Like most guitarists I have a fascination with guitar gear. If I was wealthy I would buy a few more guitars and amps along with a shitload of pedals and recording gear. Given that I am not wealthy, though, I can only think about it.

Ultimately, it would be nice to get together some kind of small recording rig as well as a small gigging/practice rig for the guitar> As far as guitars go, I have two beautiful instruments that I will probably keep as long as I can play: a nice early-80s Gibson ES-335 with Bartolini jazz pickups, and a 2013 Fender reserve American Standard Stratocaster with Custom Shop pickups. Here are a few guitar purchases I would like to make.

  1. I’d like to sell my early-30s National Duolian in order to buy a more contemporary instrument with pickups. My National guitar is really too fragile and quirky to be gig-worthy, but when it works it sounds nasty good.
  2. A custom-built Warmoth Telecaster in which I can install the Gibson pickups I took out of the ES-335. This would be setup for slide guitar playing.
  3. A cheap beater of an electric that I can setup for Nashville tuning. This would add some jangle to my playing without the bother of getting a 12-string. Great for recording.
  4. I need to replace my broken-ass Taylor acoustic. I prefer a small parlor-guitar style instrument for fingerpicking the blues.
  5. A small Fender tube amp. I would prefer something the size of a Champ, but with reverb and vibrato. If I could find something like a Princeton Reverb amp that would be cool.
  6. A Fender bass of some kind. I haven’t set my mind on either a Jazz or a Precision bass.
  7. A mandolin for little tasty bits of rhythm and melody.
  8. A cheap hard-tail guitar setup for MIDI.

A couple of these options are expensive, while others are cheap or mid-range. But I need the flexibility of having a few instruments around.

In terms of recording gear, I don’t need to get fancy. But there are a few things I would like to get.

  1. A high quality audio interface for my computer. A Universal Audio interface would be ideal.
  2. At least one good condenser mic, but ideally a few.
  3. A couple of mic stands with at least one studio boom.
  4. A small MIDI controller. An Akai controller would be cool.
  5. Ideally, a control surface for a DAW.
  6. Pro Tools DAW software.
  7. A better mixer with more channels.

I’m sure there are a few other things that would be nice or even necessary to have. Of course none of this is necessary, and none of it makes any sense to purchase if I don’t play more often than I do. I would, though, like to permanently setup my practice space so that I can record ideas without needing to do a lot of gear switching and rewiring. If I could simply fire up Pro Tools, start a drum track, and record any ideas that come out I would be more likely to practice and record regularly. As it is, I don’t practice enough and I rarely record. This is not very good for my identification as a composer. In the past I have done all my composition either on paper or by entering notes directly into Finale with a mouse. I like the idea of being able to try out musical ideas on guitar since my piano playing sucks.

Of course none of this makes any sense without a dedicated room for music, preferably with acoustic treatments and some sort of baffling. I have some simple plans for making acoustic gobos, so that would be a project to do at some point. Setting up a studio probably won’t happen, though, until I am living in a building that I own. This divorce has put the squash on that.