through a preamp or amplifier.

The Professional Musician however, can get much more flexibility with a device called a Looper/Switcher, which gives you multiple effects loops in multiple combinations. Basically, you patch your effects into the thing, and then program the buttons to route one looped effect or series of effects to any another in any combination. It's an Air-Traffic Controller for all your effects pedals.

I just got one, made by a company called VITOOS, a model VLP-8, which lets you program up to 32 combinations of 8 looped devices or chains of effects.

My Effects Processing Stuff

Integrated Pedal Boards

This pic below is the good old home-made analog pedal effects array that I designed and built out of wood back in the early 90's...this third and most elaborate of the ones I had built. It featured BOSS, DOD and MORLEY pedals. It had a compartment below the pedals for the power supplies and the built-in cooling fan, and even had a LITTLELITE for onstage illumination! I built it with a removable lid and it stood up on wheels--it needed them because it was very heavy.

(thanks to Jim MacQ for taking the photo of the pedal-beast!)

(thanks to Jim MacQ for taking the photo of the pedal-beast!)

This beast above has been recently retired in favor of a more modern and

easy-to-carry pedal case thing, the BEHRINGER PB-1000 pedal board:

The individual pedals shown in this promo picture above (taken from the Behringer brochure) are not the ones I use.

Along with the PB-1000 I also use a WARWICK pedal case and an ELECTRO-HARMONIX pedal bag to house the various pedals below

Individual Pedal Effects

they are (ordered by manufacturer):

BOSS FT-2 Dynamic filter, RV-2 Digital Reverb, EH-2 Enhancer , GE-7 Equalizer, CH-1 Super Chorus, BF-2 Flanger, LM-2 Limiter, NF-1 Noise Gate, NS-2 Noise Suppressor, CS-3 Compression Sustainer, DS-1 Distortion, CS-2 Compression Sustainer, OD-2r Turbo Overdrive, RC-2 Loop Station.

BEHRINGER BOD100 Bass Overdrive, US600 Ultra Shifter / Harmonist,UO100 Ultra Octaver, AM100 Acoustic Modeler, DD400 Digital Delay, UP100 Ultra Phase Shifter, BLE100 Bass Limiter/Enhancer, SM200 Slow Motion, AM400 Ultra Acoustic Modeler

IBANEZ SB7 Synthesizer Bass, AKAI SB1 Deep Impact Bass Synth, ELECTRO-HARMONIX BassBalls and DIGITECH Bass Synth Wah.

Also, I've got a KORG ToneWorks AX1B multi-effect unit, and I've also got a vintage MU-TRON Bi-phase, but I use that only in the studio.

Also, I've got a KORG ToneWorks AX1B multi-effect unit, and I've also got a vintage MU-TRON Bi-phase, but I use that only in the studio.

ALSO, here's my newest addition, the ROCKTRON Silver Dragon Tube Distortion:

For my ERGO Electric Upright Bass, I use these among others:

 DIGITECH BP50 Multi-effect pedal and X-Series Bass Multi-Chorus, and a FISHMAN Platinum Bass Pro-EQ

These rack effect units are used by me in the studio and live in conjunction with my current amp setup (shown below):

the Line6 Bass Pod Pro preamp/fx unit:

 the ADA MB-1 preamp/fx unit:

the ART NIGHTBASS preamp/fx unit:

The above rack units are foot-controlled by these:

the X-15 MIDI foot controller for the ART NIGHTBASS:

The Line6 Floor Board MIDI foot controller for the Bass Pod Pro:

The Line6 FBV Shortboard MKII MIDI foot controller for Computer MIDI app control Bass Pod Pro:

My Live Gear

To get my basic "clean tone", I run all my instruments through a rack outfitted with the following Behringer processors:

These are an MDX1600 AutoCom Pro XL dual dynamics processor, an FBQ3102 Ultragraph Pro stereo EQ, and an EX3200 UltraFex Pro sound enhancer.  

Finally. for amplification I now use a tiny and light Gallien-Kruger MB FUSION 800 watt head:

For backup amplification I will use either the vintage Fender Bassman 100 head or the Fender BXR DUAL BASS 400 head coupled to a stereo noise-reduction Rocktron Hush IIcx unit (--all those FX can cause a lot of noise!)

Currently, my cabinets are a GK NEO 212 which is 2x12" speakers w/bullet tweeter

and a GK NEO 115 which is 1x15" speaker w/bullet tweeter. I use basic crossover settings.

for backup or extension, I also have a FMarkBass 3x10 w/bullet tweeter cabinet for lows,

and another Carvin 2x10 w/bullet tweeter for the highs...

As a spare, I have a Hartke 4x10 cabinet loaded with Carvin drivers, and a 1x15 Ampeg cabinet

My Home Studio Gear

I have no current pictures of the studiio room, but I will soon enough! I use three self-built computers (One system is for email, one for audio work and one for video work.) networked together and KVM'd into 2x19" flatscreen monitors, multiple external firewire drives, multiple kinds of outboard gear, stereo and 5.1 surround speakers, TV monitors, and other assorted MIDI and audio gear. I run Digidesign Pro Tools mostly, with a bunch of other software apps as needed. I use lots of M-AUDIO gear (I used to work for them...). For practice amps, I have a little Roland amp and an SWR amp

Here's pics of some of the studio instruments/items I use for composing/editing:

ProKeys Sono88 piano and controller keyboard

Axiom 61 and Ozonic keyboard controllers

Evolution UC33E, Trigger Finger & Novation Ableton MIDI controllers

I also have a Macbook Pro 2.4 GHz laptop that I use for portable and mobile work. It has Pro Tools 12 and Ableton Live on it.

I still have an MBox Mini or Micro or Black Box & ProFire 2626 interface as my interface, and Ultrasone HFI-700 headphones for momitoring.

GEAR LOGOS

So far, none of these companies endorse me, so maybe if I put their logos here,

and advertise that I use their fine products, they'll reconsider...