Three of my guitars from left to right are the Ibanez George Benson antique violin finish, my personal custom Yamaha SG 2000 and the Fender Squire Bass. I use the Ibanez mostly for clean jazz and gypsy jazz, the Yamaha is my personal choice for all my electric guitar playing. Mated with my Ibanez PT5 processor and Boogie amp, I produce all the electric sounds I desire, from clean, twangy Fender to heavy humbucker Les Paul type and extreme overdrive and many sounds in between.

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About twenty years ago my wife, daughters and I went to spend a quiet evening in the mall. As always, I had to step into the music store there. Just for fun, I pulled one used acoustic off the wall and played a few chords. I was captivated from the first strum. Played again and again, then looked at the price, it was something under $200. I looked at my wife and said, "Please support me darling, I need to get this now, it's only 200 bucks and I can afford it..." With her support, I bought the guitar right there and then without yet knowing what Yairi meant. Only later I found out about Yairi guitars. Since I bought this guitar, I never looked back for acoustic playing. All my acoustic recordings since then feature this guitar.

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Here are the only two amplifiers I used for the past 25 years. The Boogie has been my main guitar amp forever. A real vintage "plain vanilla" 60-watt combo all black Mesa Boogie with no EQ section, the original two channels Mark I (if I recall correctly). I bought it directly from the master himself, Randall Smith, way back in 1978. It does not have a built in reverb, but with my Ibanez PT5 between my guitar and this amp, it's not a problem. The only modification I had done to this baby is the addition of a speaker emulator, easily controlled via a small switch in the back. It's quite handy for recording or low volume practice.

The Fender is another little gem they made for a short time only. The small, inexpensive Sidekick Reverb 30. I love the spring reverb on it, and although it is an all transistors amp, with this reverb I get inspiring heart warming sounds. And it fits within my small is beautiful philosophy just beautifully.

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Here are my pedals. I have used the PT5 as my main guitar signal processor since around 1994. The Ibanez PT5 has the classic Tube Screamer built in. I feed my Boogie amp with the output signal from this unit and rely on this simple chain for all my guitar sounds. I programmed my PT5 over the years with quite a few fine tuned patches offering a selection of varied sounds from classic clean reverb strat to great Santana humbucker type and anything in between and outside these sounds. This unit holds up to 25 selectable patches although I mostly use about 15 sounds from three banks. Also shown here is my Cry Baby. That is the good old original baby from about 30 years ago. No re-issue stuff. I need to find a new rubber damper for it though.

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The E-max sampler keyboard served me more than well for many years now. I use it mainly for MIDI composition as an input controller, but I also have many disks with many great inspiring sampled sounds for it. On top is my one and only MIDI production device. The Roland RA 95 is another beast that never caught on or continued, but for me it is still a God scend device. A compact box that is a MIDI sound module and an advanced pattern based composer that has great sampled sounds and inspiring composition features.

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Recording stuff. Again small is beautiful works for me. The Yamaha MD8 is a mini disc based 8 tracks recorder. I use it together with my MIDI compositions, leaving 6 tracks exclusively for guitars and vocals. Then into my computer for final digital audio editing. The MD8 is surrounded by my old Tannoy monitor speakers which I drive with an old Yamaha consumer stereo amp. Many pros told me that I should elevate the speakers, but I never got around to doing this.

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For my mixing requirements I use the Behringer Eurorack MX 1604A. It helps me control all the signal routing around the studio for both recording inputs and digitizing to the computer. I also have a tiny Behringer mixer which I will use as a signal level controller when feeding instrument for direct recording such as bass guitar.

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For vocals and acoustic guitar recording, the Helicon VoicePrism is my good partner, shown here on top of two decs. It takes care of all my amplification and sound processing, and it does it compactly and very professionally. Another perfect unit for my small is beautiful approach. I plug my CAD Bquitbk E-100 mic directly to the Helicon, then the Helicon into a MD8 track. I use the same setup for acoustic guitar recording, but will use a different Helicon patch.

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