Simon Kerr
Music for the World
This information is here simply because I like seeing what others play, and perhaps getting some new ideas. Maybe the odd person will find some passing fascination with the gear I use. And yes, collecting gear can provide evidence for OCD! Non-nerds may safely ignore this
Guitars
Barkman Cutaway Acoustic with Fishman Blender electronics. It has a European Spruce top with Zebrano back and side, Mahogany neck with fretboard of Wenge. Plays brilliantly with beautiful balance in sound. It was built for me in 2003 by renowned Dunedin Luthier Steve Barkman.
http://www.stevebarkman.com/
Norman B20 CW with a fishman Piezo Pickup and Fishman Powerjack Preamp, a very solid performer with big sound (though not a big price). These must be among the best sound for dollar ratio guitars around.
(http://www.normanguitars.com/modelb20.htm)
Barkman Slim Body Stage 12 String Cutaway: This is the most recent guitar in the collection, a 12 string that not only has a beautiful stage sound (it runs a fishman piesio pick up) and is highly playable, but is also very light and easy to carry around. The inlay is the same design as a tattoo I have!
Cort Earth 200-12 Acoustic Guitar (12 String). A nice guitar, although it has taken a while to get it properly set up. I tend to play this in DADGAD or DADDDD, and initially used heavy gauge strings on the bottom strings. But I could never get it to stay in tune, so have reverted to light gage, more playable, but less able to be tuned down very low. Life is always a compromise...! More recently, my guitar builder (luthier) has done some more work on it, sharpening the angle of the strings off the back of the bridge. This has greatly helped the thin strings hold their volume and tone much better and has increased playability.
(http://www.cort.com/home.html)
Burgin Travel Guitar. Great for traveling with. Went through the Himalaya, to Samoa, and even the wilds of Tasmania! Oh, ok, well Tasmania is the most beautiful part of Australia, which is saying something really, cause Australia is pretty cool! Though nothing can beat Aotearoa! This guitar comes from there, Aotearoa that is, not Tasmania. (http://www.burginguitars.co.nz/2K4_travelGuitar.htm)
Amplification
For small solo gigs I play through an AER Compact 60, perhaps the best acoustic guitar amp around (though they are not cheap). This amp has beautiful effects, especially the reverb, sweet and clean. I also use the amp as a DI Box, and run my guitar into it, then take a line out the DI XRL connection at the back of the amp to the house system. The sound person controls the front-of-house volume but I can control my on-stage volume (which does not affect the DI out volume). This way, I retain relatively consistant on-stage sound because I always hear myself through the same amp. The DI is beautiful, providing the guitar with an extremely clean and true sound. The amp even handles a bit of distortion quite well (AER engineers have nightmares over such claims!). However, the next amp I get will be more designed for using with effects. This will give me a clean sound through one system (the AER), and then I can add a heavier sound through the other when required, probably through the use of a volume pedal to the second system. (It used to be so easy being a solo performer ... what happened?)
(http://www.aer-amps.de/)
Other Gear
Boss Loop Station (RX-20XL). This is a really cool device but does take some time to get to grips with. See (http://www.loopers-delight.com/tools/RC20/RC20_Review4.html) for more info. Basically, it records an instrument/voice and then plays it back instantly enabling me to play over the top of it. So, a chord sequence can be played, and then a lead guitar bit played over the top. Brilliant!
Boss BD2 (Blues driver). This is the best distortion pedal I have come across for acoustic guitar. Adds sustain and overdrive without muddying the sound, unless you turn the gain all the way up! Nice clear dirt! http://www.harmony-central.com/Effects/Data/Boss/BD_2_Blues_Driver-1.html
Line6 Echo Park delay modeler. The Echo Park is a delay pedal that includes Analog, Tape, and Digital Delay options. Also features Tap Tempo. This means I can start playing and then tap the pedal to bring it in line with the tempo I am playing. Great fun, great sound, quiet operation and probably better than the Boss I first tried. A world of difference between this and my last crappy Ibanez Soundtrack delay.
See http://www.line6.com/tonecore/echoPark.html
Fender PT100 Tuner. I had been using a hand held tuner for years, which works fine, except when on stage and you have to bend down to turn them on. So, picked up a Fender tuner in Brisbane in September 2006, half price sale! They are also nearly half the price of the Boss, although the Boss are very good. To date I have no major problems with the Fender. While sometimes feels a little slow to zero in on the note, it has a brilliant LED readout that I can easily see without my glasses (quite important actually!). It also mutes the signal to the PA while tuning so the audience don't get yet another versions of that very popular tune, 'Amateur Tuning Guitar On Stage Not Noticing the Audience leaving'; I have played that tune a few too many times myself. Now the trick is to talk to the audience while simultaneously tuning the guitar. Not as easy as it sounds. See http://www.fender.com/products/search.php
Picks. I use medium to hard picks these days after several years of softer ones. I wished I had realised the much better control of individual notes that harder picks provide. Watching good lead and Jazz guitarists and guitarists like Luke Hurley (http://www.lukehurley.co.nz/) finally convinced me that there was a much better, more accurate sound available than I was producing. I still see a lot of people strumming with their fingers and I suspect a pick would revolutionise their playing.
Guitar Stool. I generally play sitting on a wooden stool, with my feet sitting on my effects' box. This gives me a consistent angle that I find really helpful when playing. I found in the past that I would practice at home at the kitchen table or in a lounge chair. Then, when gigging, would end up on a bar stool (gets the musician a little higher than sitting on a chair, and adds to stage presence). Suddenly the angles had all changed and the guitar would feel very different. By maintaining the same system where ever I go, the guitar and playing position always feel familiar. To my mind this is very useful for consistency of performance. Sometimes, though I just stand up like most guitarists do.
Effects Box. This is a wooden box I built to carry my effects in. They are velcroed in place onto a board that sits snugly inside the box when traveling. At the gig, the board lifts out and sits on the top of the box. The pedals are already positioned and the velcro stops them moving during the performance (I tap my feet quite violently at times, and they fell off the box the first time I did this. That was before the velcro!). This system works very well. It makes setting up very quick and many of the cables are already attached (if trying this, be aware that attached cables can drain batteries; just pull them out a bit to be safe). It also means the pedals are always in the correct place. Finally, it looks impressive (even if you don't know how to use them all!!). The original idea for this came from a guy I saw at a Folk Music Festival, but more recently inspired by the set-up John Butler uses . I will put a photo of my own up when I get a decent one, but here is JB's set up. See http://www.johnbutlertrio.com/
A (Brief) Non-Musical Biography
I have another life beyond music. This is a (very) brief overview...
After several years in the voluntary sector, I went to University in my early-thirties. After completing by BA (Sociology) and then my Masters in Applied Science (in Resource Management Policy) I started teaching at Lincoln University, and began my PhD (in Political Ecology). It was during this period that I started playing music in public, and, eventually, began song-writing. Having resigned my lecturing role at the beginning of 2005 (and after submitting my PhD, titled 'An Uneasy Marriage: Ecological Reason and the Resource Management Act') and moved to
Until the move to Australia, I worked at Otago University (New Zealand) as the Senior Research Advisor in the Research Office. The shift to Melbourne was to take up the position of Faculty Research Manager in the Faculty of Land and Food Resourses at the University of Melbourne http://www.landfood.unimelb.edu.au/. But when the darkness falls...!
This, then, is a new phase of my life, and I think the music reflects this. What comes next is now anybodies guess!