Gear
What
would
a musician's homepage be without a thorough walkthrough of the
equipment they use? Exactly, incomplete! So, here we go with some
retrospect into the past and a more detailed look at the present.
The past
Wurlitzer
200A
In
the beginning of the Seventies, I owned a Wurlitzer piano. This was what
I would call my first 'real' electric piano. Back then, I hit the piano
keys very hard. For a few years, I had played acoustic piano with
different trad jazz bands. Playing an unamplified upright piano when
three to five horn players do their best to howl down the rest of the
band, had me hitting the keys like I was practicing karate. I still had
these chops when I started to play the Wurlitzer. This piano has small,
thin tines that produce the tone. If you hit them too hard, they break.
About once a month, I went to a music store at Odenplan to buy
replacement tines. Then I sold the piano and I told the buyer about this
problem. To be on the safe side, he went to this store and asked the
seller about breaking tines. "No", he replied, "I wouldn't say I've
heard this should be a common problem." Then he thought for a moment.
"Come to think of it, there's a guy in Bromma..." Yeah, yours truly...
Fender
Rhodes and Rhodes stage pianos
My
first piano from this family was a Fender
Rhodes 88 Mark I.
It was heavy, to say the least. Felt a bit like carrying a coffin. On
top of that, the action was sluggish and the sound was muddy. A terrible
specimen.
The next one was a Rhodes 73 Mark I. Much lighter, much easier action
and much clearer sound. The black Tolex was very worn down, so I simply
ripped it off, sanded the wood down and worked it over with a
mahogany-colored stain.
Rhodes
Suitcase
In
1978, I went to California with two musician friends. We stayed with the
fourth member of our band, Ken, who was then working there. I bought a
brand new Rhodes Suitcase 73 Mark I and payed $1.000 for it. Considering
that the exchange rate was one USD for 4.40 Swedish kronor, it was a
fantastic deal! And I didn't even have to pay for the freight from San
Francisco to Stockholm. A couple of months after I left California, Ken
quit his job and moved to Sweden. He had bought a Pontiac TransAm and
had rented a container to transport that and other stuff on a cargo
ship. My Rhodes went in the same container and to make a long story
short I actually managed to smuggle a Rhodes Suitcase piano into Sweden
without paying either customs or VAT! Those crimes are long since
statute-barred. I sold it around 1995 for SEK
8.000 and the
funny thing was that the buyer had recently played with Monica Törnell!
In
2018, I bought a Rhodes Stage Piano 73 Mark II. It lacked the leg
assembly, so instead I built a Suitcase
cabinet. I was also lucky enough to be able to buy an incredible preamp
by the name of Speakeasy from a friend. It was built with the same specs
as the original Suitcase preamp. The cabinet contained four Beyma 12GA50
12" speakers and a Behringer power amp. Although I didn't really want
to, I sold the piano in the Fall of 2019. A Rhodes with a suitcase
cabinet is a bitch to carry and it can only produce one sound, so I
simply bit the bullet and let it go. I didn't have enough room to keep
it. You can see pictures in the 'original music' page.
MiniMoog
In
1975, I found a used MiniMoog model D in a music store namned Dieke
Musik. If I remember correctly, the asked price was SEK 5.000, money I
certainly didn't have. I called my mother and asked if I could borrow
from her and thanks to her, I became the happy owner of my first
Mini!This was a Model D of the first generation, which didn't have
temperature-stabilized oscillators. Which meant it constantly de-tuned
itself, not only the pitch but the internal tuning. I had no manual and
didn't have the address to the manufacturer, so I simply took a chance
and wrote a letter describing my problems and addressed it to 'Moog
Music Inc, Williamsville, NY, USA'. This 'address', I found on the back
of the synth. After a couple of months, an original user manual arrived
in the mail and I learned how to tune the Mini. Later, a friend who was
an electrics engineer, fixed an inboard power supply instead of the two
AC adapters that came with the synth. This solved part of the de-tuning
problem, but not all of it.
I bought the next Mini in the beginning of the Nineties. It had none of
the de-tuning problems of my first one. Unfortunately, I needed money to
buy my first Harley in 1994 and sold it, a thing I've regretted until
2017 (more about this below).
Other
keyboards and different modules
During
the years, I've owned a few other synths, rack modules and drum
machines.
Among the synths, a Moog Prodigy, a MicroMoog, a Korg Polysix and a
Yamaha CS1x are worth mentioning. With all four, I could shape the
sounds pretty much in the way I wanted them. Not like with a MiniMoog,
but still...
I've also owned a couple of modules, one Yamaha TX1P which was a pure
piano module. The other was a Roland MT-32, a little wonder first
released in 1987, actually before the MIDI standard was implemented. It
sounded surprisingly good!
