The purpose of this page is to explain Tim's Guitar Setup. This page is 100% accurate.
I have pieced all this information together after reading many articles and talking
to Tim himself. Most of the info and quotes here are from conversations with
Tim, but I also got some stuff from the No. 80 issue of Acoustic Guitar Magazine.
Well first off, we can start with the guitars he plays. During the Dave Matthews
and Tim Reynolds Acoustic Tours, Tim has played 2 Martin D-35's, a '96 and a '93.
They both had standard Fishman pickups and were strung with D'Addario light strings.
"On the Martins I use D'Addario EJ16-Phos. Bronze/Light but I switch the low E to
a .056 instead of the .053." During the 2000 Acoustic Tour, Tim has been
playing one Martin D-35 (the '96 I think) and a Martin D12-28 12 string.
When playing with Puke Matrix, Tim plays 2 Gibson Les Paul Customs, one black and
one goldtop. He also plays an Ibanez RG Series 7 String. Last I heard, Tim was using
GHS Boomer .011s to .050s strings on the Les Pauls. Tim's stack consists of a Marshall
JCM2000 DSL50 head and a Marshall 1960A 4x12 cabinet.
Tim was nice enough to write out his setup for me during an interview. Just a note
- the "Voodoo Vibe" listed is actaully a "Voodoo Lab" Super Fuzz. This page focuses
on the Astral '99 Tour setup. However, Tim wrote both down: the Astral '99 Tour
setup and the Puke Matrix setup:
Now, as far as electonics go, on the Dave and Tim tours he played through a Morley
Pro Series 1 Wah Volume (PWV), a Boss DD-5 digital delay, and then a Countryman
direct box. On the 2000 tour Tim has switched from the Morley Wah Volume to a Ernie
Ball Mono Volume Pedal.
He still uses the Boss DD-5. The little Boss stomp box is the source of all of Reynolds'
electronic trickery. "There's one backwards mode, it plays infinite, and you can
mess with that," Reynolds says. "And there are delay modes that you can go infinite.
There are a lot of cool little things." Tim has also been using the Line
6 Delay Module in conjuction with the Boss DD5.
"For the delay pedal setting, I usually have it set to mode# 3 for those kind of
swells (although 4 is good for spacier stuff). Then the E.level is at about 1 o'clock,
F.back at 12 o'clock (which can be varied to taste), and D.time is at the max. I
use the reverse function for the weirdest stuff."
"This year I plan to use a Tech 21 SansAmp Acoustic DI. I really am not all that
fond of the direct peizo sound although it is very fuctional and easy to use. It's
really hard to get a real "acoustic" sound other than sitting next to an acoustic.
Miking works in, say a coffee house or some small place, and a combo of pickup/mike
is good too. It's always problamatic no matter what since the nature of the instrument
is to push it's own sound out by itself. It's an endless experiment."
And finally, Tim uses Dunlop Tortex 1.0mm Picks (the blue ones), a metal slide on
his pinky, and on stage (although he never uses it) a Boss TU-12H High Range Chromatic
Tuner.
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