Le matériel des guitaristes pro(s) - (Sommaire en page 1)

Robert Fripp - King Crimson

Le rack actuel



Ouch, Eventide!

When it comes to guitars, Buck Dharma's main axe is a unique breed indeed. The 'Cheeseberger' is a custom-made version of the Steinberger GMT 7. As with the regular GMT 7, it has EMG HSB pickups in the neck and the bridge, as well as a single-coil in the centre position. It has modified electronics to give the guitar a higher output, and fat chunks have been cut into the body to give it the 'Swiss cheese' look. Only one other Cheeseberger is in existence, and it's owned by a very lucky hardcore BOC fan. Buck Dharma only takes one other guitar on tour, and that's a sunburst Steinberger M series with the same pickups as the Cheeseberger.
"They're pretty interesting instruments," says Aaron. "I never messed with Steinbergers before BOC, but I really like the way they're laid out — a totally unique look for a guitar. They're pretty cool! And they have a composite neck, no headstock, so they're double-ball strings. So it's real easy to change strings, and they've got Trans-Trem tremolos, which are really unique. They have a little lock, so if you wanna go up a full step, you just go up and lock it in a notch from the middle position, or if you wanna go down a full step, you go the opposite way!"
Whilst Eric Bloom opts for a wireless system, both Buck Dharma and Rudy Sorzo still swear by their cables. Amp-wise, Dharma opts for 100W Marshall JCM900 Dual Reverbs (they hire them out while on tour), which he runs in stereo through an Alesis Quadraverb processor sitting on the rack alongside a power conditioner. He has a Behringer pedalboard with expression, volume and preset pedals, as well as two custom-made Jet overdrive pedals. This latter aspect is a relatively recent change.
"Buck was using a footswitch on the Marshall to switch between the two channels," says Aaron, "but he recently started using the two overdrive pedals. So he's now just using the single B channel and not the A, and using the overdrive pedals for extra boost and gain when he wants them."
Rudy Sarzo plays a four-string model of his own Peavey signature model bass, which he plays straight into an Ampeg Classic head. He doesn't take a spare.

"Charlie Chandler at Guitar Experience has built his guitars for him and made them out of this, that and the other," says John, "so they're Strat bodies. But then the blue one, (his number one guitar) has a Strat neck that's been re-worked, and the red one (his number two) has a custom neck that Scott picked up in a shop in LA. The bodies have been customised to accommodate a Floyd Rose-type tremolo, and new electronics have been fitted. Scott's got a Cornell mid-boost preamp in both Strats, and they have two Seymour Duncan single-coil pickups. And at the bridge, they've got Gibson T-500s. Scott's also about to try out some Bare Knuckle pickups. The guitars are very close to each other, but there's obviously one that he prefers out of the two. In terms of sound, they're very similar. More often than not, I'll give him the guitar at the start of the show and he'll finish with it, without having to change unless he breaks a string, which only happened once in eight weeks on the last tour!"

"He's tried everything!" says John. "I remember him coming into Webber's and saying, 'I want to set up a couple of amps in the studio. If you've got some downtime, I want to try this amp here and that one there' He tried just about every amp on the planet! Scott used to swear by the two JMPs, but when he was on tour last year they were supporting Deep Purple, and Michael Berger, who looks after Steve Morse — he's also the representative of ENGL amplifiers — said to Scott, 'Oh, try these amps!' They were the Ritchie Blackmore signature series, and Scott plugged in and said, 'Mmm, that is exactly what I want!' So without any fuss, that was it and now we carry two ENGL amps — we only use one and we carry a spare, and the other amp is a Marshall JCM900SL-X, but we only use the power amp side of it. There were a couple of days when Scott said in soundcheck, 'I wouldn't mind trying the Marshall today', so we got the Marshall and rigged it for the show, then the next day he'd say, 'Let's go back to the ENGL!' He likes to vary things, he just likes a bit of change, and it keeps me on my toes as well I suppose!"
When it comes to the cabs, Scott sticks to the Marshall 4 x 12s and John just places the ENGL cabs on the stage as dummies.
"Because they're fairly big stages, we have to put loads of dummy stuff around so it's not just two cabs," says John. "Scott likes the Marshall cabs, so I put two Marshall cabs at the bottom, then I put two ENGLs on the top (dummies), and then I put two in between his rig and the drums so he's not too close to the drums. He likes to stand in front of the wet cab — the wet cab's got to be behind him and the dry cab's got to be off to his side slightly, otherwise it just burns his ears!"

Scott Gorham has a pedalboard in situ, though according to John Gaillard, he rarely brings it into action.
"The tone comes from the ENGL amp or his modified Marshall," says John. "Then I'll take a line out — on the Marshall, it's a DI out that was built in, and on the ENGL, it's just the FX send. That then goes into a TC Electronic Chorus, and out of the chorus it goes back into the return of the second amp we use, which could be anything as long as it's got a return because we only use the power amp stage of it. All the tones come from the main amp, so he's got one cab that's being driven by the ENGL amplifier, which has a very dry tone that he likes, and the other amp drives another 4 x 12, and that's for his tone, plus the effects on top of that. So it's basically two cabs, two amps it's not a true stereo system because it's not a two-channel system, but it's got two sounds and that's honestly all it is. Then, in front of him, he's got a Boss TU-2 tuner, a Jim Dunlop Cry Baby wah and a Boss DD-3 delay, which is there, but I can't actually remember the last time that he pressed it. He also has an Ibanez chorus pedal."
Because pedals do not play a crucial role in the Thin Lizzy live sound, John Gaillard does not carry any spares, simply because they've proved to be so durable and they're used so sparingly.

John Sykes, meanwhile, takes just two guitars on the road — his customised Gary Rossington Les Paul and his favourite black Les Paul. John Gaillard is lucky if he gets more than a meandering glance at the black one, although he did have to take it to Ireland with him when the airline wouldn't take it inside the plane.
"John will not let anyone touch his Les Paul," he says. "He'll change his own strings and tune his own guitar, and, usually, he doesn't tune it once during a show — you can guarantee by the end of the show the guitar is spot on!"

John Sykes kept things simple with a Marshall JCM50, which has a slightly tweaked preamp section, powering a 4 x 12 custom cab loaded with bog standard Celestions.

John Sykes plugs straight into his Marshall JCM50, with no pedals or outboard effects between the amp and his Les Paul.

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Brian O'Connor

J'ai pas l'impression que la "copper" soit une big muff (ces big muff copper non pas un led comme ça et non pas les mêmes boutons, puis après entre la blanche et la voodoo lab, il y'en a une autre au format B... surement celle avec un potar et un switch