Clarinets (Boosey & Hawkes Emperor, Bb (#551723, 1984) and A (#252625, 1984)). Both made in the early 1980s, but not a "pair". Using the stock 925 mouthpiece, mostly with Vandoreen 3.5 reeds (3s when I'm feeling tired!), but just discovered Rico Grand Concert 3.5s. I passed Grade VIII in 1986, played a bit at university in 1990, then didn't really touch it again for 10 years or so. My musicality and tone have always surpassed my technique, which is generally good enough...
Tenor saxophones. Actually, I have two... The one I play is a Czech-made student model, but I also have a Hawkes & Son XX Century, dating from prior to the formation of Boosey & Hawkes in 1930! If I got this repaired, it should be really nice, but it would take at least £400... Currently using an Otto Link 5* mouthpiece and Vandoreen 2.5 reeds.
Soprano saxophone (Venus SS512DN, #610115, 2005). Bought new for use with the Machiel Roets and Andy Drysch bands (both now defunct) and also used a couple of times in orchestra pits (including to fake a oboe part!) Currently Vandoreen 2.5 reeds, and have just bought a Yamaha 5C mouthpiece (only plastic, for now) to replace the stock one.
Flute (Hernals S100, #7304311). A Japanese-made student model that is good enough for me... I only started playing flute in March 2008, having been booked to play Reed 2 for West Side Story, only to discover it needed flute along with clarinet and tenor sax! I've since used it for a few other shows (Bugsy Malone, High Society etc.) and I'd consider myself a respectable doubler but certainly not a flautist.
Alto recorder (Mollenhauer Chorus 2025, pear-wood). Don't laugh! I actually studied recorder to Grade VIII standard, and there's a lovely mixture of baroque and 20th century music around, albeit with nothing in between! I also won the all-ages Advanced Recorder Solo class at the Stratford Music Festival in 1987 and performed at the prizewinners' concert.
Soprano recorder (Moeck Barock, pear-wood). Bought in Cambridge around 1982, my first 'serious' musical instrument. Not played much these days (soprano recorders are a bit shrill...)
guitars/electric bass
Hohner Revelation RTX
My main guitar since it was launched in 1992, this is a Czech-made production prototype from a period when Hohner was trying to move into professional-quality guitars. As such, some aspects of the guitar never made it into the full production run, such as the 27 fret neck and the pull-pot for the novel passive circuitry (which became a push-pot). It has a bridge humbucker, single coil at the neck, and a Wilkinson floating vibrato with roller nut. Most of these I've seen have a standard 6-a-side headstock, while mine has a 4-2 split (ie, before MusicMan objected!).
This was my main guitar with The Little Dog Laughed, using a Patrick Eggle Berlin (owned by Robin Kohler, arguably a better guitar, but it didn't "sing" for me) as back-up onstage. I don't use it much now for gigging, but I love it dearly and it will be "pried from my cold, dead hands"!
I recently used it for productions of "Back to the Eighties" and "Chess". The tone circuitry enables the guitar to emulate acoustics to jazz-boxes, or you can switch it out completely to boost the pick-up output for high-gain lead work.
I had another one of these, pretty much identical but with 24 frets and a push-pot - bought on eBay in August 2004 and sold in September 2005.
In case anyone else owns one of these, here are the front and back of the leaflet that was provided with this model, explaining how to use the tone circuitry.
I do plenty of gigs that need a wide variety of tones, from acoustics to strats, to jazzboxes to banjos(!) Rather than travel with loads of guitars, I invested in one of these... The guitar itself is basic, but in combination with the electronics, it's becoming my main "working" guitar.
This has been used in productions of "A Slice of Saturday Night", "Honk!", "Tommy", "Children of Eden", "Working" etc. The Variax Workbench software came in very handy for "Children of Eden", where one song ("The Hardest Part of Love") was based around open-position chord shapes in G, but was stupidly pitched at Gb (presumably to accomodate a singer at some point in the orchestration process!). The Workbench software enabled me to set up a 'virtual capo' to tune the whole guitar down a semitone.
