Geartalk

In my late 70s-phase w/"The Hermit", Berlin 2016

August 2021 - I guess that's interesting, even if I am no gear hoarder at all and a lot of the stuff I used in the past has been sold - remember I just recently moved to another continent ;) By the way, sorry I don't know most of the detailed guitar-descriptions. To be honest I am just a player (not a collector) and sort of looking for the most efficient tools ...

GEETARS and other string instruments

My first electric guitar in the momentous year of 1996 was an Ibanez Stratocaster, which soon had to be replaced with a Jackson Dinky. By the late 90s I also bought a black Epiphone Les Paul "Studio" which in other varieties became my kind of trademark guitar. That LP Studio later got a typical 90s upgrade by replacing the bridge humbucker with a Kirk Hammett (my big early idol) EMG. This was still my "metal period" even though I loved Stonerrock also then, but where I came from it was already exotic enough to be a metal head, long hair and all. 

Anyway, these were the times when it was all still very underground ... plus, no internet. Not really. In the very early 2000s once in a local music store competition I'd been lucky to win a bit of money and subsequently bought my first acoustic guitar, after trying ca. 15 models I decided for a burgundy red Brightway Acoustic Guitar which is still the oldest guitar I own, recently I actually gave it to my wife ;).

By the beginning of Terraplane I began to discover the Fender Stratocaster and got my first Mexican model in around 2002, but occasionally also played buddy Oelke's 90s Gibson Les Paul Studio. For like a year I also played a very cheap Stagg Les Paul, that was a pain in the ass to play but sounded very good to me at that time, ... though I was rather clueless. My guitar sound in the heyday of Terraplane often came closer to the sound of a bass anyway. These were the early 2000s and Stonerrock was fat, fat, fat. Think of bands like Dozer, Gas Giant, The Awesome Machine etc.

My final guitar in Terraplane was the burgundy red Mexican Fender Strat (homage to Robin Trower) that I kept playing throughout long periods of Samsara Blues Experiment and which defined my sound at times of the "Long Distance Trip"-album. I also played that guitar at the Rockpalast show. In around 2010 I also bought a new sunburst Epiphone Les Paul Standard that later got to be known as thee guitar (hippie sticker) that I played in most of SBE's concerts until giving it to a fan after a competition in Brasil in 2017.

In around 2011 I bought a yellow Gibson Raw Power SG that had been used on SBE's "Waiting For The Flood" and in several live concerts from 2011 to 2015. In that busy period I also purchased another Mexican Fender Strat with active pick ups, that I hardly ever used (guess why --), and a Squier Jaguar that got a bit of exposure in around 2013 in some of SBE's shows in that period, most notably the long European tour in November 2013 that almost sealed the end of the band. I later sold that guitar to the SBE drummer Thomas and I think he still plays it.

After SBE returned to be a three piece in 2014 I stopped to play Strats for a while and the next thing I bought was Ibanez Artcore Semi Acoustic in around 2015, actually an amazing guitar that I used also on the early guitar pieces of my new solo project Surya Kris Peters. 

In 2017 and 2018 we had one of the most creative and busy periods with SBE  and went through a lot of international touring. After the first South America Tour in 2017 I began to meticulously research on Les Pauls. I tried several Gibsons (Well, finally I could have afforded one.), Maybachs, PRS etc but found no notable difference to a well-made Epiphone, which would explain the huge price difference?! So in the end I bought a slightly used wine red Epiphone Les Paul Custom which I still use (an amazing guitar with the most balanced sound I ever had - especially for recording), and shortly after another dark-brown Epiphone Les Paul (Bunny/Indian sticker) that I played in most of the final concerts with SBE.

The latest guitars I have bought are a 12 String Seagull Acoustic in 2016 and a beautiful Fender Stratocaster USA in 2018 which is still waiting for me in Germany and was also the guitar I used a lot in the very final period of SBE.

Just recently, in July 2021, I also bought my first electric bass guitar, a rather cheap model from a company called Condor. I know nothing about it but being a kind of beginner at bass it serves me well ... 

Apart from all the regular stuff, I also used to own three Sitars from 2006 to 2018. Two of them had pick-ups, for one of them I had former Siena Root's KG West help me build it in Varanasi. The other Traditional Sitar (Ravi Shankar-style), which I used on many Terraplane- and SBE-records, was made by Monoj Kumar in Calcutta. For a little period I also owned a Persian Santoor, beautiful sounding instrument, but tbh for my use I can get these sounds from a sampler or lately the Mutable Instruments Rings module. 

I guess after all I am a very practical guy ;) ...

Music room in my parents' basement, Friedrichshöhe 1999 

AMPLIFIERS

This is still an interesting topic for me, just recently I did a lot of research about it, looking for the perfect recording solution in my actual set up. My first amplifier was a 15 Watt Ibanez, like most of the beginners bed room gear I guess. After that my dad found a 70s East German Vermona PA with two huge speakers (pic above) that I used for a while when I still had a music room in the basement of my parents house, deep in the middle of nowhere in Germany.

