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THE ARCHIVES
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Morrigan's Pit has closed down as of November 2006. The site and its articles will stay online as an archive until September at least, but probably longer.
The Archives
2002-2006
» CD REVIEWS
» INTERVIEWS
» LIVE REVIEWS
» SPECIALS
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LUNARIS GEAR PRESENTATION (GUITAR)
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When I was asked to write about the gear I use, I wish they had asked me 6-7 years ago when I was much more of a tech freak than I am now. My attitude has changed more towards simpler set-ups that give me the few sounds I need and nothing else. While I often subscribe to the less is more mentality, I defiantly stick to the fact that less is less in this case, and that’s all I want.
I switched to 7-string guitars shortly after I started Lunaris, so about 4 years ago. I really fell in love with it right away, as I’ve always preferred wide necks with these lumberjack-sized hands of mine. It’s actually only recently that I started picking up the 6-string again. I looked at a lot of different guitars, but I’ve always been drawn to Ibanez guitars, and this was to be no exception. My axe of choice ended up being the RG7620. As Ibanez was my preferred choice, the rg7620 was the only other alternative to Vai's Universe (which is way overpriced imo) at the time when I got mine. I tried a custom Schecter 7-string that was very good, but at almost $4000, it was not really in my price range. I had to do some slight modifications to it to it to make it fit my particular style of playing. Since I was constantly bumping into the volume knob and actually turning it down while I played, it has been moved down to where the tone knob is and the tone knob itself has been tucked away inside the guitar since I never use it anyway.
The pre-amp I use is a Rocktron Chameleon. Not the newest on the market, and certainly not the best. But, this is one of the few preamps that can actually handle a 7 string without losing definition becoming muddy. I only use three settings here, and they are all slightly modified factory presets. The Chameleon is controlled by a Behringer FCB1010 midi foot controller. This pedal is slightly overkill for my needs, but I really like the layout and the feel. It’s not exactly an expensive piece of kit. Next in the signal chain is an Alesis 3630 Stereo compressor and gate.  Again, fairly simple and not too expensive, but it does the job of evening out a bit of the dynamic range of the 7 string. I also use the gate in it instead of Rocktron’s HUSH system, which I’m not a too big fan of. The 3630 helps boost the signal a bit before going to the power amp. I’m in not dissing tube-amps in any way, but I have yet to find an affordable one that will work well with the 7-string and give me the tight controllable amplification (the mesa triple rectifier is an amazing amp, but with a price tag and weight that just doesn’t justify it imo). For this reason I hunted down an old Marshall 8008 Valvstate power amp. It’s no longer in production unfortunately,  but you can get them for practically nothing on the used market. It’s nothing fancy, but I’ve always found that Marshall’s Valvestate technology has provided a very tight compressed amplification that works perfectly with the style of playing I use in Lunaris. The signal is then finally cranked out through a KMD 4x12” closed- back cabinet. The speakers are Eminence speakers I believe… been a while since I opened it. The whole chain is run in mono, as I have no specific stereo effects in my sound.
So that’s basically it… nothing fancy, no secrets. It could have been way more complex, and I guess it could also have been a bit simpler, but I’ve found something here that works for me. The key, I’ve found, is often to work with the stuff you have instead jumping from gadget to gadget to find some miracle box that will cure all your sound problems.
Happy playing
M
submitted by Miko 25.05.2003
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