The Kawai R100 was a programmable drum machine which was kind of the
poor mans solution to getting good drum sounds on an affordable budget.
Recording
In
the mid Seventies, I bought a TEAC A3340-S, a four track reel tape
recorder. With it, myself and a couple of friends recorded an LP (see
under 'original music' where you can hear some examples of what it
sounded like). I used it for home recording for ten years and bought a
remote control for it. This came in handy when doing so called
'punch-in' recordings, where you listened to the music and punched the
'record' button and then started playing on a track that already
contained recorded sound.
In 1987, I bought my first computer, an Atari 1040st. This was a real
nice little machine. I used it to write my first novel, 'Livsfarlig
last' (which will be published in English early 2018 under the title
'Lethal cargo'), and also to record music. The thing that was special
with the 1040st was that it had built-in MIDI. So what I did was record
synths and drum machine via the Atari MIDI interface and analog
instruments and voices with the TEAC 4-track and the mixed the two
together. This gave me much more channels on which to record than when I
used only the tape-recorder.
For quite a few years, I didn't record any music at home. I had sold the
Atari and didn't use the TEAC. This dark period in my life must have
been going on from somewhere around the early Nineties and the end of
that decade. In 2000, I bought a PC (yeah, I know, speaking of the dark
side...) and used Cubase SE as recording software. You can easily say
that a new world opened itself.
It didn't take long though, before I switched to the Mac OS platform and
the native software GarageBand. GarageBand is fantastic, considering you
get it for free when you buy a Mac computer. However, it felt limited,
and I bought Logic, which then still wasn't owned by Apple. And that
takes us into...
The present
Keyboards and related
stuff
Here are a few pictures of my piano rig:
From
top to bottom:
MiniMoog
model D.
In
2016, Moog Music started to build a re-issue version of the Model D. It
uses the exact same specs as the original ones, but with some
improvements. It has a MIDI interface, it has a hard-wired overdrive
circuit, it has a dedicated LFO which means you can use all three
oscillators for sound and still get a vibrato, only to mention a few
improvements. It feels and sounds exactly like an old Mini, but better!
The re-issue MiniMoog was discontinued in 2017 and I'm really happy I
had the opportunity to buy one. This one, I won't sell!
Viscount
Legend '70s.
A
73-key stage piano with weighted, hammer-action keys. This piano has a
very nicely laid-out control panel. You can alter the most important
parameters via pots and switches. Of course, there's also a very
versatile computer editor, but so far I haven't seen the need to use it.
The guys at Viscount have really thought things through when the built
the Legend '70s. It is based on modules that you can pull out and
change. This configuration has five different modules. From left to
right: 1. A control module with master volume, equalizer, reverb,
effects and programming functions. 2. An electric piano module with some
incredible Rhodes and Wurlitzer sounds. 3. A sound collection module
with sounds like strings, horns, pads etc. 4. A clavinet module. 5. An
acoustic piano module with very good grand pianos.
'Suitcase'
stereo cabinet.
I
built a new cabinet when I bought the Physis piano, since the one you
can see below was more suited for use with a Rhodes piano. Since the
Physis piano is much smaller, I built the cabinet so that I put my feet
into a 'compartment'. In it, I have a small sustain pedal on the right,
a volume pedal in the middle and another pedal on the left, with which I
control Leslie simulator speed. You can also see the Behringer A800
power amp. 2X400 watts of power and convection-cooled = no fan that
sounds like a jet turbine engine! I re-used the four Beyma 12GA50 12"
broadband speakers that I put in the Suitcase cabinet I built for the
Rhodes.My colleagues in the band CrossBreed called it 'The speaker
cabinet from Hell' since it was rather heavy and awkward to carry up and
down stairs. So I found a way to saw it in two halves. The only thing I
have to do when I take it apart is pull the cable for the right-hand
speakers out of the power amp. And hopefully remember to put it back
when I re-assemble.
A
detail picture showing the 'shelf' I built. In this case, I use it to
host my 10-channel Yamaha mixer with built-in effects. Also, you can see
a MacBook Air that I use for synth software which I control with one of
my latest purchases:
Roli
Seaboard RISE 49
You
can read more about it on the 'original music' page where I first used
it on the tune 'Another time'. It's probably the most revolutionary way
to change the way of playing keyboards since I started playing the piano
in, like, 1963...
Viscount
Legend
In
this image, you can see my Viscount Legend with bass pedals and the
MiniMoog. You can also see three members of the UN band. To the right,
of course, Peter whom you can hear playing his guitars on many of the
tracks on the 'original music' page. To his left, Lelle who plays the
drums and the bass and even sings and plays rhythm guitar on some songs.
In the yellow Hagström T-shirt, Greven, who plays the drums.
