Gearbox
December 1996
EQUIPMENT PICKS FROM TIM STAFFORD,
DAVE MATTHEWS, AND HONEYBOY
EDWARDS
Tim Stafford
recently had a rosewood dreadnought built for him by Ray Dearstone, a luthier better known for his mandolins (Dearstone Mandolin Works, 2315 Bay St., Bristol, TN 37620; [423] 968-9599). With Alison Krauss, Stafford played a 1955 Martin D-18 he still owns and a 1939 D-28 he was then in the process of buying. He quit Union Station before he finished paying for the D-28 and was forced to return it to its original owner. He played the D-18 on Blue Highway's 1995 album It's a Long, Long Road and borrowed a 1936 D-28 for the band's second album Wind to the West. His experience with that D-28 awakened memories of his earlier D-28 and prompted him to look for another rosewood guitar. "I missed that deep, resonant rosewood sound, and I missed feeling the guitar resonating against me when I played," he recalls.
Stafford uses 1.5-millimeter picks made by Clayton USA and emphasizes the importance of finding the right pick. He strikes the strings with the rounded corner rather than the point. "It gives a more balanced tone" to his rhythm playing, he says. He uses D'Addario medium-gauge strings. In performance he prefers a TOA K-Y model condenser mic for amplification. But some sound technicians are put off by the condenser's output. "They don't know how to deal with the low end," Stafford explains. "If they ask me not to use it, I use an AKG C-1000."
--Tom McGhee
Dave Matthews
plays a Gibson Chet Atkins model guitar. "I'm spoiled," Matthews confesses, "I just describe what I want to hear or what I don't want to hear and leave the rest to Monk." For his part, Monk (Matthews' guitar tech) says, "Dave's playing style demands clarity. Each piece in his rig was chosen with that in mind. I believe that this system gives us the truest representation of the Chet Atkins' acoustic qualities. Almost everything is run flat to achieve this. The White EQ processor 5024 is our master EQ. We pink-noise the system [using a spectrum analyzer to examine and equalize the frequency response of a room] to replicate stage sound. The results have been excellent. Up to this date, Dave has never really used effects, but I believe by the end of the year he will be using an Eventide 3000 GTR Harmonizer."
--Andy Markham
Honeyboy Edwards
says that the older blues players usually used cheaper guitars rather than top-of-the-line Gibsons or Martins because "they couldn't afford 'em!" He used to play a Stella. "That Stella had a good sound to it," he recalls. "A little ol' Stella. Wasn't too big a body, but it sounded good." He also remembers Sears' affordable Silvertone guitars and Gibson's Kays. "I think I had a Harmony guitar once or twice," he says. "I never did play too many off-brand guitars. I mostly played name-brand guitars. I just don't like nothing with no name. I like a Gibson, a Fender."
Edwards uses light-gauge strings. "I like to bend," he says. "You play too heavy a set and you can't bend." He plays with plastic or metal fingerpicks and has two medium-weight metal slides, which he wears on his pinky finger. "I got a copper slide," he says. "I take a No. 1 sandpaper and smooth it off. When you hit the strings, it just skate right over and hold the tone."
--George Hansen
