gear

Hardware:

Guitars:
1. 1980's Tokai: Custom Edition.
If you hear an electric guitar in any of Smumcher's tracks, it's usually this one.
A trusty battle axe that's had it's fair share of abuse and is still razor sharp.

2. 1989 Hohner: MW400N.
The accoustic that also gets it's airing regularily, though usually ends up buried in the mix.
Cheap and cheerful, and awsome when mic'ed correctly!

3. 2002 Smumcher: Venturian.
Smumcher's DIY baby. A simple beast something of a cross between a strat and a Mosrite Venture's model.
Has a single P90 pickup in a Mosrite style slanted neck position, and the various internal gadgets change reularily.
It has sported an internal Flanger, a Phaser and even a Theremin which used the strings as antena.
Currently he's experimenting with an onboard Micro Synth.

Guitar Amps:
1. Peavy Bandit 112 (Solo Series).
Solid state, twin channel combo with spring reverb chamber.
Great variety of tone, and hard as nails.
Tubes are great, but they won't take the abuse this thing has suffered, so Smumcher has never gone back to them.

2. RMS 15Watt Practice Amp through Farfisa L73 Speaker cabinet.
Smumcher's first ever amp now pays it's dues as a head for an old Farfisa Leslie speaker he found.
The tones from this little combination is magical.
If you think you've heard Smumcher using chorus on a guitar track think again.
It's this baby.

Odds and Ends:
1. Zoom 2020 Guitar effects processor.
This little multi effects unit used to be used alot.
Now it's practically only ever used on vocal tracks.

2. Zoom RythmTrak RT123.
Smumcher's last "real" drum machine.
This little unit is great, not only as a drummer, but also for it's quick fix bass features.
Many of the odder bass lines on the new album started off being played live on this little box.
The midi control is also great when you want to lay down a drum track quickly onto the PC.

3. Commodore 64.
Smumcher's first computer still gets to work it's magic on the odd track.
A host of weird and wonderful sounds come out of the beige baby.

Virtual Gear:

Smumcher mostly works on a standard desktop PC.

Midi controller: Evolution MK-261
Pretty basic, no knobs, but it gets the notes from your fingers onto the hard disk.

Standalone Software:
Steinberg: Cubase VST32.
Great VST environment.

Fruity Pro: Fruity Loops.
Handy for pumping out drum loops.

Sync Modular.
If you spend the time you can recreate any synth on this great program.

VST Instruments:

1. Muon Tau.
Great 303 style synth. Freeware!

2. Muon Atom.
Simple synth.

3. rgcAudio Software: Triangle II.
Freeware synth. Brilliant!

4. Audionerdz: Delay Lama.
Amazing little instrument. Highly hilarious and addictive and again free!

5. John Longcroft-Neal: JX220 v1.1
Tons of sounds.

6. mda ePiano.
Favourite electric piano synth.

7. mda JX10.
Very versatile synth.

8. mda Piano.
Brilliant little piano synth.

9. Ticky Clav.
Great Clav synth.

10. Fxpansion: Mysteron.
Truely excellent Theremin synth.
Smumcher uses this alot!

Smumcher spends most days now when he's not recording searching the web for new synths.
He says he prefers freeware synths "cus they're cheaper", but does also admit he likes the idea of anyone in the world being able to recreat his setup for next to nothing, as he made it for around that much.