Graham - Guitars
I currently have three main gig guitars. The main one is a Reverend Rocco. (www.reverenddirect.com)

This is a small hollow bodied, bolt on neck affair with two tapped humbuckers. It has a neck designed after an old “played in” Strat and has a gorgeous feel. I added a set of Grover Locking Machine Heads to ease the torture of changing strings every gig. Also I have added Graph Tech saddles (great invention) that seriously reduce string breakage.

I bought it from the States (Reverend are small company based in Michigan) taking a real chance as I had never seen one let alone played one as they don’t have any distribution over here. Luckily I love it.

I have two of these now. 

The second one I got from Germany and is the same but without the metal front, this one is topped with tiger stripe quilted    formica….. Real quality…. And this time for extra twang we have a maple fretboard on this as opposed to the rosewood on the other.

Alternating for second place I have a Custom Made Telecaster style thing. This is a real furniture guitar. It has a set (glued) neck, solid mahogany body (which depending on which time I asked the maker is from an old window frame or a Victorian Bar Top!!! I definitely prefer the bar option. Suits me!!) and neck with an absolutely gorgeous curly maple top. Two Seymour Duncan “Custom Custom” humbuckers that again are tapped. Once again locking machines but this time they are Sperzels.

And last but by no means least is the Les Paul. This was the first serious guitar I ever owned and loved. It’s a 1971 Custom in Cherry Sunburst (which I am told was a special order finish 32 years ago!!).  As far as I can tell its completely original, from the liquorice torpedo sized capacitors in the back of it at least!! I did have it refretted some time ago but other than that its as it was from Gibson’s famed Kalamazoo factory.

I’ve had it since about 1989, I’m stuck with it I’m afraid as I made a pact to never sell it no matter what. Some would (and some often do) say that it is an absolute dog. I disagree. Okay, it is seriously abused, but to me all the marks, scratches, dints, extensive loss of lacquer, worn neck, microphonic pickups, rust, corrosion and complete knackered-ness all add to its charm and attraction. Most importantly most of these dings were probably as a result of my own actions so its kind of personal.

Now retired from active service, maybe………..

Kicking around somewhere is an Epiphone pierced SG too. I stuck a BBQ bucker humbucker in the bridge from Rio Grande pickups (Texas) and turned it into a rock monster. Its pierced, as in body pierced and has a huge X chiselled out of the body. If I ever audition for Rob Zombie, this is the guitar to take….. Hilarious. You need to see this one to appreciate how silly it really is.

Amp

Tech 21 Trademark 120 2 x 12 combo (with wheels).
120W 3 channels, ease of carry and mighty loud and fuzzy. Perfect…
And seemingly very tough as I have been seriously abusing it for some time now.


Pedals (talent boosters) 

I love pedals… I just cannot get enough fuzz it seems. Last count was about 11…. I kid you not. One day I am going to chain them all together. Then probably be kicked out of the band.

This is what I actually use to gig with. They are all mounted on a Casecore Coffin Board which as well as looking cool is very tough and serves as a stage board as well as transportation.

In order of signal chain from guitar; 

Dunlop “Dime” Cry-baby from Hell !!!!

A thoroughly wicked and offensive wah wah. Great fun. 

Diamond Fireburst

A fuzz and an overdrive in one!! Red channel bottom end rich phat fuzz, yellow channel; more of a traditional amp on the verge of meltdown type deal. Put it into an amp that actually is on the verge of meltdown and watch the sparks fly…. 8^)= 

Z Vex Box of Rock 

This is a new addition. Its an overdrive, with very high output designed to sound, through a clean amp, like a Marshall JTM 45 dimed (everything on 10). Quite convincing, but since I rarely play clean, I am unlikely to know for sure……. Its used to push the amp for solos etc. I love it. It also has a boost function, based not far from the acclaimed Super Hard On or Super Duper2 in1 pedal that Z Vex does. I had the super duper (I still have, need to sell it) but it was too much, and I couldn’t use both channels at once through a dirty sound without seriously wondering about my mental health. So this works better. The boost comes after the drive so the drive can be louder, or you can just use the boost… 8^) 

After trying pretty much every fuzz box I could this in combination with the Fireburst and the amp seem to cover most every angle of filth that I could wish to… we shall see.

Visual Sound H2O Liquid chorus and Echo

Lush chorus and a very warm sounding delay. Quite soothing after all that luvverly fuzz. Allegedly Mr. The Edge (U2) has one, and the man knows a thing or two about echo so I checked it out.

MXR Script logo Phase 90 

Whoosh whoosh whoosh, something like that. Very cool pedal, highly vintage and old. Its vaguely orange still and is great fun. Again, quite pleasant after pummeling the amp with all that gain…..

Voodoo Labs Microvibe

A pretty convincing, compact Uni-vibe type pedal which is pretty damn cool, for those Robin Trower, Hendrixy type thangs.

Tuner  

Korg DT-10 in line with mute to spare anyone the horror.

Power 

All pedals are powered by a custom made unit from; 

http://www.circuit-innovations.co.uk/ 

This a great unit and besides being affordable its deadly quiet, fantastic find!!! 

Forget all that expensive pedal power nonsense from the USA.. This also has a long enough cable to sit behind the amp. I don’t like having 240V anywhere near Liz’s drinks….