It was my main guitar with the Andy Drysch Band until I bought my Ibanez AF105FNT.
Strung with D'Addario 10-46s.
Fender US-made 2009 Limited Edition Stratocaster
Having reached the limits of my Squier Strat (see below) in terms of tuning stability, unreliable vibrato and rather overblown pickups, I finally bit the bullet and bought a "proper" Strat. It's 'surf green'.
I'm now using it as my main guitar with the Mike Wells Band, and any pop/blues stuff that comes up...
Currently strung with Fender Bullet 9-42s.
Hohner G3T
A blast from the past, I loved this guitar in the late 1980s until it was stolen in 1992. I bought it partly for practicality (I had just gone to study in the USA, and expected to do a fair bit of travelling - it came back to the UK with me in the footwell in front of my seat!), but mostly because it looked just like the white Steinberger that one of my idols, Allan Holdsworth, was playing at that time.
I finally managed to track one down on eBay in June 2005. It seems that the white ones are rarer than hen's teeth...
It has individual switches for each pick-up, rather than an overall 3- or 5-way switch. This means that you can use the neck and bridge pickups (or even all three!) together, and can also get the "stuttering" effect used by Ace Frehley, Tom Morello et al. The tone control has a pull-pot that everyone incorrectly says is a coil-tap for the humbucker. It actually changes the sound on all three pickups, making them a bit more 'glassy' and acoustic-like. I think it cuts some of the mid-range frequencies, but might do something even more sophisticated...
It's small, so is great for orchestra pits where specific sounds aren't required. I've used it in for a production of "Peter Pan: A Modern British Musical" and expect to also use it in "Rent".
Strung with D'Addario 10-46 double-ball ends.
Yamaha Pacifica PAC311MS
I stumbled on this 'hot-rod telecaster' in a shop in Hertford in January 2003, and my wife convinced me to buy it on the spot(!!) It's a lower-spec version of the Mike Stern signature model, with a humbucker at the neck and a 'single-width' humbucker at the neck. It's gutsy and twangy all at once, enabling me to live out my Danny Gatton fantasies!
This is the main guitar I play with the Mike Wells Band. I used it as my spare guitar with the Andy Drysch Band for a while, and played it for a couple of numbers in a production of "Closer Than Ever".
Strung with D'Addario 10-46s (or sometimes 11-52s).
Having decided to have a go at the whole "unplugged" thing, I decided that I needed a decent acoustic guitar. I tried a few, and decided that this sounds good finger-picked, flat-picked and strummed. It's almost identical to one Tim Bastock bought a few years ago and is very happy with. Before I splashed out on a new one, I found one on eBay for almost half the price - Result!
Still have to work out that "unplugged" set though...
Ibanez AF105FNT
When I decided I wanted a jazz guitar, it really had to have a single, floating pickup. While the classic jazzboxes are way out of my price range, I fell in love when I saw this new model from Ibanez in a shop in Windsor. A few weeks later, I walked out of the shop its proud owner. It's great - with bite if required, but lovely warm tone and very playable. Chinese-made instruments still have a bit of a poor reputation, but this one is excellent, and superb value for money.
Strung with D'Addario 11-50 'Chrome' flat-wounds.
Squier Affinity Strat
Found (in rather delapidated condition) at a car boot sale for the princely sum of £30(!), a bit of elbow grease turned this Chinese-made Squier into a playable instrument. It might also become an experiment, if I go ahead with my plan to upgrade saddles, pick-ups, wiring mods etc.
I used this in rehearsals for "A Slice of Saturday Night" before the versatility of the Variax won out (this looked better, but I couldn't be seen anyway!). It's also my second guitar with the Mike Wells Band.
Strung with D'Addario 10-46s.
