For the curious, here are some of the instruments we used to make the “Too Many Goodbyes” CD
Guitars / Amps / Effects
- Fender USA Standard Stratocaster, 1987 vintage – my pride and joy. I had mine specially ordered in from America. I have had it slightly modifed it by putting in a few extra springs to flatten the tremolo fulchrum to the guitar body – I don’t and never have used the “whammy bar”.
- Fender Precision Bass – can’t remember when I bought this (to replace an old Yamaha bass). Anyway, it’s a beaut!
- Ovation Pinnacle Single Cutaway Electro-Acoustic Guitar. I was bought this many, many years ago as a birthday present. I remember seeing Al Di Meola playing an Ovation guitar and had to have one!
A Line 6 POD XT Pro was used for all the guitar processing. It was programmed to be as near as identical to my old amplifier set up, which was a Marshall JMP-1 Valve MIDI Pre-amp. I’ve worked very hard since learning to play to develop my own sound and style. For the most part, I think I have succeeded.
Keyboards / Virtual Instruments
- Alesis QS 8 Master Keyboard, of which not one sound was used! Although, even now, still a great synth, I use it solely to control the virtual synths living in my computer. I bought this cos the on-board piano / organ sounds were so good. Still are! Among the “virtual” instruments used were:
- GMedia M-Tron – possibly the best Mellotron in the world, short of a real one!)
- MrRay Rhodes – this is a free program that is absolutely ace. I have tried all manner of Rhodes plugins and, for me, this is the best. I used it liberally on the Too ManyGoodbyes CD
- Native Instruments B4 Organ – fabulous instrument
Drums
Roland TD20 Drumkit – this is a fantastic piece of gear (virtual drum-tastic!) and Christopher now uses it exclusively. He keeps his Pearl acoustic drums for emergency
use! If I ever decide to have a go at drumming, then this is what I would want!
Vocals
Shure SM58. And that’s it – with a pop shield! Although we had access to other mics, for some reason, the SM58 just does it for me!