Connections 

Cables are made by me using Neutrik jacks and Hills OFC noiseless cable (MB Radio, Leeds). If there is one thing that will seriously screw with your tone, its poor quality cable. These little beauties can cost £45 for a 20 foot lead, but I have never had to replace or repair one yet.  

Strings

Any brand I can find cheap, I go through them too quickly to be choosy. GHS Boomers are the preference but I can rarely find them. Gauge 10-52 LTHB’s. Birthdays, Xmas take note!!!!

 

Ely - Drums

Pearl (SPX) Session Series Kit set up as follows:

10" tom with Evans G2 batter head & Remo Ambassador bottom head

12" tom with Evans G2 batter head & Remo Ambassador bottom head

14" tom with Evans G2 batter head & Remo Ambassador bottom head

16" tom with Evans G2 batter head & Remo Ambassador bottom head

22" x 16 bass drum with Evans G2 Genero batter head and Pearl P-202 twin pedal

12" x 7 Pearl MLX snare - all maple shell snare

Pearl 855W double-braced hardware throughout

The snare colour is Liquid Amber with a lacquered finish, and all the tom and bass drum shells are Cherry Sunburst, again with a lacquered finish.  All toms are suspended by their hoops using Pearl I.M.S. mounting system which allows the toms to resonate for a nicer tone...

Cymbals

All cymbals are Zildjian.  The hi-hats are 13" 'Quick Beats', the bottom hat is a flat-bottom hat with no bell and 4 x 0.5-inch holes drilled in the cymbal to provide a quicker response when opening the hats.  The rest are as follows:

8" Zildjian A Splash (regular finish) (Now retired since the heavy handed sod split it in two...Ed)

17" Zildjian A Medium Crash (regular finish)

21" Zildjian A Custom Ping Ride (brilliant finish)

Mike - Bass Guitar

After experimenting with my old Ibanez BTB Bass (which got me into 5-string basses in the first place) I finally settled on an American-made Ernie Ball MusicMan SUB5 bass, in black, manufactured at the Music Man plant on the Central Coast of California in San Luis Obispo. Check out www.ernieball.com 

This is a very nice bass, the shorter 34" scale length seems to suit the 5-string set up perfectly to get a very even response from all over the neck.  It has a powerful 2-band active EQ, volume treble and bass. The neck has a 21-fret rosewood fingerboard, and is bolted to the body by a 6-bolt attachment.  And then they painted it black and stuck a silver coloured, oval shaped, diamond plate aluminium pick guard on it, surrounding a MusicMan humbucking pickup.  I love this guitar, it has a real honky midrange tone about it and a very playable neck.

My second bass is a Status Groove 5-string active bass which is just completely different to the MusicMan, the only similarity is the scale length I believe.  The Groove has a (taken from the Status website): "Tri-Max triple coil hum-cancelling pickup. The two outer coils create the signal whilst the inner coil cancels out low frequency hum. The Tri-Max pickup operates through either a low impedance active treble and bass circuit or may be switched, for a true passive tone, directly to the master volume control." Sounds cool, but all it really means is you get a warm, full bass sound which is even across the whole neck but the EQ allows you to get a bit of bite out of the tone too.  After doing an entire gig with it recently I am starting to fall in love with this thing, so it may become my 'main' guitar very quickly!

Amp

Ampeg B2RE bass head, running at 4 Ohms (up to 450 watts).  Features a 9-band graphic EQ and sounds the bollocks.  Running this with an Ampeg SVT610 cabinet and at last, after lots of different bits of mismatched gear, is a proper rig indeed. 

Pedals

Boss ODB-3 Bass Overdrive
Not entirely convinced, but has some particularly nasty sounds and allows me to blend fuzz with the original signal so I don't lose bottom end. The search for bass fuzz must continue, but this one is fun in the meantime.

Boss LMB-3 Bass Limiter/ Enhancer
More to protect the speaker cab than anything else, this allows me to control peaks in volume to deliver a more consistent attack (but better than using a standard compressor, which prevents me from playing quietly!) Basically just puts a lid on things...  Enhancer circuit is basically just a tone control with added Boss Unwanted Noise circuitry, but adds some brightness where needed.

Boss GEB-7 Bass Equalizer
New addition this.  Boss pedals are cheap and cheerful, but what they lack in finesse they make up in ease of use.  Shame this one is beige, not very rock and roll...

Digitech Bass Multichorus

Very nice chorus effect with up to 16 voices, loads of options here

Tuner  

Korg DT-10 chromatic tuner

Strings
Usually RotoSound Standard Gauge 45-130, but recently tried some Elite Stadiums and they are lighter and brighter.  Now sourcing strings from www.webstrings.com, American made stainless steel 5-strings sets for a complete bargain

6-string
Figured it was worth a mention - I do dabble with guitars as well as basses, although I wouldn't necessarily inflict my guitar playing on any audience, not even in Hoyland.  But I do own a Yamaha 311S telecaster, based on the Mike Stern signature model (but a few hundred quid cheaper!) with which I have been known, when the planets are aligned in a certain order, to write some Motus riff ideas on.  Usually in the toilet, which has superb acoustics!  And a magazine rack... I keep hoping Graham is going to teach me how to play lead and gurney at the same time, but maybe it's best to leave this to the experts.