DeArmond Ashbory bass
"The little bass with the big sound", variations of Ashbory basses have been made on and off since the mid 1980s. Mine is much more recent, made in Korea by Fender, probably sometime around 2000. It's fretless with strings made of silicone rubber, and (bizarrely) sounds quite a lot like a double bass! I bought mine via eBay, primarily for use in pit orchestras.
A few friends of mine who are "proper" bass players have tried it, and not got on with it because of the very short scale length. As a guitarist who sometimes plays bass, this is actually a benefit for me!
I've played this primarily in productions of "Sweeney Todd" and "Closer Than Ever".
Picked up at a car boot sale for £10!! It came in very handy when doing West Side Story in June 2002, but doesn't get much use otherwise... aside from playing at home for my young son
amps/effects
Marshall 5275 75W (1x12) Reverb guitar combo
I bought this in 1989 while I was at Uni, and used it all through The Little Dog Laughed, in stereo with a Fender Twin Reverb (owned by Steve Tippett). Big, heavy and louder than I need right now (particularly when I run my GNX-3 directly into the PA, and only use the amp for monitoring!) I'm thinking about selling it and getting a cheap stereo power amp system.
I mostly run the output from my GNX3 directly into the effects return socket on the back, so this functions essentially as a power amp. Interestingly, this makes all the controls (including the master volume) inactive!
Bought this in the summer of 2002 and I think it's excellent. Amp modelling, chorus, delay, wah, pitch shift, and pretty much everything else... all in a single stereo box.
I've gigged with it extensively, both running into the effects return of my amp (which essentially functions as a power amp) for small gigs or DI'd into the mixing desk for larger gigs and recording.
Boss MicroBR
I bought this in 2007, mostly to use for practising (very good for recording/looping jazz changes) but it's also a pretty powerful 4-track.
I've actually used this as a pre-amp for a couple of gigs: once into my main amp (for the production of "Closer Than Ever"), and once into a mixing desk. Combined with my G3T or Ashbory, I can walk to sessions!
Gear I've sold
Guitars
Applause bowlback electro-acoustic (Ovation copy) - bought when the Little Dog Laughed "went acoustic" in the mid 90s, sold in 2008, by which time the Takamine was my main acoustic
Tanglewood TW-145 SC - very nice electro-acoustic, bought in August 2007 and sold a year later
Hohner Jack bass - This is the bass I used with 100 Pipers/Halcyon Days in the early 90s, and more recently for in Big Band sessions and pit work. Later models included active circuitry, but this is the original, passive model. I usually blend the two pickups for a punchy, but slightly 'squishy' sound. I must confess that I haven't used this at all for a couple of years, as my gig work has (thankfully) shifted from bass to guitar and reeds. I donated it to a boy Jessica used to look after, who's now learning double bass.
Hohner Revelation RTX - I bought a production model on eBay in August 2004 and sold it in September 2005 because it really was TOO similar to my main guitar
Fender Stratocaster (MZ3200575) - won in a competition in September 2004, sold in September 2005 as I hardly ever played it. I guess 'regular' guitars aren't for me!
Yamaha Pacifica Telecaster-shape with 2 x humbuckers (black) - bought in 1994 and sold in 1995
Hohner G3T Steinberger-licensed (white) - bought in the Austin, TX in 1989 and stolen in Harlow, Essex in 1992
Washburn "superstrat" (red) - bought in Harlow in 1986 and sold in 1989, just before moving to Texas
"No-name" Les Paul copy - bought in Harlow in 1984 and given to a friend in 1987
Amps & FX
H&H 100W bass combo - sold in 2005 (I don't play much bass these days, and borrow an amp when I need to)
Digitech WH-1 Whammy (the original, and still the best) - sold in 2004
Digitech RP-1 (original floor-based multi-fx) - sold in 2003
Jim Dunlop wah-wah - sold in 2002
Marshall 12W guitar practice amp - part-exchanged in 1988