JJ
Labs 12-2.1-500 Tornado version
This
is actually the same mini PA system that you can see at the bottom of
the page. The difference is that I took all the treble speakers and the
tweeter from the two top speakers and managed to cram them and the
crossover filters into the upper cabinet. I was inspired by a product
made by Viscount, called Hurricane. It's main feature is that the treble
speakers are directed at 45 degrees upwards. Together with the Legend
organ's built-in Leslie simulator, it sounds surprisingly good! And the
name? Well, a Tornado is smaller than a Hurricane!
Leslie
142N
This is a real Leslie,
although a little lower than the cupboards you usually see behind
Hammond organ players (which means a few kilos lighter). Mine is still
lighter since I've discarded a damaged, heavy hi-fq driver and replaced
it with a Motorola piezo-electric horn driver. I've also transfered the
original Leslie 122 tube amp with its two large transformers to another
Leslie (which I sold) and use an external Genz-Benz Shuttle 6.0 bass
amp. This is a 600W amp with a tube preamp, weighing like a large carton
of milk, just over 1,5 kilos. This Leslie is actually quite portable and
sounds very good! And for recording or live miking via a PA, I've
mounted three drum microphones that fold out on little wooden pegs. Just
plug in the cables and connect them to the mixer. And since I've
listened to experts in a Hammond group on Facebook, saying that there's
a lot of stereo signal in the bass rotor as well, I've mounted a fourth
microphone since this pic was taken.
Recording
This
is my current recording setup. The heart of the studio is a Mac Mini
with 16 GB:s of RAM and a 1 TB hard drive. I use two 24" monitors and a
BlueTooth keyboard and Magic Mouse. Below, I've built a 'shelf' where I
put either this M-Audio Keystation 61 (the one I used in my home-built
two-manual Viscount DB3, see below) or the Roli Seaboard.
Other
related equipment
Viscount DB3
Originally a single-manual clonewheel organ which I bought in 2005. A
few years ago, I tried connecting another MIDI keyboard to it, to get
two manuals. It worked quite okay, so I bought a 61-key MIDI keyboard
and stripped it down, built a new enclosure and suddenly had a Viscount
DB3-2X61 or whatever you should call it. I've used it as a rehearsing
organ. In 2019, I put the DB3 and the M-Audio MIDI keyboard back in
their original shape, since I had better use for them that way.
Yamaha
MOTIF synth module
This is really an incredible piece of machinery. I use a handful of the
800 sounds that are actually in there. My favorite is a guitar sampling
named 'Crunchoid' which you can hear on several of the tracks on the
'original music' page. Since I bought the Roli Seaboard, I actually
haven't used it.
Harley
Benton Slider
This
is not the instrument I use most frequently, but since it cost almost
nothing, it's nice to have. So far, I think I've used it for a couple of
recordings.
Electric basses
Fender
Cabronita / Four string family
Here, you can see my
beautiful quartet of four string basses. To the right, my latest
aquisition. A Candy Apple Red Fender Cabronita. The only modification
I've done on this one is replacing the one-layer white scratch guard
with three-layer white mother-of-pearl. This is my favorite bass by
far! Not only is it beautiful to look at, but it also sounds
fantastic.
Harley
Benton PB-50
It all began when I
decided that I wanted to go back to playing four-string bass again.
Preferably with passive electronics and only one volume and one tone
pot. You can read much more about it on the dedicated page 'PB-50
mod'. After looking at prices of parts on the gitarrdelar.se web page,
I started to look for other solutions and by chance stumbled on Harley
Benton's version of a 50's P-bass. So I ordered one in the spring of
2019 and had to wait for like two months before it arrived. It was out
of stock and I can understand why it's so popular... during my search,
though, I also looked at the vintage Telecaster bass. And finally, the
beauty below turned up for sale...
Squier
Vintage Modified Telecaster Bass
Squier presented this
re-make of the beautiful Telecaster bass in August 2012. It was only
in production for a couple of years, so they're pretty hard to come
by. But lo and behold, in February 2020, I found this instrument on
the Swedish buy-and-sell site Blocket. Apart from the obvious
difference in body design, it's quite similar to the PB-50 above. One
difference, though, is that it is medium scale. 32" instead of the
ordinary 34" scale length that both the green one above and the red
one below have. But not quite as short as my home-built short-scale
bass below, which has a scale length of only 30 inches.
When I bought the Tele,
it had a one-ply black scratch guard, but I thought that a tortoise
one would match the body's cream color. So I ordered a rectangular
piece of scratch guard material and manufactured the one you can see
in the picture.
