Mick Box - Uriah Heep
Interview avec son tech:
- The Les Paul that you have set up for him...is it non-stock in any way?
Well the pickups and electrics are all stock. But I have replaced the tuners with Gotoh Locking units, They look just like the originals but they lock the string in place, I have also fitted a Graphtech top nut and a Tonepros bridge. Mick really beats the guitar up so these little modifications just help keep it all in tune.
- What guitars does he take on the road with him?
For live work i carry two Gibson Les Pauls, But number 2 only gets used if we break a string on the main one, A Line 6 Variax Acoustic, And one more regular Acoustic, Which one depends on how Mick feels at the time.
- Does he prefer light or heavy guage strings?
Light strings for sure.. 9 - 42 gauge with a really low action.
- His Amp of choice is a Marshall of course. What head and speaker combination is he using now? Wattage?
We favour the JCM 800 or 1959 SLP heads all 100 Watt, And the 1960 4x 12 straight fronted cab.
- Does he have spare heads in case his main ones blow?
We always have at least two amps
-Box Net Are his Marshalls modified in any way?
No
- Net In the past, his pedal board was quite a bit "fuller" - what's the effects he has on the floor these days?
When i started Working for Mick he gave me a free hand to get him the best sound i could, Too many pedals in the line just suck the signal from your sound. I trimmed it down to just what we need and got the best for the job, A Boss pedal tuner, Boss Chorus, Boss Delay, Marshall Guv'nor, Radial Tonebone, Crybaby Wha and Morley Volume pedal.
- Speaker attenuator - still use one?
Yes i do.. THD Hotplate, Simply the best you can get..
- Does Mick use a distortion box at all or is it just a cranked up Marshall/Les Paul combination or is it the speaker attenuator as well?
We have the Tonebone or Guv'nor on at all times just to "Round" out the sound a little, Then Mick can turn them off to clean up his sound a bit when he needs it.
- He has a great compressed sound live and even more so on record. How does he get that live?
We have no compression on his guitar, The sound you hear out front is down to Charlotte and her magic!
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The Wah... Over the years, he has had a few different varieties - what's the current model he uses? What's his favorite? Is his wah-wah modified in any way?
He now uses the original Dunlop Crybaby, It really is the best . We had one hot rodded by Robert Keely which sounds ok, But if it ain't broke don't mess with it... Dunlop got it right first time.
- Acoustic Guitar: What does he use as his fav? What kinds of Strings? Does he Mic it live with an onboard pickup or is it picked up by his vocal mic?
Mick has some very nice Acoustics By Furch and Martin, But live we mostly use the Variaxe, It's a Modeling guitar which means it can sound like just about any guitar you can think of Including 12 string, Sitar and BANJO (dont ask) Again he has light gauge strings 11 gauge Phosphor Bronze . This goes into an AER acoustic amp sat between Micks Monitors then fed to the Monitor engineer and to Charlotte out front.