Acoustic, Mics and Recording Hardware

For acoustic guitars, I'm playing on a celebrity round back. It's very basic, i don't even know the model number. I bought it in New York City in 2004 for $300. It's a pretty nice beater guitar, and sounds real pretty when it's plugged in. It has a built in 3 band EQ, which is the real reason that I bought it in the first place. For recodring, it's pretty decent, although I would rather mic a better sounding guitar.

I also have an old Ibanez, I think its a 92-94 that needs to have the neck fixed. It's a real sweet sound, and plays great. Once I get that going again, I'll be doing some mic experiments and recording more acoustic stuff, probably playing more acoustic as well.

For gigs and the occational practice, I have the Fender Acoustisonic 30 Ampliphier. I had been wanting one for years when my SLF got me one for my birthday this year. This amp has a built in vocal input. It is one of the original models, as has a chours built into the guitar channel, not the DFX sound that came with the later models. I probably won't use the chorus all that much anyway, as I have pedals for all the effects I like. From what I can tell, this amp would be great for playing an open mic solo show, but since I'm too lazy to play in the winter, we will have to wait till summer to see how she really plays.

I use mics for a lot of reasons. For live vocals, I use a Sennheiser e838. It has a natural mid range boost, which is great for me, as I have no mid range. I wsa previously using a Shure SM58 for vocals, but it became too muddy in the mix. This mic kicks ass live, and is decent for studio recodring, although I prefer a condensor, like my Behringer B-2. The B-2 has it's own case, and picks up EVERYTHING. Breath, scratches, house noises, it's range is incredible. I use this mic for recording pretty much everything I can. It's a little too sensitive for guitar at loud levels, but other than that, it's pretty good. It has a very accurate response, and that's what I like about it. It really magnifies sound around you. I recorded rain during a thunderstorm once by putting it near an open window. The thunder sounds sweet.

For other instrument recording I use a pair of Behringer c-2's. They are tiny little condensors that are pretty basic. The response is good for a guitar amp, or a loud room. They would work with drums as well I imagine. I also use them for acoustic mic's from time to time.

I have a handful of other various mic's I don't really use for anything anymore. They are good to have and give me comfort.

When playing with a PA, I have a behringer PA. It has 100 built in preset effects. there are about 50 kinds of echo/delay/reverb, and 30 phaser, flanger, chours. the other 20 are mixes, and pitch shifts. I have two "Pog" (Rouge) speakers for the sound to come through. This PA is good and can pack a punch. I would like maybe a larger speaker someday once I get a band rolling.


When recording, everything goes into an M-Audio mobile pre USB. It has built in phantom power, and sounds pretty good. (I have a behringer pre-amp that can produce phantom power, however I never really have a use for it, even though it is tube powered.) That goes into my mac, into whatever interface I'm learning, and out puts through m-Audio studiophile AV-40 speakers. I also use the M-Audio Keystation 49e. It's great.

I had a photo of my computer in here somewhere. It's an iMac g5, running a intel core duo 1.8 ghz processor i think? i have 3 gigs of ram. I like my computer. It's a good boy.