SX
Precision bass
I bought this fretless
Fender Precision neck in the end of the Seventies. And built an oak
body that was formed like a violin. It had two Jazz Bass pickups. When
I tried it a couple of years ago, the sound was full of crackle and
hiss. A little like the sound of bacon frying in a hot skillet...
first, I thought I'd buy a P-bass body, P-bass pickups and other
hardware from gitarrdelar.se, an online store that sells kits for
guitars and basses. But then I realized that it would be cheaper to
buy a budget P-bass replica and replace the neck with my old fretless
one. And when in the store, I thought, why not buy something colorful?
So that's why this bass is a beautiful Fiesta Red with a tortoise
shell scratch guard. Since this picture was taken, I've put fret marks
on the neck with a thin, permanent marker and coated them with a
couple of layers of transparent lacquer. This because I'm too unused
to playing a fretless bass with only a few dots on the side of the
neck. But if and when I get more sure of what I do, I can only sand
the lacquer and the fret marks away.
Ibanez SR506
I bought this in March 2010. I've used it a lot and it's fantastic to
play on since the neck, although being quite wide to accommodate for all
six strings, is very thin. Since I bought the four-strings above,
though, I haven't used it. Not that I dislike five or six strings, it's
more a sense of wanting to go back to basics.
Ibanez GSR205BF
I
bought this one since I wanted five strings and fret marks. But since I
added the fret marks on my red Precision bass, this one is also hanging
on the wall.
Home-built bass with a Fender Musicmaster neck
The neck comes from my first bass guitar, a Fender Musicmaster that I
bought in 1975. It's a short scale neck and has proved to stay straight
throughout the decades. The body sported what looked like a guitar
pickup and I wasn't pleased with the sound. Therefore I built a very
small oak body with a DiMarzio P-bass pickup and no volume- or other
controls, just an on-off switch. A few years ago, I tried this bass and
realized that the body, apart from being quite hideous, was too
light-weight, so the neck weighed down. I then went to Fanerkompaniet
(the Veneer Company) and bought a solid maple plank that had been
carefully dried. I built this body and with a complete different and
better array of tools, I suddenly had a much better bass altogether! It
still has the Seventies DiMarzio pickup and the same on-off switch and
is a quite nice little piece of bass...
Bass rigs
This is a pic of my two main rigs (2020-03-01):
From left to right:
Ampeg V4BH and Ampeg SVT212E
This
is
a re-issue of the classic 100W all-tube V4B amp, this one from the late
Nineties. The cabinet is a 2X12 in which I replaced the original
speakers since one of them was destroyed when I rolled the cabinet over
a 5-meter long foot-scraping grid. The coil was probably damaged. I went
for Eighteen Sound speakers which I use in all my bass cabinets. This
rig sounds just like a 100W tube amp rig should sound. Fantastic! But
since I bought the GBE 600 below, I haven't used the Ampeg rig. So to
get some more space in my studio, I sold it in the fall of 2021.
Genz-Benz GBE 600 and Behringer BA210 +
BA115
My first Genz-Benz amp, 600W with a tube preamp. This sounds pretty much
like the smaller Shuttle 6.0 below, but has more adjusting capabilities.
The nicest one is that you can use either the tube or the solid-state
preamp or mix them. Together with the two cabinets, a 2X10 and a 1X15
equipped with Eighteen Sound speakers, I get so much volume and punch
that I could probably easily shatter the windows in my studio if I
wanted. Not to speak of my eardrums...
And
here, my 'mini' bass rig:
Genz-Benz
Shuttle 6.0 and 1X12 cabinet
My second Genz-Benz amp, this one also with 600W and a tube preamp. Up
until now, I've mostly used it to power my Leslie 142N. But then I
realized I needed a small rig for kind of 'troubadour gigs'. That is,
only me on the bass behind a singer/guitarist. The cabinet features a
Beyma 12GA50 broadband element. The same speaker as in my Suitcase
cabinet. When I bought it, the sales guy at HiFi Kit turned out to be a
loudspeaker designer, so he calculated what size I would need for the
cabinet and the size and length of the bass reflex ports. I can tell you
that when you stand in front of the rig, at a distance of a meter, crank
the volume up a bit and hit the E string, your trouser legs actually
flutter from the movement of air. The power of this rig compared to its
size is amazing! And it weighs in at just below 12 kilos!
PA
Behringer
Xenyx X1222USB
This is a 12-channel mixer with built-in effects and is excellent for
vocals and amplifying keyboards. Quite cheap, too!
JJ
Labs 12-2.1-500 mini PA
I bought two of these in 2020 (well, actually three, see above under
'Keyboards and related stuff'). They're very portable and if you play at
a small place, you can bring only one system. When I use both, I
'cross-wire' them so the left channel from both amps go on the left side
and vice versa. Each sub has 500-Watt amp, where 300 Watts go to the
bass speaker and 100 Watts each to the treble speakers.
