DonCon Gear Box
Electric Guitar Amps and Pedals... DonCon's Choices
My First Electric Guitar
My cousin Butch gave me a cheap electric guitar when I graduated 8th grade and I wrote a two chord opus going from D to Dmaj7...back and forth...over and over. I played it at my graduation party and everyone was very polite. Nobody came forward offering to make me a big star, though.
Electric Guitar Amps and Pedals: I've been through a lot of cool vintage amps and various kinds of pedals and gear including octave pedals, doublers, analog, tape loop and digital delay units, vibrato, wah wah, distortion, phase shifters... the older and the funkier the better. For various reasons I've been forced to let most of them go and have survived so I know I can live without them. I've played a lot of bass over the years and it's probably the most fun gig for me... especially playing bass with a great drummer. The best sounding bass rig I had was using a Trace Elliot head with an SVT (8x10") bottom. The Trace Elliot had a black light in it...very cool. I loved that sound. I hated transporting it. I also had an Alembic tube bass preamp that I used for a lot of different things over the years. Loved that. I sold it to my buddy John Kurgan so it's still in the family.
I love those vintage little amps from the 40's through the 50's and I've had several of them. Sounded fantastic. Rarely worked. Right now I play through a Line 6 X3 Live which is a floor/stage version of their high resolution studio amp/effects modeler. I absolutely love it. I've dialed in about ten of my favorite vintage amp and speaker combinations with some of my favorite vintage effects and Leslie setups plus it has a nice volume/wah pedal built into it. It has changed my world... especially for flying out to do studio and/or side man gigs. I had a cool guy in Nashville build a custom flight case for it which can be flown or shipped and I can stash all my cables, stands, a microphone, a wireless unit plus a sandwich or two and off I go. When an amp is required I go through a Fender Super 60 (not built anymore) bought for me by Ellis Paul for Christmas a number of years back. Reeves Gabrels turned me onto the Rat pedal when he played with me in the mid 80's and I've been hooked ever since, but the weight of the thing kept me from transporting it and I can duplicate that "square wave" sound now with the X3 Live. I love the sound of those square waves. When it comes to "old school" if I had a Rat, a volume pedal and a decent amp with a little reverb (some vibrato would be nice, too) I'd consider myself fully equipped. The next thing I'd throw in the bag if I had room would be a Wah pedal. I have had some pretty elaborate rigs in the past that I loved, though. At one time I had assembled a three way system with four custom built closed back cabinets built for me by my buddy Brian Schremp... one with a 10" Gauss speaker, two with EV 12"s and one with a JBL 15" speaker...plus two racks holding three digital delays, a stereo graphic EQ, a two channel crown amp from an early Allman Brothers sound system and....of course, a Rat and a volume pedal. I used that rig for both bass and electric guitar and you could easily play keyboards through it as well. I made some pretty cool noise with that set up, but these days I'm more interested in using less. I'm trying to learn to play the instrument and tell stories with it as best I can and I find that the less gear I have to manipulate while I'm on stage the more focused I can be.
My cousin Butch gave me a cheap electric guitar when I graduated 8th grade and I wrote a two chord opus going from D to Dmaj7...back and forth...over and over. I played it at my graduation party and everyone was very polite. Nobody came forward offering to make me a big star, though.
Electric Guitar Amps and Pedals: I've been through a lot of cool vintage amps and various kinds of pedals and gear including octave pedals, doublers, analog, tape loop and digital delay units, vibrato, wah wah, distortion, phase shifters... the older and the funkier the better. For various reasons I've been forced to let most of them go and have survived so I know I can live without them. I've played a lot of bass over the years and it's probably the most fun gig for me... especially playing bass with a great drummer. The best sounding bass rig I had was using a Trace Elliot head with an SVT (8x10") bottom. The Trace Elliot had a black light in it...very cool. I loved that sound. I hated transporting it. I also had an Alembic tube bass preamp that I used for a lot of different things over the years. Loved that. I sold it to my buddy John Kurgan so it's still in the family.
I love those vintage little amps from the 40's through the 50's and I've had several of them. Sounded fantastic. Rarely worked. Right now I play through a Line 6 X3 Live which is a floor/stage version of their high resolution studio amp/effects modeler. I absolutely love it. I've dialed in about ten of my favorite vintage amp and speaker combinations with some of my favorite vintage effects and Leslie setups plus it has a nice volume/wah pedal built into it. It has changed my world... especially for flying out to do studio and/or side man gigs. I had a cool guy in Nashville build a custom flight case for it which can be flown or shipped and I can stash all my cables, stands, a microphone, a wireless unit plus a sandwich or two and off I go. When an amp is required I go through a Fender Super 60 (not built anymore) bought for me by Ellis Paul for Christmas a number of years back. Reeves Gabrels turned me onto the Rat pedal when he played with me in the mid 80's and I've been hooked ever since, but the weight of the thing kept me from transporting it and I can duplicate that "square wave" sound now with the X3 Live. I love the sound of those square waves. When it comes to "old school" if I had a Rat, a volume pedal and a decent amp with a little reverb (some vibrato would be nice, too) I'd consider myself fully equipped. The next thing I'd throw in the bag if I had room would be a Wah pedal. I have had some pretty elaborate rigs in the past that I loved, though. At one time I had assembled a three way system with four custom built closed back cabinets built for me by my buddy Brian Schremp... one with a 10" Gauss speaker, two with EV 12"s and one with a JBL 15" speaker...plus two racks holding three digital delays, a stereo graphic EQ, a two channel crown amp from an early Allman Brothers sound system and....of course, a Rat and a volume pedal. I used that rig for both bass and electric guitar and you could easily play keyboards through it as well. I made some pretty cool noise with that set up, but these days I'm more interested in using less. I'm trying to learn to play the instrument and tell stories with it as best I can and I find that the less gear I have to manipulate while I'm on stage the more focused I can be.