My first professional amplifier that I bought in 2000 was a Marshall JCM 900 which I used a lot, even until the early days of SBE, first in combination with a 2x12 Marshall 1936 cabinet, later with a slant 4x12 cab (big mistake, the 2x12 sounded much better). In Thoughts Of A Mortal I also used a 90s Marshall Valvestate, I don't remember why tbh, I guess because buddy Oelke conveniently offered it to me and it wasn't as heavy as the valve amp which - soundwise - at that time made no big difference to me anyway (Metal distortion).

Like most young musicians, for the longest period of my early career, I couldn't afford a better amplifier... and honestly throughout long periods of my career I was also a kind of clueless, though always searching for "the perfect sound".

I saw and heard my first 1970s Orange at the shows we played with The Great Escape with Terraplane in the early 2000s. I loved it, we all did ... but back then Orange was still super rare to find and friggin' expensive. So for some strange reason in 2007 I bought a cheap Behringer modeling amp and combined this with my JCM 900 and two cheap Harley Benton 2x12 cabinets to become the set up for very early SBE. Don't ask why, I guess I thought more is better ... (which is ... crap ... sorry)

By the beginning of the 2010s surprisingly Orange had a big revival and the amplifiers became somewhat affordable again. After inheriting some money from a loved aunt I was able to buy my Orange Rockerverb 100 (a.k.a. Zanzara) and a 4x12 Orange PPC cabinet which I both used almost throughout the whole career of SBE. But then I also played a lot of very different amplifiers and cabinet configurations on most of our international tours and fly-in gigs, it wouldn't make sense to name them all. For some reason I also relied more on the sound of my pedals.

For a short period I also owned a 70s Echolette Leslie type of amplifier and cabinet, and also a Japanese Fender Twin Reverb-clone by a brand called Elk, and for keyboards a Suprem 200W 4-channel amplifier from the 70s which was somewhat cool to look at, but that's all there is to say.

When SBE returned to be a three piece in 2014 I began to add a 2x12 Orange cabinet and later, on suggestion of Rock Hard's Holger Stratmann, turned back to play two amplifiers by using SBE's Hans' Laney GH 100L paired with my Rockerverb and two 4x12 cabinets, while in the studio, especially for the solo and crunchy overdrive parts, I used much smaller amps like a Marshall tube combo (not sure which in particular) and lately a Supro combo, which after all these years finally delivered an overdrive sound that I really liked. 

It's not a big secret that I was never completely happy with my guitar sound in SBE.

As a kid of the 90s and the music of that time, I only learned very recently that you don't need a lot of stompboxes and - instead - an overdriven amp, without any pedals in front of it, often sounds much better!! 

Recently I tried a lot of stuff to find a good overdrive sound for my recordings. I had a Helix rack, which was not so bad especially the effects section, a Kemper that I didn't like neither soundwise nor the use of it, which really is rather annoying. So my latest amplifier, much to my own surprise, is a small little metal box; the Quilter Overdrive 202 and it actually does a very good job on delivering crunchy overdriven tone. Even if it may not be the last amp I use, it really is a good one!

70s Japanese ELK combo and that "Robin Trower" Strat

STOMPBOXES

My journey started in the late 90s with first a Ibanez Thrash Metal distortion and a Tubescreamer, both from the Soundtank-series, for those who remember it. Later I got the notorious Zoom 505 multi-effects unit (...) and from my first own earnings in German civilian service (if you didn't want to join the army, you had to do this) could happily afford a Boss GT-3 which at the time was like "the Cadillac of effect units", at least that's how I saw it when I still played in a Metal band (my first band was a bit similar to Amorphis "Elegy"-period I guess).

Later with Terraplane I started to look for that Stoner Sound. Like many I guess, I loved that guitar solo in "Paranoid". To be honest I had no clue what a FUZZ pedal was at that time - these were very different times - without internet-tutorials and all that. So the search for this kind of distortion was as long-winded as it could be, but we all were just clueless. You had to rely on people in music shops! The sales guy in our local music shop sold me some crap, not because he was a bad person; we were all just really clueless! 

So, I remember combining pedals with my GT-3. Buddy Oelke still tells me that at that time people looked at my effect board as if it came straight from outer space. One of the memorable configurations was adding a Marshall Bluesbreaker Compressor with a Zoom Hyper Lead distortion. I mean; WTF! At some point I stumbled upon the Russian Big Muff which ended the search for a while. Lately I remembered that I also owned the Russian Smallstone Phaser, what a crappy pedal LOL. But then I also used the Electric Mistress Flanger quite often, also got my first Dunlop Wah and the Boss Giga Delay in around 2002 which I used straight until the end of SBE.

At some point around the "Long Distance Trip"-era I got tired of my guitar sounding all rather undefined, like a kind of bass or sth, and started to look for a better distortion sound which I found in the very versatile Way Huge Swollen Pickle and later the addition of the Okko Diablo Overdrive. Effectively my "Fuzz sound" in SBE was just a boosted Overdrive, because I never really used the distortion on the Swollen Pickle at all (Fuzz at zero). And as I explained earlier, the studio recordings never made me much happy anyway ... in the end, after all these years of experimentation, the best results had often come just from a small overdriven tube combo.

