Guitars:

Ibanez RG470 FM with a Flame Maple top with Infinity Pick-ups in a double, single, double configuration. Floyd Rose tremelo and a Maple fretboard. I've used Ibanez & Yamaha ecoustics & electrics. I've gone through three Fender Strats (including an HM Strat, i.e, early Greg Howe) and I loved them all. The first guitar I ever bought was an awesome Gibson Les Paul with a Silverburst Finish (Silver in the center fading to black around the edges). Damn that thing was heavy. I think they're made out of cement.

Amplifiers:

I've primarily used old tube and newer solid state Fender amps. Fender makes a really great solid state distortion amp. Many people think that it's tube. My favorite was the Fender M-80. Now, I have "The Ultimate Chorus" amp and it's got an ultra-bluesy sound. I had one Fender amp that could play the clean and the distorted channel at the same time and that created some really interesting tones. I played through some Marshalls in the early days but I always preferred Fender's more mellow tone.

Effects:

Rane PE-15 Parametric Equalizer for massive frequency tweaking, good ol' Alesis Midiverb III and a DBX1 (266) Compressor/Expander Gate. I've also used the legendary Quadraverb, a Morley Wha Volume Pedal and an ADA distortion unit (not bad). Oh yhea, I had this stupid little ZOOM pedal that had all these different effects built in but the distortion was SO digital sounding I sold it a week after I bought it. It's only showcased on one song I have and it's called, as you might imagine...."Zoom". Right now I'm using a Boss Metal Zone Distortion Pedal because my amp got fried by lightening. It's definitely one of the better pedals I've used. You can really tweak the tone.

Recording:

I was using the Yamaha MT-100 II in the above picture and for probably the longest period of time. I believe I had three of them. It's a very dependable and versatile 4-track for recording your own material. I had a Fostex 4-track AND a Fostex 8-track with all the bells and whistles. However, it used a regular cassette tape and had to "stagger" the tracks which made the sound very thin. Nowadays, I'm just recording straight to my computer using a software program called "Magix Music". It does everything an ADAT can do and more. The only problem is space but with the CD burners and hard drives nowadays, it's not much of a problem. It sounds better than ever! Oh yhea, AND it's sixteen tracks as opposed to four! Plus, it makes cutting MP3s from WAV files very simple and easy to transfer to the Internet and therefore, the world!

Sequencing/Keyboards:

The board in the above picture is Ensoniq TS-10 and it kicked ass. I no longer have it but I originally bought it because of the impressive array of great sampled sounds they have, especially of the Orchestral variety. I NEVER cared for Ensoniq UNTIL this board came out. I always thought their sounds were cheesy and more geared towards, "Dance Music" people (notice I didn't say artists) who have nothing more than the follow through to paste three pre-written dance beats together. I don't mean to berate them, I'm sure there is some good dance music out there, somewhere, there has to be. Regardless, this board kicked ass and almost cost as much as my car. I miss it.

Misc:

I use JBL Control 1's to mix my music. In the set-up above I was mastering stuff to analog cassette on a Technics double deck and a Technics Power Amp. The amp still surivives but the cassette player is no more. I have a tendency to rip equipment apart from the inside out by using it so much and the cassette player finally saw it's last day. But at least it lived a good, useful life, full of recording and mastering and what not.

I like balance in my recording (of course). I often pump up the bass a bit too much and I didn't have my compressor for a long time so some of the recordings are a "little" unstable on a stereo. However, you can still hear every instrument very well. I like my drums up loud in the mix to drive the song. I use different kicks and high hats and crashes and snares so it doesn't sound too repetative when sequencing. A lot of the really fast keyboard parts I've recorded were sequenced but NOT quantized (quantizing 32nd or 64th notes is very difficult) , meaning, they were basically played live. My left hand is retarded but my right hand sure knows how to fake it's way through. When I play clean guitar I prefer lots of Chorus and Reverb and sometimes Delay for a more dreamy feel. With distorted guitar I usually keep it to just Delay. I like the dreamy tone and the original signal is seperated from the effect so it doesn't get in the way of the distortion, like Chorus and Reverb sometimes do. I love experimenting with modes, time signatures, REALLY weird effects (once in a Blue Moon), and different genres of music. But, as I've said before, I have no real control over what comes out of me, never have. When inspiration hits, it's just time to play. I'd do it 20 hours a day if I didn't have to pay rent.

- Jason Stewart -