Gear Talk with Kristian!

[BloodLegion]

GASP!

Sanding always makes me nervous. If it's a stupid chair or table, fine. But a guitar! I'd be careful if I were you. Are you going to do it manually or with some sort of sander?

In any case, a natural (unpainted) neck is just lovely to play. I use Pledge furniture polish from time to time to keep my neck smooth, and the smell is definitely a plus! Hmm...lemony...

 

[Kristian Niemann]

I remove the coating on the back of my guitarnecks with a razor. Works fine, but its boooooring. Should probably oil them or smthng but im too lazy.
That will of course backfire on me, as one of these days Ill surely walk into my little studio and find 7 Ibanez guitars with warped necks and fretwire scattered all over the floor.
Then Ill be sorry!

 

[Jacob Kjær]

Hey dude,

I ended up doing it lightly with 0000 steelwool so that I didn't take off the whole finish. I was a little rough near the binding in order to smooth it out properly, and some of the wood got exposed, but it feels great.

I also steamed out some dents using damp cloth and a heat source (clothing iron), and it really worked wonders. On top of that, I put on 10's instead of 9's.

The guitar feels completely different now. 10's are way too tight, especially when using the vibrato arm, and it's really nasty to bend. And I liked the sound of the unwound strings better with 9's. However, the wound strings sound really nice and tight now. I'm definetly switching to hybrid slinkys like Kristian, but only because of trial and error, and not because he does it

 

[BloodLegion]

Try bending on 11-50s! I use those, but then again, I'm more of a rhythm player (not a crazy-ass shredder like you or Kristian!). But, you get used to things like this. Hell, SRV was bending the shit out of his 13's - his guitar tech had to advise him to go back to 11s cos he was damaging his fingers too much!

Jacob - to steam out the dents, will it work on raw wood only (unpainted, like the back of the neck)? I've read about using heat to 'raise' the wood grain - thus eliminating dings and stuff. And how hot does the source have to be? If an iron works I'm sure it doesn't have to be super hot?

 

[Jacob Kjær]

I hear that SRV only bent 13's when he was on coke and that he went down to 11's after rehab

I gave the dents more "attention" with the steel wool, so the lacquer layer on top of them was really thin when they got steamed, and that seemed to be fine.

A clothing iron is a fine source, as long as it makes the damp cloth steam. First I tried with a soldering iron, but the result wasn't very good. Clothing iron is the way to go


OH, I didn't even see Kristian's last reply until now because it was posted while I wrote my last post
Kristian, maybe you should use gunstock oil for the neck? That's what Music Man does with their guitars, and it apparantly works very well while retaining the woody/grainy feel.


BTW, I got a vibrato arm this monday, and it is AWESOME fun. The Ibanez Edge kicks ass . Now for a wah...

 

[BloodLegion]

Oh boyyyy...do I regret selling my Crybaby! It was a source of endless fun! But alas, it didn't have true bypass and it sucked a lot of the tone from my guitar to the amp. Didn't like that at all, and decided to let it go. Together with my MXR distortion + pedal (which is one of the best, if not the best, pedal to nail classic rock tones!). Holy crap, man, I used to have a ton of fun playing the Scorpion's Coast to Coast with that thing plugged in!

 

[deathmetalpat]

I remove the coating on the back of my guitarnecks with a razor. Works fine, but its boooooring. Should probably oil them or smthng but im too lazy.
That will of course backfire on me, as one of these days Ill surely walk into my little studio and find 7 Ibanez guitars with warped necks and fretwire scattered all over the floor.
Then Ill be sorry!

Kristian ,I was wondering how you protect your guitars from heat ,cold and dampness when you were on the road.Did you have touring guitars and did you keep them out of the normal storage areas on planes and buses.I have seen some nice guitars almost destroryed because they were not taken care of on the road.

 

[Kristian Niemann]

Kristian ,I was wondering how you protect your guitars from heat ,cold and dampness when you were on the road.Did you have touring guitars and did you keep them out of the normal storage areas on planes and buses.I have seen some nice guitars almost destroryed because they were not taken care of on the road.

My guitartechs always took good care of them but they travelled together with all the other pieces of equipment. I have great flight cases for them though, very hard to destroy. Thats a must!! But the guitars have indeed held up very well I must say, the only problems Ive had are with the hardware on the Tremolo units (stripped screws, bottom plate on the saddle missing...) but thats why I got the endorsement really, to have quick and unlimited access to spare parts. I dont have different guitars for touring and recording but when we tour with Demonoid in the future (I hope!) I probably wont be bringing my no. 1 PII. I dont want to lose that one!

 

[BloodLegion]

You should keep that at home!

Hope you're given more axes to mess around with, Kristian! Oh, and will you be bringing the thick mahogany Ibby (the purplish/reddish one) on tour, when the tour happens? Or is that more of an experimental guitar for you to try out new tones and stuff?