For some reason I never got much deeper into the multiverse of effect stompboxes. Some other noteworthy distortion pedals I used to own had been Electro Harmonix Tube Zipper and the Earthquaker Devices Grey Channel, and for a little period I also tried with building a "macro pedal board" because carrying a board full of stompboxes in hand-luggage can be very much annoying! But then, that didn't work out so well ... 

In the later period of SBE I got to appreciate the use of a compressor pedal again, I am still very fond of the Keeley Compressor. I had a variety of echo and delay pedals, phasers etc, but most notably are just the Fulltone Mini Deja Vibe and the Electro Harmonix Pitch Fork. Since lately I am not in the mood for rehearsals or live gigs anymore, I don't really need any pedals other than overdrive, distortion or fuzz. Everything else is coming from the DAW (recording program) lately ... I guess that's boring for most of you, but I will still list a bit of what I use further down that page.

2015 "Freak board" -- only used for a short period

SYNTHESIZERS and keyboards

The funny thing about synths - again - is that in the beginning, when I first heard the sounds you can make with them, I had NO CLUE what that is. If you remember the 90s well, you will know that on many stoner records (Man's Ruin) at some point there was some weird bubbly soundeffect and I thought for a long time that these are made with some kind of guitar pedal. I'm just such a pitiful fool I know. 

When we recorded Terraplane's "Into The Unknown" I tried to reproduce these sounds by putting a phaser on a 90s Yamaha keyboard (remember these horrible home entertainment things?). The turning point however came when we recorded SBE's first demo and our bassist Richard showed me the synths in Logic 9. Suddenly it all made sense! There is a world beyond distorted guitars ... what a mind blow, LOL.

So after that I bought my first soft synth, the Native Instruments Absynth ... geez, a very digital sound when I look at it now, but back then loved it. By the end of the 2000s also MOOG had a come back. So from my well-kept savings I bought the MOOG Little Phatty in 2008 which stayed with me until I got really deep into the matter and again Richard and his family played a role when one of his uncles removed the dust off his 1970s Minimoog. Suddenly my Little Phatty didn't sound that fat anymore ;) ...

From late 2014 on I got very deep into *Synthesizer love* and did a lot of tone and equipment research again. I bought a 70s MOOG Prodigy, as well as a Fender Rhodes Mk1, an early 2000s Hammond XK-1 Organ and after a bit of hesitation also my first Eurorack modules by Doepfer and Pittsburgh Modular (and later, many more). I still wanted a Minimoog pretty bad but had to wait until Behringer came up with a cheap - but not at all cheap sounding - reproduction of the otherwise overpriced original (or their own late 2010s reproduction, which I found pretty disappointing).

Other synths I owned include the much used Arturia Minibrute (Mk1) often in combination with a Waldorf Streichfett. I also owned the Novation Peak, a Nord Lead A1, the DSI Prophet '08, a Roland Gaia SH-01 and a Roland XP50.

Right now only the Modular Synth makes sense for me, other than that a lot is possible digitally (w/o sounding digital) ... I like emulations from U-HE and Arturia. There's already a multiverse of possibilities. Occasionally I also fall back on using VCV rack (kind of a strange relation/or addiction), and lately miRack (Link) which is a good modular solution and usable within DAW.

Doepfer Modular Synthesizer & the DSI Prophet '08

SOFTWARE

Congratulations if you reached that point, I guess you're really a fan ;). So let's speak a bit about the "not so romantic part" of all that "gear porn" here, which is what in these modern days you can do with just a laptop. 

I make it no secret that - despite trying with some old school equipment and being part of a generation that long ago still had to record analog, because in the late 90s digital was very expensive and often not as good - I am not a big fan of too much analog equipment at all. I just don't find it necessary ... But, if you enjoy that, that's your choice and totally fine. I still had to record my early demos on Tascam 4-track. Then, just a few years ago in a moment of nostalgia I bought one from eBay, slightly used, but all the hissing noise, extremely limited usability and all - oh my god!

So these days I use Logic X, because it's awesome --

I try to use as much of the stock plugins as possible, because I am a practical guy and don't really need a compressor collection besides that ;) Effectwise there's also a lot of usable tools but I'd like to recommend the stuff from Audiority (Link), especially the Echoes T7E is very cool! I also like stuff from AudioThing, Softube, Melda and also some Waves-stuff ... and btw if you're one of the many poor musicians (I know very well how it is!) I would like to recommend you to check out Full Bucket Music (Link) who have a lot of interesting effects and synthesizers for donation only.

For recording guitar occasionally I am using Scuffham S-Gear which with some little tweaking delivers surprisingly good sounding guitar tones.

So, I guess that's it -- thank you for you interest and enjoy making music!

One of three Tascam tape recorders that I owned, where I recorded most of my demo stuff in the early 2000s

PS: If you think you need a lot of "impressive gear"; the best selling album of my career which is SBE's "Long Distance Trip" was recorded with Logic 9 on an old Macbook. None of all other albums which partially had been recorded with a lot of money in a professional studio have even reached 1/6 of its attention, or sales figures ;)