For the Gearheads
What guitar is that? What wood is it made from? What strings do you use?
I am often asked questions about the instruments and gear that I use, so hopefully this page will be of interests to all you gearheads out there!
​
Classical
My classical guitar is a Jose Ramirez 125 Anos Limited Edition, handmade in Spain at the Jose Ramirez workshop in Madrid.
It has a solid western red cedar top, with solid Indian rosewood back and sides. It has a solid cedar neck and an ebony fingerboard.
The strings I am currently using are La Bella 2001 medium hard tension trebles and Luthier Concert Silver 30 medium high tension bass strings.
Amplification
None of my acoustic guitars have internal electronics, as I prefer the "natural" sound of an acoustic guitar which is amplified via a microphone.
My microphone of choice is a DPA d:vote 4099G super cardioid condenser. It utilises a clever mounting system which enables me to move it from one guitar to another as necessary.
The signal from the 4099G runs into a Presonus TubePre V2 mic preamp, which provides the 4099G with phantom power and also a variable degree of tube warmth from a 12AX7.
The signal from the TubePre, as well as the direct signal from my ES-175, runs into a Line6 POD HD500 modelling unit, giving me overall control of the tones which are then passed via L6 LINK to a single 3-way, tri-amped 1400W Line6 StageSource L3t speaker.