 

[Cressida]

I dont have different guitars for touring and recording but when we tour with Demonoid in the future (I hope!) I probably wont be bringing my no. 1 PII. I dont want to lose that one![/QUOTE]

I HOPE SO AS WELL!

 

[Jacob Kjær]

Tadaaa, new pick-ups:

Dimarzio Super 2 and Super 3, bought from Kristian. Used from Lemuria/Sirius B and Riders of the Apocalypse and until he left Therion (I'm a sad geek :-D)

I also traded away my shitty chinese DOD YJM-308 for a handmade danish overdrive pedal. However, it doesn't sound especially good at all (maybe on a Les Paul), so that's up for trade now (bet it's worth more than the YJM though!).

 

[BloodLegion]

Sweeet!

Wow, you've got tiny bits of metal history in your axe right now!

I sent my Ironbird to my tech for a minor tweak too - the ever important KILLSWITCH! Since I don't use a neck pickup, the neck and middle positions of my toggle switch will now kill the signal. Wish I had the balls to install a push-style switch like Buckethead has on his guitars, but that would require *gasp* drilling! That is the ultimate killswitch, IMO.

 

[Corwin]

Those P-II look awesome!
I've got an RG2550, i'm going to get a custom made P-II Mahagony body for it, get some bareknuckles in it and it will be a blast
I wonder though if it would be nice a P-II body with Maple top or just leave it Mahagony ?

Anyway,
Kristian, what amps do you use ? Your tone is awesome..although I really don't like these EMG's.. I think they sound pretty dead...

I think of getting and ENGL Powerball or something..haven't decided yet..

 

[BloodLegion]

EMGs sound dead? You haven't played them enough!

Kristian, Peter from Vader, Rob & Pat from Cannibal Corpse, Zakk Wylde, Kerry & Jeff from Slayer...all use EMGs. Yet each one of them sounds totally different from the other guy, and they all have amazing tones. And its a very versatile pickup too. You can get basically any tone from an EMG81. Just fiddle with the volume + tone knobs and your EQ.

 

[blackrose2]

Did someone say Zakk Wylde? *bows down*

 

[Kristian Niemann]

Anyway,
Kristian, what amps do you use ? Your tone is awesome..although I really don't like these EMG's.. I think they sound pretty dead...

I think of getting and ENGL Powerball or something..haven't decided yet..

Thanks!
Ive mostly used the Boogie Triaxis preamp/2:90 poweramp combination on records and Marshall JMP-1/2:90 live. For this new Demonoid cd Im using....some different stuff
I havent decided yet if I should tell anyone what shit im recording on. Its a bit embarrasing, people will laugh. But the guitartones are FAT!!!!

Powerball is nice. Only problem is EVERYBODY playing rock/metal is using Engl these days, or a Rectifier! Find some old/weird/cheap amp and see if you can make it sound cool and unique. That way you will hopefully stand out from the rest of the pack. Plus you dont have to sell your mother to pay for it!

EMGs sure are a bit different from non-active pups but I couldnt imagine playing anything below D tuning on anything but EMGs. Not for the sound Im after. Ive tried LOTS of pups, most of which Ive sold now cause they didnt sound good, but I always come back to an 81 for that solid chunk ´o beef in the low-end.
For standard tuning, melodies, solos and clean stuff though its a DiMarizo/Seymour Duncan mob scene: Area 58, Full Shred, Minibucker, Super 2, Steves Special, Humbucker from hell, Duncan Distortion, Bluesbucker, Chopper, D Sonic, a Bill Lawrence L500XL....theyre all good for something. In the studio its fun to experiment with shit like this for certain applications but live I´ll stick with EMGs.

 

[Jacob Kjær]

How about effects? Doing anything crazy this time?

 

[BloodLegion]

My question is semi-related to Jacob's:

Kristian, being the sole guitarist of the band, do you utilize any chorus effects to fatten the guitar sounds, or just stick to the old school way of layering the parts? And if it's just layering, how many layers do you normally lay down for rhythm and leads? If you don't wanna let any cats out of the bag, it's ok, just ignore the question. But something tells me you're a dog person...

 

[Kristian Niemann]

How about effects? Doing anything crazy this time?

Of course!

 

[Kristian Niemann]

My question is semi-related to Jacob's:

Kristian, being the sole guitarist of the band, do you utilize any chorus effects to fatten the guitar sounds, or just stick to the old school way of layering the parts? And if it's just layering, how many layers do you normally lay down for rhythm and leads? If you don't wanna let any cats out of the bag, it's ok, just ignore the question. But something tells me you're a dog person...

There are some tweakage going on on the guitartones to make them fatter and meaner but rhythms are just one guitar left, one right. More than that CAN work if its the right part but I feel it takes away too much from the attack and it tends to muddy things up a bit.
Solos are just one pass but the signal is split to stereo so it ends up in both speakers L&R instead of in the center, which I fuckin hate. uke:
Certain melodies are of course doubled (and tripled) to achieve a certain effect buy otherwise its pretty old school.